The digital screeching faded into dead air.
Alejandro pressed his thumb against the green screen button, dialling his father’s mobile number from memory.
The screen dimmed slightly as the battery icon flickered back down to two percent.
It rang three times.
A recorded voice from the network provider interrupted the signal: The line you are trying to reach is currently busy.
He hit red redial.
The same automated chime returned immediately.
Alejandro stood up, dragging the heavy charging block along the floor until the plug snapped out of the wall socket.
He shoved the copper pins back into the outlet, crouching over the plastic casing as the screen lit up once more.
He tried a third time.
This time, the connection went through, but nobody answered.
The ring continued until the automated system cut the line after forty seconds.
Alejandro pressed his forehead against the cold metal edge of the vending machine.
A machine nearby began its automated coin-sorting cycle, rattling violently before dropping a metal tray into place.
His phone vibrated against his palm.
An incoming call from an unlisted South London landline.
He swiped the screen before the ring finished.
“Dad?”
“Alejandro?”
It was his mother’s sister, Aunt Elena.
Background noise filled the speaker—screeching gulls, idling diesel exhausts, and the rhythmic metallic thud of a hydraulic lift gate.
“Aunt Elena,” Alejandro said, his voice flat.
“Where are you?
What happened at nine?”
“We’re behind the fish market on Creek Road,” she said quickly, her breath catching as a truck engine revved past her.
“Your father’s trying to get the van started.
The alternator died when we pulled off the ramp.”
“Did they take her to the private wing?”
“No,” Elena said.
A pause followed, filled only with the sound of rain hitting a plastic tarp.
“The hospital administrator came down with two security guards at nine.
They cleared out 4C because the plumbing burst on the upper floor, but they wouldn’t transfer her to the new ward without the cash deposit.
They put her on an NHS transport bus back to Lewisham.”
Alejandro looked down at his shoes.
“Lewisham?”
“She’s in the assessment corridor,” Elena muttered.
“On a gurney near the ambulance bay.
They said the wait time for a standard bed is sixteen hours.”
The line shifted with a harsh crunch of static as the phone was handed over.
“Alejandro.”
David’s voice sounded different.
The sharp, slicing anger from last night was gone, replaced by a low, rasping vibration that sounded like a worn leather belt dragged over stone.
“I tried calling,” Alejandro said.
“The battery died on the old Ford,” David said.
He sounded breathless, as if he had just carried something heavy up a flight of stairs.
“We had to hire a haulage van from the garage behind the station to carry your mother’s oxygen frame.
Cost sixty pounds.”
“Is she sitting in the corridor?”
“She’s sleeping,” David replied flatly.
“They gave her a heated blanket after I raised a row with the head nurse.
But we aren’t getting the private room.
The £300 deadline passed, and the slot went to someone from Bromley.”
Alejandro’s right thumb pressed against the plastic border of his phone case until the corner popped loose.
“I signed the Villa papers,” Alejandro said.
Silence stretched across the line.
The distant sound of a horn honked twice on Creek Road.
“What did you sign?” David asked.
His tone didn’t rise.
It remained dangerously flat.
“The release form,” Alejandro said, staring at a stain on the linoleum floor.
“Davies brought it to the suite at eight.
It gives me the trial spot in Lisbon tomorrow.”
“Did you sign the waiver?”
“Section 4B,” Alejandro said.
David took a long, wet breath through his nose.
“I told you last night.
I told you before the line cut out.”
“I needed to get to Portugal,” Alejandro said, his voice dropping into his chest.
“If I go to Lisbon, the agency handles the expenses.”
“They don’t handle anything today!” David barked, his voice finally cracking into a ragged, strained shout that cut through the speaker distortion.
“Section 4B surrenders your registration rights to Corrigan!
You gave away your Solihull developmental fee for a plane ticket and a pair of socks!”
“It gets me on the flight!” Alejandro snapped back, taking a step away from the vending machine.
“If I didn’t sign, Davies was putting me on the 9:15 train back to New Street!
What was I supposed to do?
Come back to South London and sit in the hallway with you?”
David didn’t answer right away.
In the background, the faint sound of a vehicle door slamming shut echoed through the line.
“You think you’re smart because you’re wearing an Aston Villa tracksuit,” David said, his voice dropping back into a cold, quiet register.
“You think Corrigan gives a damn about your mother’s hospital bill.
He wanted that waiver signed so Villa wouldn’t have to pay Solihull five thousand pounds if Sporting takes you on a scholar deal.”
“It’s my career, Dad.”
“It’s not a career yet,” David said coldly.
“It’s a scrap.
And you just gave away the only piece of paper that gave your old club a reason to back you if this Portuguese thing falls through.”
“I have to be on the bus at two,” Alejandro said, his knuckles stiff around the casing.
“Go on the bus then,” David said.
“Go run around in Portugal.
Your mother’s gurney is parked next to the radiator in Ward 2.
Don’t worry about the sixty pounds for the van.
I’ll ask your uncle.”
The line didn’t cut out this time.
David simply hung up.
Alejandro unplugged the ancient black charger, shoved it into his pocket, and walked out of the administration building into the steady Birmingham drizzle.
The clock above the boot room read 11:05 AM.
He had two hours and fifty-five minutes before the minibus left for the airport.
He walked past Pitch 3, where the U18 squad was finishing a small-sided possession game.
The orange bibs flashed through the mist, their neon boots cutting deep green ruts into the damp turf.
A whistle blew twice, sharp and loud, followed by the sound of a coach yelling tactical corrections about body orientation.
Alejandro turned into the equipment store beneath the South Stand.
The room was dim, illuminated only by two flickering fluorescent tubes mounted above long steel shelves packed with folded training gear, stacks of orange cones, and mesh bags filled with air-pressured balls.
A young kit manager with a clipboard stepped out from behind a counter.
“Jesse?” the kit manager asked, checking a yellow slip taped to his desk.
“Davies left the authorization slip.
Travel kit’s on the bench.”
Alejandro walked over to the wooden bench in the corner.
Sitting on the stained timber was a navy blue Villa travel bag, zipped shut, with an official luggage tag dangling from the central handle.
Inside were two pairs of official travel tracksuits, a white polo shirt, and a waterproof training jacket with his squad number—34—printed in small white iron-on digits above the crest.
He picked up the bag.
It felt light, almost weightless in his hand.
He sat down on the wooden bench, resting his elbows on his knees, staring at his worn shoes with the split seam near the lace.
He had the flight ticket.
He had the travel kit.
He had the trial in Lisbon with Corrigan waiting at the board room.
And back in South London, his mother was lying on a metal gurney in an NHS corridor, waiting for an empty bed while his father looked for sixty pounds to pay for a hired haulage van.
The door to the equipment room creaked open, letting in a gust of cold, wet wind from the pitch.