Reginald Hill - The Roar of the Butterflies

‘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.’

Joe said, ‘My head’s hurting.’

Porphyry said anxiously, ‘It must be the sun. You should have worn a hat. Would you like to sit down for a minute?’

‘No, I’m fine. We any nearer the cheating?’

‘Nearly there,’ said the YFG, heading back into the woods in the direction of the house. ‘What happened was that Syd was a bit demoralized. Getting a birdie and still losing the hole can do that. I won the next two holes so we ended up all square.’

‘Like a draw?’

‘That’s it. But you can’t have a draw in a knock-out competition, so we went down the first again.’

‘To play another eighteen holes, you mean?’ said Joe aghast.

‘Oh no. First man to win a hole wins the match,’ said Porphyry.

‘Like a penalty shoot-out?’

‘Yes, I suppose so. I won that hole too, so we headed back to the clubhouse for a drink. My treat, of course, being the winner. We were standing at the bar. Syd was telling everyone who came in that I must have sacrificed a virgin to the devil or something, coming back from dormy three to win. He was particularly eloquent on my incredible luck on the sixteenth, clattering my drive into the woods, and yet still somehow managing to come up with an eagle to beat his birdie. He’d just repeated the story for the third or fourth time when Jimmy Postgate came in. That’s Jimmy from Penley Farm, the house I showed you on the far edge of these woods. He speaks quite loudly, Jimmy, because he’s a touch deaf. So everyone in the bar heard it loud and clear when he took a golf ball out of his pocket and tossed it to me, saying, “Here’s the one you lost at the sixteenth, Chris. Plopped right into my swimming pool! Good job there was no one in there or it might have been a burial-at-sea job!”’