The Amateurs

by John Niven

  ‘Are you OK?’ Stevie asked, the golf bag over one shoulder, their player registration forms in his free hand.

  ‘Aye, fine.’

  Up the stone steps and into the polished wood and thick carpeting of the clubhouse lobby. Stevie strode towards the registration desk set up at the end of the long lobby, Gary following behind, his gaze flickering around, catching faces, faces he knew well.

  There was Torsten Lathe (fucking Nazi wank baws) talking to Kevin McKerrick (ooh ya dirty Fenian prick ye).

  It felt like his head was buckling under the nerves and stress, his interior monologue becoming a blur of obscenities, every one horribly shaped to fit with whatever he looked at. He bit his lip and tried to keep his head down. Just keep following Stevie. But he couldn’t help it. He glanced to his right–Bent Hendricks (fanny fuck poofy name fuck) explaining something to commentator Rowland Daventry (FuckEnglishtitscunt). Gary began to twitch and had to clamp a hand over his mouth to stifle a yelp. He looked around to see if anyone had noticed and there was Montgomery Hymen (fuckingbignoseJewFUCK) laughing at something James Honeydew III (wankYankwank) was saying.

  Stevie handed Gary’s registration documents over to a smiling middle-aged lady. ‘Ah yes,’ she said, handing over a form. ‘Could you fill this in please, Mr Irvine?’

  ‘Ah, aye…f—’ He was flushed, sweating. Stevie looked at him.

  ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’

  ‘Yeah, just…hot.’ Gary glanced to his left. The world number seven, the black American player Cyrus Cheeks–six and a half feet tall and bald as a schemie’s tyre–was checking in next to him. He looked down at Gary and smiled.

  That did it.

  ‘OWW!’ Gary yelped. The woman behind the desk jumped a little and everyone looked at him.

  Oh shit, Stevie thought.

  ‘Are you OK, fella?’ Cheeks asked.

  ‘Fuckingprick,’ Gary said in a thick, rapid accent. ‘Fucking golfprick.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ Cheeks said, still smiling uncertainly.

  ‘Sorry,’ Stevie said, turning Gary away from him, ‘he’s just excited. Can,’ Stevie said to the woman behind the desk, ‘can we just–’

  ‘Big tits,’ Gary said.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ the woman said.

  ‘Sorry! Fucking big-titted hoor jugs spunk FUCK!’

  The woman gasped, everyone in the place looking at them now. Cheeks leaned in towards them. ‘Hey, what’s the problem here?’

  Gary turned to face Cheeks, a man whose game he’d admired for years, and said, ‘Fucking massive darkie ye!’ ‘Darkie’ pronounced ‘Dorr-kay’ in the full Ayrshire manner and incomprehensible to Cheeks’ ears. ‘Sorry! Shit! Fucking Malteser-heeded cunt. FUCK! Grrrrrrr!’

  ‘What’d he say?’ Cheeks asked Stevie.

  ‘YA FUCKING BLACK B—’ Gary began.

  Before he could finish the sentence Stevie booted Gary in the balls as hard as he possibly could and he went down growling in agony in front of everyone in the clubhouse lobby.

  ‘Sorry about that, folks,’ Stevie said, helping Gary to his feet and towards the door. He turned back to the woman on the desk, her jaw lolling on the table among her passes, badges and forms. ‘Thanks for your help. We’ll come back and sort it out later.’

  The woman watched them go. She recovered her composure and reached for her telephone.

  After Pauline moved in with Katrina, in recognition of the fact that their relationship–while still secret–was moving onto a new level, Masterson gave her the loveliest thing he had ever given her, a beautiful artefact that made Pauline’s heart leap in her chest: a new credit card. Gary’s calls went unanswered on her new mobile (ice blue, slim as her new credit card) and his messages unchecked. When he did cross her mind over those first few days it was in the form of an abstract problem she had yet to fully solve.

  As often as he could manage it, Masterson would come over to visit her, arriving after dark and parking a little way along the street. (And Ben’s reaction to the first time he observed Masterson defiling Pauline was a super-fury of such ferocity–his snapping jaws inches from Masterson’s pale buttocks–that Pauline realised Ben may have loved Gary all along.)

  ‘Do we have to live here?’ Pauline asked him in bed one night. ‘I thought we could maybe move somewhere a bit more…cosmopolitan.’

  The thought of living anywhere other than Ardgirvan had never crossed Masterson’s mind. Where else was there?

  ‘What, like…Ayr?’ he said cautiously.

  ‘I was thinking maybe Glasgow?’

  ‘Glasgow?’ he repeated, managing to make it sound like ‘Uzbekistan’.

  ‘Yeah. There’s some beautiful new houses being built on the South Side, near Shawlands? Private development. Katrina and I had a wee nosy in the estate agent’s the other day.’

  ‘Aye, well. Let’s think about it, eh?’

  ‘I’ll get them to send the house details for us to have a look at. Maybe we–’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Pauline! Like I’ve no got enough on my plate the now?’

  Silence. The same silence that always arose whenever the subject of Leanne swam near the surface of the conversation. Pauline had not asked exactly what Masterson had decided to do in connection with Leanne, but she knew they weren’t getting a divorce.

  In the mind of the sociopath, subjects like this are dropped into a box labelled ‘UNPLEASANT’. The box itself is then firmly sealed and tucked away in a distant corner of the vast, dark, spider-filled warehouse of the unconscious. The conscious mind is then furnished with a pretty confection that is presented to the world as ‘truth’, this ‘truth’ gradually becoming reality in the mind of the sociopath. In Pauline’s case this process was already quite far along.

  Leanne really was going to have some kind of ‘accident’.

  ‘Sorry,’ Pauline said. ‘I was just trying to think about our new life together.’

  ‘Aye, ah’m sorry too. Ah didnae mean to snap at ye, hen,’ he said, pulling her naked body closer to him in the warm bed.

  33

  BORN FROM THE SOCIETY OF ST ANDREWS GOLFERS AND awarded royal status in 1834 by King William IV himself, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews is the historic and venerable body responsible for overseeing the rules and etiquette surrounding the sport. In its long and distinguished history the R&A has grappled with issues as varied and intricate as the acceptable dimensions of golf balls, the appropriate dress code for players, and the notion of exactly what constitutes excessively slow play on the course. It had never had to deal with an issue like the one now before R&A Chairman Jeremy Park and his four-man disciplinary committee in the small conference room at Royal Troon.

  Stevie and Gary sat before the committee like schoolboys in front of the headmaster, Gary twisting his visor in his hands.

  Did players swear and indulge in violent displays of temper during competition play? Yes, of course they did. The miscreants were fined and admonished, but such outbursts were regarded as a necessary by-product of a sport that could turn a man from a striding god into a salivating mental patient in the 1.4 seconds it took to swing a golf club. But, a player swearing at an official in the clubhouse? Making lewd and unsavoury sexual comments towards her? Insulting other competitors, making racist comments, and then being physically assaulted by their own caddie? Park had never heard the like.

  ‘I’ve never heard the like,’ he said, turning left and right to look at his fellow committee members. ‘And you claim this is a medical condition? Something called…Tourette’s syndrome?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Park. Sir.’ Gary couldn’t look him in the eye. ‘I, when it happens, I don’t even know that I’m doing it. Fffff—’ With great effort he stopped himself.

  ‘Extraordinary,’ one of the other committee members said. Stevie looked along the line of blazers, ties and grey faces.

  ‘And what,’ one of them asked, ‘are we to make of this?’ He held up a copy of the sports section of that morning’s Daily
Standard: a photo of Gary, raising his club after finishing his round at Musselburgh. Above the photograph the headline screamed: ‘HOLE IN WAN-KER!’

  He tossed the paper across to them. April had been thorough; the accident, the Tourette’s, the Kluver-Bucy, the eighteenth green at Ravenscroft. ‘Your pal, the tabloid journalist,’ Stevie said as Gary looked at the little photo of April at the top of the page.

  ‘We’re very sorry for your…afflictions,’ Park said, leaning forward and clasping his hands together, ‘but we have to think about the risk of an outburst of this sort damaging the reputation of the Open. We have to think of your playing partners too. How might they be affected if, during their backswing, you decided to shout something like–what did you say to Mrs Porter?’ Park picked up a sheet of paper, squinted at it and swallowed as he read the words ‘big-titted whore jugs spunk fuck’. ‘Yes, I’m afraid we have no option but to disqualify you. I’m really very sorry.’

  Gary burst into tears.

  Park and the disciplinary committee looked on astonished as he fell to his knees, wringing his hands, the words coming out in gasps between the sobs: ‘OH GOD! Oh p-please…l-let me…p-play!’

  ‘On what grounds are you disqualifying him?’ Stevie said loudly enough to be heard over the sobbing, looking directly at Park, ignoring Gary.

  ‘On the grounds that he might disrupt the competition,’ Park replied.

  ‘Might?’ Stevie said.

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘I don’t believe it’s legal to punish someone because of what they “might” do. If that was the case half the bloody country would be locked up.’

  ‘Legal?’ someone said.

  ‘Also, and correct me if I’m wrong,’ Stevie continued, ‘but didn’t Drew Keel “disrupt the competition” when he smashed a driver in half at Hoylake three years ago? Didn’t Calvin Linklater “disrupt the competition” when he told a spectator he was going to “break his fucking nose” for trying to take a photo during his backswing last year? Didn’t–’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Park said impatiently, ‘but these were all one-off incidents. Completely unforeseeable. In this case there’s medical…evidence that–’

  ‘There’s what?’

  ‘Medical evidence.’

  ‘Tourette’s syndrome is not “medical evidence” of anything. It’s a handicap. The kind of handicap recognised by the British Medical Association.’ Stevie let this sink in for a moment before continuing. ‘There’s a load of journalists from all the Scottish papers out there.’ Stevie jerked a thumb in the direction of the outside world. ‘How do you think they’d like a story about the R&A disqualifying a local boy–someone from just along the road who’s made it all the way through the qualifying process–just because he suffers from a recognised disability?’

  ‘We…’ Park began and then stopped.

  On the floor Gary had stopped crying. He dried his eyes with his sleeve, looking up at them like a wretched, beaten animal.

  ‘Now,’ Stevie crossed his legs and continued in the same even tone, ‘if you want to take away a young man’s lifelong dream, if you want to tarnish the whole idea of what the “Open” championship is supposed to be about, then go ahead and disqualify him before he’s even hit a ball. But make no mistake, my friends–you will be entering a shitstorm of negative press like you wouldn’t believe. You’ll think that a front-page story implying you’re all kiddie fiddlers is a positive development.’

  Park exhaled a long breath through his teeth. He tapped his pen on his notepad. He turned to the man on his left and they whispered. He turned to the man on his right and they whispered. He cleared his throat and looked down at Gary, still hunched on the floor.

  ‘One further incident of this nature…’ Park began.

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ Stevie said, extending a hand to help Gary up from the carpet and leading him off towards the door, looking very much like a circus entertainer leading a shambling chimp by the hand. The door closed behind them.

  ‘Extraordinary,’ the man on Park’s right said.

  ‘Make sure he’s off the tee very early for the first two rounds,’ Park said. ‘Before the TV coverage really starts.’

  ‘And then?’ another man said.

  ‘Come on,’ Park said, ‘the chances of him making the cut are about a thousand to one.’

  34

  APRIL SCANNED THE BUSY TENT–AGENTS, PRS, PLAYERS and managers all bustling in and out of various suites, glad-handing a combination of journalists, sponsors, TV producers and the like. All strictly B-list, however; the brief appearance of Cyrus Cheeks had aroused the only real flicker of interest in the media centre all morning.

  In years gone by the days running up to the opening Thursday of the competition used to be a quiet time for the players: practice rounds in the morning, a little tweaking on the range in the afternoon, dinner and maybe a few drinks with some buddies in the evening, the only real interruption being the traditional pro-am match on the Wednesday. Nowadays, for the top players, there were demands being made upon their time almost every minute of the day: photo opportunities, face time with sponsors and advertisers, people like April clamouring for interviews.

  ‘Hi, doll.’ April turned. Donald Lawson, Senior Sports Reporter, Daily Standard, stood beaming down at her. All twenty-two stones of him. He had a brimming glass of red wine in one hand and a plateful of sausage rolls in the other.

  ‘Oh. Hi, Donald.’

  ‘I heard you were coming down.’ Lawson smiled. ‘Got a wee human interest story on the go, have we?’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘Language, dear. No, I think it’s nice. Ah’ll catch ye in the bar later, eh? Ah’ve a wee interview with your man Drew Keel to get out the way first.’

  ‘Watch you don’t eat him by mistake,’ April said, nodding towards the greasy fistful of sausage rolls before turning and walking out of the media tent, trying to look purposeful, as though she really did have somewhere to go. What now though? Maybe swing by the practice range and see if there was anyone interesting about. She turned round and someone walked straight into her. ‘Hey! Why don’t you–oh.’

  ‘Fuck,’ Gary said.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Thanks–cunt. Sorry!–Thanks a bunch.’

  ‘Listen, Gary, it’s–’

  ‘Yeah, really lovely profile of me. Great. Fannies. Hoor ye. Cheers.’

  ‘Listen, it’s just–’

  ‘I should have listened to Stevie. Fat cunt. Ooh ya fat cunt ye,’ Gary said, walking off now, jaw twitching.

  ‘Hang on, wait!’ April fell into step beside him. ‘Look, I’m sorry, OK? It’s just the job. It’s how you sell papers.’

  ‘Hole in Wanker?’

  April bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry, OK? Look, no one remembers these things–’

  ‘I fucking will!’

  ‘Stop, hang on. Please, Gary.’ April put a hand on his arm and they stood off to the side of the metal walkway they’d been clanking along, people passing by them in all directions. ‘I hate to say it but you just weren’t enough of a story otherwise. Fucking Donald’s covering the tournament itself and I…I wanted to get a piece in too. If you do well enough I might get a chance to write something else about you. Something better.’

  ‘Better than “foul-mouthed compulsive masturbator”?’

  ‘Umm…’ She smiled naughtily. God, she had a nice smile, Gary thought. ‘Sorry about that. Got away from me a wee bit.’ There was a pause, both of them shuffling awkwardly on the sandy grass. ‘Where are you off to now?’ April asked.

  ‘Back to the clubhouse for a shower. Slut. Dirty slut tits. Sorry. Been on the range for a while.’

  April nodded and they stood in silence for a moment.

  ‘Look, I could lie to you,’ she said. ‘Tell you some crap about how the subs rewrote the piece behind my back. But I wrote it. I…I’m just trying to get my foot in the door.’

  Suddenly she looked very young and vulnerable.

&nb
sp; ‘Well, I suppose it’ll be–fuck–“lining the budgie cages tomorrow” as my mum says.’

  She looked up at him, squinting into the sun, shielding her eyes with her hand, and said, ‘Do you fancy coming for walk on the beach?’

  Gary thought. ‘Off the record?’ he asked.

  ‘Off the record.’

  It was a fine july morning, the Irish Sea still, green and glittering under a huge sun. April stopped for a moment and grabbed Gary’s arm, steadying herself as she slipped off her shoes. Gary looked around, inhaling fresh sea air, conscious of her grip around his elbow, strangely calming to him, the need to yelp and bark and curse fading. ‘Ah, that’s better,’ she said, continuing barefoot through the warm sand, gulls crying overhead and a ferry silhouetted on the blue horizon, edging its way back from Arran.

  ‘You come from around here, don’t you?’ April said, remembering.

  ‘You see those?’ Gary said, pointing. April followed his forefinger north along the shoreline to where, a few miles away, four squat tower blocks stood darkly against the sky.

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘That’s what we call the “high flats”. I live not too far from them. You see this pipe just up here?’ He pointed again, to where a black iron pipe, the iron stained and pitted orange with rust, ran across the beach and into the sea. ‘That’s the shite pipe. You don’t swim near that. When we were little there was a basking shark–massive thing–washed up on the beach here. Dead. It was there for weeks. Everyone said it had swum too close to the shite pipe and died from inhaling the toxic jobbies of all the bams from Ardgirvan.’

  April laughed.

  ‘Who’s we?’ she asked, one hand behind her back, loosely holding her shoes.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You said “when we were little”?’

  ‘Oh. Well, me and my brother I suppose I meant.’

  ‘Older or younger?’