"Nicholas Royle - The Cast" - читать интересную книгу автора (Royle Nicholas)

chance to make my favourite save. I'd been waiting for this as long as I'd
been playing football, ever since rainy school afternoons when I ran up
and down the wing just dreaming of being in goals.
I longed to leap up towards the top corner of the net and meet the
incoming ball with my closed fist inches beneath the crossbar, tipping it
over for a corner when every single person on the pitch had expected the
see the ball sail into the back of the net. My boots would be at least two
feet off the ground, I would be practically flying, making the subtlest,
most vital contact with the ball to keep my team in the game. Afterwards
they would gather round me clapping me on the back and saying "Blinding
save, Cat" and"гGreat save, keeps". That would be nice and I would enjoy
it but it was the save that I had been waiting for, the acrobatic leap
into space, the perfect timing and the ball tipped over.
The ball left the blond forward's foot and I leapt. My stomach lurched. I
could see my hand stretching to meet the ball and the intersection of post
and crossbar growing huge out of the corner of my eye. It was as if I was
drawn there, as if it had been written that I would make the save. It was
perfect. I felt the contact with the ball and for a final sweet moment the
wind on my face and I knew the ball was safely over the bar.
Then I froze.

I suppose I just wasn't expecting it. You've heard about it happening to
other people but you don't think it'll ever happen to you. Well, believe
me, it just might.
One or two of the players stood open-mouthed but most of them had either
seen this happen to other people or they'd heard about it and they just
hung around looking a bit pissed off that the game had been interrupted.
Hey, well I'm sorry, guys. You know, I didn't mean to do it. It's just
something that happens if you want something badly enough and then you get
it. Obviously the conditions have got to be just right, or just wrong,
depending on how you look at it. There's got to be that fusion of complete
satisfaction and ecstasy and I don't know how many different emotions. You
can't plan it. You can just hope it never happens to you.
I had frozen solid, to all intents and purposes turned to stone, and yet I
remained suspended in the air, my head about 12 inches beneath the bar, my
arm outstretched towards the corner of the goal where I had tipped the
ball over the top in what had obviously been a perfect save. This wouldn't
have happened otherwise. My legs were tucked up beneath my body. I'd seen
some of the great goalkeepers do that when making this kind of save and
clearly I had managed to match my ideal of what they could do.
Docs approached close enough to touch and tapped his knuckles on my leg.
It would have felt harder than his own. Not exactly solid, the sound was
more resonant, as if the leg were hollow. As if my body had become a cast
of itself. Zsa came round the goalpost and gazed up at me, her eyes huge.
Perhaps this was new to her. I hoped not because I needed someone who knew
me as well as she did to help get me down in one piece. Or rather two
pieces.
I heard some desultory discussion about the game and how it might be
concluded. One of their forwards suggested simply playing on for the
remaining few minutes, leaving me where I was. "Don't be a dick," said