Free Loopy by Dan Binchy

cockiness—guaranteed that. In his younger days he played off a single-figure handicap and could see no good reason why he should not do so again. With plenty of time to concentrate on the game, he had been taking lessons from Joe Delany, who treated him much the same as Loopy. He would give Linhurst a few things to work on at the start of the lesson, then let him get on with it. When a bucket of balls had been hit, Joe would come back to check for any improvement. If not, he would try something else. The method usually worked because most people did better on their own than with the professional looking over their shoulder. Rosa Martin was the exception.
    On the driving range after one of these lessons, Edward Linhurst renewed his acquaintance with the young man whose subscription he had paid on the spur of the moment. In the excitement that had followed Linhurst’s intervention, Loopy had not had an opportunity to thank his benefactor until now.
    â€œI never got a chance to thank you properly, Mr. Linhurst, for doing what you did. I’ll pay you back as I can. Honest I will.”
    Linhurst was both gratified and nonplussed. He had wondered several times since then what could possibly have sparked such an uncharacteristic intervention. He was not one to draw attention to himself. Quite the opposite, in fact. Those who knew him well regarded him as a shrinking violet—cocky and self-confident, of course, yet someone who shunned the limelight whenever possible. He couldn’t blame it on too much drink, either. He had had two, possibly three, gin and tonics before responding to the bank manager’s outburst. Nor was he trying to impress anyone. He liked almost everyone in the golf club and found them fun to be with, but by paying Loopy’s subscription, he wasn’t trying to impress them with his wealth. No one, he reflected, could accuse him of trying to impress anyone.
    He drove a three-year-old car, his golf equipment was far from new, and he rarely if ever tried to buy a round of drinks out of turn. As for any dislike of Leo, his dealings with the bank manager had, up till then, been run-of-the-mill. The invitation to dinner at Leo’s, he supposed, must have been suggested by Leo’s superiors as the opening shot in a campaign to get more of his business. Yes, that must have been it, Linhurst decided, for he had bought The Old Rectory through Leo’s bank and they would have checked out his financial standing as a matter of routine. The next step would, predictably, have been for them to encourage Leo to do all in his power to get some of Linhurst’s banking business.
    That he was unable to accept Leo’s invitation may have caused the first coolness between them. The invitation had arrived at a particularly chaotic period in the restoration of The Old Rectory. Builders, plumbers, and electricians were all engaged in a form of guerrilla warfare with each other. Only the landscape gardeners were content merely to squabble among themselves. That, of course, was on the rare occasions when they bothered to show up at all.
    It was just then that Amy, his only daughter, had announced herself for the weekend. Having done everything she could to effect a reconciliation between her parents, she now took her mother’s side in everything. When Linhurst told his family that he was retiring, no one, least of all Amy, believed him. It was dismissed as nothing more than a midlife crisis brought on by the divorce. When his retirement looked to be lasting longer than expected, Amy had decided to check it out for herself. She could hardly have chosen a worse moment.
    Electricity had just been cut off and the water supply gave up the ghost shortly after her arrival. The thunderstorm that had caused these twin disasters had also, almost as an afterthought, stripped half the slates from the new roof. What annoyed her most of all was that her father appeared to take these calamities in his