Read Online Carnival Sky by Owen Marshall - Free Book Online

Sheff’s enduring memories of boyhood had a connection with golf, even in such mundane ways as helping Warwick clean his clubs and gear, and listening to the anecdotes of the round as his father recounted them to his mother. David Lessing trying to get away from the clubhouse without paying for drinks after his once-in-a-lifetime hole-in-one. Susan Pethridge slicing a drive that drew blood on the face of the inspector of police on a parallel fairway. Moss Grainger found buttock-bare in the women’s toilets with a woman locally famous for making ceramic goblins. ‘I kid you not,’ Warwick had said to Belize, ‘such was the rapture of their rutting that they carried on even after discovery. Instinct – how gloriously powerful it is.’
    ‘It’s not really funny, though. Both of them are married,’ Belize had said.
    ‘Oh, but it is. It is,’ replied Warwick, and all the time he carried on wiping down his clubs with a damp cloth.
    He had a small, stiff brush with which he scrupulously cleaned the grooves in the faces of his irons. He had heavy-soled, two-tone golf shoes that were also cleaned after each round and put heel-out in the same place on a shelf in the garage, above the bag and the trundler. Even the white, dimpled balls were wiped and checked for scars. There was a ritualistic aspect to Warwick’s nature that showed itself more clearly in his love of golf than in any other part of his life.
    His father’s devotion to the sport had attracted Sheff to the game, and as a teenager he took it up. They had sometimes played together, but it hadn’t worked out as they hoped. Sheff had too little regard for the niceties. He wore jeans on the course, agitated to play through more leisurely foursomes ahead, and was noisy on the greens. Without discussion, or formal decision, they found it easier not to play much together in competition. Watching on television was quite different. They spent companionable hours physically located on the sofa, yet vicariously at tournaments around the world, while Belize and Georgie moved in one dimension around them. ‘Head down. That’s the thing,’ Warwick would say. ‘Don’t look up till the ball’s been struck.’ And, ‘Concentrate on your own game and disregard other people’s. Much of it’s played in your head.’
    Maybe, even as Sheff walked on Mount Eden, his father had sufficient remission from his cancer to allow him to watch the sport on television, or reminisce with Belize concerning his own experiences and acquaintances. If not that, then perhaps the morphine fantasy allowed him to hit farther than ever before and with wondrous accuracy, so that in such visions he accomplished all the ambitions he had relinquished as a player in life.
    Sheff did a long circuit, and by the time he returned to his car he felt relaxed. The mood was not to last. The engine wouldn’t startdespite the battery having plenty of charge. He wasn’t good with mechanical things, and had a suspicion that, like dogs, they could sense fear and ignorance in their handlers. The obvious thing to do was go back to Annabel’s apartment and ring for assistance: she might already be observing his predicament with amused concern. Yet Sheff resisted logic because of the slight loss of face involved. He knew there was a garage a couple of blocks away, and set off briskly to ensure he could be there before closing time. It was all a pain in the arse, and somehow typical of his present life in which Murphy’s Law was supreme. The garage was farther than he’d realised when driving, and it was after five o’clock when he reached it. He went straight to the workshop where one mechanic was already cleaning up, and the other in confidential talk with the owner of a red Mazda Six on the hoist. Before Sheff was close enough to speak, the solitary worker was called in to join the technical discussion. The three men seemed to close ranks, excluding Sheff. He kept a polite distance for a time, but with