Free Loopy by Dan Binchy Page A

stride. He had nothing but praise for everyone and everything in this rathole of a village. He enthused about how refreshing it was that people remembered his name in shops and bars and waved to him on the street. He filled his lungs with fresh air on long walks along the beach, and he had fallen head over heels in love with the local golf course.
    â€œPure linksland,” he burbled happily, “you couldn’t play on better turf. Just what Saint Andrew’s must have been like before the tourists swarmed all over it. If it were anywhere else, the world would be beating a path to its door. That’s how good it is!”
    She had to admit that he had never looked better. The deathly pallor of his days doing “something in the city” had gone. There was a spring in his step and a cheerfulness about him that she had never seen before.
    Yet in no way could she share his enthusiasm for such a godforsaken spot. She had little doubt that her father would transform the house and grounds into something special—he had already done just that on two previous occasions. The home her mother had acquired as part of the divorce settlement was outstanding even in the London stockbroker belt where splendid residences were two a penny.
    It was a pity, she would report to her mother, that they had argued for so much of the weekend. She had arrived overwrought, tense and blaming her father for the family breakup. Her humor was not improved when services taken for granted everywhere else had failed in the case of The Old Rectory. Her father’s suggestion that they accept a dinner invitation from the local bank manager was the last straw.
    She stamped her foot in exasperation. “I came here to see you, Daddy. Now I’m no sooner inside this … this … house and you want me to go out to bloody dinner with complete strangers. Not on your life!”
    When Linhurst phoned Leo with his regrets, he got the impression that the bank manager was less than pleased. He was not to know that in Trabane an invitation to dinner from the bank manager was something not to be lightly declined. The weekend, despite its setbacks, had gone sufficiently well for Amy to promise to return in the near future.
    Now, good as her word and completely out of the blue, she had arrived by bus that very morning. Linhurst would happily have withdrawn from the tournament that afternoon to be with her, but Amy would not hear of it.
    â€œYou go play your silly golf and I’ll cook dinner. That way you can see where at least some of my school fees went, Father dear!” Then she had set off along the beach, barefoot, with the spaniel gamboling at her heels one moment, then launching himself into a frenzied attack on seagulls that waited until the last moment before taking flight, leaving the dog with nothing more substantial to chew on than a triumphant squawk.
    Linhurst pushed the picture of Amy and the dog to the back of his mind as he watched Loopy hitting one golf ball after another with that incredible loop at the top of his swing. The distance the ball was traveling was quite stunning, even if the direction was erratic. All the while he was desperately searching for the right response to the offer of repayment—one that would not offend the lad. Eventually he settled for “Don’t worry about the money for now. If you can pay me back, well and good—otherwise not to worry.”
    Then, to change the subject, he observed, “You’re hitting that ball a long, long way.”
    Loopy would not be deflected so easily. He put the club he was using back in the bag and looked Linhurst straight in the eye as he spoke. “My father left Trabane a while back owing nearly everyone in the town. If I ever get to sell the hay he left behind him, you’ll be paid right after the bank. You have my word on that, sir.”
    â€œDo you mean Mr. Martin’s bank?”
    â€œYes, sir. My father borrowed money