‘We?’
Ransom leans forward and inspects the small glass cut on his cheek in the mirror.
‘We?’ he repeats, snorting, his eyes flicking towards her. ‘I thought I sacked all the others.’
‘You sack me too’ – she grimaces – ‘but I was dumb enough to stick around.’
‘Yeah, funny, that …’
Ransom gently moves his nose to the left and carefully applies the blade to an especially hard-to-reach area below his right nostril.
‘Must be some kinda glutton for punishment!’
She tries to make light of it.
‘You know what your problem is?’ Ransom directs an utterly insincere, saccharin-coated smile her way. ‘One might even go so far as to call it your Achilles heel, Esther: loyalty. You’re just way too loyal. Loyal to a fault. And while it’s extremely sweet …’
He nudges a tiny fleck of foam from the tip of his nose with his knuckle. ‘… almost touching, on occasion, it sometimes borders on …’ He pauses, pensively. ‘It borders on the annoying. You’re like one of those irritating, little burrs that gets snagged on my trouser leg when I’m stuck in the rough. Those pesky little fuckers that won’t come off no matter how hard I pick away at them.’
He wrinkles up his nose, fastidiously.
‘Pick all you wan’, darlin’,’ Esther mutters, falling – still deeper – into her smooth, honey-coated patois, ‘’cos I ain’t goin’ nowhere wit-out dem nine an’ a half mont’ outstandin’ back pay, ya hear?’
‘How much is that in total?’ Ransom wonders, idly. ‘In old money, I mean: pounds and pence? I don’t even know what I’m paying you. I don’t even know if you’re worth that amount. I don’t even know what you’re doing for me nowadays …’ He glances at her in the mirror. ‘What are you doing for me? What’s your role? What’s your official title?’
‘Chump,’ Esther answers, effortlessly.
‘That’d be right …’ Ransom addresses himself in the mirror again: ‘“Stuart Ransom, Professional Golfer, Chalk-talked by Chump!”’
He rolls his eyes, drolly. ‘I mean “transitioning”, Esther? Seriously? Is it any fucking wonder my game has gone to shite?’
He returns to his shave again.
‘Me not chalk-talkin’ ya, Stu,’ Esther mutters, wounded, ‘just offerin’ some tiny scrap of encouragement at the start of a long week …’
She glances over her shoulder with a significant look. ‘I don’t see nobody else here clamouring to do it.’
‘Is this how low we’ve sunk?’ Ransom addresses himself in the mirror again. ‘My idiotic PA catches half of Happy Gilmore on Sky Movies Gold and suddenly starts thinking she’s Dr Bob fuckin’ Rotella?!’
‘All I’m sayin’’ – Esther reaches out and adjusts the angle of the spotlight above the mirror to render the golfer’s complexion in a more congenial pallor – ‘is Jimmie had a fair point to make about –’
‘Yeah. Baby steps. Ouch.’
Ransom winces as she inadvertently jogs him with her bump. The razor nicks into the side of his lip. She promptly leans down and grabs a square of toilet paper from the roll, tears off a tiny corner, crumples it up, and applies it to the wound.
‘So far as I recollect,’ Ransom mutters, ‘Jimmie had a lot of fair points to make. If only he’d kept his cock in his pocket he could’ve still been making them.’
‘Jimmie cock never enter into it!’ Esther snorts, withdrawing. ‘The man a fine coach – a great coach – an’ cheap at half the money. Truth is, you just couldn’t handle what he was dishin’ out.’
‘Lucky you were there to handle it, then, eh?’ Ransom purrs, eyeing her distended belly, meaningfully.
Esther doesn’t react.
‘And while we’re on the subject,’ Ransom continues, ‘Jimmie? A great coach? Seriously? A great coach?! He wasn’t even a good coach! He was average, at best. And he was the worst kind of drunk: boring, stupid, charmless … A hectoring drunk. The man was a total, fucking liability, Esther. He was also twice your age and happily married when he knocked you up. Remember?’
‘Change the record, Stu,’ Esther mutters, flushing. ‘Me not got nothin’ to do with it. It was all about you an’ your precious swing.’
‘Oh really?’ Ransom half turns to face her.
‘Jimmie was a damn fool tryin’ a mess with it.’ She rolls her eyes, sardonic. ‘Nation may rise an’ nation may fall,’ she sings, ‘but the Lord knows: Stuart Ransom swing – that precious swing of his – transcend it all!’
‘I know you’re not the sharpest knife in the drawer, Est,’ Ransom grumbles, ‘but don’t you find it even a little bit ironic that my swing was the thing Jimmie most admired about my game when we first started working together? Jimmie loved my swing! Jimmie said my swing was “at the heart” of who I was as a golfer! He said my swing had – I quote – “a superabundance of character”! I mean what a friggin’ wheeze! What a rib-tickler! What a monumental, fuckin’ card the old boy was, eh?’
‘Ha ha,’ Esther laughs, hollowly.
‘How’s that famous saying go?’ Ransom wonders. ‘The one about people always killing the things they love?’
‘Ain’t got a clue.’
Esther is implacable.
‘It’s a famous saying, dick-head! Look it up on Ask Jeeves or something if you don’t believe me.’
‘I’ll be sure an’ do that’ – Esther nods – ‘on my next schedule day off.’
(Esther hasn’t been scheduled a day off in the previous thirteen months.)
Ransom digests this sullen observation, without comment, before: ‘Where’s the latest edition of Golf World got to? Did you unpack the rest of my stuff yet? I wanna show you that Butch Harmon piece I told you about in the cab. The one where he says nobody gives a flying fuck about swing knowledge any more. The one where he says swing knowledge is yesterday’s chip paper …’
‘Ain’t stop him floggin’ that Swing Memory device of his all over the golfin’ channel every chance he get,’ Esther demurs.
‘That’s just a sop for the punters!’ Ransom snorts. ‘He’s all about “maximizing your ability” nowadays – which means doing more of what you do well, basically …’
‘Baby step.’ Esther shrugs.
‘Baby steps my arse! It’s a completely different psychological approach!’ Ransom scoffs. ‘Fuck baby steps! Leave baby steps to the babies! Look at Westwood for Christ’s sake! He got his game back by just allowing himself to feel again …’
‘Feel again?!’ Esther echoes, disparagingly. ‘Lee rebuild his game from the ground up, an’ lost himself three stone while he was at it!’
Esther slaps Ransom’s belly with the back of her hand. ‘You want his dietician number so you can fire her, too?’
‘What is it with you and paternity?’ Ransom hits back where it hurts most. ‘Three kids by different dads, and each time it’s like some major, friggin’ whodunnit – a bad episode of friggin’ Poirot ! A stupid game of friggin’ Cluedo! Who’s the daddy, Esther? Eh? Who’s the daddy?’ He pokes at her belly with his forefinger. ‘Professor Plum in the map room with the laser-pointer? Colonel Mustard in the pantry with the turkey baster?’
Esther