Sample
Daniel JAKKA Jackson sits alone in a hotel room, paid for with the last, meagre remnants of his fortune. He is writing the calamitous story of his life as a superstar professional footballer with Newcastle, Barcelona, Inter Milan and England. The book is a last ditch attempt to make some money, dreamt up by Jakka’s latest agent. His story focuses on the many and varied, mostly self-inflicted woes, which have blighted his professional and personal progress. He's battling the demons, which have threatened to consume him since the end of his career: depression, low self-esteem, alcohol and now anti-depressant drugs and accompanying thoughts of suicide.
Around him a football club chairman, manager, football agent, veteran reporter and especially the hotel bar manager conspire to exploit the former superstar one more time, each for their own devious ends. The love of his life travels from Barcelona to find him, alarmed at the depressed tone of finality expressed in his most recent E: Mails to her.
A tramp is found brutally murdered and dumped in the bath of his hotel room and prime-suspect Jakka has gone missing. Did he do it? Can the police and the others find him before his suicidal visions become reality and can he be rescued from himself at the eleventh hour?
1
22nd November 1963
We were sitting at home watching telly. I was just gone eight years old. Only a few months earlier, I'd started my career in delinquency at First Holy Communion. The television was an old black and white job. It had a small square, twelve-inch screen in an enormous walnut case. A grey-green screen, remember those? It was a Monday night and we were watching Panorama. My mother sat on one of the upright dining room chairs. We weren't allowed to use the sitting room except on birthdays and at Christmas. I squatted, cross-legged on the mat.
My grandmother was lined up next to my mother, both of them looking goggle-eyed at the telly. Gran was knitting away like fury at the same time, which always seemed to me to be a pretty impressive trick. All that knit one, pearl one, drop one, without looking away from the telly once. All the while she sucked relentlessly on a Polo mint. What IS that hole for? I used to suck a whole packet, usually two or three at a time. By the time I'd finished I couldn't taste anything for a week. The tip of my tongue was burnt to a cinder from sticking it through the hole. Sorry, rambling again. Where IS that wine bottle?
I was only pretending to watch boring Panorama. I'd been told that was what we were watching and if I didn't like it I could always go to bed. Not wanting to give them the satisfaction of my going to bed, I chose to sit there and annoy them both. I've got no idea what the programme was about. What I do know is that it must have been a Dimbleby presenting it. If it wasn't one of them I'll show my arse in Woollie's window. It was the BBC so it was a Dimbleby. Still is, come to think of it. It should be called the Dimbleby Broadcasting Corporation. What a brilliant little family firm they've got going! I was scratching my little bald nuts through the knob-hole in my pyjamas and pouting. I'm told I always pouted huffily when forced to watch something educational. Suddenly Dimbleby was stopped, rudely in his tracks. We interrupt this program or some thing like that, for a News Flash.
Mother and grandmother swapped quizzical glances. I cheered up no end because Dimbleby had been cut off in full flow.
"It has been announced in the United States that President John F. Kennedy has been shot in Dallas this morning."
In dallas, I thought. Which bit is that? Only a flesh wound or what?
"Sadly, although treated at the scene of the shooting and again in hospital, President Kennedy is dead."
Shit! Shot in dallas and now he's dead! Better keep a close watch on MINE once I find out where it is. My mother burst into tears and ran from the room. Gran sat open mouthed, the Polo tucked securely under her tongue. I swear she never dropped a fucking stitch.
"Why have they stopped the programme for that?" I thought it was an innocent question from a naïve little boy. My grandmother corrected my ignorance, starting back at me aggressively.
"Daniel Jackson!" She needlessly told me my name but she wasn't finished yet.
"Because he's the President of America and because he's a GOOD man and because it's important news and because some SINFUL HEATHEN has shot him to death. Now get to bed, before I come across your face."
My pout returned in spades and I slunk towards the door. My mother was on her way back. She was wiping tears away from her cheeks with a hankie.
"Ee! It s terrible, our Danny. Where are you going?"
"Bed. Grandma says."
"Why have you sent him to bed, Ma?"
"Because the little sinner's got no respect for anyone or anything and if he stays down here I'll not be responsible for what I do to him."
"Goodnight then, son."
My mother kissed me on the cheek.
"Goodnight, Ma."
I attempted to stomp off to bed, the full force of my huff impressing no-one but myself.
"Say goodnight to your Grandma."
"Goodnight, Grandma."
"Give your Grandma a kiss, goodnight."
I mooched, miserably back to her chair and lightly pecked Gran on the cheek. The odour and the taste of Polo would stay with me all night.
"Goodnight! God Bless, son."
2
Present Day
As my grandmother so rightly told me, my name is Danny Jackson. Daniel William Jackson, actually. Or even Daniel William Patrick Jackson if you include my confirmation name. I m never sure whether that one counts or not. Daniel was my mother s favourite Saint s name, God rest her soul. She liked the story about Daniel and the thorn in the lion s foot. Chances are that, that was a completely different Daniel. William was my father s name. He insisted, probably backed up by the threat of a good kicking, the evil bastard. It was the only thing the useless, drunken, feckless old sop ever gave me. He left us shortly after registering my birth to return full-time to his first and only real love, the bottle. Now that I mention it, I suppose he gave me that too, that special something in the genes. That compulsion, which turns alcohol, beautiful, socially accepted, soothing medicine that it is, into the love of your life and your slow, agonising, degrading, dispiriting death. Patrick was from my Uncle Paddy. He was my mother s brother and the closest I ever got to a real Dad. He helped me and guided me, as best he could, in the time he could free from his own wife and five girls. I allowed him to indulge his male longing for a son. But he retained the freedom to escape to the sanctuary of his all female family. And he did, whenever, and it was often, I became irritating, or embarrassing, or downright annoying. By the time I reached my early teens he'd had more than enough. He stopped having anything to do with me.
I have no brothers or sisters. My mother preferred not to become involved with any other man after her experiences with The Evil Bastard. I don t blame her for that. I just wish I had been less concerned with my own self-inflicted problems. I wish I had been more inclined to pay her some attention in the years leading up to her death. Regrets, eh? I suppose we all have a few, me, more than most.
So, now you know my name. The truth is I hardly remember it myself. I had to think hard, believe it or not, before I wrote it here. It seems like I’ve been Jakka since birth. It started off with a headline in one of the tabloids way back when they first started to take notice of me. Then very quickly, everyone started using it: friends, fellow players, press, media and total strangers all over the world. It even got to the stage where my contracts referred to me as Jakka and that s how I signed my name. In the small print somewhere, would be a definition of terms, one of which would explain that throughout this contract, Jakka should be taken to mean Daniel William Jackson. In my day, we never got around to wearing our names on the back of our shirts. If we had, mine would have read simply, JAKKA.
