Chapter 1: Loose-Head Prop

Parmer stood propped against the wall. Socks down around his ankles, sticky and stiff at the toes, faded red to almost pink. His trainers used to be white; now they are scratched brown-cream. Above the socks, his calfs bulge like two-by-fours slopped through a pot of whitewash paint. His knees nobble and push up against the weight of his paunch and his massive head. They dimple at the side like a cheeky little cookie-snatcher. Thighs stretch and slump, strong beneath their flab. The shorts, stiff-starched royal blue billow like plusfours, draw string hanging down, one end lost within the stretched waistband. Half-in, half-out, the Bath change shirt drapes around the rotund belly, beer-bated, even though he is only just sixteen. Fat hands gesture in air or bounce off the wall-end or bunk bead as he sways to his own amusement. A spotty face cares little about its looks. This is an all boys school, so good looks aren't a bonus. Slightly yellowing teeth, grin from puff-lips. A jaggy, crapcut fringe hides a popped red pustule on his genius-spot, that part of the forehead where you point when you scrunch up your face and point to your brainbox, admiring the wisemandom of choice. Young prop's ears jut out, waiting to be cauliflowered by opposing heads, grinning like the studs in mud on the Fifteen's pitch. Those days are to come, whole school out to watch and cheer, jeer and worship the Dark Fifteen against The Academy: dark blue against light and white stripes, like Oxford-Cambridge at Twickenham Varsity.

I stood in front of Parmer, not saying much, just washed over by his personality, his charisma, his likeable Falstaff rogueness. He was one of Williams's boys, moulded and muddied in his own inimitable style. His Englishness shone like the sweat off a darkie slaveboy's brow. He called his enima's Krauts not Huns. Of course it would be food! What has politics got to do with anything when Ze Chermanns eat soaked cabbage in vinegar?

At the end of the fifth form, Parmer let it all out. He seemed relaxed and relieved that those four-lettered exams were over. Harder stuff lay ahead, but summer was to come first. Upper school brought with it a new code, a new respect; private rooms, not these shared and boystrous dorms. A bit of privacy to bash away thinking of that cheeky little minx! Sandwich bag between the couch cushions, bobbing away content, not lasting long, but good for that because the carpet burns make knees red raw.

In that first year he'd prop for the 2nds, plodding along with the up-and-comers. He'd find it hard, but next year, just maybe, when the unbeaten stars of the year above moved on, he might, just might get the chance to be in The Fifteen, to pack down on the scrum machine with Wilmo shouting at his fat back and legs, to hittwothreefour, panting outofbreath can't push anymore or I'll fall over, can't rest because the flanker'll know and cajole me to hold the hit and follow through. The hair at the back of my neck is wet and cold, plastered down like cheap supermarket gel with stinky sweaty beads of dew and cut grass. The backs are slacking off with Rangi moves, running without contact in front of Hadden's technical, quiet eyes.

It's all worth it in the end, when the school goes ballistic at the final whistle on the big pitch at Murrayfield. Mobbed by Slater and Moosa, Parmer would drink in the moment like a pint of the finest ale he would drive a hundred-mile roundtrip to taste. Saggy-socked, he'd splay in front at the team photo, reclined like a model of finer figure, immodest to the most degree. Brunel and first girl would wait a little further along the touchline, too tippy-toed to imagine, too out of puff to think he'd even get there.

All this would unfold for DGWP, the karma in the Parmer your hand.