The Roar of the Butterflies

‘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 child 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 unhappiness. 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.