“I don't want a blasted piper!” screamed Millicent, nearing the end of her tether.
“I thought you....?”
Before Daddy Rhythm could maybe suggest bringing along an Albanian who played the didgeridoo accompanied by a Pakistani on a Jew’s harp Millicent interrupted him. “Well I didn't. Now then, what type of music do you intend to play?”
Daddy Rhythm spread his hands. “There we won't have a problem. There things will be cool. I do Soul, Hip-hop, Garage, Rap, House, some Lord Nose and the Bogies….”
“No thank you to the last,” Millicent sniffed, “I could have had them in person instead of you had I so desired.”
Daddy Rhythm's surprise at Millicent's vetoing the flashing lights was as nothing compared to the shock he received on hearing that she'd shunned Lord Nose and the Bogies. “And you turned them down? Lord Nose and the Bogies? Are you mad? They're the next big thing, Mrs Captain.”
“Fridlington.”
“Sorry, couldn’t remember that. Mrs Captain is easier, I’ll call you that.”
Millicent stamped her foot. “You will call me Mrs Fridlington!”
“Right. No need to lose it, doll. But you really should have gone with Lord Nose and the Bogies if you don’t mind me saying so. They're already enormous on the underground scene.”
“Under the ground is the best place for them, by the sound of them. Six feet under it.”
“Oh don’t say that Mrs Friglington….”
“Fridlington!”
“Whatever. No, Lord Nose and the Bogies are the real deal. Have you heard their 'D'you Fancy a Shag'?”
Millicent shuddered. “No and I'm quite sure I don’t want to.”
Daddy Rhythm was undeterred. “You must check it out. And their 'I Don't Give a Toss'. That's even better if anything; although I must admit it takes a bit more listening to, it’s not quite as immediately accessible as ‘D’you Fancy a Shag’. I'll give it a spin for you as soon as I've set up my rig, see what you think.”
“You most certainly will not!” said Millicent, and turned her mind to more appropriate music for a golf club dance. “Do you have the 'Veleta' amongst your collection?”
“Who are they?” said Daddy Rhythm, wrinkling his brow. “They must be new on the scene if Daddy Rhythm hasn't heard of them. Are they hot?”
“It's not a they, it's a dance, an olde-tyme dance. You do have olde-tyme dance music?”
Daddy Rhythm thought for a moment. “Well I think I've got an Abba record somewhere. ‘Dancing Queen'. I play it for a laugh sometimes when I'm pissed.”
At this point in the proceedings Millicent almost dispensed with the services of Daddy Rhythm in favour of getting her old Dansette record player down from the loft and bringing that along to provide the music for the evening's dancing, but then decided that if she were to provide the records and give Daddy Rhythm very clear instructions as to what would and would not be played, and keep a close eye on him throughout the evening, they would probably manage to get through it without too much damage being done.
There was one last subject to be broached. “What will you be wearing?” she asked, mindful that the last time they'd had a disco the disc- jockey had changed into an ape costume halfway through the evening and had almost given one of the older lady members a heart attack when he'd jumped out at her waving a banana as she came out of the ladies’ toilet, and had caused another lady, on her way to the toilet, to head for it at a greater speed than had been the case beforehand.
“Again you will have nothing to worry about on that score.” Daddy Rhythm indicated his sleeveless waistcoat, purple T- shirt and red leggings. “I’ll be dressed exactly as you see me now. Except I'll be wearing earrings.”
*
Jason was lagging behind, or making every effort to, given that he was now tied by the wrists to Garland's golf trolley, thanks to Harris's spare shoelaces.
Garland felt the resistance on his trolley due to Jason’s reluctance to follow and tugged sharply on the handle, causing the laces to dig into the youngster’s wrists and making him cry out in pain. Without checking his stride Garland looked over his shoulder, glared at him and snapped, “Well keep up then and it won’t happen, will it!”
“You've no right doing this to me,” said Jason, aggressively. “Look at my wrists, they're all red.”
“All the more reason for you to keep up then, isn't it. And think yourself lucky it isn’t your arse that’s red,” said Garland, giving the trolley another vicious yank just to let Jason know who was the boss.
Jason yelped again. “You'd better let me go,” he warned. “I'm telling you!”
“And I'm telling you I'll let you go when we’ve finished the ninth hole. And even when I do let you go it will only be to hand you over to someone who will detain you until such time as you can be handed over to the police.”
“My dad's a policeman,” said Jason.
Jason had come back with this far too quickly to fool Garland. “Yes and I'm Father Christmas. Now keep up; and don’t complain about your sore wrists if you don't.”
Although hurting in both mind and body Jason wasn't over-concerned with his plight. He had the means of escape in his trousers pocket, and just as soon as Garland's attention was drawn away from him for long enough he would use it and be off.
*
Club champion and scratch golfer Graham Southfield opened his eyes and looked at the clock. Twenty to ten. He would have to be get up fairly soon and make the short trip to Jessica’s, he didn’t want to keep his lady love waiting.
It was Southfield's third extra-marital affair and by far the most satisfying of the three. Not in the sense of sexual gratification – the first two liaisons had been every bit as sexually satisfying as the current one in that respect – but because for the first time, when he was having sex, he felt safe while he was having it.
Throughout his two previous affairs Southfield had been a nervous lover. Whenever he and his mistress had made love he had never been completely comfortable, had never once been able to rid himself entirely of the dread of being caught en flagrant by a jealous husband, with the concomitant trouble that might ensue. It was his greatest fear.
The only time he had felt anything even approaching comfortable was on the occasion he had taken his first lover Gaynor to London for the weekend – she making the excuse she was visiting the Ideal Homes Exhibition, he telling his wife he was going to the final test match at the Oval – but even then he hadn't felt all that comfortable.
On the face of it the dirty weekend in the capital was as safe as houses. To start with they would be about a hundred and fifty miles away from Gaynor’s husband, so the chance of his accidentally chancing upon the lovers was virtually non-existent. In addition Gaynor had assured him that her husband would be perfectly happy on his own that weekend as he wanted to finish installing their new kitchen. Furthermore her visit to the Ideal Homes Exhibition wouldn't raise any eyebrows – particularly, thought Southfield, the eyebrows of a husband who would rather spend the weekend installing a new kitchen than making love to his gorgeous wife - as she was in the habit of making a pilgrimage to that very exhibition every year.
Southfield’s alibi was equally watertight. Next to golf, cricket was his sport of choice, and he always had at least a couple of days at one or other of the test matches every year. In addition, and making the detection of the assignation even more unlikely than it already was, neither his wife nor Gaynor's husband knew where they would be staying, both Southfield and Gaynor having told their respective spouses that due to being informed at the last moment of a fire at the hotel they wouldn't now be able to stay where they had planned and would have to find accommodation when they arrived in London.
Despite all this Southfield still worried about being discovered, and in particular being discovered whilst 'on the job', as he put it. It was a chance in a million, he knew, but he also knew that chances in a million have a habit of coming up, you only had to look at the Nation
al Lotto to appreciate that; apparently the odds of hitting the jackpot were fourteen million to one but people still hit it every week. Granted, he and Gaynor were many miles from London and Gaynor’s husband would be making merry with the DIY, but suppose hubby were to cut himself or something and had to be rushed to hospital and he needed a blood transfusion, and he turned out to be a very rare blood group, and he told the doctors that his wife was the same blood group but she was somewhere in London, he didn't know where, and the doctors told the police, and the police had a photograph of her put on the television news, and a maid at the hotel they were staying at saw the news and recognised Gaynor from the photograph and informed the manager, who informed the police, who raced round to their hotel in a squad car and burst into the room at the precise moment he’d reached the vinegar stroke with Gaynor - and one of the policemen, a puritan and a stickler where extra-marital affairs were concerned, had then informed Gaynor's husband of the affair and who, instead of finishing off the kitchen, had set about finishing him off?
Southfield was a self-admitted coward when it came to fisticuffs, and there was no doubt that if he ever found himself in a situation where physical violence to his person looked likely it was a racing certainty he would make no attempt to defend himself but would run for his life. If he were to be caught Southfield just hoped it would be with his trousers down rather than off, but even to have to flee trouser-less would be more preferable than having the benefit of trousers but being duffed up by a jealous husband. The question of being caught by a jealous husband was a constant worry to him during his relationship with Gaynor, and his second lover, Helena.
However it was most unlikely to happen with Jessica, his third and current lover. For there was little chance of Jessica's husband ever finding out they were having an affair, and no chance whatsoever of his being caught in bed with her and being forced to make a run for it, with or without trousers. The reason was simple; Jessica's husband, like Southfield himself, was a member of Sunnymere Golf Club. Southfield's ploy was simple but effective, worked out even before he had even met Jessica, and put into practice soon after he had first set eyes on her and knew she was the one.
Indeed the subterfuge could only have worked with the wife of a golfer. The plan was simplicity itself. Whenever there was a competition, which was mostly once a week, usually a Saturday or Sunday, Southfield would wait until Jessica's husband had put down his name on the starting times list. Having noted the elected time he would then enter his own name. If Jessica's husband had put his name down for the morning round Southfield would put his name down for the afternoon round, and vice versa. Therefore on the day of the competition once Jessica’s husband had started out on his round Southfield knew it would be several hours before he returned home. These hours Southfield would spend in his bed with Jessica.
This arrangement meant that he and Jessica only got to make love once a week, but after seven days apart it only served to heighten their ardour and increase the enjoyment of their illicit union.
An added bonus was that Jessica's house bordered the golf course, which meant that while her husband was toiling on the adjacent fairways Southfield was toiling between his wife’s thighs, an embellishment that appealed to Southfield’s baser instincts and added a certain frisson to the occasion whilst still leaving him absolutely safe from detection.
Southfield had heard of the maxim that where extra-marital affairs are concerned it is considered prudent not to do it on your own doorstep, and subscribed to the principle wholeheartedly. In fact he had made sure that his two previous lovers lived several miles distant from chez Southfield. It was no small irony then that now he finally felt safe not only was he doing it on his own doorstep but revelling in doing so.
Now, still in bed after a late night drinking session at the Grim Jogger the previous evening, he looked at his watch on the bedside locker. Almost ten to ten. Time to get out of his bed, make the short walk to Jessica's, and get into her bed.
*
On the eighth green Arbuthnott holed a four-footer for his par. “Yes!” he cried, punching the air once again as the ball dropped into the hole. “That makes me two over after eight holes.” He retrieved his ball and kissed it. “That's a net twenty seven. I'm going to murder this.”
“I thought I knew what crowing was,” said Chapman, in mock surprise. “I didn’t know what crowing was. Not a bit of it. I still may not know what it is. I suspect I'll really find out what crowing is if by some almighty fluke you happen to win this competition.”
“Do I detect a hint of jealousy in your banter, Gerry?” said Arbuthnott, with a patronising smile.
“It's only a game, Arby,” Chapman scoffed.
“Only a game, Gerry? That isn't what you said when you won the Sunnymere Cup. I seem to remember you claiming it was a sport then. I was at the presentation. 'When you roll in that putt on the eighteenth to win there can be no finer feeling in sport', you said.”
“That's when you win,” Bagley chipped in. “It’s a sport when you win but only a game when you lose, isn't it Gerry.”
“Well today it is I who is playing sport and Gerry who is playing a game,” said Arbuthnott, irrevocably. “And not a very good game at that.”
“We’ll see,” said Chapman. “There’s another ten holes to play; and a lot can happen in ten holes.”
*
Tobin was devastated. “You're sacked,” Mr Captain had said. “You can't sack me,” Tobin had replied. And Mr Captain couldn’t sack him, he was sure of that. But he was equally sure that Mr Captain would very easily be able to talk the General Committee into sacking him, which, Mr Captain had then gone on to inform him, was precisely what he was going to do, and just as soon as he could call an extraordinary committee meeting. Tobin's feet wouldn't touch, Mr Captain had assured him.
So that was it. He was on his way out, it was a done deal. Golf clubs did not take kindly to their professional announcing to the captain’s wife that one of the lady members didn't have any tits, while at the same time groping his assistant’s tits, even though Darren's mammaries were artificial. It was only Mrs Fridlington's word against his of course, but he knew which one of them the General Committee would believe, and it certainly wasn't the Sunnymere golf professional.
There was Darren of course, a witness to the incident; but a witness for the prosecution rather than the defence if he were to tell the truth, and even if he could persuade Darren into lying for him who would take the word of a callow youth before that of the wife of Mr Captain?
Tobin considered his future, and it was bleak. No longer would he have the rich pickings for very little work which had been his lot at Sunnymere for the past few years. Instead there would be nothing ahead of him but the hard graft that came with having to slowly build up a new client base at a new club. That was assuming he could get a new club!
There were always jobs to be had as golf club professionals of course, but most golf clubs preferred their professional to play a little golf now and then, indeed many of them demanded that he not only played the game but played it to a reasonably high standard. Which lets me out, thought Tobin, ruefully.
Add to that the fact that the reason he had been booted out of Sunnymere would soon become common knowledge, the healthy club golf grapevine seeing to that, and his chances of landing a new job were slimmer than a catwalk model with anorexia.
There was no doubt about it, it was a disaster of the first water. And there was not a thing he could do about it.
9.50 a.m.
G Venables (11)
J Jenkins (16)
D Davis (18)
The many hours spent by Denis Davis's parents agonising over what Christian name to confer on their beautiful baby son were entirely wasted, as ever since he had taken up the game of golf at the age of twelve he had been known to all and sundry as Dogleg Davis.
Davis, unsurprisingly, had been given his nickname because he was in the habit of playing almost all the holes at Sunnymere as tho
ugh they were doglegs. This was of course by accident rather than by design, and caused by an exaggerated in-to-out swing that resulted in either a massive push shot or a violent hook, depending upon whether the face of his club happened to be square or closed when it came into contact with the ball. (Fortunately it was only rarely open at impact, for those balls were rarely ever seen again.)
Fourteen of the holes at Sunnymere are either dead straight, or as near to straight as makes no difference, whilst the other four are doglegs. Naturally, due to the idiosyncratic way he hit the ball, Dogleg Davis played all the straight holes as though they were doglegs and all the dogleg holes as though they were straight. This resulted in his covering much more mileage than would the average golfer during his round of golf, and was the reason that led him into making the rather startling claim which he now made to his playing partners Jeff Jenkins and Guy Venables as they waited to drive off at the first tee.
“I reckon I'm a better golfer than Tiger Woods,” he proclaimed, without so much as a trace of doubt, irony or humour in his voice.
“What?” said Jenkins, not because he hadn’t heard what Davis had claimed but because he couldn’t believe what he had heard.
“Are you sure you don't mean Tiger Tim, Dogleg?” said Venables, fully believing what he had heard, as he was wearing the very latest in hearing aids, but placing very little credence in Davis's preposterous claim. He was about to continue, mentioning that the shop from which he had purchased his hearing-aid, Eyes and Ears Direct, also did excellent spectacles, and to suggest to Davis he could do worse than purchase a pair as he was quite obviously in urgent need of ocular assistance, but before he could Davis had re-affirmed his claim.
“No, really,” he said, taking a very un-Tiger Woods-ish practice swing, which didn’t even threaten the dandelion he had been aiming at, far less decapitate it. “I’ve worked it out.”
“Give over, Dogleg,” Jenkins scoffed.
“You’re having a laugh,” said Venables.
Captain's Day Page 10
