In Wellington, we came across Jane. That day she needed to meet Fabien Galkié. Here is why.
She was waiting there, standing, almost frozen, as if she were afraid that the slightest movement would betray the importance of this moment. It was a banal Wednesday in Wellington: gray, windy, with these gusts that give the light a kind of trembling blur. But what was happening at the Jerry Collins Stadium portal had everything from a scene from another time. His first name was Jane. She came from Nelson, on the southern island and, to arrive so far, had crossed the Cook Strait by ferry. She must have been about sixty years but this figure was not very important. What was counting was what she was holding in her arms: two leather balls, worn but magnificent, like two items found in an attic of collective memory. They still wore a lace, a vestige of an era when rugby felt the liniment, muddy grounds and wooden stands. Two balloons as we don’t do anymore. Two balloons that said: “I went through the years. I’m still there.”
On the first, the signatures of twenty-four all Blacks captains. Faced with us, she almost bore them as a prayer: “Colin Meads, Tana Umaga, Richie McCaw, Stu Wilson, Taine Randell, Buck Shelford…” There was in his voice this trembling heat of people who liked the all black without reservation. The second ball, it was ambition to bring together the biggest players in the world on its tanned skin: the South African Bryan Habana (2007), the Irishman Johnny Sexton (2018), the All Blacks Beauden Barrett (2016), Dan Carter (2012) or Brodie Retallick (2014) … All were there, lying on leather, their tight, tapered writing. But he was still missing something. Something major, uppercase, essential. “Fabien Garthié”, had she then said slowly. The tricolor coach, elected best player on the planet in 2002.
A box of chocolates as a gift
Jane had a look that pierces you. Not by his hardness but by his disarming sincerity. She knew that day might be her only chance. So she waited. One hour, then two. The time that the Blues training ends. In her hands, she held a box of chocolates and around 1 p.m. when the end of the session sounded, the national coach approached. First surprised, he listened to everything in Jane’s story, signed the ball and climbed on the bus, now weighted with a few grams of cocoa. Nelson’s sixties, she made her a sign of her hand, stored her balloons in a navy blue backpack and left the stadium. She did not run, did not jump from joy. She just had that discreet smile, that of people who have just closed an important parenthesis of their lives. A woman, two balloons, a story sewn with leather. It was a tiny scene, lost in a corner of the world. But we liked everything.
