Stan shakes his head.
‘Well you should definitely check it out if you get the opportunity. It’s fuckin’ amazing. There’s this crazy – almost … I dunno … Jurassic – feel to the landscape. The tee distance is incredible – something like six and a half thousand –’
‘I’m actually more into basketball myself,’ Stan interrupts, pushing aside a couple of the tarpaulin’s supporting bricks with a pristine-trainered toe.
‘Basketball?’ Ransom is nonplussed. ‘D’you play at all?’
As he speaks he instinctively starts feeling around inside the pocket of the jacket for his cigarettes, but ends up gingerly withdrawing an old, red tassel – heavily faded – of the kind that might be attached to a trumpet or bugle. He stares at it for a moment, perplexed, then shoves it away again, frowning.
‘I started the school team,’ Stan volunteers.
‘Really?’ Ransom appraises him, quizzically. ‘But surely you’re way too short to take it seriously? I mean how tall are you?’ He quickly sizes him up: ‘Five foot four? Five foot five?’
‘Basketball’s huge in Europe right now,’ Stan mutters (as if his chosen sport’s burgeoning size on the international scene must, inevitably, have some significant bearing on his own – admittedly diminutive – status), ‘and it’s really massive in the old Eastern Bloc: the Russians just can’t get enough of it.’
‘They friggin’ love it in China,’ Ransom volunteers, ‘and let’s face it’ – he shrugs, obligingly – ‘they’re pretty much all short-arses over there.’
Stan gazes at the golfer, balefully, as if awaiting a punchline (or – better still – a sheepish retraction of some kind). None is forthcoming.
‘I used to love shooting hoops as a kid,’ Ransom reminisces, ‘but golf was always destined to be my game of choice. I suppose you could say it was written in the stars …’ He waves a lordly hand, heavenward. ‘I mean I was sporting mad, in general; played footie, rugby, had a stunt-bike, skated, skateboarded. We lived alongside this small, public course in Ilkley. I started caddying for my dad just about as soon as I could toddle. Then, after inheriting my grandad’s old clubs when I was around four or five, I started taking a serious interest in the game myself …’
‘Four or five?’ Stan echoes, almost disbelieving.
‘You betcha!’ Ransom nods. ‘Dad wanted to cut the clubs short but I wouldn’t hear of it. Had quite a tantrum about it as I recall. Because I always enjoyed playing with them at full stretch.’ He lifts his chin, proudly. ‘I relished the challenge. I suppose you could say I’m from the “Grip it and rip it” school. A feel player. My swing’s always been pretty powerful, pretty distinctive, pretty … uh … loose.’
Ransom performs a basic simulacrum of his swing (although its grand scope is somewhat retarded by his beleaguered armpits). ‘Pundits like to call it “unorthodox”, or … or “maverick”’ – he grimaces, sourly – ‘or “singular”. Peter Alliss – the commentator? On the BBC? – he once called it “grotesque”. Grotesque?!’
The golfer gazes at Stan, horrified. ‘Unbelievable!’
Stan opens his mouth to comment.
‘But what Alliss simply doesn’t get,’ Ransom canters on, oblivious, ‘what he never got, is that I’m an instinctive player, a gut player. I play straight from here …’ He pats his breast-pocket, feelingly. ‘The heart,’ he adds (no hint of irony), ‘and that’s something you’re born with. It can’t be taught. I learned my game from the floor up. I developed it as a kid, inch by inch, through trial and error. Adapting my stroke – experimenting – making judgements – taking risks. I was relentless. Never took a lesson. Never needed to. Just used these …’
Ransom points at his two eyes: ‘Drank everything in, like a sponge. And it bore fruit. By ten I was playing off a handicap of seven …’
(Stan’s grudgingly impressed.)
‘By thirteen I was playing off par. Although my game went to shit for a while after my parents split up …’ Ransom begins searching the pockets of the military jacket for his cigarettes (then realizes – with a start – that the jacket isn’t actually his). ‘Got a fag on you by any chance?’
Stan shakes his head.
‘Messy, messy divorce.’ The golfer sighs. ‘My handicap shot up to five after Mam moved to St Ives with Roderick, her new partner. Although – on a purely selfish tip – I’d’ve never got to spend my summers down on the coast if the old folks’d stayed together. As it was I just had a blast, basically; staying out all hours, running wild, ripping it up in the surf … And whenever I got myself into a tight spot’ – he grins, mischievously – ‘exploiting that trusty, parental guilt mechanism for all it was worth …’
‘Jammy bastard,’ Stan mutters, jealous.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Ransom rapidly backtracks (keen to maintain his hard-bitten, northern lustre), ‘first and foremost I was always a hustler. Had to be. My folks weren’t made of money. Dad sold car insurance for a living. Mam worked in the school canteen. I raised the funds to surf by playing golf for cash. And while I was never what you might call an ambitious player, at least not in the formal sense of the word – never gave a toss about trophies and prizes and all that crap – I was competitive as all hell. Still am, to a fault. It’s like …’ He frowns. ‘It’s like I don’t care if I win the tournament, but I do care if I get thrashed by some smarmy, tight-arsed, Norwegian dick, dressed head to toe in fuckin’ …’
Ransom throws out an irritated hand. ‘… fuckin’ Galvin Green, who spends his entire life nibbling on energy bars and doing bench presses in the fuckin’ gym. It’s personal with me. Always has been. A pride thing. I need to be the big dog – the biggest dog – win or lose. And if I’m gonna lose, then I’ll piss all over the fairways. I’ll leave divots a foot fuckin’ deep. I’ll give the groundsman a fuckin’ coronary. I’ll be filthy. I’ll lose like a fucking pig. I’ll lose worse than anyone ever lost before. I’ll make an art out of it. I’ll hit the ball through the clubhouse window. I’ll play five shots from the car park. Because I’m a wild-card, Stan, a headcase: “Better to burn out than to fade away.” That’s always been my motto.’
Stan gazes at him, blankly.
‘Neil Young, dipstick! It’s the lyric Kurt Cobain quoted in his suicide note. You’re a teenager – you should know that. I quoted it at my coach the other day and he just stared at me, like – duh? I go, “It’s Neil fuckin’ Young, Roger.” He goes, “Neil Young? Of course it’s Neil Young! I love Neil Young! Are you kidding me?! The Jazz Singer’s my favourite film of all time!” I just looked down at myself and I thought, Ransom, you’re on a hiding to friggin’ nowhere here. So I sacked the little turd, on the spot.’
‘Seriously?’ Stan’s impressed.
‘Yeah.’ Ransom bridles. ‘Of course I’m fuckin’ serious. Although now the greedy twat’s suing me for unfair dismissal.’
‘Ouch.’
Stan looks pained.
‘The more I think about it, though,’ Ransom muses, adjusting his cap to a less rakish angle, ‘the more I feel like I’m … I dunno … like I’m a man out of time …’ He pauses, wistfully. ‘Nah-ah,’ he promptly corrects himself, ‘it’s worse than that. Sometimes when I walk into the locker room at the start of a tournament I feel like I’ve just landed from another planet. Like I’m extraterrestrial. An alien! And it’s not just that I’m Old School, that I’m Hardcore … It’s much more … I dunno … much more fundamental. There’s something different about me. A uniqueness. I have this … this natural … this basic … this essential quality about me which marks me out from ninety-nine per cent of players in the professional game right now …’ Ransom fixes Stanislav with an implacable stare. ‘D’you know what that quality is, Stan?’
Stan shakes his head.
‘Shall I enlighten you?’
Stan shrugs.
‘Personality!’ Ransom grins. ‘It’s personality, kiddo! I have character. Gallons of the stuff. And I’m just too damn creative – t
oo much of a fuckin’ individual – to turn myself into one of those gormless, brainwashed, Ledbetter-style automatons who only ever plays the next hole, the next shot, while spouting endless, turgid platitudes about their “mental game” and the arc of their fucking “swing plane”. D’you know what I mean?’
Stan just gazes at him, blankly (he has no idea).
‘Lemme put it this way.’ Ransom gamely attempts to re-state his position: ‘I remember this shit-for-brains journo cornering John Daly outside the clubhouse at the start of a major tournament one time – I forget which tournament it was, off-hand – getting right up in his face and demanding to know what his “golfing strategy” was for the week’s play ahead. Daly’s obviously really unimpressed by this half-wit’s attitude, not to say bored and pissed off by the question itself, but, as always, he’s very friendly and courteous and listens to the journalist really politely before considering his reply. “My strategy?” he finally murmurs, plucking at his chin for a moment as if he’s going to say something really deep, really significant. “Yeah … Well I guess that would probably be …”’ Ransom clears his throat and then attempts a (perfectly passable) impersonation of Daly’s slow American drawl: “Hit the ball, find the ball, then hit the ball again.”’
Ransom smiles at Stan, beatifically. Stan looks puzzled.
‘“Hit the ball, find the ball …”’ Ransom repeats, slapping his hand against his thigh, snorting, ‘like this is the most incredibly profound, fuckin’ insight: “Hit the ball, find the ball …” Like this is the hugest fuckin’ revelation! Man! It was pure, undiluted genius! A defining moment in the history of the game! A two-finger salute to all the vultures and the bullshitters and the mind-wizards and the … the …’ (Ransom momentarily runs out of suitable targets for his mirthful ire, and flounders. His eyes fill with sudden, hot tears.) ‘It was absolutely fuckin’ brilliant,’ he huffs, then turns – blinking, self-consciously – and gazes, impatiently, past the modern, slightly shabby rectory building, to the large, somewhat static and forbidding, Victorian, red-brick church beyond.
‘What was that phrase Dad always liked to use?’ Valentine wonders, indicating, somewhat wryly, towards her mother. ‘Full of piss and vinegar?’
Her mother – who seems in unusually high spirits – is singing ‘Frère Jacques’ at the top of her lungs to a slightly bedraggled cat which is crouching, terrified, halfway up the stairs.
‘So what’re they trying to pin on me this time?’ Noel demands, slowly unwinding a grubby-looking keffiyeh scarf, while carefully ensuring that the sterile gauze dressings (which have been neatly applied to his neck beneath it) remain intact.
‘Pin on you?’ Valentine’s down on her knees, unfastening Nessa’s shoes. ‘Who d’you mean?’
‘Who?!’ Noel exclaims, thumbing over his shoulder, towards the front door. ‘Who the fuck else, stupid?!’
‘Watch your mouth, stupid!’
Valentine glances up at him, indignant, as she removes the first shoe. ‘And don’t call me stupid,’ she adds (as a guilty afterthought), inclining her head, warningly, towards the child.
‘Yeah, stupid !’ Nessa immediately echoes, snatching her other foot from her aunt’s grip, jutting out her chin and boldly squaring up to him.
‘Oh great.’ Valentine rolls her eyes.
‘Yeah, stupid !’ Nessa repeats, grabbing a handful of the baggy fabric of her father’s jeans and yanking at it, hard.
‘Get the fuck off!’ Noel screeches, snatching for the belt on his trousers (which are already alarmingly low-slung), but his response is too slow, and the trousers slip down, with virtually no resistance, from his hip-bones to his knees.
Nessa clings on to the concertinaed fabric, giggling, delighted. Valentine struggles to contain a wan smile.
‘Enough!’ Noel hisses, raising the back of a warning hand to the child. Nessa promptly lets go and Noel yanks the trousers up again, cursing. Valentine pulls the toddler back towards her and embraces her, protectively.
‘MUM!’ Noel bellows – effortlessly displacing his irritation (principally, admittedly, with himself). ‘Could you put a bloody sock in it, please?’
His mother sings – if possible – still louder.
‘I said could you put a sock in it?’ Noel repeats (an added edge of menace in his voice this time).
‘She’ll carry on for hours at this rate,’ Valentine mutters (with a strong element of ‘and I can’t say I’d blame her if she did …’).
‘She’s been singing that damn thing, non-stop, since we left the day centre,’ Noel gripes. ‘It’s driving me round the twist.’
‘Let it go, Bro’,’ Valentine advises him, stifling a yawn.
‘I had to remove her filthy hand from my thigh, twice, in the car on the drive home,’ Noel hisses. ‘She’s absolutely, bloody disgusting!’
‘I’ll have a word with her about it, later,’ Valentine promises, untangling one of Nessa’s bright, blonde curls with a distracted finger.
‘So where’s your client?’ Noel demands, suddenly glancing around him.
‘Gone.’ Valentine shrugs. ‘I called her a cab.’
‘Jeez. That was one hell of a turnaround,’ Noel murmurs (cheerfully ignoring the fact that he’d promised, faithfully, to transport her himself). ‘Was she happy with the end result?’
‘I dunno … Yeah’ – Valentine nods – ‘so far as I could tell. She was shy. Her English wasn’t great, but she cried when she saw it in the mirror.’
Pause.
‘Did she pay in cash?’
Her brother tries to appear disinterested.
‘By cheque …’
Valentine starts to remove Nessa’s other shoe.
‘I thought we had a strict rule about that,’ Noel grumbles.
‘We do …’
Longer pause.
‘… but she needed some of the cash she’d put aside to pay for her ride to the airport.’
Noel turns to glower at his mother again (who is now banging along in time to her ditty on the wooden banister).
‘So how’d it look?’ he demands, turning back to face her.
‘Fine. Nice. Good. Although I was so knackered by the end of it that I could hardly …’
‘But she was happy?’ he repeats.
‘Yeah. So far as I could tell. The skin was incredibly delicate – unusually delicate. I really had to hammer away at it.’
‘Did you get a photo?’ Noel demands.
‘For my portfolio?’ Valentine asks, fixing him with a dry look.
‘Why else?’ He shrugs, grinning.
‘Why else,’ she echoes, smiling back.
‘So did you?’ he persists.
‘Nope.’ Valentine shakes her head. ‘It was difficult to get her to trust me and relax. I mean after all the fuss at the hotel …’
Noel raises a tentative hand to his throat.
‘And – like I said – her English wasn’t all that great. She was really stressing out about making her flight in time. She’d lied to her husband about taking the trip. She’d told him she was visiting her sister in Osaka. She didn’t want him getting suspicious. She was planning to surprise him for their anniversary …’ Valentine pauses for a second, cradling Nessa’s tiny shoe in her hand. ‘Then, just when I was about to take the plunge and ask her, this guy turned up to read the meter and walked in on us by mistake –’
‘Hang on a second,’ Noel interrupts, alarmed. ‘Which guy? Not the hotel guy?’
‘Hotel guy?’ Valentine echoes, confused.
‘He said he’d come to read the meter?!’
Noel snorts, derisively.
‘The hotel guy?’ Valentine repeats. ‘Which hotel guy?’
‘To read the meter?!’ Noel rolls his eyes. ‘Are you having me on?’
‘No.’ Valentine shakes her head, defensively, then she pauses. ‘Although …’
She glances over towards the meter, frowning. ‘I’m not sure if he actually got around to …’
&
nbsp; ‘And you thought he was credible?’ Noel demands.
‘Credible?’ Valentine’s starting to look paranoid. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Did he have all the official documentation and shit?’
‘Documentation?!’ Valentine exclaims, almost irritated. ‘He came to read the meter, Noel. He was perfectly nice and polite and professional …’
‘So you saw his badge?’ Noel jumps in.
‘His badge?’
‘You checked his badge?’
‘Yes. Yes. I saw his badge.’ She flaps a hand at him, dismissively. ‘I checked his badge. Of course I did. I’m not a complete idiot. He had a clipboard and this tiny –’
‘Although an impostor could forge a badge, easily enough,’ Noel reasons.
‘You think an impostor would have a tiny torch?!’ Valentine’s almost deriding him, now. ‘And a special, little mirror inside an old powder compact?’
‘Yeah. Sure. Why not?’ Noel bristles.
‘Well he wasn’t an impostor, Noel.’ She scowls. ‘He was just some guy. And if you’d come home on time, like you promised …’
Noel glares at her, balefully.
She rubs at her eyes, exhausted, as the child coyly whispers something into her ear.
‘Nessa needs the toilet,’ she murmurs. ‘Would you mind taking her up while I get started on some sandwiches?’
‘Can’t she use the potty down here?’ Noel groans.
‘Absolutely not!’
Her voice is suddenly implacable. ‘We’re trying to encourage her into a set routine, remember?’
Noel gazes down at the child, malevolently. Nessa grips on to her genitals, twists her legs together and grimaces.
‘I’ve got a headache,’ he mutters, thickly, ‘and I feel like shit.’
‘You’ve got a hangover, Noel,’ Valentine corrects him, almost tenderly, ‘and an extremely beautiful and brilliant two-year-old daughter’ – she pushes the child forward, very gently – ‘who really, really needs to do a wee.’
‘John Daly?’
Stanislav battles to place him, mentally: ‘Isn’t he that fat, alcoholic red-neck with the weird, pudding-bowl haircut?’
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