Training had been ongoing for a good half hour by the time Tony arrived. Morning dew had turned to fog and kept Tony well out of sight. Only Luke, the goalkeeping coach, spotted him from afar and waved. Otherwise, the players and staff seemed well absorbed in their sprinting drills. He didn’t want to break that concentration by bringing up his retirement plans. Nor did he want to divulge his condition. He didn’t dare to. He thought they would be shocked and confused, maybe even feel angry or betrayed. He knew, because he remembered with exceptional accuracy the day he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
It was during the second week of August last year, just before the season kicked off. He was tired, having just completed an exhausting tour of Asia with the first team. And he was in a foul mood because Ed Percival, the club’s CEO, had forced that tour simply to pick up extra cash, despite Tony’s strong criticism that the club wasn’t focusing enough on negotiating more signings. But money in is better than money out, was Percival’s riposte. From that moment Tony grew nothing but contempt for the Oxford man, whom he identified as a coward, a politician, and a grossly overweight swine who felt compelled to make a pass at every female employee.
So when Percival canceled his morning meeting with Tony just 15 minutes before the scheduled time, Tony was furious. It was less about canceling last minute and more about his general attitude; when everyone else at the club was breaking their backs trying to take this club somewhere, the prick was out snorting coke with Ukrainian prostitutes. He wondered how on earth the board could be so blind and not tell him to sod off. But sensing his blood pressure rise, Tony decided not to get his knickers in a twist and remembered that he’d put off a regular check-up due to the tour. So instead of driving up to the office he turned the wheel toward the clinic.
Two hours later, he found himself listening to an apology from his doctor.
‘I'm sorry Tony.’ Sorry for what? Was it his fault? Had the doctor not taken care of him well enough all this time? Why hadn’t he said anything last year?
‘But…I thought these things usually happened later. You know, around 70 or so.’
‘The average age for diagnosis of Alzheimer’s is actually closer to 65. But in your case, it’s an early onset. I’m sorry. Some people just get it earlier.’
Earlier how? What perverted Darwinian lottery was this? Yes, some people did bloody get things earlier. Some people won cups and titles earlier, while Tony had to wait until the end of his playing career for a single cup win. Some people landed top management jobs earlier, whereas Tony had to wait until his late-50s for his club manager to get sacked, and even then he was appointed as the interim caretaker. Where Lady Luck did smile at him was the smashing chance to deteriorate into an old geezer clamouring for his meal five minutes after he’d devoured his fourth lunch. Tony was furious and could not accept the diagnosis.
‘But how can you be sure? I mean, I don’t even have a memory problem. Okay, sometimes it’s harder to recall names or numbers but that’s all part of ageing isn't it?’
‘The hallmark of Alzheimer’s is that you aren’t aware of your own memory problems. But you’re also right. I’m going to need more extensive testing to be sure. I’ll need you back here after the brain imaging test results are in. But what I think we’re facing now is mild cognitive impairment, which is typically the first step into Alzheimer’s. But don’t worry, we’ve got some medication that will delay the process, although I can’t guarantee anything.’
Tony felt an irresistible urge to hurl things at the doctor, who didn’t seem to be of much use.
‘I know it’s difficult to take, but the earlier we start battling this, the longer you’ll maintain your health. At this point I’m not completely certain of Alzheimer’s, but it’s highly probable given your medical and professional history.’
‘My professional history?’
‘You played football for a while correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was your position?’
‘I was a defender.’
‘Would you say you headed the ball much?’
‘Not particularly more than the average defender. But I suppose we as defenders practised heading the ball out more. Sometimes I used the really heavy leather balls with laces, because if I could head those far I could do a lot better with the other balls.’
The doctor nodded and jotted something down in his notes. ‘Did you suffer many concussions?’
‘I can’t remember. I did suffer the odd one here or there I suppose. I wasn’t very fast and I made up for that by being aggressive. Speed I didn’t have but height I did. And I made sure I cleared every single cross or corner that came my way. I made my reputation that way. Good, tough defender I was.’
‘I see. Tony, your professional, er, dedication may have been responsible for this - at the moment, potential - early onset Alzheimer’s. Especially if you’ve repeatedly headed heavy leather balls, the resulting trauma to your brain may be comparable to what a boxer experiences. In these cases the original head injury can dramatically increase one’s risk of what we call chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which is a type of dementia.’
Tony was at a loss for words. He could feel the ground disappear beneath him, and he was too enervated to do anything about it. What a trick of fate, he thought. The very passion that had defined his life may very well have been his undoing. Nobody told him this when he was heading all those balls away. That the best you can do son? Put more power into it, his coach used to yell.
Then he remembered. It might have been some time ago, toward his later years at Wimbledon. He had heard something about the wives of former players from the 50s, who had demanded the club for support in treating their husbands’ dementia. It was all deemed preposterous at the time. The times were like that then.
‘Tony are you a heavy drinker?’
‘I suppose you’ll want to know whether I’m a smoker next.’
‘Are you?’
‘No.’
‘Back to the drinking, then.’
‘Getting plastered was something I did back in the day. Haven’t touched alcohol much since I started managing again. When my wife passed away I drank a little, but it wasn't for long.’
‘Right. Listen Tony, I understand this is quite an unpleasant shock. I’m just trying to get a better idea of the situation at hand.’
Tony Barlow smiled bitterly at the situation at hand. And over the following weeks he grew bitter by the day and wallowed in self-pity, which led to lethargy and petulance - two common symptoms indicating that the Alzheimer’s was developing, according to his doctor. So instead he tried to concentrate on the football, driving every day with a firm sense of purpose. The expiry date on his driving licence no longer meant anything, and he made an effort to enjoy his driving when he could. Unfortunately, he was powerless to stop the onset of menacing thoughts from haunting him. What would it be like when he got worse? Would he blank out on the M1 and go up in flames? He wondered whether these memory blocks came with warnings. It would be rather nice if a tingling sensation gave him the nudge right before he was about to lose memory of the past half hour. Then he could find somewhere to pull over.
He had apprehension for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He had tried, for the bulk of his life, to live an honourable life and was worried that the debilitating illness would deprive him of the dignity he had built during a life, though average, had been peppered with its share of surprises and ordeals he had successfully overcome. But now nightmares woke him up in the middle of the night. Nightmares that he would blank out not on the M1 but in the dugout.
He imagined the nightmare unfolding during a match when he was in the dugout. It would be a sturdy contest whose first half ended in a deadlock. The players, tired but brimming with hunger for all three points, would trudge back into the dressing room and eagerly anticipate a motivational speech. And when Tony would follow inside to give that speech, his legs would give way as his mind lost its bearings and when he came to, he would find himself suddenly gaping at a room full of half-naked men. Perhaps he would confuse it with his playing days and think he was back at Wimbledon. It would only take a quick look in the mirror to prove otherwise.
That would be it. The coffin nailed in and lights out. Maybe people would send some flowers the first year. But in truth he had never sent flowers to anyone at a care home himself and didn’t know of anyone else who had. Tony started having nightmares of prickly flowers strangling him to death.
But with each passing day his mind shifted from denial to acceptance. It was far from zen, but there was some peace. A forced peace, more akin to an armistice. He recalled harbouring similar sentiments back when he saw his marriage dissolve away, one fight at a time. A divided roof with no prospects for reunification, content with preventing further skirmishes within the convenient framework that was the icy armistice. And under that circumstance he remembered preparing, in his mind, for the termination of their legal alliance. He had sought closure, and he had thought about that over breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Now Tony began to seek closure in his career. He vowed to go out on his terms. This, his first full season as manager of the London Lions, would also be his last, but he would truly leave his mark. Initially Tony worried about his condition deteriorating too quickly, but the doctor assured him that medications would likely sustain him for the season, although continuing at the helm next season would certainly be pushing the envelope.
He was no longer upset about the absence of transfer activity or the lack of investment into training facilities. All that was for the future. There was no future for him. For him, there was only the present, and at present he had a job to finish following his success last season, when his predecessor David had driven the team down deep into the nether world of the table’s bottom half. After David got the sack, Tony guided the team back up, finishing fifth. On the basis of such a feat he had been rewarded with a one-year contract extension.
It gave Tony great pride to walk around the streets and run into supporters who thanked him or tipped their hats in a show of respect. He was no longer some orange fucking marmalade, and the sense of being valued gifted him with a spring in his steps. Tony began spending longer hours at the office, and the performance of his team improved in direct proportion with the time he spent at his desk rewinding and fast-forwarding opponents' games, reviewing the physio reports, and revisiting data analyses of the team's previous games.