Dad's bitterly poignant last words to me...about girls, drinks and parties: CALUM BEST describes his football legend father's tragic final hours

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George Best's drunken decline has never been more movingly chronicled than in his son Calum's memoirs. 

Today, in the final part of our serialisation of his new book, he describes the football legend's tragic last hours... 

The phone call in the spring of 2005 is a surprise. It's from Dad's agent, Phil Hughes, asking me to come to a meeting at his new offices in West London. I'm intrigued.

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Near the end: A desperately frail George Best in a picture his family released in November 2005

I haven't seen much of Dad lately. He's back drinking hard after his liver transplant, and I know for certain that nobody's going to give him a second one. That means there's only one place he's heading. And it's heartbreaking.

The sad thing is that part of me still thinks he's invincible. He's George Best, the legend. Always pulls through. Gets away with murder, always has. He'll get through this one as well, surely? Deep down, though, I know he won't.

I turn up at Phil's office and Dad's there. I'm shocked at the state he is in. His skin has gone yellow and his eyes are weird — yellow and bloodshot. He's never been this colour before. I'm scared, but I don't say anything.

I look around the room. On the wall there's a picture of Dad and Pele. There are moulds of Dad's footprints and boots, and lots of other memorabilia.

It's really impressive. I say so.

Well, says Phil, that's why we've asked you to come in. Dad tells me they're about to start a George Best memorabilia business, and they'd like me to be a director. Dad says it's because he wants to leave me with something.

Looking at the state he's in, I can only think he knows he's getting near the end. I try hard not to choke up. This is his way of looking after me when he's gone.

It feels like a huge moment in my life: sad, but exciting, too. It's not about the money we might make. It's the feeling I am properly part of Dad's life.

He wants me involved. I'm not a person he would prefer had never existed, as I have spent so many years thinking. I'm his son, his only child, and because of that he's giving me this, his legacy.

Beach life: The handsome football star in his prime with Calum's mother, Angie, in Los Angeles in 1976

Dad and I start spending more time together now. Not because of the business, as it turns out, but because not long after I've signed all the papers he goes into hospital for treatment on his liver.

For weeks, then months, Dad spends his days hooked up to a dialysis machine watching TV, while I sit on a chair next to him either on my phone or watching, too. We don't mention what's happening to him, or the reason he's in there.

We're not ignoring each other, it's just that neither of us knows how to bond with the other, or how to bring some closeness to this situation. We could be in one of those funny but painful movie scenes, where two men with so much to say to each other fail miserably to talk about their feelings.

I have no idea how messed up Dad's head must be at the moment. His second wife, Alex, has divorced him. He's seriously ill, and he knows it's all his fault. He's put me through some terrible times, but I feel sorry for him, truly sorry. Poor guy.

Dad's not allowed to eat solids, but one of the few things he says is to ask me to get him fruit pastilles and wine gums, which he's always loved. I know I'm not supposed to be feeding him these things, but I can't help it.

And so the months go on. I know it's a selfish thing to admit, but it's pushing me close to breaking point. I don't have the words to describe how tired I am. Sometimes I get a call to go to the hospital in the middle of the night, and I'm so exhausted that I instantly fall asleep again.

When I wake up, I'm frantic. Am I too late? I run out of the house, desperate.

By the autumn of 2005, Dad is unconscious a lot of the time and on a life-support machine. It's awful to say it, but he looks like something out of a horror movie — tiny, just skin and bone.

My mum, Angie, comes over from the States, and I take her into Dad's room. I'm looking at her face when she sees him. She gasps, her hand goes to her mouth and she says: 'Oh, George!' It's a huge shock for her.

He's awake, and I can tell he's happy to see her. His eyes light up as much as they can, and he turns his head towards her. She sits down and takes his hand.

The sight of them together is overwhelming. Amazing, in one way, that they're sitting there together, which is something I've always wanted.

But it's indescribably sad at the same time, because of everything we've missed out on. In this little room, right now, is the family I could have had. I leave Mum in there for about an hour.

I expect she does exactly the same things I do: talking to him, stroking his hand and tidying his hair.

Mum says her goodbyes. She asks if I want her to stick around, but I say it's OK. I'm glad she came, but I have to do this by myself.

Memories: Calum at the memorial service for his father at Manchester Cathedral in March 2006

A couple of days later, Dad is looking like nothing I've ever seen before. He's always been such a beautiful guy, but right now his face scares me.

His cheekbones are sticking out, his eyes are yellow and wide open, and he's turning his head from left to right really quickly, like he's panicking about something. He looks terrifying, and terrified.

As I walk into his room, he looks at me. 'Bestie,' he says, desperation in his voice, 'you've got to help me. They're having f***ing parties in here.'

'What do you mean, Dad?' I say.

'I heard them last night, Bestie — over there. They were having drinks, and there were girls, and they were having parties.'

'Dad, what are you talking about? I don't understand.'

There's a nurse with us, and she tells me he's hallucinating. He can hear all these bleeping noises from the machines, and his messed-up mind turned those sounds into visions of parties going on.

I'm scared for him, because of the state he must be in, but at the same time it makes me smile. Of all the things for him to have visions of, it has to be a party, with lots of girls and booze.

Dad's agent, Phil, arrives and I tell him about the hallucinations and we have a bit of a joke about it, desperate to find anything to lighten this terrible situation.

I wouldn't have laughed if I'd known these are the last words my father will ever say to me. Because that's what they are.

Friends: Former Manchester United stars Denis Law and George Best - Law visited him in hospital before he passed away on November 2005

From now on, he's unconscious. The nurses tell me I should speak to him, because he can hear me. So I talk to him quietly, holding his hand and whispering things in his ear. I love you, I say. I miss you. I'm sorry.

Sometimes I get up on Dad's bed with him, lie down and put his arm round my shoulders. This is the first time I've ever had Dad's arm around me like this.

I don't remember him holding me much, even when I was a tiny kid. There was the occasional brief, awkward hug, but not much.

Lying here, I get a tiny glimpse of what I've missed out on — how good and safe I would have felt if he'd been a different kind of father, and it tears me up.

Members of Dad's family arrive from Belfast, and his mate, Denis Law. But whenever I'm alone with him, I get straight back on the bed with him.

One day I'm asleep in another room when I'm woken by Phil Hughes. 'Calum, you've got to come,' he says. 'We're having an emergency meeting.'

We go back to the intensive care ward. The consultant comes in. 'There's nothing else we can do,' he says. 'We're going to have to take him off life-support.'

What does he mean? Nobody is saying anything. And then I realise. This is the end. My head drops into my hands, I close my eyes and I let out this huge noise, part scream and part roar of pure emotion. I start sobbing. No tears, just my body juddering. This is the end. This really is the end. All that hope, all that anger, the sadness, the resentment — all that is over. I am so, so, sad.

I walk to Dad's bed. I don't even notice if anyone else is there. I sit next to him, lean forward and rest my forehead on the bed. I put his hand on the back of my head, and stay there, sobbing.

One of the medical people turns the machine off, just flicks a switch, and it goes quiet. It's been helping Dad breathe, and as soon as it stops, he stops, too. And that's it. Over. He is 59 years old. I lean into his ear, say 'I love you', kiss his forehead and walk out of the room.

Then one of the nurses says to me: 'I know this is a tough time, but you're his next of kin and you have to make the decision about whether or not you want to donate any of his organs.'

Given his illness, I ask which ones they will be able to use. 'His eyes,' is the reply.

His eyes? They're his special thing. Everyone loves his eyes — he's Belfast's blue-eyed boy.

My aunt Barbara, Dad's sister, is with me. We have a moment when we wonder if it's right or wrong. Then we decide very firmly that it's yes. Dad loved to give to people, and they gave so much to him, too.

It's definitely the right thing to do. 

Calum applauds the Manchester United faithful at Old Trafford who pay tribute to his father after his death

Losing Dad sent me into a bad place — the lowest moments of my life. Months and then years slipped by in a dark blur, and I felt like I was dropping further and further into a deep hole.

I was depressed, drinking and taking drugs, and living a wild life to try to cope with what I was going through. To try to mask the pain I felt.

It was Mum who started my recovery simply by reminding me that she loves me and by being there for me. I'd hit rock bottom, and the only way was up.

'Your poor dad was drunk every single day for 30 years,' she told me. 'You were busy chasing your father, trying to develop a relationship. But having a relationship with an alcoholic is impossible to do, because they are inherently the world's most selfish people. You could never have done it.'

I loved Dad, probably more than anyone else in the world did. He was and is my hero and my idol, and I am so, so proud to be his son. But he was also a s****y dad. There's no way round that.

I hate to say this, but in the end he wasn't a good human being, and he caused terrible pain to the very last people he should have been hurting. But he also caused terrible pain — possibly even the most — to himself, by making the choices he did.

Now, nearly ten years on, I've come a long way since Dad's death. I will always wish things could have worked out differently.

But I've accepted they didn't. And this means I will never think of being George Best's son as a burden or a curse. It's an honour, because of who he was and what people thought of him.

Phil Hughes, who knew Dad as well as anyone in the world, is convinced that Dad loved me deeply.

'Calum,' he told me once, 'you were the love of George's life. He adored you. He just wasn't able to show it, and that meant you never got to see it.'

For me, that says it all.

Adapted from Second Best: My Dad And Me by Calum Best (Bantam Press, £16.99). Offer price is £14.44 (15 per cent discount) until March 28. To order your copy, visit mailbookshop.co.uk (P&P is free for a limited time only).