I was overstating it; there were only two. Back on my feet, I took my first close-up look at Jonathan Sinclair as an adult. He was slightly taller than his uncle had been, and maybe not as naturally heavily built, but he had the sort of gym muscles that you find on young pro golfers these days, since power became all-important to many of their coaches. There was a slight facial resemblance to his father, a first-generation computer nerd who’d been more interested in his job than his family, until finally Ellie Blackstone had binned him, but mostly he took after his mother. Other than temperamentally, it seemed; my former sister-in-law is most kindly described as formidable, a woman given to making her point.
‘So Uche’s message did get to you,’ said Johnny. ‘The sod never told me you’d called him back.’
‘I didn’t,’ I replied. ‘Well, I did, but I decided not to leave a message, since I’d no idea who he was. Who the hell is he, anyway?’
‘He’s my caddie.’
‘You’ve got a caddie?’ I gasped, inanely, as if it was natural in my world for a pro golfer to carry his own clubs.
‘Of course I have, Auntie,’ he chuckled. He nodded, over his shoulder, towards the black guy, who had closed in on us. ‘This is Uche,’ he continued. ‘Uche Wigwe. He’s my mate really; we were at Arizona State together. He hopes to join the tour as well, but he’s caddying for me until we can both go to qualifying school.’
‘That’s if we both have to, ma’am,’ Uche intervened. ‘If Jonny makes enough money through sponsors’ invitations, he’ll earn a playing card automatically.’
He was beautifully spoken, much better than Jonny, much better than me for that matter. ‘Your accent,’ I began.
‘African,’ he explained. ‘Nigerian, to be precise. My father is what the British media delight in calling a “princeling”, the implication being that our nobility isn’t nearly as grand or important as yours. It’s a slur that doesn’t trouble us, however, for aside from his old tribal title, he’s filthy rich.’
‘Uche was at Winchester School before Arizona State,’ Jonny added. ‘No scholarships, by the way. In theory we have the same manager, but it’s harder to get sponsors’ invites for him.’
‘Why?’ I asked, naively.
‘Why do you think? I played on the Walker Cup team; he didn’t.’
‘Jonny.’ The posh bag-carrier nudged him, gently.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘Auntie, I have to hit some balls. Stay and watch and we’ll talk when I’ve done. Can we have lunch afterwards?’
‘On one condition,’ I told him. ‘Stop calling me “Auntie”, will you?’
I climbed back up to my perch, and Jonny went to work. From that moment I wasn’t looking at anyone else, not at any of the champions on parade, only my nephew. . technically he hadn’t been since Oz and I divorced, but I was claiming him anyway. I know a little about golf, from the telly and from playing myself. It didn’t take me long to work out that the swing I was watching wasn’t the one he had learned from his grandfather and his uncle, classic Scottish amateurs both, conditioned to hit the ball low, and under the wind. His flight was high, and long. At first I thought that his natural shot was a fade, until he started to hit it the other way, drawing from right to left.
I heard Patterson murmur beside me. ‘See how straight his back is?’ he whispered. That hadn’t escaped my notice; everything about him seemed perfectly balanced. ‘He hits it like a dream,’ he added. ‘I wonder what his short game’s like?’
‘If he’s anything like his Grandpa Blackstone, it’ll be deadly. Mac’s a bandit around the greens.’
‘You sound as if you’re still in touch with him.’
‘Why shouldn’t I be? He’s my son’s grandfather too. Mac’s a regular visitor.’
‘Why isn’t he here for Jonathan’s debut?’ he wondered aloud.
‘I can tell you that,’ I said. ‘He and Mary are on a long cruise, out in the Far East. He may not even know about it.’ But if he had, would he even have told me? I wondered. A loose, unofficial pact had grown up between Mac and me. While he had given me occasional reports of Jonny’s golfing progress, we never talked about events past, and rarely about people from it. Tom was our shared future and we concentrated on him.
The thought was still in my head when I noticed that Jonny and Uche seemed to have been joined by someone else. . at least I assumed they had, for she, the only woman on the range, was standing beside the caddie, talking to him, but watching Jonny, while filming him with a handheld camera. He stopped, to change clubs and to take on some water, and I managed a look at her in profile. She was well over thirty, maybe even my age. Her hair was blonde, without being lustrous, and her skin was brown, but weather-beaten rather than tanned. She was dressed in pale green trousers, golf shoes and a polo shirt. Although I couldn’t see the front, it looked a match for the Ashworth that the guys were wearing, and it had the same car manufacturer logo that was on their sleeves. I’d noticed her earlier, near the clubhouse, talking to a large blond guy and two kids. One of the team, I guessed, but who was she?
Once again, Patterson came up with the goods. ‘That’s impressive too,’ he remarked. ‘That must be Lena Mankell. She’s Swedish, a swing coach. . the only woman doing that job on the men’s tour, so it’s got to be her. . and she’s reckoned to be one of the two or three best around. If she’s working with Jonny, and it looks as if she is, that’s a statement in itself.’
From then on, I watched her as well. Two or three times she stopped Jonny to play him back the video she had shot, and once adjusting the position of his hands at the top of the backswing, but otherwise she seemed happy with what she was seeing.
They worked on; that upright swing never seemed to vary, but gradually I could spot the slight differences in the set-up that triggered the differences in ball flight. When the session ended, and Uche put Jonny’s driver back in his bag, I checked my watch and found that they had been at it for well over two hours. By that time I was on my own, Shirley having pleaded a combination of sore bum and hunger before dragging Patterson off to find refreshment in the clubhouse.
As his caddie shouldered the enormous bag and headed for the locker room, Jonny was left in conversation with the big blond guy, who had joined him just before his practice broke up; it didn’t stop him waving me down to join them. ‘This is Lars,’ he said, ‘Lars Martinsson; he’s married to my coach, and he’s a pro as well.’
‘By the skin of my teeth,’ his companion added, in comfortable, if accented, English. ‘I don’t play so much these days. Lena’s work takes her to the big events, mostly. I don’t get to play in them very often, but I don’t like to be away from her and the kids, so I don’t spend too much time on the minor circuit. The one time I did win, seven years ago in Malmo, she wasn’t there to see it.’
Nice, I thought, a golfer who follows his wife, rather than the other way around.
‘Come on, Auntie,’ Jonny interrupted. ‘Let’s go to the players’ catering. I need to take on some carbs for this afternoon’s session.’
That sounded like a good idea, so I bade farewell to Lars, and fell into step alongside him. ‘You’re not finished?’ I said.
He shook his head. ‘I have to take advantage of today. It’s going to be really busy here tomorrow, so I want to get out on the course while I can. I’m due on the tee at two fifteen in a four-ball with. .’ He rattled off three names; one of them was the former US Open champion, another had been captain of the previous year’s Ryder Cup team, and the third was likely to be his successor. ‘They’re curious,’ he explained. ‘They want to see how I shape up. Plus they’re all good guys, to be sharing practice time with a newcomer like me. But this is a generous sport, Auntie Primavera.’