‘He says I have to be accompanied everywhere I go, Primavera,’ she complained. ‘He’s been all through the house, inspecting the windows, checking the alarm system, and more than that, he’s had me look for anything that Patterson might have left behind.’
‘Did you find anything?’
‘Not a bloody thing. He’s even taken his clothes out of the laundry basket.’
‘Did you do his ironing for him?’ I asked.
‘Hell no!’ she barked. ‘Mine is mine and his is his; that’s what I told him from the off.’
‘My dad would tell you that’s why he’s left.’
‘Eh?’
‘Never mind.’
‘Right enough,’ she reflected, and I imagined her smile, ‘your dad is an odd bloke. But whatever the reason is, he’s gone and that’s an end of it. I’m over it. I’m not living like this, though, taking coppers with me to buy a baguette in the morning. Come and eat with me tonight, love, eh?’
‘Shirl, I would, but I’ve got the boys.’
‘Bring them. They can swim.’
I weighed that up. ‘No, sod it. I’ll feed them, then Jonny will Tom-sit for me, I’m sure. I’ll come up on my own.’
I hung up and returned to my role as domestic deity. I had just dumped a load of ironed clothes in Jonny’s room when he returned from the beach, using the back stairs as I’d told him so that he could get rid of the sand in the shower that I’d had installed for that purpose, one level above the garage, but below the house itself.
‘Where’s Uche?’ I asked him.
‘I left him on the beach,’ he replied. ‘There are a couple of Swedish girls down there, and he thinks he’s pulled.’
I frowned. ‘Does he need them both? Does sharing with friends mean nothing to the man?’
He laughed. ‘Uche does many things for me, Auntie P, but he doesn’t procure women.’
‘Are you going back down there?’
‘No. There’s stuff I need to do. First and foremost, I have to get myself a practice base. Having won there, I’ll have the courtesy of Girona for the next year at least, but I had a call this morning from the club where you and I played last week, offering me a slot as its official touring pro. I’ll need to talk to Brush about that, but it’s still only six thirty where he is. Before I speak to him, I have to get ready to go on telly. I had an email on my iPhone from the Tour press officer. The BBC want to interview me for the Scottish news tonight, and for the breakfast programme tomorrow; plus, the Tour wants something for its own website. They’re going to roll the three into one. There’ll be a crew and a reporter here in an hour. .’ something must have shown itself in my eyes, for he paused, then added quickly, ‘. . not here, at the house, just in the square.’
‘It’s okay,’ I told him. ‘You can use this place if you want; just don’t identify it, or us, that’s all.’
‘Nah, we’ll do it in front of the church. Location doesn’t matter to me; the important thing is that I’m in uniform, in the right clothing, wearing the right sunglasses, with every sponsor’s logo on display for the camera.’
‘What if they only shoot close-ups?’
‘They won’t. The press officer says that even the BBC understands commercial reality.’
I smiled. ‘Go on then. Turn yourself into a walking advertising hoarding. I’ll knock us up a salad while you’re doing that.’
Lunch, on the terrace, was interrupted by two phone calls from newspaper reporters. Jonny dealt quickly, but willingly, with each of them; there had been three others in the course of the morning, he told me.
‘I thought you guys just used Twitter and Facebook these days, and let the newspapers pick that up.’
‘Not me. I have a Facebook page, yes, but I’d like to hang on to something of a private life, so Twattering is out.’
I kept out of sight while he became a TV star. I stayed on my private terrace, reading the autobiography of a former prime minister of Great Britain; as I’d hoped, it helped me to doze off, and when I awoke, the whole circus was over and the clowns had gone.
Jonny was on the phone as I tottered back into the living room. ‘Yes,’ I heard him say, ‘I’ll do that,’ as he ended the call.
‘Do what?’ I asked.
‘Accept the offer from Pals,’ he replied. ‘Brush said he could probably have got me a touring pro engagement from Girona, or from half a dozen bigger clubs in the UK, but that it’s more important to go where it feels right. So I’ll call them, and from tomorrow I’ll practise there every day. Brush says he can fix me up with some pro days there, when I can fit them in.’
‘What are they?’
‘Simply put, wealthy amateurs who fly in to play a round with me then fly away again. It’s similar to what we do under the sponsor deals. He’s renegotiating them, incidentally.’
‘Good for him.’ I smiled. I was taking to the mystery man, by the minute. ‘Where do you play next?’ I asked.
‘Portugal, next week. I could go to Wales tomorrow, but we would barely have time for a practice round before the tournament. Brush says there’s no better way to get demoralised than to win one week and miss the cut the next.’
‘Speaking from experience, is he?’
‘Hardly,’ he chuckled. ‘Clive says that Brush never won a tournament, or even came close.’ Just as he’d told me. ‘But he’s right, for all that. To be honest, Auntie P, mentally, I’m wasted. I’ll pull out of Portugal too, if my head isn’t right by next Sunday.’
I reached up and ruffled his hair. ‘Then you make sure it is. You can start by beating your cousin at a couple of video games tonight. He always wipes me out; I reckon that defeat will be good for his soul. If you don’t mind staying in with him, that is: otherwise he’s bound for a girlie night at Shirley’s.’
‘Hah! Where his soul would be seriously at risk. Sure, that’s fine by me. Uche can join us; Sweden didn’t quite work out as he’d hoped.’
‘Fine. I’ll make dinner for three in that case.’
‘No, you won’t,’ he shot back. ‘I need to cook, or I’ll forget how.’
I took him at his word. I showed him where the pots and pans were and what was in the larder and in the fridge. I’m American in my attitude to those. I saw a TV series last year in which the anti-hero kept a body in his SMEG for the best part of two episodes, without having to cram it in at all; that’s the size I like.
I went back to my book. I’d finished it by the time Tom got home from school, so I was well rested by the time I got to Shirley’s place. She wasn’t. For all that she’d said that she was over Patterson already, the process of mentally washing that man right out of her hair had taken a lot out of her. She was clad in the sort of garment that used to be called a catsuit, but wouldn’t have suited any feline I ever saw, and wearing the sort of slippers that your granny used to give you for Christmas, with imitation fur trimming and inch-thick rubber soles. She hadn’t bothered to attend to the black circles under her eyes; indeed she was wearing hardly any make-up.
Shirley has an open kitchen and when you’re invited there for dinner, you can usually scent what’s on the menu as soon as you walk through the front door. That night there wasn’t even the faintest whiff of salad dressing.
I didn’t have to point that out. ‘I’ve got nothing done, Primavera,’ she moaned. ‘I’ve been so bleeding busy that I’ve lost track of time. Don’t worry, you won’t starve: I’ll knock something up.’
‘Let me help,’ I said. ‘What have you got?’
‘Steaks, burgers, sausage, the makings of a salad; that’s what I was planning.’
‘Okay, babe,’ I declared. ‘Tomorrow is war but tonight we barbie! I’ll go and fire up that gas contraption outside, you do something about your slovenly appearance. You look like a fat old lioness in that thing. You have a million dollars, woman, so make yourself look like it.’
She grunted something obscene, but shuffled off in the direction of the stairs nonetheless. I did a fridge audit, peeled a few potatoes, cut them into chips and switched on the deep fryer. By the time she re-emerged, looking once again like the Grande Dame I know so well, we were in ‘ready to go’ mode, the garden table was set for two and there was a bottle of pink cava in a bucket right in the middle.