Captain's Day (9 page)

Jason, not being a member of the golf club, wasn't allowed to search for balls on the golf course itself, but golf balls have a habit of flying over boundary walls and depositing themselves in adjacent fields and woods, a useful quality for anyone seeking a constant supply of used golf balls, and it was these locations that provided Jason with his harvest.

Not long after he had embarked upon his career in the golf ball recycling industry Jason discovered that Tobin was re-selling the balls on for an additional fifty pence, and shortly after that the boy, surely an entrepreneur of the future, hit upon the idea of cutting out the middle man and selling his golf balls direct to the golfers. This brought him twice the revenue it previously had, for the same effort, which seemed to Jason to be too good to be true. It was. For it wasn't long before he inadvertently tried to sell a golfer one of his own marked golf balls (Tobin could never have made such a mistake), much to the golfer's annoyance.

Not too long ago Jason would have received a clout round the ear-hole for his pains, but in the enlightened times of the twenty first century that option is unfortunately no longer available to adults, unless they fancy spending some poor quality time in a police station lock-up before being hauled in front of the magistrates. So in retribution the irate golfer had contented himself with treading on Jason's foot with his spiked shoe, an action which he claimed was a complete accident and for which he was very sorry. Jason, ending up with half a dozen small holes through the top of his new designer trainers, through his sock, and in his foot, would have preferred a clout round the ear-hole every time.

On some days golf ball pickings weren't as good as they were on others, and if one such day coincided with a time when Jason was in dire need of a top-up card for his mobile or the latest Lady Gaga CD a more positive ball-finding method had to be adopted. This method took the form of finding lost golf balls within the precincts of the golf course, and when really desperate measures were called for, say when he was in dire need of a top-up card for his mobile
and
Lady Gaga’s latest CD, finding lost balls on the golf course before they were actually lost. One such day was Captain's Day.

Having driven off, Armitage and Stock were walking up the fairway together, Grover lagging a few yards or so behind having stopped to tie his shoelace.

“
Do you think size matters, Gerard?” said Armitage to his companion, conversationally.

“
Size?”

“
Yes. Do you think it matters?”

Stock pretended to give the matter some thought. “Yes,” he said after a moment or two. “Most definitely. “

It wasn't the answer Armitage had been seeking. Disappointment wreathed his face. “Really?”

“
Oh absolutely,” confirmed Stock. “Yes, if you don't use size your wallpaper can drop off.”

Armitage’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement. “What?” Then he realised Stock had misunderstood his question. “No. No, not that size. The size of your todger. The size of your penis. Do you think it matters, you know, to a woman?”

Catching up with them Grover had caught the tail end of the conversation. “Is he going on about dicks again, Gerard?” he asked of Stock.

“
Do bears shit on the Pope?”

Grover turned his attention to Armitage. “What's the matter Trevor, have you got a little one or something?”

“
You wouldn't like it in your eye,” said Armitage.

Up ahead Arbuthnott, Bagley and Chapman were playing the sixth. Arbuthnott, after the very promising start to his round had let things slip a little over the last two holes, taking a bogey five at the fourth and a double-bogey five at the par three fifth, but even allowing for that slight double hiccup he was still two shots under the card after taking his stroke allowance into consideration. Now things started to get back on track as his seven iron approach shot hit the top of one of the greenside bunkers before fortuitously being thrown onto the green and coming to rest no more than twenty feet from the flag.

“
Wham!” Arbuthnott shouted in delight. “Yet
another
birdie opportunity.”

“
Jammy bugger,” said Chapman.

“
This is better than sex,” said Arbuthnott, ignoring Chapman's jibe.
Bagley looked at Arbuthnott as though his playing partner was quite mad. “Who are you having sex with?”

“
What?”

“
Well if making a birdie was better than the sex I was getting I'd be looking around for somebody else to have it with.”

“
There's nothing wrong with the sex I'm getting,” said Arbuthnott, a little piqued. “It's probably every bit as good as the sex you're getting. If not better. Your problem, Baggers, is that you don't make enough birdies to compare the relative methods of having sex and making a birdie.”

“
And your problem, Arby, is that you're doing far too much standing about bragging about how good you are and not enough getting on with the bloody game,” said Chapman, who himself was still faring nothing like so well as Arbuthnott, and making no attempt to hide the disappointment which accompanied that unhappy state of affairs. “You know how my game suffers if I’m forced to play slowly,” he went on grumpily. “Someone less charitable than me might think you were playing slowly deliberately.”

Whilst not wishing to get into an argument in case it should spoil his own game Arbuthnott felt that he couldn’t let this slur on his character pass unchallenged. “Playing slowly? Me? How can I be playing slowly? Up to now you’ve taken about twice as many shots as I have, so even if I were taking twice as long to play them, which I’m not, I’d still only be taking as long to play the game as you are.”

Chapman had no answer to Arbuthnott’s logic, which although he didn’t care for, couldn’t fault. It didn’t stop him replying however. “Oh stop crowing,” he said, and turned his back on Arbuthnott, bringing an end to the altercation.

On the first tee Mr Captain hoped against hope that he had seen the last of the naked youth. A naked youth running around the golf was the very last thing he wanted. Good Lord, what if the reprobate chose to put in another appearance when the Lord Mayor was in attendance! That would be the end, an unmitigated disaster, it didn’t even bear thinking about.

Immediately following the incident, and after he had recovered from the shock, Mr Captain had considered calling in the police to track down and apprehend the naked trespasser. However he didn't want the police running around the golf course spoiling his Captain's Day no more than he wanted unclothed youths running around spoiling it, so dismissed the idea from his mind no sooner than it had entered it. He had enough to worry about as it was, with the weather.

For about the tenth time since Ifield had issued his gloomy forecast he checked the sky for any alteration in its condition. The weather seemed to be holding up, no sign of any change yet. But Ifield had been quite adamant about it, and the English weather can change so quickly, so it might only be a matter of time. He made the decision not to look at the sky again as it was only making him feel depressed, but on returning his gaze to eye level he saw something else that immediately gave him as much concern as the weather, in the shape of his wife Millicent, who was now hurrying towards him. What on earth was she doing here at this time? She wasn’t due to arrive until shortly before the first of the golfers were due to call in at the beer tent so obviously something must have cropped up, some snag or other. He just hoped it wasn't serious. But as Millicent drew closer he could see from the tight-lipped expression on her face that it was very serious, and when she joined him she quickly confirmed his fears. “I'm afraid I have some rather bad news for you, Henry,” she said, placing a supportive hand on his forearm, bonding them together, as was her habit whenever the couple faced difficulties.

His eyes widened in apprehension. “It's not going to spoil my day is it Millicent?”

“
Not necessarily,” said Millicent, giving him cause for hope and cause for concern in equal measure. “It's concerning the band for the dance this evening.”

“
The Syncopation Four?”

“
I'm afraid they can't come.”

“
Can't come?” This was terrible. A disaster. What on earth had Millicent meant with her 'not necessarily', this sounded to him like a cast iron copper-bottomed certainty to spoil his day. No band, no dance, simple as that. “What do you mean they can't come?”

“
They rang a half hour ago to say they'd double-booked by mistake.”

“
Double-booked?” The darkness that had descended upon Mr Captain lifted as he immediately saw a solution to the problem. “Then the Syncopation Four must simply tell whoever else they are double-booked with that they can't keep to the arrangement due to circumstances beyond their control, and honour their agreement with us.”

“
That is what I told them. My exact words. But they said the other party had booked first so they felt duty bound to give them precedence.”

Mr Captain bristled. “ And what do they think we are supposed to do? This is intolerable, Millicent, quite intolerable.”

Millicent applied a little comforting pressure to her husband’s arm. “Calm down, Henry. All is not lost. We'll get through this. Together. The Hamiltons.”

The Fridlingtons liked to compare the closeness of their relationship to that of the marriage of ex-Member of Parliament Neil Hamilton and his wife Christine. Both Henry and Millicent firmly believed that Neil Hamilton was totally innocent of the charges that had brought about his downfall. Indeed it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the Hamiltons were their idols, (Millicent looked not unlike Christine which may have coloured their judgement somewhat), so much so that if someone were to tell the Fridlingtons that they reminded them of the Hamiltons they would have taken it not as the insult for which it had probably been intended, but as the highest compliment it was possible to pay them.

“
The Hamiltons!” echoed Mr Captain, as if proposing a toast of thanks to the disgraced politician and his graceless wife.

“
However,” Millicent went on, “after I had received the bad news I wasted no time in contacting the agency through which we booked them to see if they had another band free for this evening. But they said they hadn't, at such short notice. However they did put me in touch with another agency who they said might be able to help.”

“
And could they?” said Mr Captain eagerly, hoping against hope.

“
They had a choice of two. 'Lord Nose and the Bogies’ was one.”

“
Oh I don't like the sound of them.”

“
Neither did I. The other choice was a disco, 'Daddy Rhythm'.”

Mr Captain pulled a face. “I don't like the sound of him either. I don't like the sound of discos, full stop.”

“
Nor me Henry, as you know. But on questioning the agent further I was told that the sort of performance put on by Lord Nose and the Bogies could be regarded by some as a bit near the knuckle, so….”

“
....you opted for Daddy Rhythm? “

“
The lesser of two evils, I thought. Anyway he'll be here shortly.”

“
At this early hour?”

“
Apparently he's busy this afternoon so he needs to set up his equipment this morning. Nothing for you to worry about, I'll keep an eye open for him and spell things out to him as regards just what is and is not acceptable at a golf club dinner dance. We certainly don't want him playing the sort of rubbish disc-jockeys usually play.”

“
Indeed we do not, Millicent. Especially when we will be entertaining the Lord Mayor.”

“
My thoughts entirely. Leave it with me Henry, I'll put this Daddy Rhythm person on the straight and narrow and ensure that he doesn’t stray off it.”

Hanson wasn't such a bad bloke to play with, mused Galloway, as the two of them walked side by side up the fifth fairway. He didn't, like so many playing partners, put you off when you were putting by standing in your eye-line, and he was always generous with his praise when you made a good shot or holed a tricky putt. If only he didn't go on about his multitude of illnesses all the time!

Galloway had played quite often with Hanson, and, like Hanson's state of health, it never got any better. During their round Hanson would go through all his illnesses from A to Z. Galloway wasn't sure if there were any illnesses beginning with Z but if there were he was sure Hanson would be suffering from them. Hanson would always start to trawl through his litany of ailments very early in the round, thus ensuring he had adequate time to fit them all in. He would begin with his head and work down, using his body as a sort of index to make sure he didn't forget anything.

By the time they had reached the fifth fairway Galloway had been advised on the latest state of Hanson's illnesses up to, or perhaps down to, his rheumatoid arthritis-ridden knee. His head was no better. Worse if anything. He was still having these bangs that had started about two years ago. They were just like simultaneous flashes of lightning and claps of thunder. He wouldn't wish them on his worst enemy. He was getting them more frequently now, at least once a week, for about two days’ duration, then they would go, just as quickly as they’d arrived. He had seen his doctor about them, and several consultant neurologists, one of whom was a knight of the realm. None of whom had known what the hell they were talking about. He might as well have gone to a vet.