I began to contemplate winning — not by virtue of my own efforts but because Ollie (moodily silent as I drove off first at the next tee) had lost his cool.
As my drive sailed down the middle on the fifth, I realised how much I loved golf, and how foolish had been my reasons for not playing more regularly. It was time I got over the class thing. The men on golf courses these days were garage hands, factory workers, plumbers, electricians, blokes in white vans. As a primary-school teacher, though, I had another inhibition: that a golf habit, like a pornography habit, would send out the wrong message. In order not to alienate my fellow teachers (all female), parents, pupils and the local education authority, I’d kept my golf a dirty secret, using the driving range in Derby, where no one knew me, or travelling to courses even further afield. Of course, I didn’t play often. And playing on my own was no fun. But it had been worth keeping my hand in for the pleasure of playing with Ollie today. As I putted for a half on the fifth green, his moody silence was distracting — but not so much that I missed. Three up with four to play.
A curlew called from a nearby field. The blue sky was faintly skimmed with white. Yellow gorse fringed the sixth tee. I couldn’t have been happier. And that was a cue — hubris? complacency? lack of concentration? — for my game to deteriorate.
Perhaps it wasn’t that I got worse but that Ollie had finally found his groove. At any rate, he took the next two holes with pars.
One up with two to play: I had rarely pushed Ollie this far. In victory he used to mask his exultation with a polite handshake and ‘Well done'. He would not be so condescending today.
Eight’s a lucky number for me, and the eighth was an ‘easy’ par four, so Ollie said. I watched him as he stood over the ball, getting in his own space as he used to describe it, before it became a cliché of sports psychology. ‘Watch how I address the ball,’ he’d say, tutoring me. ‘When I’m in my own head, nothing else counts.’ I used to feel patronised and would look away. But now I did watch, positioning myself at the edge of his eyeline. His methods were unchanged in twenty years: two easy, swishing practice swings, then the long readying of himself for the real thing, his legs trembling, his forefingers and thumbs across each other in a double V, his eyes drilled viciously down as though the ball were some hideous offence to nature. But the twitch in his cheek was new. And the pause before he struck seemed too strung out. Surely no one could concentrate so intently for so long. I relaxed, coughed, stretched my legs, expecting him to step away and recommence his pre-shot ritual; I’d seen him do that many times before. Instead, he rushed the club back and crashed it down — an ugly stab, not a smooth swing. The ball flew high and wide, in a steepening curve that sliced it rightwards to the course’s one water hazard, where it landed — plish! — mid-pool. He gave me a look as he replaced his tee and set a second ball there.
‘Lost ball,’ he said, as though it were my fault.
Had I spooked him? Was I still spooking him, since his next shot wasn’t much better, fetching up in a prairie of docks and thistles wide left of the fairway? Surely not. If he’d lost his concentration, the problem wasn’t me coughing, scratching my nose or shuffling my feet, it was him. Still, I felt jumpy as I stepped up for my shot — for fear not of messing up but of humiliating him. I drew the wood back and hit down and through. The drive wasn’t just the best I played that afternoon but my longest and straightest ever, rolling up to within fifty yards of the green. From there, with Ollie marooned behind me in the rough, I surely couldn’t lose the hole.
I didn’t, though I failed to win it, fluffing my first chip and then three-putting, while Ollie holed a twelve-footer for a half. One ahead with one to play; the worst I could do now was to tie. Ollie said nothing as we walked to the last. I read his silence as fury, not with me but with himself, and wondered how he would manage to get over it — whether the whole weekend wasn’t now doomed. But as he thumbed his tee in the ground — ‘Still my honour, I believe’ — he added: ‘I’m not surprised to be losing.’
‘Come on, Ollie,’ I said, aware that (for the first time in my life) I was patronising him, ‘I hardly ever beat you.’
‘It wasn’t intended as a compliment.’
‘Good, I’d hate you to pay me one of those.’
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said. ‘For someone who says he never plays, you’ve been excellent. But my golf’s been crap. With all that’s been happening, it was bound to be.’
‘With all what happening?’
‘Apart from being given my cards, not much, I suppose.’
‘Which cards?’ I said.
‘Forget it.’
I couldn’t forget it. I’d never heard him making excuses for his game before. He’d never had to make excuses. And this didn’t feel like an excuse but, worse, a reason. Which cards had he been given? Was he being ditched by his chambers? Or divorced by Daisy? Was this the news she’d been saving for us?
Distracted, I got under my final tee shot: the ball flew almost vertically, dropping less than fifty yards away, from where, with my second, I scooted unconvincingly to the right edge of the green, just ahead of Ollie’s ball in the rough. For a moment I suspected him of deliberately messing with my head. Though his lie was difficult, a decent chip would see him down in two, to win the hole and halve the game. But he scuffed the shot, hitting the mound surrounding the green, and though his next shot was better the ball rolled past the hole, just missing par. For me it was an easy uphill putt: all I needed was to hold my nerve. And I did, hitting straight and true, but failing to read the slope of the green, which took the ball away left, and more left, and even further left, to end a good five feet from the hole.
‘You win,’ Ollie said. ‘That’s a gimme.’
‘It’s too far away for a gimme,’ I said.
‘Well played.’
‘I ought to putt out.’
‘It’s a gimme,’ Ollie said, picking up my ball and tossing it to me. I might have insisted on replacing it and finishing. But perhaps Ollie was sparing himself rather than being generous to me. The way his luck had gone, my putt would doubtless have dropped in.
Laid-back primary-school teacher though I am, I couldn’t suppress a frisson of triumph. No more than a frisson. And not so Ollie would notice. But I glowed like a war hero inside.
My watch showed 18.45.
‘Drink?’ I said, as we stowed the clubs in his boot.
‘I promised Daisy we’d be back,’ he said.
‘She won’t begrudge us a quick beer,’ I said. ‘What’s the clubhouse like?’
‘Grim,’ he said.
‘Anywhere else?’
‘There’s a pub in the next village. We could try that.’
His wheels churned up gravel as we left the car park.
‘Nice wheels,’ I said.
‘It’s the GT model. 1950 cc. Twin choke. They don’t make cars like this any more.’
The Buck served real ale but didn’t boast about it. We were early and there were few customers.
‘Winner buys the drinks,’ I said, directing Ollie to a picnic table in the garden. Disgruntled at having to serve me, the barman took an age, but eventually I emerged with two pints of Adnams and two bags of plain crisps. The crisps had blue packets of salt inside.
‘So,’ I said, chinking glasses, ‘what’s so serious that it put you off your game?’
‘No excuses,’ he said. ‘You won fair and square.’
‘I won because you gave me a two-shot lead.’
‘Whatever. One—nil to you.’
‘What’s this about your cards?’ I said, ignoring him.
He paused and drank his beer, almost draining his glass before drawing breath. Several wasps were circling mine.
‘Wasps bothering you?’ he said.
‘It’s all right,’ I said, though I’ve had a dread of wasps since the age of six, when I was stung on the neck while eating an orange lolly in our back garden. ‘It’s your own fault for panicking,’ my dad sa
id. ‘The little bugger would have ignored you if you’d kept still.’ But panicking when there’s a wasp about still seems logical to me: I keep reading about people who’ve died from allergic reactions.
‘I’ve been given my cards,’ Ollie said, swatting the wasps away on my behalf. ‘By the medics. I’m going to die. Don’t tell me we’re all going to die, Ian. What I mean is I’m going to die soon. If I’m around to play golf with you next summer, it’ll be a miracle. That’s it. Finished. So’s my beer, look. If the winner’s still buying the drinks, I’ll have another.’
‘Christ, Ollie, you’re not saying —’
‘Adnams, the same as before.’
I’ve no memory of going to the bar a second time, or whether the same unhelpful barman was behind it. I only remember that ‘My Generation’ was playing on the jukebox (funny how kids today go for songs that pre-date them by decades) and that when I got back to Ollie two wasps were trapped inside his upturned glass. I watched them circling, like sharks in a tank. Would they use up all the air in there and suffocate? I hoped so.
‘It’s not nice,’ Ollie said. ‘You don’t want to know. They found a tumour.’
‘Where?’
‘A brain tumour. I’ve had the symptoms for a while. Headaches. Dizziness. Blurred vision and so on.’
‘What have they told you?’
‘Not much. They won’t commit themselves till they’ve done more tests. But it’s obviously malignant.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘I’ve done the research. I’ve got all the symptoms. They’re doing something called a PET scan next week, when we’re back in London. But it’ll only confirm the worst. Odds are I’ve about six months.’
‘Jesus.’
He lifted the glass and the wasps flew off. The story he’d just told no longer seemed to interest him. It could have been happening to someone else.
‘Should you be driving?’ I said. ‘And playing golf? Shouldn’t you take it easy?’
‘It makes no difference. I might as well be active while I can.’
‘God, I don’t know what to say.’
‘No need to say anything,’ he said. ‘I didn’t plan to tell you. Forget it ever slipped out, OK?’
‘How can I? It’s terrible. I can’t believe it.’
But I could see it added up: the weight loss, the drawn face, the loss of concentration. Could a tumour get worse, burst even, if you pushed yourself too hard? He ought to be home, lying down.
‘The weird thing is I don’t care,’ he said. ‘Live, die, so what?’
‘Of course you care.’
‘No, really, I’ve been cauterised. Nothing gets to me. Nothing moves me. I’ve no feelings at all.’
‘Rubbish.’
‘It’s the truth. I could murder someone tomorrow and it wouldn’t bother me. I’m evil, Ian. You’d better watch out.’
He laughed, to let me know it was a joke, then furrowed his brow.
‘Don’t say anything,’ he said. ‘This weekend, I mean. When we’re all together. Don’t bring it up.’
‘But you have told Daisy?’
He paused, lifted his glass then mumbled something. I caught her name and ‘know’ or ‘no'.
‘What?’
He shook his head and I knew not to ask again.
Looking back, I realise I might have misheard. He could have said ‘Daisy doesn’t want to know’, meaning she was in denial about it. Or he could have been begging me not to tell
Em: ‘No one but Daisy must know.’ But what I’d have sworn he said was ‘I don’t want Daisy to know'. Or possibly ‘I haven’t told Daisy, no'. Either way, it came to the same thing.
How typical of Ollie to keep the tumour to himself, I thought. It’s my life, my death, and no one else’s business: that was his attitude — repression, stiff upper lip, blind courage, call it what you will. I was astounded, nevertheless. What did it do to hold something so monumental inside you? That he’d not told Daisy was almost as shocking as the tumour itself.
‘End of discussion,’ he said, draining his glass. ‘We’re half an hour late already. The girls will be furious.’
As we drove back, I thought of Em’s mum, who died of breast cancer last year (her dad died of a stroke three years before). We used to visit her every day at the hospice, or rather Em did — I preferred to sit in the car, reading my paper and watching for the parking warden. On Sundays, when you could park without a ticket, I sometimes went in with her and sat in the lime-coloured room staring at the water jug, the glucose drip, the bedside cupboard. On one occasion Em left me alone with her mum while she went to the Ladies. She was asleep at the time, or seemed to be, but the moment Em left the room she opened her eyes and beckoned me with her taped and tube-strapped right arm. It disgusted me to go near: her eyes were yellow and there were grains of half-chewed tablets between her teeth. But I had to get close in order to hear. ‘Make sure to look after my daughter,’ she whispered, or something like. You daft old bat, I thought: as if I wouldn’t. But I took her hand a second and nodded, to let her know, and I’m sure that eased her passage. She died a few days later, trusting Em would be all right.
Em mostly is all right. But the loss of two parents within three years has been hard on her — harder than the loss of my parents would be on me. She never used to cry. But these days almost anything can set her off: family photographs; television programmes her mum used to watch; the tasteless knick-knacks her parents left behind. There’s the baby issue, too: her mum was desperate to have a grandchild, and nowadays Em is desperate too, if only to grant her mother that wish posthumously. Baby or not, it tests my patience to see Em so weepy. Surely a year’s more than long enough. I’ve told her that when the tears dry up I’m giving the house a name as well as a number (it’s 27, by the way) and putting it on our garden gate: Dungrievin.
Not funny, Em says. Very little amuses her in her current state. But I know she’ll stop moping in due course. And at least she is reasonably healthy. Unlike Ollie, whose tumour I brooded on as he drove us back and insects exploded on the windscreen.
The girls will be furious, Ollie had said. But they did not look furious in the least. They were sitting in the orchard talking to someone, a third girl it looked like, and laughter skirled back at us as we walked towards them. Only Em’s face, when she turned round, belied the high spirits. I could see trouble there.
‘I’m afraid we’ve polished off the bottle,’ Daisy said.
The third girl had her back to me, but when she turned, the late sun on her curls, it was Archie. Black drainpipe jeans, black sleeveless T-shirt with a skull and crossbones, tattoo on his left shoulder, looped metal chains dangling down his thigh, leather wristband, bead necklace and bare feet — what had happened to my godson? His hair was darker, and he’d either been getting no sleep or was wearing eyeshadow. We have goths in Ilkeston, too, but Archie reminded me more of a guitarist from a 1970s heavy metal band.
He and Ollie ignored each other. But he managed a handshake, from a sitting position, for me. The hand was soft and the face deathly white between the acne. So here was the ghost from upstairs.
‘Hello, Archie.’
‘Hi.’
‘Come and join us,’ Daisy said, patting the wooden chair beside her.
Rufus’s tail thumped the grass as I stepped past him. The yellow bales out in the field were casting blue shadows. The solitary tree in the middle looked frozen.
‘Sit down, Ollie,’ Daisy said. ‘You’re making me nervous.’
‘It’s nearly time to go,’ he said.
‘Already?’
‘It’s gone half seven. The table’s booked for eight fifteen.’
‘We’d better change then. Come on, Em. Let’s make ourselves beautiful.’
Ignoring the girly banter (which I suspected was Daisy’s way of soliciting a protest that she looked quite beautiful enough already), Em got up and followed her. The departure made me feel awkward, as if we’d curtailed a cos
y chat. I tried talking to Archie but all I got back were monosyllables — sometimes not even those. He kept glancing nervously at his father.
‘I need to put a clean shirt on,’ Ollie said. ‘Coming, Ian?’
‘In a minute,’ I said.
A weight lifted from Archie once he had gone.
‘How’s school?’ I said.
‘Yeah, you know.’
‘Never changes, eh?’
‘Too right.’
‘But they’re obviously not too disciplinarian.’ He shook his head, baffled. ‘I mean your hair.’
‘No, they’re OK.’
‘Personally I think long hair is fine,’ I said, and described the policy for dress at our school, where we’ve kids from many different ethnic backgrounds. Rather than look at me, Archie stared at his hands. I was obviously boring him. Time to go.
‘They’ve not told you, then,’ he said, as I stood up.
‘Who?’
‘Mum and Dad. About me not going to school.’
‘That’s the way with GCSEs nowadays, I hear — no lessons after Easter, just revision and exams.’
‘I’ve barely been since January.’
I wondered if he was exaggerating so as to shock me.
‘Have you been ill?’ I said, thinking of his pallor.
‘Not really.’
‘Did they exclude you?’
‘I wish.’
‘What then?’
‘Ian! Are you coming?’
It was Ollie, from across the garden, barefoot, tucking his shirt into his trousers.
‘I’m on my way,’ I shouted, but sat down again when he went back inside.
‘I just stopped going,’ Archie said, fingering his wristband. ‘I was bored.’
‘What about your GCSEs?’
‘The school wouldn’t let me take them. They were worried I’d fuck up their position in the league tables.’
The Last Weekend Page 6
