The Caribbean thing, a remake of Island in the Sun, was pretty good, and so, they all said, was I. Weekend trips back to Scotland weren't practical, but I had written a couple of visits for Susie and Janet into my contract, so the homesickness wasn't too bad.
It was wrapped on time. We had a Bacardi party to celebrate, then I headed back to Scotland at the beginning of an unusually pleasant spring.
Almost the first thing Susie and I did on my return was to take Janet up to Anstruther for a couple of days, to visit my Dad and Mary, my stepmother. On Saturday afternoon, with no patients to be seen, it was decided that the ladies would visit Ellen and Colin in St. Andrews, to allow us guys… Jonny is a good enough golfer now to hold his end up with us… an afternoon on the links at Elie.
I've played some of the finest and most famous courses in the world..
. Pebble Beach, Valderrama, Wentworth, Kiawah Island, where alligators count as a hazard… yet I've never enjoyed any of them more than Elie on a nice day. The Old Course at St. Andrews may be the most famous in life, but it's not the most distinctive. It doesn't have an old submarine periscope sticking through the roof of the starter's hut.
It's true, I swear, and since it was installed thousands of players have thanked the retired sea dog who gifted it to the club. Since the landing area for the first drive can't be seen from the tee, and has a tight out-of-bounds on the right, the opening hole was a confusing and dangerous place in the old days. It was before my time, but my Dad assured me that on the club-house roof there were mirrors through which the starter had to do his best to judge whether the fairway was clear.
However, once this obstacle has been overcome, players are released on to a pleasant undulating course that wends its way from the town out to its most westward beach and back again. In the wind it's a swine, but on a balmy spring day it's one of life's great pleasures.
And yet as we made our way towards the turn, I could sense that there was an invisible cloud hanging over us, or over Mac the Dentist at least. Actually, I had sensed it the night before over dinner, when he had been quieter than usual. When he missed successive putts from under eight feet on the fifth, sixth and seventh greens, I knew for sure there was something on his mind.
"Out with it," I demanded as we set off up the eighth. "What's up?"
Jonny had pushed his drive to the right and was striding off after it.
In step with the arrival of his baritone, he'd grown a hell of a lot over the winter; although he was still a few weeks shy of fourteen years old, he was as tall as his Granddad and catching up on me fast.
"Nothing's up."
"Dad," I told him, 'the rest of your golf may be shite, but you are the best putter in life. You haven't missed three on the trot like that in my lifetime."
He looked at the ground as he walked and shrugged. "Ach, it's my eyes," he muttered. "They've been playing me up."
"Bollocks," I retorted. "You spotted my second shot on the fourth when I'd lost sight of it. When we were driving through here you recognised that patient of yours in Pittenweem from three hundred yards away.
What's the score?"
"You're four up!"
"Not that score. Cut the crap, Dad. Telling me porkies only serves to confirm it."
He stopped and sighed. "Okay, there is. But let's not talk about it here, not with the boy around. Afterwards. Now come on, before we hold the course up." He trudged off after his drive, which he had carved way out to the left; I had laid up with an iron off the tee, the only one of the three of us to find the fairway.
His mood seemed to improve after that. His concentration on the greens did, that's certain. He rolled in a few of his usual miracles and by the time we reached the seventeenth tee, he was only one down. He tugged his drive down the left and out of bounds, though, and that was curtains.
Since Jonny, playing off a handicap that would have to be revised, and quickly, had won our separate three-way points competition by that time, we agreed that we'd skip the eighteenth. Another of the pleasures of Elie is the pub near the fourth and final tees, placed strategically to lure those whose games have ended early, or on occasion those who lack the bottle to battle outwards into horizontal rain and gale-force winds.
We parked our clubs at the door… no worries: it's that sort of place … and wandered in. If we had taken Jonny in with us, the licensee probably wouldn't have minded, given the size of him, but I told him that while he might be tall enough to go into a pub, he wasn't old enough. He's an amenable lad, so he didn't argue.
The lounge section was empty, and so we chose a table in the corner. I bought Jonny a pint of orange and lemonade, a bag of crisps and a filled roll, and took them outside, where I found him sat on the wheel of my Dad's caddy-car, watching a match going up the fourth. Then I fetched a couple of pints of Eighty and four more rolls… it was still a while to dinner… and brought them across on a tray. I laid the plate on the table, put a pint in front of my Dad, returned the tray, sat down and growled, "Right."
"It's nothing I can't handle, son," said Mac the Dentist, abruptly.
"If it's making you play like that, you're not fucking handling it. Now out with it."
He gave another sigh, a huge one this time, and sagged back into his chair. He picked up his pint and looked at it. "I'm driving," he said. "I shouldn't be drinking this."
"We'll get a taxi. Now out with it."
"There's no putting you off, is there? What if I just refuse to talk about it?"
"Don't bother thinking about that; it's not an option. Come on."
He took a drink and a decision. "Okay, if you insist. I'm being blackmailed."
I felt myself stiffen in my chair. "You're what?" It began as a roar, but I choked it down before the licensee took too much interest. "What do you mean?"
He leaned his head back against the pub window, and stared up at the ceiling. "The husband of a female patient came to see me," he began, his voice loud enough for me to hear, but not to carry across to the landlord. "This was three days ago, on Wednesday, my afternoon off;
I'd treated his wife the day before." He paused and took another drink, and when he was finished so was his pint. I went to the bar, bought him another and brought it back. Anger was welling up inside me, but I kept it in check.
"Thanks, son." His tongue was loosening. "I did an extraction under sedation," he explained. "It's unusual these days, especially in adults; most people just go for locals. But not this woman. She said she had a phobia, and that the only way she could do it was if I put her under. So I did, yanked her tooth, made sure that she had come round okay, and that was that. I told her to sit in the waiting room for a couple of minutes, but she said she was fine and went straight out the door." He paused to ingest some more ale.
"Next day, her weasel of a husband came to see me, and said that his wife had made a complaint against me. She'd claimed that when she started to come round from the anaesthetic, she realised that her knickers were down by her knees, her skirt was up round her waist and that I was feeling her up."
"So why didn't she scream?"
"My question exactly. The husband said that at first it was like a dream to her, that I must have realised she was coming round early and straightened her up. Only she realised very quickly that she hadn't been dreaming. As his story went on, she got out fast, went home and asked her husband to take a look at her. He said that he did, and saw, as he put it, "Clear signs of sexual interference." Bastard!
Bastards!"
"So why didn't he go straight to the police? While the knickers in question were still moist, so to speak."
"He said he wanted to spare you the indignity, you being a public figure and all that. He said he was sure I'd want to as well."
"By how much did he reckon you'd want to spare me?"
"Fifty grand's worth."
"Indeed," I heard myself say, my voice grating. "And if not?"
"The police and the tabloids."
My anger had turned into rage, but not the kind that shows on the outside; this was like a great cold ball inside me, growing all the time. Then the obvious occurred to me.
"Wait a minute. You must have had a doctor there to give the anaesthetic. Surely he'll kick all this into touch."
"Oh, I did; technically I wasn't anaesthetising the woman, only sedating her as I said, but I had Arthur Matthews in to do it. But that's the trouble. He can't back me up. He gave her the nitrous oxide all right, but the patient was no sooner under when his mobile went. A kid had been knocked down in the street, and he was the only doctor handy. He could see that everything was all right with the woman and he knows me well enough, so we agreed that he should get along there pronto. I never thought for a minute that I might be setting myself up, but I bloody well should have. I'm an idiot, son, and I know it."
"You're not an idiot, Dad," I told him, quietly. "You're a very nice man who knows nothing of the dark side of human nature. So what do you plan to do? Go to the police yourself?"
He shook his head, firmly. "Doing that would get you and Susie all over the bloody tabloids just as quickly, and inevitably mud would stick to me. I can't have that, for Mary's sake, or your sister's, or the boys'."
"You're not thinking of paying them, are you?"
"If it comes to it."
I could feel my eyes pulling at the corners as they narrowed. "What's his name? This wee blackmailer, what's his name?"
"Neiporte." He spelled it out. "Walter Neiporte. He sounded American. The wife's name's Andrea; I'd say she was English. She said she works as a secretary in a hotel up behind Kingsbarns, and I believe that he's a lab technician at St. Andrews University. They haven't been on my list for very long. This was only the third time the woman had been to the surgery. He's never been."
"Address?"
"They live in Pittenweem. Do you remember me slowing and looking at someone on the way through here? If you do, that was her."
I had had only a brief glimpse, from a distance, but I could remember her, and also the fact that my Dad had noticed her: tall, dark-haired, maybe thirtyish, although it had been hard to tell from so far away.
"How did your discussion finish?"
"With me grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and running him through the door. But then he phoned me that night. He said that he wasn't kidding, and that if I hadn't agreed to pay him off by next Monday at the latest, then he'd do what he'd threatened."
"Mmm." I looked down at my pint. My Dad was almost through his second, but mine was untouched. I shoved it across to him. "You drink that. I'll drive back." I picked up a filled roll… tuna mayonnaise… and walked over to the bar. There was a pay-phone in the far corner, with a telephone directory beside it, a year out of date and dog-eared from heavy use, but still in one piece. I picked it up and scrolled through it to the letter 'n'. The Neiporte clan is not thick on the ground in the East Neuk of life, but there was one, forename Walter, listed as residing at Grizelda Cottage, Main Street, Pittenweem. I knew exactly where it was; the name had fascinated me when I was a kid: it made me think of witches and stuff. In those days I thought they were fun, but now I knew different.
The third pint was gone when I got back to the table. I picked up the last roll and motioned my Dad towards the door, returning the empties as we left. (Bartenders like that small courtesy; it makes them more likely to fill your glass right up to the top next time.) We collected Jonny, walked back up the winding path to the club car park, dumped the clubs in the boot of the old Jag, changed our shoes, then I drove back to Enster. Back at the house, I stayed in the car as Mac the Dentist climbed out, not showing a trace of unsteadiness.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"We need Pampers for Janet. I'd better get some, just in case we forget tomorrow." If my Dad had thought about it he would have remembered that his granddaughter was two years old, and toilet trained.
As soon as I turned out of the drive, my rage released itself. It flowed through me and there was nothing I could do about it. I felt ferocious, in a way I had only known once before in my life, when I found out the truth about Jan's death. This was almost as bad. This man, these people, were threatening my father's good name, and they were using his only weakness… me… as a lever.
I parked a fair distance from Grizelda Cottage, round the corner, past the legendary Pittenweem fish and chip shop, and walked the rest. Just as I turned into the main street, I saw the woman again, leaving the house and walking away in the opposite direction; going for the fish suppers, maybe. Closer to, I could see that she looked pretty tasty.
By the time I reached the gate, all the old Oz was back, cold and calculating and in control. It did occur to me that there might be kids in the house, but if there were I'd give them a tenner and send them after their mother.
I rang the doorbell; as I waited I glanced around the front garden. It was untidy, but there were absolutely no signs of youngsters, no toys, bikes, footballs or anything like that.
The door opened and a man looked out at me. "Yes?" he said in a slight drawl.
"Walter?" I asked politely.
He nodded, and I saw the light of recognition in his eyes, just about half a second before I hit him and they glazed over. I caught him in the middle of the forehead, a good spot if your hands are hard enough.
I pulled it a bit, so I didn't knock him out, just stunned him. I shoved him into his hallway, then closed the door after myself as he tripped over his feet and fell backwards.
"Whose idea was it?" I asked as he scrambled back up. For a moment he thought about squaring up to me; maybe there was something about my smile that put him off that idea. "Whose idea?" I repeated. "Yours alone, or both of you."
"I dunno what you're talking about."
I started another right-hander; he swayed back from it and as he did I sank my left fist well into his flabby gut. He groaned and sat down again, hard.
This time I jerked him to his feet, easily, to let him see how strong I was. "Don't piss me about," I said evenly. "You and your wife threatened my father, you arse hole You tried to extort money from him. But what you've got is me instead. Somehow or other, you thought that nice old Mac was a soft touch. Maybe you thought that guys like me will do anything to keep our names out of the paper. If that's so, you were wrong twice. My Dad isn't a mug, not at all. As for me, there is nothing I will not do to protect him." I had him by the lapels, his back against a door.
"I could simply beat the shit out of you. That would be no problem.
But it wouldn't be enough. So I want you to listen to me, very carefully. I have a lot of money, and with it I have a lot of power.
Being a Yank, you can probably understand that concept. So what I'm telling you is that if either you or your wife ever go near my father again, and if you go anywhere near the police or the press with this wicked story of yours, something very bad will happen to you. I'm not just talking about a good thumping here, you have to understand. I'm talking much worse than that; concrete Timberlands, that sort of stuff."
The way his eyes widened, I knew right away that he was a believer. I smiled at him again. "You know something? I'm offended that you only asked him for fifty grand. If he'd paid it and I'd found out about it afterwards, that wouldn't have been nearly enough to protect you from me."
I let him go. "Don't ever forget," I told him, knowing that he wouldn't.
As I left the cottage, Andrea Neiporte was approaching the gate. She was carrying a parcel wrapped in shiny brown paper. Her mouth dropped open as I nodded to her on the way past. "Enjoy those," I said to her, 'while you can still chew."
As I walked into my Dad's house he was waiting for me in the living room. I could hear Mary and Susie, Jonny and Janet, in the kitchen.
"What did you do?" he asked. "You didn't pay him, did you?" He had worked out about the Pampers all right.
"I gave him what he was asking for, Dad, that's all. Now forget it, unless he bothers you again."
He looked at me as if I was someone he didn't know quite so well. "And what will you do if he does?"
I laughed out loud. "What do you think I'll do? I'll have him killed."