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It was a gift passed through his mother’s side of the family, trickling down the generations from an Irish ancestor that must have made an ill-advised deal with a faerie. By the time it came to Jamie, the family had already gotten used to his mother cussing out thin air because a badly behaved ghost from the Victorian era had been giving her lip.
It’s not like it was actually useful as far as supernatural gifts went. All it gave you was an early tolerance for the occasional ghostly figure walking about in broad daylight with a severed head or a lost expression on its face. Sometimes both at the same time.
So Jamie grew up pragmatic and impossible to phase, bossing around both his brothers and his ghostly playmates around the makeshift pitch behind his house, up until it became obvious that he was better at football than all of them and he finally learned not to instinctively pass at the ghosts because the ball went right through them.
*
Jamie had been to Liverpool games at Anfield enough to be familiar with how ghostly season ticket holders popped up in between living ones in the stands and in the corridors. The ghosts seemed to avoid actually walking on the pitch, in the ways they would avoid churches and other holy grounds.
It could just have been that they didn’t want to obscure anyone’s view of the play.
Once, Jamie thought he saw a lone figure out on the sidelines, watching the game they were losing. It turned towards him and for a moment he saw its face, like a watered down photograph, a scowl that seemed somehow familiar. He blinked and it was gone.
It wasn’t until later, walking through the stadium to the exit, that it struck him that Bill Shankly seemed as disgruntled by the state of their defence as all the fans up in the stands.
*
Actually playing for Liverpool at Anfield was something else entirely.
Jamie stood on the pitch, frozen for a moment, caught up in watching the stands, the way they seemed almost limitless rising up to the sky, alive and dead indistinguishable with their voices raised in the same song.
It had never seemed as true as it was then.
Barnes touched his elbow gently, muttering something comforting, probably thinking that Jamie was overcome with nerves at his first home game. He didn’t know the half of it.
*
Jamie got used to it eventually - to the voices in the crowd multiplied, to the old men loitering in the players’ tunnel underneath their portraits, to directions carried on the wind in an unfamiliar Scottish brogue.
But he avoided looking at the West stand if he could help it. On it, rows of sombre faces men and boys stood separate from everyone else. He didn’t need to count them to know how many there were.
Standing under the flags that cried out for justice, they held a silent virgil.
The ninety-six that never returned alive, did so in death.
*
Every ground in the league had its hauntings. It was understandable in a way. People left a piece of themselves behind anywhere they felt strong emotions. Sometimes, after their death, that’s where they would return, clinging to a semblance of life, until the next derby, until the next title, until the next trophy.
Some ghosts had been there for decades. He couldn’t guess what they were waiting for.
*
Old Trafford was a bit of an anomaly.
It had ghosts aplenty, up in the stands, and they all seemed to know the anti-Scouse chants just fine, even if they looked from the wrong century. Occasionally, there was a barely visible figure in a Byrne jersey warming up with everyone else in the players' tunnel.
But what made Old Trafford different to all the other stadiums in the country was that it was the only ground that actually fielded a ghost.
He was there every derby, stark lines and too-vivid colour, like a photograph. Scowling just above Scholes’ shoulder or whispering into Beckham’s ear as he lined up for a free kick. Shadowing Neville’s steps and the first one running to hug Giggs in celebration.
Jamie made the mistake of hissing some curses back at him as he was coming off the field for a substitute, and the ghost practically brightened with joy.
After that, Jamie never had a moment’s peace when Liverpool played United.
*
Next derby, the ghost appeared next to Jamie in the line-up in a United jersey and a determined expression.
Jamie carefully craned his head to look at the name on the back. ‘Neville’ but above the number two instead of three.
“Isn’t one Neville already playing?” Jamie muttered under his breath. The ghost glared at him.
“My younger brother,” he said.
Oof. Jamie shrugged. “I’ll give him a good tackle for you,” he offered.
If anything, that seemed to make the ghost more incensed. “I’d rather not see a Scouser do the job.”
Jamie grinned. “Too bad,” he said, “I’m gonna do it anyway. What’s your name?”
But the ghost had already disappeared.
Only to appear later, suddenly, startling Jamie with the ball at his feet. He barely managed not to turn it over.
Cursing, Jamie could just barely catch sight of the ghost’s smug expression.
*
His name was Gary. Jamie didn’t ask what happened to him. It was always better not to know.
*
Gary yelling curses at him during warm-ups. Gary appearing out of thin air to swipe his legs out from under him. Gary slamming into him, getting stuck in Jamie’s torso, grinning smugly as Jamie cursed. Touching a ghost felt like nothing, but it was strange to see Gary’s face sticking out from his abdomen.
“Quit it, Neville!” Jamie hissed at him.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Phillip Neville giving him a confused look.
*
While Jamie got used to Gary on the field at Old Trafford, he certainly didn’t expect to see him at Anfield.
He was just warming up, kicking the ball about, when he caught sight of someone sitting on the away bench. He’d recognize that sneering face anywhere.
Warm-up ended, and Jamie waved at Stevie to go on ahead. He looked confused, but Jamie made a general hand motion that was supposed to indicate that he was on ghostly business. Stevie still looked confused, but that could just be his face, bless him.
He sat down next to Gary on the bench and looked out on the field.
“Fancy seeing you here,” he said, finally, when it became obvious that Gary wouldn’t start a conversation. “I didn’t realize you could leave your filthy Manc den.”
Gary glared. “I have an anchor,” he said, inclining his head slightly. Pointing outside, to Stanley Park, Jamie realized.
Oh. Phillip Neville played for Everton now.
“At least you had the good sense to choose the superior Liverpool team,” Jamie said. “I wouldn’t want to be caught dead in Goodison Park either."
That startled a laugh out of Gary, a sort of surprised bark. Jamie grinned.
“Didn’t you used to be an Everton fan?” Gary asked.
Jamie shrugged, leaning back.
“I’ve always been a United fan,” Gary said, quietly. There was no accusation in his tone, just a sort of wistful sadness.
Jamie considered his profile in the dim light. Gary looked less solid than he did usually. It was hard to tell a ghost’s age. Their features blurred often, childlike and elderly one after another, or all at once.
“So did you play with that lot, then?” Jamie asked, nodding at the United players spilling onto the pitch to boos from the crowd.
Gary’s mouth twisted. “Not officially,” he said. His fingers twisted into the hem of his jersey in a surprisingly living gesture.
Now that Jamie was looking at it closely, the jersey had a wrong feeling about it. As if it was something thought up by someone who had never worn it and couldn’t decide on what design it wanted to have. The crest was unmistakable though. As was the abominably wrong shade of red.
Jamie got to his feet. Out in the stands, the flags waved high and the beginning notes of song broke out in the crowd as if practising for when the track would start playing.
“I hope you don’t enjoy the game,” he told Gary, “and be careful around here. This is Shankly's turf and I bet he’s just looking for a Manc to throttle.”
Gary looked like he was trying to decide if Jamie was kidding or not. Jamie grinned and offered him a wave before walking away.
*
Jamie thought about Gary a lot over the seasons. Wondering what it was that was keeping him from his afterlife if there even was such a thing.
He saw him every derby and Gary would still try to trip him up or save up his insults especially for him.
But every time he saw him, Gary seemed less of himself. More transparent, the vivid red of his jersey dulling. And Jamie developed a theory.
*
Jamie finally learned how to forge connections in his retirement. Maybe that was part of growing old. Though then again, old man Carragher had burnt his bridges well into his sixties, so maybe not.
But those connections managed to get him a ticket to the last game of United’s season. Not with the fans, of course, he wasn’t suicidal. But the press box was safe enough. He carried a bottle of disinfectant anyway. Just to avoid those Manc germs.
It wasn’t long after Jamie had settled into his seat that Gary popped up in the empty space next to him.
“Fancy seeing you here,” he said, with a small sardonic smirk.
“You’re always here, so I can’t say I’m surprised,” Jamie returned.
Gary snorted. “Seriously though,” he said, “why are you here?”
“I’m told a legend is retiring today.”
Gary looked at him sharply. “How do you know that?”
“A little birdy told me,” Jamie said. A little birdy in the form of a good-natured co-pundt, who’d bonded with him over Everton, and who sometimes got very quiet and very sad after he’d had a few pints.
“Phil blabbed, didn’t he?” Gary asked with a sigh.
“Yup,” Jamie said.
The stands filled up around them and the sunset painted the skies in pinks and yellows. The players ran onto the pitch.
Leading them was Ryan Giggs, armband snug around his arm. Excitement surged through the crowd as the songs began.
“I always dreamed that I’d get my own song,” Gary said suddenly, breaking the comfortable silence that had settled between them.
“You’re not really missing much,” Jamie said carefully, “it would have been something dumb. Like, ‘Gary Neville is a Red’.”
His horrible singing voice startled a laugh out of Gary and Jamie settled back in his seat, smug.
“Better than yours,” Gary pointed out.
“Mine is wonderful!”
They bickered quietly back and forth up until the whistle blew and they turned to the pitch to watch.
Ryan Giggs didn’t play like a man about to retire. He flew down the wing as if leaving age behind for these last 90 minutes.
He got subbed off to a standing ovation from the crowd and as he stepped off the pitch, over the painted white line, the whole stadium seemed to sigh in unison.
Jamie turned to his left to remark on it to Gary but found the space empty.
And as Old Trafford mourned the end of an era, Jamie knew without a doubt that he would never see Gary again.
*
There was nothing like playing the North West Derby at Anfield.
Jamie stood on the pitch, frozen for a moment, caught up in watching the stands, the way they seemed almost limitless rising up to the sky, alive with voices raised in curses on the United players and their mothers.
He spotted Neville, back half-turned as he barked some last-minute orders to his defence. His shirt glowed too bright in the spotlights and for a moment Jamie was struck with a strange sense of deja-vu.
Then Stevie touched his elbow to get his attention and the feeling disappeared.
The tension rose as the song reached a crescendo and cold sweat ran between his shoulderblades as his legs settled on the grass, steady through half-healed bruises.
It felt like he could do this forever. His own kind of heaven.
The whistle blew. He ran.