C - The Caddy

Juan-Pablo Francesco Serrano-Alvarez III was having a difficult
afternoon in the English countryside. It was his swing. Usually this
was the most reliable and admirable aspect of his game. Other golfers
on the circuit and television pundits alike were in agreement in this.
His swing was, to quote one such loquacious pundit, "Poetry in motion"-
and another, equally profligate, "like a hot knife through butter."
Certainly there was a suaveness and sophistication about it that marked
him out above some of the more brutish heavy-hitters. But on this
afternoon, its well-honed fluidity had deserted him. He felt like a
cranky and disused windmill with its sails all bent and broken. Every
time he teed off the ball would veer away to the right, inevitably
ending up in clumps of dense bracken or in vindictively positioned
expanses of water.

What in my mother's name is wrong with me today? he thought to himself
as he strode towards the twelfth tee having been stuck in a sand trap
and double-bogeyed the eleventh, I am cursed, the devil is in my
arms!

Juan-Pablo's longtime caddy, Lluis Letargo, had been observing
'Juanito' (the nickname daubed on him by the Spanish press) throughout
the afternoon and had noticed an unusual tenseness in his shoulders.
This tension, Lluis calculated, was causing the club to angle in too
far towards the golfer's body during the swing. As a result, the
clubface would compensate this movement and open up, striking across
the ball and causing it to be spun in a clockwise direction as it was
contacted. Thus, when it was airborne, the ball would arc in the air to
the right of dead centre.

Lluis was a nervous, wretched man. His caddying for Juan-Pablo for the
last twelve years had done nothing to alleviate these unfortunate
personal traits. If anything, it had made them even more exaggerated.
Twelve years previously he had been married and had been thinking of
bringing up children in Seville with his wife Maria. He was relatively
content then. He would wake up in the morning to the smell of oranges
and coffee and smile. Twelve years later and Maria was married to
Juan-Pablo. Lluis was married to Juan-Pablo also, through golf.

So as they walked towards the twelfth tee, he considered forwarding his
hypothesis about the shoulders yet was worried lest Juanito's infamous
Latin temper should erupt at him. Hesitantly he spoke, hiding the
majority of his face behind his baseball-cap.

"Juan, if you don't mind. I noticed that today your shoulders are very
tense and I think that this is causing you to hurry your swing. You are
chopping the ball? there is a spin?"

"My shoulders you think?" Juanito looked behind him, an unreadable but
dark expression upon his face, "And what in my veritable mother's name
do you think is causing this my little Lluis?" he said
scornfully.

"I have no idea Juan, it is just a suggestion?" Lluis was afraid to
press him further and was surprised when the resigned reply came,
"Yes. Yes Lluis. I think you are right. It is in my shoulders."

Lluis looked up and noticed that it was not just Juan-Pablo's swing
that was wrong that afternoon. Behind Juan-Pablo's immaculately
presented image; ironed sweater, pressed trousers and perma-bronze tan;
Lluis noticed a certain raggedness; a desperation in his eye that
suggested not all was as it seemed. The change was not so much that
anyone else would notice it, except perhaps Maria, but then she was not
there to see it and Lluis doubted that she was sat in front of a
television watching. Juan-Pablo continued.

"It's Maria. She says she can no longer love me. She says I treat her
like a dog and keep her locked up all day in her kennel. She says I am
more in love with my golf clubs than with her. She calls me a
mother-fearing bastard. She says I am not a man but a monster."

"But Juan, you know that can't be true?" Lluis stumbled with his words,
knowing in his heart that the allegations were undoubtedly true but
being so much in need simultaneously of Juan-Pablo's disdain and
approval, his conscious mind thought differently. How can one in her
position think in such a way? When we were married all she ever wanted
was the life she now has, it said to him. The impudent woman, I'm
almost glad she left me for him!

"I don't want to lose her Lluis, am I doing something wrong? You've
lived with her. You know how she thinks!"

At that moment, on television screens across Europe, the pair appeared
from a distance, walking across the verdant English grass, earnest
expressions across their clean-shaven faces. The commentators asked
themselves questions about Juanito's performance- was it the inclement
English weather that was affecting the intemperate Spaniard? Or maybe
he was sick?

It took some time for Lluis to answer the question. A kernel of thought
warned him that this was a potential crisis. Eventually his mind
decided on an outcome and once set, the words issued from him like a
torrent,
"No Juan, I do not think the problem lies with you. It is her choice
that she stays at home. If she wanted, she could travel the world with
you. Knowing you both as I do it is quite clear that she has taken
leave of her senses for the time being. She has everything she needs
and everything I could never have given her that's for sure. She has a
beautiful home; she has clothes and furs, a fast car. She has two maids
to look after the house, a coiffeur who visits on Tuesdays, a masseuse
on Fridays. In the name of Jesus, she has a poodle! Need I go
on?"
Juan-Pablo stood back in surprise at this outburst. For a few moments
he paused in contemplation and then a look of calm and understanding
descended upon his face. He looked Lluis up and down, appraising the
caddy with his eyes in a way that he had not done before.

"You know Lluis, after all these years of our friendship I have come to
realise that I have underestimated you. You are right of course. It is
clear to me now, so clear in fact that I feel slightly foolish. Oh how
I let my silly emotions run away with me! Maria must be going through a
time where she is unbalanced. Maybe it is time we had a child. That
would occupy her at least. How could she want to leave me, when, as you
point out, she has everything she needs?"
He grunted, "'Pah!' I say, this foolishness will trouble me no
longer."

At the twelfth tee, Juan-Pablo confidently placed the ball onto the
garish plastic cup. He stood back and steadied himself, legs just over
shoulder-width apart and comfortably bent. He gave a little wriggle of
his backside, crossed himself under the eyes of God and the television
cameras, and then, without even making a practice swing, formed a
perfectly smooth arc in the air with the club shaft and made contact
with the ball. The crowd gasped and oohed, delighted by his technique
(which they had heard had been flagging that day) and a round of
applause went up accompanied by a volley of camera shutters. The ball
sailed through the air and landed squarely in the centre of the fairway
a good distance away from them.

Juan smiled and gave the club to his caddy along with a conspiratorial
wink. They marched off towards the ball together.

A few hundred miles away an expensive looking Manilla envelope was
sitting on a pillow. On the front, in a finely crafted calligraphy, it
read, 'To my dear "Juanito" '.