They were walking along the side of a fairway. A buggy came towards them, pulling a small trailer. The driver brought it to a halt and got out.
‘I’d like a word, Mr Porphyry,’ he said.
He was a small red-headed man with a face so savagely assaulted by the sun that it looked like a baked potato just plucked from the embers. He spoke with the kind of Scottish accent that Joe could only localize as more Glasgow Rangers than Edinburgh Festival.
‘What is it, Davie?’
‘It’s about a replacement for Steve Waring. It’s getting urgent.’
‘He still hasn’t shown up then?’
‘No, he hasna, and it means the rest of us are working like blacks to keep the course in nick.’
Porphyry shook his head doubtfully. Maybe, thought Joe, he’s going to tell the guy that anyone who talks like he does should go easy on the racism. But all the YFG said was, ‘It’s really Mr Rowe you should be talking to, Davie. He’s chairman of the Greens Committee.’
‘Aye, I know and I’ve tried that, but he says that when it came up, you said let’s wait a wee while longer to see if Steve shows up.’
‘Did I? Yes, I believe I did. I mean, it’s only been…how long?’
‘A week.’
‘There you are then. Hardly any time. I know this job means a lot to Steve, and you yourself say he’s been a good worker. Probably something’s come up that he had to sort out, and he’ll show up again any time now. I’d just hate for him to come back and find his job had gone.’
‘It’s a credit to your hairt, Mr Porphyry,’ said Davie with only a small amount of discernible irony. ‘But I called round at his digs last night and there’s been no sign of him or word from him since last week. Landlady says he owes a month’s back rent. I reckon he’s done a runner and we won’t be seeing hide nor hair of him this side of Christmas. We need another pair of hands now, else things will start slipping.’
‘All right, Davie. I understand. I’ll have a word with Mr Rowe.’
The man got back in his buggy and drove on.
‘Head greenkeeper,’ said Porphyry. ‘Bit rough-edged, but the salt of the earth.’
Which was a good thing to have with a baked potato, thought Joe.
‘Davie what?’ he asked.
‘Well, Davie actually. David Davie. Never sure whether it’s his first or second name I’m using. Still, doesn’t seem to trouble him.’
‘And is he any part of your trouble?’ asked Joe, keen to get down to cases.
‘On no. Not at all. Definitely not.’
As if provoked by the question, Porphyry now strode forward at a pace which in Joe’s case came close to a trot. It was very hot and though there were plenty of trees to their right, unfortunately the sun was in the wrong quarter of the sky to afford them any shade.
Suddenly Porphyry came to a halt.
‘Stand still, Joe,’ he commanded.
Though only too pleased to obey, Joe’s natural curiosity still made him gasp, ‘What for?’
‘Chaps on the tee. Best be careful.’
Joe followed the YFG’s gaze back down the fairway. Some figures had appeared at a distance so great he had to screw up his eyes to work out there were four of them.
‘You think those guys could reach us here?’ he asked doubtingly.
‘Probably not, but what I meant was, we don’t want to disturb their concentration by movement. And best keep your voice down too.’
‘My voice? You’re joking, yeah? I’d need a bullhorn before they could hear me!’
Porphyry smiled and said, or rather whispered, ‘Normally, yes, Joe. But golf sensitizes the hearing remarkably. You know the great Wodehouse, of course?’
‘Woodhouse? Played for the Posh and Grimsby then went into the fight game?’ hazarded Joe.
‘Don’t recollect that, though he was a man of great and varied talent. In particular he loved his golf and of course he wrote some of the funniest books in the language. In one of them he talks about a golfer so sensitive, he could be put off his stroke by the roaring of butterflies in the adjacent meadow.’
The YFG chuckled as he spoke, but more as if appreciating a point well made than simply laughing at a bit of daftness. Joe was getting the impression that, apart from being stellar rich, you also needed a sense of humour from outer space to qualify for the Hoo. What was it the Bermuda Triangle had found so funny? Oh yes, the notion of him giving them something called gotchas.
Reckoning he wasn’t going to get much further with roaring butterflies, he asked, ‘What’s a gotcha?’
‘In golf, you mean?’
‘Yeah. In golf.’
‘Well, it has no official standing, you understand? Though I have known occasions when some of the chaps have had a couple too many before a game and have actually put it into practice.’
Did this guy know how to give a straight answer?
‘But what is it?’ demanded Joe.
‘It means if, say, you agreed to have three gotchas each at the start of the game, on three occasions as your opponent was playing his shot you would be entitled to reach between his legs from behind, seize his testicles and cry Gotcha! I think we can move on now, Joe.’
It seemed a good idea, and the further the better.
Not that any of the golfers’ drives had come within fifty yards of them, but that didn’t make Joe feel any safer. OK, in his game of choice, football, you could get a smack in the goolies, but if the ref noticed, then it was a red-card job for the offender. But here in crazy Hoo-land, they built it into the rules!
It was time for some straight talking. The two hundred in his back pocket no longer seemed an issue. In fact it felt earned out already.
He put on a sprint and caught up with the YFG.
‘Mr Porphyry…’ he gasped.
‘Chris.’
Joe took a deep breath. It felt like it might be his last but he wanted to be sure he got out everything he wanted to say in a form which even a Young Fair God could not misunderstand.
‘Chris. In case you haven’t noticed, Chris, it’s so hot that I’d jump in a pond full of alligators if one happened to be handy. I’m out of breath, and there’s a bunch of guys behind us drilling little white balls through the air at a hundred miles an hour. And even if they ain’t disturbed by the rumpus all them butterflies is kicking up, I guess any control over direction they’ve got won’t hold up much if someone grabs their family jewels just as they’re making their shot. So unless what you want to hire me for is to guess what you want to hire me for, I’d appreciate it if you could get to the point and tell me just what it is you want to hire me for!’
That made things clear, he reckoned. In fact, he doubted if he could have made things clearer without adding semaphore.
‘Point taken, Joe,’ said Porphyry. ‘I’m sorry. I suppose there are some things a chap just doesn’t like to talk about.’
This took what little remained of Joe’s breath away. The guy really didn’t want to tell him what he wanted to hire him for!
He said, ‘Look, I’ve worked on all kinds of cases, stuff you wouldn’t imagine. And, long as it don’t involve interfering with kids or farm animals, I’m cool, OK?’
‘Yes, I see. Well, it’s nothing like that, thank God, but it’s bad. Really bad.’ He took a deep breath and blurted out, ‘The thing is, I’ve been accused of cheating.’
‘Cheating?’ echoed Joe. ‘You mean like cheating on Miss Emerson, your fiancée?’
‘No! Worse than that. Cheating at golf.’
‘At golf? During a game, you mean?’ Joe liked to get things absolutely straight, especially when dealing with an alien being. ‘You’ve been accused of cheating at a game of golf?’
‘That’s it. Yes. Ghastly, isn’t it? A really filthy thing to have laid on you. Filthy.’
His expression turned haunted and gloomy. It was like the sun going down, though, oddly, distress didn’t age his features. On the contrary, he looked even younger, a young fair ch
ild now rather than a young fair god.
Joe felt his own spirits sink in sympathy. It hurt him to see the young man so unhappy, even though for the life of him he couldn’t work out the cause of such unhappi-ness. Yeah, cheating in sport was bad, but this day and age, it was part of the game. Guy you were marking tried to give you the slip, you pulled his shirt. He got by you and posed a real danger to your goal, you took his legs out. You got tackled in your opponents’ penalty area, you went down hard, holding your knee and screaming. OK, if the ref was a drama critic, he might award a free kick against you, maybe even give you a yellow card, in the very worst cases a red. But it was all in a day’s work, no one thought any the worse of you for it, whether you were playing five-aside in the park or earning a hundred grand a week in the Premiership. In fact, if you got a reputation in the pro game, it could be a nice little earner after you’d left the game with articles on My Fifty Favourite Fouls or How to Be a Hard Man. You might even do a movie or get a TV show.
So how was golf different?
He said, ‘How serious is this?’
Porphyry said, ‘If proven, I could be chucked out of the club.’
‘Must be lots of other clubs,’ said Joe consolingly.
‘Not if you’ve been chucked out of the Hoo,’ said Porphyry.
Joe doubted if it would make much difference down at the Municipal Pitch’n’Putt, but was sensitive enough to see this might be only a limited consolation.
‘So what kind of case can they put together?’ he said.
To his surprise, Porphyry reached out and squeezed his hand.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘For what?’ said Joe in some alarm.
‘For not needing to ask if I’m innocent.’
He’s missing the point, thought Joe. In life there was right and wrong. During his long childhood tuition at the hands of Aunt Mirabelle, that had been drummed into him by example, precept, and punishment. But in law there was only what could or couldn’t be proved. But he hadn’t got the heart to tell Porphyry he was misinterpreting a simple practical question as a wholehearted vote of confidence.
Porphyry, to his relief, had removed his hand.
Joe said, ‘Yeah, but like I said, can they make a case?’
‘Oh yes, I’m afraid so. Not much point in bringing an accusation otherwise.’
This at least was pragmatic. Eventually he didn’t doubt he was going to have to ask, So what exactly do you imagine I can do to help you? without any expectation of a satisfactory answer. It might be kinder to ask it now and get the disappointment over.
Instead he heard himself saying, ‘This cheating, just what are you supposed to have done?’
‘That’s what I was going to show you,’ said Porphyry. ‘Scene of the crime, or rather scene of the non-crime. I knew you’d want to see it.’
His face was back to full radiance. Oh shoot! thought Joe. He imagines I’m going to pull out my magnifying glass, crawl around the undergrowth for a bit, then stand up with an instant solution.
At least they’d turned off now under the shade of the trees. A couple of minutes later they emerged on an elevated ridge of land which a sign told Joe was the sixteenth tee.
‘It was exactly a week ago, Tuesday,’ said Porphyry. ‘I was playing Syd Cockernhoe in a singles. Second round of the Vardon Cup, that’s the club’s annual knock-out. I was lying dormy three down when we got here…’
‘Lying what?’ interrupted Joe, trying to translate this into English as he listened but unable to come up with anything beyond lying bastard, which didn’t make sense.
‘I was three holes down with only three to play. I needed to win every hole to halve the match.’
‘To get a draw, you mean?’
‘That’s right. Now, the sixteenth’s a real challenge, Shot hole one…’
‘Sorry?’ said Joe. It was like talking to a foreigner who knew enough of the language to sound fluent but who kept on getting words and phrases in the wrong place.
‘Most difficult hole on the course. It’s a par five, four ninety-eight yards, so it’s not the distance. What makes it hard is that sharp dog-leg right you see up ahead at two hundred yards. Then another hundred yards on the fairway curves away to the left. Not a right-angle bend like the dogleg, but a distinct change of direction. Once round that you can see the green way ahead, slightly elevated and protected by the Elephant Trap, that’s the deepest bunker on the course.’
‘Chris,’ said Joe. ‘I don’t play golf and, up till now, I thought what I knew about golf you could write on a matchbox, but now I see I wouldn’t need all that space. Could we maybe try basic English?’
‘Sorry. I really don’t know how else to explain things. But I’ll try.’
He took a deep breath then he resumed.
‘The fewer shots you take to reach the green the better. You follow that?’
Joe nodded.
‘Good. Now the conventional way of playing this hole would be to hit your first shot from the tee, that’s where we are, straight up to the dog-leg, that’s the bend. Then you would hit your second shot to the next bend, hopefully with a bit of draw, that means making it curl to the left so that it actually goes around the second bend as far as you can get it, to lessen the distance of your third shot. OK?’
‘Yes,’ lied Joe.
‘But what long hitters, and desperate idiots who are three down with three to play do is try to cut the first corner by hitting a drive straight over the trees on the right there, and hoping it takes a hop round the second bend and brings the green in sight.’
‘So you can get there in two shots?’
‘That’s right!’ said Porphyry, delighted. ‘I’m both a reasonably long hitter and a very dedicated idiot. Also I was dormy three, so I really let one go, didn’t quite catch it perfectly, and produced a slice. That means the ball started bending right. It wasn’t a huge slice but it was enough. I heard the ball rattling among the trees. All I could hope was that I was lucky and had a decent lie so that I could chip out. Of course I played a provisional…’
He had started walking forward as he talked and Joe was once more trotting slightly behind.
‘A Provisional?’ he gasped, wondering how the IRA had got into things.
‘I hit a second ball in case the first were lost,’ explained Porphyry. ‘You get a penalty shot for a lost ball, so if I didn’t find the first one, that would mean I’d played three with my second.’
‘Even though you’d only hit it once?’ said Joe.
‘Right! You’re beginning to get it, Joe,’ said the YFG with a confidence which was totally misplaced. ‘Syd was up by the dog-leg but had drifted into the short rough on the left. My provisional was up there too. He went forward to locate his ball while I shot off into the woods hoping to spot my first.’
They were in the woods in question now. Again the shade was welcome. As they followed a diagonal line towards the stretch of fairway out of sight from the tee, Joe glimpsed a house through the trees, set well back.
As if answering a question, Porphyry said, ‘That’s Penley Farm where Jimmy Postgate lives. One of our founder members. In fact, come to think of it, the only one still with us. In his eighties, but still manages nine now and then. Lost distance, of course, but he’s never lost the ability to hit a straight ball. Dead straight in everything, Jimmy. True English gentleman, which is what makes it so difficult.’
‘Sorry?’ said Joe, thinking, here we go! Back to round-the-houses land.
‘But I’d better stick to the proper sequence so’s not to confuse you,’ said Porphyry. ‘I was poking around pretty aimlessly. To tell the truth, I hadn’t much hope, when you hear a ball clatter like that, you know it could have gone anywhere. Then I glimpsed something white up ahead towards the fairway there. Thought it was probably a mushroom at first, but when I went up to it, lo and behold, it was my ball! Here it was, right here. A truly fortunate lie.’
They came almost to the edge of the trees. Here
the ground was free of undergrowth, bare earth mainly with a bit of scrubby grass.
‘How did you know it was your ball?’ wondered Joe.
‘Chap always knows what ball he’s playing with, otherwise there could be all kinds of confusion. I’m a Titleist man myself, always Number 1, and just to make assurance doubly sure, I have them personalized.’
He pulled a ball out of his pocket and handed it to Joe. On it in purple was stamped a small seahorse with the initials CP.
‘Family coat of arms. Three seahorses rampant, and a dolphin couchant.’
Joe listened uncomprehendingly, but once the bit was between his teeth, he wasn’t a man to let himself be led astray, especially not by seahorses.
He said, ‘So you found your first ball. What about the other one you hit?’
‘Oh, I gave Syd a wave to show him I was all right, and he played his second shot, then picked up my provisional and brought it with him. No use for it, you see, not once I’d found the first one.’
Joe was still a bit bewildered by all this two-ball stuff. The same with tennis where if you missed your first serve, they let you have another. Imagine trying that in footie. Oh sorry, ref, says Beckham. I didn’t mean to blaze that one over the bar, can I have another go?
But it was too hot for diversion.
He said, ‘Any chance of getting to the cheating bit?’
‘Yes, I’m getting there,’ said Porphyry with just the faintest hint of irritation. Even gods don’t care to be hurried. ‘Syd’s shot was pretty good, he drew it round the bend nicely, leaving himself a medium iron to reach the green in regulation. Now a half was no good to me – you recall I was dormy three. So I took out my three wood. As you’ll have noticed, I didn’t have a view of the green. I was going to need to get not only the distance but put enough draw on the ball to take it round the bend and up to the green. As if to make up for my drive, I hit a cracker. Off it went and when we got to the green it was lying four feet from the flag and I knocked it in for an eagle. That means two under par. Three shots on this hole. So even though Syd got a birdie, that’s four shots on this hole, I won.’
The Roar of the Butterflies Page 5