Propositioning Pollyanna

Arsenal were all over West Brom -- the better football team (or, if you like, ‘soccer team,’ as those strange people in the States call it) by a country mile. If it had been done on points, like boxing, it would’ve been Arsenal three hundred million, West Brom nil. And then, West Brom went with a sudden breakaway, and the referee was blowing his whistle to give them a goal. A goal! With their number ten half a mile off-side! There was a concerted groan from all of us in the Black Griffin, overlaid by one voice’s indignant cry.

“Don’t be ridiculous, ref -- how was he not interfering with play? He was standing directly in front of the goalie!”

I twisted ‘round to look for the source of the voice. Sexual equality be buggered, it wasn’t often I met a girl who knew her Arsene from her Wenger. (Results, obviously. Arsene when we were winning, Wenger when things weren’t so good.) Though to be fair, blokes who do are quite thin on the ground, too. They always think they know it all, but start going into the details of the fifty match unbeaten run a few years back and they start to mumble and shuffle off. So, in the circs, it wasn’t exactly surprising that I immediately started looking about for this fount of football knowledge. Didn’t take long to spot her, if you’ll excuse the understatement of the year. She was a couple of tables behind me, and she was wearing a very long, bright pink (and I mean bright pink) satin skirt, a sparkly purple top, and earrings about the size of her head, which, by the way, was covered in long, curly blonde hair. Bloody hell, I hadn’t expected to find a footballing brain in the shape of Barbie. I looked again and clocked the wheelchair. Weirder and weirder. Barbie goes to hospital.

The half time whistle blew, and shrugging, I decided to give Barbie the benefit of the doubt. There was a stampede for the bar, more reminiscent of one of those TV animal shows -- you know, when everything heads for the watering hole. Which, to be fair, was a pretty accurate description of what was going on. As I made my way in the same general direction, I stopped by Barbie’s table. The guy she’d been sitting with -- presumably her boyfriend -- had joined the rush (auditioning for a part as elephant number five?), so she was alone for a second.

“Hey. Fellow Arsenal fan?”

She smiled up at me, a little sheepishly. She had the sort of smile you usually only see on models and dolls, too. “Just a bit. Does it show? Matt’s been teasing me about my habit of yelling at the television -- usually I watch matches at home, where it doesn’t matter how loudly I complain. I kind of forgot I was in public. Polly, by the way.”

Polly? Short for Pollyanna? Next, she was going to start telling me to look on the bright side, it had been near the end of the first half that Albion had scored, rather than just before the end of the match. She was probably in the wheelchair thanks to saving a friend from a terrible accident.

“Leigh,” I said.

“I said to Matt,” (did she have to keep bringing the boyfriend into the conversation? Not that I was intending to date Pollyanna, but it would’ve been nice to feel I had a chance) “that Fabregas would just have to score a hat-trick in the second half. Don’t you think he’s been playing an awful lot better this season? The captaincy’s done him so much good.”

Geez, I hadn’t been too far wrong with the Pollyanna nickname. “Mind if I sit down a mo?” I asked, gesturing at the boyfriend’s chair.

“Be my guest. Mind if I don’t stand up?” she said laughingly, gesturing at her own.

“Temporary or permanent? The wheelchair situation, I mean,” I asked, before I could stop myself. Tact never was my strong point.

“Oh, permanent,” she said decisively. “You don’t think I’d have a chair as nice as this if it was just a temporary thing? Do you know how much the damn things cost?” She stopped, and looked over at me ruefully. “Well, I expect you don’t. Sorry. I’ll save the rant for another day.”

“Serves me right for asking a stupid question. I guess you get that a lot?”

“Not at all.” Polly smiled. “Most people don’t like to mention it: the chair’s like the elephant in the room -- except a lot more useful.” I grinned, and didn’t tell her I’d been comparing the boyfriend to an elephant not that much time ago. “It’s easier to get through the door, fortunately, too. Want a drink?”

“Yeah, I was just going to the bar.” I half-stood.

“Matt’s already there. What are you drinking?”

“Half of Heinekken, if poss.”

“Lightweight,” she teased. Then she raised her voice. She had proved nicely earlier that she could manage quite a bellow when she wanted. “Matt! Half of Heinekken as well, okay?” The boyfriend, still a way away from getting served (the elephants had beaten him to it, which figured), gave her the thumbs up, and she turned back to me. “What do you think of the match so far, then? Other than the goal, that is. Not,” she added, apparently unable to stop herself, “that it was a goal.”

“Oh, how unfair was that?” I agreed. “I was with you all the way. Wasn’t it Bill Shankley who said ‘if he’s not interfering with play, what’s he doing on the pitch?’ Seriously, though, we ought to be stuffing this lot. It’s not like they’re Barcelona or something, they’re the Boing Boing Baggies.”

“I always think,” Polly said regretfully, “that they ought to play in pink and white stripes.”

I gave her a bit of a look. I’d thought she was sound on football, but if she was going to sit around commenting on the strips and no doubt having a list of her top ten best looking footballers, I was out of here. She was probably only watching because the boyfriend liked it. “Yeah?”

“It always makes me think of Bagpuss. A bouncing Bagpuss, of course.”

Okay, this was getting surreal. A Barbie girl in a wheelchair who knew her football and thought West Brom were like a kids’ TV character. Mind you, it was quite an image. I had a feeling that whenever I saw the Baggies in action in the future, I would have the bouncing Bagpuss in my mind.

“Thanks for that,” I said dryly. “By the way, does your boyfriend mind being ordered to get people drinks like that?”

“Who?” Polly looked confused. “What, do you mean Matt? He’s my brother -- younger brother, so I’ve been ordering him about since the day he was born,” she said with a grin.

“Not your boyfriend?” Stupid question, when I thought about it, but it was out by then.

“Definitely not. Why, are you interested?”

“No other boyfriend?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“No boyfriend,” she confirmed.

“Straight, though?” She shook her head. “Gay?”

Polly shook her head again, mischievously. “Bi.” She must have seen the withdrawal in my expression, because she continued, “No, not bi-curious. Bi. I go for guys or girls.” She paused. “Um, but not my brother. I don’t do incest.”

I laughed. She sat there, looking so demure, and then came out with lines like that. I was beginning to like Pollyanna. And, actually, to notice that she had a bloody gorgeous figure. It was difficult to gauge her height when she was sitting down, but the purple top did nothing to conceal the absolutely stunning breasts she had. And I was certain it was natural, not ‘assisted,’ if you get me. She really did have tits to bury your face into. Which, of course, I was not going to do in the middle of a pub, tempted or not. Well, probably I wasn’t...

I got another glimpse into her strange world when Matt came back carrying a pint and a half of lager and a glass of lemonade. He dumped them in the middle of the table.

“Ta,” I said, reaching out for the half.

“Thanks,” said Polly.

Okay, I admit it. I’d assumed (yeah, yeah, ass of u and me, I know) that she’d be the lemonade and he’d be the pint. I should’ve had her measure by now, ‘cause of course she took up the pint glass. Matt picked up the final drink and leaned against the wall with his lemonade in hand.

“Oh, God, sorry,” I said, belatedly realizing I’d nicked his seat, and getting up hastily. “And how much do I owe you for the half?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said cheerfully. “And don’t go away. Polly has been berating me for my lack of interest in the beautiful game -- if you can swap tips of ‘a hundred and one things you didn’t know about Arsenal’ you’ll be doing me a favor. Poll, mind if I go and talk to Lily? She’s about as thrilled by the whole thing as I am, but Rick will insist on trying to educate her, and the poor girl doesn’t know how to say she doesn’t give a toss. Of course,” he added provocatively, “she’s only a girl after all.”

“Be gone!” Polly said dramatically, flinging an arm out and nearly taking her pint out with it. “Oops. Yes, be gone and never darken these doors, etcetera, etcetera, Matt. You’re a hopeless case, you know.”

“I know.” He gave her a grin, and I suddenly saw the similarity between the two of them. “Thankfully, so do you. For goodness sake, never date someone who isn’t as in love with Arsenal as you are. Lil’s had so many facts and figures poured into her that they’re coming out of her ears. And she never gets them the right way round, anyway -- do tell, Sis; was it Nicholas Anelka who was sold for the biggest profit by Wenger, or was it Fabregas?”