I drank the first glass fast and gagged slightly at the bitterness, but then felt a warm glow in my tummy like liquid Ready Brek. Still everyone else was face down, focused on their plates. So I poured another and took my time with this one. I started to feel a bit light-headed after that, and uncontrollably giddy. Anything that was said by the lads at the table seemed absolutely hilarious, and my new-found sense of humour made them laugh in return. Then they egged me on to have another glass, which I did.
The rest of that meal is a bit of a blur, but I remember realising that the decanter was empty, and that the world was a really fucking funny place. I was giggling through all of the speeches – with my arms folded and my head buried in there trying to muffle the laughter – and clapping way too enthusiastically at the end of them.
I might have got away with it if I’d just gone up to the dorm and slept it off, but a priest came to our table and announced that there was a centenary round of golf to be played and they were looking for a student from each year to represent the college versus our visitors. Without any hesitation I stuck up my hand.
‘I’ll do it!’
‘Do you play, Pennington?’
‘I’m brilliant at it, honest. The golf course here is the main reason I joined the seminary.’
I’d never played golf before in my life. But I was peaking in the drunken bravado department and figured how hard could it be?
‘Don’t be smart. Be by the quad entrance at 4 p.m. Do you have your own clubs here with you?’
‘No, they’re at the cleaners.’ I thought I was hilarious.
The look the priest gave me told me he wasn’t amused.
‘No, I don’t, Father.’
‘Well, we’ll have to see if we can rustle some up for you. Don’t forget, four o’clock.’
In the time between then and four o’clock I went from being ridiculously happy to absolutely smashed, and my smart-alec remarks were replaced with barely comprehensible slurring. Father Cunningham, our science teacher, gave me his old set of clubs to keep. They were pure Antiques Roadshow, and actually made from bamboo cane. Still, it was incredibly decent of him, but in my drunken state I might have overdone it a bit on the old gratitude front.
The would-be golfers were broken up into groups of four. For the most part it was two guests, a student and one of the seminary’s priests. We were to play a round of nine with no handicaps. (Which meant absolutely sod all to me – though I had a booze-induced handicap of my own to contend with. Plus, on top of that, there was the fact that I couldn’t actually play golf.)
A priest and I were up against a bishop and some other guy. I wasn’t really bothered because my head was swimming. This was a really bad idea.
They must’ve thought it was the weight of the clubs making me stagger so haphazardly behind them heading to the first tee. My balance was completely banjaxed, and I just wanted to lie down on the grass and watch the sky until the bouts of queasiness passed.
Whenever anyone spoke to me my head would do this 360-degree bob before coming to rest at an angle that suggested a broken neck. ‘Yes’ and ‘no’ were the only words I was capable of forming. When it was my turn to tee off I couldn’t even place the bleeding ball. There were two of everything and whenever I leaned forward I thought I was going to be sick. I know you’re meant to swing the club, but leaning on it was the only way I could stop myself falling arse over tit.
If this had been a movie we would have now cut to a montage of the absolute worst round of golf you have ever, and would ever, see again. They weren’t divots I was whacking up that day: I was like a JCB earth mover out on that course. Not a single clear strike of the ball! And my putting was no better. If you could have followed the line of the ball from an aerial view it would’ve resembled an angry doodle done by a three-year-old high on Calpol.
The bishop and his guest were doing their best to be polite as everyone else played around us. ‘I’m sure he’ll settle down soon. It’s just a matter of getting your eye in, isn’t it, Michael?’
‘Tighten your grip but relax with your swing.’
Getting my eye in? I could see bugger all. Then the last glug of sherry kicked in and I couldn’t even feel my own hands. Half the time I didn’t know if I was holding the club or not, and when I was, it tended to go further than the ball. You could sense the fear whenever it was my go and my group retreated to wherever they prayed I wouldn’t manage to throw the club. I swore a couple of times too, when the fog briefly lifted and I really tried to concentrate on a shot, but luckily I wasn’t coherent enough for them to make it out.
My team partner – Father something-or-other – wasn’t quite so supportive. In fact, he was furious. He kept growling at me whenever the other two were out of earshot.
‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ or ‘Next time, just pick it up and throw it, do you hear me?’
What finally did it for him was my staggering off like a town centre drunk to have a pee against the bushes. I was bursting and way too gone to worry about golfing etiquette, and it was a crap game, anyway. His gritted teeth could barely contain his anger. He reminded me of the Jack Russell dog on That’s Life that used to say ‘Sausages.’
‘You … grrr … are an absolute disgrace. Just wait till … we get back … grrrrrr.’
Apparently it was a small course by club standards and everyone else finished in an average of around an hour and a half; we arrived back almost four hours later. I was green to the gills and sent straight to bed as apologies were made on my behalf to our patient fellow competitors. The day finished more like a stag party than a centenary celebration for me: I slept in my clothes and possibly peed in the linen closet during the night.
Surprisingly, I felt pretty robust when I was summoned to Sammy’s office the following day (again!). I actually think they realised it was their mistake giving out booze to kids because the bollocking seemed pretty tame considering my behaviour. No fire and brimstone, just a lot of fluff about my being an ambassador for the college at all times, and how I conducted myself was a direct reflection on Upholland itself.
‘Yeah, well, you gave me a big jar of sherry, and I drank it and got drunk!’ Now, obviously I didn’t say that, but I’d have been well within my rights to do so. I think it’s what the law would call ‘a technicality’.
Sammy had to get his pound of flesh somehow, so he confiscated my clubs. According to him, it would be selfish of me to keep them for myself when they might be made available for the whole of Underlow to use. And so they went into storage under his supervision and were never played with again. It felt petty, and a wee surge of my old resentments started rising again. After all, they were a gift given to me. Their fate wasn’t his to decide! But then I remember thinking, ‘I fucking hate golf, anyway. Let the baby have his rattle.’ Plus I had been expecting to get suspended or, worse still, expelled, so all in all I got off lightly.
And then the summer holidays finally arrived. Back at St Austin’s, there would be a buzz at this prospect, but at Upholland it felt more like Mardi Gras. I don’t know if I’ve ever been quite so excited at the prospect of packing a suitcase – like a toddler going to Disney World, my mind was racing with things I wanted to do once I got back.
The simplest things, the home comforts I’d longed for, felt like eye-popping, upcoming attractions at a theme park. Cups of tea, my mum’s homemade quiche, my bunk bed that Dad had built, watching telly whenever I wanted, staying up late, our fridge, Barton’s pop, playing out over Hankey’s Well, or playing ‘Kerbie’ in the street until it got too dark to see the kerb properly.
The