The Benefactor
“Thank you for agreeing to help. My son is in a difficult position.” Marie-Ann felt embarrassed about accepting help from a stranger, but considerably less so than she would if it were help for herself.
Jamie was nuts about football, always had been, and his aptitude was obvious from an early age. That kind of enthusiasm and raw talent is rare, and special.
The opportunity being offered to them at this moment by the Russian stranger was what he mother would have called a ‘gift horse’, and as such, not to be looked at in the mouth. She could see her father’s scowl in her mind’s eye though, and his words whenever she saw an easier route to her childhood goals.
“Nothing worthwhile is easy” he’d say. “blood, sweat and tears is the only way to earn your piece of life”.
Well, this wasn’t her life, it was her son’s, and she would cast her gaze askance of the Russian gift horse’s mouth.
The man had come from nowhere, seemingly. Nowhere man. And listen he did, week after week. When Marie-Ann had sussed that her new friend was of considerable means, and that his interest in junior football was truly genuine, she began to talk more freely. She had explained about the opportunities they had already missed and how this chance to play for Liverpool was likely the last one Jamie would get. She related all the costs, the time involved, as well as opening up about the hardship she’d suffered in her own life. Then she let that all simmer while they watched the games along with the rest of the players’ families, coaches and sponsors.
He had smiled kindly as she spoke, and he was understanding she felt. For a moment or two she even thought perhaps that she could one day feel something more for him. He wasn’t unattractive, and whatever was needed for Jamie’s future, she could sacrifice.
But no payment in kind was needed it seemed, no persuasion. The charming Russian made his intentions clear after a game one afternoon. He took them mother and son to a little cafe around the corner, and openly offered money with no strings attached, and seemingly, to Jamie at least, out of the blue. The lad was thrilled, he didn’t care why or how, but his dream could now come true thanks to this kind almost-stranger!
What did he want though, this mysterious and not unattractive strange Russian? Marie-Ann found him to be quite unknowable. He had a real air of mystery about him, which wasn’t disagreeable exactly. Behind that polite exterior she actually felt that he was almost blank, devoid of anything very much deeper. Should Marie-Ann be concerned? She wonder if she should delve a little deeper into what perhaps he would expect of her and Jamie as this, what, partnership? relationship? progressed. Or would she accept the gift simply as a benevolent gesture from a kindly foreigner infatuated with the beautiful game?
As Jamie strapped on his new boots and fiddled with his starched new kit, Marie-Ann looked on proudly, excited for his future. Only time would tell if her deliberate ignorance would be something they’d come to regret.
It was only a small stretch at the start, for her to turn a blind eye, to put the blinkers on. In months preceding though, her niggling doubts had become more difficult to brush off.
Today, not for the first time, Marie-Ann caught the strange image at the corner of her field of vision when the Russian was looking at her. It was something else that seemed superimposed on his handsome face. Something darker, more sinister. A terrible, grotesque kind of alternative face. A fleeting but unmistakabley malevolent impression she now quite regularly saw instead of their benefactor’s usually smooth, amiable facade.
What troubled Marie-Ann most, was her willingness to ignore it.
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