Уильям Макгиверн: Seven Lies South

The Mediterranean spread before them, vast and rosy in the glow of the late afternoon sun. A golden pathway stretched out to the horizon. The fairway was bordered with banks of blood-red carnations which mingled pleasingly with the delicate pink of oleander blossoms. Through the green fir trees he could see the white gleam of the white house, and he thought of a shower and a cold drink. The air was cool now, drying the perspiration on his forehead.

He made a guess at why he had been so sure he was going to lose. The Englishman had played it safe, confident that he would need nothing better than a par to win. He was taking a chance on Beecher’s game going bad; not betting on his own skill at all. There was a caution in this decision which wasn’t consistent with his manner and personality, Beecher thought; the rake-hell Commando, the man who talked of “sticky wickets” when bombs fell around him, might logically be expected to play a more reckless game of golf.

Lynch’s ball had rolled to a good lie, and now sat up invitingly on a rare patch of good turf. The green was wide open. Lynch hit a four-iron that was short of the apron, another careful shot which left him with a good if not certain chance for the par.

“Nice shot,” Beecher said automatically.

“It was a bit fat, actually,” Lynch said. “Still, I won’t take it back.” He sounded complacent. “Now let’s see where you’ve got to.”

They walked across the fairway to the stand of trees, with Beecher’s caddy ranging ahead of him like a bird dog. Beecher went into the shade of the trees and poked around in the tall grass. He had got over the habit of looking where he hoped the ball would be; golf had added to his normal pessimism in some ways. It was cool in the grove of trees and he accepted this, and the lovely tones of the evening, as compensation for having lost the match. Then, surprisingly, he saw his ball lying in the fairway a few inches from the rough. He smiled. The lie was good, and he was only about a hundred yards from the green; his finesse had worked.

Lynch was standing near the ball with his hands on his hips, and both caddies had gone into the trees a dozen or so yards beyond Beecher. Beecher opened his mouth to yell to Salvador, but at the same instant Lynch took a step forward and put his foot firmly on the ball. He allowed his weight to rest on it for a deliberate instant, then walked on toward the caddies. “I don’t think it got down this far,” he called to them in English.

Beecher stared after him in silence. The Englishman seemed an ungainly, preposterous figure in the dappled light of the grove, with the bright skullcap gleaming on his fair head, and his storklike legs driving him on in great, greedy strides. He continued to harangue the caddies in English. “Now see here!” he cried, staring down at them from his great height. “The bloody ball is back that way.” He waved his bony arm in Beecher’s direction. “Do you understand? No es here! Look alive now. I say, Beecher, you speak the lingo. Tell the little beggars they’re miles off course, will you?”

“Never mind, I’ve got it,” Beecher said, and walked back to the fairway.

“Good show!”

Beecher looked at his ball with a frown gathering on his forehead. It was buried so deeply that only a fleck of white showed above the earth. Had Lynch done it on purpose? Or was it just an accident?

“I say, that’s a pity,” Lynch said, when he joined him on the fairway. “Plugged itself bloody well out of sight, didn’t it? Curious. Must have fell like a bomb.”

“Yes, it is curious.” Beecher looked steadily at Lynch, but the Englishman’s face was guileless as a sleeping infant’s.

Salvador ran up with the bag flopping diagonally across his back. He stared at the ball in dismay. The ground here was moist but firm, and Lynch’s large footprint was clearly marked in the turf. Salvador understood what had happened, Beecher knew, even before the boy let loose a barrage of outraged explanation.

Lynch smiled indulgently. “What’s the little beggar got on his mind?” he asked Beecher. “Sounds like he’s accusing you of selling his sister to the Moors, doesn’t it?”

“He’s just explaining why he didn’t see it.”

Beecher exploded the ball into the air with his wedge; then pitched up to the green. He was lying three, Lynch two. They both two-putted and the match was over; Lynch had won.

They shook hands after holing-out. Lynch was smiling broadly, the sun gleaming in his fair hair. “I had extraordinary luck. Next time you’ll give me a lesson, I dare say.”

And Beecher, caught up in the Englishman’s sporting ethos, apologized for making the match as close as it was. “I was scrambling all the way,” he said. “The law of averages finally caught up with me.”

Salvador watched him with sorrowful brown eyes. He began to speak, but Beecher cut him off with a wink. They understood each other quite well. Salvador shrugged and went off to the pro shop, and Beecher joined Lynch who was strolling toward the locker room.

“Drinks are on me,” Beecher said.

Antonio brought them gin slings and they drank them sitting on a bench in the locker room, their shirts off and the evening air cool against their warm bodies.

Lynch raised his glass. “All the best.”

“Cheers,” Beecher said.

“I imagine I could be quite happy in Spain,” Lynch said, after taking a long thirsty pull from his drink. “It’s a peaceful country, isn’t it? Servants are cheap, the liquor is an amazing bargain — well, what else does a chap want? Job of work now and again to keep him out of mischief, I expect.” He took a sip from his drink. “What do you do over here?”

“Nothing,” Beecher said.

“Really? I thought most of you American chaps were writing books or painting pictures or something like that.”

“Not me,” Beecher said.

“Well, how do you manage it then?” He smiled easily. “As far as LSD goes, that is.”

LSD. Beecher thought. Pounds, shillings, pence. “I saved enough to last for a while.”

“That’s sensible, isn’t it? No point mucking around in some racket over here, is there?”

“Would you like to take a shower?” Beecher asked him.

“I didn’t bring a change. I’ll just have another drink. You go ahead.”

“Antonio will get anything you want.”

Beecher stood gratefully under the driving hot water, letting the heat soak into his pleasantly tired muscles and joints. He had lost the match, but he didn’t mind any more. It was usually that way. The loss wasn’t important. It was only the curious foreknowledge of defeat that bothered him. Antonio brought his clothes into the dressing room beyond the shower stalls, and Beecher got into khaki slacks which he had bought in Gibraltar, a white knit sports shirt from Tangier, and alpargatas, which were made in the village of Mirimar and sold for about twenty-five cents a pair. He had run through the clothes he had brought with him to Spain. There were some army things left, but he seldom wore them; he had had enough of uniforms and insignia over the years, and he preferred the anonymity of clothes from Gibraltar, or Tangier, or Spain.

He drove Lynch back to Mirimar through a lovely twilight. Fields of sugar cane stood stiffly on both sides of the road, and when they passed the refinery the air was full of the sweet heavy fragrance of molasses. The Sierra Nevadas were to their right, the bottom and middle ranges the color of elephant hide, but the peaks sparkling with rose and lemon light in the last long rays of the sun. The sea itself was dull red now, a smoldering and vivid color, and the triangular sails of the tiny fishing boats skimmed like white birds along the horizon.