Her erect nipples, showing clearly through the lace fabric, tilted slightly upwards; they caught and held me like a burglar in a searchlight. I reached for her. She smiled, and put her hands on my chest. ‘I know bravado when I see it, my man. Go and have that beer. I’ll leave the water in the bath. From the size of this thing, even half-full it’ll drain the tank.’
I nodded, kissed her, said farewell to her glorious headlamps and went back downstairs. My Dad was still in the kitchen, finishing the chips that we had left. I uncapped another bottle and we went through to the living room, where he poured himself a whisky. A very small whisky, I was pleased to see.
He slumped into his chair, facing the window, and I sprawled on the couch. There were no lamps on, and since it was early summer, the fire was unlit. Dad and I like to sit in the moonlight. A pair of lunatics, he says.
He sipped his malt. ‘I like your lady, Oz. She’s for you. How long have you known her?’
I smiled in the shadows. ‘If I tell you, you’ll really think I’m daft.’
‘Always have, always will. Come on.’
‘Okay then. I met her yesterday morning. Go on then, laugh.’
But he didn’t. His domed grey head slumped, and his wise eyes stared into the hearth, at the fire screen that my Mum embroidered the year before she died, as if he was looking into the past … as he was.
‘Son,’… he only ever calls me that when he’s being deadly serious … ‘the day I met your mother, I said to myself, “I’m going to marry her.” The next day, I said it to her. She said, “All right, now that’s sorted out let’s take some time to get to know each other.” I’m not going to laugh at you, boy, because I’ve been there. Good luck to you both.’
He looked across at me and I saw his eyes glisten.
‘Thanks, Dad.’ I didn’t have anything more to say.
He did. ‘One thing, though. Your moments haven’t had spurs on them since you were about fourteen. What’s brought you tearing up here when by rights you should still be shacked up in that loft of yours?’
I shook my head. ‘Tomorrow, Dad, tomorrow.
‘Anyway, enough about me. What’s with you and Auntie Mary then? I knew you’d been seeing a bit of each other, but I didn’t realise how much. How long’s this been going on?’
‘About a year.’
‘Is it serious?’
‘What’s serious when you’re fifty-eight? Sure, the old loins still catch fire from time to time, but the difference is that you’re less likely to go hunting for the matches. No, pal, by that time your preoccupation is with the prospect of going into old age alone.
‘Mary and I have known each other for donkey’s years. Truth be told, I’ve cast an eye over her for most of that time, but while your mother was alive, and Alex More was around there was never any thought, on either side, of any … any, misbehaving.
‘Things have changed now. We’re both single, for different reasons. After a while, well, it just happened. Now, I think Mary’s happy enough, and she sure keeps me on the straight and narrow. Her basket would be full if Jan … but I suppose not.’
I shook my head. ‘Not much chance of that, Dad, I don’t think.’
‘No? Ach well …’
‘Does Jan know about …?’ I asked, hesitantly.
‘No. If she did, d’you think she’d have said nothing to you?’
I shook my head. ‘D’you think you’ll get married?’
He looked at me, frankly. ‘If we do, you’ll be the first to know. But come on, boy, don’t sit here any longer. Get away upstairs before that lass forgets what you look like.’
‘Come on, Dad. We’re not at that stage yet.’ I pushed myself out of my chair. ‘I am off to bed, though. See you after your surgery. Maybe we’ll hit a few balls, eh. I’ll see what Prim says.’ A wonderful thought struck me. ‘Hey, maybe she plays golf!’
I saw the light still shining under the bathroom door as I reached the top of the stairs. I tapped the door and Prim opened it, swathed in one of the towels. Her hair was hand-dried and stood up in spikes. Her face was scrubbed shiny; without a trace of make-up her eyes seemed even bigger, her lips fuller. I thought she was the loveliest thing I’d ever seen in my life. Come to think of it, I still do.
She smiled at me and pulled me into the bathroom. She’d been as good as her word. The bubbles were clearing, but the bath was still steaming gently. ‘In you go, if you want. I’ll still be awake, if you want to say goodnight.’ She stood in the doorway, smiling.
‘The water’s okay, is it?’ I said. ‘You didn’t pee in it or anything?’
She giggled. ‘Of course I did! But you love me, don’t you?’ She pulled the door closed behind her.
Her body was still hot from the tub, like mine, when I slipped into my room and sat on the edge of the bed. I stroked her cheek as she lay on the pillow. ‘Do you want me to pull the curtains?’ I asked her.
‘No,’ she said, drowsily. I kissed her forehead, and as I did I looked into her heavy eyes, and felt sleep begin to take me too. ‘Goodnight, then,’ I whispered in her ear. ‘Oh yes. I almost forgot to ask. Do you play golf?’
In which we play seventeen holes and the Jag stays on the road
She does, of course. Pretty well too. We were lucky to get a threesome off at Elie on a Saturday afternoon, but my Dad’s been a member there since God was a boy.
Elie Golf House Club has to be the only course in the world with a submarine periscope built into its starter’s hut. No. I’m not joking. A submarine periscope.
We were waved off, and my Dad clumped an awkward drive halfway up the face of the hill, 100 yards in front of the first tee, which makes the contraption necessary. Prim and I, sharing my clubs — the Nissan’s boot serves as a locker for all my sports gear — clipped our shots safely over the direction post, and we were off.
The quirky old course, spread out on its three fields, unfolded itself for us in the afternoon sun. Our golf was pure mince but we didn’t care. It was a nice afternoon, if a bit windy, and Prim and my Dad got on like a house on fire. Eventually, like many an Elie golfer, we decided to skip the eighteenth hole and go straight to the nineteenth. The old Golf Tavern has changed less, probably than any pub I know. My Dad still calls it ‘Elrick’s’, although that licensee has been gone from it since I was a child.
I got them in, and we sat at a table in the window, crunching crisps and playing dominoes.
‘So what’s this story,’ said my Dad, slamming down the double five, ‘that you were going to tell me? What brought you up here?’
I looked at Prim. She nodded.
‘Okay, but we better finish the dominoes, ’cause it’ll put you right off your game.’
‘Nonsense. You could poke me in both eyes with a sharp stick and you still couldn’t beat me at Doms. Come on, tell me your story.’
‘If you insist. After you’ve got them in.’
He shook his head. ‘My God! Does everything have a price?’ He stood up and took the single step across to the high bar counter. He was no sooner back with two pints of Deuchars and a small whisky for him than the door creaked open. The Golf Tavern is a great place for old bodgers. This one had a dog, a great, fat, slavering labrador. It was the sort of dog you find at one time or another in every country pub, its function being to see its master home in time for supper.
The old bodger turned out to be a patient. ‘Hello Mac,’ he hailed, the red capillaries standing out on his nose. ‘Don’t see you along here very often. Glad I bumped into you. Had this terrible bloody ache for a week now.’ He hauled his loose lips wide apart to reveal a yellow canine of which the lab would have been ashamed. Half an hour and two more dog walkers later, we made it back to Dad’s elderly Jag, parked outside the clubhouse. ‘Jesus!’ he spluttered, as he eased himself behind the big dish of the steering wheel. ‘No wonder I don’t come along here too often. One of them in there actually asked me to look at his fucking dog! Did you hear him?’