Loopy (17 page)

The one blot on this otherwise perfect scenario was that, as O'Hara confided to Loopy, the widow was a “lighting bitch.” Margaret O'Hara regarded alcohol as the devil's brew and not to be tolerated within the four walls of her house. Her late husband had had to take a lifelong pledge against alcohol before she would even entertain the idea of marrying him. Pat O'Hara hoped that by using The Atlantic as an excuse, he could fulfill the “duty” visit to his sister-in-law without spending much time in either her house or her company. The way he saw it, looking after Loopy would allow him to spend as long as he liked on the golf course or in the bar without incurring Margaret's wrath.

Moments after he was picked for The Atlantic, Loopy had telephoned the caddy master at Ballykissane to inquire if Weeshy would be available to caddy for him. The caddy master was dubious, suggesting that Weeshy would probably be carrying his regular bag, that of a wealthy businessman from Northern Ireland who had once played at international level. It was a long-standing arrangement and the caddy master thought it unlikely that the caddy could be lured away from such a profitable assignment. Nevertheless he agreed to pass on Loopy's request.

That evening, Weeshy phoned back. From the outset, it was obvious that he was uncomfortable speaking on the telephone. One moment he was shouting into the mouthpiece, the next he had obviously moved it some distance away and Loopy could barely catch what he was saying. He did, however, catch enough of Weeshy's words to realize that the caddy was prepared to give up his usual client, thereby dropping a substantial paycheck, to work Loopy's bag. Weeshy did not state, and Loopy did not dare ask, the reason for this strange but welcome decision.

Joe Delany would be unable to make the trip to the Atlantic Trophy but presented Loopy with two complete outfits, from the peaked visor down to the spiked shoes. As Joe said without a hint of sarcasm, the outfits were interchangeable so that Loopy could wear a different combination each day right up to the final. The shirts, sweaters, and visors bore the crest of Trabane Golf Club, and Loopy's heart swelled as he tried them on in the pro shop with Joe and O'Hara clucking their approval like a pair of old hens. When he tried to stammer out his thanks, Joe would have none of it.

“Just wear them with pride and remember you're as good as the best of them and better than most!”

Oddly, Seamus Norbert, supermarket supremo and trainer of the Trabane Gaels, used precisely these same words before sending his charges out to do battle on the hurling pitch. There had been only one setback to Loopy's progress as a golfer. He had spent an hour on the practice ground hitting every shot imaginable when he say Amy walking toward him. He hadn't seen her since the incident with Jake the spaniel, but they had spoken quite a lot over the phone. She was carrying a parcel.

“I just got in from London, and Dad said I might find you here. I brought you this.”

Loopy eyed it speculatively. “What is it?”

“A present—well, not really a present. More of a replacement really.”

“A
replacement?
A replacement for what?”

“Why not open it and see!”

It was a cashmere sweater with
Loopy
woven into it as a crest. He had never seen anything like it before.

“It's…,” he stammered helplessly, “it's fantastic. But why? What did I do to deserve this, Amy?”

“Well, for one thing, you ruined the one you were wearing carrying Jake back home. He's fine again, by the way, all thanks to you. So I saw this place in London that did personalized sweaters and I thought you might like it.”

“Might
like
it, I absolutely love it! How can I ever thank you?” As he pulled on the sweater, Amy quipped, “You know something, I must be the only one round here who has never seen you hit a golf ball.”

“Well, that's easily fixed. I'll show you my very best shot.” With that he threw a ball on the ground and plucked Porter's old driver from his bag. “Joe Delany, he's the professional who plays with your father and coaches me, well, he tells me that no one else can hit a driver off the ground like me. I don't know if it's true, but it sure as hell makes me feel good about myself anyway, so here goes.”

With that he swung at the ball as hard as he dared. Whether it was because of his elation at Amy's gift, or that Porter's trusty driver had finally decided to call it a day, was something that Loopy would never know. All he could be sure of was that as the ball soared away into the evening sky, the head of the club shattered into tiny fragments. Loopy tried to reassure her that it was no big deal, though deep inside he would have been happier if it had not happened. Joe had been trying to persuade him to change to a newer model for ages. Now he would have no choice.

*   *   *

In the days that followed his selection, Loopy had time to think of little else except golf. He would have liked to get in as much practice with the new driver that Joe Delany had presented to him as he could, but as luck would have it, the lorries to collect the hay were arriving at regular intervals. He had to be at the farm to count and then sign for the number of bales in each load. When the barn was emptied, there was a final balancing payment of 322 pounds in addition to the advance of 3,000 pounds. Brona was beside herself with excitement.

From the day that she'd married, there had never been a time when the family was not in debt to the bank. There was a locked drawer full of letters and bank statements, all bearing the same grim news. Colorful phrases such as
The Lynch account has gone way over the limit agreed between Mrs. Brona Lynch and the Manager of Allied Banks of Ireland
in the portly person of Leo Martin.
As a result of this alarming rise in borrowings, the directors of the aforesaid bank have no choice but to instruct Mr. Martin to take whatever steps he deems necessary to recover the amount outstanding at the earliest possible opportunity.

This conjured up a picture of the directors, dressed in swallow-tailed coats and striped pants, wringing their hands in a massive outpouring of collective grief. Their grief was occasioned by the fact that Brona Lynch, deserted wife and mother of a young family, was indebted to the largest lending institution in the state for the exorbitant sum of 623 pounds and some odd pence.

Now, all of a sudden, she had money on deposit, earning interest with the same Leo Martin who had, only weeks previously, been threatening to evict her from the farm her family had worked for generations. Better still, her son was representing Trabane in some big golf tournament sponsored by the very same bank. Sometimes Brona had to pinch herself to make sure it was not all just a wild dream.

One afternoon when the bar was empty, Edward Linhurst dropped in for a quick gin and tonic.

“Thanks for fixing up poor Jake. Amy tells me you did a great job on him. Most impressed she was—and take my word for it, she's not that easily impressed. Did the hay work out alright?”

“Indeed it did!”

“Good. You may have wondered why I was so interested. Well, not a lot of people know this, but I started out cutting hay by hand.”

“By
hand?
” Loopy thought that Linhurst must be joking.

“Yes, by bloody hand! We had two acres of scrubland out the back of where I was born. Used to borrow a scythe from a neighbor and cut the hay myself with it. Then I'd sell it to him later on in the year.”

“Sounds like hard work.” Loopy sounded impressed.

“You'd better believe it! But it put bread on the table when we most needed it.”

Neither one said anything for a while after that, each silent with his own thoughts, then Loopy remarked, more to himself than Linhurst, “Would never have guessed it.”

“Guessed what?”

“That you of all people started out like that.”

“Damn sure I did. Where I lived in Wales, coal mines were closing down right, left, and center. Not a job to be had anywhere.”

“Trabane's getting like that now, y'know,” Loopy confided. “That's why my father went to England.”

He didn't mention the trail of debt he had left in his wake.

“My old man bailed out one day,” Linhurst observed in a matter-of-fact tone as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world for a father to do. “Never saw or heard from him again from that day to this.”

“We have that much in common, anyway,” Loopy commented drily but without rancor.

Linhurst laughed out loud. “So we have! Cut from the same cloth, you might say.” Then, brightening visibly, he added, “The reason I dropped in here in the first place was that I wanted to tell you that I'm not quite sure if I can make it to The Atlantic to see you play.”

This was the first inkling Loopy had that anyone else apart from O'Hara would be there to watch him play.

“Had I been there, I would have taken you and Pat out to dinner. In fact I had already made the reservations. They're in my name for eight o'clock at The Royal, all four nights. That okay with you?”

Loopy didn't know what to say. When he tried to thank him, Edward Linhurst would have none of it.

“The very least I could do. Now please don't be offended, but since I can't be there myself, here's something to cover your expenses, caddies, drinks for Pat, and suchlike.”

“I-I-I can't. Mr. Linhurst, I really can't. You've already done more than enough for me with the hay and—”

“If you don't accept it, I will be deeply offended. Now take it like a good fellow and not a word about this to anyone. Okay?”

Loopy took the envelope with some reluctance. “Thanks, Mr. Linhurst, I won't forget this—ever.”

People came into the bar and the moment passed.

*   *   *

In fact, Loopy's father, unlike Edward Linhurst's, had every intention of returning home. Nightly Sean Lynch had agonized in his flea-ridden bed over what he would say when he walked in, unannounced, through the door of his own house. Would he time his arrival for midday when the children were away and only Brona would be there to hear his excuses? That was the problem, of course,
what
excuses? How could he properly explain to her his crippling shame of getting so deep into debt and not being able to do anything about it? At first the only way out, as he saw it, was either to kill himself or make a new start in England. He had given serious thought to suicide. After much consideration, he decided that it would only bring further pain to his long-suffering household. The trouble was, that having taken the boat for England, how could he now explain to them that it had been as easy to back losers in Birmingham as it had been in Trabane?

The
Irish Post
was a paper for Irish emigrants that sometimes carried news of Trabane, as it did of most small towns back home. Whenever he could lay hands on a copy, he would eagerly devour every scrap of news.

*   *   *

The trip to Ballykissane in the elderly Ford took far longer than in Tim Porter's coupe. This was not solely due to the difference in performance between the two motors. There had been many stops along the way—the first of them at Loopy's request. Without explaining why, he'd asked O'Hara to stop at the fort.

It was a sunny morning and the ocean breeze rustled the leaves of the mighty oak trees standing guard around the fort. Shafts of sunlight penetrated their canopies, bouncing off the rough, gray stones that had stood in a circle since time began. It made them feel more welcoming than before as they seemed to give out vibrations stronger than ever. Loopy felt a greater sense of relaxation than ever, not unlike the anesthetic he'd received at the hospital. He found a place in the grass that was free of nettles and lay down, facing upward. Around him, the slabs of gray stones stood sentinel, stark against the huge tree trunks. He felt drowsy as he stretched out lazily, like a cat in the long grass. Closing his eyes, his mind seemed to empty itself completely.

The tension that had been building up day by day as The Atlantic drew ever closer seemed to seep out through the pores of his skin, leaving in its wake a familiar inner glow. That glow turned into something akin to a mild electrical charge, and it seemed to be coming from the gray limestone slabs that encircled him. Though their origins had been lost in the mists of prehistory, legend had it that the tribes who'd put them there were sun worshipers with magical powers. Later these ring forts were thought to be the home of the little people, as fairies were called in Trabane.

Even today, some people in the locality claimed to have heard strange music and sound of singing coming from the fort on May Eve, a night special to the little people. Pagan superstition mingled easily with Christianity in Ireland, and the forts with their mythical inhabitants had long been treated with a mixture of fear and respect. This despite the best efforts of the clergy down through the centuries to wean their flocks from such pagan beliefs.

It would be going too far to say that Loopy actually
believed
in fairies, but like his father, he sensed the power of this stone circle to give him inner strength. His mother pooh-poohed the whole idea, insisting that superstitions like that were not only ridiculous but offensive to Our Holy Mother, the Church. Nonetheless she sprinkled her hens and cows with holy water every May Eve—when the little people were supposed to leave their fairy forts and roam through the countryside.

Memories like these ebbed and flowed as he lay in the grass, but for the most part he thought of absolutely nothing. His mind had become a vast, empty cavern, disturbed only by the buzzing of insects and the insistent warbling of a skylark high overhead. It was a trancelike state deeper than ever before. When he did manage anything like it on the golf course, his game improved beyond all recognition. Instead of worrying about keeping his head still, completing the back-swing, and the myriad other tips that Joe Delany had passed on to him, he would just stand up and hit the ball out of sight. It was then that he realized with a startling clarity that if he could get into the same state of mind at Ballykissane, he might yet acquit himself creditably in The Atlantic.