It was clear that I needed to cultivate this friendshipfurther, as Nick was going to be a very important person in my life as itprogressed.
We were standing on the tenth tee now, a par 3, which to myhorror I could see involved crossing a small lake. The others had allconfidently teed off and made it across, but I lined up my shot with sometrepidation.
I wasn’t the only one as the ducks circling around in thecentre of the lake looked distinctly nervous. Perhaps they had learnt from pastexperience to be on the lookout for golfers like me.
They were right to be nervous. My errant tee shot went highup into the air before plopping down right in the middle of the ducks, sendingthem flying and quacking in all directions.
When my fellow golfers had finished laughing, I had anotherattempt: this time it landed on the slope of the far bank, staying agonisinglystill for a second or two before rolling back into the water.
Despite having started the day with a six pack of balls, Inow had none left, so I borrowed one from Nick as I prepared to take my thirdshot, which would in fact count as my fifth. Each shot into the water had costme a penalty stroke.
Thankfully it was third time lucky and miraculously itlanded on the green only about twelve feet away from the hole. It still took mean additional three putts to get it in, though.
Just as I was vowing in anger never to lift a golf clubagain, an amazing change of fortune came my way at the sixteenth, another par3. Somehow I lined it all up just right and my tee shot ended up about six feetfrom the pin. I then holed it for a birdie.
Despite all the earlier piss-taking, my fellow players werefull of congratulations, with plenty of backslapping and cheering. What anincredible buzz that gave me: perhaps golf wasn’t such a bad game after all.
My euphoria lasted all of three minutes. Due to winning thehole, for the first time that evening I had the honour of teeing off first forthe next hole. Predictably the ball went straight into a tree, and my delusionsof competence were shattered.
This time it was the squirrels who scattered in alldirections, more innocent victims of my golfing ineptitude.
A round of golf was supposed to take four hours, apparently,but due to all the cocking about looking for my lost balls, it was nearly aquarter to ten by the time we got to the last tee and the light was rapidlyfading.
In semi-darkness we hacked our way down the fairway,eventually reaching the clubhouse for a well-deserved drink just after 10pm.
I handed in my card with its dismal score of 136 on it and nineStableford points (whatever they were) and waited for the results to beannounced. Not surprisingly, our team did not win, but I was pleased todiscover that I wasn’t the worst player there, as they gave out an award forthat.
This went to a seriously fat bloke who looked more like adarts player than a golfer. He had apparently managed only one Stablefordpoint. So I wasn’t the worst golfer in the world after all.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to put myself through it allagain, though, and resolved to try and avoid any further involvement with thegame if at all possible
After a couple of beers with Nick and the others, I headedhome for a much-needed night’s sleep. Just as I was drifting off I rememberedthat I’d left the sandwich in the golf bag.
Well, it would have to stay there. I wasn’t going all theway back down to the garage now.
Lauren
August 2022
One of the peculiarities of my life was that things tendedto appear or disappear unexpectedly.
One day I would be squeezing toothpaste from a pristine newtube, the next I’d find myself rolling up the end of an old one, desperatelytrying to eke out enough for one last clean.
Another oddity was that I never needed to cut my nails orhave a haircut. My hair got shorter, rather than longer, until one morning I’dwake up and it would be long again.
Some days there would be consequences from happenings on theprevious day that I was yet to experience.
The day after my birthday in October I woke up with the mostagonising stomach cramps, requiring me to rush to the toilet before I shatmyself. The ensuing volcanic eruption from my arse was of Vesuvian proportions,ultimately leaving me with a ring of fire that Johnny Cash would have beenproud of.
Further investigation revealed that the previous evening,David and Stacey had taken me out for a meal to celebrate my birthday at aMexican restaurant that had recently opened in town.
It was too late to do anything about it now, but I stillsuggested we went for a Chinese instead when the previous day rolled round, andvowed to avoid all Mexican food from now on.
I still wasn’t doing a lot with my days. Although all signsof the cancer were long gone, I still felt tired and demotivated a lot of thetime.
Attempting to form new friendships was pointless, and Ididn’t have a lot of energy in my 50-something body which was pretty worn outfrom years of drinking, smoking and unhealthy living.
I consoled myself with the thought that my best years layahead of me, and just took things easy.
On warmer days, I walked up to Cutteslowe Park and sat inthe sunshine, reading ebooks and listening to my iPod.
On days when the weather was not so clement, I had taken tospending my time watching a sparkly new holographic television that adorned oneside of my living room wall. That was until I came down one morning to discoverit had vanished.
Most people would have thought they had been burgled, but Iknew otherwise. I had become used to such occurrences and
