I should never have come out here.
I should have listened to her.
In my overwhelming desire to be proved right about a stupid story, I have placed myself in a truly awful position.
I’m out here, in the middle of nowhere, alone with the biggest bastard on the planet and his manservant, Hung, both of whom are looking at me expectantly. Hung contrives to also look a bit sick himself, though. This probably isn’t the first time he’s had to witness Benedict Montifore conducting his loathsome business practices on the ninth hole, and I doubt it will be the last.
For some reason I am instantly transported back to the courtyard outside The Blitzer at Thorn Manor. The same feelings of shame, stupidity, embarrassment and disbelief wash over me. The situation is entirely different, but the emotions are exactly the same. So are the overriding thoughts that crash through my brain like wrecking balls:
What the hell is wrong with me? Why did I do this to myself?
And what the bloody hell do I DO NOW??
‘So, what do you think, Ollie?’ Benedict asks, blowing yet another cloud of cigar smoke into the calm air.
I want to punch him. I want to kick him. I want to swear, scream and rage at him.
But that’s just not Oliver Sweet, is it?
He’s not a man who does well with confrontation. He’s not a man who knows how to vent his emotions. He’s not a man who knows how to stand up and be strong.
He is a man who will allow someone to rip the hair off his arsehole, though. He’s also a man who will squeeze his erect penis in front of a baby deer. He’s a man who will agree to wear a face mask during sex.
And above all, he’s a man who will let the woman of his dreams slip through his bloody fingers.
‘Can I think about it?’ I say in a trembling voice.
Benedict’s eyes narrow and his lips turn themselves into a cold white line. ‘Very well,’ he eventually says, with mild disgust. ‘Though . . . you shouldn’t think about it for too long, Oliver. I don’t make these offers very often, and when I do, I’m very careful about them. I can help the people who help me, Oliver.’ He leans a little closer. ‘And destroy those who don’t.’
Wow. He really is a gold-plated monster, isn’t he? I wonder if he’s friends with Donald Trump?
‘Okay. I won’t,’ I reply, hating myself with every fibre of my being.
Why don’t I just stand up to him? Why don’t I just tell him where to go?
Because he’ll make your life hell. Because he’ll take ‘Dumped Actually’ away from you.
Oh God.
He could do that.
I’m not sure he could actually straight out fire me here and now on this golf course – he’d have to go through Erica, and she’d never agree – but he could ruin everything anyway, though, I’m sure he could. He has the power to do that, without a doubt. Any man who owns a big enough stake in Condé Nast to hold sway with them would probably be able to destroy me if he wanted to, wouldn’t he? Benedict hasn’t actually said that I’d never work in this town again if I don’t do what he says, but he wasn’t far off it.
‘Let’s carry on with the game,’ he suggests, climbing back into the golf cart. ‘Perhaps while we’re on the back nine, you could think about my offer a little more, and give me an answer by the time we hit the eighteenth.’
I nod slowly, not trusting myself to speak.
As Benedict ferries us towards the next hole, I sit beside him, seething in a cauldron of mixed, negative emotions. I am colossally angry. At Benedict and, inexplicably, at Samantha. It’s a double-header of repressed rage that threatens to burst a blood vessel in my head.
I also feel stupid. Incredibly stupid. Stupid for coming here today, stupid for not listening to Erica and stupid for asking Samantha to marry me.
It’s quite shocking just how much bottled-up emotion I still have about the break-up. I thought I was moving on a bit. I thought my recent experiences, and the success of ‘Dumped Actually’, were helping me to get past Samantha – and yet here I am, reliving all of it like it was yesterday. All because I’ve just been asked to betray all of my principals and morals by a shark dressed in golfing clothes.
‘You’re up first on this hole, Oliver,’ Benedict tells me as we come to a halt.
I don’t answer him. I can’t trust myself to say anything right now.
I don’t want to play this stupid game any more, either. I hate golf. I thought I liked it when I came fourth in the pitch and putt, but now I am entirely sure that I will never step foot on to a golf course again after today, for as long as I live.
I snatch the driver out of my golf bag. I yank a tee and a ball from the front pocket. I see Hung looking at me from his perch on the back of the cart and I glower at him. This is completely unfair of me. None of this is his doing. But I glower at him all the same.
Walking over to the tenth hole, my grip is so tight on the club that my hands have gone white. I can feel my jaw clenching hard as I look down the narrow gap through the trees to the fairway beyond. I’ll have to hit this ball as straight as possible to avoid the thick row of pine trees that runs along either side of the teeing ground. But what’s even more important is that I’ll have to hit the ball as hard as possible.
Extremely hard.
That little pimpled bastard is about to experience all of the rage I cannot direct at Benedict – and certainly cannot direct at Samantha.
With hands still shaking with fury, I stab the tee into the ground and put the ball on to it. Benedict and Hung stand behind me, watching.
Yeah . . . you just watch. You just watch me hit this little white bastard five hundred yards.
As I swing the driver back, I actually emit a grunt of frustration, and as I propel it towards the ball with all of my strength, I let out a full-blown cry of rage that makes the birds rise from the surrounding trees.
The club hits the ball with almost Herculean might. It flies off the tee at supersonic speed.
Because I have sacrificed all technique for unrestrained anger, the swing I delivered was completely cack-handed and therefore the golf ball does not fly straight and true off the tee. Not even close.
Instead, it fires off to the right, straight at one of the thick pine trees that surround us.
It hits this at a vast rate of knots with a loud crack . . . and comes straight back at us.
Hung screams. I shriek. Benedict says nothing.
It’s a little hard to immediately express yourself when a golf ball has just hit you in the testicles at three hundred miles an hour.
He does let out a cry of pain as his hands go towards the most vulnerable part of his body. Then his legs sag, all the strength gone out of them.
Such is the shock and trauma of it all, Benedict loses complete control of his body, causing him to face-plant into the grass beneath his limp feet. This leaves him with his bottom pointing upwards, proud to the sky.
He then emits a high-pitched whine of agony and starts to twitch spasmodically.
I look at Hung. Hung looks at me. We both look down at Benedict.
‘Mr Montifore, are you alright, sir?’ Hung says.
He gets no reply.
‘Benedict? Can you hear us?’ I venture, getting much the same response.
Hung moves closer, and gently pokes Benedict on the rump. You’d think that this would get a reaction, but nope . . . absolutely nothing. Even the painful whine has ceased.
‘I think . . . I think he might be unconscious,’ I say in disbelief. It shouldn’t be possible to fall unconscious with your arse hanging in the air, but Benedict has somehow accomplished it.
‘He’s unconscious?’ Hung says, poking him again.
‘I’d say so.’
‘So, he doesn’t know what’s going on?’
‘No. I would say that he doesn’t.’
Hung gives me a look of such ferocity, I have to take a step back. If I have been holding on to a ball of repressed anger, then this man has apparently been holding on to an ent
ire planet of it.
Hung also takes a step back, sets himself . . . and then kicks Benedict Montifore so hard up the arse that I’m amazed his foot doesn’t appear from between the man’s perfectly white teeth.
‘Fuck you, you piece of shit!’ Hung screams.
For a second I don’t know what to do with myself. I’ve just witnessed an assault on an unconscious man. I really should be reporting it to someone.
Instead I roar with approval and throw up a high-five, which Hung slaps with aplomb, grace and the triumph of a man who’s just got his own back for the first time in many, many years.
Benedict makes a burbling noise, and does very little else.
‘I suppose we’d better call the doctors,’ Hung says regretfully, and goes over to the golf cart. There he pulls out a small corded telephone from somewhere under the dashboard.
I hold out a hand. ‘Maybe . . . Maybe just give it a few minutes,’ I suggest. ‘I don’t think he’s actually in any real danger. Look . . . he’s twitching a bit. I’m sure he’s fine.’ I look up into the crisp blue sky overhead. ‘Let’s just enjoy a few minutes’ peace.’
Hung smiles at me and deposits the phone back into its recess. I go over to where he’s now sat in the driver’s seat and plop myself down next to him.
‘We’re probably both going to get in trouble for this, you know,’ Hung tells me.
‘Most assuredly, I’d say.’
‘Totally worth it, though.’
‘Absolutely.’
‘I bloody hate golf.’
‘So do I.’
‘I think I might get a job in a bookshop. They seem nice and quiet.’
‘Yes. And there’s absolutely no chance of someone like him coming into it.’
Hung smiles beatifically. ‘Very true.’
We both lapse into silence and listen to the birds for a few moments. If we both smoked cigars, no doubt we would have raided Benedict’s supply by now.
After another minute or so, Benedict Montifore farts, and slowly topples over to one side. He hits the dirt, and this seems to bring him out of unconsciousness. ‘Wstfgl?’ he says, spitting out a clump of grass as he does so.
I look at Hung. Hung looks at me.
We both do the exact same resigned sigh . . . and spring into action.
‘Oh my God!’ I cry, faking concern for all I’m worth. ‘Benedict! Benedict! Are you alright?’
‘I’m calling the clubhouse, Mr Montifore!’ Hung cries in equally faked urgency.
‘What happened?’ Benedict says, spitting out more grass. ‘One minute I’m watching you, the next . . .’
Oh my. This is wonderful.
But what tissue of lies can I weave that will point the blame away from Hung and me before Benedict’s head clears?
What might have happened here in this forested area of the golf course that could have given rise to his current malaise?
Then it comes to me.
‘Ah . . . you were attacked by a deer!’ I exclaim, helping him to his feet. ‘It rammed you. From behind.’
Benedict winces and clutches his balls.
‘And in front,’ I add. ‘It really was a very angry deer. Big antlers. Funny black colour. Probably foreign.’ I figure I might as well appeal to Benedict’s baser instincts at this point – it can only help.
Hung runs over and helps me pull Benedict to his feet. Angry, truthful Hung is long gone now. The act of the servile caddy is back in force. ‘Please go slowly, Mr Montifore! You must not hurt yourself more! Doctor is on the way!’
Hung winks at me over Benedict’s slumped back as we take him over to the cart’s passenger seat and gingerly place him in it.
As Benedict looks down, with hands still clasped over his genitals, Hung lifts his hand above the man’s head, and we share a surreptitious high five, before I climb into the driver’s seat and take us back to the clubhouse.
I whistle a bit as I do this.
My anger – so sharp and hot a mere few minutes ago – is more or less gone, for now, anyway. The fact I’ve managed to injure this arsehole and apparently get away with it makes me very happy.
Yes, it’s hugely passive-aggressive, but I think we’ve handily established that I don’t do aggressive-aggressive, under any circumstances.
By the time we do arrive back at the clubhouse ten minutes later, though, and Benedict is carried away gratefully by an awaiting on-site doctor, my happy mood has rather coloured again.
The anger is back, but now it’s being overridden by a more familiar emotion – worry.
Not about Benedict’s memory returning. If that happens, it happens, and it was an accident, after all. I’m pretty sure Erica would stop him making my life too much of a misery . . . I hope.
What I’m worried about is how the break-up with Samantha still has the power to leap into the forefront of my mind when I am under emotional strain. I’m obviously not getting over it anywhere near as fast as I’d hoped.
And I’m obviously very angry with her, for doing what she did to me. Far angrier than I thought I was, if I’m being honest. The confrontation I’ve just had with Benedict about Actual Life has made me realise this.
It’s also made me realise that maybe ‘Dumped Actually’ is not quite the helpful therapy session I thought it was. My pain, shame, anger and sense of defeat are still right there – just waiting to jump out of the closet whenever I get a bit het up.
Speaking of ‘Dumped Actually’, my other worry is that there is no way I can write up this silly jaunt to Sheldon Brook into a story. If I do, I’ll have to lie pretty much about the whole thing, and even then I might run the risk of jogging Benedict’s memory, which is something I can ill afford to do.
I have wasted my time entirely today.
How monumentally frustrating!
All this round of golf has done is make me upset, angry and tormented by my own demons.
. . . just like every other round of golf anyone’s ever played in the whole of human history.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT’S NOT YOU – IT’S MOST DEFINITELY ME
I can’t move.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t see.
I can’t speak.
I can’t hear.
I can’t feel.
Why?
Because I am stood outside a garden centre.
Oh, the horror.
Now, there might be many men in the world who find themselves rendered unable to function when presented with the idea of having to walk around a garden centre. They will be married men, and it will be the first warm Sunday afternoon in spring. The fear will stem from the fact that they are about to spend three hours walking around the most boring shop on earth with their wives, while she spends all the money they have on plants and interesting decorative features for the patio.
There will be a football match on that the man will be missing. His team will be three-nil up by the time they reach the petunias. If there is a hell for middle-aged, married men, this is it.
But none of that is the reason I am feeling such fear, as I stand in front of Griston’s Garden Centre on this particular warm Sunday afternoon. I cannot move, simply because I know that the assistant manager of the garden centre is a woman called Samantha Ealing, who I last saw running away from me in tears at a theme park.
I did not want to do this. I can’t believe I am doing this.
Of all the reader suggestions I have received for ‘Dumped Actually’, Dominic Carter’s was the one I was absolutely going to ignore with extreme prejudice, and never, ever even consider doing. Nothing good can come from confronting Samantha about our break-up, I thought. Nothing whatsoever. Who wants to live through that kind of trauma? Only a fool, that’s who.
But then came a conversation with my depressive new best friend Wimsy, and my perspective has been irrevocably shifted.
This conversation came about in the pub (as they often do when it comes to Wimsy and myself) a couple of days after my ill-fated
trip around the golf course with Benedict Montifore.
Benedict’s memory didn’t come back, by the way. That’s one bullet dodged, at least.
The smile on Erica’s face came back though, when I told her all about it. I had to get her a small cup of water when her hysterics turned into a choking fit.
After that, I received very many I told you so’s from her, which was more than fair enough.
I was also ordered, in no uncertain terms, to go back to my desk and pick a different subscriber’s email to work with – just like Erica had told me to do in the first place.
I tried to do this. I really did. But it’s very hard to make sound judgements when you’re so bloody angry.
And trust me folks, I was extremely angry.
Angry at myself, angry at Benedict Montifore – but mostly angry at Samantha Ealing.
My boss’s boss managed to unlock a vast seam of rage in me that I have barely any control over.
Anger is better than self-pity – as I’m sure you’d agree. And I have spent the past few weeks and months in an almost constant state of self-pity about Samantha. Being angry at her makes a welcome change.
Or at least it did for a few hours.
But replacing one negative emotion with another is not helpful in the slightest, and within the space of twenty-four hours my newly unearthed rage at my ex-girlfriend had created a knot in my stomach that all the milk of magnesia in the world wouldn’t cure.
I figured a stress-relieving trip to the pub with Wimsy might calm me down a little.
It didn’t.
It just riled me up even more.
All thanks to Wimsy – and his annoying ability to talk perfect sense.
‘Why don’t you just go and have it out with her, then?’ he asks me as he sips on his second pint of Carling – which I paid for, needless to say. Wimsy is still bordering on the destitute.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I reply, rolling my eyes.
‘Why is it bloody ridiculous? She’s obviously still under your skin in a big way. Maybe the only way you get past her is to go thrash it out with her – like that bloke said you should in his email. What was his name again? Dave something?’
I have made the extremely silly mistake of speaking to Wimsy about my job at length, during these trips to the Old Queen’s Head. A mistake that is coming back to haunt me right at this moment.
Dumped, Actually Page 17
