Уильям Макгиверн: Seven Lies South

The match was even after the seventeenth hole and the Englishman smiled widely and said, “A bit of luck, wasn’t it?” He had won the hole with a long curling putt, and as they walked toward the eighteenth tee he patted Mike Beecher on the shoulder in a gesture which suggested both condolence and conciliation. “I hadn’t counted on your tightening up, old man. Quite frankly, I thought I was done for.”

“I just hooked the iron into the trap,” Mike Beecher said. “I can do that under any and all circumstances.”

“You rushed it a bit, actually. Nerves, I expect. It’s the whole thing in this game.” They stopped on the tee and the caddies gave them their drivers. The caddies were Spanish boys, brown and grave, sixteen or seventeen years old, and the tops of their heads barely came even with the clubs sticking up from the bags.

“Now what’s the drill here?” the Englishman asked. “Where’ve they hidden the bloody green?”

The eighteenth hole of the golf course near the coastal city of Málaga was a dog-leg right, and the green was blocked from view by a stand of fir trees half-way down the fairway. It was an uncomplicated par four.

Mike Beecher explained this and moved to the back of the tee with the caddies. But the Englishman hesitated, staring at the line of fir trees which hid the green from sight. “The long way home, isn’t it?” he said with teeth flashing in his wide and rather childish smile. “It’s tempting, you know.” Beecher understood what he meant; a drive over the trees would nearly carry the green. But it was a risky shot, a gamble an experienced golfer wouldn’t take unless a match depended on it.

“Yes, it’s tempting,” Beecher said. “The line is straight over the tallest tree.”

The Englishman deliberated an instant longer, then sighed and teed-up his ball. “I’m afraid I’m going to play it safely.”

With a compact swing he split the middle of the fairway with a straight, safe drive, and Mike Beecher knew that for all practical purposes the match was decided and that he was going to lose it.

As he prepared to drive, he wondered a bit irritably why he was convinced he would lose. He was a connoisseur of his own failures, of course. That was part of it. He could predict defeat as other men predicted the weather, sensing signs and portents that were too subtle for conscious examination. To want something very much was usually an indication he wouldn’t get it. But he didn’t know why this was true. Why in hell do I want to win this match? he wondered. There was nothing at stake but a round of drinks. He had met the Englishman in the village of Mirimar a few days ago, and they had chatted about golf, among other things. Beecher had lived in Spain for two years, the Englishman was there on a month’s holiday. They had arranged a match, and since the Englishman had no car Beecher had picked him up at his pension, the Lorita, which was in the second category and inexpensive even by Spanish standards. The Englishman’s name was James Lynch. “It’s Irish, actually, I wouldn’t wonder,” he had said, with the bright youthful smile. “One of the wild geese who settled in England, contrary to all plans, I dare say. Jimmy will do nicely, however.”

But Mike Beecher called him Lynch. They were roughly the same age, in their late thirties, and he found Lynch’s preference for the diminutive of his Christian name a bit silly.

He admired Lynch but he didn’t particularly like him, and he wondered if this was why he had wanted to win the match. Lynch was perfect of a certain class of Englishman Beecher had met, and for this he admired him: he was tall and ruddy, with great bony arms and legs, and the tough, well-conditioned body of a cavalryman. He wore khaki shorts and Clark’s desert boots, and on his head, rather incredibly, a tiny blue-and-white knitted skullcap which Beecher knew was Moroccan. This outfit, with the brilliant cap as exclamation point, was silly but rather touching, and so was Lynch’s youthful exuberance, his great wide smiles, and the flow of “Good shot, there!” and, “I say, well done!” with which he marked Beecher’s progress around the course. His manner was engaging, and he was quite handsome, with thick fair hair, and eyes that were blue and clear as a baby’s against his deeply tanned skin. He had obviously been in service during World War II. His speech was interlarded with military slang: “drill” and “gen” and “Boffins” and “pranged” and “whacko” were all securely embedded in his vocabulary. Beecher had met his type before in Spain, oddly wistful Englishmen approaching their middle years, but savoring the last sweetness of their wartime youth like children sucking cautiously on a lozenge, determined to make it last until a given hour, perhaps even until sundown. And for these things Beecher admired him; the silly Moroccan skullcap, the desert boots, the boyish enthusiasm, the outdated expletives and exhortations — these were not the trappings of a role to be assumed or put aside at will, but the touching and honest portrait the man’s past had drawn of him.

As for why he didn’t like the man he wasn’t so sure. His confidence was part of it. It wasn’t leavened with grace. Lynch had expected the locker-room attendant to be at his side when he removed his jacket. If the man hadn’t been there the jacket would have dropped to the floor. But Antonio was at his side, with a quick smile and a murmured courtesy, and Lynch had sat down to change his shoes without so much as glancing at him. He approved of Spaniards. He told Beecher as much. “They’ve been well-trained,” he had said, and added, “Jolly well too, I’m pleased to see.” But he didn’t respect them except as examples of sound discipline. His respect, Beecher felt, would go to their trainers.

Also, Lynch owned a shattering directness which was saved from rudeness only by his quick smiles and pleasant manner. “I dare say you don’t play golf regularly back in the States,” he had said at one point in the match. “It’s frightfully expensive there, isn’t it? Do you belong to a club?”

Beecher admitted he didn’t. And again, Lynch had commented with a grin on Beecher’s drinking. “I saw you sipping a brandy one morning, and I thought to meself, now there’s a lucky chap. Enjoying the sun and cheap brandy without a care in the world, while the rest of us are out grubbing for a living. How long did you say you’ve been here?”

“Two years,” Beecher had said, almost curtly. He was short of money, and was drinking too much out of idleness and boredom. Lynch’s inferences were therefore accurate but irritating.

Beecher put everything from his mind and prepared to hit his drive. He decided to ignore the feeling that he was going to lose. It wasn’t over yet. There were three ways to play this hole. Straight and safe was one. Over the trees to the green was two. The third required a deliberate slice, a fading shot which would land close to the tree line and turn the corner with the natural slope of the fairway. Played well, this shot would roll down to within eighty or ninety yards of the pin. From there he would have a sure par, and a good chance at a birdie. Lynch still needed another big iron to reach the green in two, and had no serious hope of getting down under par.

Beecher hit his drive solidly; it had the height and distance, but the fade was accented by a vagrant wind and the ball came down very close to the tree line. It might be in the rough. Beecher glanced at his caddy, Salvador, who shrugged and made a quick little gesture, as if he were balancing a grain of buckshot on the back of his wrist.

Beecher gave him his driver and caught up with the Englishman, who was starting vigorously down the fairway.