The Amateurs

by John Niven

  ‘Five?’ Stevie said.

  ‘Spunk. Six. Spunk ya slut.’

  Intae this wind? Stevie thought. But what was the point in arguing now? Let him hit what he wanted. Stevie pulled the six-iron from the bag and said, ‘Give it a good skelp…’

  ‘Fucking cock.’

  Gary sighted towards the green, the wind blowing a little from right to left, the pin back left of the green. Keep it right of the flagstick. In line with the clock above the entrance to the clubhouse.

  He settled the clubhead behind the ball.

  Stevie closed his eyes.

  Bert looked at the ground.

  ‘Come on, son, stick it close,’ Ranta whispered, praying that a birdie and two over might just be good enough.

  Cathy looked up to the sky and whispered, ‘Come on, you.’

  April was surprised at how much she wanted him to hit a good shot. Surprised at how she felt a little depressed when she allowed her mind to follow the logical chain of events that would be caused by him hitting a bad shot: he misses the cut and goes home and she never sees him again.

  A long moment passed before Gary swung the club, whipping through the ball fast and hard, picking it cleanly off the fairway. He pivoted through the shot and came up watching the ball disappear into the sky above the clubhouse.

  ‘Slut,’ he said instantly.

  ‘Ye caught that,’ Stevie said.

  In the crowd, in unison, Auld Bert and Robertson both murmured, ‘Gowf shot.’

  They lost sight of the ball for a second. Then a cheer went up from the grandstands as it landed at the front of the green, right in line with the clock, dead centre where Gary had been aiming. It bounced left and disappeared from sight into the heart of the green.

  ‘It’s good…’ Stevie said.

  The cheer from the grandstands was still growing, twisting into a kind of ‘oooohhh’.

  ‘Fud?’ Gary said.

  The oooohhh reached a crescendo and then exploded into a roar as everyone in the grandstands leapt to their feet as one, the clapping and whistling carrying down towards them on the breeze.

  ‘Flaps?’ Gary said, numb and confused, his skull boiling.

  Stevie turned to him. ‘I think you’ve…’

  Now everyone–from the people in the grandstands to the spectators all the way along the ropes–was going berserk. The tickling sensation in his skull erupting now as Gary’s eyeballs flipped upwards in their sockets.

  ‘Urrr,’ he said, as his vision dimmed.

  ‘Hey!’ Stevie said, reaching out for him as he went over, clattering into the golf bag on his way down onto the hard, baked turf.

  43

  HIS DAD WAS ON THE VERANDA AT AUGUSTA NATIONAL, IN the shade, just out of the hot sun. In front of him on the table was a bottle of the Grouse that was famous, an ice bucket, two cans of Sprite, two glasses and a pack of Regal. He was wearing the hat he always wore when he played in hot weather, an old-school Bing Crosby-style trilby in a lightweight blue-and-white-striped fabric, with faint brownish rings visible where his sweat had soaked through. The hat was tilted back at a rakish angle and Gary smiled as he watched his dad mixing himself a whisky and lemonade and thought to himself: After you died I used to stuff my face into that hat so I could still smell you.

  But he wasn’t dead. Here he was: fresh as the morning and very pleased with himself, laughing like a blocked drain as he torched another Regal.

  ‘Aye, by Christ, you should have seen his face! He’s four feet fae the hole–dead set for a birdie–ah’m aff the bloody green. Ye wouldnae believe it–ah chip in and he misses the putt! He whiffs it and leaves it short! Ah thought Snead was gauny explode so ah did.’

  Gary laughed. ‘So you won?’

  ‘Aye, three and two. The boys are up at the bar,’ his dad said, sipping the whisky. ‘By the way, son, that was some shot there. Had to have been two hunner yards.’

  ‘You saw that?’

  ‘Oh aye. Ah see all your shots. Ah see it when ye improve yer lie in the rough, when ye ground the club in the bunker. Everything.’

  Gary felt his face going red. ‘I don’t–’

  ‘Hey, come on. Don’t kid a kidder.’

  Gary thought he could smell a reeking sulphurous stench. He eyed his father–a man who had, on more than one occasion, found humour in farting in the faces of his wife and children–with suspicion, but the old boy was still talking. ‘It’s funny, ye’d think it would be more helpful to think of the dead when ye were about to do something that wouldn’t make them proud, eh? Then they could act as a moral corrective. So tae speak.’

  How strange to be sitting here talking philosophy with his father, an electrician by trade.

  ‘What could I do that wouldn’t make you proud?’

  His dad shook his head. ‘You’re that self-centred sometimes,’ he said. ‘What makes you think ah’m talking about you?’

  Lee. Where had Lee got that money?

  ‘He’s no a bad boy really,’ his dad said. ‘He’s just had a bad run. Anyway,’ he started gathering up his cigarettes, his scorecard and pencil, ‘I’m away tae play the puggys. We won eighty dollars the other night. Two bells on the left and we nudged the other two up!’

  Gary got up and went to follow him through the open doors and into the dark of the clubhouse, where a throng of golfers stood laughing and joking at the bar. Sam Snead was talking to Harry Vardon. Payne Stewart was demonstrating a putting stroke to a baffled Walter Hagen.

  ‘Sorry, son,’ his dad said, putting a hand on Gary’s shoulder. ‘Members only in the clubhouse, ye know that.’

  He did know that. He could already feel everything starting to whirl and blur around him as the terrible stench grew stronger, blocking out the pine, magnolia and dogwood.

  ‘Pauline left me, Dad.’

  ‘Oh aye?’ his dad said fairly cheerfully.

  ‘You never liked Pauline?’

  ‘Well, ah wis never that keen, son. Ah huv tae say.’

  ‘Why didn’t you–’

  ‘Ach, come on now. Giving advice about relationships is like giving advice about club selection. People always end up going with their gut feeling anyway. There’s no caddies in love…’

  As his father said this the smell of pure sulphur hit Gary hard.

  Robertson pulled the bottle of smelling salts back from Gary’s nose as he sat up coughing and blinking. He was in a tent of some kind, with faces all around him: his mum, Stevie, Dr Robertson, two uniformed St John’s ambulancemen, April.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked

  ‘You holed it,’ Stevie said.

  ‘You made the cut,’ April said. She was smiling.

  44

  PAULINE WALKED THROUGH THE BIG, EMPTY ROOMS alone, her heels echoing on the hardwood floor, the stifling heat pressing in on her. She could hear the estate agent talking on her mobile somewhere far away in the house, but the sound was pleasantly distant, reminding her just how large this place was, how many rooms it contained, how much fun she was going to have filling these rooms with nice new things.

  She was in the master bedroom, a space that could contain her and Gary’s bedroom three times over. Super-kingsize bed there, she was thinking. Maybe some bookshelves in that alcove in the corner? (Although they would have to get some books first.) An archway led off the bedroom to the en suite bathroom with matching his and hers sinks. Pauline had wanted an en suite bathroom with twin sinks so badly for so long that it almost made her tearful to think that here she was–on the verge of having one.

  She walked over to the big bay window and looked outside. There were eleven other homes in the development, all slightly different variations on what the agent called ‘classical’ architecture: sand-coloured stone with grey slate roofs, two-car garages and conservatories.

  Directly below where Pauline stood, French windows led from the living room out into the garden. It was over a hundred yards long, with a raised decking area off to one side. She pictured them having garden
parties. Barbecues. Beyond the tall wooden fence at the end of the garden was woodland, the edges of the country park, with Glasgow to the north, somewhere in the distance.

  Pauline heard heels clacking towards the room and turned as Mrs McMahon from Bowles, Kinney & Ross entered.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ she said, indicating her mobile, ‘crazy at the office just now.’ McMahon was older than Pauline, late thirties, and well groomed. ‘Fabulous garden,’ McMahon said, joining Pauline at the window. ‘Perfect for children…’

  ‘Mmm,’ Pauline said.

  Right, McMahon thought, quickly adding, ‘…or for entertaining.’

  ‘I know. I was just thinking that.’

  ‘Well, if you’re definitely interested, I wouldn’t hang about, Pauline. It’s the last house left and I’ve got three more viewings lined up this weekend. I don’t think it’ll be on the market much longer.’

  ‘I just need to talk to my…boyfriend tonight. I’m pretty sure we’ll be making an offer.’

  Just as she climbed back into her stupid jeep–hopefully soon to be another relic of her past life–her mobile rang. Findlay. Perfect.

  ‘Hi, darling. Listen, I’ve just been to look at the house again. And–’

  Masterson talked. Pauline listened.

  ‘What?’ she cut in. ‘I thought you said–’ She listened some more. ‘But the estate agent was just saying–’ He cut her off again. ‘But we might lose the house! Don’t shout at me! Look, I, we’ll talk about it when I get back.’

  Pauline drove back to Ardgirvan fast and aggressively, at one point seeing the road through a smear of angry tears. He’d said it was all going to be fine. If they lost the bloody house because…She flipped the radio on and, punching through the presets, caught a snatch of an oddly familiar voice. Frowning, she punched back until she found it again. It was Radio Ayrshire, the local station she listened to mainly for the traffic reports. She turned the volume up. ‘I don’t know really,’ the voice was saying, ‘just try and go out and do the same again tomorrow, I suppose. Try not to think about it too much…’

  ‘Great, well, good luck tomorrow,’ the interviewer said.

  ‘Aye, er, cheers. No bother.’

  ‘Ardgirvan golfer Gary Irvine,’ the studio announcer’s voice said, causing Pauline to swerve towards the right-hand lane of the dual carriageway, causing the driver of the car passing her to scrunch his horn angrily, ‘who fainted on the eighteenth fairway at Royal Troon earlier this afternoon after becoming the only amateur player to make the cut at this year’s Open Championship.’

  ‘But he sounds fine now,’ a female voice cut in.

  ‘He does, Joan, he does. Now, tell us what’s going on with the weather. Are we in for much more of this heat?’

  ‘We certainly are, Tom, we certainly are…’

  DAY THREE OF THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

  45

  SATURDAY MORNING: THE TEMPERATURE RISING AND the crowds escalating for the weekend.

  Gary and Stevie made their way from the locker room to the first tee–stunned by the change in the process from the previous two days. Where before there had been a handful of friends and family along with the odd knot of curious golf fans lining the path, now there were hundreds of people pressing against the ropes, clapping and cheering. Some of them seemed to know his name. ‘Go on, Gary!’ a middle-aged woman shrieked and Gary sheepishly tugged his visor in recognition, something he’d seen some of the professionals doing on TV.

  When they came round the corner of the clubhouse building the enormity of what was happening really became apparent: the first tee was engulfed by a heaving mass of spectators. Those who couldn’t get near the tee box were lining the first hundred yards of the fairway. Cardboard periscopes wavered above the bobbing heads. ‘Holy shit,’ he whispered to Stevie out of the corner of his mouth.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Stevie said. ‘Be cool.’

  They walked up onto the tee box–seeing his mum, April and the rest pressed against the ropes (where was Lee? He might at least have…)–and shook hands with the starter and the R&A official who would be following the match. ‘Listen, son,’ the starter said, leaning in close to Gary’s ear and having to raise his voice over the hubbub. ‘You just enjoy yourself out there today. You’ve done a hell of a job just getting this far. Remember that.’

  ‘Aye, thanks,’ Gary said.

  April jockeyed for position near the ropes behind the tee. After yesterday’s miraculous shot her second story about Gary had run in the main paper this morning–not the sports section. If he managed to hang in there near the top until tomorrow she was–as she’d patiently reminded Devlin and McIntyre on the phone last night–sitting on a huge story.

  Suddenly, all around them, a massive cheer erupted from the crowd. Gary and Stevie turned and looked back along the path, where a sea of hands was now stretching out, fingers waving, desperately trying for high fives. The ground didn’t begin to shake, but it might as well have, as Drew Keel heaved into sight. Drew Keel; the third best golfer in the world, three-time major championship winner, one of the longest hitters on the PGA tour, walking right towards them, pausing here and there to high-five a well-wisher, laughing and joking with the galleries. Keel–a man Gary had only ever seen on television prior to this moment–walking up the steps and onto the tee now, his hand extended towards Gary and a big lopsided grin on his face. Drew Keel saying, ‘Hi there. I’m Drew.’

  In the commentary booth Rowland Daventry was frantically scanning a sheaf of papers he’d just been handed by an assistant as Reynolds squawked in his earpiece. ‘Rowland? Rowland! On air in five, four–’

  ‘Yes, I know! Fuck!’ Daventry snapped.

  ‘–two and–’

  ‘And over to the first tee now,’ Daventry purred smoothly. ‘A very interesting pairing this, the world number three alongside Gary Irvine, the only amateur player to make the cut this year. And what a spectacular fashion he did it in, eh, Bob?’

  ‘Indeed,’ Torrent said.

  On television the screen cut to a replay of Gary’s last shot the previous day, the perfectly struck five-iron drifting towards the hole.

  ‘…eagling the eighteenth from two hundred yards.’

  ‘And then promptly fainting!’ Torrent cut in.

  ‘Yes, poor lad,’ Daventry continued as, on television screens all across the country, a shot of Gary’s face, biting his top lip in concentration, filled the screen. ‘A combination of the heat and the excitement we’ve been told. However, we’ve since found out a little more about Mr Irvine. Extraordinary story, which I’m sure some of you will have been reading about in this morning’s papers…’

  Pauline was doing her make-up when Katrina rushed into the bedroom. ‘Come and see this,’ she said, excited. Pauline followed her into the living room, Ben snorting and snuffling at her heels. ‘I was flicking through the channels when…’ She pointed to the TV: Gary’s face, biting his lip in that stupid, goofy way he did when he was concentrating, while Torrent picked up the story. ‘He got his handicap cut from around eighteen down to scratch in the space of a couple of months, which I think is a record in itself.’ Ben looked at the TV screen and began emitting a low growl.

  ‘I should think so,’ Daventry said. ‘How long did it take you, Bob?’

  ‘Oh, a good bit longer than that! Every year thousands of amateurs compete for just twelve spots.’

  ‘Yes. Many are called. Few are chosen,’ Daventry said solemnly. The banter went on as Pauline and Katrina sat down to watch.

  ‘Well, he made it through and here he is now–playing with Mr Drew Keel.’

  ‘And a question here via email from a Mrs Agnes Kincaid in Dumbarton,’ Daventry continued as Gary pushed his tee peg into the ground, ‘who asks “What would happen if Mr Irvine found himself in the prize money and he took it?” Well, Agnes, he would of course lose his amateur status and immediately become a professional sportsman. He’d be unable to play in any amateur competitions again. Although,
I have to say, if you were a betting man, you’d be a little nervous of sticking your money on him, wouldn’t you, Bob? There hasn’t been an amateur winner of the Open since the late, great Bobby Jones won at Royal Liverpool back in the glorious summer of 1930.’

  ‘You’ll remember that, Rowland,’ Torrent said.

  In the booth Daventry stuck two fingers up at Torrent while he said, ‘Oh yes. Great days.’

  Pauline watched the man she already thought of as her ex-husband stand behind his ball and sight down the gun barrel of his extended driver. She felt a curious mixture of emotions: the electric tingle of seeing someone she knew intimately on the television; resentment that, despite the fact that she had no discernible talent, it was Gary and not her who was appearing on TV; and also, and unexpected this, there was a curious rush at seeing the surname which was still hers standing out in white-on-blue lettering in the top right-hand corner of the screen.

  ‘God, doesn’t he look fat?’ Katrina said while, from the television, there came the swish and crack of the driver as Gary hit his first shot of the day.

  ‘The camera adds ten pounds,’ Pauline said. She’d read that somewhere. In one of her magazines. Ben barked twice sharply as on-screen Gary’s match walked off the tee and headed down the fairway.

  Lee had endured worse nights, but not many. His first night in Saughton had been worse; on his back on the hard bunk in the cold cell, listening to that guy wanking three feet above him, listening to the prison making its prison sounds all around him–pipes clanking, metal gates rattling, distant footsteps on concrete floors, humming machinery. (Prisons, Lee learned, are like hospitals and hotels: insomniac buildings, never silent, never completely asleep.)

  But this night, spent handcuffed to a radiator, lying on an oil-stained cement floor with his arms twisted over to the side and his back against the damp breeze-block wall and his jaw aching from the oily rag they’d stuffed in it, this was definitely up there. He could just about move his tongue around the rag, enough for him to probe the tip of it into one of the ragged, salty holes in his bottom gum where two of his molars were missing. One of the small mercies of the rag was that he couldn’t run his tongue across the gap where his front teeth used to be; they’d splintered when they’d thrown him headlong and face down onto the floor as they’d dragged him in here.