02 Bend It Like Beckham

Ex­tract from Chap­ter 1 from Bend It Like Be­ck­ham



„Mum took no noti­ce. She never does. ‘Come down­s­tairs,’ she or­de­red me. ‘Your sis­ter’s going crazy.’

Tell me so­me­thing I don’t know. Pinky’s pret­ty crazy, an­y­way. Now, with her wed­ding co­ming up, she’s a full-​on lu­na­tic. […]

I stood up with a sigh. My be­d­room was the only place I could re­al­ly chill out, but even here I couldn’t get any peace and quiet half the time. I had the room ex­act­ly how I wan­ted it, even though Mum never stop­ped mo­a­ning. Pic­tures of David Be­ck­ham ever­y­whe­re, and my Man­ches­ter United Num­ber 7 shirt han­ging on the wall. Be­ck­ham was my hero. OK, I know what you’re thin­king. Yes, he’s gor­geous. You’d have to be blind not to see it. But that’s not why I like him. He’s a god on the foot­ball pitch. No-​one can bend a ball like Be­ck­ham.

‘I’m sick of this wed­ding, and it hasn’t even star­ted yet,’ I mut­te­red, sta­ring at the pos­ter of Becks over my bed. I tal­ked to him all the time.

Be­ck­ham loo­ked back at me as if he un­der­stood. He al­ways un­der­stood. No­bo­dy else did. Not in this house, an­y­way. It was just ‘foot­ball shoot­ball’. […]

I went down­s­tairs as slow­ly as I could. […]

‘What’s going on?’ I asked. It sounded as if so­me­o­ne had died, at the very least.

Pinky tur­ned on me. ‘Get this. Teet’s bloo­dy sis­ter’s gone and said she’s wea­ring baby pink to our en­ga­ge­ment party now.’ If looks could kill, her fi­ance’s sis­ter would have drop­ped down dead on the spot […] And I’ve got all my matching ac­cess­ories and ever­y­thing.’

I ne­ar­ly said Is that all?, but lucki­ly stop­ped mys­elf just in time. Or it would have been me lying dead in the hall. ‘Oh, Mum,’ I gro­aned. ‘Do I have to go shop­ping AGAIN?’

Mum char­ged out of the kit­chen, sha­ki­ng a car­rot at me. ‘My mo­ther chose all my twenty-​one dowry suits hers­elf– and I never com­plai­ned once. You girls are too spoiled.’ She waved us out of the door. ‘And don’t for­get my dha­nia. Four bun­ches for a pound. Oh, and some more car­rots.’

[…] [Pinky had] taken her denim ja­cket off, and in her sk­im­py red top, sprayed-​on jeans and sun­glas­ses, she was tur­ning a lot of guys’ heads. No-​one was loo­king at me in my Adi­das sweat­pants and top. But that was the way I liked it.

My sis­ter’s the shop­per from hell. We spent an hour in Da­mi­nis loo­king at suits. We didn’t buy any of them. Then she drag­ged me into Ajan­ta Foot­wear to look at shoes. I didn’t bo­ther poin­ting out that it wasn’t worth loo­king at shoes until we’d bought the suit. The mood Pinky was in, she’d pro­bab­ly have thrown me under a bus just for men­ti­o­ning it.