It had been a good practice session. An objective set, an achievable goal. An empty practice ground, shared only by big black crows and a pheasant somewhere in the woods. A pocket full of range tokens and a grey sky. Slightly misty. There always come a time when day quietly slips away and hands the mantle over to the night. The light was fading fast as the day drew to a close. I collected my clubs and clutter and walked back to the car. Little did I realize, I was not alone.

The path was dark and overhung with the boughs of winter trees. Under foot it was muddy and the rain puddled in the tyre marks of the green keepers heavy machinery. It was quiet and I never heard anything until I felt his hot breath on my neck. I thought about swinging my clubs but in the end it was too late even to scream.

The day had started badly. The new toy was still a novelty. Gleaming and only ten days out of its box. The Rolls Royce of Juicers. Silent, swift, efficient. The family were assaulted daily with different combinations of juice. Carrot and beetroot. Apple, pear and spinach. Kiwi, cucumber and celery. With ginger or without. Some met with approval. Others failed to ignite the taste buds.

“That was disgusting” said Daughter No. One

“Just the small glass for me” said the Golf Police.

I sent an SOS to The Juicing Guru and in between rehearsals and understudy runs, the thespian emailed a few rules about the new appliance.

Subject – Juicing Rules....

You will find reading the recipe book helpful. Were you surprised that four bananas did not give you much juice? Try the recipe I texted. Ignore the comments from the kitchen critics. Tell them to make their own. Let me know how it goes x

I stuck to the thespian recipe. Beetroot, carrot, pear and cucumber with a slice of ginger and wedge of lemon. The critics were fulsome in their praise.

“Pretty colour. You just need to work on the taste a bit more. I suppose you are playing golf today?” said the Golf Police. It was a golf day but I wrong footed him.

“No. Just a quick coffee and maybe hit a few balls.”

“Do you feel ok?”

Somewhere along the line, the swing needed a bit of tweaking. The shoulders were quiet but the hands needed to be educated. On a scale of one to ten they probably merited a five and kept slipping back into bad habits when let loose on the course. They forged an alliance with the shoulders and it was an unequal struggle. The shoulders won, hands down. The New Year Resolutions were still on the board.

Practice. Practice. Practice.

Every game had to be earned.

I lobbed a mixed load into the machine and rinsed out the insides of the juicer. The traffic was building up and it would be a fight to get to the club before the tee time

I pulled a six iron, pitching wedge and nine iron out of the golf bag, stuffed the glove in my pocket and put the golf shoes by the door. The washing machine bleeped and I threw the clothes on the drier. I should have called it quits and jumped in the car. Time for one more task. I quickly dried the bits of the juicer and fitted them back onto the machine. The juicer comes with an instruction book. I had skim read it. In big red letters it warned of dire consequences if misused. It could be used as an instrument of torture or a plaything of Hannibal Lecture. Shredded fingers. Lost digits. Even death. As I slotted the bits back, I knocked the switch. Once the mains switch is off, this is academic. But the mains switch was on. Even above the Arctic Monkeys – D is for Dangerous, I knew we had a problem. The motor responded to the inadvertent flick of the switch and whirred into life. It could have been worse. The fingers could have been juiced and matched the beetroot. But they were clear and the juicer was screwed. It was ten days old and a fundamental part of the family fitness regime. I covered up the broken bits and went to fight the traffic. The lights were red, the bus in front crawled and it began to rain.

Big Rich was already at the club. His food and coffee on order, the sports section open at the cricket. Big Rich knows about gadgets. He has gadgets for gadgets. Apple designers all dream of a world full of cloned Big Richs to buy their aesthetically dreamy toys. Cameras, cars, computers. They all reside in the crib of Big Rich.

“Bring the juicer in” he said. “I’ll have a look. Won’t be a problem. Why don’t you borrow mine in the meantime?” Not all Big Rich’s gadgets get out of the box. Or the cupboard.

“Is it the same colour?” I said. It was not the way forward and juicing would have to be off the menu for a while. There were several topics up for discussion over the cappuccinos and bacon butties. The Sheriff was anxious to wield the axe.

“There is room” he said “around this table, for some pruning of surplus swindle shots”. No one made eye contact and only the lone voice was heard across the table. Irish and troubled.

“Now don’t you go looking at me” said Pancake. “I need the help of all the Saints in Christendom to play off this handicap. Anne Boleyn got off more lightly than me”.

The Sheriff smiled softly.

“Let’s see what the points are at the end of the day” he said.

“You playing?” said Gus.

I should have stayed with that loyal little band. Should have walked the fairways with them and bantered beneath the bare boughs of winter. But as I left them to their game to practice elsewhere, I had no idea about the man on the muddy track. From whom there was no escape.

The Swindle threw the balls up and split up into a four and three ball. The Busman played with The Sheriff, Pancake and Big Rich. Gus, Ruggy and Bill played skins. Pancake won nearest the pin and The Busman won overall with 37 points. He got a swingeing three shot cut.

“Bit harsh” he said.

“Not at all” said The Sheriff, used to such minor skirmishes.

Pancake did not make eye contact with the Axeman.

The traffic had thinned out and it did not take long to do the chores. Bank, dry cleaning and the Butcher. I needed some gold stars in the kitchen and the way forward was red meat and not red juice.

It was quiet when I reached the golf course. Some miles away from the fairways of PG Wodehouse, it nestled in the downs near the country home of Churchill. On summer days, he would potter around, feed the fish, light a cigar and paint the landscape, lit by the setting sun. Now tourists flocked to see the home of the Great Statesman, walk his gardens and admire his brushwork on canvas.

The Postman was in the Clubhouse, sat by the fire in his black and lime green outfit. The Window Cleaner, fresh from his round of dirty windows and icy bucket, tucked into his full English Brunch. Sausage, bacon, egg, beans, mushrooms, tomato and an extra round of toast.

“You playing?” he said still munching on his sausages.

“Nope. Searching for my swing” I said and went to cash in the tokens on the practice ground.

It was a good session. I had printed off Words of Wisdom from the Guru. Worked on grip, set up and chipping. There were a hundred balls in the basket. I worked on educating the hands and beating the shoulders into submission. The hands had spent too long in remedial class. Too long in the shadows and needed to see some of the action. The crows crowed, the pheasant squawked and a helicopter headed for the motorway. After three hundred balls, the hands got the hang of things and I found a key swing thought – Hinge/Drop/Drive which needed a catchy mnemonic.

Harry’s Dog Died.

After Harry’s Dog Dying a few hundred times, the light was beginning to go and the crows were ready to settle for the night. The Window Cleaner had long since headed for home and the Postman would be having an early dinner before catching some kip. The owl would soon be silently swooping across the fairways looking for its supper. So would the Golf Police.

I was almost half way along the track when I felt his warm breath on my neck. The car was almost in sight; my phone was out of reach in my waterproofs. As he spoke, I froze to the spot and tried to remember how to breathe.

He was dressed from head to toe in black and only his face and hands were visible. They were white with the cold. And then he spoke.

“Can you undo my zip?” he said. We were alone and the clubhouse was hidden from sight. I had no choice, put the clubs down and fumbled with the zip.

“Be careful” he said. I undid the zip and he politely thanked me.

It was dark when I got home. I went and showered and threw some sausages under the grill.

“Good day?” said the Golf Police.

“I hit a few balls” I said. I did not mention how many hundreds as the crows crowed in the bare boughed trees.

And I thought it best not to mention the juicer. Nor the man and the zip and the chat we had on the dark track. He had been at university when he realized the city was not for him. He earned his degree and eventually turned his back on the city and haunted golf courses, often alone, and dressed in black.

“So how many did you find today?” I asked him, once the zip was undone.

“One thousand, two hundred” he said forcing his arms out of his diving suit.

“Any Taylormades?” We talked about his new career, diving in lakes to retrieve golf balls hit in haste and hope.

“It’s a good living” he said before heading back to his car. “And thanks, don’t know what I would have done without you”. We waved and went our separate ways.

There had been some hard lessons learnt at the coalface of juicing and the family earned a reprieve from nutrients and vitamins. The Golf Police took a look at the Juicer and it is now a machine of many parts. The sum of which are less than the whole. The diver knew tomorrow would bring another lake full of bounty, donated by dimpled ball addicts and I went to bed dreaming about a man with a zip and Harry’s Dead Dog.

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