Hole in One by Catherine Aird Read Free Book Online

exclaimed somebody else richly. ‘Never had one of them when I left school. It was straight to work for me the next morning, like it or not.’
    Edmund Pemberton decided against saying that things were different these days. He’d found that sentiment better left unsaid in his home circle, too. He sought clarification on another front instead. ‘What you’re saying then is that if someone I’m caddying for loses his match it’ll be my fault?’
    â€˜It won’t be your fault,’ said Fred Shipley kindly, ‘but you’ll get the blame.’
    â€˜And,’ another man said solemnly, ‘if nobody else sees to that Fred here will.’
    Edmund looked from one weather-beaten face to another and decided to keep his mouth shut.
    â€˜Although,’ went Fred Shipley conversationally, ‘you might get let off a little on account of your not knowing the game.’
    â€˜Or the course,’ threw in someone else.
    â€˜So how did Matt manage then?’ asked Pemberton. ‘He isn’t a golfer.’
    â€˜Quick learner was what he was,’ said Shipley. ‘Very quick.’
    â€˜Talk himself out of any trouble, that lad,’ said a caddie at the back of the shed. ‘He might not have known anything about the game when he started but he still got to be a good man on the bag pretty smartly.’

    Fred Shipley finished tying his shoelaces and straightened up. ‘Bit of a clever-clogs, though, all the same.’
    â€˜I can’t see where that comes into caddying,’ said Edmund Pemberton unwisely.
    Shipley gave a short laugh. ‘You will.’
    â€˜Matt bet the farm on that old codger Garwood beating Gilchrist for the Matheson Trophy even though he wasn’t carrying for him,’ another caddie informed him.
    â€˜And did he?’ asked Pemberton. ‘Beat him, I mean?’
    â€˜How else did you think your friend was able to get off on that world trip of his so soon?’ asked Shipley.
    â€˜But Matt wouldn’t bet on a certainty, surely?’ said Pemberton seriously.
    Several men who would have been very happy to do just that stared at him in silence.
    â€˜Betting on a punter’s chance is a risky business,’ remarked Shipley after a moment.
    â€˜Anyway,’ said Edmund, who wasn’t sure that he understood this, ‘I thought you said that Mr Gilchrist was a good player.’
    â€˜Oh, he’s got the length and the discipline,’ said Shipley. ‘I grant you that. What he didn’t have the day he played the Matheson Trophy was his ball.’
    â€˜Lost?’ said Edmund.
    â€˜Twice,’ said Shipley succinctly. ‘So Garwood won hands down, didn’t he?’
    â€˜Funny, that,’ said someone else.
    â€˜It serves Gilchrist right,’ growled Shipley ‘for going out without a caddie in a big match. Cheapskate. Taught him a lesson, though, that did. He had one all right in his round of the Kemberland Cup against Luke Trumper.’ He poked his finger at Pemberton’s chest. ‘Your friend Matt caddied for Trumper in that game and there was no funny business about losing two balls then.’

    Before Edmund Pemberton could ask what was so funny about losing two balls in a match, the door of the caddies’ hut swung open and a female voice shouted ‘Are you all decent? Can I come in?’
    The question was greeted with total silence as an attractive young woman walked in without waiting for an answer. She was dressed in a short frayed denim skirt with a strappy halterneck blouse. In between these two garments a toned swathe of her navel and surrounding midriff was clearly visible.
    The physical temperature of the hut might have been far from warm before she arrived but as she came into the building the emotional temperature rose almost palpably.
    â€˜What are you all staring at?’ she demanded. ‘You know what a woman looks like. You might as