THE GOLF-FATHER

ONE

'Mornin,' Mr. Alexander. I think it's going to rain.'

Shafts of sunshine which had been illuminating the crumbs on the gingham tablecloth in front of Jim Alexander suddenly vanished as his landlady spoke. He noticed that the crumbs looked different from the ones that usually adorned the breakfast table. The design, which had been the same for several weeks, had changed from being cheerfully modern into something dark and menacing. As for the sun disappearing, it was well known that his landlady could conjure up rain clouds at will.

Mrs. Harper teetered towards his table in the dining-room, a cylinder of ash from the cigarette in her mouth poised threateningly over the plate of porridge in her hands. Jim prepared for it to fall. A slight fissure appeared in the ash. As she reached his table Mrs. Harper inhaled greedily and the stump wilted slightly. She leaned over his shoulder, shaking her head in a resigned gesture. Miraculously, the coil of ash fell harmlessly to the right of his tea cup. Mrs. Harper gave a disappointed sniff and shuffled out of the room.

Jim was surprised at his good fortune. He poured milk onto the swelling mounds of porridge, reflecting how rare it was for Mrs. Harper to miss her target. Nevertheless she had succeeded in conveying the message that he was two weeks overdue with his rent. Mrs. Harper used a progressive signalling code. Three weeks arrears brought sacrificial burning of the main course of the evening meal; four weeks brought cancellation of all meals; eviction came after five weeks, accompanied, so it was said, by torrential rain, thunder and lightning.

Avoiding the eyes of Mrs. Harper's slightly dotty daughter, Camellia, sitting alone in an alcove, he asked the plumber who sat at an adjoining table: 'Any winners yesterday, Mr. Coyne?'

Mr. Coyne growled through his ginger walrus moustache: 'Not this week, Jim. I'm paying for that double I brought off last week.'

'Can't win them all, eh, Mr. Coyne?'

'That's right, lad-'

Mrs. Harper interrupted Mr Coyne's words, as she placed a plate of bacon and eggs in front of him. Jim noted with a pang that she placed her cigarette in an ashtray before serving the plumber, a polite gesture towards a respectable widower who paid his bill regularly.

'Everything balances out in this life, Mr. Coyne continued. 'If you 'ave a big win, you can expect a run of losses. It's only natural. Except, mind you,' he added darkly, 'that principle don't apply to the big financiers. They manipulate the odds so that they always win. Take my advice and never cross 'em. If you do, they'll make mincemeat of you.'

'I'm not likely to meet any, Mr. Coyne.'

'If you ever do, treat 'em with the same respect as you'd treat a poisonous snake,'

Jim nodded gravely. As a twenty-four year old failed actor, now dependent for his livelihood on a menial job, he saw little prospect of ever meeting, let alone falling foul of, Big Business tycoons. A tapping noise distracted him. Camellia was drumming the last rites on the upturned, empty shell of her boiled egg. Avoiding her melancholy gaze, he bolted the rest of his breakfast and ran upstairs to collect his raincoat. On his return, he found Mrs. Harper barring his way at the foot of the stairs. He swerved neatly past her, muttering a promise to clear his arrears of rent that evening.

Icy cold rain fell, as he waited for his bus. The first two buses roared past him with a full complement of passengers. The third, which he managed to board, stank pungently of wet clothing and unwashed humanity. However, as they crossed Hammersmith bridge, the sun suddenly stormed triumphantly through a barrier of cloud and brought the choppy waters of the Thames to scintillating life. His spirits rose as he told himself that for each one of the innumerable sparkling lights reflected from the river there must be a chance to make his fortune. Even the pressure of an umbrella handle in the small of his back failed to dampen his burgeoning optimism.

Three years had passed since he had made his final ignominious exit from the theatre. He salved his wounded pride by telling himself that failing in one branch of the entertainments industry, did not mean he would not succeed in another. One day he would devise a new game that would capture everyone's imagination and earn him considerable amounts of money. Ideas perpetually hovered in the air around him just out of reach ­ they were like invisible filaments just waiting to be grasped. If inspiration didn't come now- at this very moment- as the bus was halting with a squeal of brakes, it must surely come later that morning. If not then, perhaps after lunch.

In the tube train, pressed against a beautiful Eurasian girl, he tried to achieve a mental state described in a recent newspaper article as Creative Neutral. All one had to do was forget one's body and a seedbed of original ideas would unfailingly appear up in one's mind. The Eurasian girl was fluttering her dark eyelashes at him appealingly. 'Very squeezed today, is it not?' she whispered. He nodded, his mind disappointingly blank. He had gone into Creative Neutral and had succeeded in forgetting his own body only to become aware of hers. More passengers poured into the already crowded carriage. He consoled himself with the thought that soon that elusive message would slide out of his subconscious and provide him with the means to earn a fortune.

In the office of the firm of novelty merchants, Clagwammer and Pringer, Alf Jennings, the manager, was seated at his desk, surrounded by a sea of mail order coupons.

'That mermaid soap you suggested, Jim, is doing well. I told Mr. Pringer and he said to tell you he was grateful.'

Jim wished that Mr. Pringer, whom he had never met, would show his appreciation in a more tangible manner. Such as a raise in salary. Alf was looking at his wristwatch, one of a cheap consignment from Taiwan- the letters round the dial spelled Anthony Blair and the dial bore a caricature of the Prime Minister. 'Loads of orders for south-east London this morning, Jim. Deliver them and be back here at two o'clock sharp.'

This arrangement suited him- it would enable him to have lunch with Brenda, who worked at a nearby department store. He made his way round the rows of green shelving, selecting ink blots realistic enough to persuade fastidious housewives that their best table-cloth had been ruined, imitation dog excrement, itching powder and vast quantities of that eternal favourite with schoolboys- stink bombs. The merchandise, which included knives dripping with blood and whoopee cushions, seemed particularly revolting that morning.

'Jim, tell me what you think of this new line.' Jenning's voice interrupted his reverie. He and a commercial traveller were staring speculatively at two mechanical dolls moving together with a curious reciprocating motion on the floor. 'What are they doing?' he asked, then felt very foolish as the obvious answer dawned on him.

'Fucky-dollies. Popular with kids. Kind of educational, yer see. Six pounds fifty plus VAT.'

The salesman raised his bushy eyebrows, but remained otherwise expressionless as he gathered up the dolls in his hands, where they continued to twitch fitfully. He placed them in his suitcase and then rapidly produced a cornucopia of squirting buttonhole flowers, rubber balls with an eccentric bounce known as googly balls, china dogs with upraised legs which dispensed vinegar, and some Mark Two stink bombs. These last, he claimed impassively, were newly designed, with an improved performance guaranteed to disperse their disgusting odour over a much wider area than the obsolescent Mark Ones. Jennings, much impressed, ordered a considerable quantity- experience had taught him that the demand for stink bombs was constant and unvarying. Like their big brothers in the armaments trade, stink bombs could only be used once: the odour lingered on and so did the the yearning in the schoolboy heart for a repeat performance.

A googly ball rolled away into the corner of the office. Jim absentmindedly put it into his pocket.

On his way to make his deliveries, he grimaced as he passed a theatre in Shaftsbury Avenue. His downfall in the acting profession had been brought about by a fatal and irresistible propensity to giggle when called upon to pronounce solemn lines in a play. So far no cure had been found for the condition which had brought an abrupt end to his acting career. It was ironic, he mused, as he drove his van through crowded streets, that he had laughed himself out of his chosen profession into the joke trade.

Waiting for Brenda outside the department store when he had completed his morning's work, he compared her with the wax model in the window wearing a yellow bikini. Tiny bosom- Brenda was generously endowed. The model had a head with delicately-chiselled features- Brenda had a large generous mouth redeemed by a peach-like complexion. She was short on chic, long on dependability. During their brief acquaintance she had driven him frantic with desire. She had only one major flaw- an old-fashioned obsession with that out-of-date institution, marriage.

She enmeshed her hand in his as soon as she emerged from the store, impressing a sensuous message which gave him an erection. In a small café in a side street, Brenda pressing her thigh against his on the narrow bench, whispered: 'It's my turn to pay.'

He shook his head.

'How's the job?'

'Terrible! I must get out of it soon.' He told her about the dolls.

'Why don't you try to get back into the theatre?' 'It's no use. I giggle.'

'Can't you see a psychiatrist or something? You have a lovely speaking voice- it's such a shame to waste it.'

'Psychiatrists are for when you cry not for when you laugh.'

'But you could try.'

'I've decided to go into business on my own account,' he said gravely. 'I'm going to make a lot of money.'

Brenda looked slightly puzzled, then invited him totea the following Saturday afternoon, in order to meet her parents. He turned down the invitation, saying that he had an appointment to play golf. He arranged instead to meet her at Hammersmith tube station at seven o'clock Saturday evening.

*

Arriving at the municipal golf course, Jim surveyed the peaceful Surrey hills, with a pleasant sense of expectancy. The sun was warm. The flag on the first green some three-hundred yards away, waved lazily in a gentle breeze. The yellow bunkers protecting the green seemed as innocent as hollows made by a child's fingers. As he waited for his opponent to arrive, he basked in a private dream of effortless swings, putts of matchless accuracy and the tumbling of various course records. A tubby bald man sent a ball soaring into the blue sky, and as he watched it land in the middle of the fairway, an ingenious scheme entered his mind to aid the process of smuggling Brenda past Mrs. Harper's ever-watchful eye into his room that evening.

Bob Chedwick appeared, a lanky figure wearing an outsize red cap. He was trundling a formidable armoury of golf clubs which made his own spindly bag seem anorexic. Still, the little white ball was a great leveller, he told himself.'No jokes today, Bob,' he warned his opponent. 'Let's concentrate on the golf.'

Chedwick looked disappointed at being robbed of his favourite psychological weapon. He privately reckoned that his habit of telling unfunny jokes was worth at least six shots a round.

A young girl wearing tight-fitting blue slacks was addressing the ball. 'There was this guy...' Chedwick was saying- the inevitable prelude to one of his awful jokes. Jim watched the girl's swaying hips and gazed admiringly at the long sweeping arc of the ball.

'Go on.' he said resignedly. 'I promise not to laugh.'

The girl replaced her driver in the bag and strolled down the fairway with the bald man. As they waited to play, Jim listened patiently to the story- something about a bitch retriever who had been trained by a Scotsman to recover his lost golf balls. She was so unerringly successful that he decided to mate her with a dog and produce a new specialist breed of golf ball retrievers.

As they moved onto the tee, Jim, remembering that Chedwick was an accountant, asked him how to get started in business.

'You're better off with a safe job,' Chedwick advised him, knowingly.

'But suppose I get an absolutely stunning idea- how do I go about turning it into a commercial success?'

Chedwick gave him a sceptical look and told him to play off.

Carefully placing his elderly moss-stained ball on a tee-peg, Jim repeated to himself his private golfing prayer: "Let my head remain bowed and my club do its work without labour". As he took up his stance with the driver, Chedwick with devilishly impeccable timing delivered his punch line: 'And the bitch bit off the dog's balls and faithfully delivered them to her master.'

Jim's beautiful pattern of coordination dissolved, the ball sailed two-hundred feet into the air and landed with a resounding thump behind him.

Hard luck!' Chedwick grunted, as he despatched his own brand new ball in an accurate trajectory towards the flag. Jim sliced his next ball into the rough, but managed to reach the green with a five-iron. A miraculous twenty-foot putt evened the score.

'With that sort of luck,' Chedwick remarked enviously, ' you won't put a foot wrong in business.'

From then on, however, he built up a commanding lead, gradually weakening Jim's resistance with a withering bombardment of unfunny jokes. He was in the middle of one particularly tedious story, when Jim drove off on the eighteenth. It was his best ball of the day and as he watched it streaking towards the flag he felt as though some cosmic force had taken his destiny in charge and was about to propel him ever higher and higher towards dazzling success and riches. Even Chedwick's immodest crowing over the score card failed to dampen his spirits.

He was walking back towards the railway station, when two ten-year old boys leaped down from a stone wall and asked what it was like to play golf. Good-naturedly, Jim extracted his number-seven iron and judging the windows of adjacent houses to be at risk, offered them the rubber googly ball he had picked up at the office instead of a golf ball. Pointing to an oak tree, he challenged them to hit it with the ball.

A lad with shining pink cheeks played a creditable swing. The ball landed just short of the tree and darted off at a tangent. Both boys ran towards where it had come to rest twenty yards from the tree. They continued playing, with the ball dancing erratically, until they were both engulfed in helpless laughter. Jim retrieved his club and ball, said 'Good game, eh, chaps,' and set off once again towards the station.

More serious matters now began to occupy his mind as he considered his strategy for smuggling Brenda past Mrs. Harper's elaborate surveillance system.

TWO

'Open the front door very quietly and creep up the two flights of stairs. My door is on the right. I'll keep Mrs. Harper busy on the telephone. Ok?'

This was the third time Jim had tried to Brenda explain the tactic by which he proposed to get her undetected into his room. Unfamiliar with Mrs. Harper's strict regime, she couldn't understand why such an elaborate ruse should be necessary. Finally and somewhat reluctantly, she nodded compliance.

Mrs. Harper sat every evening in her sitting-room with the door open, her beady eyes monitoring the movements of her lodgers through the hall, aided in her vigil by a marmalade cat with extra-sensory perception. Mrs. Harper was no mean performer herself in this direction, her senses heightened by a fierce ambition to marry off her daughter to one of the male lodgers. The ban on girl friends was intended to make the law of supply and demand operate in her daughter's favour.

As he galloped round the corner to the telephone booth, Jim decided on a Scottish accent to lure Mrs. Harper from her observation post. To his consternation he found the telephone booth occupied. He prowled around it twice despairingly, before darting back to the house.

There was no sign of Brenda.

He cautiously entered the hall. Mrs. Harper was crouched over the television set like a disconsolate she-bear, stroking the cat. He ran upstairs and found Brenda sitting on the bed, rubbing her toes.

'There was someone in the telephone box. How did you get past the old girl?'

'I just walked through and up the stairs.'

'It must be a great TV programme. Normally a fly couldn't get through.'

'Are you sure she objects to your having a girlfriend in your room?'

'It's instant eviction- or castration, if you're caught. You're allowed to choose.'

'That's very unreasonable, when you've paid for the room.

Unfortunately, Jim remembered, he hadn't that week.

Brenda slipped off her jacket. Underneath she was wearing a grey skirt and white silk blouse.

'Never mind. We're safe now- you look wonderful in that outfit.'

'Why, then, are you trying to remove it?'

He kissed her and the token resistance quickly ceased.

The padded buttons at the back of the blouse created difficulty for his trembling fingers.

'Like this, silly.'

Brenda deftly demonstrated.

He kissed the delightful valley between her breasts as she slipped out of the garment..

'It's not a bad room, really,' Brenda exclaimed, with an elaborate show of indifference, examining theatre posters on the wall. 'Can I read your name on the cast list?'

'Afterwards, darling.'

More kissing, this time with an encouragingly fervent response.

'Jim, I do wish we didn't have to be so furtive about everything. Sneaking up the stairs like that seems so sordid.'

'We'll go to a hotel next time.'

Brenda looked pensive, as she lay back on the pillow, topless, but still wearing her skirt. She had clasped her arms around herself protectively.

'Jim, do you know what your trouble is? You haven't achieved your full potential.'

'Any moment now, darling.'

'I'm talking about your acting career.'

Unzipping the grey skirt wasn't difficult. Removing it without Brenda's cooperation was.

'Don't worry, my sweet. My head is bursting with plans.'

'For seducing me but not for marrying me.'

'My darling, we don't have enough money to get married. But soon I'm going into business and then...'

'Then what?'

'Then we'll get married.'

The magic word brought instant cooperation. Suddenly, just as the citadel was about to fall, Brenda pleaded: 'I want you to recite something romantic before we make love.'

'Recite what?'he enquired distractedly.

'Anything. I always want to remember this night. Something from one of your plays- anything.'

His memory refused to function. All he could resurrect from a remote corner of his mind was the Gettysburg speech. 'Four-score-and- twenty years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...' His voice trembled, as he intoned the peroration: 'That government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.'

Abraham Lincoln's speech was never more rapturously received. Minutes later Brenda was giving little ululations of happiness. Drifting off to sleep with her in his arms, Jim blessed the memory of a man who had suffered an even worse fate in the theatre than his own.

The alarm clock rang at six o'clock. With some difficulty Jim persuaded Brenda to get dressed. It was raining, so he grabbed an umbrella and conducted her stealthily downstairs. Huddled together in pouring rain, they started to walk towards Hammersmith, where they found a taxi to take Brenda home. Jim arranged to meet her for lunch the following day.

He then set off over Hammersmith Bridge in a series of wild, exultant leaps. his sense of well being prompted him to break into an imitation of Gene Kelly's famous umbrella dance routine. He skipped from pavement to gutter, to the tune of "Singing in the Rain", using the umbrella as a pivot. Even this was insufficient to express his delight. Shortly afterwards, when the sun broke through, enveloping the red brick houses along Castelnau in a warm glow, he found the rubber googly ball in his pocket and using the upturned umbrella as a golf club, aimed the ball at a distant lamppost. Racing up to it again, he swung the umbrella again and hit the ball into a distant front garden. He was searching for it behind a privet hedge, when he heard the words: 'What do you think you are up to, my lad?'

A bluff, red face under a policeman's helmet confronted him across the hedge.

'I've lost my ball, constable. I was playing golf and the ball bounced in here.'

'Golf, eh? A golf course is the proper place for golf.'

'I was just practising with an umbrella and a rubber ball.'

A puzzled expression spread over the constable's face. 'Let's see what you were up to.'

Jim obligingly demonstrated with his umbrella and sent the ball bouncing crazily across the road.

'That's an odd sort of ball, isn't it?'

'It's a googly ball. Mustn't make the game too easy. There aren't any bunkers as in real golf. Care to have a go?'

The policeman looked up and down the deserted street. 'Come on, then. Let's have your brolly. I play to eighteen handicap.'

He took expert aim, the ball homed towards a lamppost, narrowly missed and ricocheted off a wall into the road. With the umbrella held behind his back, the constable marched ruminatively towards the ball. Jim, imitating his stride, walked beside him.

'Now what?' the policeman demanded.

'Carry on until you hit the lamppost. I'm counting your strokes.'

After seven strokes and six oaths he succeeded in hitting his target.

'O. K., your turn,' he grumbled.

Jim swung the umbrella. A sudden gust of wind helped him to achieve a direct hit.

'A hole in one,' exclaimed the astonished constable.

Again he scanned the empty street. Then twitching his shoulders, playfully, he declared: 'O.K., you're one up with seventeen to play.'

At the top of Castelnau, with the score even, they parted. Jim returned to his lodging-house. The policeman ambled off, wearing an amiable expression, in the direction of Barnes Common.

*

As Mrs Harper served Jim breakfast that morning, she declared, her eyes narrowing into slits: 'You were up unnaturally early for a Sunday morning, weren't you.'

'Thought I'd do some jogging. It's made me hungry- do you think I could have another plate of porridge?'

'Well, I dunno,' she grumbled.

Shortly, she returned, cigarette in mouth. In the process of serving Jim with his porridge, she scored an impeccable bull's-eye with her ash.

He flinched and scooped it out with a tea spoon.

Mrs. Harper removed herself to the window, where she appeared to be scanning the garden.

I thought I heard strange noises in the night,' she said, peering through the window. 'Randy tom cats, I shouldn't wonder.'

Jim countered: 'You can't go against nature, Mrs. Harper.'

'I can and I will,' Mrs. Harper returned grimly and stumped purposefully out of the dining-room.

THREE

Crisis had hit the firm of novelty merchants, Clagwammer and Pringer. The technologically superior Mark Two stink bombs ordered from the traveller had not arrived on time. Alf Jennings ordered Jim to carry out an immediate spot check of the dwindling stock of Mark One stink bombs. He was full of apprehension, in case they should run completely out of their best-selling line.

Jim was complying with this command and eating an apple, when it suddenly occurred to him that the innocent game which had amused two small boys and a London bobby, might attract a larger following. After all, it had the considerable advantage over ordinary golf that one could play it in any quiet street or cul-de-sac, without having to pay a green fee or join an expensive golf club. There was one drawback- the umbrella handle he had used had become badly scuffed- but this could be overcome by using an umbrella handle made of hard rubber and shaped like a golfing iron. It would be simple enough to make up a kit consisting of a dual-purpose umbrella, some googly balls and aset of instructions.

He decided to consult Bob Chedwick, who worked in the same building. As soon as Jennings left the office, he telephoned Brenda to cancel his appointment for lunch.

'Do you still love me?' she enquired anxiously.

'"I love thee freely as men strive for right".'

'Oh, say that again. It was lovely.'

'See you soon,' he said hastily, as Jennings returned through the door.

'What's that flaming apple core doing on my desk?'

Jim tossed it into the waste paper basket.

'Alf, how would you set about marketing a new game?'

Alf gave a world-weary titter, sat in his swivel chair and slowly rotated it.

'Mr. Pringer might be interested, if you've invented one.'

'I think I'll register it first.'

'OK, Jim,' Alf said acidly, 'that's your business. But remember the firm has first call on your time. You'd better get cracking on these deliveries.'

He handed Jim a sheaf of order forms and said peremptorily. 'Make up these orders and get on the road.'

Jim was already learning the hard lesson that anyone with a bright idea inevitably incurs the envy of his fellow men.

Before making his deliveries, he slipped upstairs to the office of Benson and Harris, Accountants, and arranged with Chedwick to meet him for a pub lunch.

Back in the stock room, making up orders into neat parcels, he was assailed with doubts about the rules of his new game. Then he remembered that countless millions of players all over the world eagerly submitted themselves to the disciplines of golf. They would no doubt just as unquestioningly accept the regulations he proposed to lay down.

'I think I'm onto something,' he confided to Chedwick at lunch, in between thoughtful gulps of Guinness. 'It's a kind of off-shoot of golf. I'd like to protect my idea before proceeding further.'

Chedwick chewed a slice of sausage for longer than was strictly necessary. After a while, he said: 'Old Tim Benlow, one of our clients, is a patent agent. I'll give you his address. If you want to go further after that, I'll introduce you to Max Benson, my boss.'

'Thanks. I'll see how I get on.'

'If you do decide to go ahead,' Chedwick added, with a speculative frown, 'I may consider putting in a little risk capital. I've a few bob in the bank.'

'We'll see,' Jim replied, non-committally.

Driving the van, he felt encouraged by the interest displayed by both Jennings and Chedwick. For the moment, though, he would follow this private dream on his own until he saw where it was going to lead.

*

'It's just a game, Mr. Benlow. Is it possible to patent it?'

Mr. Timothy Benlow, an old man with untidy white hair and flushed cheeks, replied: 'A game, eh? Games are big business nowadays. Let me see now- we can register the game and the set of rules- I presume it has rules. But the more widespread the protection the more expensive patenting becomes. Would you care to describe the game to me?'

Jim did so and was a little surprised by the reaction.

Mr. Benlow started to laugh, giving a series of puffy little explosions of laughter. His flushed cheeks grew redder and redder and then he started to cough and wheeze. Tears appeared at the corner of his wrinkled eyes and he became increasingly breathless, making Jim worried that his game was about to cause its first fatality.

'Are you all right?' he enquired anxiously.

'I'll be all right'- wheeze- wheeze- 'in a moment.'

Benlow's coughing and spluttering gradually decreased in intensity. He took a deep breath and produced two capsules from his top pocket, which he swallowed with the aid of some water from a carafe on his desk. He said, grimly, still heaving a little: 'Sorry for that little outburst, but I'm a golfer- ho hum (another painful shiver of merriment), and I was thinking about the likely reaction of the Professional Golfers' Association to this game of yours.'

Jim replied indignantly: 'I'm not in any way trying to belittle golf, Mr. Benlow. As a matter of fact I play it myself occasionally. This is just a little game that people can play when the mood takes them- in parks and in the street perhaps when there's not much traffic about. It might even improve the all-round quality of play by enabling people to practise their golf swing away from the course.'

Mr. Benlow assumed a solemn air, apparently deeply impressed by Jim's display of tolerance towards his longer-established rival game.

'You are quite right, Mr. Alexander. It could indeed.'

Taking a silver ball-point from his top pocket, he prepared to write on a blank piece of paper. 'Now what do you propose calling this game of yours?'

'Bun-golf,' Jim replied hesitantly. 'It's an acronym of British Union of Novices.'

'Good- good.' Mr., Benlow muttered under his breath, as he wrote. 'At least it acknowledges by implication that it has inferior status to real golf. We will protect the name of the game and the rules associated with the game and you will become the sole arbiter of what constitutes a genuine and true game of Bun-golf.'

Another quiver of laughter- more subdued this time.

'Should I call the whole thing off,' Jim enquired, a little intimidated.

'Mr. Alexander.' Benlow peered searchingly over the top of his spectacles. 'They laughed at the inventor of Monopoly. Why should you worry if I, or anybody else for that matter, laughs at you?'

He emitted a deep sigh, and twiddling his ballpoint between his fingers like a miniature golf club, enquired: 'Shall we include the use of a walking-stick in the all-embracing definition of the game as an alternative to an umbrella? It may possibly be played in countries with low rainfall where people do not carry umbrellas'

'I hadn't thought of that.'

'Now the ball- we can't patent that. A googly ball with a weight inside to give it an eccentric bounce is a common enough article. But you may, of course, insist on a regulation ball of specific size and weight on which the Bun-golf logo has been imprinted. Do you have a sign in mind?'

'A triangle, perhaps,' Jim ventured, 'to represent the angle of bounce?'

'Excellent,' Mr, Benlow responded and drew a triangle on his sheet of paper. 'We can register the sign, the name and the rules. One last question: do you want world-wide coverage immediately, or just the United Kingdom?'

'Just the United Kingdom for starters,' Jim said. 'I'll take out world-wide patents, when I have assured myself that the game will prove popular in other countries.'

Alf Jennings had closed the office when Jim returned. On his desk was a note which read: 'Jim, Mr. Pringer would like to know more about your new game.'

FOUR

Jim obtained a starting loan for his business from his father, who ran a small greengrocery shop in Fulmington, a small Sussex seaside town. At first he refused, pointing out that Jim had made a 'bloody hamus' of his acting career. But his resistance suddenly collapsed, when Jim's mother, a very large, determined woman, intervened on their son's behalf. Grumbling to himself, Fred Alexander rummaged behind a pile of chip baskets in the basement, removed a loose brick and counted out two-thousand pounds in crumpled notes.

'Good luck, son,' he said brokenly, 'And please don't blow it all on fast women and slow horses.'

His eyes lighting on a misshapen King Edwards potato in a basket, which seemed in his agitated frame of mind to resemble an umbrella, he offered it to Jim as a good luck token. Jim thanked him, but unable to see the supposed likeness, threw it out of the window on his way back to London. He spent most of his time during the journey designing an advertisement for his new game, to place in the local newspaper.

It was midnight when he let himself into his lodgings. As he entered the hall, Mrs. Harper's cat curled himself against his trouser legs and mewed ingratiatingly. Mrs. Harper, immersed in a late night tv program, looked over her shoulder and muttered from habit: 'You're still one week in arrears.'

'You shall have it tomorrow, Mrs. Harper.'

The cat purred appreciatively. Mrs. Harper murmured: 'In that case I'll make you a nice breakfast in the morning.'

Before hiding the money under the mattress, Jim extracted a week's rent and then, remembering his promise to take Brenda to a hotel, drew out a further hundred pounds.

The following morning, having paid his arrears, he was rewarded with a fried breakfast. Camellia hovered about his table, rolled her eyes beseechingly and then swept away in her flowing robes, like an ungainly butterfly. Mrs. Harper, her face looking naked without its customary cigarette, whispered, as she poured out his tea,: 'My daughter, you know, comes into a nice little bit of money when she's thirty.'

'She's a very attractive girl,' Jim answered politely. He was a little puzzled, because on a previous occasion Mrs. Harper had attributed Camellia's odd behaviour to the shock of being jilted on her thirty-fifth birthday. After breakfast, he telephoned Brenda and invited her to accompany him to Brighton.

'Are you sure you can afford it?'

'Absolutely. I'm going to be rich soon.'

On the train he was disappointed by her lack of enthusiasm for his new enterprise.

'It just isn't your style,' Jim,' she said in a slightly pained voice. 'You're simply throwing away your acting talents.'

'All I have is a talent for laughing at the wrong time. At least, going into business I'll have a share in the box office.'

'I'd rather you were a struggling actor than a discontented business tycoon.'

Arriving at Brighton railway station, full of impatient desire Jim whisked Brenda into the first hotel that came into view. Ignoring her whispered comment that the place looked down-at-heel, he signed them in as Mr. and Mrs. Evans, adopting a suitable Welsh accent.

The young man behind the desk enquired: 'Whereabouts in Wales are you from?'

'Aberystwyth.'

Handing Jim the key, the receptionist replied in a scornful tone: 'Aberystwyth is my home town. That's a funny accent you have. You'll find your room along the corridor- first door on your right.'

It wasn't a good start.

The room was small and dark and contained a rickety dressing-table, two narrow single beds covered with faded pink eiderdowns and a cracked handbasin. A shaft of light illuminated a print of the Regency Pavilion outlined against grimy wallpaper.

'It's grotty,' Brenda commented

'At least we don't have to worry about Mrs. Harper.'

Brenda sat at the dressing-table and combed her hair thoughtfully. She was frowning into the mirror.

He said suddenly: 'If you don't like it here, we can go and and book in at the Grand.'

Turning round on her chair, Brenda replied with dreamy sadness: 'It's not the hotel that worries me. I'm just wondering if we'll ever get married.'

'Of course we shall, darling. As soon as my new business is successful. Let's go for a meal.'

He ordered two bottles of wine in the restaurant and tried without much success to make her laugh at some of Chedwick's golfing stories. Back in the hotel, he unbuttoned the long row of buttons down the back of her dress, exclaiming: 'You're so beautiful, my sweet, my darling.'

They kissed with deep intensity and, locked in a passionate embrace, collapsed onto one of the beds.

'Get your clothes off.'

The words spoken in a foreign accent, came from the adjoining room.

They drew apart.

'Ooh, you cheeky sod.' More exclamations penetrated the thin walls. followed by muffled screams and heavy breathing.

'It's nothing, sweetheart,' Jim said reassuringly. But Brenda's hands were behind her, buttoning her dress with bewildering rapidity. She said firmly: 'I'm not going to make love with that disgusting noise going on.'

Jim's tentative suggestion that they should offer competition by making their own noises was indignantly dismissed. A further eruption of groans and squeals was followed by a frenzied feminine shriek: 'Not that way', evoking a basso profundo response: 'But datsavay I like it.'

Jim followed Brenda, as she dressed and made a hurried exit from the room.

They went to a cinema to see a film called Dracula's Lust.

Back in their bedroom Jim gave a humorous impersonation of the Count. But their subsequent love-making was again spoiled, this time by a fury of feline caterwauling just outside their window.

During the journey back to London by train, he said: 'Look, darling, I'm sorry about that rotten hotel. I'll make it up to you. I promise next time we'll stay at the Dorchester.'

'Don't worry, darling,' Brenda replied gently. 'I'm not worried about staying in posh hotels. As long as we have each other everything will be Ok.'

FIVE

Jim lost no time in registering his new company, Bun-Golf Ltd. He gave a week's notice to Clagwammer and Pringer and opened a bank account with the balance of the money his father had lent him. The bank manager, who had somehow formed the idea that Jim was a golfing professional, begged him for advice on his golf swing. Unwilling to disappoint him, Jim invented on the spur of the moment an authentic-sounding golfing tip, advising that the positions of the left toe and the right thumb should be exactly equal and opposite during the backswing. He left the grateful bank manager eagerly practising with a ruler.

A business directory led him to a firm called Thames Mouldings, where he ordered asupply of rubber umbrella handles shaped like golfing irons. After ordering some googly balls and placing an order in a local newspaper, he returned to his lodgings.

He spent a few hours puzzling over the rules of his new game. They must, he decided, be capable of inspiring legalistic, hair-splitting disputation- he had observed with other games that arguments often provided as much fun as the game itself. Handicapping occupied his mind, until Mrs. Harper's plaintive voice called him down to his evening meal.

He was eating a steak-and-kidney pie, when it occurred to him that the more serious street golfer might wish to abolish the googly ball with its added increment of chance, in favour of a straight-bouncing ball. He was puzzling over this, when Mrs. Harper enquired if he wished to have jam sponge pudding for his dessert, or prunes.

'Both', he answered absently, and as she disappeared muttering imprecations, he resolved to register both games. The game played with an ordinary squash ball he would call Gamp-golf.

It was a fateful decision.

At breakfast-time the following morning, Mrs Harper appeared to be in an agitated frame of mind. She stood at an adjoining table playing a kind of chess with the cruet, occasionally peering absently out of the window.

'Is it going to rain? Jim enquired politely, wondering if she was about to exercise her thaumaturgical powers.

'There's an unnatural lot of post for you this mornin', Mr. Alexander. 'Ardly room for anyone else's on the 'all table.'

'Thank you, Mrs. Harper. I'll remove it straight away.'

'Ave you been and gone and left your nice job?'

'That's right. I'm now in business on my own account.'

Mrs. Harper sniffed, as though she could smell mounting arrears. 'Well, I 'ope you knows what you're doing. Good jobs is 'ard to find these days.' She edged her way out of the dining-room, her demeanour expressing profound disapproval.

Jim took a swift gulp of tea and, with rising excitement, followed her into the hall.

On the mahogany hall table there were thirty-seven replies to his advertisement in the local newspaper. He carried them up to his room and began opening them. All but five contained cheques, postal orders and requests for Barclay Card and Access authorizations. He had not yet opened accounts with these excellent organizations, but proposed to do so that very morning. Two replies were from lady golfers who had mistakenly assumed he was selling umbrellas for use on the golf course. Another, addressed in error to Scanty Nighties, requested a size Fourteen See-thru in Passion Pink. A letter from the Umbrella Workers' Benevolent Society requested a subscription and another contained a card which said that Bunty's massage is guaranteed to reduce your golfing handicap. He composed a letter to all thirty-two of his customers promising delivery of Bun-golf kits within a fortnight and wished them many happy hours playing this new and exciting game.

He was particularly touched by one letter, which read; "I am a lonely widow, forty-two years of age and find it difficult, because of my shyness, to meet new people. I do believe Bun-golf will help me with my problem. Yours truly, Winifred Popple.

Just the thing for Camellia, he told himself. In fact, just the thing for everybody.

The next morning he placed an advertisement in one of the national dailies. If he could sell thirty-two Bun-golf kits by advertising locally, he could surely sell thousands by advertising nationally. The sale of a thousand kits would yield a profit of four-thousand pounds. But ahead lay minefields of government regulations and all sorts of financial complexities. It was time to consult an accountant. He arranged to meet Chedwick for lunch.

Bob Chedwick shook his head through the soup, the roast beef and yorkshire pudding and was still shaking it steadily when the coffee arrived. He explained: 'What you have got is a one-product company and a short-run success. What will you do when people get tired of playing your game?'

'You could say exactly the same about playing cards. I expect my game to go on for yonks.'

Chedwick heaved a sceptical sigh.

'O.K., if you're dead set on risking your money, I'll take you to see my boss.'

Max Benson, a short man with a large moustache, a small round face and gentle, discerning eyes welcomed Jim into his office.

'I believe you've developed a new golfing game.'

'That's right,' Jim admitted.

'Everything to do with golf seems to make money. But starting a new business is never easy. You'll be lucky if you cover your expenses in the first year.'

'That reminds me,' Jim said, 'fishing in his pocket for the bill relating to the meal he and Chedwick had just consumed. Does this qualify as a legitimate expense?'

Max Benson seemed impressed by Jim's promising signs of financial acumen.

'Hardly, but keep it just in case,' he said. 'Now where are your registered offices?'

'I'm operating from a private address at the moment.'

'Let me know when you've found suitable premises. Keep exact records of your revenue and your expenditure. I'll send young Bob over to you to advise you on how to keep a simple set of books. Incidentally, I used to play golf, but it was too far to drive at weekends.'

'The advantage of my game, Jim said proudly, 'is that the golf course is everywhere.'

He called in at the department store where Brenda worked, in order to acquaint her with his progress. Before he had a chance to describe the promising start to his new venture, she hustled him into an empty changing cubicle and engaged him in a passionate, clinging embrace.Five minutes later, he extricated himself and during the journey home composed a new advertisement based on Winifred Popple's favourable comment.

Strangers become your friends,

And the world your golf course,

When you play Bun-golf, the latest craze

That has enriched the lives of millions.

Send cheque for Bun-golf kit

To J. Alexander, the King of Bun-golf.

(Access or Visa welcome)

SIX

'I'm very good at screwing.'

Jim forgave the brash wisecrack- clearly a result of interview nerves. He had just told Sally Pratt, the applicant for a job as his asistant,that her duties would include screwing handles onto umbrellas. She had short black hair, a round smiling face and seemed keen to get the job. Her strong build and robust humour, he decided, would be helpful as the new business struggled into existence.

'OK, Miss Pratt, you're hired. You can start on Monday.'

The Bun-golf Corporation was now housed in a large wooden shed in the grounds of an old Victorian house occupied by a firm of solicitors. There was a desk, a filing cabinet and sufficient space outside for the packaging of umbrellas, balls and sets of instructions. Access to the main road was via a narrow, rutted path, along which the new secretary-cum-assembler was presently departing.

Filing the thirty-two letters occupied Jim for the next hour. He felt towards his first customers a deep sense of personal gratitude- their willingness to experiment with his new game had given him exactly the kind of encouragement he needed. He locked up the shed when he had finished his task, and walked back to his lodgings.

Entering the hall, he felt something brush against his legs, which gave him the impression that Mrs. Harper's cat was renewing its affectionate overtures. He looked down. Zig-zag piles of mail met his eyes. The passage-way was strewn with letters lying in irregular patterns as far as the stairs. They were all addressed to J. Alexander, King of Bun-golf. He gave a hiccup of excitement and started to gather them up in his arms.

'I'm not 'aving my house turned into a sorting office. It's a liberty!'

Hands on hips, his landlady stood observing him grimly.

'Sorry, Mrs. Harper- I had no idea it would be like this. I advertised in a national newspaper and look...success! SUCCESS! He gleefully flung a packet of letters into the air. The envelopes scattered like confetti; several lodged in the lampshade above his head.

'Success you may call it, Mr. Alexander, but I calls it gross impertinence treating my house as though it was a business office. You'll 'ave to take yourself off somewhere else.'

'Don't worry- the next lot will be addressed to my new office. Would you do me a favour and help me get this lot up to my room?'

She bent down and began to gather up piles of letters.

'How many would you say there were, Mrs. Harper- several hundred?'

'Thousands,' she returned grimly. 'Ere, 'ang on a minute while I get some pillow cases.

She returned shortly, carrying several patched and darned grey linen bags.'

Dramatically indicating the letter-filled hall, Jim said: 'Mrs. Harper, you see before you the opening salvoes of a great new business campaign that will create wealth and happiness throughout the land.'

She grumbled, as she stuffed letters into the pillowcases, 'Well, I wish you success of it- but I can see you going to prison, representing yourself as royalty.'

'Just king of my new game, Mrs. Harper,' he replied exultantly, 'just as sure as you're queen of this boarding house.'

Carried away by his excitement, he grabbed her round the waist and whirled her round the hall, scattering letters in the process.

'Ooh, I say, Mr. Alexander, what's come over you?'

Her chronic bad temper melting under the onslaught, Mrs. Harper gazed at him speculatively after he had put her down, and said: 'Upon my word, I'll have to put up your rent. I do believe you're going to be rich.'

*

'Darling, I can't see you this week- absolutely impossible. I'm up to my ears in P.A.Y.E., VAT, government bumf of all kinds and orders for umbrellas. And I've got a fire inspector standing right beside me... Yes, darling, I still love you. When things are organised, I'll be able to see you more often. Kiss, kiss, bye-bye.'

A bald, hatchet-faced giant in a long raincoat standing by the desk, his head nearly touching the ceiling, mouthed silent disapproval of telephone kisses.

'Now what about these fire regulations?' Jim enquired, scratching his head.

'You're clearly in breach,' the imbecile giant said gloatingly. 'But I won't take proceedings against you. I'll call again next week to see if you have complied.'

'Damn!' Jim said despairingly. 'I've only been in business for a fewdays. What do I have to do.?'

'You'll need one large fire extinguisher of the dry chemical variety, since you have electrical equipment. And you must have an alternative means of exit for your staff.'

'Staff? There's only one. What about the window- won't that do?'

'No- clearly not. You will need another means of egress. I suggest an alternative exit door over there- and it must be clearly marked with a red sign.'

'All right, Mr. Fotheringay. I'll attend to it. But if you would please go now, it would give me a chance to sell enough of my products to pay for your blasted fire precautions.'

'Only doing my job, Mr. Managing Director.'

He was alluding playfully to the plastic sign on Jim's desk. 'See you next week then.'

'Goodbye,' Jim answered in a weary voice.

He was immersed in a desperate struggle to keep his embryo business alive. The assembly, packaging and despatching of umbrellas and balls was simple compared with the task of coping with innumerable government regulations. He scarcely had time to think of Brenda. Sometimes, however, when he fell asleep exhausted, she appeared in a recurrent dream, posing in a transparent nightie, waving a Bun-golf umbrella. As he rose to embrace her, her image faded to the accompaniment of melancholy feline yowling.

Sally was in the yard, packing umbrellas into cardboard cylinders ready for despatch. She was a devoted slave to Britain's smallest business coporation, dividing her time equally between hectic sessions at the typewriter and the assembly and posting of the umbrellas. He went to the open door, glanced at her strong but shapely legs and shouted: 'How's the screwing, Sally?'

'Three-hundred so far today, Mr. Alexander.'

'That's enough to tire out most girls. I'm going out to buy a fire extinguisher.'

He purchased a fire extinguisher that looked as if it could stop a forest fire in its tracks. The shop next door sold computers. Did he need such advanced equipment in this early stage of his business? Instinct told him to get one as soon as possible. He purchased a popular model and after studying the manual decided that since Sally was QUERTY-qualified, he would let her handle the formidable beast.

That evening he studied the manual Max Benson had recommended called Management Techniques For The Smaller Manufacturer. Buy extra brain power it advocated strongly, if your own is wilting. He had no doubts that this was the case.

The shadows were falling, the birds fell silent, the book fell from his hands. He was facing a hushed and expectant audience in the theatre. The make-up on his face was melting and he was trying vainly to speak and unfurl an umbrella at the same time. Brenda, standing in the wings her face mute with anguish, appeared to be trying to warn him of some impending catastrophe. The umbrella obstinately declined to open; a googly ball fell on his head, bounced erratically along the floor boards and trickled into the footlights. More balls began falling in twos, threes and dozens, while the audience hurled themselves about in paroxysms of laughter. Someone in the stalls who resembled Mr. Fotheringay called mockingly: 'Managing director! Managing director!. The cry was taken up in chorus by the rest of the audience, as his umbrella remained obstinately stuck. An inner voice told him that the bombardment of googly balls and the verbal abuse would cease if he could manage but one small giggle; but his face was set solidly in a tragic mould. He suffered thus for an eternity, until a voice broke into his dream.

'Mr. Alexander, come down a minute- something on the telly.'

He bounded off the bed and leaped downstairs two at a time. Mrs. Harper was in the act of seating herself in front of the television. It was the tail-end of the news programme and a sprucely-dressed, fresh-faced young man was being interviewed.

'You were playing this game with an umbrella and a ball and the police accused you of causing an obstruction.'

'Yes, it was just a little harmless fun.'

'It highlights the fact that the stockmarket is not very busy at this moment.'

'Yes, rather. But we're hoping it will pick up when the next set of trade figures are announced.'

While the newscaster was giving the football results, Jim said: 'What was all that about, Mrs. Harper?'

She pushed the cat off the arm of her chair and said: 'Your little game is causing trouble. That gentleman you've justseen was playing this game with another gentleman and there was this bank robbery. The police car couldn't get through on account of it.'

'Why not?'

'There was this whole crowd of stockbroker gentlemen gathered around cheering them on.'

Jim gave a deep sigh of satisfaction.

'You'll be out of business when they ban your game,' Mrs. Harper said with sly malice.

'They can't very well ban umbrellas, Mrs. Harper.'

He returned to his room filled with a glow of satisfaction, believing optimistically that the story would give a fillip to his umbrella sales.

Next morning at breakfast, Mr. Coyne tugging at his collar as he read his Daily Mirror, exclaimed contemptuously; 'Financiers, I ask you. Playing like a lot of bleed'n kids in the street. No wonder the country is in such a mess. I wouldn't trust any of them further than I could throw them.'

He thrust his copy of the newspaper across to Jim, as Mrs. Harper appeared with a plate of porridge. The signs were propitious- her cigarette was unlit. The photograph showed a group of bowler-hatted men gathered around a lamppost. One of them was wielding a Bun-golf Corporation umbrella.

Jim smiled sweetly and returned the newspaper.

'Wouldn't it make you want to weep,' Mr. Coyne declared.

'As a matter of fact they're playing my new game, Mr. Coyne.'

'Really?'

Mr. Coyne looked hugely impressed.

'In that case, it's all right, Jim. 'I wasn't knocking your product. I just thought they might have better things to do during business hours.'

The Daily Telegraph carried a report, which said: 'Police cars speeding to the scene of a robbery in the City yesterday were held up for a few minutes by crowds which had assembled to watch a game of street golf. Bored stockbrokers were whiling away the time during a period of slack trading.'

SEVEN

A bright May morning. Warm golden sunshine filtered into the headquarters of the Bun-golf manufacturing company through a hole in the wall. Intermittent sounds of hammering and sawing echoed thunderously in the confined space of the wooden shack. The carpenter was preparing the ridiculous emergency exit door demanded by Mr. Fotheringay. Sally had just gone to the Post Office to buy social security stamps- it looked as though both employer and employee would be claimants in the near future. The flood of orders had dried to a mere trickle, in response to the latest hideously expensive advertisement.

Jim shuffled some letters irritably, then impulsively threw the plastic Managing Director sign into the waste paper basket. Chedwick had been right when he said that it was a flash-in-the-pan business. He had intended to telephone Brenda but refrained because he couldn't bear to tell her that his proud venture was on the point of collapse.

The stocky figure of Wetherby- of Wetherby and Bratby- his landlords- appeared on the uneven path outside. Wetherby hesitated between coming through the hole in the wall or entering the more conventional way through the front door. Having decided that the former might leave him vulnerable on some fine point of the law, Wetherby mounted the two steps leading to the front door and approached Jim's desk,

He gave anervous cough.

'Good morning, Mr. Alexander, you're aware that all your telephone calls pass through our switch-board.'

'Is it causing problems?'

'No. I've called to give you advance warning that a call is about to come through from the BBC. I told the operator to hold it until I had spoken to you.' He delicately fingered the black hairs plastered laterally across his balding head and added in a hushed voice: 'It appears they want to talk to you about...golf.'

'Golf, Mr. Wetherby?' Jim replied, surprised.

'I didn't know you were a golfing celebrity, Mr. Alexander. Perhaps we can have a chat about your golfing career over a cup of tea some time. I'll go back now and tell the girl to put them through.'

'O.K., thanks.'

Wetherby hesitated, as Jim lifted the receiver in readiness for his telephone call, then apparently inspired into a high act of courage, leapt through the gaping hole in the wall and made his way shakily along the path which led back to his office.

Jim heard a girl's husky voice, breathing with apologetic urgency: 'Mr. Alexander, we were wondering if you would find it possible to put in an appearance in our studio this afternoon. Peter Snow would so like to talk to you about your new game- er- Bun-golf. It's only for two or three minutes, you understand. But he's looking for a little light relief from the usually depressing subjects he has to discuss on the program.'

'Tell Mr. Snow I shall be delighted to accept his kind invitation.'

The girl told him how to locate the studio.

'No need to be nervous, Mr. Alexander.' she added. 'Mr. Snow will put you completely at ease. I'm sure you will enjoy it. Goodbye.'

'Bless you, BBC,' Jim exclaimed gratefully, as he replaced the receiver. Two minutes of television coverage could revive his fast-expiring fortunes.

When Sally returned from the Post Office, he said with a wide grin: 'Hold the fort while I slip away- I'm appearing on BBC television.'

On a sudden impulse he retrieved the Managing Director sign from the waste-paper basket. As he was getting into the firm's dilapidated van, he heard Sally shout: 'Which program?'

'Newsnight, Sally,' he shouted back, and drove to the Shepherd's Bush television studios.

*

'And now as a welcome relief from crime stories and a society beset with problems, we'll take a look at a new game which held up traffic in the City recently and is becoming a familiar feature of our streets and parks.'

Peter Snow furrowed his brow and favoured the cameras with a faint shadow of a smile, before turning towards Jim in the brightly-lit studio. Three whiskeys in a row had mellowed Jim and stabilised his mood of quiet confidence. He faced the cameras with the assured air of a man who has mastered the turgid sentences of Management Techniques For The Smaller Manufacturer. The pleasant thought crossed his mind that later that evening Mrs. Harper and her cat would be squinting at him through narrow, astonished irises.

'Mr. Alexander, your new game has given the police an added problem on a couple of occasions. Do you think that is fair?'

'As far as I know Bun-golf has only inconvenienced them on one occasion.'

'In Throgmorton Street.'

'That's right.'

'Why do you think stockbrokers were playing your game?'

'I think it has universal appeal, Mr. Snow. I suppose stockbrokers like it because it is about as unpredictable as stocks and shares.'

'Bun-golf is played with a googly ball and an umbrella. Why the umbrella?'

'Most people carry one at some time or another, and we all share this instinct for hitting a ball. Bun-golf gives people a chance to indulge that basic instinct without having to drive ten or twenty miles to the nearest golf course.'

Quizzical frown from the interviewer as he identified with a query supposedly in the minds of millions of viewers.

'The name is a little unusual, isn't it? Presumably, the game is played with a ball not a bun.'

'Ah! the BUN. That stands for British Union of Novices. You see it has been estimated that ninety-five per cent of golfers fail to achieve a handicap. My game is consolation for the hundreds of thousands of golfers who trudge miserably around a golf course scoring in excess of a hundred. They can play my game without fear of ridicule.'

'Is there an element of skill in the game?'

'I should think a professional would have a slight advantage. But the rules of the game give the average player a glorious opportunity to humiliate the scratch player.'

'Wouldn't you say that Britain has enough games of chance- Bingo, horse racing-the football pools?'

Perhaps Peter Snow had intended to end on a thoughtful note to justify the inclusion of a frivolous game on his essentially serious program. Unfortunately, this last question touched a deeply sensitive nerve which had remained dormant since Jim's last stage appearance. There had been no warning that a solemn question would be asked. As he attempted to reply, Jim gave anervous giggle. In his mind was the intention to say that the sole aim of his game was to give people pleasure. But for some reason the words would not come. Instead, he laughed; intermittently at first, then uncontrollably and finally, convulsively.

Peter Snow was regarding him with a faintly troubled expression. The cameraman's mouth was wide open with disbelief. Jim made some gurgling sounds, which counterpointed a series of frightful heaves affecting his entire bodily frame. Snow was now smiling a sympathetic, measured smile demonstrating concern for his guest, no doubt also shrewdly judging the effect on his viewing audience.

Sitting on a white chair, Jim turned to hide his tortured features from the camera, failed lamentably to coordinate his movements, rolled off the chair and on to the studio carpet where he lay in a crumpled heap, still laughing unrestrainedly. He tried to attain an upright position, pushed his rump into the air and lay helplessly, with his distorted, tear-stained face cradled between his elbows. Finally, still laughing, he managed to regain his feet and resumed his upright position on the chair.

Peter Snow enquired solicitously if he would like a glass of water.

'No, Mr. Snow,' (inhaling a deep breath)- 'I think I'm all right now.' A few more painfully suppressed stacatto chuckles.

'Well, thank you for coming to the studio, Mr. Alexander. I hope other people find your game as entertaining as you obviously do.'

'Thank you. I sincerely hope so.'

By the time Jim had negotiated the maze of corridors in the television centre and started to breathe fresh air in the car park, a profound reaction had set in. Deeply depressed, he started the engine of the van; it nearly stalled and he set off in a frantic series of lurches back towards Barnes. He had ruined a golden opportunity to publicise his new game, the one bright idea of his life. And all through that cursed penchant for giggling which had ignominiously ended his acting career. He had been humiliated in front of the whole country. He thought of all the people he knew who would enjoy his discomfiture. The world, he told himself mournfully, as he spiralled into a bottomless pit of self-pity, will display no compassion for the giggler. He carries his heavy burden alone.

Back at Barnes, he went to the Red Stallion and decided to remain there until the tv program on which he had just appeared was over. He ordered a beer and to hasten his path to oblivion poured in gin, whiskey and brandy. Meanwhile, watching the television screen above the barman's head, he accorded the actors in a soap opera a drunken accolade for maintaining their mirthless, deadpan expressions. By the time the Newsnight program had started he had collapsed in a drunken stupor.

Mr. Coyne, who came over to the pub every evening for his nightly pint, found him lying insensible in a chair. He woke him up and with great difficulty assisted him back to his lodgings. He told Jim the following morning that he had been mumbling something about giggly googly balls.

**

The following morning at nine o'clock Sally Pratt stood in the yard, trying to control a disorderly mob of photographers trying to push their way into the shed. A dozen or so reporters had already succeeded in gaining entry and were exchanging good-humoured badinage, while Jim tried to answer a constantly-ringing telephone. The carpenter, frustrated in his task of fitting the emergency door, had gone home in disgust. Several magazines, including the Radio Times, had telephoned asking for details of Bun-golf and its rules. Punch had informed him that they intended to publish a cartoon depicting him as the Laughing Cavalier playing golf with an umbrella. An irate golfer had rung him up from St. Andrews to tell him that he had brought the ancient and noble game of golf into disrepute. Brenda had left a message to the effect that she needed to see him urgently. Mr. Pringer had rung him up from the Bahamas and invited him to set a date for a business lunch, an invitation which he declined. He told the telephone operator that he would accept no further calls and faced the journalists crowding around his desk- one of them was clambering on top of his filing cabinet.

The Daily Telegraph asked if he thought his undignified performance on television had gravely harmed the image of British businessmen. He shook his head. Daily Express- 'Have you thought of playing your game with Union Jack umbrellas?'- News Of The World- 'We intend to tell the whole world about the scandalous goings on under those Bun-golf umbrellas.'- The Sun- 'Our Page Three tomorrow will feature topless girls playing your game- Daily Mail- 'Will Bun-golf improve our export performance?'- Daily Mirror- 'Is Bun-golf good for one's sex life?'- The Spiritualist- 'We are featuring an article that seeks to prove that Renoir's famous picture Les Parapluies was a clairvoyant precognition of Bun-golf.' Jewish Chronicle- 'Why not baigel-golf?'- The Morning Star-'Have you thought about the bitter class divisions your new game will introduce between those who can and those who cannot afford umbrellas.'

In between a blinding succession of flashes from the photographers' cameras and the thrusting of microphones in front of his mouth, Jim contrived more or less satisfactorily to answer most of the questions. By eleven o'clock the newsmen had gone.

He was replacing the telephone receiver after another call, when a pale, intense young woman wearing a long black caftan and mauve spectacles made a surprise entry through the emergency exit. She said she represented a magazine called Psychological Quirks and desired Jim to attend her flat in Knightsbridge for the purpose of finding out what made him giggle. He promised to consider her kind offer when he wasn't so busy.

Finally, just as he surveyed the empty shed with relief, a jaunty young man came in through the front door, twirled an umbrella in his hands, thrust the seven-iron handle in front of Jim's face to establish that it was a genuine Bun-golf product and requested him to play a televised game of Bun-golf with a famous golfer. Mindful of the publicity, Jim readily agreed.

'Perhaps Mr. Alexander, you will oblige with a little repeat performance at the start of the match.'

'Repeat performance?'

'As on Newsnight. We are going to feature you as the Giggling Golfer in our advertisement for a well-known brand of champagne.'

Jim refused, indignantly.

'Prime time on the box' the young man reminded him, with an ingratiating smile. Jim firmly shook his head. The young man took his departure, saying that he would soon be back with another offer.

'What do you make of it all, Sally?' Jim asked, wiping his brow.

'Gee, Mr. Alexander, I think you've hit the jackpot. All that publicity. You were a wow last night- your giggle is so infectious. All my family started laughing and couldn't stop.'

'It's a weakness, Sally, ' Jim confided. 'It completely ruined my stage career.'

'Well, I bet it will be the making of this one. We're going to get thousands of orders. We're going to need bigger premises.'

The telephone rang. Sally answered and then putting her hand over the mouthpiece, announced: 'Bunny magazine wish to know if you are prepared to change the name to Bunnygolf.'

'Certainly not,' Jim replied indignantly. 'Tell them to hump off.'

Sally spoke sweetly into the telephone. 'He'll consider your suggestion very carefully.'

'I told you to tell them to hump off, Sally!'

'Bunny magazine has an enormous circulation. We don't want to antagonise them.'

Jim looked at Sally with a new respect. 'Absolutely right, my girl. As of now you're promoted to public relations officer.'

The telephone was ringing again.

Suddenly, he realised that he was going to need more staff, bigger premises, more finance.

'I think I'll go and see my accountants,' he said thoughtfully.

However, he was talking to himself. Sally was busy assuring the editor of another famous women's magazine that two stretches of Bun-golf a day was an excellent way of reducing the waistline.

***

Max Benson wrinkled his face into an engaging grin as soon as Jim entered his office, and enquired: 'Expansion problems?'

'That's right, Max.'

'Saw you on the box- you were a riot.'

Jim pulled a face and said: 'It was a disgraceful performance. But I've had reporters by the score enquiring about the game, so with any luck I shall be getting orders for thousands of umbrellas. Unfortunately, the firm who normally supply me have other commitments and can't take orders in quantity.'

'Don't worry, my lad. We'll buy them up.'

'We?'

'I'd like you to appoint me your financial director.'

Max Benson had the look of a cat who has just sighted an endless ocean of cream.

'Where will the money come from to buy an umbrella factory?'

'Loan stock. I'll arrange everything. We'll form another company, Bun-holdings, in which Iwould like to purchase an interest. We'll discuss the details tomorrow.'

"Buy Brains" the book advised.

'O.K., Max, it's getting too big for me

to handle. You're in.'

Jim's business career was in full flood. Finance had become available to expand umbrella production, but orders were continually outrunning supplies. Having been made so dramatically aware of the power of the media, he had naturally ordered the public relations department (now headed by Sally) to keep him in touch with all newspaper reports on Bun-golf. He was gratified one morning to find that his game had won honourable mention in a third leader of The Times.

'Britain,' that august organ declared, 'has always followed an unorthodox path towards greatness. The International Monetary Fund recently predicted that Britain would soon again run into a balance of payments problem. Instead, by one of those curious sand-devils of history which confound prophecy. we find ourselves in the midst of an umbrella-led export recovery which has provided us with a healthy balance of payments surplus equivalent to the North Sea oil bonanza we are so often accused of squandering. Not the least of several debts which this nation owes to Bun-golf is that it has succeeded at long last in abolishing class divisions and provided us instead with a much-needed sense of national unity and purpose. It is not without significance that our loss of Empire coincided with a decline in our prowess at another game invented by our island race- football. In gratitude for the heaven-sent opportunity we have been granted, let us therefore strive to excel both at home and abroad at our new national game, Bun-golf, and thus retain and sustain our newly-won self-confidence and pride.'

The same newspaper carried a photograph of the Minister for Employment waving a Bun-golf umbrella. The accompanying report, under the headline Industrial Peace In Our Time, stated that he had challenged the Minister for Sport to a game of Bun-golf in Parliament Square.

The new game had spread like a miraculous and beneficent plague to every corner of the United Kingdom and was steadily making its way through the European Economic Community. Charladies whacked their umbrellas through deserted streets in the early morning; workers played on their way to and from offices and factories. In the small hours, drunken revellers hit- and frequently missed- the elusive ball. No game had ever achieved such immediate, totally captivating, popularity. As the Times leader had pointed out, its appeal was universal and virtually classless. The Duke played with his gamekeeper, the chief executive with his junior clerk; soldiers played with their officers. Prince Phillip had obligingly played a 'stretch' of Bun-golf along the Mall. Class-barriers had wilted under a euphoric wave of good will and a healthy spirit of competition.

The Daily Telegraph, initially sceptical of the new game, commented that in spite of the prodigious amounts of time and energy being spent on this slightly ridiculous pastime, industrial production had actually risen. It offered the suggestion that this was because expanded human contact allowed both sides of industry to discover each other's problems.

Jim put down a copy of The Sun- it carried a picture of a busty bathing beauty posing with an upturned umbrella- and turned his attention to the problems of keeping track of his fast-growing business empire. He had a controlling interest in seventeen umbrella factories- twelve in the Far East- five plants producing the modified handles, and twenty googly-ball factories, five of which were now producing straight-bouncing balls for the game's off-shoot, Gamp-golf, which was also becoming increasingly popular. Several magazines had sprung up, entirely devoted to the Bun-golf craze. Inevitably, because of the game's extraordinary success, there were some bizarre, and in some cases, unwelcome spin-offs. One of them was a troublesome and vociferous Left Wing movement more militant than the left wing of the Labour party had ever been. The cause of their disaffection was a persistent shortage of left-handed handles, leading to insurmountable problems for left-handed players. A compassionate and concerned Mr.McSnee- himself righthanded- had passionately espoused their cause. With his encouragement they had formed an action committee demanding the establishment of a Sinister-Dexter Relations Board dedicated to the total elimination of bias in favour of the congenitally right-handed. Frustration with the shortage of left-handed umbrellas had led to the discovery of other vast areas of human experience which discriminated against left-handed persons. McSnee had recently addressed a letter to Jim containing a deeply moving appeal on their behalf.

Jim was also in constant demand for opening High Street tournaments, judging competitions for the loveliest lady Bun-golfers and adjudicating obscure points arising from the prolix rules of the game he had designed. This last duty had become so onerous of late that he had set up a special court to which appeals could be made on the telephone at thirty-eight pence a minute. It had proved surprisingly lucrative. No one, apparently begrudged money that might overturn the result of a game on some hair-splitting technicality. A tabloid newspaper had featured an incident when a telephone call had saved a player from being whacked to death by an irate umbrella-wielding opponent. It happened somewhere in Yorkshire. There had been a heavy wager on the game. The winning ball had apparently landed in some dog excrement, which both affected the angle of bounce and spattered the other player. A timely telephone call to the referee on duty had saved the game and the wager. The headline: SHIT HITS FAN had been examined by the Press Council, who excused the editor on the grounds that a Bun-golf contest was extremely emotive and that in any case the word 'shit',a widely-used Americanism, was now largely shorn of its expletive significance.

The financial side of his fast-growing empire was something of a mystery to Jim. There was an interlocking jig-saw of companies all of which were rapidly accumulating cash reserves in preparation for the opening up of new overseas markets. He controlled fifty-nine per cent of the shares. Chedwick had purchased a small financial stake in the organization and was presently managing an umbrella factory in Birmingham. So great was the pressure of business that Jim had not seen Brenda for several months. Sally had her own office in the West End; his own life consisted of monastic dedication to what the Financial Times had described as the biggest growth industry since the invention of the micro chip. It now looked as though he would shortly have a law suit on his hands. A letter had arrived that morning from the Professional Golfers' Association threatening an action over what they described as misappropriation of the word Golf. Jim grumbled to himself, as he studied the letter again, golfers are trying to monopolise Golf much as some clerics try to monopolise God.

He had recently moved his belongings to a fifteenth-storey penthouse in the modern office block which housed his company's headquarters. Since his life consisted almost exclusively of work and sleep, he found commuting by elevator very convenient. He worked at a large semi-circular desk ornamented by six different-coloured telephones, a multi-channel comms-set for talking to his departmental chiefs and a computer monitor on which he could summons up amazing spread sheets, pie charts, as well as the latest computer games version of Bun-golf. There was also in pride of place a silver model of a stockbroker playing Bun-golf presented to him by a grateful Stock Exchange. For sentimental reasons he still retained on his desk the original plastic plaque inscribed: J. Alexander, Managing Director.

Irritated by the letter from the PGA, he walked over to the window and looked down into the square. A young man twirling an umbrella stopped by a bench on which a uniformed nurse-maid was sitting guarding a pram and motioned eloquently with his umbrella. The girl, buxom, sandy-haired, hesitated, then placed a ball on the ground and gracefully swinging an upturned umbrella produced from the side of the pram, propelled the ball towards a nearby chestnut tree. The young man followed suit, and seconds later they had disappeared beneath its luxuriant branches.

Jim sighed. When night fell, they would be embracing, while he, a victim of his own success, would remain chained to his unremitting round of business dealings. What he had just seen was the main reason for the game's success- it offered people a chance to meet informally, without having to join a club or association. But, unfortunately, in bringing millions of other people together he had isolated himself.

He returned to his desk and scanned the letter again. It seemed almost a cri de coeur from that distinguished body- the threat of court action almost an afterthought. He decided to discuss the matter with Wetherby, who besides acting as his solicitor, was also a keen golfer. Meanwhile, after the affecting scene he had witnessed in the square, his thoughts lingered romantically on Brenda. She had been left behind during his meteoric climb to success. But it was doubtful if she would have fitted into the world of high finance in which he was now so heavily involved.

He studied his desk diary and noted that the following evening was comparatively free of engagements. A cocktail party to inaugurate the House of Lords Bun-golfing society, followed by a televised interview with the Minister of Sport and the Minister of Transport. He would have time afterwards to take Brenda out to dinner and they would enjoy that long promised night at the Dorchester. Or would she prefer the circular bed in his newly-decorated apartment, which had recently been turned into a leafy imitation of Kew Gardens by a firm of trendy interior designers? He had a momentary vision of them in bed discussing the ginko trees on the ceiling.

He telephoned her home.

A dignified voice announced: 'This is Brenda's mother speaking, Mr. Alexander. My daughter isn't here.'

'Where can I find her?'

'Australia.'

There was a click as the telephone receiver was replaced.

Jim experienced an attack of heartburn, which he attributed to the cup of coffee his secretary had brought in. He then spoke to Max Benson on the inter-comm and read out the letter from the PGA.

'Cheeky bastards, ' Benson said. And after a pause: 'They can't monopolise the name of golf anymore than they can monopolise fresh air. But we don't want to get involved in litigation.'

'O.K., I'll talk to Wetherby about it.'

He read the letter out to Wetherby over the telephone. An awkward silence followed, which Jim broke by saying 'Off the top of your head do you think they have a case in law?'

'Jim, solicitors don't have tops to their heads. But I have to tell you that a certain resentment of your game does exist in golfing circles- perhaps because we have lost members. The ones who remain loyal to the game of golf are pretty scathing about Bun-golf- they call it "gutter golf"'.

'What!' Jim called out, thoroughly incensed.

'Jim- 'there was a pleading note in Wetherby's voice, 'every sport needs an element of dignity. Wimbledon played on hard courts in the nude wouldn't be quite the same now, would it.'

'The only question I'm asking you to answer,'Jim replied angrily, 'is can they sue?'

'They would probably lose. But you must consider whether the resultant publicity might not damage your business.'

'I'll send you a copy of the letter.'

Would the publicity associated with a law suit damage his business he asked himself. Hardly. Falling off his chair in front of the television cameras in a desperate fit of the giggles had done no harm- in fact it had proved to be a launching pad for his success. Then he had a sudden thought. There was always the possibility that when he retired he might wish to join a golf club.

He wrote the sacred name G-O-L-F on his note-pad, formed an anagram, and then rang for his secretary. 'Miss Peacock, tell Benlow to re-register Bun-golf as Bun-glof, spelled G-L-O-F, under the same patents world-wide. Inform publicity, our advertising agents and all departmental heads of the change. Take a full-page spread in all the daily newspapers and repeat in the personal columns of The Times, that out of consideration for the injured feelings of golfers, Mr. J.Alexander has changed the name of the game from Bun-golf to Bun-glof.

'Yes, Mr. Alexander.'

Miss Peacock trudged clumsily back to the outer office. Jim watched her retreating form with a sense of disillusionment. He had lost Brenda because of his total preoccupation with business and now seemed surrounded by humourless, unfeeling robots. There was no break in sight. Applications for franchises and manufacturing licences were pouring in from all over the world. An important question had yet to be answered: Would the super-powers embrace Bun-glof with the same enthusiasm as the United Kingdom and Europe?

NINE

Twelve miles above the Atlantic, Jim relaxed, after an excellent meal of boeuf bourguignon and several glasses of fine claret. He was flying Concorde to New York. Through the cabin window he could see far below a Jumbo jet toiling with painful slowness over patches of white clouds. Because it was a wide-bodied jet, it reminded him vaguely of Brenda's generous build. He experienced vague remorse, but assured himself it was just as well they had parted company ­ she would have found it difficult keeping up with his present life style.

Shortly afterwards, a slight lurch heralded the start of the descent into New York, where he was to meet a representative of the American Games Corporation- the company which dominated the leisure industry in America.

Max Benson had warned him that the Americans would strike a hard bargain- even harder than the Russians, who had also expressed a strong interest in the game. During the board room debate as to which of the two super powers he should visit first the argument that the Americans were superior at mass marketing had won the day. Bun-glof was also, of course, travelling eastwards and would soon, in any case, reach the the East under its powerful momentum. Meanwhile, the boulevards of Europe were thronged with happy citizenry in pursuit of the ubiquitous googly ball. Clubs and leagues were springing up like wild fire, inter-town and city championships were proliferating. International games made headline news. Application had even been made for Bun-glof to be included in the Olympic games.

Jim and his fellow directors had tried, but failed, to prevent the running of Bun-glof pools alongside football pools and the Ntional Lottery in the United Kingdom. The British instinct for gambling was far too strong to be curbed by vague admonitions from the manufacturers.

One of the stewardesses requested Jim's autograph just before the aircraft landed at Kennedy airport. He signed her book with a flourish, adding the jingle from the latest television commercial:

"Give a little wriggle, have a little giggle.

Life is really jolly

when you wield your Bun-glof brolly."

She exclaimed gushingly as he returned the autograph book: 'You've certainly conquered the world with your new game, Mr. Alexander.'

'Not completely,' he returned, smiling.'They're not playing it in Tibet yet.'

The wry thought occurred to him as he was being driven into New York that, while it was very gratifying to be rich and famous, his punishing work schedule was denying him the kind of fun that he was providing for everyone else. It was months since he had last been on golf course.

Harry Walker, a lean, rangy man of sixty, wearing a white mohairsuit and rimless glasses, met him in the foyer of the Waldorf hotel. His gait was artificially springy, perhaps to give an impression of youth. Inspecting Jim through thick pebble lenses, he thrust out his lower lip aggressively as he proffered his hand and said: 'Harry Walker. I sure am glad to meet the inventor of Ban-glof.'

'Bun-glof,' Jim corrected him. 'Delighted to met you, Harry.'

Walker motioned to a bell-hop to collect the baggage. Then he ushered Jim into a secluded bar full of exotic plants and tangerine leather chairs. When they were seated, Walker furtively crooked a finger and a waiter immediately appeared with a tray containing two glasses of a brownish liquid.

'A new drink we're marketing,' he explained. 'Care to try it?'

Jim sipped it suspiciously and then cautiously pronounced it 'O.K.'

Walker drained his glass in one gulp, burped and ordered another with a knowledgeable wave to the barman. 'Now, Jim, he said, 'it appears that your patents are copper-bottomed so we're very anxious to come to terms. We want to get the show on the road as quickly as possible.'

'It's a fantastic money-spinner,' Jim answered coolly. 'A number of other American companies have expressed interest in obtaining the franchise.'

'Sure, sure, Jim. I appreciate that. We don't intend to waste time in haggling. I surewish we'd thought of it first.'

'We British are good at inventing things but we often fail to exploit them commercially. We intend to squeeze every cent out of this one.'

Walker sipped his second drink with a slight shudder and then addressed Jim with a sage expression: 'Sure it's a great game by all accounts and America will go crazy for it. But it has to be adapted for this side of the Atlantic. I'm working on a publicity promotion and I'd appreciate your cooperation. We'll discuss it at the board-room meeting tomorrow. Goodnight, Jim. Have a good rest. Call for you at a quarter after eight.'

He stood up, shifted clumsily from one foot to the other, nodded imperceptibly to the barman and strode with exaggerated springiness through the swing-doors.

The barman then tried to serve Jim with a repeat of the obnoxious drink Walker had ordered. Jim declidned and ordered a scotch and soda istead. 'What one earth is that horrible stuff?' he asked the barman.

'That's a Grind Number Two, sir!' he replied, appearing surprised at Jim's ignorance. 'It was voted flavour of the month by the Barmen's Association.'

<They must have been got at,' Jim commented sourly.

He sipped his scotch appreciatively and asked himself what kind of adaptation Walker had in mind for his game. Pride in his invention made him hope that it would only require slight adjustments. A great deal depended on this deal with the U.S.A., a market five times bigger than the U.K. Max Benson had likened the progress of the business to a whipping top ­ it must continually maintain momentum and would topple if it did not do so. Selling the licence to the American Games Corporation would give it another tremendous spin, making possible a public issue of shares on the stock market on the most favourable terms. He had assured Jim it would make him and his fellow directors very rich.

He went up in the elevator to his luxurious bedroom and lay awake for some time, reflecting on the astonishing change which had taken place in his fortunes. It was barely four months since in blissful mood he had whacked at a rubber ball with an upturned umbrella, beginning a startling transition from rags to riches. But he realised he must act with prudence and caution. One's fortunes, like the googly ball, could change direction with capricious suddenness.

*

The New York pavements gave off a baleful heat, as Jim waited next morning outside the hotel. Looking up at the vertical cliffs of aluminium and glass rising towards narrow segments of azure sky, he felt suddenly dizzy. He quickly recovered, as a limousine draw up alongside.

'Sleep well?' he heard Walker enquire , as they drew away into dense traffic. Glancing at his heavy gold wristwatch qwithout waiting for a reply, Walker continued: 'This morning you're gonna meet our vice-president and legal and financial directors. I hope we shall manage to tie up a mutually satisfactory deal. But, of course, it will have to be approved by our president. He's in Dallas at the moment.'

'Who is the President of American Games?' Jim enquired.

Walker was too busy barking into a telephone to answer.'Yeah, that's a honey of an idea,' he was saying. 'Alexander is right here beside me. I'll ask him.' Turning his head, he said fawningly: 'Say, Jim, we'd like to feature you in a little commercial. It'll kinda bounce off that article Fortune magazine wrote about you.' Before Jim had time to considere his answer, Walker turned his head back to the telephone again. 'Sure, that's Ok We don't know whatwe're going to call it yet. Ban-glof is out, though. I'll have a name for you later- it's gotta be slick and roll off the tongue.'

He replaced the receiver and drew out a packet of Camel cigarettes from his top pocket. 'We've taken time on all the major networks and we'll start the promotion build-up this afternoon.'

'Don't you think we ought to settle terms first?'

Walker gave an easy grin and puffed his cigarette.

'Don't you worry, Jim- the old man won't want to miss out on this one. He hasn't been so enthusiastic since he bought out the Yo-yo franchise.'

Jim answered, somewhat surprised:'The Yo-yo ­ that was a helluva long time ago.'

'Yeah,' Walker said reflectively. 'Timber is getting on, but he can still smell a good deal from a thousand miles away.'

'Timber?'

Harry Walker ignored Jim's questioning tone. He said ingratiatingly: 'About this afternoon, Jim. Everybody knows it's a British game, but we have to give it a genuine American flavour- understand? And it must have a youthful image. To most teenagers- and that's the market we're after- golf is old-fashioned. We gotta convey the idea ofsomething spicey and new. But we also want to exploit the quaint image of the British. Got it? So we want you to pose before the tv cameras wearing a bowler hat, black jacket and Uncle Sam-style Stars and Stripes shorts.'

There was no time for Jim to raise objections. The car had arrived at a tall building with a mauve marble frontage. Harry Walker, preceding him onto the sidewalk, performed a parody of a tap dance routine and led him into the cool depths of the building. A neon-lit elevator rose like a bubble in champagne and released them on a floor high above the city.

'This way, Jim.'

Walker led him into a spacious room panelled in beechwood. It contained a large, horse-shoe shaped table fronted with rosewood. The centre was occupied by a drinks cabinet, from which Walker prepared a large whiskey and soda for Jim and a bourbon, lemon and ice for himself. At precisely nine o'clock. A blond girl in a white linen suit strolled into the room, followed by a stout giant with heavily-lidded eyes. Taking up the rear was a smaller, pale, nearly bald man wearing black-rimmed spectacles.

'American Games Corporation welcomes you to New York, Jim,' Walker said ceremoniously. 'We would like you to meet Miss Ingrid Harman, our vice-president, Mr Bud Schreiber, our financial director (indicating the corpulent giant) and Mr. Larry Sigmund from our legal department.

Jim was instantly fascinated by the girl. Shewas coolly appraising him, her delicious lips half open.

Once they were seated at the horse-shoe table, Harry Walker said solemnly; 'As you know, Jim Alexander has devised and marketed a game that has taken Europe by storm and looks like conquering the rest of the world. We can count ourself lucky that he has given us first option on licensing an American version and I sincerely hope we succeed in concluding a deal this morning.'

The girl, sitting opposite Jim, drew out a gold ball-point from her purse. She said in a soft, low voice that gave him the sensation of ice cubes gently trickling down the back of his neck: 'Your new game, Mr, Alexander, has distinct possibilities over here. I'm sure we shall be able to do a deal.'

'Call me Jim', he pleaded suddenly.

'Jim?' She sounded surprised. 'Sure, why not.'

She looked round the table with an amused smile. Following her gaze, Jim noticed that the huge forearms of Shreiber, who had just removed his jacket, resembled hairy beer barrels. But neither the financial director, nor anyone else present, seemed to have observed the sexual rays that were darting almost palpably between the vice-president and the young English businessman.

'You see, Jim,' Ingrid was saying, 'American Games Corporation has eighty-nine per cent access to retailers throughout the US of A, which means we can guarantee a much higher volume of sales than any of our competitors for this franchise. For that reason we feel you should make a small reduction in the commission defined in our preliminary exchange of letters. To come to the point we are prepared to offer seven per cent.'

Max Benson had told him to stand his ground on eleven per cent, but under the influence of those limpid blue eyes Jim felt his resolution waver.

'Well, actually, Ingrid, my board has instructed me to-'

'Shall we say nine per cent, then?'

And as he hesitated, she continued with a winning smile: 'That's settled, then, Jim. Let us know the name of your bankers. Mr. Schreiber will arrange for a quarterly audit of sales. I must tell you, though, that the British name for the game is entirely unsuitable for the American market and we would wish to market it under a different name.'

'What do you have in mind?'

Ingrid looked enquiringly at Harry Walker. He drained his glass and with a portentous air, his mouth working silently, wrote something on a piece of paper and handed the message to her. She read it and passed it onto Schreiber, who nodded earnestly and passed it to Sigmund, who in turn passed it to Jim. As he read the words, he heard Ingrid Harman repeat the syllables slowly with a breathtaking lilt in her voice: 'Brolly-golly. Brolly-golly. Sounds Ok, Harry.'

Walker was breathing heavily with excitement. He announced hoarsely: 'The Old Man will love it. He's authorised fifty million dollars for initial coast-to-coast advertising. I'm signing up national sporting figures to endorse the game and Jim has kindly volunteered to tee off the very first commercial this afternoon.'

Jim didn't particularly like the name but judged it prudent not to cavil.

The enchanting vice president stood up and said briskly: 'We are arranging for deliveries to commence to retailers on September first. If you would like to accompany Mr. Sigmund to his office you will find a contract drawn up ready for your signature.'

As as she left the board-room, Jim stood up and savoured every square inch of Ingrid's departing form. He must some excuse to see her alone. Conscious of the financial director's brooding eyes, he sat down. But as he did so the warning Max Benson had imparted before he left England fortuitously came back to him. It had been lost in the heady sexual aura of the delightful vice- president. She seemed so young for the job and she possessed sensuous lips and an exquisite dimple on her tiny chin. Benson's warning gave him precisely the excuse he needed.

'Gentlemen,' he said decisively. 'I omitted something very important when I was talking to Miss Harman. If you will permit me...'

He hastened from the board room and arrived in the corridor, in time to catch the vice president entering her office. She was studying some papers when he stood in the doorway.

'What is it, Jim?' She seemed surprised but not altogether displeased.

'Can I talk to you for a moment?'

'Sure. Sit down.' She motioned her blond head towards a chaise-longue embroidered in petit-point.

Jim sat down, inhaling a delicious perfume.

'We missed two important items during our discussion?'

'Really?'

'Yes, firstly my company would like to have the contract vetted by an independent firm of lawyers before signature.'

'That's normal practice, Sigmund will supply you with a suitable list of New York law firms. What is the other point?'

Putting on an expression of business-like severity, Jim said: 'Will you have lunch with me?'

'Why, of course, Jim.' Ingrid laughed gaily. 'You surprised me. It'll give us a chance to talk over the whole project. The President of our organization is anxious to have the deal signed by midday tomorrow, so that we can get things rolling.'

The telephone rang as Jim, excited by her proximity, was planning to ask her for dinner that evening as well.

'Hello, Timber darling,' she was saying. 'Yeah, it's going great- should be sewn up by tomorrow. Walker's going ahead with publicity this afternoon. Sure. I'll ask him.'

Replacing the receiver, she enquired: 'How would you like to spend next week-end with our president at his home in Dallas?'

'Sounds great, Ingrid, but the Soviet Ministry for Sports and Culture have invited me to Moscow. I'll be free the following weekend.'

'That'll be fine, Jim. I'll let him know you're coming. Dallas is my home town, too- I go there most weekends.' She paused, rattling a gold ballpoint thoughtfully between dazzling white even teeth. 'Timber has a deal going with the Russians- you may be able to liase for him while you're in Moscow. Now about lunch- I'll get my chauffeur to call at your hotel at one o'clock sharp.'

'Is Timber the president's name?' Jim enquired curiously.

She smiled. 'That's what his close friends call him. He's generally known as C.J. Says he's looking forward to meeting you. Incidentally, he's curious about why your company has such an oddball name.'

It just happened that way,' Jim explained earnestly. 'Because I'm a novice at golf. I gave it the acronym, B.U.N., which stands for British Union of Novices.'

'Well, you may be a novice at golf but you're no slouch at business, that's for sure. See you for lunch, Jim. '

She resumed her vice-presidential duties, bending her head low over a mass of figures. Jim threw one lingering look at her golden, fine-spun hair and returned to the conference room. He soon completed his discussion with the other directors.

Something happened soon afterwards, however, that filled him with murderous rage. As he was descending in the elevator to the foyer, the uniformed attendant whispered in a hoarse voice: 'They say that Miss Harmanis the greatest lay in New York. And the most expensive.'

<How dare you,' Jim spluttered. He was still seething as he left the elevator.

**

'Oh, Jim, I adore your British accent,' It sends lovely shivers down my spine... But as I was saying about importing spread sheet analysis, you get misleading readings unless...'

Jim was lunching with Ingrid in the Business Executive Club. He had an imperfect grasp of the technicalities Ingrid was expounding. All he could think of was that her eyes were beautifully blue, her cheekbones beautifully carved and her neck a beautifully-proportioned white slender pillar that demanded kisses. As she prattled on about discounted cash flows, profit margins and price-earnings ratios, he could not help noticing the movement of her pointed breasts brushing against her silk shirt.

'Your own career epitomises the American dream,' she was saying, her thoughts suddenly changing direction. 'I read all about you in Fortune magazine- you were an unsuccessful actor and within months you succeeded in building a multi-million dollar business empire.'

Jim remembered the interview with the Fortune reporter. Sally had briefed him to omit all references to his former association with the jokes trade, in case his connection with such infamous objects as stink bombs might sully his new image.

Ingrid continued admiringly; 'How many umbrellas have you sold so far, Jim? Was it a hundred and ten point three-two-two million or a hundred and ten point three-two-three? Plus all those googly balls. People keep losing them. There's extra profit there, as your prospectus rightly pointed out. Ah, that reminds me Jim, we're cutting production costs by manufacturing a vestigial umbrella.'

'Vestigial?'

'Yeah, just the outer cover. It looks like an umbrella but it won't keep the rain off.'

Jim nodded sadly, regretting the way American efficiency cut ruthlessly through tradition. But he supposed it didn't matter as long as they continued to pay royalties.

Toying with his fillet mignon steak, he wondered how he was going to divert the mind of this lovely business executive onto more important things.

'Ingrid, how about hitting a night-spot with me tonight?'

'Oh, sure, Jim. That would be real nice.'

He was startled by a buzzing from Ingrid's handbag. She fiddled inside it, produced a mobile telephone and spent a few minutes in heavily coded conversation with her stockbroker.

When she had finished, she smiled and said: 'Okay, Jim. We'll have us some fun. Pick you up at your hotel at nine-thirty.'

TEN

'Honey, but Grind Number Two is the in-drink at the moment.'

Thump-thump,

'That's what everyone keeps telling me, but I'm dying for a scotch and soda.'

'Thump-thump-thump.

They were dancing in the Sophisticated Cat. Ingrid was wearing an ice-blue gown slashed down to her enchanting navel. Two slender threads holding the dress together threatened- or perhaps, from Jim's point of view, promised- to burst at any moment. The music was deafening, with an insidious underlying beat- a compulsive thump-thump belonging to a distant atavistic past. Laser beams were weaving and convoluting like wild luminous snakes on the floors and ceilings.

The business of the whiskey bothered Jim; it seemed that in New York they played a kind of alcoholic version of musical chairs. Every week a different drink became fashionable. Last week it had been vodka and Coke, the week before gin and Pepsi: this week it was a Grind Number Two, consisting of equal parts rum and prune juice.

Thump-thump.

Ingrid was responding to the music with wild and vigorous abandon. Her thump-thumps, beautifully synchronised with his own, included an entrancing rotary motion that reminded Jim of something that the blare of a trumpet and the mental haze induced by eleven successive daiquiris and prune juice made it difficult to formulate precisely. What was it? Thump-thump...thump-thump-thump...thump-thump. Her eyes were half-closed in rapturous enjoyment; her trance-like gyrations were causing her creamy-white orbs to pop out of the cotton receptacles within the ice-blue dress. Suddenly, it came to him- the boy-girl dolls on the floor of Clagwammer and Pringer described by the salesman as "very educational." It seemed a long time ago.

'How was my television interview?' he shouted.

'Superb, Jim. You wowed them in those pink-striped shorts.' She gave a delicious chuckle.

'And I didn't giggle,' he said triumphantly, 'like I usually do on television.'

'Marvellous Jim. You were the perfect ambassador for Brolly-golly.'

'Will the Americans buy it, do you think?'

'They'll love it. And do you know what- after your introduction I bought shares in a bowler hat factory in Tennessee. They've sold their whole year's stock in advance.'

'Darling, you're a clever girl,' Jim said, admiringly.

'Not just a pretty ass,' Ingrid said, wriggling it appealingly, as the music stopped.

Holding her proprietorially round her shoulder, Jim escorted her back to the table.

'Sweetheart,' he pleaded as they sat down, 'I really would appreciate a scotch and soda.'

'You really would,' she said, imitating his British accent. 'Then you shall have one.'

She whispered to a waiter: 'Bring this British gentleman a scotch and soda under wraps.'

When the whiskey arrived discreetly hidden under a napkin, Jim complained: 'It's not a crime, is it, to drink scotch?'

'No, just a little disloyal, Jim,'

Looking faintly miffed, Ingrid bent down and rubbed her shapely calf with one hand. However, when she straightened up again, her expression was more tolerant.

She explained: 'Timber has a big deal in prune juice. He bought up practically a whole year's crop, gambling that Grind Number Two would catch on. Its going great now in thirty-eight states. It certainly helps when a prominent businessman like you is seen drinking it.'

'Are you in drinks as well as games?' he asked.

'We're multi-national, multi-merchandise. Anything that makes a buck. Drink up and we'll go back to my place. I've scotch by the barrel there.'

He gathered her sable-clad body in his arms as the Rolls slid silently through the deserted streets, and pressed his lips against hers. She responded warmly for a moment, then drawing away, said: 'Say, Jim, what got you started?'

'Your lovely face, your fabulous figure, your-'

'I mean with the Brolly-golly bit?'

'Oh, that. The idea just came to me when some kids asked me what it was like to play golf and I fished out a googly ball from my pocket.'

'Fantastic. Incidentally, C.J. will probably want a game of golf with you when you come to Dallas.'

'He's keen on golf?'

She laughed resoundingly.

'He practically invented the game.'

'Golf was invented in Scotland,' Jim insisted firmly.

'Well, he carries more weight in the golfing world than anyone else. Do you know what they call him?'

'I've heard you refer to him as C.J. and Timber. What is his name?'

'You'll find out soon enough,' she answered laughingly. 'Come on up and see my pad.'

Swaying drunkenly as the elevator ascended, they clung to each other in a passionate kiss that lasted for fifteen floors. Ingrid entwined her tiny hand in tufts of hair at the back of his head, as she responded ardently. For the rest of their upwards journey they exchanged endearments, calling each other honey-lamb, honey-child and, humorously, honey-bun. Giggling like school-children at this play on the name of Jim's enterprise, they staggered out on legs palsied by alcohol and their rocket-like ascent in the elevator.

'C'mun, Big Jim. she whispered huskily, as she fumbled in her purse for the electronic key that opened her front-door and warned of intruders during her absence.

Light from crystal chandeliers blazed on an opulently-furnished apartment. Jim's feet nearly slipped on a priceless persian rug and his somewhat impaired vision registered a silver-laden buhl commode, an ormolu escritoire and some handsome Louis Quinze armchairs. A giant stuffed panda stood guard at the entrance to the bedroom.

'Whassat?' Jim enquired, indicating the six-feet high black and white cuddly bear.

'That's Charlie, she answered cheerfully. 'He keeps me company in bed when I don't have a big hunk of a man like you.'

She flung her fur over the panda and led Jim into the bedroom.

'Have a peek at Manhattan while I fix your drink.'

He walked past a canopied four-poster bed and looked outside at the skyscrapers. Coloured neon-lights flashed their commercial messages against the darkened shapes of huge rectangular columns rising towards the stars. Directly opposite a red Coca-Cola sign flashed every fewseconds. A stolid-looking American Games blinked a sombre purple from the highest pinnacle. He was observing the lights of an elevator rising fitfully in the building opposite, when the whole scintillating panorama swung giddily on its axis and became a confusing, flashing kaleidoscope.

'Must be those sodding Grinds Number Two,' he muttered, blinking rapidly, in an attempt to restore his vision. This proved unsuccessful, so he kept his eyes firmly closed until he heard Ingrid say: 'Hullo there, Mr. Brolly-golly, I've brought your scotch.'

She had discarded her evening gown and was extending a glass on a silver tray. The Coca-Cola sign opposite illuminated her half-naked body in an eerie red glow.

'Never mind,' he said thickly, 'I'm not thirsty.'

She bent down, placed the tray on the carpeted floor and led him towards the canopied bed, unbuttoning his shirt with deft fingers. He was struggling with his trousers, when she started laughing.

'What's so funny?' he asked.

'Your shorts!'

He looked down and discovered that he was still wearing the stars and stripes shorts in which he had posed for a commercial that afternoon.

The ridiculous shorts came off and landed near the carelessly abandoned panties on the floor. Ingrid stretched her flawless white body on the satin sheet and pulled his face against a soft, round breast. He sighed with pleasure as a pink nipple tickled his nose. However, before he could collect his alcohol-fuddled thoughts, she plunged it into his mouth, giving a sinuous wriggle.

'Oh, Jimmy Jolly-Golly,' she whispered excitedly; then suddenly, with vice-presidential authority, gave aseries of complicated orders.

Puzzled at the complexity of her demands, Jim answered: 'I'd love to, sweet blossom, but I've only got two hands.'

'Darling,' she replied with a hint of reproach: 'You also have two legs, two feet, ten toes and a mouth.'

'Oh...oh...oh!' She gasped with pleasurable anguish as Jim complied clumsily, wishing that his education had included instruction on synchronised sexual gymnastics.

'Is that all right, darling?' he enquired, anxiously.

'Honey, don't take away your mouth. Didn't they tell you in school it's the second most important pleasure-giving organ?'

The Coca-Cola signs cast an endless procession of red ribbons across the darkened room. A delicious sensation assailed his loins, as Ingrid's hands navigated him towards his goal. Her vocal instructions had now become all but incoherent, as though ready to abandon herself to an ensuing, all-engulfing storm. Now she was gyrating sinuously. slowly and surely gathering momentum like an Olympic discus-thrower. Wonderfully athletic, he thought, for an office-bound girl. He asked himself if there existed any more delightful way of helping the export drive.

Suddenly, her eyelids fluttered open and her lips tenderly uttered the words: 'GO, man, GO.'

He was matching energetic wriggle for energetic wriggle and earth-quaking bump for earth-quaking bump, when suddenly he felt her hand reach out behind her towards a control panel on the headboard. The mattress, together with the four-poster superstructure, took off on hydraulic springs and began rising and falling in contrapuntal motion, like a heaving sea. Ingrid immediately gave a series of ecstatic screams, scratched like a wounded tigress and plunged her teeth into his right shoulder. With staccato pulsations playing against her lithe stomach she gave a series of shrieks, accompanied by tremendous shivers, which slowly diminished in intensity, as Jim experienced a firing of pleasurable projectiles. The bed continued jerking violently, until Ingrid, her eyes closed, lazily reached up and clicked off a switch. There were two more sluggish movements of the bed, then all was still.

Jim slipped dazedly to Ingrid's side. Only the remorseless sweep of the Coca-Cola beam on the ceiling echoed the passing of time.

He lay gratefully in the aftermath of love, his hand absently roving over her gently heaving bosom. He was idly counting the dull red strobes on the ceiling, when she bit his ear. Abruptly, his reverie ceased.

'Oh, Jimmy-Jolly-Golly!' came a wild cry, like the plaintive sound of a sea bird.

He was lost in admiration as his princess of high finance flung herself on top of him and swayed contentedly, her peerless breasts bobbing like mounds of white Jello. This time she spurned the electric motor and galloped frenziedly to a climax which contorted her pretty face and washed his chest with ice-cold tears, before sliding helplessly into a huddle by his side.

He had counted thirty Coca-Colas on the ceiling and was about to drift off into a sound sleep, when she roused him again. Love together with months of abstinence lent him an heroic strength, and as he obeyed her step-by-step instructions, they engaged in gymnastic contortions, providing revolving views of Ingrid's anatomy, before reaching a pleasurable oblivion.

Forty-two Coca-Colas later she was calling for him piteously. Tired though he was he could not resist when she pleaded: 'Unfurl your Brolly, again, Jolly Jimmy.'

In the midst of a sea of pleasure an earthquake of devastating proportions suddenly occurred. The four-poster vibrated violently and collapsed all around them.

'Aw shit!' Ingrid exclaimed, as she lay incongruously swaddled in the pink canopy, a gold-inlaid post lying across her bare leg.

'Gee, I'm sorry, Jim, I guess we'll have to have this goddamned Super A-model bed modified.'

'What the hell kind of bed is it?' Jim growled, struggling wearily to extricate himself.

'Like I said, it's a Super-A model made by one of our subsidiaries in New Jersey. I'll give Bernstein, the manufacturer, sheer hell when I ring him tomorrow. It's bad for our reputation when this kind of thing happens.'

'Perhaps we gave it more than fair wear and tear.'

'Honey, perhaps you're right. Do you know what- you're the greatest.'

Slipping carefully out of the tangled wreckage, she announced that she was going to have a shower. 'Would you like your scotch now?' she enquired as an afterthought, noticing the silver tray.

Without waiting for an answer, she ran gaily into the bathroom.

Jim limped over to recover his drink and watched the elevator in the building opposite repeating its unvarying journeying up and down. He felt enormously fond of this highly-talented girl, in spite of her predilection for mechanised gadgetry. He excused her foible by telling himself that modern society was constantly invoking machinery to perform tasks which the humanbody was perfectly adapted to do by itself.

Later, when they were both lying peacefully in the partially-dismantled bed, he said: 'Darling, how about a merger?'

'You mean a reverse take-over on the back of the dollar with currency guarantees?'

'No, darling, he breathed fervently. 'I'm talking about marriage.'

'We'll talk about it tomorrow,' she whispered and was instantly asleep, her lovely brow bedewed with moisture.

He was awakened in the small hours by a noise in the next room. Startled, he nudged Ingrid and enquired what it was.

She answered sleepily: 'It's just the opening prices of the London Stock Exchange printing out. But I'm too tired to care.' She operated a switch on the headboard console and the noise ceased.

'Ingrid, before you go to sleep, tell me who's the President of American Games Corporation.'

'...father' came the tired reply.

'Your father?'

'No, not my father. The Golf-father.'

Jim thought the name had a somewhat sinister ring.

ELEVEN

The Rolls was moving slowly through a phalanx of slowly-moving traffic. Ingrid was engaged in a prolonged telephone conversation with a man she addressed as Timber. The sublime form he had embraced the night before was now enveloped in a trim black trouser suit and a white silk shirt. Around her neck was a glowing string of pearls. She was smiling at some jest which had reached her through the ear-piece. Jealousy prompted Jim to place a protective arm around her slight shoulder. But as he attempted to nibble her unoccupied ear, she rebuffed him with a brisk motion of her blond head and continued talking rapidly:

'O.K., Timber darling, out of three-monthly bonds into longer-dated and we're to be prepared to go liquid. Understood. I'm bringing James Alexander to see you the week-end after next. He's off to Moscow this week-end. Really? Yeah, I'll ask him. Would you believe the goddam Super-A bed fell in on me last night. Bernstein is O-U-T. Brolly-golly is swinging into production on Monday. Watch your TV screen for a wow of a campaign that Harry's got going. Yeah, the deal is fixed. We're signing today. Bye, darling.'

Ingrid replaced the receiver, lifted her head and kissed Jim fondly. 'I'm in heaven today,' she whispered. 'I love you, Timber will love you and when the commercials are broadcast the whole of America will love you.'

'I want to marry you,' he said huskily. But even as he spoke, he felt a sharp contraction of the bowels.

The car was gliding to a halt outside his hotel, and as the uniformed doorman opened the car door, Jim leapt out of the Rolls in undignified haste. He grabbed his key at the reception desk, and as the elevator ascended, making numerous maddening stops, he tried to take his mind off the volcanic rumblings going on inside him by working out a complex arithmetic problem concerning thenumber of umbrellas which would be required if three-quarters of the population of Uzbekistan demanded to play Bun-glof during his forthcoming visit to the Soviet Union. A rapid sprint along the corridor nearly knocking over a chambermaid in the process, a struggle with two recalcitrant doors, atussle with a perverse trouser zip and he found himself staring bemusedly at crimson-striped boxer shorts.

There followed an almost mystical experience. He seemed to be on a cloud floating leisurely over a nineteenth-century cavalry charge. Below, trumpets sounded and horses reared and whinnied as they rode full-tilt into the fearsome roar of cannon. The crash of exploding shells mingled with the curses of thrown riders. No sooner was the battle over than a deluge of rain swamped the battlefield.

Thankful that he had made it in time, Jim looked at his watch. Just time for a shower before his meeting with Schwartz and Hinterman, the firm of lawyers who had been instructed to check the contract drawn up by American Games legal department. Sigmund had insisted on inserting a penalty clause, in case he failed to meet the midday deadline. He would demonstrate today, as indeed he had last night, that British businessmen could deliver the goods.

Splashing in the shower, he sang, intoxicated by his successful mix of work and pleasure. He would marry Ingrid and introduce his glamorous bride to his parents in their humble greengrocery shop in far-away Sussex. They would be smitten by her beauty, intelligence and wealth. Further vistas floated through his mind- Ingrid presenting him with a quiverful of beautiful children and graciously presiding over his far-flung estates as, in the course of a political career, he rose to cabinet office. He was Minister for Sport while drying himself, gained promotion to Foreign Secretary while applying talc and anti-perspirant and gravely accepted the Prime Ministerial Seal of Office from the Queen as he patted after-shave on his face.

Then, again, he experienced a straining sensation in his bowels. As he lifted the lavatory lid, he remembered the numerous Grind Number Twos he had imbibed the previous night. Working its way through his system was that vile, insidious prune juice, turning his bowels to water. No wonder the mysterious Golf-father was advising everyone to go liquid!

An eventful hour followed. A ten o'clock he telephoned the firm of lawyers he had chosen from Sigmund's list. 'Is that Schwartz or Hinterman?'

'No, this is Schultz.'

'Alexander of Bun-glof Corporation speaking. I had an appointment with Schwartz to discuss a contract.'

Schwartz died from a myocardial infarction in l908. Hinterman ditto in l910. You want Jensen.'

By the time Jensen had come to the telephone he had been obliged to escape once again to the bathroom. He cursed Schwartz and Hinterman long since gone to their reward, and Schultz and Jensen and all attorneys, and included a general malediction on New Yorkers for their capricious fashions in drinks, their mechanised beds and their obsession with high-speed wheeling and dealing. He excepted Ingrid, as a heart-warming recollection came back to him of their love-making the previous night.

At twelve o'clock he telephoned the firm of lawyers again to tell them that he was unable to venture forth to keep his appointments. The hotel doctor called, prescribed a white powdery liquid and left cheerfully, with a bag in one hand and two-hundred dollars in the other. Waiting the next call to arms, Jim lay on his bed and listened to the radio.

Alistair Cooke was saying: 'One day a historian will make it his business to write about the profound effects that apples have on human beings. The very first bite in the Garden of Eden produced interesting enough consequences. When Newton observed the fall of an apple an entirely new concept of gravity came into being. Recently, a young English actor was eating an apple, when a similar flash of inspiration came to him, causing him to turn that prosaic object, an umbrella, upside down and into a golf club. Ever since the highways and byways of Europe have been filled by a populace engaged in playing gamp golf with lunatic intensity. This same young man is presently in America and he is about to launch the new game on an unsuspecting public...'

Jimswitched off the talk as the broadcaster began speculating on the effect the new game would have on American society. Still, it was encouraging to knowthat even before a single Brolly-golly kit had been manufactured the new game had become a talking point. Soon, however, another bout of intense peristalstic activity commanded his total attention.

At twelve-forty Sigmund was asking abrasively on the telephone if Jim had signed the contract. He explained his predicament.

'Well, that's most unfortunate, Mr. Alexander. There are thirty-five assembly lines waiting to start rolling. It's time to start talking about penalty clauses.'

'Mr. Sigmund,' Jim replied weakly. 'I'm tied by invisible strings to the lavatory seat at the moment- a devastating attack of diarrhoea. But if you'd like to send a messenger around, I'll sign.'

It seemed straightforward enough. His company would receive nine-per-cent royalties at the prevailing dollar-sterling rate of exchange as long as the original international patents remained unchallenged. The system of auditing total receipts accruing to American Games Corporation from sales of Brolly-golly was somewhat complicated, but included an arrangement for arbitration agreement in the event of dispute over the figures. He signed, returned three copies to the messenger and filed three in his brief-case to take back to London.

The medicine seemed to be easing his condition, but he obeyed the doctor's instructions and remained in his bedroom reading a selection of newspapers.

Le Bun-glof, he noted, had been banned during working hours in the yards of the Renault factory in France. This had resulted in a mass walk out. A set-piece battle had taken place in Tokyo between rioters armed with Bun-glof umbrellas and police equipped with batons. The game had been banned in Northern Ireland after a handgrenade had been lobbed into an army post in Crosmaglen by someone using a Bun-glof umbrella. South Africa had banned the game in some areas where Whites had been seen playing with Blacks- it had not yet been officially promulgated as an official sport.

It was a pity, Jim thought, that his game had caused such problems- nevertheless, he was gratified by the publicity it was receiving.

By four o'clock he was feeling much better. He telephoned Ingrid, she suggested a quiet evening in her apartment.

'Great,' he said enthusiastically. 'But no more Grind Number Twos- that stuff gives me the runs. I'll stick to whiskey and soda from now on.'

'Yes, Jim, that'll be no problem.' He thought he heard a faint laugh at the other end of the telephone. Ingrid was saying: 'I'm sorry about the bed collapsing. I've had it fixed. My chauffeur will call for you at eight o'clock.'

*

There followed an idyllic few days. They saw several Broadway shows and played backgammon, a game at which Ingrid excelled. In between games, most of which she won easily, she introduced him to fascinating variations in love-making, describing them humorously as backgammon, sidegammon and frontgammon. The bed's astonishing roller-coaster capabilities had by now been restored by a team of electricians and carpenters.

On their last night together, when Ingrid revealed the history of the bed, it became clear to Jim that- quite literally- complex difficulties lay ahead in his courtship of the vice president of American Games Corporation.

TWELVE

Before leaving on his business trip to Moscow, Jim purchased from Tiffany's a three-carat diamond solitaire that burned with an unearthly fierce white light. He was somewhat crestfallen when Ingrid, after kissing him warmly and praising its lustre, said musingly, 'I just don't know when exactly I shall be able to marry you, Jim.'

'What's the problem?'

Ingrid sat down on one of the Louis Quinze armchairs, took a highball from the side-table and said, frowning: 'Don't misunderstand me. I do love you, Jimmy. I adore the way you speak and you make it so nicely in bed.'

Jim would have preferred a more resounding compliment.

She went on: 'My contract with American Games has a clause which says I have to get permission before I can marry.'

'From whom?'

'From the Golf-father.

She nodded so vigorously that she spilled drink down the front of her negligée, making it translucent. The sight filled Jim with a longing, but he turned his head away, remembering that she couldn't enjoy making love while Wall Street was open.

He said huffily: 'That's unreasonable.'

Ingrid said quietly: 'Reason doesn't come into it. But while we're on the subject I have to tell you that I owe a lot to the Golf-father.'

'You can still continue working for him.'

'You don't understand.'

Ingrid gazed at him steadily- or as steadily as the five large highballs she had consumed on an empty stomach would allow. Her repeated visits to the drinks cupboard told Jim that she was under emotional strain. 'When I said I owe a lot to the Golf-father, that was the understatement of all time. In fact I owe everything to him.'

'O.K.,' Jim said patiently. 'Tell me all about it.'

Ingrid hesitated, then said : 'I'm not one of these Ivy League girls. I was born the wrong side of the tracks and I've come up the hard way. When I was sixteen I used to jump naked out of birthday cakes at parties at annual golf club celebrations. Afterwards, I bathed in champagne while they pelted me with bread rolls. I used to get a hundred dollars, a free meal and lots of indecent proposals...'

Remembering, she gave a little grimace of distaste.

'Sometimes,' she continued, 'there would be blackjack and roulette afterwards and since I've always had a good head for figures, I used to advise the boys on the odds. The Golf-father heard me one day and he was really impressed. He took me into his office in Dallas and set me to work stock market charting. Then I was promoted to managing one of his factories and I quadrupled the turnover and sextupled the profit in three years. It took me just five years from then to become his vice president.'

Ingrid paused, to study the effect she was having on Jim.

He said, earnestly: 'Darling, it doesn't worry me what you've done before. I'm proud that you've managed to succeed against such odds. As a matter of fact, I came up the hard way as well.'

He was about to confess that he had once distributed stink bombs, but refrained because it sounded considerably worse than jumping nude out of a birthday cake. Instead, he said: 'I still don't see why the Golf-father should want to stop you marrying.'

Two tiny wrinkles appeared on Ingrid's flawless brow.

'Do I have to spell it out?'

'Are you trying to tell me that you have a relationship with the Golf-father? I got the impression that he's a very old man.'

'That doesn't stop him from having emotions.'

'Maybe. But youth must come first. He'll soon get over it.'

'Jim!' There was a poignant ring in Ingrid's voice. He walked over and put his arm round her comfortingly.

In a resonant voice he said: 'O.K., darling. Don't let it upset you. Spell it all out. We'll solve this problem between us.'

'The truth, Jim- I have to tell you- is that I'm bound to him by unbreakable bonds. My shrink has been treating me for it.'

'What the hell are you talking about?'

I suffer from a hyper-Electra complex.'

Dread seized Jim. He hadn't the faintest idea what she was talking about, but it seemed to cast an ominous cloud over their relationship.

'Would you care to explain?'

Ingrid said sadly; 'My shrink has tried psycho-analysis, transactional analysis, hypno-therapy, group therapy, grope therapy- none of them have worked. I even tried religion and that only made matters worse.'

'What are the symptoms?' Jim asked impatiently.

'I tried to tell you... Haven't you noticed? Charlie- the stuffed giant panda- the mechanised bed- they're all part of it.'

'Part of what?'

'My great-grandfather complex.'

'Sounds crazy to me,' Jim said wearily. 'Still, at least there is one consolation. The Golf-father can't live for ever. And when he dies, you'll be mine- all mine.'

Ingrid gave a sigh and pointed towards the giant panda guarding her bedroom. 'Go on over there and press that goddam button on Charlie's midriff.'

Jim walked over to the portly black and white bear. Its soft brown eyes stared at him reproachfully, as his fingers wandered among the clusters of wool and eventually found the button in its navel. He pressed the switch. The woolly head wagged, the eyes rotated realistically in their sockets and a gravelly tape-recorded voice inside said: 'My little Texas Rose, this is Charlie speaking. Think of me whenever you hug this woolly body and regard it as me. I look forward to that special day soon when you will become mine in the flesh as well as in the spirit. I love you, Texas Rose. Sweet dreams, darling.'

'What special day is he talking about?' Jim enquired acidly.

'Thanksgiving Day. He comes up to New York once a year. That's why he ordered that special bed. It sort of...helps him along. Well, he is a very old man.'

'Then why did you switch the damned thing on when I was in bed with you? I don't need any mechanical assistance.'

'No, darling, of course not, 'Ingrid said placatingly. 'But my other psychiatrist- the behaviourist one- says thatswitching it on has become a conditioned reflex. He is trying to cure me of it. If it means so much to you I'll try not to switch it on next time.'

She approached Jim and hugged him. Then glancing at her wrist-watch, she whispered seductively: 'Wall Street closes in fifteen minutes.'

He shook himself free and began to pace the room agitatedly.

'Look, Ingrid, this is absurd. Whatever about this damned grandfather complex, if you love me you'll just have to cut loose from him and marry me. I guarantee everything will turn out all right.'

'It's not a grand-father complex; it's a great-grandfather complex,' Ingrid corrected him, reproachfully. 'grandfather complexes are much easier to cure.'

She gave a shiver and pulled her negligée round her. 'And there's something else- perhaps more important than anything I have said so far- nobody has yet crossed the Golf-father and lived to tell the tale.'

'Come with me to England. He won't be able to touch us over there.'

Ingrid gave a cynical laugh.

'The Golf-father's influence extends everywhere that golf is played. That's practically everywhere.'

'What could he do to us?'

'Just for starters he has only to lift up the phone for you to be blackballed by every golf club in the world.'

'That doesn't scare me. I wouldn't want to belong to the kind of golf club that would do his bidding.'

'That is only one tiny example of the enormous power he wields.' Ingrid said, grimly. She switched off the giant panda, which was still mouthing inarticulately and wagging its head from side to side. Turning her back on it, she said with sudden excitement: 'I've just thought of something. If you would do a favour for Charlie, it might soften him up- perhaps even persuade him to let us get married.'

'What do you have in mind?'

'Charlie telephoned last night and said he has some special blue prints he wants delivered to the Russian Minister for Culture and Sport. It's part of a very big deal he's negotiating with the USSR. If you could act as a representative for him as well as for your own company, it might help to soften him up.'

'If you think it will help, I'll do it.'

'Wonderful,' she breathed and then pointed to the time on her wristwatch.

The stock exchange had just closed.

Jim laid Ingrid tenderly on the vast expanse of the four-poster bed. But later, as her hand automatically reached for the switch that set the bed in motion, he pulled it away and growled: 'Instead of sharing a bed with you next Thanksgiving, the Golf-father can celebrate in the same as every other patriotic American- he can eat turkey.'

THIRTEEN

A smiling young interpreter wearing a blue serge suit and a red tie met Jim at Sheremetievo airport. Waving his official pass like an all-conquering ray-gun, he reduced formalities to a minimum. Soon, a sturdy black limousine was sweeping them through broad highways lined with squat, uniformly-fronted apartment blocks.

Anatole Kuibeshev had learnt a mixed ragbag of American and English idioms. Indicating some concrete emplacements, he said : 'That's where we stopped the goddam Nazi tanks during the war. Stalin was a sonofabitch, but like your Mr. Churchill a damned good war-time leader. Mustn't talk politics, though, because you're a sporting type. Didn't the USSR do well in the Olympics! I used to play centre-half for my polytechnic. You'll be seeing the Under-Secretary for Sports and Culture tomorrow. Don't you think sport unites the world?'

Jim answered his garrulous companion absently. He was thinking about his mission. Naturally, he must give priority to his own business interests, but true to his promise would deliver the documents he was carrying on behalf of the Golf-father. Ingrid had promised to tell him about their contents but had forgotten to do so. He had the impression that in spite of what she had said when she asked him to perform this task, she had no great confidence that it would soften the Golf-father's opposition to their marriage.

He glanced down at the cardboard cylinder by his side, which contained a demonstration Bun-glof pack consisting of an umbrella, a pack of googly balls and the rules of the game translated into Russian. The Golf-father's documents were in a sealed envelope wrapped around the umbrella. A letter in his pocket stated that they were being carried with the knowledge and approval of the American State Department.

The interpreter was smoking a black cigarette. To dispel the fumes Jim opened the car window and a warm breeze entered, ruffling his hair. He imagined that he could feel invisible bonds of love streaming towards him across the endless Russian plains from his lovely golden-haired girl. She had probably flown to Dallas to tell the Golf-father about their plans. Trying to suppress a stab of jealousy, he turned his mind towards the forthcoming sales campaign. The Russian Import/Export agency had written saying that, while his proposed new game would be eminently suitable for conditions in their Baltic and BlackSearesorts, they thought it inappropriate to have googly balls bouncing around their major industrial cities. They probably objected to the idea of the common working man being able to challenge a commissar to a comradely 'stretch' of Bun-glof. He would have to engage in some convincing Marxist dialectic to persuade them that their decision was inconsistent with the new spirit of glasnost.

'Moscow university.'

Kuibeshev was pointing towards a cluster of wedding-cake towers spread against an azure sky. 'And that's the Moscow river. Many fish now it has been depolluted.' They had drawn up besides an elevated structure that dwarfed the surrounding apartment buildings. 'Here we are, Mr. Alexander- this is your hotel. I shall be staying here with you. We call it Soyez hotel and I guarantee it is more comfortable than one of the space ships after which it has been named.'

Kuibeshev led Jim through the lobby, pushed his way through a cosmopolitan throng and argued volubly at the desk until he had succeeded in obtaining room cards. Meanwhile, clutching his suitcase and cardboard cylinder, Jim stood watching with some fascination the miscellany of races shuffling through the foyer. He identified a Bulgarian airline crew, a party of shrewd-looking Hungarian business executives, a troupe of frail, inscrutable Vietnamese and a group of five Chinese girls wearing drab army-style uniforms.

Kuibeshev reappeared, wearing a triumphant smile, and led Jim to the elevator and up to the fourth floor, where a stout babushka sat in the corridor at a strategically-placed desk. She exchanged the room card for a key. Kuibeshev left Jim, saying: 'If you go out, leave the key with the fat dame. I shall be in room 211.'

Tired from his long journey, Jim lay on his bed in the small, soberly-decorated room and was soon fast asleep. He was awakened by the telephone. Kuibeshev said: 'Mr. Alexander, I'm sorry to disturb you, but the Minister has said he will see you at three o'clock this afternoon. I shall have a limo waiting for you.'

He took a rapid shower, handed the massive room-key to the grey-haired, apple-cheeked lady at the desk and clutching his cardboard cylinder, took the elevator to the ground floor. Kuibeshev led him outside to a waiting car and whispered: 'I guess you do big deal with Minister. Sorry, I'm not allowed in there- they have their own interpreters. Perhaps one day I shall become class-one interpreter. Plenty good perks.' He winked as Jim entered the car.

Ten minutes later, after passing the gigantic red stars on top of the frowning Kremlin walls. Jim's car drew up outside a nondescript five-storey building with peeling stucco walls. Two slant-eyed soldiers with fixed, highly-polished bayonets watched stolidly as Jim left the car, walked up a flight of stone steps and entered a foyer carpeted in a byzantine motif. He was greeted by a gracious, middle-aged lady with dyed-red hair, who accompanied him to the minister's office. 'I am Madame Svetseva,' she announced in perfect English. 'The minister will see you straight away. It was good of you to come at such short notice.'

She led him through a labyrinth of corridors, knocked on a massive, intricately-carved cream-coloured door and motioned Jim to enter. Krulenko, the Minister for Sports and Culture, was studying some papers at a marble-topped desk. Behind him was a large triptych of Marx, Lenin and Engels. One wall was lined with pictures of famous Russian sportsmen and sportswomen, the other with pictures of composers, poets, painters and novelists. On a plinth in one corner stood a sombre bust of Lenin which badly needed dusting. Jim advanced across a threadbare oriental carpet, to be greeted with a traditional hug and kiss on both cheeks accompanied by a strong smell of shaving lotion and garlic.

Krulenko, a burly, jovial man with close-cropped white hair and shrewd twinkling eyes, gave vent to a hurricane of Russian, swiftly translated by Madame Svetseva, who had taken up station alongside him.

'The minister says warmest greetings from the Soviet Union. He hopes your stay here will be enjoyable. Will you please sit down.'

Jim sat down obediently. Krulenko, with a sly glance at his interpreter, spoke a few words.

'The minister says it looks as though we may soon have a little rain.'

Jim smiled his understanding. It appeared that the old fellow had a sense of humour.

He drew out the furled Bun-glof umbrella with the number seven-iron handle and showed it proudly to Krulenko, who regarded it blankly. Taking one of the googly balls from its polythene container, he demonstrated with a gentle swing. The ball flew against the bust of Lenin, which crashed from its pedestal onto the carpet with a resounding thud. Jim replaced the revered head onto its perch, apologising profusely. He added: 'Of course, this is an outdoors game. As you are aware it has achieved astonishing popularity in Europe and we are about to launch- '

He was interrupted by a flood of Russian and an expressive flourish of arms.

'Mr. Alexander, the minister has a profound regard for your new game- his under-secretary will examine it tomorrow. In the meantime he understands that you have a message for him.'

Jim drew out of the cardboard cylinder the long brown envelope that Ingrid had packed around the umbrella and handed it to the minister. Frowning, Krulenko slit open the envelope with an ivory paper knife and drew out a sheaf of blue prints. Jim watched curiously as he spread them out on the marble-top of his desk. After studying them intently for a few minutes, the minister murmured a few words to Madame Svetseva, who enquired softly: 'The minister wishes to know what is a bird'

A bird? Jim was mystified- surely they had birds in the Soviet Union. Unless perhaps they had all been sent into exile. Sad visions of millions of birds, huddled in cages, being despatched to the snowy wastes of Siberia came to his mind. The minister's face meanwhile wore an expression of eager curiosity- or was it prurience? Perhaps 'bird' in Russian carried the same connotation, as in Britain, of a nubile young woman. Anxious to avoid a gaffe, he glanced again at the blue prints spread out on the desk-top. Suddenly, he realised that Krulenko was studying an architect's diagram of a golf course.

'"A birdie", if you will please inform the minister, is when a hole is accomplished in one stroke less than par.'

After a rapid exchange in Russian, Jim found himself explaining the simple elements of golf. A "par" he told the minister is the standard number of strokes in which a competent golfer is expected to complete a hole.

'Da, da.' The minister was rapidly nodding comprehension.

'And an eagle?' he demanded.

'Two strokes less than par.'

'Difficult?'

'Yes', Jim replied.'And as rare as capitalists in the Soviet Union.'

His expectations that this comment would please Krulenko were disappointed. An anxious expression crossed the minister's face and he spoke earnestly to his interpreter for several minutes. Madame Svetseva, her face exactly mirroring Krulenko's concern, expressed his thoughts, while he absently fingered the blue prints.

'Our Minister for Sports and Culture wishes to emphasize that a discreet silence is necessary while we assess the possible introduction of golf into the Soviet Union. Our leader, Michael Gorbachov, is still meeting opposition to his reforms in some quarters, and it is believed that his critics are being aided by the Chinese, who are calling into question our devotion to pure socialist doctrine. Golf requires a considerable allocation of land, labour and resources. In consequence there will never be a sufficiency for all those who wish to take up the game. The Chinese say cynically that there will never be enough grass roots for the grass roots.

'Here we come to a parting of the ways with China. Their philosophy is that should there be only one lamb in China they would give each mouth one atom, leaving its owner as hungry as he was before. We in the Soviet Union, on the other hand, take the view that we should feed it to those talented technocrats whose efforts would make it possible to breed enough lambs for everybody.

'So it is with golf. We have provisionally allocated resources sufficient for the building of seventy golf courses in the vicinity of our major cities. Here, our party members will learn to become proficient at the game and will be able to mix with businessmen in the West on equal terms. There is a saying in the West that more business is done on the golf course than in the board room. We intend in future to have our share of that business.

'There is also another wise old Russian maxim which says that rain falls first on top of the mountain. In other words, those at the top must have the good things first and the rest will have them later. This is nature's law. Unfortunately, the Chinese will encourage the opponents of perestroika to make malicious propaganda concerning these new golf courses and so for the time being we wish to maintain a prudent silence about their construction.'

'Not a word will pass my lips,' Jim said, proud to be the confidant of such high state secrets.

A thought struck him. 'Surely, 'he said, 'the Chinese could easily spot the new golf courses from the air.'

Krulenko grinned and said something to his interpreter.

'The minister congratulates you on your perspicacity. However, it is our intention to camouflage the golf courses, until we think the correct time has come to officially break the news that the Russians have taken up golf.'

'How on earth will you be able to camouflage them? Golf courses are pretty conspicuous.'

'It is simple,' Krulenko said with a smile through his interpreter. 'We shall camouflage them so that they resemble missile sites.'

'How extraordinarily clever,' Jim murmured in admiration. 'Tell the minister that my lips will remain sealed.'

Krulenko stood up and nodded, to indicate that the meeting was over. Jim replaced the umbrella and the googly ball that had desecrated Lenin's bust into the cardboard container and shook the minister's hand. As he left Krulenko was already absorbed in studying the Golf-father's blue prints.

Madame Svetseva led Jim to the front of the building, where his official car was waiting to convey him to the Soyez hotel. The slight irritation he had experienced because his own business had been downgraded to below ministerial level was now replaced by satisfaction at having been admitted to a confidential discussion about Sino-Russian relationships. Back in his hotel bedroom he soon fell asleep.

He awoke refreshed after about an hour and seeing through his window the red and green onion domes of St. Basil's church, decided on a quick sight-seeing tour. He telephoned Anatole and arranged to meet him in the restaurant downstairs. Western tunes were issuing from a five-piece band and a few couples were dancing on the polished wood area between the tables. An attractive Chinese girl dancing with a heavily-moustached Bulgarian Airlines captain lowered her eyelids demurely as he passed by on his way to join Kuibeshev at his table.

'Mission successful?' he asked Jim as he sat down.

'Yes, everything was Ok,' Jim said guardedly.

'What kind of sport are you in?'

Jim briefly described his game of Bun-glof.

'Do Americans play it?'

'It has just been introduced over there.'

'We love everything American,' Anatole said a little wistfully. Everything, that is, except the capitalist system.'

Delicious borsht soup was followed by mutton and rice. There were bottles of black currant cordial on the table. Having sought reassurance concerning their laxative qualities, Jim drank several glasses.

'Vodka?' Kuibeshev suggested.

'Just a glass,' Jim agreed.

'To the success of Bun-glof in the Soviet Union,' Kuibeshev proposed.

Jim tossed down an innocent measure of the clear liquid and soothed the resultant fire in his throat with a swig of mineral water.

'To Great Britain,' Kuibeshev suggested.

This time the vodka motored down his throat more smoothly.

'To the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,' Jim proposed agreeably.

'To friendship between the peoples of the communist bloc and the peoples of the capitalist bloc,' Kuibshev suggested aggressively, filling both glasses until they were overflowing.

'To friendship!' Jim conveniently condensed the toast.

'To Margaret Thatcher and all lovely ladies.' Kuibeshev gave a salacious wink.

'To your noble Minister of Sports and Culture, Krulenko.'

'He's a Ukranian separatist,' Kuibshev whispered with a slight hiccup, 'but we'll toast him just the same.'

'To Abraham Lincoln,' Jim said, amazed at the clarity of his political insight, 'He knew how to deal with separatists.' He felt indebted to Abe Lincoln but could not remember exactly why.

He cast his eyes upon the diners and dancers. They had lost their Eastern European characteristics and now merged into a general pattern of people enjoying themselves.

'To the Chinese Peoples' Republic,' Jim suggested, as he spotted the Chinese girl on the dance floor.

Kuibeshev cupped his hand over his glass, meaningfully.

'Why not?' Jim queried.

'They've got their dialectics into a twist again,' Kuibeshev said with thick vehemence.

'O.K. We'll drink to Lenin instead,' Jim said. 'I recently knocked him off his perch.' He giggled reminiscently. 'Look, Anatole, old chap, I'm leaving Moscow after I've seen the Under Secretary tomorrow. I'd like to do a quick tour of the sights before it gets too dark.'

'Sure buddy, Let's hit the town.'

He followed Anatole's unsteady progress as he made his way through ribbons of pungent cigarette smoke and a hubbub of many languages. Kuibeshev said drunkenly when they reached the reception area: 'You got plenty of roubles?'

'Plenty,' Jim answered, looking round at a Chinese girl who had just emerged from the restaurant. He caught a glimpse of shapely thigh in her slit sheath dress as she passed by.

Kuibeshev spoke haughtily to the desk clerk, telling him that Jim was the personal guest of a minister. The desk clerk dived for a telephone. Ninety seconds later, Kuibeshev was issuing instructions to the driver of a white Moscva taxi. As Jim observed the building gilded by evening sunlight gliding by, Kuibeshev said: 'I know where there is damned good party tonight. You bring bottle of vodka, but you have to sing a song before you can leave.'

'Where do we get vodka?'

'Leave that to Anatole. First some sightseeing. then some celebration.'

In Red Square after showing Jim Lenin's tomb, Kuibeshev said irreverently: 'There's the Kremlin wall over there where they bury Soviet leaders but never soon enough. Come on, we're wasting valuable drinking time.

He rushed Jim back to the taxi, eager to get the sightseeing over, showed him the musty archway which had witnessed the passage of Napoleon's carriage in 1812, pointed to the Palace of Congresses, which he assured Jim at that very moment contained six thousand ballet-crazy idiots and said: 'Now let's go to the party.'

Jim, however, insisted on being shown the inside of the Palace of Congresses, a vast elegant structure of glass and concrete. Anatole explained to the doorman that Jim was a distinguished visitor and they were admitted. Thousands of people were taking refreshment during the interval. They seemed dwarfed by the breathtaking scale of the building. Suddenly, he realised that he had lost Kuibeshev in the dense crowd. He felt a twinge of alarm, which was soon dispelled when a girl's voice said: 'Your fliend been taken a little sick. He go home. I think too much vodka. He ask me if I take you back to hotel by taxi.'

It was the Chinese girl he had seen earlier in the Soyez hotel.

'That's very kind of you. Are you sure he's all right?'

'Yes,' she beamed at him. 'Quite all light. Come with me.'

He followed her out of the building and enquired: 'Didn't I see you earlier on in the hotel?'

'That's light. I take sightseeing tour as well. Moscow lovely in summer weather.

What an enchanting girl,' Jim thought, immensely relieved to find someone who could speak English. 'What part of China are you from?' he enquired, as they passed through the dark recesses of the Kremlin gate.

'Peking,' she answered. 'I come on business for the Chinese People's Democratic Republic.'

He imagined he felt a slight prick in his right arm. Suddenly, a cloud of darkness descended. There was a rush of helping oriental faces and he remembered no more.

FOURTEEN

Strong stuff Russian vodka, Jim thought. He was on a strange bed in a dimly-lit alcove forming part of a much larger room. Kuibeshev had proposed that they should go to a party, but try as he might he could not remember any details. Nor could he remember singing the song that was to earn him the right to leave. Then he noticed, as full consciousness returned, a figure in the shadows watching him impassively from just beyond the foot of the bed. The face resembled a bloated brown paper bag, the dark-button eyes hinted at sad secrets. She addressed him in sing-song tones: 'Are you feeling better now, Mr. Alexander? I think you must have had a wittle accident.'

'Wittle accident!' he replied, mimicking her. 'I think some sick lunatic stuck a hypodermic needle in my arm. Where the hell am I?'

He tried to rise from his mattress, but found himself restrained by thongs that secured his limbs to the iron bedposts.

'Pliss not to stwuggle, sir. You only hurt yourself,' the woman said solicitously. 'We just wequire tiny wittle piss of information and we take you back to Soyez hotel.'

'What information?'

Jim wrestled with his bonds, then lay back once more, exhausted. His captor studied a cheap digital wrist-watch and said: 'Time is eleven-thirty. If you cooperwate you be back in hotel by half-past midnight.'

Well, at least, he thought, I'm still in Russia. The whine of a distant jet confirmed that he was not too far from the airports that encircle Moscow. He guessed he was in a country dacha. He looked around. The spacious room had a high corniced ceiling, the walls were painted a dirty grey. A single bare bulb hung from the ceiling. The only furniture was the bed on which he was lying.

'I am a British businessman. My government will take a serious view of this.'

'Blitish government not find out,' the woman said, smiling complacently. 'We fly back to Peking in four hours. They think you dlunk on too much vodka.'

'All right. I'll level with you. I'm not a secret agent, if that's what you think. I'm here on business to sell a new game to the Russians.'

The woman took a small note-book and a pencil from the top pocket of her tunic and eyed him severely. 'We are informed that you bling documents from pwominent American businessman to Wussian government. Tell us what these documents contain and you go back flee and unharmed to your hotel.'

'I had an interview with the Minister of Sports and Culture about my new game, Bun-glof.'

The brown paper bag exposed two rows of jagged teeth in a ghastly smile. 'We hear all about Bun-glof. But you have other information that is important for the Chinese People's Democratic Republic.'

Jim tugged at his bonds, as he tried to compose his thoughts. Why not tell her all about the new golf courses? What concern was it of his if China used that information to encourage opposition in Russia to economic reforms? But other possible consequences occurred to him. His breach of faith might cause him the loss of the entire Soviet market; and it would certainly upset Ingrid if he ratted on the Golf-father while she was desperately trying to break free from his embargo on her marriage.

'I have absolutely no other information that could possibly interest you,' he said firmly.

'Pliss!'

The plump crone came and bent over his recumbent form. An odour of stale sweat emanated from her coarsely-woven tunic. She said: 'Before I use powers of persuasion I explain why it is necessary for China to have this information. American imperialist mafia has treacherously joined forces with Mafia inside U.S.S.R., in order to plot against China. That is why you must pliss to tell us.'

'Oh, go to hell,' Jim said wearily.

She let loose a sharp exclamation in Chinese and the young girl who had approached him in the Palace of Congresses appeared. She gave him a disdainful look and unzipped her cheongsam at the back.

Madame Brown Paper Bag now said resignedly: 'Shanghai Blossom has ability to make you talk.' The girl was wriggling out of her dress as she spoke.

Jim gave a bellow of nervous laughter. 'We British are impervious to torture!'

'And, Madame continued remorselessly, 'when she has finished with you there is also Sho So, Ming Fu and Chin Wau.

Jim could see three other girls hovering in the shadows at the far end of the room. They were the girls he had seen earlier wearing army uniform in the Soyez hotel. But they had now changed into close-fitting dresses similar to the one Shanghai Blossom had just discarded. She was approaching the bed, an expression of ravening lust on her face, her naked body performing shameless undulations in front of his eyes. He said contemptuously; 'I shall never talk.'

Shanghai Blossom languorously entwined her body around him, pressing her tiny breasts against his chest. He gave a careless laugh and said: 'When we British bulldogs make up our minds we are absolutely IMMOVABLE.'

The last word was uttered in a scream. His Chinese lady inquisitor had inserted an acupuncture needle somewhere in the region of his right shoulder. The effect was instantaneous: he rose like a beanpole and was promptly impaled by the twisting, writhing nude girl. She was smiling at him sweetly. He noted even in his extremity that she had large dark eyes, full red lips with perfect teeth and jet black shiny hair. Remembering an ancient Confucian saying, he accepted the inevitable with good grace and, finally, although he hated to admit it, some little pleasure.

The girl bounced off the bed like an acrobat and her place was promptly taken by Sho So, a plump girl with short hair and a beaming peasant countenance. Jim set his teeth in sturdy resistance to the unspeakable new indignity forced on him. This time he felt his malevolent torturer insert another acupuncture needle just above his right hip. He found himself writhing and jerking involuntarily, in which vigorous exercise he was enthusiastically joined by Sho So, who gave vent to little cries of ecstatic pleasure, as she responded to muttered instructions from the fustian-clad dragon by his side. Jim tried to escape his punishment by engaging in an arithmetic problem. He guessed the weight of the girl's round bosoms, turned pounds into kilograms and estimated the cost in dollars at two cents a gramme, converting the net result into roubles at the current black market rate of exchange.

It was useless: his resistance faded under the grinding, remorseless pressure and a whole galaxy of Chinese lanterns blindingly filled his mind.

'Will you tell us now, pliss.'

The girl had left him, wiping herself carelessly with a towel. The dread face of his tormentor hovered over him like a Halloween mask. He thought he detected a faint look of admiration for his sturdy resistance. Perspiration was pouring from his brow. He shuddered and, unable to speak, gave a determined shake of his head.

'O.K. So. Chinese Republic does not like inflict unnecessary suffering, but always the ends justify means. Now Ming Fu perform duty for the Fatherland.'

Ming Fu was a skinny lass with floppy breasts and skimpy pubic hair. She was well brought up, judging by the ceremonious bow she made before clambering on top of him. Sinuously weaving, gently at first and then with alarming speed, she accompanied her movements with little muttered exclamations and showed solicitude for his plight by wiping his brow with the sheet in the middle of her contortions. It made the slow death almost bearable. Brown Paper Bag, busy with her acupuncture needles, seemed indifferent to this act of mercy.

'Now you speak. Yes?'

'No!'

He had spotted Chin Wau. She was a gorgeous girl with high cheek bones, abundantly flowing, glossy black hair, and an air of absent-minded sensuousness. Weak as he was, he felt he must show his mettle and endure one last assault on his person before yielding up any secret information. The acupuncture needles were performing their dastardly work. The girl sprawled along side him for a moment, gently moulding herself to his shape and filling the atmosphere with an ineffable perfume that rendered the acupuncture needles superfluous. She cradled his head in her delicate hands, placed her cheek against his and whispered softly in English: 'Tell the old hag that it's missiles.'

Then she rose up, straddling him with her beautiful body and smiled beguilingly, as if to say: 'This won't hurt you.'

The unexpected gesture of love and concern injected him with fresh courage. Though her lovely face remained inscrutable as she commenced her inexorable rocking motion, he detected in her limpid slant eyes an expression of sympathy that enabled him to accept what followed without qualm. For an eternity they swayed together like a perfectly-formed piece of machinery, while the tricoteuse manipulated her deadly needles, mumbling and grumbling in Chinese. It was Chin Wau who broke first under the punishment. He watched her beautiful features dissolve helplessly. She gave a series of hoarse cries and he felt a thousand splinters of pleasure as she fell twitching beside him.

The old woman helped Chin Wau off the bed. The girl momentarily flexed her shoulder blades and then fled swaying from the room. Meanwhile, the message she had hissed at him was working its way into his dazed brain...The ancient dragon started to unbutton her tunic, a Satanic determination distorting her obese features.

'I'll tell all,' he whispered.

She seemed at first reluctant to listen to his confession, and continued to fumble with her buttons. Then she drew out the note-book and pencil from her top pocket and said; 'O.K., tell me all about the documents you delivered to Krulenko.'

'I came to the USSR to sell the Russians my new game. But I did catch a glimpse of the papers I brought with me. They looked like the layout and descriptions of a large number of missile sites.'

'That is good,' the old woman said with evident satisfaction. This proves what we suspected all along that there is collusion between the Pentagon and the Kremlin. Why you not say so before. It save us much trouble.'

Jim tried to gesture, but was prevented from doing so by his bound hands.

She continued: 'We desire Americans to know we are aware of this tweachery. But you must not discuss this with anybody until we are back in Peking.'

She fumbled in her pocket. He saw the ugly syringe and felt a sharp punch in his thigh as she stabbed him unfeelingly. He remembered no more until he found himself staggering drunkenly up the steps of the Soyez hotel. He pushed through the revolving doors and saw Anatole Kuibeshev, his necktie awry, huddled against the reception desk. nervously smoking a cigarette.

A look of immense relief crossed his face when he saw Jim.

'Say, man, where the hell have you been. I thought I'd never see you again. It's bad news losing a client. Hearing the sound in my ears of the Siberian snow goose, I went to a party and sank a whole bottle of vodka.'

'I've been bouncing around the world like a googly ball. I'm whacked, Max. Honest.'

Jim rested his shoes on Benson's desk. Out of concern for its highly-polished surface Benson gently inserted a copy of the Financial Times under his heels.

Jim continued; 'I'm off to New York this afternoon. Then I'm flying to Dallas to meet the Golf-father.'

'You certainly look bushed,' Max said sympathetically. 'But we have to keep up the pressure. As soon as the cash starts flowing in from our American royalties we'll go public and our fortunes will be made. How did you get on in Moscow?'

'They won't commit themselves until they've seen the first three month's sales figures from America. The Under-Secretary- quite an amusing guy- quoted what he said was an old Russian saying: 'What's good for American Games is good for the USSR.'

Benson thoughtfully tapped his fingers on the desk.

'I'm sure it makes sense from their point of view- they're a cautious lot. I see the Yanks beat you down to nine per cent- I'd hoped for ten, but we'll make it up on turnover. It's a very promising sign that you've been invited to Dallas. Shows the Golf-father is taking a personal interest in the game. However, by all accounts he's a crafty old guy. You should remember that other old saying which says you should use a long spoon when you sup with the devil.'

Jim had left Moscow immediately after his interview with the Under Secretary for Sports and Culture. Max Benson's words now came to him through a haze of fatigue. He was reluctant at this stage to discuss with Benson his love affair with Ingrid, still less the embarrassing intrusion of Sino-Russian politics into his mission. The fiendish method the Chinese had used in their attempt to extract information from him virtually guaranteed his silence. He would be laughed to scorn if he complained of being sexually assaulted by four Chinese maidens.

'You've heard of the Golf-father, then?' he said to Benson.

'Sure. He's a legend in the American business world. Owns ninety per cent of the whole sporting and leisure industry- a good part of it through nominees. He's been practically a recluse for the last twenty years. That's quite an invitation you've got yourself.'

'It certainly is. Well, Max, I'm off. Miss Peacook has booked me on Concorde.'

His head cleared a little during the trans-Atlantic flight. He guessed that Ingrid Harman was one of the nominees that Benson had mentioned. But he would allow nothing to stand in the way of his marriage to his Golden Girl of Big Business. Even stripped of all her possessions she would remain the most desirable of prizes. As for his 'infidelity' with the Chinese girls, he consoled himself with the thought that he had been an innocent victim of force majeure- brought about by superpower politics.

As his taxi passed through Times Square Jim was cheered by a huge neon sign outlining a bowler-hatted golfer swinging an umbrella. After each action purple lights spelled out the message: "BROLLY-GOLLY PAYS OFF."

'Do you play Brolly-golly?' Jim asked the cab driver as they drew up outside his hotel.

'Sure. It's a sonofabitch game,' the driver growled. 'I lost thirty bucks playing it this morning.'

Jim was nevertheless elated by this evidence that his game was taking root in America. It wasn't his fault if New York cab drivers were incorrigible gamblers. He booked in the hotel and after taking a shower rang Ingrid at home. Getting no reply he tried her office number. The telephonists at American Games headquarters had gone home, but the lines had been left open. He found himself listening to the tail end of a conversation:

'O.K., Lars, ' Ingrid's voice was saying. 'Make it a thousand kilos of opium. Cash on the nail and you pay distribution costs.'

The words sent a cold chill down his spine. When he rang through again and she answered his call, he said in a flat tone: 'Ingrid this is Jim speaking- I'm back from Moscow.'

'Oh, James, darling, I've been longing to hear your voice. How did the trip go?' Her voice sounded cheerful and unconcerned.

'O.K.'

'Come round to dinner tonight, darling. I'll make you the dreamiest of meals and tomorrow you'll met the real Charlie- not my big bear- in Dallas. He says he's really looking forward to meeting you.'

'I bet.'

'You'll have him eating out of your hand.'

When he arrived at her apartment she flung her arms around him and kissed him fervently. Troubled by the conversation he had overheard and jet-lagged and exhausted from what he insisted to himself had been torture bravely borne, he responded with less than his usual enthusiasm. Closing the door behind him with the heel of her shoe, Ingrid enquired with a hint of anxiety: 'Are you feeling all right, Jim?'

'Just a little fatigued from the journey.'

'I'll fix you a scotch.' In a childish, sing-song voice, she continued seductively: 'And afterwards I'll put on my slinkiest see-through pajamas and we'll play frontgammon.'

'Could we have dinner first?'

'Oh sure, honey.'

She pouted and busied herself at the drinks cabinet, pouring out for him a giant-sized slug of whiskey onto ice cubes in a crystal tumbler. He sipped it thoughtfully, casting his eyes around the room. It seemed somehow less welcoming than on previous occasions. Ingrid fixed herself a drink with a pale green hue and sat down beside him. Taking his hand in hers, she enquired: 'And how were the Ruskies? Did you deliver C.J.'s goods?'

'I did.'

'I hope you didn't fall for any Russian girls.'

'No Russian girls,' he was able to answer truthfully.

Ingrid threw back her sickly-looking drink- Jim guessed correctly that it was the latest of the Golf-father's barbarous concoctions- and giving a swift shake of her blond head, disappeared into the kitchen. She left the door open so that they could continue to converse. 'Chicken chasseur with buckwheat cakes,' she called gaily. 'Will that suit lover boy?'

'Great!' he called back and took advantage of her absence to grimace at the giant panda on guard outside the bedroom door.

'Darling,' he called, after a pause, what's Charlie's real name?'

'Pandas don't have real names.'

'I mean the man you refer to as C.J., Timber- the Golf-father.'

'Oh, my once-a-year lover- C.J. Clagwammer.'

'Clagwammer? I used to work a for a firm called Clagwammer and Pringer in London.' The suspicion which entered his mind was instantly dispelled, when she answered: 'Yeah, it's probably something to do with Hector G. Clagwammer, a grand-nephew of Timber's who lives in Europe somewhere.'

'Why do they call him Timber?'

She appeared at the kitchen door, wearing a frilly blue apron.

'Wait till we sit down to dinner and I'll tell you all about him.'

Jim was left thinking about the redoubtable old man who controlled a vast leisure empire. It would be unwise to allow the fact that they were rivals in love to sour their business relationship. He would have to think up some way of severing the unnatural bonds that tied Ingrid to him.

He gave a sigh of satisfaction when the meal was over. Ingrid's cuisine displayed an artistry on a par with her business capability and her love-making. He was still vaguely troubled, however, by the telephone conversation he had overheard, which suggested an association with narcotics. This, he considered, was even more of a threat to their relationship than her entanglement with Clagwammer.

After she had brought coffee, he asked: 'Now why is he called Timber?'

Ingrid sat on his lap. Her blouse was unbuttoned at the neck. Her perfume and fragrant white skin filled him with an uneasy languor.

'He's called Timber because he's got a wooden leg.' She kissed him lightly on the forehead. 'He's timber from his left knee-cap downwards.'

'Poor old chap. How did it happen?'

'That's not all. He has an artificial left forearm as well.'

'Jesus!'

Ingrid went on, 'He lost a foot when he was blown up during the First World War.'

'The First World War! He must be extremely old.'

'He's in his nineties,' Ingrid conceded. 'Later, during the Second World War he flew bombers across the Atlantic on delivery flights and lost his forearm when he crashlanded in a cornfield in England.'

'He certainly sounds a gutsy old bastard,' Jim said reflectively. But why do they call him the Golf-father?'

'Oh, forget about him for a while. It's you I'm crazy for.' She kissed him hungrily, running her hand through his hair.

Jim insisted, however, on knowing how the Golf-father had acquired his nickname.

'Can't we make love first?' she pleaded.

'Afterwards.'

'O.K., big boy. I'll give you the whole works.' She took a deep breath and placed his hand inside her blouse. 'He's called the Golf-father because he's done more for the game than any other man who's walked the earth. He owns hundreds of golf courses and golf training establishments. The number of tournaments named after him are legion. He has written innumerable books about the game. He even has a golfingresearch foundation near Dallas which is subsidised by the Pentagon.'

'Why on earth should the Pentagon be interested in golf?'

'Because golf is essentially about ballistics.'

'It's remarkable that he should continue to take such an interest when he can no longer play golf.'

Ingrid laughed.

'Jim, he's still a nil handicap player. He goes round in his electric cart whatever the weather and plays nine holes in the morning and the remaining nine in the afternoon.'

'Incredible! How did he make his money?'

'His daddy left him a few thousand acres swimming in oil. Then through his interest in what he calls Games Theory he branched into sports and games and the leisure business generally. He is continually dreaming up new ideas. He's a teetotaller himself, but recently, observing all these fads in drinks, he decided to grab some of the action. Rum and prune juice was an ingenious idea he came up with. He calculated that it would give people diarrhoea, then cornered the market in chalk and opium- an old-fashioned but still effective remedy- and persuaded the medics to prescribe it as a cure. He reckons that for every buck he makes on selling a Grind Number Two he makes another two on the prescription.'

Jim's disgust at this nefarious scheme was submerged in the relief he felt on learning that Ingrid was not, as he had feared, involved in narcotics.

'He doesn't traffic in drugs, then?'

'Oh, no.' Ingrid sounded horrified at the notion. 'He's head of the SGB- the Secret Golfing Brotherhood. They're pretty straight shooters. '

'How does one get into that?' Jim enquired, sleepily.

'You'll have to ask the Golf-father.'

She pressed the hand which lay limply against her breast and rolled her eyes towards the bedroom.

Jim followed her into the bedroom. But he fell asleep while she was undressing.

SIXTEEN

As Jim relaxed in the Boeing 737 taking him to Dallas, Texas, he thought about his forthcoming meeting with the rich and powerful tycoon whose far-ranging influence seemed to extend even as far as the Kremlin. How fortunate that he should have met and fallen in love with his principal lieutenant! He glanced fondly at Ingrid's demure profile as she sat at his side gazing through the cabin window.

However, just before they landed at Dallas airport, Ingrid handed Jim back her engagement ring.

'Why?' he whispered disconsolately.

She patted his hand soothingly. 'Just keep it safe for a day or two until we've squared it with C.J.'

'But you said that if I delivered those blue prints-'

'Yes, darling, but he might get crotchety if we break the news too suddenly. We must humour him and lead up to it gradually.'

Jim put the ring in his pocket, determined to face Clagwammer with the issue at the earliest possible moment.

Harry Walker met them at the airport. He introduced Jim to Clagwammer's grandson, a tall, athletically-built man, with a mop of tow-coloured hair, a round boyish face and crow's nests around ice-cold blue eyes. After shaking hands with Jim, Josh turned towards Ingrid, and said: 'The old man's been pining for you, Ingy.'

They walked across concrete hot from the burning sun towards a purple helicopter with the words American Games Corporation in large yellow letters on the side. Josh sat at the controls, obtained take-off clearance and started the engine. There was a high-pitched whine as the helicopter rose into the air and swept past the giant terminal building.

Harry was shouting excitedly to Jim- it was difficult to hear above the noise of the engine- something about a publicity promotion in Dallas. Fifteen minutes later, as they flew over the rolling green and brown acres of the Clagwammer ranch, Josh put the helicopter into a dive and zoomed low over the heaving flanks of hundreds of startled cattle. Shortly afterwards they climbed steeply, bringing into view a red-roofed bungalow set among the green fairways and vivid yellow bunkers of the Golf-father's private golf course. Jim noticed that a long white fence separated the cattle country from the golf course, which was bisected by a curved railway line.

The blue waters of a kidney-shaped swimming pool rose towards them, as Josh adroitly manoeuvred the helicopter onto a paved area which lay between the pool and a putting green adjoining the ranchhouse. Seated in a wheelchair on the patio was a solitary figure hunched beneath a large Stetson hat.

Josh shouted a warning to wait until the rotor blades stopped turning. When the engine became silent, they emerged from the cabin. Harry Walker assisted Ingrid down the step. Looking cool and deliciously pretty in a white floppy hat, she ran over to the seated Golf-father and kissed his withered cheek. Jim followed somewhat hesitantly- he had noted two fierce-looking cheetahs attached by steel chains to the arm of the wheelchair.

'They won't hurt you,' Ingrid assured him, as he approached. The two large cats ignored him, their flecked eyes indolently surveying the horizon.

'Charlie, darling, this is Jim Alexander of Bun-glof Corporation.'

The old man raised towards him tired blue eyes, set in a sea of red thread veins- they had the same forbidding iciness as those of his grandson. Deep furrows ran down the parchment skin on either side of a massive hooked nose. But there was still a suspicion of vitality informing the mobile, thin-lipped mouth which uttered the words: 'So you're the young man who's debased the noblest game which man has ever invented.'

Jim took the proffered right hand scattered with brown liver spots and tried not to shudder as a glint of sunlight reflected off a steel claw protruding from the left sleeve of the old man's alpaca jacket. He said heartily: 'I'm very honoured to meet my partner in an enterprise that's going to net us both a stack of dollars.'

'Yeah, I guess so.'

The words were uttered sourly, as though even the pursuit of dollars was beginning to lose its charm. Waving his steel claw at Harry Walker, he demanded: 'Have you got this Brolly-golly promotion on the sizzle.'

'Sure have, C.J.,' Harry Walker responded, prancing from one leg to the other like a small boy wanting to be relieved. He took off his glasses and polished them on his sleeve 'It's going great on the networks. Tomorrow we're doing a televised stunt outside Neiman-Marcus.'

'When do we break even on sales?' the old man asked suspiciously.

'It's targeted for six weeks from now,' Harry Walker replied. 'Isn't that right Miss Harman?'

'The whole campaign is going like a dream, darling. Now don't you think we should go inside and have a nice cool drink.'

She unhooked the chains from the wheelchair, and the cheetahs lovingly rubbed their ears against her slacks as she led them to a wooden outhouse and locked them in. Josh pushed Clagwammer's wheelchair through to the ranchhouse. Harry and Jim followed them into the cool interior.

The living-room resembled a golf clubhouse. There were golfing trophies on every flat surface; the walls were framed with commemorative plaques- in pride of place was a gilt-framed certificate from N.A.S.A. Behind a bar in one corner a grizzle-haired manservant was rearranging some bottles. The Golf-father dismissed Ingrid, Josh and Walker with a peremptory wave of his steel hand, saying that he had private business to discuss with Mr. Alexander. Then he stood up and made his way shakily to a maroon leather armchair. Jim positioned himself on an adjoining chair, in expectation of a down-to-earth business discussion.

Waiting to be addressed, Jim studied the Golf-father's heavily-lined features. There were still traces of yellow in his wispy white hair. He had the remote stare, as he gazed into the middle distance, of a cigar store indian.

After reflectively chewing his lip for what seemed an unbearably long time, the old man said suddenly: Would you like a gin and blue-beery wine?'

Uncertain if he had heard correctly, Jim enquired: 'Do you mean gin and blue-berry wine?'?

'Certainly not,' the Golf-father snapped: 'If I said blue-beery wine, I mean wine made out of barley, with a blue-ish hue or tinge. Do we have any blue beer, Jason?' he called out to the barman.

'Anything you say, sir,' the elderly servant responded with exquisite tact.

'There you are, Mr. Alexander, there are no limits to the combinations of drinks one can obtain in this foolish world. Would you like one?'

'I'd prefer a whiskey and soda,' Jim replied.

'Jason,' the Golf-father called out peremptorily: 'Get this young man a gin and blueberry wine and a tomato juice for me.'

Jim remained discreetly silent until the drinks were served. The Golf-father sipped his tomato juice thoughtfully, spilling a few crimson drops on his shirt. He ordered Jason to leave the room and as soon as he had gone, said to Jim: 'Now let's get down to business. Have you been screwing my golf?'

'Your golf?' Jim replied, in wonderment.

'My girl, Ingrid, my vice-president.'

'I'm very much in love with Miss Harman,' Jim replied, chosing his words with care.

'I don't mind her having a little flirtation now and again,' Clagwammer said broodingly, 'but I object to her being laid by a foreign businessman. Get me?'

Jim nodded, appalled at the realization that he came into this objectionable category.

After an awkward pause, the old man enquired: 'What's your golfing handicap?'

'I don't have a handicap yet- I'm just a rabbit,' Jim replied apologetically.

'Too much screwing!' Clagwammer roared, with an air of amused triumph. 'That's why rabbits are rabbits. Golf is a pursuit requiring the highest self-discipline. 'He leaned forward in his chair, his eyes narrowing. 'I'm prepared to do a deal with you- give up Miss Harman and I'll turn you into a scratch player. It'll cost you nothing- afree course at my tutorial centre.'

Jim shook his head, slowly.

'Do you like your drink?'

Jim gave a non-committal shrug.

'How did you get on in Peking?'

'I was in Moscow, not Peking.'

'Ah, yes, Russia. Globender, my architect, drew up some beautiful plans. Beautiful. Must play them all when I get time,' he said ruminatively. 'Did you deliver them to Krulenko?'

'I did- personally.'

Should he, Jim wondered, bring up the topic of the ordeal to which he had been subjected in Moscow. He decided to wait.

'Young man,' the Golf-father turned rheumy eyes on him, you have performed an inestimable service on behalf of the civilised world. When the Russians take up golf seriously, the bastards will gradually turn into civilised human beings. Did you know that the Chinese played golf two-thousand-seven-hundred years ago?'

Jim shook his head.

'They played it and then, poor devils, got distracted by Taoism, Confucianism and all that nonsense. You must read some of my books on golfing.' There was a hint of asperity in his voice.

'I'm not really a golfer,' Jim said apologetically. 'I just don't have the time to practice.'

'Then you must make time,' Clagwammer said severely. 'Don't you owe your present success to golf.'

Surprised at this shrewd observation, Jim mumbled: 'I suppose I do now you come to mention it.'

'Brolly-golly,' the old man murmured in disgust. 'Sucker's golf. Still a dollar is a dollar in anybody's language. Jason!' he roared suddenly.

When Jason appeared at the door, a look of enquiry on his face, Clagwammer shouted: 'Fetch me my puttometer- I want to show it to this young man.'

Shortly, Jason returned with an object which resembled a smaller version of bathroom-weighing scales. Attached to it by a three-foot length of cord was a golf ball. 'My own invention,' the Golf-father announced proudly. 'Measures the coefficient of friction on a putting green and reads out the result in units from one to ten. See that rug- just place it there, pull the ball, let it spring back to the puttometer. There!- you can read off on the meter the amount of impedance the ball is experiencing. It's going on the market soon at eighty-five dollars fifty.'

'Amazing,' Jim pronounced.

'Jason, show this young man to his room. I'm going to take a nap.' Clagwammer's eyes were closing before Jim had time to take his leave.

A dozen luxuriously appointed bedrooms lay on either side of the corridor along which Jason led him. On the way to his room he passed Josh Clagwammer, who acknowledged his presence with a blink of his cool blue eyes. Remembering the familiar way he had addressed Ingrid the thought crossed Jim's mind that Josh might also be a rival for Ingrid's favours.

His suit case was standing by the double bed. The red silk coverlet with an embroidered motif of Augusta golf course had been turned down. Framed paintings of the world's famous club houses, including that of St. Andrews, decorated the walls. The tiles on the walls of the adjoining bathroom were in the form of eighteen-hole score cards; the faucets in the bath and handbasin were turned on by imitation golf balls, the shower by a cluster of upturned ceramic tee pegs. It seemed to Jim that Clagwammer must be obsessed to the point of madness by the game of golf. And yet, despite this and the old man's occasional senile lapses of memory, he had an uncomfortable feeling that he remained a formidable antagonist.

Harry Walker knocked on the door and on entering gave a hesitant shuffle.

'How did you get on with the old guy?' he enquired.

'O.K - he's still got his wits about him.'

Walker nodded knowingly.

'Sharp as a laser and if you rub him up the wrong way he'll put a golfing hex on you.'

Jim looked sceptical.

'Sure as hell he can, Jim.' Walker appeared hurt at Jim's disbelief. He continued: 'The old bastard did it to me once, I had tried to dissuade him from employing a ridiculous advertising slogan for some boxer shorts we had put on the market. I told him we had gone over the top when the ad made the absurd claim that the new boxer shorts would add thirty yards to a golfer's drive off the tee by gripping his balls more firmly. We had a big disagreement. It ended with him looking daggers at me and saying: "You're gonna hook your drive from now on, Harry." Do you know my ball was curving to the left every time, until one day he forgave me and said: "From now on you're gonna drive straight down the middle." After that I was Ok'

'What happened to the shorts?'

'We sell millions of them every week. Now, Jim, about this little promotion tomorrow- we'd like you to play a stretch of Brolly-golly with the WBC heavy-weight champ along the main drag. It won't take long.'

'I guess it'll be Ok,' Jim said a little wearily. 'Do you think Brolly-golly is catching on in America like it did in Europe?'

'It sure is, but you've gotta keep the bandwagon rolling.' Walker gave an encouraging smile. 'You've got to show that everybody who is anybody from the President downwards is playing it.'

'I didn't know the President plays Brolly-golly,' Jim remarked.

'Not yet, but he'll sure as hell will when we tell him it's going to add a few million votes for his ticket in the forthcoming elections. By the way, dinner is at seven. C.J. is a stickler for punctuality.'

*

Ingrid, wearing a shimmering wrap-over gold evening gown that left one shoulder bare, was sitting with the Golf-father at the end of a long dining-table. Jason indicated Jim's position at the table opposite Ingrid. Clagwammer enquired politely, as he sat down, if he found his room comfortable.

'Very comfortable indeed, sir,' Jim replied.

Ingrid whispered something to the Golf-father, whereupon his gargoyle features froze and he exclaimed loudly: 'That's a shit notion.'

Ingrid put her hand on his steel claw and then transferred it to his upper arm. She said, with a warning glance at Jim, 'I was just telling Charlie that we are thinking of living together for a while.' Her expression clearly demanded a tactful response.

Jim rubbed his chin reflectively.

'That's right, Mr. Clagwammer. We have become very fond of each other.'

'It's a shit notion. Why in hell and blazes if two young people are in love don't they get married. Guess I'm old-fashioned, But why not put an honest ring on the girl's finger?'

Eager to agree, Jim was about to answer, when Ingrid intervened: 'But Charlie, you know it's you I love madly. It's just this temporary physical thing that Jim and I have got going for us.'

The old man's face softened.

'Are you sure you really love your old Golf-father, sweetie?'

'Of course, darling. I won't ever leave you. Marriage is out of the question, isn't it, Jim.' She shot him another warning glance.

'For the time being,' Jim answered in an undertone. His heart sank as the errant thought occurred to him that perhaps this bizarre scene might be re-enacted whenever the vice-president took a new lover. Dismissing such an idea as unworthy, he added, almost inaudibly. 'We'll have to wait and see which way the ball bounces.'

Clagwammer, whose hearing seemed to be remarkably acute for a man of his age, responded with narrowing eyes: 'That's a smartass answer.'

As Jim tried to interpret this enigmatic remark, Josh came in with Harry Walker, and dinner was served. Clagwammer was soon in animated discussion with Ingrid about recent fluctuations in the Dow Jones index. During a lull in their conversation, Clagwammer turned a sardonic eye on Jim and said: 'Do you invest in the stock market, young man?'

Unwilling to expose his ignorance of stock market dealings, Jim replied airily: 'Play the market? Not really. It's not a game that appeals to me.'

He had lighted on a theme which burned perennially in the Golf-father's mind.

'Play the market,' Clagwammer repeated broodingly. 'You're quite right. The stock market is just another game. Games, as I am sure you are aware, reflect faithfully the workings of the human soul. In fact, if you understand games you understand life itself.'

Ingrid gave an amused wink at Josh.

The Golf-father turned to his grandson, who was engaged in eating a succulent cob of indian corn, and enquired rhetorically: 'Josh, what are games all about?'

His mouth running with butter, Josh mumbled: 'Aggression, reproduction and evolution.'

Gratified to hear his own aphorism repeated back to him, the old man said reminiscently: 'Let me see now- it was in 1944, when I was recuperating from the loss of my left hand, that it came to me that the man who controls the nation's games has more power than the President. Out of a desire to improve the nation's moral fibre I decided to dominate this all-important industry. As Josh's statement implies, some games are merely playful practice that prepare us for courtship and reproduction, others are pure expressions of our aggressive instincts. But the game which concerns itself with the most important thing of all- the survival of the human race- is golf.'

'Why golf?' Jim enquired, having failed to notice Ingrid's warning glance.

'Have some more blueberry wine,' the old man snapped.

Jim shook his head, slowly but firmly.

'Why golf?' Clagwammer repeated, affecting a meditative air. He picked up a chicken leg with his claw, gnawed at it reflectively, and then waving it at Jim, went on: 'Because, young man, golf is a symbolic representation of the fundamental process of evolution- that is to say negative feed-back. I presume you are familiar with that elementary concept as applied in the servo-mechanisms of auto-pilots and guided missiles.'

Jim shook his head.

'Oh, my! I shall have to explain it to you when I show you over my golf research unit. It is necessary to understand it in order to fully comprehend the pure and spartan beauty of golfing philosophy. Negative feed-back, in a word, is nature's way of withdrawing pressure when it perceives there is no percentage in progressing along a particular road of development. Darwin called it the principle of natural selection. When nature saw, for example, that the cold-blooded dinosaurs were incapable of responding to large temperature changes it allowed them to die...' The old man's concentration seemed to waver for a moment, as he murmured: 'Pity, otherwise we could have seen a species of golf-playing dinosaurs and that would have been very interesting.' He returned from his aside with obvious reluctance to his main theme: 'The aforesaid principle of negative feed-back is also embodied in the servo-mechanism which keeps a missile zero-ed on to its target. Evolution is similarly programmed to seek the bull's-eye- the perfect centre of a perfect circle; a golfer, by subjecting himself to rigorous discipline, is engaging in a parallel activity, which represents the highest and most noble form of play.'

Josh was grinning surreptitiously across at Ingrid. She shook her head silently, as if to say: don't upset the old lunatic.

Jim poured some of the execrable blueberry wine into his glass, sipped it, and shuddered. Appealing round the table for support, he said: 'I agree with you, Mr. Clagwammer, that golf is quite a good game, but there are others of equal merit.'

It was as though he had produced a bottle of whiskey at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Ingrid looked horrified. Walker's lower lip jutted out. Josh dropped his greasy cob of corn on the table-cloth. Jason, standing behind Jim's chair, gave a strangled cough.

Only the Golf-father appeared unmoved. His mouth twitching into a sarcastic smile, he said composedly: 'Young man, I like a show of independence- even when it proceeds, as in this case, from an invincible ignorance. Would you care to offer an example.

'Ping-pong.'

A ripple of relieved laughter ran round the room.

'Ping-pong,' Josh Clagwammer repeated, retrieving his cob of corn. 'Ping-pong!' Harry Walker almost shrieked. Ingrid turned mirth-stricken eyes towards Jim and gave a peal of musical laughter which touched a deep chord of love in his breast. Jason said 'Ping-pong- mah Gawd!' in a voice that seemed to come from the bowels of the earth.

When the uneasy laughter had died down, the Golf-father said: 'Texas Rose, your boy friend has a great if, somewhat misguided, sense of humour. Otherwise, I would say he was the greatest asshole who ever lived. However, let's give him the benefit of the doubt.' He chewed on his teeth reflectively, drawing in his sunken cheeks and then continued: 'I wonder if he would have the spunk to play a round with me of that game he has just had the goldurn nerve to denigrate.'

'Of course, I would, sir,' Jim replied, eager to limit the damage caused by his thoughtless comment.

'For high stakes?' Clagwammer enquired, slyly.

It all depends what you mean by high stakes.'

'Young man,' Clagwammer said, speaking slowly and deliberately, 'I am very old, I can only walk a few steps unaided and I have a steel arm and a wooden leg. But I'm prepared to lay it on the line for what I prize most in life.'

'What is that, sir?'

'My vice president, you goldurn gopher!'

The Golf-father was suddenly seized with emotion. His eyes filled with tears, he wheezed and spluttered with impotent wrath, obliging Ingrid and Josh to go to his aid. He allowed Ingrid to place her arms protectively around his scrawny shoulders, but flew furiously at his discomfited grandson. 'Get out! Get that randy young varmint out of my sight! He tries to get his nose in the honey every time she pays me a visit.'

Josh shrugged lazily and returned to his chair.

'Out!' shouted the old man, his face flushed. 'Get him out of here.'

Josh left the room, with a slow, measured pace, as the Golf-father blew his nose furiously into a table napkin. Jim, meanwhile, was wondering whether Clagwammer had been serious in throwing down the gauntlet. He was not left in doubt for long. Clagwammer gave a few deep breaths, reached for his glass of tomato juice, and taunted him: 'Well, are you going to give me satisfaction? Nine holes on Sunday morning and the winner takes Ingrid.'

'Charlie!' Ingrid remonstrated appealingly, stroking his face with her hand. 'We have a loving relationship- don't degrade it by treating me like a golfing trophy.'

'You're the one trophy I can never afford to part with, Texas Rose. I ain't gonna let some fast-talking Britisher walk off with the prize.'

'Mr. Clagwammer,' Jim protested. 'I did you a big favour by delivering those documents for you to Moscow. Surely you can see- '

'You must prove yourself a worthy candidate for Ingrid's hand first,' Clagwammer said, interrupting him. 'She owns a lot of stock in American Games Corporation, which means, in effect, a large slice of the golfing industry. If you are to become a member of the family, you must demonstrate some degree of competence at the game.'

The old man's wrath seemed by now to have subsided and he spoke these words with icily, controlled cunning.

'I did invent Brolly-golly,' Jim countered.

'Brolly-golly,' Clagwammer snorted contemptuously, waving his steel claw in the air, 'a dummy tit for suckers.'

'You seem happy enough to make money at it.'

'Of course, I'm making money out of the imbecile, rattle-brained game. Money's what keeps me alive. Money and my little Texas Rose, who's got more brains in her pretty little head than the ten-thousand college-trained morons I have working for me. Now, young man,'- his tone became suddenly ingratiating- 'why don't you go back to Europe and leave Miss Harman alone. You can come back and marry her when I'm dead and gone.'

Jim looked across the table at Ingrid and, as their eyes met, he realised that there was nothing for it but to take up the challenge that the Golf-father had just thrown down. He shook his head.

'I'm sorry, Mr. Clagwammer- you look as though you're going to live for ever. I'll accept your challenge. Naturally, you'll have to give me a handicap.'

'Handicap?' The old man sneered, looking pointedly down at his steel claw.

He appeared to go into a trance for a few seconds. Jim thought he had gone to sleep.

Suddenly, however, he opened his eyes and said: 'I'll be generous and give you a stroke a hole. We'll play the first nine and if you lose you will undertake never to see Miss Harman again- all future dealings will be carried out by telephone, fax or correspondence. We'll play off at ten o'clock Sunday morning.'

Jim nodded silent assent.

He was alarmed, however, when the Golf-father reached across the table and touched him gently with his steel claw. As he withdrew from its icy touch, Clagwammer said softly: 'In the event of a draw, it will be a sudden death play off.'

He turned to Ingrid, a strange, brooding light in his deepset eyes, and said in a wheedling tone: 'Come on, take me to my room, Texas Rose. I'll need plenty of sleep if I am to beat this insolent whipper-snapper. Seventy years my junior and he demands a handicap!'

He was cackling to himself, as Ingrid wheeled him out of the room.

Jim played thoughtfully with the chicken leg on his plate.

Harry Walker who had remained discreetly silent during this exchange, said 'That was a damned foolish thing to do, if you don't mind my saying so.'

' I have no alternative. I love the girl.'

'You can screw the ass off her without getting the Golf-father's whammy into you.'

'Can I win?' Jim enquired, pensively.

Harry Walker got up from his chair and shook his head lugubriously. 'You're in deep shit whatever happens.'

*

On his way to his room, Jim knocked on Ingrid's bedroom door. Seated in front of a mirror, she was brushing her soft blond hair with a silver-backed hairbrush. Her face, which had a whiteish tinge from an application of face cream, was completely expressionless. She told him to sit down, and as he sprawled across the blue silk coverlet with its embroidered insignia of Portmarnock golf course, said accusingly: 'Why did you have to compare golf with ping-pong? You should have known that it would make him mad.'

'I'm sorry, my darling. It just slipped out. I just couldn't stand the way he elevates golf into a religion.'

'O.K., it is his religion. It's crazy to challenge an old man's religious beliefs. Can't you back out- say you've hurt your back or something?'

'It wouldn't make any difference,' Jim replied. 'Whatever I do and however I react, he won't let you go. I shall just have to joust for you like some knight of old.'

'With a disabled old man!'

'Darling, you know as well as I that the odds are loaded against me. If I had been awarded a handicap that reflects the disparity in our standard of play, he would have given me twenty-four. But he's only given me eighteen. It'll be a miracle if I beat him, but I'll do the very best I can.'

Ingrid turned round on her chair, presenting a tempting vision in white satin pajamas. She thoughtfully pushed at her top lip with the tip of the hairbrush. 'We'll have to try and think up some kind of strategy, Jim. Timber is just a golfing machine. The only way you stand any chance of beating him is by a combination of low cunning and clever gamesmanship.'

'What can I do?'

'For a start try to undermine his machismo.'

'How do I do that?'

'Keep telling him that he's over the hill- he can't stand it. Oh, and smother yourself with after shave. He goes berserk with rage if any of his male executives use it.' She handed him a bottle of scent. 'That'll help.'

'O.K., chemical warfare! Anything else?'

Ingrid furrowed her brow pensively.

'Yeah, call him a mercenary bastard. Like a lot of rich guys he likes to think he's got a social conscience. He gets real mad if you accuse him of loving money for its own sake.'

'O.K. sweetheart.'

A whiff of some ineffable perfume floated towards him.

He held out his arms, but she said wistfully: 'No, darling. You can't make it with me here in the Golf-father's house. Incidentally, why didn't you say that marriage was completely out of the question when the subject came up. It would have saved all this hassle.'

'Perhaps because I love you so much. Has there been this kind of trouble before?'

'Yes. There was a terrible accident.'

'What kind of an accident?'

'I'd rather not talk about it.'

Jim stood up, and said stiffly: 'Well, I can see I shall have to be prepared for anything.'

'Goodnight, Jim. And good luck. You're sure going to need it on Sunday.'

SEVENTEEN

Jim looked out of his bedroom window at the green fairways and bunkers of the Clagwammer golf course. Only twenty-four hours remained before he would play his epic golfing match with the Golf-father. From afar came the distant lowing of cattle, followed soon afterwards by the mournful whistle of a freight train passing along the railway line which ran through the golf-course.

Clagwammer was standing on a small, practice putting green, half-supported by his manservant. He had just played a stroke and was muttering angrily as the ball failed by a whisker to drop into the hole. The old guy must be quite mad, Jim thought, to believe that he could retain his vice president by winning a golf match. As for the danger against which both Harry Walker and Ingrid had warned, it seemed highly improbable that a man of his age would use violence. Reflecting, however, that he was in Texas, where the improbable, not to say the impossible, happens all too frequently, he reminded himself to be on his guard.

At breakfast Jason served him with maple syrup pancakes and a two-pound T-bone steak, which overlapped the plate and oozed blood onto the tablecloth.

When Harry Walker came and sat opposite, Jim enquired: 'Where do Josh's parents live?'

'His mother lives in Sao Paolo, Brazil. His father's dead- he was killed in an accident.'

'What kind of an accident?'

Harry shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

'He stood a bit too close when C.J. was taking a shot with his number-three wood- his spoon.'

Jim suddenly remembered Benson's warning about using a long spoon to sup with the devil. It seemed almost an uncanny premonition. The picture at all events was now becoming clearer.

'Did they quarrel over Ingrid?'

'Yes, Joshua Number One had a big thing going for her and the old man challenged him to a match- the same as he's doing to you. It happened on the eighteenth. Pity, because Clagwammer's son was about to break the course record.' Walker paused and grimaced, pulling down the corners of his mouth. 'If you value your hide, Jim, you'll back out of tomorrow's match. The old guy's besotted with her. The inquest, incidentally, gave a verdict of accidental death. Nobody except Clagwammer knows what really happened. There were no witnesses.'

'Are you seriously suggesting that Clagwammer battered his own son to death?'

Harry Walker looked nervously around the dining-room, leaned over the table and said: 'Charlie Clagwammer would commit mayhem for that dame. She's his creation- she was nothing until he took her out of a strip joint, coached her, educated her and promoted her to the biggest job in the corporation. Take my advice and pull out of that match tomorrow.'

Jim looked down at his plate. The flabby red remnants of flesh reminded him of the bloodied head of the Golf-father's son. Then he asked himself how could he possibly allow himself to be intimidated by a disabled nonagenarian. 'It's Ok, Harry' he said with a reassuring smile: 'Thanks for the warning. I'll keep well out of range of his club.'

By a curious coincidence, Jim suffered a blow on the head that very afternoon- from an umbrella, a vestigial umbrella; ie, one incapable of keeping off the rain. It was wielded by the legendary world heavy-weight boxing champion with whom he was engaged in a simulated game of Brolly-golly along Main Street, Dallas, just outside the Neiman-Marcus store. Some perverse impulse- perhaps an ex-actor's instinct to hug the limelight- prompted Jim to stand a little too close to the black giant as he demonstrated his prowess at Brolly-golly. A glancing blow caught him on the forehead.

The buffet sent him down as though pole-axed. The exuberant champion started to count him out. He rose for a count of nine, with the onlookers and television camera crews shouting enthusiastic encouragement.

A little ashamed of himself, the champion then asked him if he wanted to see a medic.

'No, really. I'm quite Ok My own fault for standing too close.'

'You'll get the loser's purse for sure. Anyway, that bruise coming up on your head will be worth as much as the Crown Jewels, cos Ah made it!'

Still dazed, Jim finished the demonstration match and was then driven back to the Clagwammer ranch by an incessantly-talking Harry Walker, excited by the thought of the fifty-million viewers who had watched the performance.

Jim didn't say much, because he had a severe headache.

Back at the ranchhouse they were in time to see the Golf-father firing off some practice balls on the first tee of his golf course. His lined features registered intense concentration as he pivoted on his artificial limb, gripping the club with the steel claw positioned above his right hand. After addressing the ball, he demonstrated a classic, beautifully-balanced swing, which sent the ball arcing two-hundred and twenty yards down the middle of the fairway. Ingrid rushed forward to save him from falling after he had made his stroke. But he remained upright and waved his club in a melodramatic gesture that emphatically declared: My limbs may have withered but I have not lost my cunning at the game.

Josh, his face expressionless, was standing by the side of the tee, holding a bag containing an armoury of shining golf clubs. Jim remarked to Walker as they strolled towards him, 'Josh isn't exactly the greatest of conversationalists.'

'He makes his golf clubs talk,' Walker declared. 'Could have been a golfing master by now, but swears he won't play professionally again until the old man dies.'

Ingrid in blue, tight-fitting slacks and a blouse tied at the midriff, came to greet them.

'How did you get on in Dallas?' she enquired.

'I was very nearly assassinated.' He showed her the bruise on his forehead and explained what had happened, adding mockingly 'I see your aged knight errant is practising for the duel'.

'Jim, why don't you be sensible and withdraw from the contest,' She added in her most seductive voice. 'We can always get together in New York.' She came up close to him, wriggling her shoulders so captivatingly that Jim would have liked to possess her on the spot.

'But, darling, I want to marry you and be with you always.'

'We can't have everything we want in this world,' she whispered urgently. 'He can ruin us both.'

'But if I win, he'll have to keep his promise.'

'Do you know what happened last time?'

'Harry Walker told me. I won't let it happen to me.'

She puckered her forehead, anxiously. 'He's completely unpredictable.'

'I'll look after myself', he promised.

They joined the others at the tee.

Josh was helping Clagwammer back into his wheelchair. Hisface, under a white golfing cap flushed from his exertions, expressed petulant pride. 'Young man,' he remarked, as Jim approached, 'are you aware that golf is better than Yoga, ginseng, monkey glands or anything else you can mention for preserving bodily strength? Ihave the heart of a man one-third of my age. Tomorrow I'm gonna lick the hide off you. Ain't gonna let no one take my Texas Rose from me. No, Sir!'

Josh, his face expressionless as usual, wheeled the old man away. He was tittering and mumbling boastfully, a favourite putter clutched in his left claw, trailing across the grass.

Later, Jim sat alone in his bedroom, leafing through a book of Clagwammer's golfing aphorisms he had found on his bedside table. Accompanying a picture of the earth taken from space was the statement: 'When God created this beautiful golfing world he achieved a hole in one.'

'Greenpeace is a state of mind you achieve when you reach the green.'

'A pitch in line saves nine.'

'A birdie in hand is better than two at the nineteenth.'

He was shaking his head over these further examples of Clagwammer's golfing madness, when Josh put his head round the door and enquired if he would like a little coaching in preparation for the match he was to play the following day.

'Too late for that, Josh. I'll just have to take my chance. Thanks, anyway.'

'Just watch it, man,' Josh said warningly and disappeared.

That afternoon Harry Walker informed Jim that the Golf-father wished to grant him the privilege of a guided tour of his Golf Research Unit. He followed Harry out to the drive, where the old man dressed in a beige cotton suit that hung loosely on his emaciated frame was waiting in a Cadillac station wagon. During the journey he announced self-importantlythat the tests they carried out at the research centre on the aerodynamic qualities of golf balls were so important as to warrant a direct line to the National Aeronautical and Space Administration centre in Houston.

Twenty minutes later they pulled up at a squat three-storey, stucco building surrounded by an electrified fence. The red-pole barrier was raised by the security guard and Harry Walker drove through. He remained in the car while Beecham, a white-coated official who seemed to be in charge, helped Clagwammer, still breathing heavily from his recent exertions, into a wheelchair.

Beecham expressed doubt concerning Jim's security clearance, but Clagwammer brusquely overruled him, saying- Jim thought perhaps a little ominously- that his visitor would remain as silent as the grave about anything he saw. Still shaking his head, Beecham led them into an ante-room, where he fiddled with a combination lock. When the massive steel door opened, Jim followed, as Beecham pushed the wheelchair into a large, dimly-lit chamber filled with the ceaseless humming of air-conditioning.

When the overhead lights came on, they revealed an extremely tall figure, facing a large blank screen seventy feet or so distant from him on the opposite wall. It was a shining perspex robot-man faithfully reproducing every feature of the human body. Veins, arteries, muscles and bones showed clearly through the transparent skin. Orange plastic replicas of the main organs included a working model of the heart, which pumped red fluid through cardio-vascular pipes. The simulacrum included a penis and scrotum. The large competent hands held a golf club.

Jim blinked.

'What the hell is that?' he asked.

'That's Joshua, the world's finest golfer,' Clagwammer said triumphantly. 'He can drive four-hundred yards, he can slice and hook at will, he can put back-spin or top-spin on the ball and he can putt like the Archangel Gabriel.'

'Who designed him?'

'Clagwammer wheeled his chair round the motionless figure like an excited spaniel. 'There's thirty years of golfing research in Joshua. I've employed some of the finest engineers in the country. 'Do you see those television cameras?' He pointed to an array of cameras on either side of the room. 'They provide a feedback through computers which constantly correct Joshua's swing.'

'But what is he for?' Jim enquired.

Clagwammer winced at Jim's ignorance. He compressed his lips and replied 'He's going to teach golf. I haven't put him to work yet. I'm presently sifting out some young prodigies and Joshua will turn them into magnificent golfers the like of which the world has never seen...At fifteen-thousand dollars a lesson,' he added.

'That's fantastic,' Jim said admiringly. His head was throbbing, but he was so carried away by the Golf-father's enthusiasm that he temporarily forgot his pain.

'Tee off!' Clagwammer shouted through a wall-mounted microphone to Beecham, who had entered a glass-panelled office above the large empty screen at the other end of the room.

The Golf-father lifted a telephone from a stand behind the robot and barked out some orders. Joshua now rose to his full height and appeared to examine the screen at the far end of the chamber, which depicted a green, undulating fairway stretching towards a cluster of sandy bunkers. Beyond the bunkers a triangular flag on the green waved in a stiff breeze.

'That's Turnberry, Scotland, seventeenth hole,' Clagwammer was smiling a self-satisfied smile. 'I've programmed a forty-five mile an hour north-easterly wind, which causes turbulence from that copse on the left. The grass is wet from recent rain and is giving an impedance of six on the Clagwammer scale. Now watch!'

He pressed a red button on a control panel. Joshua bent down to address the ball; then rose in a slow backswing, the red fluid coursing through his veins, every muscle movement visible through the transparent skin. In a beautifully-controlled movement the club-head descended towards a tethered ball. There was an electronically-simulated hiss and the image of a golf ball appeared on the screen outlined against a cloudy sky. It cantered down the fairway; a change of focus occurred and a close up of the green appeared. The ball teetered towards the hole and stopped six inches short of the lip.

'And that's the way nature intended that we should play golf.' the Golf-father said complacently.

'Amazing!'

'Joshua holes out in one at least once every nine holes- that's as near perfection as it is possible to get in this imperfect world. He's programmed for wind, weather, humidity, state of the course- everything except a hangover, and being the perfect golfer, he doesn't drink.'

'What about when he holes in one?' Jim enquired, tongue-in-cheek.

'That's precisely why he doesn't drink, you goldurn idiot. Otherwise, he'd be permanently drunk.Now would you like a sample lesson. Joshua is equipped with an electronic eye that allows the computer to make a comparison between his swing and that of the pupil. Stand in front of him over there and take a practice swing. Joshua will swing simultaneously, analyse your faults and correct them through a recorded message.

A bag of clubs held upright in a metal frame, stood near the robot. Jim took a number-one wood and stood in the place Clagwammer had indicated. Some sixth sense told him to move the rubber mat forward a couple of feet, to bring him out of reach of Joshua's driver.

He swung his club at a tethered yellow ball and heard the simultaneous swish of Joshua's club behind him. He looked at the screen and saw the robot's white ball lying a foot from the hole. There was a change of camera angle- his own yellow ball was lying in a clump of thick grass at the foot of a tree.

A fewseconds elapsed, while the information was digested by the computer. A rich baritone issued from a loudspeaker on the wall: 'This is Joshua, your automatic tutor. I have analysed your swing and it is very clear that you are a novice. Let us start with your grip...'

The voice faltered in mid-sentence, as the Golf-father operated a switch. The robot resumed its upright stance, the club held against its thigh, the transparent mask blank. The view of Turnberry's seventeenth hole on the screen ahead faded.

'That's sufficient to give you a general idea,' the Golf-father said curtly. He obviously doesn't want me to pick up any useful hints for tomorrow's match, Jim thought wryly. Then recalling that he had misguidedly refused Clagwammer's grandson's offer of a golfing lesson, he enquired: 'Why did you name him Joshua?'

Clagwammer's eyes glittered.

'Because, young man, the biblical character Joshua gave a supreme demonstration of the preeminence of mind over matter when he brought the walls of Jericho tumbling down. That is what golf is all about- mind over matter. I intend to break through every barrier that prevents Man from achieving his full golfing potential. My ultimate aim- his lips pouted sardonically- is to develop a golfer capable of putting a golf ball into orbit. When that ball has circumnavigated the globe and decapitated him on its return, Man will have achieved his ultimate golfing destiny.'

'Is that why your grandson is named Joshua?'

'Yeah,' he spoke wearily. He's Joshua the Second. My progeny have been something of a disappointment to me. But this third Joshua- pointing at the robot- ' will bestride the narrow golfing world like a Colossus and help me achieve my aim of producing a whole new breed of dedicated golfers. He can compress two years training into one month. After six months training here my new, improved breed of golfers will storm every golf course in the world.'

'And then?' Jim enquired.

'Then we shall have to start designing longer and more difficult golf courses... Now on the next floor we have our wind tunnel, in which we experiment with the re-entry into the atmosphere of golf balls and other circular aerofoils.'

'That reminds me...' Jim stopped in mid-sentence, because his head was hurting. He tried desperately to recall what he had been intending to say. 'Ah, yes, Mr. Clagwammer- what was the nature and purpose of those documents I delivered for you to the Minister of Sports and Culture in Moscow?'

The Golf-father manoeuvred his wheelchair so that he was facing close to Jim. Looking preternaturally earnest, he whispered: 'American Games- and indeed all America- is very grateful to you for the manner in which you handled that assignment.'

'Did you know that as a result I was abducted by agents from China?'

Clagwammer affected surprise.

'Were you indeed. Tell me more.'

Jim described exactly what had happened to him. Clagwammer meanwhile peered up at him, a gleeful smile on his lips. Jim concluded: 'So you see that my little errand on your behalf put my life in peril.'

'Your cock perhaps- hardly your life,' the Golf-father said, tittering unpleasantly.

'It was unfair to put me at risk,' Jim said, accusingly.

Clagwammer brooded for a few seconds and then said: 'I accept that you suffered a certain amount of inconvenience and because of that I'll fill you in on some of the details. The Russians are genuinely interested in becoming a golfing nation, but they are aware that it might cause political problems. As you probably know, they are presently stretched economically by the heavy burden of nuclear armaments. They have to match not only America, but also China, which has recently acquired nuclear missile capability. Because of the confession you made to those Chinese agents, China will now concentrate their efforts on obliterating seventy golf courses carefully camouflaged to resemble missile sites. That little deception in which you became unwittingly involved will thus help to solve Russia's political and economic problems.'

'Why should America want to solve Russia's problems?'

The Golf-father's lined, craggy face wore an expression of infinite cunning. 'If you really want to know, the name of the game is Strategic Defence Initiative- Star Wars as it is popularly called. We are playing a part in this institute in helping to develop an anti-missile missile system intended to counter the anti-missile system the Russians are able to afford now that we have disposed of the Chinese threat.'

'But how does all this benefit American Games Corporation?'

'We earn dollars plus roubles,' the Golf-father said with a self-satisfied cackle. 'Dollars from the Defence Department for research into the re-entry of anti-anti-missile missiles and roubles for the golf course programme we're selling to the Russians, plus licence fees on the manufacture of a whole range of golfing equipment. We've even sold them the design of our special line in boxer shorts.' He gave vent to an extra splutter of self-satisfied laughter.

'It's rather unsavoury, isn't it,' Jim said, with a wry grimace, thinking of the havoc this devilish deception was going to wreak on the Chinese. Their gentle- he might even have called it 'civilised'- mode of torture had left him with a lingering feeling of affection.

'You'll learn eventually, my boy, that the double-cross in international dealings is equivalent to the hole-in-one in golf and the grand slam in bridge. You've helped us pull off a remarkable coup, for which we're very grateful.'

'Grateful enough to persuade you to allow me to marry your vice president?'

'We shall settle that in a gentlemanly fashion tomorrow,' the Golf-father said sourly. He looked at his watch. 'It's getting late. We'll skip the wind-tunnel and go up to the golf monitor room. Hidden television cameras at a number of my courses enable me to constantly monitor the standard of play.'

They went up in an elevator to another floor containing several dozen coloured television monitors. Jim felt as though a furious sword fight was going on inside his skull. The television screens were filled with golfers dressed in all manner of outlandish clothes from Bermuda shorts to plus fours. They were putting in earnest concentration, swinging with wild abandon, hacking clouds of sand out of bunkers and crouching with contorted limbs for difficult pitches onto the green. In his distressed state they seemed to resemble grotesque, demented creatures from the canvasses of Hieronymus Bosch.

Clagwammer was mumbling something about declining standards of play, as he wheeled himself around, peering critically into the television screens. The room appeared to rock like a Viking longboat in a storm and Jim, unable to follow the ancient maniac's fevered discourse any longer, suddenly sat down on the floor. 'I've a ghastly headache,' he muttered.

He remembered being helped by Beecham into the elevator and downstairs into the waiting Cadillac. Then he lost consciousness and did not wake up until the next morning, the day of his historic contest with the Golf-father.

EIGHTEEN

'How is your headache this morning, Jim?'

'Much better, thanks,'

Ingrid, dressed in flowered Bermuda shorts of some gossamer-thin material and matching top, was sitting on the edge of his bed, looking down at him with a worried expression. She edged away from his outstretched arms, and said: 'Charlie says you're probably suffering from a slight concussion. He advises you to concede the match.'

'Like hell!' Jim replied indignantly. 'I'm going to prevent that disgusting old man from hanging onto you against your will.'

Ingrid shook her head, apprehensively.

Outside, the wind was sighing over the roof of the ranch-house and stretching the flags on the distant greens of the golf course. Jim threw off his duvet and went into the bathroom to clean his teeth.

Ingrid called out to him: 'How can you possibly expect to beat the Golf-father at his own game?'

Jim made a derisive noise through his busy toothbrush.

Ingrid had gone when he returned to the bedroom, leaving behind a tantalising fragrance, which reminded him of the secret weapon she had suggested. So after shaving, he anointed his face and every part of his anatomy with her exotic perfume.

Jason wrinkled his nose in disgust, as he served Jim with orange juice. Returning to the table with a two-inch thick red fillet steak, he enquired with a troubled expression: 'You gonna play the boss a needle match this morning?'

When Jim answered 'Yes', he shook his head in gloomy foreboding.

After breakfast Jim walked out onto the sunlit terrace. Charlie Clagwammer, assisted by Jason, was taking stumbling steps towards his red-roofed electric golfing cart. His golf clubs were already in the cart. Josh assisted him into the driving-seat and he sat staring implacably ahead.

As Jim approached him, Clagwammer, turning his head a fraction, pronounced stingingly: 'Mr. Alexander, the experience you are soon about to undergo will rank as the most humiliating of your life. The one golfing anecdote you will never dare to relate will be about the occasion when you were decisively beaten by a man in his nineties and the possessor of only two serviceable limbs. I urge you to remember that subsequently you will be under a solemn obligation never to see Miss Harman again.'

'And if I win?'

'You won't win,' the old man said savagely.

Recalling Ingrid's advice, he moved to windward, hoping the pungent perfume with which he had doused himself would further enrage Clagwammer. However, he appeared totally unmoved. Jim was trying to remember the other ploys Ingrid had suggested, when Josh appeared with a green-topped golf cart. He gave the key to Jim. In the cart was a robust set of golf clubs in polythene wrappings carrying the American Games logo. Josh then turned to his grandfather and informed him that he would caddy for him.

'Would you like my manservant to caddy for you, Mr. Alexander ?'the Golf-father enquired icily.

'No, thank you, sir.'

'I can find no evidence that you have ever earned a handicap,' Clagwammer said coldly, 'I, therefore, intend to be generous and give you one stroke per hole. It will be match play. Do you accept those terms?'

'Yes, sir- on the assumption that you freely accept that my marriage to Miss Harman hinges on the outcome.'

As Jim spoke these words with strained dignity, there was a loud splash. The object of the match had just dived into the nearby swimming-pool.

Mesmerised by the lovely vision, Jim became vaguely conscious that Josh was speaking to him.

'Your balls,' Josh repeated, proffering a cardboard box containing six new golf balls. His blue eyes glinted annoyance, as Jim held out his hand for the box. Ingrid was now emerging from theshining blue waters. A tanned, almost naked goddess, she sauntered towards them, water droplets glistening between her breasts. Hand on hip, she resembled an empress about to inspect her troops. (The hip, Jim noted with a pang, was the one with a tiny mole he had kissed many times during his recent stay in New York.) Squeezing water from her blond hair with her free hand, she said; 'Charlie, take it easy and keep your hat on in the sun.' She then kissed the Golf-father's withered cheek.

'Jim...' she said hesitantly, as she turned towards him, smiling at some wanton recollection, 'Good luck,' and added in a husky undertone. 'Watch out for his backswing!'

After kissing him also on the cheek, she walked slowly back to the pool, where she sat, her shapely legs trailing in the water. The sight powerfully reinforced Jim's determination to win at all costs.

'Come on, young man,' Clagwammer called out from his electric golfing cart, 'It's time you was whupped.'

He set his cart in motion towards the first tee.

Jim set his own green-canopied cart rolling after the Golf-father. Jim noticed, as Josh trotted ahead, red scratch marks on the backs of his arms, which suggested to him that playing with Clagwammer's pet cheetahs could be a dangerous pastime. The canvas top made a loud flapping sound. He comforted himself with the thought that the strong wind would act in his favour by unsteadying his frail opponent's balance. His vision of Ingrid rising from the water like a naked water nymph swept aside any scruples he might have had about engaging such an elderly opponent in combat. To gain that lovely prize he had to pit his youth and energy against a vast accumulation of skill and cunning acquired during a long lifetime's total dedication to golf. Even with the handicap he had been granted he could only win by somehow or another putting the Golf-father off his stroke.

'In deference to your advanced age, sir,' he said with exaggerated courtesy, motioning towards the first tee.

Clagwammer grunted, accepted a driver from his grandson and critically examined the fairway. Josh whispered to Jim, who was looking at his score card: 'Five-hundred and twenty yards, dog-leg to the right.'

Tall and angular, hawk-nosed and wearing a green eye-shield, the Golf-father stood silhouetted against puffy white clouds, some of which were already swelling into cumulonimbus. He took up his stance, his artificial foot turned outwards to aid his stability, swayed slightly and with minimal address, raised his right shoulder and swish!- despatched the ball down the centre of the fairway into the teeth of the wind. Jim was forced in spite of himself to admire the skill which sent it hugging the contours of the ground, following the fairway which curved gradually to the right. The old man smirked sardonically and motioned Jim onto the tee.

Placing his ball on the peg, Jim tried to recall his golfing prayer. He looked up at the racing clouds and down again at the white ball, which seemed to have shrunk in size. He mobilised his limbs for action, becoming unfortunately aware of the derisive eye of the Golf-father upon him. Was it really true that he could put a hex on another golfer? He swung- the ball rolled two inches from the peg and stopped. The devastating silence from the two witnesses of his discomfiture almost crushed his spirit.

He took a deep breath, replaced the ball on the peg, and thought of the lovely prize for which he was playing. To hell with this old reprobate who double-crossed at the highest international level. Head down, let the club take wings! The ball soared aloft in a high snaking arc and exceeded his opponent's drive by twenty yards.

He looked up, expecting to see approval on his opponent's face But he was already clambering with the aid of his grandson into the golf cart, secure in the knowledge that he had already gained the advantage.

A large untidy clump of sage brush impeded direct entry to the green and Jim wondered if Clagwammer would play over it. Instead he plied a two-wood and sent his ball curving round the edge, leaving himself with an easy iron shot to the green. Jim pondered. An accurate trajectory over the dense mass of foliage would leave him with a short pitch to the flag and a chance of recovering a lost stroke. He selected a four-wood, swung and the ball sailed at too high an angle into the air and descended into the vegetation. A painful sensation assailed him as he set off in search of the ball. Josh accompanied him, shaking his head disparagingly. Four minutes later they found the ball nestling in the roots of a bush. Two strokes later he had escaped, landing on the green for a count of six. Clagwammer, his face chiselled in stone, was standing ten feet from the hole for a count of three. Josh lifted the flapping flag, as Jim, clasping his putter, hunched over his ball fifteen feet from the hole.

Pausing as he was about to hit the ball, Jim saw his whole life rising before him. He remembered the ripples of laughter coming from the audience in the theatre when he had been convulsed with uncontrollable giggles. He remembered the subsequent years of poverty in the novelty trade. And he remembered Brenda- large-hearted, wide-bodied Brenda- so tolerant of his failures. And then the astounding success of Bun-glof- which had already earned more money than any game since Monopoly. He had enjoyed success since then. Success! The very word acted as a talisman. He putted and his ball rolled forward and disappeared into the hole.

Clagwammer bent his green eye-shield downwards. His long, gnarled limbs contorted like an ungainly crane, he putted and missed. He went down for a par five. Jim entered his score with a shaking hand. Seven. The odds were already tilting against him.

Not a word was spoken on the way to the next tee. Clagwammer's silence conveyed the grim message that his skill and technique must inevitably prevail. Jim knew that his only chance would be to undermine his adversary's steely confidence. But how? Ingrid had suggested an attack on his machismo.

'Thanksgiving Day,' he remarked innocently, as the old man accepted a driver from his grandson.

'What about Thanksgiving Day?'

'How can you expect a young and beautiful girl like your vice president to wait all that time to make love. It just isn't reasonable.'

'I have mistresses in every state of the Union,' Clagwammer said, coolly glancing along the length of his club. 'Miss Harman doesn't mind awaiting her turn.'

Nonagenarian braggart! Jim thought bitterly. He had heard men seventy years Clagwammer's junior making similar boasts. He was sure the claim was completely without foundation, but he must accept that he had lost that particular verbal exchange.

The Golf-father was gazing thoughtfully at the flag on the second green four-hundred yards away. Examining his granite countenance, Jim decided that a subtler, more lethal approach would be required to dent that indestructible ego.

The ground ahead dipped sharply into a gully that was waiting to ingest a mishandled drive, then rose towards a cluster of bunkers protecting the green. Clagwammer's ball landed ahead of the gully and left him a clear approach. An approving smile appeared on Josh's face. It seemed to Jim that the whole family, formidable in its accumulation of wealth, influence and golfing wisdom was aligned against him.

Trembling, he eyed the distant flag and drove a crooked shot down into the gully, where it lodged in coarse grass. A four-iron took him level with the Golf-father's ball and another heroic iron shot sent it into a bunker as deep as an infantryman's trench. Four strokes and several hundred-weight of flailing sand later he was down for seven. The Golf-father, after some impatient experimenting with his puttometer was down for par four.

'I trust you are enjoying the game.'

'Yes, indeed, sir. You will, of course, receive an invitation to the wedding.'

'I'll give you a hundred to one against there being a wedding in any currency except Polish zlotys.'

'By the way, sir, golf was invented by the Scots. Your statement that it was played by the Chinese thousands of years ago is an absolute load of crap.'

'Your own recent experience should have taught you that the Chinese can be very inventive.'

'The State department will probably withdraw your passport when they learn about your double dealings.'

'On the contrary, I have considerable influence in that quarter. I shall take great pleasure in pointing out to them at the earliest opportunity that your presence in this country is wholly undesirable.'

The third hole was par three, one hundred and ninety yards. A flurry of wind snatched the ancient golfer's hat off his head; his trousers flapped against his skinny legs. Like some weathered monument, he stood motionless on the tee, and then took his swing. Lightning suddenly flashed menacingly, accompanied by a cascade of drenching rain, thunder and a powerful gust of wind. Caught off balance, he hooked the ball into a clump of trees at an angle of forty-five degrees to the fairway. Josh raced to retrieve his grandfather's hat as Jim lobbed his ball with easy aplomb onto the green.

As he drove his cart towards the flag, he saw the vermilion top of the Golf-father's vehicle enter the wood. Shortly afterwards, there was the sound of oaths and exclamations as Clagwammer played a bizarre form of billiards against the trees. He emerged from the forest for three and reached the green in four. Too impatient to use his own invention, the puttometer, he misjudged the resistance offered by the heavily-watered grass and three-putted. Jim two-putted for a par. He was now only one hole down.

The fourth hole was a five-hundred yard dog-leg, with a thirty-degree turn to the left. The fairway was bounded on one side by the railway line and on the other by a small forest. The rain ceased momentarily and a faint glimmer of sunshine appeared between the twin peaks of towering storm clouds. The boiling currents within the cumulonimbus clouds were matched only by the angry emotions in the breasts of the puny golfing contestants below.

Jim mounting the tee, remarked casually; 'Chalk of opium.'

Clagwammer's face remained immobile.

Jim continued: 'It takes a real bastard to deliberately give customers diarrhoea by selling laxatives under the guise of highballs.'

The Golf-father glowering angrily, shook his club in impotent rage. He shouted: 'Bray, jackass, I've taken away your...'

The missing word was blown away by the wind.

Clagwammer's expression about the preeminence of mind over matter inspired Jim to essay a mighty swing. In spite of this, he over-corrected for the wind and the ball took off in a wild, racing arc towards the railway line. The Golf-father limped painfully towards the tee and Jim prudently withdrew to a safe distance. Raising himself to his full height, surveying the hazards ahead, Clagwammer resembled a tired old frontiersman defying the cruel elements. The obstinate manner with which he gripped his club seemed to symbolise his tenacious hold on life itself.

There was a sudden swish as the old man drove his ball straight down the fairway. Travelling a few feet above the grass, free from the nagging torment of the wind, it finally came to a halt dead centre in the fairway. The Golf-father smiled pityingly. Jim's reluctant admiration for this demonstration of skill was soon lost in his grim determination to play himself out of trouble. He drove his cart at full speed and found his ball lying by a sleeper on the railway line. Unobserved, he tossed the ball onto the grass and played an iron shot which placed his ball alongside that of the Golf-father.

By the time they approached the ninth and final green the score was level. But it seemed to Jim that his fate was sealed. The Golf-father, playing like Joshua the robot-golfer, could easily achieve a par four on this, the last hole. It consisted of four-hundred yards of green fairway. Half way along were two yellow bunkers, designed to penalise hook or slice. The green itself, adjacent to the swimming-pool, was on an eminence just above two more bunkers. All his hopes for the future rested on the unlikely chance that the Golf-father would make a crass error.

Josh had deserted his grandfather on the sixth tee, saying that he had forgotten to feed the cheetahs. The two combatants were now alone. As the Golf-father stumbled towards the tee, Jim racked his brain, striving to find a chink in his opponent's psychological armour. He had attacked his virility, his veracity and his integrity: all these comments had rebounded from Clagwammer's iron-clad self-esteem. Suddenly, he had an inspiration. He would attack the very pastime to which Clagwammer had given a lifetime of devotion- golf itself.

The sun suddenly blazed between towering castellated storm clouds. As the Golf-father pulled his green visor further down over his hooked nose, Jim said innocently: 'Don't you think chasing a little white ball and trying to knock it into a hole is an undignified pursuit for a grown man?'

The bolt struck home.

The Golf-father trembled violently, but appeared to temporarily recover his icy composure as he placed his ball on the tee peg. Straightening up, however, he began shaking uncontrollably and remarked caustically: 'In all my years I have never heard a more ungentlemanly comment on a golf course. You are a goddam commie bastard unfit to mix in decent human society.'

NINETEEN

Recalling these events in later life, Jim often thought that this exchange of words marked the turning point of the epic battle. The Golf-father suddenly changed his mind as he was about to drive off, and bent down to pat some errant tufts of grass around the tee peg. Once more he stood erect, gazing at the flag on the elevated ninth green like some spindly Don Quixote around whom dark forces were closing. Jim even managed to feel a twinge of pity for him. He swung, the ball shot like a projectile towards the flag and then caught in the giant hand of the wind, dropped like a stone into the right-hand bunker. The Golf-father gave a muttered oath and retreated from the tee, his face disfigured with rage.

Jim's heart leapt as he watched his own ball travel two-hundred and twenty yards yards along the fairway. He drove his cart forward and discovered the Golf-father staring perplexedly into the interior of a very wet bunker. He could have posed for a sculpture entitled Golfing Misery. Suddenly, he sprang into action- a great gout of sand and water spouted into the air and his ball landed short of the green.

Mesmerising himself with the thought of Ingrid, Jim took a three-iron and was chagrined when his ball travelled only ninety yards. Now it would need a miracle to save the day. A shot with a niblick lobbed his ball to the left of the green. A pitch with his nine-iron dropped it somewhere in the vicinity of the flag. Hastening to see where it had fallen, Jim raced his cart towards the green, passing on his way the grim, upright figure of the Golf-father.

Clagwammer pitched his ball onto the green, and as he climbed with painful slowness back into his vehicle, Jim dismounted and ran up the incline towards the flag. Both balls lay within six feet of the flag. If they both putted into the hole, it would be a sudden death play off. There was no one in sight. Down below the Golf-father's red-topped cart was rolling inexorably nearer. Up till now Jim had led an honourable life. But as he now reminded himself, all's fair in love and war. He therefore performed the most despicable crime in the golfing canon. Standing near the flag-pole, with his hands on his head, aware that only the uppermost part of his torso was visible to the oncoming Golf-father, he gently kicked his ball into the hole.

'Mr. Clagwammer,' he shouted, as the old man limped onto the green, 'I had the good fortune to pitch my ball straight into the hole. I therefore claim Miss Harman's hand in marriage.'

Clagwammer turned awkwardly on his heel and limped dejectedly back to his golf-cart. He reached inside his bag of clubs, but instead of a club withdrew a large revolver. Grasping his gun between his right hand and his left claw, the Golf-father aimed and fired. Simultaneously Jim threw himself full-length onto the damp turf. Then terrified by the mad golfer he first crawled then raced towards his golf-cart. Once inside he set off towards a distant copse.

With his head bent low over the steering-wheel, he heard another loud report and then another. Meanwhile, he energetically gyrated the steering-wheel to make himself a more difficult target. A shot ripped through the billowing green canopy and another clanged against the cart's steel rump. Aware that after one more shot the Golf-father would have to stop to reload, he deliberately steered his vehicle over the sacred turf of the eighth green. The golf-father, provoked beyond endurance by this profane act, fired wildly and missed. Jim turned sharp right, seeking the safety of a stand of trees.

His cart careened wildly in a shallow bunker. The wheels spun in the wet sand, then gripped again and moved the vehicle with agonizing slowness onto the grass. It tilted thirty degrees and he flung himself like a yachtsman to the other side, to maintain balance. The red-topped cart was twenty or so yards behind him and gaining ground. At full-throttle he crossed another fairway and desecrated yet another green, before glancing backwards at his pursuer, hunched malevolently over the steering-wheel. Fifty yards of rough grass and a single bunker now lay between him and the safety of the trees.

He skirted the bunker, wheels bounding madly over the projecting tufts of grass at the side. The sky darkened and heavy rain hammered on the canvas roof. A brilliant white flash of lightning was followed by a belch of thunder. As soon as the leafy branches of the trees embraced the canvas top, Jim threw himself into the wet undergrowth.

Seconds passed. Nothing stirred. An ugly red spider scuttled under a leaf. As Jim admired the jewel-like droplets of water scintillating in its web, two other drops splashed down each side of his nose. There was a renewed patter of rain on the leaves. Cautiously, he peered out from behind the trunk of a tree. Only one set of tyre marks led from the isolated bunker- those from his own cart. A crimson patch indicated where the Golf-father's cart lay overturned.

Jim waited a while and then cautiously approached the upended vehicle. The rain had ceased. The golf cart contained only an empty golf bag. However, peering into the bunker his eyes encountered a ghastly sight. The Golf-father lay sprawled in the sand, his head at a grotesque angle. Six or seven golf clubs formed a pattern like that of a chieftain's headdress around his head- the rest were embedded in the sand like so many assegais. His mouth gaped open, his false teeth lay near him, ejected by the force of the fall. His puttometer lay at his feet. An innate sense of propriety prompted Jim to descend into the bunker, to try and force the Golf-father's dentures back into his gaping jaws. However,finding the task impossible, he placed them instead into the old man's tee-peg pocket. He uttered a silent prayer for the ancient golfing fanatic whose life had come to such a fitting conclusion and set off on foot towards the ranchhouse.

A damp mist rose from the grass as he trudged wearily back, hoping that he would not receive too much blame for this bizarre and tragic end to his golfing duel. He had not observed where the revolver had fallen, but supposed the police would find it when they came to investigate the incident. Then through the swirling fog he caught sight in the distance of the two cheetahs, their tails whipping synchronously.

In the face of this new danger he turned and fled for the safety of the swimming-pool. Running madly, he glanced over his shoulder. The cheetahs were gaining on him, cantering in a graceful, relaxed motion. He veered slightly and tore off his golfing cap, hoping to distract them; but they ignored it and kept running. He heard a splashing sound behind him as they charged through a puddle. As he raced over the ninth green, the scene of his dishonest victory, he decided that the gods of golf must be punishing him for his sins. The blue waters of the swimming pool lay within sight. The paws of the cheetahs were flying effortlessly behind him, gaining ascendancy with every yard. He could hear their breathing above his own laboured wheezing. Then he felt a gentle pressure on his right shoulder and felt himself being bowled over by the weight of a big cat. Lying helplessly on his back, he smelt their foul breath, looked up at their snarling jaws and screamed. Suddenly, however, they drew back and sat down, their nostrils twitching, and regarded him with a sad, slightly mystified expressions. With immense relief he realised that they were confused, or repelled- he wasn't sure which- by Ingrid's musky perfume. He rose to his feet, muttering friendly endearments: 'Nice pussies- pussy, pussy, pussy.' The cheetahs hovered around him uncertainly, as he walked towards the ranchhouse. One of them darted forward and rubbed his ear against his trouser leg. He was surprised that the revolver shots had not alerted someone in the house, but supposed that the sounds of gunfire were not that unusual in Texas. The storm clouds had disappeared completely and a hot sun poured heat from a burnished sky, bringing to his nostrils the sour odour of the cheetahs ambling beside him.

As he crossed over the terrace of the ranchhouse, with its sunshades and gaily-coloured garden chairs, he rehearsed in his mind how he would break the tragic news to Ingrid. He paused by her bedroom window, a sudden impulse prompting him to look through the window blinds. Inside, he could dimly make out the two entwined forms of Josh and Ingrid rising and falling gracefully in slow motion. They were playing that particular variant of the love game which Ingrid playfully dubbed 'frontgammon.' For one agonising moment his eyes remained glued to the scene; then he ran blindly back towards the golf course.

His first impulse was to find Clagwammer's revolver and murder Josh. Then he remembered that he was already deeply implicated in the death of the Golf-father, so he continued running, past the red-topped golf cart lying on its side, past the copse where Clagwammer had played billiards against the trees and on towards the railway line.

A goods train was travelling slowly round a bend in the track. He settled on the penultimate waggon, which was flat and empty. The cheetahs meanwhile were bounding alongside him, adding fury to his stride. He scrambled along the wooden sleepers and grabbed at a metal flange, allowing himself to be dragged along. Then with his final reserve of strength he levered himself onto the rusty, flat surface of the waggon. He lay there panting, the heat from the metal burning his face and ears.

Suddenly, a voice said, 'Man, you done smell like a cat house.'

A grinning hobo in a patched and faded blue boiler suit was standing over him.

'I've just come from one,' Jim said bitterly. 'Where's this train going?'

'Dallas- but man, you better bail out 'fore we reach the marshalling yards.'

'Right.'

'Right, man.'

TWENTY

Ten hours later Jim was back in London. It seemed small and quaint after the vast expanses of Texas. He noticed on his way by taxi from Heathrow to his office that a new game called Flog-ball was being advertised on the side of the red buses.

On his arrival at Bun-glof headquarters Miss Peacock indicated the sales chart on the office wall; it sagged like a broken wing. She said bleakly: 'Mr. Benson is very worried. He's hoping the deal you made in America will make up for what's happening here.'

Max Benson did indeed look downcast when Jim first entered his office. But his spirits soon revived. He waved Jim to a chair and said: 'How did it go in Texas?'

Jim grimaced and replied: 'You were damned right about using a long spoon to sup with the devil.' He launched into the story of his recent adventure.

Max Benson, however, refused to be discouraged. He said: 'Clagwammer got what was coming to him. It's not your fault if the old lunatic fell off his cart and broke his neck. As for your romance, you're well out of it. All that will happen is that Ingrid Harman will take over the management of American Games now that the Golf-father is dead. And since it's in her interests as much as ours to make the deal succeed, the American royalties should soon start rolling in. We're barely breaking even here at the moment.'

For the next few days Jim was tempted almost beyond endurance to telephone Ingrid. But he was held back by the memory of how she had wantonly betrayed him while he had been engaged in a life-and-death golfing duel. Then it occurred to him that possibly he had seen Josh in the act of raping her and he lifted the telephone.

Suddenly remembering the scratch marks on Josh's shoulders that he had innocently attributed to the cheetahs he put it down again.

Clutching at straws he assured himself that his eyes must have been playing tricks on him.

Again he lifted the telephone.

Then the scene came flooding back- he groaned as he recalled that unusual juxtaposition of limbs which Ingrid humorously referred to as frontgammon.

He replaced the receiver.

He asked himself was he perhaps being unreasonable. Sexual fidelity wasn't all thatimportant. Ingrid was a high-powered business executive. Bowed down by her responsibilities, she needed alittle relaxation now and again. And even if her temporary lapse had dampened his enthusiasm for marrying her, a case could still be made out for a business merger. The ensuing discussions would give them a chance to sort out their private relationship.

Then commonsense took over. American Games Corporation was fifty times bigger than the Bun-glof organization. The whale would swallow the goldfish. Best leave well alone.

Shortly after this he fell a prey to depression.

His mind became haunted by memories of that gaunt figure lying in the bunker. He bitterly reproached himself for not having telephoned for an ambulance. For the first time in his life he suffered from insomnia. And when finally he succeeded in going to sleep the ghastly image remained etched in his mind of Clagwammer mouldering away in the sandy depths of that last bunker from which even the finest golfer with the most expensive clubs never escapes. In one dream a badly-directed golf ball landed with a resounding clonk in one of the eye sockets of the Golf-father's skull.

He woke screaming.

He told Benson that his conscience was troubling him. Benson in reply assured him that by now the Golf-father's body would certainly have been recovered.

'Then why haven't the Dallas police issued a warrant for my arrest?'

'They must have found the revolver, guessed what had happened and decided not to pursue the matter.'

'Surely they would want me to give evidence at the inquest.'

'Look, Jim, if you're so worried, go to the American Embassy and get it off your chest.'

Jim tried very hard to put the matter out of his mind. He seemed to be succeeding but then found himself borne rapidly back into depression by his recollection of deeds that seemed even worse than first-degree homicide. He had not only failed to add a stroke on his card when he removed his ball from the railway line, but he had been guilty of the despicable crime of kicking his ball into the hole. In addition he had committed the ultimate blasphemy of mocking the game of golf.

In a fit of remorse he went to the American Embassy and told the girl at the reception desk that he had come to confess to crimes committed while visiting the United States of America.

'What kind of crimes, sir?' the girl enquired.

'They're secret,' he replied grimly.

'Secret? Then go up the stairs to an office marked AIC and ask for Colonel Rackow.'

She pointed to the door.

'What does AIC stand for?'

'Answers In Confidence department.'

Colonel Rackow, a short man with craggy features and sharp blue eyes under prominent black eyebrow came to the door. He resembled the late Humphrey Bogart. He motioned him to a chair and said: 'What seems to be the trouble, pal?'

'I've killed the Golf-father.'

'Really? Colonel Rackow looked amused. 'Waal, I've news for you, Mr. Alexander, Charlie Clagwammer is still very much alive.'

'Impossible! When I left him he was lying with his head at right-angles to his body.'

'It would take more than a fall to kill that old bastard. His neck was broken, but he's recovering quite well. Rumour has it, though, that his golfing days are over. During his convalescence he's been amusing himself by devising computer golf games. He's selling them by the million through one of his subsidiaries.'

'I'll be damned,' Jim replied, feeling an immense load lifting from his mind. 'I remember he did say once that playing golf had given him the heart of a man one third of his age.'

He told the colonel all about his golfing duel with the Golf-father, omitting, of course, the fact that he had cheated.

'If you wish to charge Clagwammer with attempted homicide, I can take a statement from you. You would have to travel to Dallas to give evidence against him, of course.'

'No thanks,' Jim replied. In a fit of generosity, he added: 'I don't want the old buzzard to have to go to jail at his age.'

The colonel drummed thoughtfully on his desk with his fingers and then said: 'Perhaps you can set our records straight about certain other of your recent dealings with Clagwammer. Tell us, for example, about your encounter with four Chinese girls in Moscow?'

Jim started.

'I would rather not, if you don't mind.'

'Come on, Mr. Alexander. It must have been very harrowing.'

'Not all that harrowing,' Jim replied, reminiscently. He adamantly refused to be drawn further on the subject.

Looking a trifle disappointed, Colonel Rackow continued: 'Anyway, on behalf of the AIC, I am authorised to tell you that the whole deal was organised by Clagwammer. The Chinese women who assaulted you were from an escort agency that he owns in Hong Kong.'

'What was the point of it all?' Jim enquired.

'I can only guess that the old guy wanted to take the steam out of your courtship of his vice president,'

What about the golf courses that were supposed to have been disguised as missile sites?'

'That was just a load of bullshit.'

'And yet,' Jim ransacked his memory, it does tie up with something the Minister for Sports and Culture mentioned about camouflaging the proposed new golf courses.'

Colonel Rackow gave a hearty guffaw.

'He was letting you in on a current joke among the ambassadors in Moscow. It all arose from a conversation at a banquet last year, when our ambassador suggested the Russians should take up golf. Krulenko shrewdly answered that the Chinese would make anti-Russian propaganda out of it. Our ambassador countered with a little quip: Why not disguise them as missile sites. Krulenko thought that wonderfully funny and has been cracking jokes about it to everyone ever since.'

'But why was Clagwammer trying to sell golf to the Russians?'

The colonel looked slightly amazed at Jim's obtuseness.

'Clagwammer tries to sell golf to everyone. He'll be selling it in heaven- if he ever gets there. Incidentally, the State Department has been trying to get the old guy certified insane. But they've run into a problem.'

'What kind of a problem.'

The psychiatrists who were supposed to certify him are all keen golfers.'

As he was about to go, Jim asked the colonel how he had learned about his ordeal at the hands of the Chinese girls.

'It's our business to know about such things.'

'Yes, but how did you find out?'

The colonel replied with an enigmatic smile, 'Let's say it's all done with mirrors.'

He handed Jim an envelope embossed with the American eagle and escorted him to the door.

Jim noticed, looking back as he descended the embassy stairs, that he had read the letters on the door of Rackow's office the wrong way round.

When he got home, he opened the envelope and found a letter from the State Department. It read:

'Dear Mr. Alexander,

It appears that recently you have been the target of a private vendetta conducted by an American citizen. All necessary steps are being taken to curb this man's illegal activities abroad. In the meantime the State Department regrets very much any inconvenience you have suffered and offers its fullest apologies.'

It was signed: Secretary of State.

Nevertheless, Jim harboured a suspicion that the Golf-father was still conspiring against him. This view was reinforced when Max Benson informed him next day that Clagwammer's great-nephew, Hector Clagwammer, a director of a firm which at one time had supplied the Bun-glof Corporation with googly balls, was marketing a similar game called Flog-ball, in flagrant breach of the Bun-glof and Gamp-glof patents.

Max pleaded with Jim not to take legal action,pointing out that litigation could prove horribly expensive. Jim, however, was determined at all costs to defeat the Golf-father's evil design. Exercising his right as major shareholder, he instructed Wetherby to take the manufacturers of Flogball to court.

TWENTY-ONE

This last chapter will appeal to those who, as well as taking delight in a happy ending, are capable of appreciating the finer points of the law.

The case of Bun-glof Corporation versus Flogball Ltd. in association with the Latex Googly Ball Company and Hector Clagwammer ran in the High Court for three months and twenty-seven days and gave considerable financial sustenance to the legal profession. It should serve as a fearful warning against attempting to defend patents of marginal validity.

Wetherby briefed several brilliant Q.C.s well versed in patent law. Timothy Benlow spent weeks on their behalf ransacking the files of the Patent Office. The law suit occupied many columns in the daily press and, as well as providing considerable entertainment for people in the public gallery, gave a dying fillip to street golf, of which the parvenu game Flogball got the lion's share.

The case at first seemed to be going in favour of the Bun-glof Corporation, but the discovery of the registration of Gamp-glof- a name which had never been fully commercially exploited- marked a turning point in the case. The judge, a stout man with flaccid dewlaps, said that the fact that the names Gamp-glof and Brolly-golly both derived from commonly-used terms for umbrellas was extremely significant.

Peering round the packed court-room over his half-glasses, he said:

'Mr. Benlow, the patent agent who first registered Bun-golf, as it was then called, has admitted in court that the bat-and-ball combination is in the public domain- that is to say it is the inalienable property of all mankind. What he hoped to do on behalf of his client was to register the combination of umbrella and ball as a unique invention, the rights of which would belong exclusively to the holders of the patent. Attempting to achieve patent protection he registered two games, one of which, Bun-glof, is played with a googly ball, and the other, Gamp-glof, is played with a straight bouncing ball. Now clearly, the claim for protection of Gamp-glof under patent law must be ruled invalid without further ado. It would be an impudence to suppose that the inventor would be entitled to accuse a schoolboy striking, say, a tennis ball with his umbrella of an infringement of his patent. This would violate the basic liberties of the schoolboy- although I would be the first to agree that they take liberties enough these days.

(Laughter in court.)

Now in the matter of Bun-glof, the patentee has endeavoured to draw a distinction, albeit a fine one, between hitting a straight-bouncing ball with an umbrella or walking stick and hitting a googly ball with similar implements. The defendants in this case are manufacturers of googly balls and they claim no special right to their manufacture. What, in effect, they are saying is that if the Bun-glof Corporation have the right to match a googly ball with one of their special umbrellas and market the resultant product, they have a reciprocal right to match an umbrella to one of their own googly balls and engage in a corresponding commerce.

It seems to me that the essential weakness in the case for affording protection to this combination lies in the definition of a googly ball. If we attempt to categorise it as an erratically bouncing ball, we are faced with the problem that there is no such object as a true-running ball. The essential charm of any ball game is the unexpected capriciousness of the bounce. It is this which tests the reflexes and fires the enthusiasm of all sportsmen. It would be impossible in the normal course of events to determine with a sufficient degree of precision whether a ball being used in conjunction with an umbrella was in fact a googly ball, a straight-running ball, or simply a badly-manufactured ball which did not run true.

The judge's face assumed a dreamy expression similar to that of a golfer who has holed a thirty-foot putt.

Shrinking from the judgment about to be made against him, Jim looked up at the public gallery and saw a girl peering at him with an expression of pained sympathy. It was Brenda. She cautiously waggled some fingers at him. He responded similarly.

The judge continued: 'It is the essence of patent law that the patentee should not attempt to draw his net too wide, as in so doing he may lose the tiny fish on which he has lavished the attention of his fertile mind. There are sound reasons why this should be so, which we will not go into now. In this case the net has been widened even further by the American licencees of the game, who have dubbed it Brolly-golly...'

The writing was on the wall. It spelled out in no uncertain manner that the costs of the legal case would shortly bankrupt the Bun-glof Corporation.

Brenda, meanwhile, had extended the waggle to a cheerful wave. Jim whispered to a flustered Wetherby, who was busily taking notes, 'Don't bother any more- we're caput,' and went outside into the corridor. Brenda swayed towards him, casually offering her hand. She looked radiant- but plumper than when he had last seen her.

'Hi, Brenda. I thought you were in Australia.'

She clung to his hand, her fingers impressing a silent message.

'Care to buy me a cup of tea for old time's sake?' she asked with a smile.

'Sure. There's a place across the road. You can tell me what you've been up to.'

'I've been staying with a cousin in Melbourne,' she confided when they were seated in the café.

'What made you come back?' he enquired absently, his mind still on the disastrous court case.

'I decided to have the babies in England.'

'Babies?'

'When the doctor told me it was twins, I decided that I couldn't manage by myself, so I came back home.'

'TWINS!'

'You remember that night in Brighton? I really believed it when you said you wanted to marry me.' She was busy looking for a handkerchief.

He offered her a paper napkin and watched with acute embarrassment as she blew her nose. The fact that she was to be the the mother of his twins suddenly made her appear extraordinarily attractive.

He said; 'Look, they say that high-handicap golfers make the best husbands. I play off twenty-four- will you marry me?'

'You're too rich.'

'Nonsense. I'm cleaned out- ruined by that court case. I've nothing left except this- ' He brought out the ring intended for Ingrid Harman, which his fingers had just encountered in his pocket. 'Here, try it on.'

Brenda examined it.

'It's beautiful. Did you say you're ruined?'

'Bankrupt. Every penny gone in debts and legal costs.'

'If we sold this ring we'd have enough money to put down as a deposit on a house.'

They were married three weeks later, just twenty-four hours before the twin boys were born. Shortly afterwards Brenda persuaded Jim to see a psychiatrist, who relieved him of his propensity to giggle when on stage. In fact, he has since excelled both in tragic as well as comic roles. To escape the far-flung tentacles of the Golf-father he has adopted a stage name. Even this sensible precaution did not prevent him from becoming embroiled again at a later stage with that sinister figure. But that, as they say, is another story.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night Jim wakes screaming from a vivid dream in which he is being sexually assaulted by four beautiful Chinese maidens. But his psychiatrist has advised him not to worry, because such dreams are not uncommon.

His golf handicap is now sixteen.

EPILOGUE

Brolly-golly never really caught on in the United States. In Britain, after a brief resurgence of popularity brought about by the much-reported court case, interest in Bun-glof and Flog-ball alike evaporated. The brief episode has passed into oblivion along with the yo-yo and the hula-hoop. It will no doubt be remembered in history as a time when class divisions and sectional interests were forgotten in the enthusiastic chase of the elusive googly ball.