Chapter 22
“Been down at the pub?” I asked, hoping my smile communicated acceptance of Angus’ evening drinks.
Any person who on occasion had a few too many might respond with a self-indulgent smirk. Not Angus. Being an alcoholic he would rather we ignore his drunk state to normalise the situation; that way he wouldn’t have to address his own behaviour.
Angus the golf course owner slurred, imagining himself the charmer. “How are you girls enjoying the job?”
Ellie and I stood behind the small clubhouse bar. Angus, the only other person in the clubhouse, stooped over the bar taps.
Returning to the nine-hole golf course after spending most of the afternoon and evening drinking at the local pub, Angus, through his slurred thick Scottish accent, ordered a pint, babbling something about writing down what he drank on a piece of paper and putting the paper in the till.
Ellie poured the lager while Angus, at his party of one, continued to mutter and laugh to himself. Pint in hand, the party stopped. Angus turned to the back of the clubhouse and disappeared out the back door across the gravel courtyard to the main house where he lived with his wife Gaylene and their youngest, twenty-one-year-old son Robert – their other two children had managed to escape.
This was the first evening of our six-month live-in job at the golf course.
It was set amongst rolling manicured-looking countryside in the Cotswolds, an area of villages with maple-brown limestone buildings. We worked in the clubhouse taking green fees, cooking basic bar food and pouring pints, and during the week on quieter days we helped the groundskeeper, Robert, down-to-earth and essentially trapped due to a reading and writing disability, to mow golf tees and the practice ground.
Although it was a surprise to find our boss drunk on our first night, we were pleased with our new surroundings. We had enough grass and silence and space to mentally breathe for the first time in months. But two weeks in to the job we were questioning our working arrangement and conditions, wondering what we had agreed to.
The small clubhouse sat in the middle of the golf course with the nine holes out front. Inside was seating for fourteen, and outside there were four wooden picnic tables with umbrellas. We lived in one of five single-storey adjoining self-contained cottages behind the clubhouse, separate from the main house.
Weekends were the busiest days and Angus was everybody’s friend. Greeting regular golfers by first name with a plastic grin, and slapping them on the back before allowing the golfer to say a few words, Angus would end the conversation with a booming boardroom-member laugh, a superficial laugh I associate with practised networkers, a laugh that says, We are friends for this moment. I don’t currently need you for anything, but may do in the future. Let’s keep acquainted and flatter each other in this moment.
Past midday, Angus vacated the golf course to drink off-site. Cautious regulars would peek in and ask Ellie and me if Angus was around before deciding to stay for a pint.
The second weekend into our employment, Angus came into the clubhouse, looked in the till, then leant on the bar scrutinising the green fees book. He was sober. He said nothing and let the silence hover.
In the green fees book, golfers wrote their name, car license plate and how many holes they would play. We charged accordingly.
Leaning on the bar, Angus’ demeanour had changed from Mr Friendly outside greeting guests to Mr Accusing. It was the first time we witnessed one of his mood swings.
“Where are all the five pound notes?” he enunciated in his thick Scottish accent without eyeing Ellie or me.
A weird question, I self-incriminatingly paused for thought.
“We gave them out as change,” I said.
Because we had given them out as change.
His eyes still locked on the book, Angus asked again, unable to speak directly to or confront us. “Where are all the five pound notes?” He ran his finger down the page undertaking a mental tally of the number of golfers in the green fees book versus the number he would have counted on the course.
“We would’ve given them as change,” I said, in case he hadn’t heard me the first time.
Angus looked at Ellie, who now stood beside me. Did he think she would crack and reveal the secret of the five-pound notes?
Ellie stared back. “They would’ve been handed out as change.”
Thinking we had conspired, Angus exited the club house to walk around and grease his customers.
Angus was implying we were stealing five-pound notes. Which was confusing: why we would steal five-pound notes when we could steal twenties, I don’t know.
This was the first of many times when Angus accused or alluded to us stealing money, beer or food. He would comment how the golf course should be showing greater profits compared to last year and how there seemed to be more golfers on the course than pounds in the till and, instead of thinking people might be pulling into the car park and playing without paying, he assumed we were stealing. He also neglected to consider that another local golf course had opened down the road and the owner wasn’t a drunk. Punters spoke openly about going to the other golf course and Angus being a drunk.
A few weeks into the job, regular golfers and the golf pro Ian, with whom we had grown friendly and comfortable, asked how long we would stay.
We wondered how many others had left.
Ian drove a white VW Golf. In his early sixties, Ian had the distinguished silver hair of a wealthy retiree and would have been attractive had years of summer migration to Portugal, smoking and neglecting to eat, not rendered him gaunt with tan mummified skin.
What I remember most about Ian was his crush on a lonely trophy wife, Polly. Ian would arrive at the golf course and eat crisps at a picnic table in the sun and from his vantage point hope to catch a glimpse of Pretty Polly the trophy wife and take her for a golf lesson.
Pretty Polly the trophy wife had two boys and an older overweight husband. She always looked sad in that Princess-Diana-my-parents-thought-it-would-bring-me-higher-status-therefore-happiness-if-I-married-him-but-all-it-brought-me-was-loneliness kind of way.
I watched Ian watching Pretty Polly the trophy wife.
One day on the golf tee closest to the clubhouse, Pretty Polly the trophy wife was standing with her family, her head hung low while her energetic ten and twelve-year-old boys stood nearby and her uninterested husband looked into the distance. I felt sorry for Pretty Polly the trophy wife. During the week days at a picnic table, Ian listened to her problems and stared into her doe-like Princess Diana eyes.
retty Polly the trophy wife would smile around Ian, but I never saw a full smile, her mouth never reached its full curved potential.
Our decision to leave was only a matter of time and, from Ian’s position, predictable.
After the many occasions Angus’s drunken behaviour, illogical mood swings and unreasonable requests made us uncomfortable – Ellie driving his dog and bone to him at the pub; his accusing us of taking money and drinking litres of clubhouse beer when his son and friends drank in the clubhouse; his pushing our agreed hours of 8 to 5pm six days a week to 8 to 9pm, our day only finishing when the last golfers left the clubhouse; and his having us drive around after 9pm putting sprinklers on the greens – we decided to leave.
The plan was to work at the golf course until our chalet managing job started in France. However, the France job was two-and-a-half months away and we needed to get away from the golf course.
In a nearby village, Ian’s friend owned a fish factory. He was looking for casual workers.
One sunny afternoon, a few days after we had told Ian we wanted to leave, Phillip the fish factory owner joined Ian for a round of golf and had a chat with Ellie and me. Everything was settled. In two weeks we would start at the fish factory, work for ten weeks then go to France. We thanked Ian who, for all we knew, supplied Mark with a steady stream of disgruntled ex-golf course employees and was getting a finder’s fee.
No employee contract meant no formal agreement. By law, neither party was bound by a notice period to terminate our employment which meant Angus could have told us to leave at any time. Ian said he had heard murmurings Angus was going to fire us which alleviated some of the guilt – even considering the list of mistreatments – because in two weeks, there was a golf society group and we were expected to serve bacon butties, pork pies and pints of beer. Who was going to serve the pork pies?
Making the decision to leave brought about feelings fast becoming familiar to me; it’s as if once I hand in my notice or know I am leaving, the mental barrier comes down that is the necessary self-deluding lies I tell myself to make parts of a job I dislike seem bearable. Lies which build to a crescendo that is often the decision to leave.
Desertion day imminent, Ellie disappeared at lunch times, arranging accommodation in a village near our new job and shifting our belongings so that when we drove away, our fully-laden car would not raise suspicions.
As desertion day neared, our smugness increased. Helping Angus plan the golf society day, discussing how much food to order and our roles on the day, we grinned.
I knew the moment we drove from the golf course was one to relish. In that final moment we drove down the golf course driveway, Ellie at the wheel, we leant in for a selfie, grinning with a thrilling heady mixture of adventure, power, relief, freedom and future possibilities.