The Amateurs (25 page)

G
ARY WOKE UP WITH A LIGHT HEADACHE–A SOFT
, regular throb behind the right eye–and a woozy, washed-out memory of something bad happening; like a nasty hangover. His jaw hurt. His left eye socket too. He lay there for a moment with his eyes closed, trying to remember what had happened and where he was, gradually becoming aware of another presence in the darkened room, the smell of something familiar, fresh and lemony. He opened his eyes and sat up a little, his headache giving a ticklish throb in the process, and saw that April was sitting on the other bed watching over him. ‘Hi,’ she said, smiling.

‘Where am I?’ Gary asked thickly as he tried to sit up.

‘They’ve given you a room here in the Marine. It was nearer. Easy.’ April moved over and gently pushed him back onto the bed. ‘Don’t try to get up. Stevie’s gone to get Dr Robertson.’

‘Dr Robertson? Why? What–ow!’ His jaw ached when he opened his mouth too wide. ‘What happened?’

‘You don’t remember anything?’ April said.

‘Ah, I was in the media tent answering questions…’

‘Mmm. Then?’

‘Then…I woke up here. What happened?’

She told him.

Gary lay there silently.

‘Would you like some tea?’ April asked gently.

When she got no response she crossed the room and busied herself with the hotel tea things: the plastic mini-kettle in contrasting shades of beige, the plastic pots of milk and cream, the single tea bags on their strings. ‘I think we’ve managed to calm it all down,’ April said, her back to him. ‘But I wouldn’t look at tomorrow’s papers if I were you. And I’d steer clear of the Internet for a–’ She became aware of a noise above the rattle of the cups and saucers and turned round. Gary was crying.

Crying? He was
destroyed
.

‘Hey, come on,’ April said, sitting back down beside him on the narrow single bed. ‘You can’t help it.’ She put her arm around him as he continued to sob, his head in his hands.

‘I…I…I…’ Gary said, trying to start a sentence but, like a five-year-old who has suffered a great injustice, unable to get the words out for the racking sobs. ‘I…I’M A FREAK!’ he blurted through a fresh, hot squirt of tears.

‘No you’re not. You’ve got a…a neurological condition.’

‘I am!’

‘Come on,’ she cuddled him. ‘Deep breaths.’

‘At first I…I thought it was great. The accident.’ He got his breathing under control and began to speak evenly. ‘Playing golf the way I could. But now…the Tourette’s, the fucking Klu-Kluver-Bucy. I mean, April, I tried to wank off in front of hundreds of people!’

Actually, April thought, factoring in live TV feeds and the
footage that was surely being uploaded onto YouTube as they spoke, it was probably more like
millions
. She twisted around so she could look at him. He was lower than her, looking up at her anxiously and expectantly, the way he sometimes looked up into the air after a slightly mistimed swing. April traced her pinkie around the indent in his right temple, beneath it the damaged artery, the bleeding that had brought them both here. She moved her other hand up his spine, placed it on the back of his neck and pulled his face towards her. Their lips met and she kissed him, softly at first, then a little harder, taking his top lip between her teeth. The erection in Gary’s pants–which was near constant now–somehow managed to increase in intensity, then, suddenly, he was pulling away from her.

‘I can’t, April.’

‘Eh?’ April was surprised at how hard she was breathing.

Gary held up his left hand, the fat gold band.

‘It wouldn’t be fair to Pauline.’

‘But…she left you, didn’t she?’

‘Sorry, I really like you, but…I’ve got to try and make my marriage work.’

Wow. Do they still make you?
April wondered.

A sharp knock at the door. ‘That’ll be Stevie,’ April said. ‘Here.’ She handed him a box of tissues from the bedside table before shouting ‘Come in’ towards the door.

‘Surprise!’ Pauline said, beaming as she put her head around the door. Her beaming continued for exactly as long as it took for her to register that there was a girl–a young, attractive girl–sitting on the bed next to Gary.

‘Pauline!’ Gary said nasally through a wad of tissues.

‘Hi!’ April said, trying not to get up
too
quickly.

‘Hello,’ Pauline said, her initial smile now replaced by one that was brittle and terrible to witness.

‘This is April,’ Gary said. He tried to get up, then he thought better of it. ‘She writes for the
Daily Standard
. We were just doing an interview.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ April said, coming over and extending her hand. Pauline held it limply for two seconds before letting it drop and moving towards Gary. ‘I went to the golf course, they told me what happened, where you were. Darling, are you OK?’ She stood over him and put a hand on his brow.

‘Aye, ah’m fine. Just a wee headache.’

‘Excuse me,’ Pauline said, turning round, ‘Avril,’

‘April.’

‘Sorry–April–I really need to talk to my
husband
.’

‘Oh, of course,’ April said. ‘I’d better get on. I have a deadline. I’ll see you later, Gary, OK?’

‘OK. Thanks, April.’

‘Deadline,’ Pauline said sourly the second the door was closed. ‘She fancies herself, doesn’t she?’

‘She’s nice enough,’ Gary said ultra casually. ‘Anyway, how come you’re–’ Just then an enormous groan went up from the golf course across the road.

‘What was that?’ Pauline asked.

‘Sounds like someone just missed a putt,’ Gary said.

Pauline sat down on the bed next to him. ‘Oh Gary, I’ve missed you.’

‘I’ve missed you too,’ Gary said as Pauline moved closer to him. He felt his blood give an involuntary groinwards lurch. His physical attraction to Pauline had been with him for so long now it was hard-wired. Reflexive. ‘But what about all those things you said. What’s changed?’

Pauline took his hand before she spoke. ‘I have. I think we…we’d been together for so long. Since we were kids really, I…’ She’d worked hard on this speech on the drive
over. ‘I just felt a wee bit trapped. And I didn’t cope very well with your accident. I’m sorry.’ She was actually managing to well up.

‘Don’t be sorry,’ Gary said. ‘I’m sorry. It’s been hard for you.’

‘But it’s been hard for you too,’ she said, sliding in. Kissing him hard now, her hand going to his fly.

‘Ah…’ Gary said as Pauline started to unzip him. He was just about to enjoy the cool air of the room upon the hot, caged beast when suddenly the door was bursting open and a breathless Stevie was standing there. Gary and Pauline sprang apart.

‘Hello, Stevie,’ Pauline said.

The mortal enemies eyed each other coolly, Pauline thinking,
Yeah, I wonder what you’ve been saying about me the past couple of weeks? Well, I’m back, pal. So you better get used to the idea
. Stevie, in his turn, was thinking,
Interesting timing, Pauline.

‘Sorry to interrupt this touching reunion,’ Stevie said, scoring a quick first point, ‘but ah thought ye’d like tae know that Calvin Linklater just bogeyed the eighteenth.’

‘What does that mean?’ Pauline said.

‘It means,’ Stevie said, ‘that laughing boy here is now tied for the lead with the world number one going into the last day of the Open.’

‘But that means–’ Gary began.

‘Correct,’ Stevie said, cutting him off. ‘You’re playing with him tomorrow.’

THE FINAL DAY OF THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

L
EE TOOK THE TICKET
R
ANTA HANDED HIM AND MOVED
through the turnstiles, Ranta in front of him, his huge shoulders blocking out the morning sun, and Frank and Alec behind him. The queues to get in were already long: with the fine weather and all the local interest in Gary the R&A were predicating enormous crowds.

Ranta turned when they were all safely onto the course and the four men formed a tight huddle. ‘Right,’ Ranta said quietly, ‘here’s the fucking script: you–’ he nodded to Lee–‘are gonnae let yer brother know that you’re here and that everything’s hunky-dory. Frank’ll go wi ye.’ Ranta looked at his watch. ‘We’ve got a good wee while until he tees off so me and Alec are gonnae go and get some scran intae us. Ah’m fucking Hank so ah um. Now, Lee son, in case ye get any daft ideas aboot maybe slipping aff intae the crowd and daeing a runner oan us, just think for once in yer life. Do ye really want us paying another visit tae yer wife and weans? Or yer maw? Awfy nice woman. Ah was watching yer brother wi
her yesterday so ah wis. Would be a shame if she hud a wee accident. Like, fur instance, Frank here cutting her paps aff so ah kin make a set o’ fucking earmuffs out o’ them. Eh?’

The Beast grinned and Lee nodded miserably.

‘Good boy. Right, we’ll meet the two of ye at that place that does the steak sandwiches, just next tae the fish and chip stall, OK?’

‘Right,’ the Beast said, nudging Lee towards the hotel. ‘Come on, ya fanny. Let’s go and play happy fucking families.’

Breakfast in the hospitality tent. Journalists, guests of players and esteemed corporate clients wandered through the hot waft of frying bacon and grilling sausages. There were devilled kidneys, kedgeree, kippers and eggs poached, fried and scrambled. Pastries and croissants were piled high on silver trays, flanked by huge urns of coffee and tea.

April, who got hungry when she was nervous, was sliding a third sausage onto a plate already groaning with a very full English when she spotted Pauline up ahead at the buffet. It was not yet 7 a.m., April had barely brushed her hair after jumping straight into the same crumpled clothes–jeans and a fleece–she’d been wearing the day before, but Pauline looked like she’d come straight from a weekend at a beauty spa. Perfect hair and make-up, her lips shining a glossy pink in the light of the heat lamps that were warming the food.

‘Hi there,’ April said, sliding up beside her. ‘Sleep well?’

‘Oh, hello,’ Pauline said, giving her a thin smile. ‘Not great, actually. He was a nightmare, up and down the whole night.’

‘Well, nerves. Oh.’ April turned away from Pauline as Lawson approached. ‘Hello, Donald! Peckish?’ She nodded down at the plate Lawson was carrying with both hands. It
made April’s breakfast look like an
amuse-bouche
. In addition to the bacon, sausages, eggs, black pudding, kidneys, grilled tomatoes, mushrooms, beans and potato scones, he’d piled a couple of pastries on the side, perhaps as a kind of dessert, April wondered?

Lawson grunted, ignoring the sarcasm, and asked, ‘How’s your boy this morning?’

‘Actually, Donald, this is his wife.’ April gestured to Pauline. ‘Pauline Irvine, Donald Lawson.’

‘Hi.’ Pauline smiled.

‘Pleased to meet you. Watch what you tell this one,’ he said, continuing on his way.

‘Shall we?’ April said to Pauline, motioning to a nearby table for two. Pauline hesitated for a second, glancing around the room before realising she knew absolutely no one.

They put their trays down. On hers Pauline had four grapes, a banana and a cup of peppermint tea.

‘Not hungry?’ April asked.

‘Oh, I only ever have fruit in the morning. Maybe some porridge.’ Pauline now took in April’s tray. ‘God, how on earth do you keep your figure?’

‘Dunno,’ April said, already spearing bacon onto toast and pushing it into the greasy golden heart of one of her eggs. ‘I pretty much eat whatever I like. Never seem to put weight on.’

‘Wow,’ Pauline said, sipping her herbal tea and thinking,
you total fucking cow.

‘So, pretty unbelievable story, isn’t it?’ April said, chewing.

‘What is?’

‘Your husband. Amateur player gets hit on the head and wakes up tied for the lead with the world number one on the last day of the Open. Make a great book.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘Oh yeah. Sporting-triumph books? Sell bucketloads.’

‘How…I mean, do you know, roughly, how much money you’d get for something like that?’

‘Depends,’ April said, blowing through a mouthful of hot sausage. ‘A lot of money, I should think. If he wins? An awful lot of money.’

‘Really?’ Pauline said.

‘Oh yeah. Then there’s all the other stuff.’

‘Well, I know the winner gets…is it seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds?’

‘That’s the least of it. Endorsement fees for clubs, balls, clothes and bags. Appearance fees at tournaments, advertising, instructional books, magazine fees…I mean, whistles and bells, you’re talking millions of pounds.’

‘Really?’ Pauline said innocently, aware that she was gripping her mug so hard it might splinter apart in her hands.

April looked up, a dot of yolk shining on her bottom lip. ‘Are you OK, Pauline?’

‘Just a bit…nervous.’

Pauline looked over to their right, to where a man was stacking copies of all the morning’s newspapers onto a rack on the wall. Her husband’s face was on the cover of four of them. April gave a little shriek and ran over and grabbed a copy of the
Standard
. Above a photo of Gary walking off the eighteenth green yesterday was the headline ‘
HE CAN DO IT
!’. Below it was the byline ‘by sports reporter April Tremble’.

Her first front-cover byline.

April whistled in Lawson’s direction. He turned to see her beaming, holding the paper up by the top corners. Lawson simply nodded and turned back to his food.
Fuck you, fat man
,
April thought, sitting down to read her story. Pauline looked again at the headline.

‘Can he?’ she asked.

April just smiled.

W
HILE
C
ALVIN
L
INKLATER BEGAN HIS FINAL-DAY
routine (the stretches and stomach crunches, the silent, high-fibre breakfast) alone in a room that could comfortably have held a party for forty people, Gary’s preparations were more hectic. Cathy, Lisa, Aunt Sadie, Stevie, Dr Robertson and Gary were all crammed into the small twin-bedded room. Stevie was packing the golf bag, loading up on gloves, Robertson was shining a penlight into Gary’s left eye, and Lisa, Cathy and Sadie were crying.

‘Aw God, son, ah’m sorry tae bother ye wi this the noo, ah didnae want tae tell ye yesterday, ye’ve enough oan yer plate, son, it’s jist we…we don’t know whit he’s gone and got himself intae this time. God only knows where he is,’ Cathy went on, ‘lying…lying DEED SOMEWHERE!’ She and Lisa burst into fresh peals of tears. It had been a terrible, sleepless, tear-filled night for Cathy and Lisa as they tried to work out what to do. The kind of night Lee specialised in causing.

‘By Christ,’ Sadie said, snuffling, ‘the hertbreak that boy’s brought you, hen.’

Robertson stepped back from Gary, snapping off the penlight. ‘You seem OK. But the minute you’re finished we’re going to the hospital for a CAT scan. How’s the headache?’

‘No too–prick–bad,’ Gary said.

‘Aww God, Doctor,’ Cathy said, ‘ah’m sorry you’ve had tae listen tae all this. You must think we’re some family.’

‘Not at all.’

‘Sh-should,’ Cathy stuttered, ‘we go tae the police?’

‘Mum, listen,’ Gary said, taking her trembling hands in his own, ‘that might only make things worse. He probably–tits–owes these guys money. We’ll just have to pay them back.’

‘But, Gary,’ Lisa cried, ‘he said it wisnae even about the money any more. And whit was this money for anyway?’

‘Aww God only knows, hen,’ Cathy said, sucking in a deep breath and composing herself. She stared wistfully off, looking out of the window, but not seeing anything through tear-stinging eyes. ‘Ah cannae believe that your own brother isnay here the day to see you play. Thank God your father–’

‘Look, Cathy,’ Stevie cut in, ‘ah’m sorry, but we really need tae head down the practice range.’

‘Ah know, son. We’ll just have to–’

‘Shit,’ Gary said. ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should call the police. I mean, if–’

The door opened and Lee Irvine strode into the room.

In terms of effect it was something like Jesus strolling into church at the climax of Sunday’s sermon.

Amid the silence Lee was trying for an expression somewhere between defiant and nonchalant, his eyes darting about the walls, not meeting anyone’s stunned gaze. His studied nonchalance was undermined by the fact that half his face
looked like raw steak and his front teeth were missing. Finally Lee looked at his brother and spoke.

‘A’right, bawbag?’

Masterson felt his mobile vibrate twice in his pocket, announcing the arrival of a text message; a seismic event for those engaged in an affair, enough to cause the heart to flex hopefully in the chest. Well covered by the Sunday papers he had spread across the kitchen table, and with Leanne busy at the cooker a good distance across the kitchen, he slipped the mobile out and glanced down at the text. Bastard: just her cousin Gerry, crowing about the Rangers defeat, the dirty Fenian fucker.

‘One egg or two?’ Leanne was asking him.

‘Ah, gies two.’

He lifted his mug and blew on the hot tea. He’d left three messages now. Where was she? He’d tried Katrina’s. He’d driven by Pauline’s house. Nothing. Maybe he should send her another text? Naw, start to look desperate. She was just a bit upset. Had her heart set on that big house, so she did. He’d make it up to her. After his lawyer served the papers on Leanne and it was all out in the open they’d have a nice wee holiday somewhere. Spain maybe. She’d come round.

He turned the page and there it was in black and white: Pauline on the doorstep, wrapped in a white dressing gown, her hair turbaned up in a towel, smiling as she spoke to someone just to the right of the camera. Gripping the mug tighter in his left hand and the corner of the paper tighter in his right, he scanned the article, eyeballs jerking left to right as various phrases sprung up at him: ‘
pleased he’s playing so well…works hard at his golf…can definitely go all the way…
’

‘YA FUCKEN HOOR!’ Masterson screamed, boiling tea spilling down his arm.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Leanne said. ‘What is it?’

‘I…nothing. I just spilt ma tea. Chuck us a cloth for fuck’s sake!’

Leanne rinsed a cloth under the cold tap and took it over to him. She watched as he dabbed at his arm, then at the table and the papers crumpled in front of him.

She had surprised herself these past few days.

She was surprised at how equably she was able to behave towards this man who had paid someone to come here in the night and shoot her in the head. (Surprised too at how coolly she had handled her would-be murderer, at how much information he’d told her after he’d finally stopped crying.)

She was surprised at how calmly and diligently she had gone about plotting her revenge: withdrawing funds from the bank account he didn’t know she had, the emergency fund she’d squirrelled money into over the past twenty years, five hundred here, a thousand there. It certainly had added up.

She allowed herself a smile as she walked back to the cooker to turn the bacon over.

‘Aww, son, yer f-face. Whit happened tae yer face?’ Cathy had been crying for a long time now as Sadie rubbed her back. Lisa sobbed softly while she held Lee’s hand. Just the four of them in Gary’s room now, Lee with his mum and his wife on either side of him on the narrow single bed.

‘C’mon, Maw. It’s a’right. It looks worse than it is, so it does.’

‘Whit have ye got yerself intae now, Lee?’ Cathy said for the third or fourth time.

‘It’s just a misunderstanding wi some boys.’

‘My God, Lee,’ Sadie said, ‘the state o’ yer teeth. It makes ma bum go aw fizzy just looking at them so it diz!’

‘But, Lee,’ Lisa said, ‘Alec Campbell? My God.’

‘Och, Alec’s no that bad,’ Lee lied. ‘Ye don’t want to believe half the shite ye hear in this toon.’

‘Ah…ah couldnae take it if ye had to go…away again, son,’ Cathy said. ‘It’d put me a pine box so it would.’

Cathy’s departure from the family home ensconced in a pine box had been a regular threat when Lee and Gary had misbehaved as children–‘Aye, see how ye feel when they’re carrying me oot that door in a pine box.’ Lee flashed briefly on the pine box that had contained his father. He’d helped carry it into the crematorium and he remembered how nice the grain of the cool wood had felt against his cheek: he’d drunk half a bottle of Buckfast and taken a phenomenal amount of temazepam. The big, old-school jellies. Eggs. Couldn’t get them any more. Fucking brilliant gear. He wished he had some now.

He lifted his mother’s head up and held her face tenderly as he spoke softly. A strange experience, to see Lee Irvine holding tenderly, speaking softly: like seeing a heavyweight fighter painting a watercolour, the brush daintily inserted in the boxing glove.

‘Maw, listen tae me. Everything’s fine. Ah’m no going anywhere. Ah’ve learned ma lesson. Come on now, we’ll go and get some breakfast, eh?’

While the women dried their tears and began gathering their things, Lee moved to the window and pulled the net curtains aside. Hundreds of people were making their way through the sunny streets of Troon towards the golf course, windcheaters and sweaters tied around their waists. Shielding his eyes against the sun’s glare Lee looked west, towards the
sea, towards the course, the towering camera cranes and the scaffolding of the grandstands in their green netting. He looked back at the street and caught the sun straight in his eyes. So it was through a shimmering haze of pink and yellow sunspots that he saw the Beast standing across the road waiting for him. He was smoking a cigarette and looking straight up at the window, grinning a cold, frightening grin.

For fuck’s sake, Gary
, Lee thought,
make some fucking birdies today, pal
.