From where he’s currently standing he can see into a small sitting room where the child now lies sleeping on an old-fashioned, brown sofa with heavy, dark wood trim. Each armrest is bookended by a further pair of large felines. The floor is covered by a series of ornate but threadbare oriental rugs of various sizes – at least six or seven of them – piled one on top of the other, in an exotic collage.
On one wall is a collection of round, antique, brass-coloured fish-eye mirrors. To the left of these, a handful of chipped and dented, metal, hand-painted signs lean up against the skirting, one advertising Bournville Drinking Chocolate, the others representing older brands he’s not quite so familiar with.
A voluptuous wisp of smoke curls into his eye-line. Just as he’s taking a tentative step forward to try and locate its source, his phone starts to ring. Both cats respond, in sync, leaping from their individual armrests and darting (with an almost choreographed precision) to opposite far corners of the room. Gene nearly drops his clipboard in his rush to respond (keen not to disturb the sleeping child) –
‘Hello?’ he whispers.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello?’ he repeats, slightly louder (as the child sleeps on, unperturbed).
‘Hello?’ a voice says (a male voice, northern, marginally flustered). ‘Is that …? Uh … Bollocks. Hang on a second …’
(Brief moment of indecision.)
‘Christ Almighty – who the heck are you again?’
* * *
Although plainly in desperate need of practice (virtually every element of his game is currently in free-fall), Ransom has yet to actually make it out on to the driving range. Instead he may be located (by all but the most incompetent of Satellite Tracking Systems) standing plumb in the middle of a magnificent, giant, outdoor chessboard (the exquisitely wrought pieces of an abandoned game dotted all around him), enjoying a cigarette, his cap pulled down over his forehead, while he speaks, animatedly, into his mobile phone.
‘… that antsy, little Muslim kid on reception,’ he’s muttering. ‘Short-arse. Wonky teeth … You know the one …’
He kicks out his leg and idly prods at a nearby pawn with his toe. In the distance (approximately thirty or so yards away, due south) two men may be seen emerging from the residential segment of the hotel. After Ransom’s third, desultory prod, the pawn rocks, topples and then rolls. Both men witness this act of low-level vandalism with what can only be described as looks of violent discomfiture and break – wordlessly – into a spontaneous trot.
One of them – shorter, heavier-set, in his shirtsleeves, possessed of a dramatic, dark blond comb-over which flaps up and down like a pedal-bin-lid as he runs – clutches a navy blue, gold-buttoned blazer in his hand. The second gentleman is taller, handsome – something of a dandy – wearing cream loafers, cream trousers, cream trilby (a maroon ribbon circling the brim), an expensive, lavender-coloured polo shirt and heavy, arty, dark grey Yves Saint Laurent-framed glasses. He moves with an exaggerated angularity (knees high, arms thrown out) like a stick figure in a poorly executed flicker-book animation.
‘Oi!’ the first man bellows, gesticulating, wildly. ‘Oi! You! Stop! That game’s still in progress!’
Ransom gives no indication of having heard him. His ear remains firmly pressed into his phone.
‘Apologize?!’ he suddenly snorts, indignant. ‘I’m not ringing to apologize – it was his weed for Christ’s sake! He virtually foisted the stuff on me. Got it at bloody Christian camp! Nasty shit it was, too – almost blew my friggin’ head off. Totally maxed me out …’
He takes a final puff on his cigarette and then crushes the remainder beneath his heel as he listens. ‘The analgesics are for a repetitive strain injury,’ he says, with just a touch of hauteur. ‘What the hell else was I expected to do? We were bouncing off the fucking ceiling! The situation was critical. He’d started thinking his fingers were edible – kept gnawing away at his thumb! Said it tasted like Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit. It was a disaster! A bloody nightmare! I mean’ – he gazes up at a neat, little bank of cumulus in the sky above him – ‘I mean I’m not calling myself “the hero of the hour” or anything – far from it – but you should just count your lucky stars a sensible adult was on hand to try and keep a lid on things …’
A brief silence follows, then, two seconds later, ‘Jen? Jen?! The little minx with the ponytails? The chippy blonde? What the heck’s she got to do with the price of fish?’
A sightly longer pause. ‘Well Sheila’s barking up the wrong tree. Stan’s a good kid, a solid kid. Very discreet. Very mature. You’ve got absolutely no worries on that score …’
As Ransom talks, the two men rapidly cover the thirty or so yards’ distance between the hotel and the chessboard, drawing to a sharp halt on its outer margins, from whence they commence to address him, at volume.
‘A game is still in progress!’ the blue-blazered man honks.
‘This board is fully booked until three!’ Arty-glasses adds (officiously inspecting his watch – it’s half past twelve).
‘Well I guess we’re just gonna have to agree to disagree …’ Ransom shrugs, blanking the two men completely. ‘Comme ci comme ça, as the French like to say. Did he get off to Krakow okay?’
‘It’s booked. This board is fully booked until three,’ the blue-blazered man repeats (some of the aggression leaving his voice as the true identity – and eminent stature – of the personage he’s currently addressing slowly starts to register), ‘by Knott/Beevers Holdings plc – chief sponsors of this week’s event. My name’s Chris Padgett,’ he adds (with a soupçon of swank), ‘I’m the company MD.’
Ransom merely swishes a peremptory hand at him, indicates, self-importantly, towards his phone and turns away so that he might better concentrate. ‘Well that’s gotta be a good result by any calculation, eh?’ he observes (with a generous – if profoundly unconvincing – measure of faux-jocularity).
He then listens intently for a second, scowling. ‘The Hummer?’
He winces. ‘I dunno. It’s all a bit of a blur … And if I can be completely honest with you, Gene’ – he winces again – ‘I don’t actually have the luxury of dwelling on all this stuff right now. It’s old history – kinda “surplus to requirements”, if you know what I mean. The crud’s really hitting the fan at this end. I’m up the proverbial gum tree. I’ve found myself short of a caddie. That’s partly why I’m ringing. There’s five per cent of my overall fee in the offing, five per cent of any prize money … And let’s not forget the work I’m hoping to do for local charities while I’m in situ – the oxygen of publicity and all that …’
He pauses for a second, listening. ‘No. No. I don’t think you’re quite grasping what I …’
He listens again, frowning. ‘I’m offering you the opportunity …’ he interrupts. Another pause. ‘Aw, come on, Gino! It’s not rocket science! It’s just lugging a friggin’ bag around …’
The blue-blazered man gawps at the artily bespectacled man, as though perfectly astonished by Ransom’s arrogance. The artily bespectacled man promptly strides to the other side of the chessboard to engage with Ransom himself.
‘My name’s Charles Del Renzio,’ he starts off, ‘Head of PR for this week’s event. I’m afraid there seems to be some kind of confusion here …’
‘Then sort it out, will ya?’ Ransom snaps, glancing up. ‘Isn’t it obvious I’m in the middle of something?’
The artily bespectacled man is momentarily flummoxed by Ransom’s high-handed approach.
‘You’re in the middle of something all right!’ the blue-blazered man harrumphs. ‘You’re in the middle of our game, you bloody imbecile!’
Ransom turns to appraise Blue-blazer, incensed. ‘That’s arrant, friggin’ bullshit! The board was abandoned when I arrived here. The game was clearly over.’
‘The board had been temporarily vacated,’ Artily-bespectacled corrects him. ‘A gull messed on Mr Padgett’s jacket, so we were obliged to step back into the hot
el for a second …’
‘A gull shat on your jacket?!’ Ransom guffaws (his voice getting louder – and more northern – in a bid to attract the attention of a random couple of passers-by). ‘It takes two, grown men to clean off …’ (he falls into insulting baby-talk), ‘… an ’ickle-wickle smudge of bird poop, now, does it?’ He pouts out his lower lip. ‘Aw, Diddums!’
‘I actually popped up to my room to fetch a hat,’ Artily-bespectacled explains, indicating (slightly embarrassed) towards his trilby. ‘It was brighter outside than I’d anticipated …’
‘Good God!’ Ransom expostulates (thrilled as his new audience – a father and son golfing combo – realize who he is and are thus compelled to draw closer). ‘I got clawed on the neck by a broody gannet once, up at the Nairn Dunbar course – third hole, needed five stitches – and still I played on! Had a jab of penicillin on the ninth and managed to finish third – four under par – in a low friggin’ gale! That’s competitive edge for you.’ He swings out his arm, dramatically. ‘That’s sportsmanship in action. Call yourselves contenders? A little fleck of bird shit and you’re running for the hills? It’s a scandal! What are you, men or friggin’ mice?!’
Ransom turns and poses for a photograph (the father snaps away, delightedly, the boy is beaming), then returns to his phone call, disgusted. ‘Nah. Nothing important,’ he mutters, ‘just a couple of MOP’s, arguing the toss. If I ignore them for long enough they might just …’
He clicks his fingers. Nothing happens.
‘Either you vacate the board now, Mr Ransom, or you’ll leave us with no option but to call in Security,’ Artily-bespectacled informs him, eyes darting back and forth, nervously, between the golfer and his new audience.
‘Bring it on, Dick-weed!’ Ransom tenses his muscles, exultant. ‘Yeah! Bring it friggin’ on! Make the call! Let’s do this!’
‘Yeah! Make the call!’ the kid echoes.
‘Woo-hoo!’ The dad punches the air.
Artily-bespectacled loses his momentum, somewhat.
Ransom dutifully returns to his phone conversation. ‘Experience isn’t necessary,’ he insists, ‘in fact experience is actively unwelcome. Experience is exactly what got me into this friggin’ mess. Ignorance is bliss, Gene. I’m getting back to basics. I’m getting back to what’s real; tuning into my “awareness continuum” …’
‘That’s it! I’ve had a gut-ful of this idiot!’ Blue-blazer turns to Artily-bespectacled, imperiously. ‘Call Security!’
Artily-bespectacled takes his phone from his pocket, but hesitates.
‘What’re you waiting for?’ Blue-blazer demands, irate. ‘Make the call!’
‘Well I’m very sorry you feel that way,’ Ransom’s muttering. ‘It’s a great opportunity. I mean it’s … Hang on a second …’
Ransom removes the phone from his ear and starts inspecting the chessboard, critically.
‘Who’s white?’ he asks, after a short pause.
‘White?’ Blue-blazer squawks, paranoid. ‘What’s it to you?’
‘Oh-ho!’ Ransom chuckles. ‘On the defensive, now, are we?’
He turns and mugs at his small audience.
‘I’ll say he is!’ the father promptly volunteers.
‘Look at him! He’s shitting his pants!’ the boy crows (and receives a sharp cuff around the ear for his trouble).
Ransom guffaws, delighted.
‘Defensive? That’s ridiculous – absolute rubbish! I’m not remotely defensive!’ Blue-blazer’s huffing. ‘The game’s patently still in the balance. You kicked over my pawn. I’ve still got …’
‘Playing for cash?’ Ransom turns to Artily-bespectacled, brow cocked.
‘A small pot,’ Artily-bespectacled concedes. ‘I mean just to keep things interesting …’
‘What business is it of yours?’ Blue-blazer brusquely interjects.
‘So here’s the deal.’ Ransom’s suddenly businesslike. ‘I’ll quadruple whatever’s currently in the pot if Pygmy-boy there hasn’t got a stick of Touche Eclat tucked into his blazer pocket which he nicked out of his secretary’s handbag after last night’s obligatory, conference bunk-up …’
‘Touche Eclat?’ Artily-bespectacled’s completely at a loss.
‘Pale make-up: foundation or powder or concealer,’ Ransom expands, ‘something to simulate bird mess, basically, which he smeared over the jacket, on the sly, when he realized he was losing, so that he could disappear into the toilets and make contact with a chess helpline on his BlackBerry …’
‘A chess helpline?!’ Blue-blazer expostulates, agog. ‘Are you perfectly insane?!’
‘The chalk was missing from the blackboard in the pool room this morning,’ the golfing father helpfully interjects. ‘I reported it to reception myself.’
‘Chalk! A stub of chalk! The man’s a genius!’ Ransom emits an ecstatic whoop, shoves his phone into his pocket and makes a sudden beeline for Blue-blazer across the board. Father and son (after a tiny pause) join in the chase, approaching Blue-blazer – in a pincer movement – from the other side.
‘But I don’t …’ Artily-bespectacled is still mystified. Blue-blazer, meanwhile, has grabbed hold of a white knight to protect himself. Ransom scoops up a black queen.
‘Checkmate!’ he hollers. ‘Game over! Throw down the jacket, my little friend, or suffer the consequences!’
‘This is assault!’ Blue-blazer hollers, as the child grabs at his jacket and attempts to run off with it. ‘This is an utterly unprovoked assault! Del Renzio! Call Security!’
He batters clumsily at the child with the white knight and knocks him, backwards, into the small, privet hedge that has been planted a couple of yards beyond the board’s outer perimeter. The top of the hedge has been cut to simulate the effect of castle battlements.
‘Those chess pieces are custom made!’ Artily-bespectacled runs towards them, horrified. ‘They’re individually crafted pieces of fibreglass. Each one costs in excess of seven hundred and eighty pounds …’
The child lands at an ungainly angle, still clutching on to the blazer, his right arm twisted beneath his torso. His initial delight at having wrested the blazer away from his adversary is quickly overtaken by the cruel realization that all is not well with him, physically. He tries – and fails – to clamber to his feet again, inhales sharply, then starts to wail.
‘What’s wrong?’ his father demands.
‘My arm!’ the boy keens, pawing at his shoulder, his cheeks flooding with tears. ‘I can’t lift my arm! I can’t move my fingers!’
‘D’you have any idea what you’ve done?!’ The father rounds on Blue-blazer, jabbing at his chest, furiously, with his index finger. ‘D’you have any idea who this is? This isn’t just some insignificant, little nobody! This is the Wolf! The Wolf, d’you hear me?! This is Britain’s number-one golfer in the under-twelve age range! The Leamington Echo called him “The Great White Hope of the British Game”!’
(As it so happens, the Wolf is actually ranked seventeenth in the UK under-twelve category.)
Ransom, meanwhile, has dropped the black queen, hurdled the hedge and is at the boy’s side in a matter of mere seconds. He pulls the jacket out from under him, rifles through one of the pockets and unearths a packet of Polo mints. The boy is still clutching at his shoulder and whimpering as the father snatches the white knight from Blue-blazer’s tight embrace and whacks him across the side of the head with it.
In the brief hiatus that follows (during which he has helped himself to a Polo mint and proffered one to the wailing child), Ransom is quickly able to assess the full extent of the boy’s injuries. He promptly lifts him to his knees, positions himself to the rear, wraps his arms around his shoulder and chest, grips him firmly, tells him to take a deep breath, and then makes a sudden, sharp movement (which is followed by a small – yet deeply satisfying – clicking sound). He then releases the child.
‘How’s that feel?’
The boy sits quietly for a second, shell-shocked.
<
br /> ‘How’s that feel?’ the dad echoes, dropping the white knight and hurdling the hedge himself.
‘Disconnected his collar bone,’ Ransom explains, proffering him a Polo mint (which is cordially refused), then delving back into the blazer’s pockets again. ‘There’ll probably be a small amount of bruising. Just keep it rested for a day or so and he’ll be right as rain.’
The boy has lifted his arm and is moving his fingers, gingerly, as the father watches on, in awe.
‘You’re a Godsend,’ he murmurs. ‘A genius!’
The Wolf (in accordance with his father’s stupefied assessment of the situation) scrambles to his feet and commences an ear-splitting howl of victory (the howl is his trademark, his bugle call).
‘How the hell do I go about thanking you?’ the father demands, turning to Ransom, his eyes tearing up.
‘Uh … I dunno …’ Ransom winces (slightly unnerved by the baying child). He considers his response for a pico-second. ‘A nice letter to the Official Website, maybe …?’ He shrugs. ‘A phone call to the local press …? I mean, whatever you feel comfortable with …’
As he speaks his attention is momentarily distracted by a second, mystery object in the blazer’s pocket. He withdraws his hand and blinks down at it, quizzically. It is a small tube of a popular brand of spermicidal cream.
‘Wow,’ Ransom shakes his head as he inspects it, perfectly astonished. ‘I thought you could only get this stuff as a foam – in those tiny, pump-action aerosols … Man!’ he cackles. ‘Are they seriously still manufacturing this shit in tubes? That’s brilliant! It’s hilarious!’ He rocks back on his heels. ‘Jesus, Joseph and Mary, I love this country! It’s so friggin’ old school!’
The Yips Page 17