Furnace (2 page)

Fisher keeps pretty still all through the ride, looking down at his feet like he’s concentrating hard. I wonder if he’ll throw up my mother’s booze again, but he keeps it
in.

The big wooden sign advertising the range is just a few hundred yards in front of the sentry boxes guarding the base. I notice it before Jez or Fisher and stand up to ask the driver to stop. He
eyes me without saying anything, but slows down anyway and lets us off. As I step down to the grass verge one of the airmen sitting near the driver says something I don’t catch, and the
driver lets out a quick sharp laugh.

Behind the sign a rough gravel track runs straight and very flat between two fields to a line of low sheds in the distance. That must be it, Fisher says, almost the first words he’s spoken
since the river.

It is, says Jez.

Far off in the base a jet engine starts to whine, builds to a kind of howl as we start walking, then dies down again without anything getting airborne.

Soon we start passing faded wooden boards marking out yardages. White golf balls, some of them split and showing their pink insides, are nested everywhere in the dried-out patchy grass. A car
passes us, crunching over the grit and pebbles, carrying three airmen in uniform. Another follows a few seconds later, this time with just a single woman driving. Both cars get to the sheds, then
swing left and park. By the time we reach the end of the track the airmen and the woman have unloaded their gear and disappeared through the nearest doorway. We follow them into the shade.

Ahead of us the woman is crouched at some kind of battered steel vending machine. She pulls sharply at a handle and a quick landslide of golfballs rumbles and fills a wire basket at her feet.
She heaves the basket up in one hand, three or four golf clubs in the other, and hauls it out to a line of wooden bays like wide open toilet stalls. Fisher squats down and snakes a hand up the
funnel where the balls fell but doesn’t get hold of anything. Jez and me look across at the woman and the airmen in their stalls. The woman’s stretching herself, bending sideways from
the waist, grimacing, but the men have stripped off their uniform shirts and are already cracking long, arcing shots into the blue sky.

A guy calls to us from a doorway near the machine: You boys needing clubs? Balls?

We need everything, Jez tells him.

The guy nods. He looks about fifty – fat but tough-looking with a big shaved head. An oily black and grey beard is spread in a mess all over his cheeks and chin and neck. It’s two
pounds per club, he says, his eyes fixed on Jez. Fifty pence if you lose a ball. He scratches the right side of his beard, from the cheekbone all the way to his collar, waiting for one of us to say
something. When we don’t, he reaches into a pocket on the faded blue boiler suit he’s wearing and fishes out a pack of smokes. He’s already turned to go back through the doorway
when Jez tells him we’ll hire a club to share between us.

He stops and turns back to face us. Pitch and putt or the range?

Jez shrugs. Which is cheapest?

Pitch and putt. He rolls his tongue around the inside of his mouth, then draws on his cigarette. You got balls?

I’m expecting Jez to give him a smart answer but he just shakes his head. A ball too, he says.

One ball? You don’t want a ball each?

Just one, says Jez.

The man sighs out a big stream of smoke and then leads us into his office. A row of cheap-looking golf clubs are lined up behind his battered wooden counter. Newer bundles of clubs, gleaming and
with price tags on them are set against a side wall along with some golf bags, a half-filled barrel of balls and a couple of shelves of spiked shoes. The room smells of leather for some reason,
maybe because of the shoes. You’ll want this for the pitching, he says, handing Fisher a club from the row behind the counter. And you’ll need this for the putting. He hands another,
smaller club to me. He turns to Jez. You can have a damaged range ball for free or you can use a new one and pay up if it gets lost. What’ll it be? He takes a deep drag, then taps delicately
into a small, overflowing ashtray.

What’s the difference?

He grunts. You won’t tell the difference.

A new ball.

The big guy pushes his tongue around his mouth again. Right son, he says.

Jez takes the clubs and then waits while Fisher and me dig enough money out of our pockets to pay for them. All the time the guy watches us, especially Jez. When we’re done he points us
out of the shop towards a fire-escape door propped open with a half-brick. Through there, he says.

To start with we get the whole course to ourselves. From the first tee-mat, perched up on a dusty mound, we can see every one of the nine holes and they’re all deserted
except for a big, lumbering figure hauling a rake over one of the miniature bunkers six or seven holes away.

Alfie, announces Jez.

Call him over, says Fisher, smirking.

Jez shakes his head. We’ll catch up with him, he says, and drops the bright new golf ball onto the rubber mat at his feet. He’s not going anywhere, he adds. And sure enough, for all
the time we watch him, Alfie’s rake drags over and over the same little patch of sand like a stuck needle on a record.

Out of the corner of my eye I can see the guy with the beard watching from the shed doorway. Hit the ball, Jez, I say.

Jez spreads his arms wide, keeping us out of his sight line, then steadies himself, feet wide apart and knees locked. He takes a wild heave and misses, pounding the rubber mat so hard a big,
chalky puff of dust comes up. Fuck off, that was practice, he mutters when Fisher makes a move for the club. He sets himself rigid again then beats down even harder, this time getting the ball to
spurt off twenty yards or so along the yellow grass. He tells Fisher to fetch it back for him and I can feel the manager’s eyes still boring into our backs.

By the time we get to Alfie, the airmen have finished with the range and are playing right behind us, hitting proper, high golf shots that thump down and bounce head-high off
the hard ground as soon as we leave a green.

Alfie’s excited to see me. Nicky! he barks out. I’m too hot and uptight to go to him but Jez and Fisher start slapping him hard on the back. Then they reach up to scrub their
knuckles on the top of his head. Alfie’s hunched up already, throwing me cowed looks that make my guts churn.

Suddenly, a golf ball whacks in amongst us and Jez and Fisher leave Alfie alone to jump away from the green. Hey! What the fuck? Jez yells back at the airmen. They shake their heads and one of
them sends another ball thudding in front of us. We move off to a hole they’ve already played, Jez dragging Alfie along with us.

Fish, what’s the time? he asks, and like I’m just waking up, I realise why we’re here. Carol.

I move off a little way and sit down heavily on the rim of a bunker. I try to calm myself by just concentrating on my dusty shoes and the dirty rough sand round about them. This could be the
desert, I think to myself. It could be Africa, or somewhere out of the Bible. I close my eyes and blood-coloured lights throb in and out of the black. I can hear Jez and Fisher getting Alfie to put
down his rake and take hold of the golf club. He doesn’t want to, but that just makes Jez more determined. I’m thinking I wish I could bury myself in the sand right here without anyone
noticing, or disappear into a desert forever where no one knows anything about Alfie or Carol or me.

The thing that finally makes me look up is the guy from the shop coming over to check what’s going on. Even then I only open my eyes because Fisher sends him over to me. It’s okay, I
hear him say, we’re all just having fun. We’re Alfie’s friends. That’s even his brother. That’s his little brother over there.

The big guy walks over to me. I can hear his footsteps coming and that’s when I look. You’re Alfie’s brother? he says.

I nod and look up but I can hardly see his face for the blood-lamps still drifting across my eyes.

He shakes his big untidy face. Leave him alone, he growls to all of us. He’s got work to do. I catch you messing with him again, I’ll mess with you, brother or no brother. Everyone
understand?

He goes on staring at me for quite a while, but doesn’t say anything else. In the end he turns and trudges back to the sheds.

I look over at the others. Alfie’s got his rake back and he’s stood in a bunker but looks like he’s forgotten what to do. He keeps shrugging and repeating something quiet to
himself, over and over, too quiet for me to hear the words.

Jez goes and rolls the ball onto the nearest tee-mat with his foot. You do it, he tells Fisher, and hands him the club. A jet screams low, leaving the base and climbing.

A Buccaneer, says Fisher, and his mouth stays open. They’re just trainers, he goes on to no one in particular, disappointed, but he watches after it anyway until it’s just a speck in
the hot blue.

Hit the ball for Christ’s sake, Jez tells him.

But neither of them care much now and Jez doesn’t even crow when Fisher scuffs the ball sideways into long, dead grass. Fisher grunts, but not like it matters.

Then someone sets a car horn going, three long blasts, and I know it’s Carol. Alfie knows it too – he shuffles out of the sand and makes for the sheds, leaving the rake half-cocked
over the bunker’s edge.

Jez and Fisher give each other a look then set off after him.

Where are you going? I call, my heart speeding.

Fisher mumbles something to Jez and laughs, then he turns and tosses the club to me. It lands upright with a bump, bounces and cartwheels into the bunker, just missing my legs. Jez keeps hold of
the putter, swinging it from the metal head like a walking stick.

I stay where I am, churning my feet into the gritty sand. It seems to take forever before they all come trooping over to me – Carol first, then Jez and Fisher, then poor old Alfie
following last with his big wide simple face, though now it’s twitching with nerves.

Carol stops a couple of paces away from the bunker and sweeps her long fringe from the side of her face, holding it back for a second; then she lets it drop back exactly the way it was. Look
after Alfie for a while, she says.

What?

You heard. Look after Alfie.

Why? I realise my feet are twisting more quickly now, but not getting any deeper, almost like they’re waving at her out of their burrows. I stop it and pull them up clear. She looks at
them hard, like they mean something.

Why? I say again.

I glare up at Fisher and Jez, both standing just behind Carol, one on either side. Fisher keeps darting quick looks from me to Carol to Jez and back again. Jez won’t look me in the eye.
He’s looking kind of dreamily out over the airbase, though I know there’s nothing to see.

We’re just going for a drive, Carol says. With the windows down. To get cool. She flicks her hair back again. Ten minutes, she says.

I snort and she rolls her eyes.

Jez frowns in whatever kind of dream he’s in, but still doesn’t look at me.

Just mind Alfie, okay? Ten minutes, she says.

Fisher turns to wave and wink at me as they go.

Leave him alone, Carol says, sounding tired, and I watch their backs until they disappear round the side of the sheds, the long tin roofs shimmering in the heat.

I wait until the engine coughs and starts, then stand up and turn to Alfie. You’re wondering where Carol’s gone, I tell him.

He’s staring after them, red-faced, big wet lips working slowly but not making words.

I get out of the bunker and stand on its brim. Over in the airbase compound a blue minibus is filling up with private-school kids in their dark grey air-corps uniforms. A tall, young-looking
teacher in the same outfit slams the back doors behind them, jogs around to the driver’s seat and climbs in. Then the bus just sits there on the hot black tarmac, not moving. Further out, on
one of the distant runways, another Buccaneer accelerates, then roars into the air. It makes a low circle and thunders over the driving range before heading out towards the sea.

* * *

All these years on, and Alfie a long time dead, it’s strange to think of the airbase, the jets and runways, hangars and fences all buried or broken up. All of it carried
away like the whole thing was made of playing cards. It’s grazing land now, rough and wide open and empty except for young heifers or sometimes a solitary, wandering bull. The driving range
too of course: all vanished. Strange to think of thistles growing up tall and hooves cutting in where the combed white bunkers, neat fairways and smooth, clipped greens were. You take the quiet
drive out there now to the headland and there’s no way of knowing.

The ten minutes passed somehow. A couple of times I tried to distract Alfie from staring spellbound after them, but it didn’t really help – whatever I said he kept his blank,
wide-awake eyes fixed on the gravel road beyond the sheds. I picked the golf club out of the sand, found the ball in the tangled grass and chipped it up and down the little fairway a few times,
back and forth. It was pleasant seeing the new white ball hop and roll so true on the neat strip of turf, shaved out so carefully from the scrub and thick weeds pressing in. It was the feeling of
finding somewhere tended, cared for, where it didn’t really need to be. It just was. Though we were in a place half the town and airbase had trampled over one Saturday afternoon or another,
it suddenly felt set apart and private to us, and safe.

Is it you that cuts this grass? I called up the fairway to Alfie.

He rocked on his heels, still staring after Carol.

It’s nice, I called again. Really nice.

I clipped the ball up the gentle slope towards him, then laid down the club and looked all around, standing tip-toe on the bunker’s raised lip. The minibus with its uniformed kids was
gone. We must have been waiting half an hour at least by that time. Alfie was grunting to himself, swaying almost imperceptibly from side to side. There was no sign of the car returning.

I’m not waiting, I said to Alfie, I’m going now, and to my amazement he followed when I started walking. I stopped and turned. Keep close to me and do what I do, I said, and for the
first time in my life, as far as I remember, felt myself a companion to him. Soon, we’d climbed the golf course’s white picket fence and were in open country. Behind me I heard the big,
bearded manager call out after us but he didn’t call for long and by the time Carol and Jez and Fisher must have spilled from her car we were out of sight and out of sound, swallowed up
completely by the same spreading fields that come back always and would swallow up everything soon enough.