Plum Pie (8 page)

"He was."

"Too bad. He should have been rejoicing to think that his money had been instrumental in bringing a little sunshine into a fellow creature's life. But let us forget him and return to this matter of your golfing problems."

He had said the one thing capable of diverting Cyril's thoughts from his incandescent partner. No twenty-four handicap man is ever deaf to such an appeal.

"You told me you had all the theory of the game at your finger-tips. Is that so? Your reading has been wide?"

"I've read every golf book that has been written."

"You mentioned Tommy Armour. Have you studied his preachings?"

"I know them by heart."

"But lack of confidence prevents you putting them into practice?"

"I suppose that's it."

"Then the solution is simple. I must hypnotise you again. You should still be under the influence, but the effects may have worn off and it's best to be on the safe side. I will instil into you the conviction that you can knock spots off the proudest McMurdo. When you take club in hand, it will be with the certainty that your ball is going to travel from Point A to Point B by the shortest route and will meet with no misadventures on the way. Whose game would you prefer yours to resemble? Arnold Palmer's? Gary Player's? Jack Nicklaus's? Palmer's is the one I would recommend. Those spectacular finishes of his. You agree? Palmer it shall be, then. So away we
go. Your eyes are closing. You are feeling drowsy. You are falling asleep...asleep...asleep..."

Paradise Valley was at its best next day, its scenery just as noble, its mountain breezes just as soft, its spaces fully as wide and open as the public relations man's booklet had claimed them to be, and Cyril, as he stood beside the first tee of the Squashy Hollow course awaiting Sidney McMurdo's arrival, was feeling, as he had confided to the caddy master when picking up his clubs, like a million dollars. He would indeed scarcely have been exaggerating if he had made it two million. His chin was up, both his feet were on the ground, and the red corpuscles of which the booklet had spoken coursed through his body like students rioting in Saigon, Moscow, Cairo, Panama and other centres. Professor Farmer, in assuring him that he would become as confident as Arnold Palmer, had understated it. He was as confident as Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Ray Venturi, Jack Nicklaus and Tony Lema all rolled into one.

He had not been waiting long when he beheld a vast expanse of man approaching and presumed that this must be his partner for the round. He gave him a sunny smile.

"Mr. McMurdo? How do you do? Nice day. Very pleasant, those soft mountain breezes."

The newcomer's only response was a bronchial sound such as might have been produced by an elephant taking its foot out of a swamp in a teak forest. Sidney McMurdo was in dark and sullen mood. On the previous night Agnes Flack, his fiancée, had broken their engagement owing to a trifling disagreement they had had about the novel she had written. He had said it was a lot of prune juice and advised her to burn it without delay, and she had said it was not, too, a lot of prune juice, adding that she never wanted to see or speak to him again, and this had affected him adversely. It always annoyed him when Agnes Flack broke their engagement, because it made him overswing, particularly off the tee.

He did so now, having won the honour, and was pained to see that his ball, which he had intended to go due north, was travelling nor'-nor'-east. And as he stood scowling after it, Cyril spoke.

"I wonder if you noticed what you did wrong there, Mr. McMurdo," he said in the friendliest way. "Your backswing was too long. Length of backswing does not have as much effect on distance as many believe. You should swing back only just as far as you can without losing control of the club. Control is all-important. I always take my driver to about the horizontal position on the back swing. Watch me now."

And so saying Cyril with effortless grace drove two hundred and eighty yards straight down the fairway.

"See what I mean?" he said.

It was on the fourth green, after he had done an eagle, that he spoke again. Sidney McMurdo had had some difficulty in getting out of a sand trap and he hastened to give him the benefit of his advice. There was nothing in it for him except the glow that comes from doing an act of kindness, but it distressed him to see a quite promising player like McMurdo making mistakes of which a wiser head could so easily cure him.

"You did not allow for the texture of the sand," he said. "Your sand shot should differ with the texture of the sand. If it is wet, hard or shallow, your clubhead will not cut into it as deeply as it would into soft and shifting sand. If the sand is soft, try to dig into it about two inches behind the ball, but when it is hard penetrate it about one and a half inches behind the ball. And since firm sand will slow down your club considerably, be sure to give your swing a full follow-through."

The game proceeded. On the twelfth Cyril warned his partner to be careful to remember to bend the knees slightly for greater flexibility throughout the swing, though—on the sixteenth—he warned against bending them too much, as this often led to topping. When both had holed out at the eighteenth, he had a word of counsel to give on the subject of putting.

"Successful putting, Sidney," he said, for he felt that they might now consider themselves on first name terms. "Depends largely on the mental attitude. Confidence is everything. Never let anxiety make you tense. Never for an instant harbour the thought that your shot may miss. When I sank that last fifty-foot putt, I
knew
it was going in. My mind was filled with a picture of the ball following a proper line to the hole, and it is that sort of picture I should like to encourage in you. Well, it has been a most pleasant round. We must have another soon. I shot a sixty-two, did I not? I thought so. I was quite on my game today, quite on my game."

Sidney McMurdo's eyebrows, always beetling, were beetling still more darkly as he watched Cyril walking away with elastic tread. He turned to a friend who had just come up.

"Who is that fellow?" he asked hoarsely.

"His name's Grooly," said the friend. "One of the summer visitors."

"What's his handicap?"

"I can tell you that, for I was looking at the board this morning. It's twenty-four."

"Air!" cried Sidney McMurdo, clutching his throat. "Give me air!"

Cyril, meanwhile, had rounded the clubhouse and was approaching the practice green that lay behind it. Someone large and female was engaged there in polishing her chip shots, and as he paused to watch he stood astounded at her virtuosity.

A chip shot, he was aware, having read his Johnny Farrell, is a crisp hit with the clubhead stopping at the ball and not following through. "Open your stance," says the venerable Farrell, Place your weight on the left foot and hit down at the ball," and this was precisely what this substantial female was doing. Each ball she struck dropped on the green like a poached egg, and as she advanced to pick them up he saw that she was Agnes Flack.

A loud gasp escaped Cyril. The dream world of breathtaking beauty pirouetted before his eyes as if Arthur Murray were teaching it dancing in a hurry. He was conscious of strange, tumultuous emotions stirring within him. Then the mists cleared, and gazing at Agnes Flack he knew that there before him stood his destined mate. A novelist she might be and no doubt as ghastly a novelist as ever set finger to typewriter key, but what of that? Quite possibly she would grow out of it in time, and in any case he felt that as a man who went about shooting sixty-twos in medal contests he owed it to himself to link his lot with a golfer of her calibre. Theirs would be the ideal union.

In a situation like this no publisher hesitates. A moment later, Cyril was on the green, his arms as far around Agnes Flack as they would go.

"Old girl," he said. "You're a grand bit of work! "

Two courses were open to Agnes Flack. She could draw herself to her full height, say "Sir!" and strike this clinging vine with her number seven iron, or, remembering that Cyril was a publisher and that she had a top copy and two carbons of a novel in her suitcase, she could co-operate and accept his addresses. She chose the latter alternative, and when Cyril' suggested that they should spend the honeymoon in Scotland, playing all the famous courses there, she said that that would suit her perfectly. If, as she plighted her troth, a thought of Sidney McMurdo came into her mind, it was merely the renewed conviction that he was an oaf and a fathead temperamentally incapable of recognizing good literature when it was handed to him on a skewer.

These passionate scenes take it out of a man, and it is not surprising that Cyril's first move on leaving Agnes Flack should have been in the direction of the bar. Arriving there, he found Professor Farmer steeping himself, as was his custom, in lemon squashes. The warm weather engendered thirst, and since he had come to the Paradise Hotel the straw had seldom left his lips.

"Ah, Cyril, if you don't mind me calling you Cyril, though you will be the first to admit that it's a hell of a name," said the Professor. "How did everything come out?"

"Quite satisfactorily, Pepperidge. The returns are not all in, but I think I must have won the medal. I shot a sixty-two, which, subtracting my handicap, gives me a thirty-eight. I doubt if anyone will do better than thirty-eight."

"Most unlikely."

"Thirty-four under par takes a lot of beating."

"Quite a good deal. I congratulate you."

"And that's not all. I'm engaged to the most wonderful girl."

"Really? I congratulate you again. Who is she?"

"Her name is Agnes Flack."

The Professor started, dislodging a drop of lemon squash from his lower lip.

"Agnes Flack?"

"Yes."

"You couldn't be mistaken in the name?"

"No."

"H'm!"

"Why do you say H'm?"

"I was thinking of Sidney McMurdo."

"How does he get into the act?"

"He is—or was—betrothed to Agnes Flack, and I am told he has rather a short way with men who get engaged to his fiancée, even if technically ex. Do you know a publisher called Pickering?"

"Harold Pickering? I've met him."

"He got engaged to Agnes Flack, and it was only by butting Sidney McMurdo in the stomach with his head and disappearing over the horizon that he was able to avoid being torn by the latter into little pieces. But for his ready resource he would have become converted into, as one might say, a sort of publishing hash, though, of course, McMurdo might simply have jumped on him with spiked shoes."

It was Cyril's turn to say H'm, and he said it with a good deal of thoughtful fervour. He had parted so recently from Sidney McMurdo that he had not had time to erase from his mental retina what might be called the over-all picture of him. The massive bulk of Sidney McMurdo rose before his eyes, as did the other's rippling muscles. The discovery that in addition to possessing the physique of a gorilla he had also that animal's easily aroused temper was not one calculated to induce a restful peace of mind. Given the choice between annoying Sidney McMurdo and stirring up a nest of hornets with a fountain pen, he would unhesitatingly have cast his vote for the hornets.

And it was as he sat trying to think what was to be done for the best that the door flew open and the bar became full of McMurdo. He seemed to permeate its every nook and cranny. Nor had Professor Farmer erred in predicting that his mood would be edgy. His eyes blazed, his ears wiggled and a clicking sound like the manipulation of castanets by a Spanish dancer told that he was gnashing his teeth. Except that he was not beating his chest with both fists, he resembled in every respect the gorilla to which Cyril had mentally compared him.

"Ha!" he said, sighting Cyril.

"Oh, hullo, Sidney."

"Less of the Sidney!" snarled McMurdo. "I don't want a man of your kidney calling me Sidney," he went on, rather surprisingly dropping into poetry. "Agnes Flack tells me she is engaged to you.

Cyril replied nervously that there had been some informal conversation along those lines.

"She says you hugged her."

"Only a little."

"And kissed her."

"In the most respectful manner."

"In other words, you have sneaked behind my back like a slithery serpent and stolen from me the woman I love. Perhaps, if you have a moment to spare, you will step outside."

Cyril did not wish to step outside, but it seemed that there was no alternative. He preceded Sidney McMurdo through the door, and was surprised on reaching the wide open spaces to find that Professor Farmer had joined the party. The Professor was regarding Sidney with that penetrating gaze of his which made him look like Boris Karloff on one of his bad mornings.

"Might I ask you to look me in the eye for a moment, Mr. McMurdo," he said. "Thank you. Yes, as I thought. You are drowsy. Your eyes are closing. You are falling asleep."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"By Jove, I believe you're right," said Sidney McMurdo, sinking slowly into a conveniently placed deck chair. "Yes, I think I'll take a nap."

The Professor continued to weave arabesques in the air with his hands, and suddenly Sidney McMurdo sat up. His eye rested on Cyril, but it was no longer the flaming eye it had been. Almost affectionate it seemed, and when he spoke his voice was mild.

"Mr. Grooly."

"On the spot."

"I have been thinking it over, Mr. Grooly, and I have reached a decision which, though painful, I am sure is right. It is wrong to think only of self. There are times when a man must make the great sacrifice no matter what distress it causes him. You love Agnes Flack, Agnes loves you, and I must not come between you. Take her, Mr. Grooly. I yield her to you, yield her freely. It breaks my heart, but her happiness is all that matters. Take her, Grooly, and if a broken man's blessing is of any use to you, I give it without reserve. I think I'll go to the bar and have a gin and tonic," said Sidney McMurdo, and proceeded to do so.

"A very happy conclusion to your afternoon's activities," said Professor Farmer as the swing door closed behind him. "I often say that there is nothing like hypnotism for straightening out these little difficulties. I thought McMurdo's speech of renunciation was very well phrased, didn't you? In perfect taste. Well, as you will now no longer have need of my services, I suppose I had better de-hypnotise you. It will not be painful, just a momentary twinge," said the Professor, blowing a lemon-squash-charged breath in Cyril's face, and Cyril was aware of an odd feeling of having been hit by an atom bomb while making a descent in an express elevator. He found himself a little puzzled by his companion's choice of the expression 'momentary twinge', but he had not leisure to go into what was after all a side issue. With the removal of the hypnotic spell there had come to him the realization of the unfortunate position in which he had placed himself, and he uttered a sharp "Oh, golly!"