“
Well there is Sir Walter Simpson's observation,” said Moss, and went on to quote the author of The Art of Golf. “‘Golf is not one of those occupations in which you soon learn your level. There is no shape nor size of the body, no awkwardness or ungainliness, which puts good golf beyond one's reach. There are good golfers with spectacles, with one eye, with one leg, even with one arm. None but the absolutely blind need despair. It is not the youthful tyro alone who has cause to hope. Beginners in the middle age have become great, and, more wonderful still, after years of patient duffering, there may be a rift in the clouds. Some pet vice which has been clung to as virtue may be abandoned, and the fifth-class player burst upon the world as a medal winner. In golf, whilst there is life there is hope.’”
Hartley glared at Moss. “Have you quite finished?” he asked. A grave mistake brought about by his having failed to observe, the last time he’d tried it, that sarcasm was a ploy that was completely wasted on Moss.
Moss thought for a moment then set off again. “‘Wherein do the charms of this game lie, that captivate youth, and retain their hold still far on in life? It is a fine, open-air, athletic exercise, not violent, but bringing into play nearly all the muscles in the body; while that exercise can be continued for hours’.... ”
It was at this point that Hartley remembered the other thing he didn't like about Moss. The man was a walking anthology of golf. Not only that, he was liable to quote from his reservoir of quotations at the drop of a hat. Hartley quickly picked up the hat he had metaphorically dropped and said, “Yes, yes, all right, I get the point, now can we get on? Please?”
However Moss was in full flight by now, and unstoppable. He continued, “....‘It is a game of skill, needing mind and thought and judgement, as well as a cunning hand. It is also a social game, where one may go out with one friend or with three, as the case may be, and enjoy mutual intercourse, mingled with an excitement which is very pleasing. It never palls or grows stale, as morning by morning the players appear at the teeing ground with as keen a relish as if they had not seen a club for a month. Nor is it only while the game lasts that its zest is felt. How the player loves to recall the strokes and other incidents of the match, so that it is often played over again next morning while still in bed’ - James Balfour, 1887.”
“
Fore!” came a loud cry from behind them. Hartley and Moss turned to see the distant figures on the first tee waving at them to get out of the way.
“
I think we'd better let them through,” said Moss. “I don't like to be pressed.”
Southfield was in bed enjoying a post-coital cigarette and contemplating a second carnal encounter with his lover Jessica in the not too distant future. They might do it stood up in the shower, he always enjoyed that, or then again he might let her be the dominant partner for a change, it had been a few weeks since he’d had a spanking, which is what usually happened as a prelude to the sex act whenever he let her take charge of proceedings. Or perhaps he’d simply settle for the good old-fashioned missionary position, a method he never tired off, as contrary to the saying ‘You don’t look at the mantelpiece when you’re poking the fire’ he loved to look at Jessica’s lovely mantelpiece while he was poking her. Or maybe she could dress up as someone again? With perhaps a 69 for starters, although the last time he’d suggested one she’d turned him down as the time before that she’d taken umbrage when he remarked that the 69 they’d just had was very nice but not as good as the 69 he’d shot at Lindrick the previous week on a day out with the Probus Club. But he was sure he’d be able to talk her round. He sighed contentedly; what a wonderful dilemma to be in.
Jessica was standing at the bedroom window looking out. Something now attracted her attention. She turned to Southfield and beckoned to him. “Quick, come here.”
“
I’d rather come here again,” said Southfield, not a man to turn down the chance to enrich a conversation with a double entendre whenever the opportunity presented itself.
Jessica ignored the quip. “I can see him,” she said, nodding in the direction of the golf course beyond the window. “Walking up the fairway. Come and have a look.”
It wasn't perhaps the last thing Southfield would have contemplated doing, but would have been well in the running. It was bad enough Jessica standing at the window on her own, never mind standing there with him looking over her shoulder. Even Jessica standing at the window on her own worried him as he had visions of her husband spotting her, wondering what on earth she was doing in the bedroom at this time of the morning, and rushing home to investigate; which would lead no doubt to his being on the wrong end of a thrashing. “Come away from the window,” he urged her. “Before the bugger sees you.”
Jessica shrugged. “So what if he does see me? I'm only looking out of the window; where’s the harm in that?”
Southfield felt she had omitted a relevant point from her assessment of the current situation and now pointed it out. “You haven’t got a bloody stitch on, Jessica.”
“
Well I always sleep in the nude, he knows that. He'll think I've just got up. Well he would if he happened to look up and to see me, but he won't, he'll be too wrapped up in his stupid game of golf to notice anything.”
Southfield knew she had a point. Once a man is out on the golf course he has little thought for anything else; he was the same himself. And was precisely the reason why he was at this very moment in Jessica's bed contemplating a second bout of sex with her, secure in the knowledge that he was quite safe from discovery whilst doing so, he assured himself once again.
“
Mark McCard.”
“
Jay Cloth.”
“
E Gil Three.”
Arbuthnott, still holding his game together very well and with an exceptional card in prospect, better even than the net sixty two Alec Adams had decided he would put in, stepped onto the thirteenth tee. He looked down towards the green from its elevated position to establish where they had placed the flagstick that day, expecting to see a difficult pin placement in view of the Nearest the Pin competition taking place there. What he didn't expect to see was a party of three ladies seated behind the green taking morning coffee under the shade of a large pink and white candy-striped parasol. He turned to Bagley and Chapman in disbelief. “I don't believe this!”
“
What's that?” said Bagley, as he and Chapman joined Arbuthnott on the tee.
Arbuthnott pointed towards the green.
“
Jesus wept!” said Chapman. “I thought I'd seen everything the time one of them discovered a fairy ring in the middle of the twelfth fairway and cordoned it off with pink ribbon.”
“
They're from the Planet Gladys, women golfers, aren't they,” said Bagley, shaking his head in disbelief.
“
Well at least they aren't sitting in front of the green,” said Arbuthnott, “That’s something to be grateful for. I wouldn't put that past them.”
“
I'd like to put the contents of a double-barrelled shotgun past them,” said Chapman, wistfully. “Or better still into them.”
Behind the green Mrs Quayle, Mrs Rattray and Mrs Salinas had failed to spot the arrival of Arbuthnott, Bagley and Chapman on the tee, their minds occupied with more important matters.
“
And the mess they made!” said Mrs Quayle.
Mrs Rattray commiserated with her friend. “Oh it was the same when I had my conservatory installed. The dust got simply everywhere.”
“
And they don’t care,” said Mrs Salinas.
“
They simply could not care less,” agreed Mrs Rattray.
“
To be quite honest with you,” said Mrs Quayle, “I almost wished we’d never gone in for one in the first place. The whole experience was quite traumatic.”
“
Well of course having a conservatory installed can be,” said Mrs Rattray. “Well no one knows that more than I do.”
“
Well it’s over with now, Miriam,” Mrs Salinas consoled her.
“
And thank goodness, I don’t think I could have stood another day of it.”
There was a sudden 'plop' as Arbuthnott's ball landed in the sand bunker to their left.
“
Ah,” said Mrs Rattray, hearing the sound and noticing the distant figures on the tee, “Our first customers. Now who has the tape measure?”
Back on the tee Arbuthnott bemoaned his luck on seeing his ball land in the bunker. “Shit! That's the first really bad shot I've hit all day. I've those bloody women to thank for that!”
“
I'll see if I can hit them for you,” said Bagley, taking Arbuthnott's place on the tee.
“
Aim for the whites of their eyes,” advised Chapman, then had an afterthought. “Make that the whites of their thighs, it’s a bigger target.”
It had taken less than half-an-hour for Millicent to locate her father. Mr Harkness played bowls in the park most mornings when the weather was fit and today found him there as usual. Persuading him to abandon his game of bowls had been easy as he was losing at the time and the winner paid for the teas; and once Millicent had mentioned that a free drink was involved she had no trouble in talking two of his fellow bowlers into joining him.
On arriving back at the beer tent Millicent was glad to note that the gin level in the bottle of Gordon's hadn't gone down any further. She would have been less glad had she known that in her absence the Lady Captain had helped herself to a couple of generous measures and brought the level back up with water. This of course had the effect of weakening the brew, which was not of course an ideal state of affairs for the Lady Captain, who would have preferred it stronger rather than weaker, but she planned to accidentally break the bottle shortly, which would necessitate opening a new one.
Millicent introduced the three old men to the Lady Captain. “This is my father, Mr Harkness, and these are two of his friends, Mr Oldknow and Mr Wormald. They will be having a drink with us when the Lord Mayor arrives.”
“
When the Mayor arrives?” said Wormald. “You didn’t say anything about having to wait until the Mayor arrives, I want one now, I’m thirsty.”
“
I want mine now, too,” said Oldknow. “Or else I'm going.”
“
Very well,” said Millicent, against her better judgement. She turned to the Lady Captain. “Father will have a small orange juice. I don't know what Mr Oldknow and Mr Wormald would like, very probably the same.”
“
A pint of bitter,” said Oldknow.
“
Make that two,” said Wormald.
Millicent would have far rather Oldknow and Wormald kept to soft drinks, preferably small ones, being all too aware of what old men were like with their bladders after drinking pints of beer, and had visions of the two of them being otherwise engaged in the lavatory instead of on duty in the beer tent during the Mayoral visit, thus defeating the object of the exercise, but accepted there was little she could do about it. Other than to ensure that they only had one pint of beer each and not a drop more, which she fully intended to do.
All three tee shots at the thirteenth had failed to find the green. Arbuthnott’s ball in the bunker was the nearest to the pin, Bagley was left and short whilst Chapman was even shorter and right.
As the three golfers were approaching their respective balls Mrs Quayle, Mrs Rattray and Mrs Salinas, the latter now armed with a tape measure, left their chairs and ambled onto the green in the direction of the bunker in which Arbuthnott’s ball had landed. Mrs Quayle called to them, gaily. “Good morning, gentlemen. We’ll try not to hold you up for too long.”
“
What?” said Chapman. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“
Measuring the nearest ball to the pin of course,” said Mrs Salinas, brightly.
“
Measuring the nearest ball to the pin?” echoed Bagley, just as surprised as Chapman.
“
We have to measure the nearest ball to the pin,” exclaimed Mrs Rattray, patiently. “Didn’t you know? Mr Arbuthnott’s ball I believe.”
“
But why?” said Chapman. “It isn’t going to win.”
“
It might,” said Mrs Salinas.
Arbuthnott turned to Bagley. “You
’
re right, Baggers. The Planet Gladys.”
“
What
’
s the matter?” asked Mrs Salinas of Arbuthnott, detecting the tone of ridicule in his voice without at all understanding what he'd meant.
“
Well I
’
m twenty yards from the pin in a bunker, aren't I,” explained Arbuthnott. “How can I possibly win a Nearest the Pin Competition?”
“
Well the lady who won our Nearest the Pin Competition was twenty seven yards and four inches away from the pin,” said Mrs Quayle, “So you must be in with some sort of a chance.”
“
Twenty seven yards and four inches?” echoed Arbuthnott, then added, sarcastically, “Was it on the green?”
“
There
’
s nothing in the competition rules that says it has to be on the green,” said Mrs Rattray, authoritatively.
“
It wasn
’
t even on the green?”
“
It was in a bunker if you must know. That one over there.” She pointed to another bunker. “Front edge.”
Arbuthnott was quickly running out of patience.
“Look get off the green, will you, I
’
ve got a good round going,” he said, then modified his claim. “Well I did have a good round going until I saw you lot having a bloody tea party.”