Hunting for Golf Balls by Tom Velterop ⁠– Part II

The leaves are brown and sodden underfoot. I walk on the path we walked before, through the oak and birch, bare and naked now, the holly, as vibrant green as it was in spring, the pine, needles silver green against the white sky, and the ferns, bent-backed, broken and brown. I walk slowly and hardly notice the leaves I crush or the puddles I splash through. My eyes roam over the dark places between the trees; the rotting tumbles of leaves, dappled corners under holly branches, the nooks tucked under bramble groves. In all the brown and black and mouldering ferment I search for a glimpse of white.

It is winter now, and this place is smaller than I remember. Or perhaps it is just that I am alone, and he had always filled so much space.

My father and I idle through the trees. We are in an oasis, a copse of birch, oak, holly and pine, a stream running through it, and at its heart a waterfall plunging into a wide hollow in the earth and a clay stained, iron-rich pool that foams creamy beige under the fall. The copse is a haven surrounded on all sides by uniform cropped grass and putting greens, colonial flags smug in the breeze. But the golfers fear to tread here; their smart shoes can’t handle the mud and puddles.

I kick my sky blue wellingtons through the crisp, freshly fallen oak leaves. My father bends down suddenly and reaches for something hidden.

‘Wait, I saw it first!’ I lie.

He grins, and bounces the thing in his palm before putting it into his pocket. It is a golf ball, dimpled all over, pure white but for its black brand and a red number. He has three others in his pocket already, and I only have one.

We move on slowly, fussing through the leaves and pine needles. I take up a long stick with one hand and poke it through the rustling drifts and rummage among the ferns. My other hand I keep in my pocket, clutching onto my only golf ball, running my thumb over the dimples and reading its number through my skin. Father strolls on, hands in his pockets, hardly looking at the ground. He has the sky in his eyes and the clouds in his hair.

Beyond the copse we pass the driving range. There are thousands of golf balls here, more than I can count, a field of yellow stars. When I think he isn’t looking I reach down and pluck a yellow ball from the grass and put it into my pocket.

‘Put it back, son,’ he sighs. ‘Those ones don’t count.’

I cross the stream where we always used to cross it, slipping on the same slides of wet clay. Before I reach the other side I change my mind, and turn to splash upstream. I step carefully on the wet stones, clear through the shallow water. The waterfall grows louder as I near it. It has rained the past week, and the stream is full and hurrying. The hollow opens up around me, encircling me, enclosing me. I wade into the pool as deep as I can in my wellington boots. The water is clay brown and smells of mushrooms, dappled by birches bowing overhead. Honey fungus grows on the walls of the hollow, sprouting between the dangling roots of the birch trees above.

The waterfall is loud and unceasing. It echoes in the hollow and it echoes in my mind. All other sound is lost in its plummet. I close my eyes and listen.

Once home we go to the garage. There is a large clay urn, pale beige with brown spots, a raw earth-coloured ring around the base, two half-moon handles and flowers like five pointed stars on the sides, sitting against the dank bare brick wall. It is almost full to the brim with golf balls.

My father drops his four treasures into the urn one at a time, then looks at me. I only found one. I don’t want to give it up. I clutch it tightly in my pocket, and shake my head.

He smiles, a curious thing, turned down at the corners of his mouth, pulling at the pale traces of two scars on his chin that shine past the blue field of his stubble, and that is that.

I run out to the patio to play with my golf ball, bouncing it hard on the concrete and catching it again.

‘Don’t break any windows,’ says my father.

Later I dissect the ball with a handsaw. Inside is a solid, hard rubber core. I’m mildly disappointed. Somehow, I had expected more. I try bouncing the core on the patio, but it isn’t the same.

The sound of the waterfall fades behind me as I walk downstream, stepping through the water, slipping on flat, slick stones. The sounds of the world creep in around me again, the natter of a dancing blue tit and the chatter of a squirrel, the hush of the wind through the silver pine needles and the yell of a golfer missing his mark.

Just past the crossing, one side of it showing the fresh clay slips from my boots, and I come to Pirate Island. Or, what we had called Pirate Island. Or, what had used to be Pirate Island, for it wasn’t an island anymore. Once, the stream had split around it, leaving a small diamond shaped isle with a trio of tall silver birch trees in its centre. The bank of the stream on one side had been a couple of feet higher than the island, and as children me and my sisters had jumped from the bank to the island and played at being pirates. Later, we had jumped across and had picnics on the lush, uncropped grass. Later still, I had jumped across with my girlfriend and we had lounged half naked in the sun, dappled by the emerald leaves of the silver birches.

Between the high bank and the island someone had filled the stream in with earth. Where once the stream had split in two, it now winds only around the low bulge of Pirate Island, a tumour on the side of the bank. The lush grass I remember has disappeared under a chaos of brambles, looping around the birches like razor wire, clawing up their trunks to rake at their limbs. It is lifeless now, and in shadow.

It is late January, and the policeman knocks on our front door in the early hours of the morning.

The world outside holds its frozen breath beyond the small pool of lamplight beside the door. Our front door is oak, thick and heavy, its handle and letterbox wrought black iron. It is opened with intent or not at all.

The world outside holds its frozen breath beyond the solitary form of the policeman, dressed in black and blue and yellow. The silent spinning lights of his patrol car shine behind him in bursts of electric blue light.

The world outside holds its frozen breath beyond the bare branches of the watchful trees. They crowd around our patio, rearing above the policeman. Their fingers claw at an indigo sky punctured by starlight.

My mother answers the door in her nightdress. She closes the door behind the policeman when he leaves, and promises herself to never open it again. She sits in the kitchen until my sisters and I wake up before telling us. She thinks it’s better to let us sleep, for now.

I leave the copse and come to the driving range. I lift one of the yellow practice balls and feel its weight in my palm. I bounce it a few times, thinking about taking it.

‘Doesn’t count,’ I mutter to myself, and toss it back.

Something makes me turn around and I trudge back across the trimmed grass to the copse, still the last refuge of wilderness in the vast rolling fields of flags and tee offs and putting greens.

I kick slowly through the breaking bracken, rustling through them with the toe of my boot. I find a long birch branch and use it to part the low limbs of the holly trees, then rustle through the drifts of leaves caught in their roots. I trail the tip of the branch through a shallow black puddle, disturbing the leaves floating there, searching the black mud beneath.

Nothing.

I sigh, and toss the stick aside. I had never had the knack for it, my eyes always sliding over the shadows and secret corners that my father’s gaze had managed to pierce. I look at the sky and watch the scudding clouds, letting my feet wander where they will.

A twig breaks beneath my foot and I glance down.

There.

A glimpse of something, a sliver of white among the gloom and dank black and rotting brown, nestled in a pile of dry needles between the roots of a pine. I reach for it and lift it out. The golf ball is almost pure white, almost unblemished. I squeeze it and close my eyes. I feel it against my skin. I squeeze it harder, as if it could be any closer to my body, as if it could become a part of my body.

She brings us into my parent’s bedroom to tell us. Their bed is huge, emperor sized, large enough for all of us to climb on. We huddle there. I think some of us knew what to expect, or knew to expect something. I didn’t have a clue. I think I started crying before I even really, truly, understood what had happened. I look around through my veil of tears. The room is wide and empty beyond the bed. The sky in the skylight is blank and white.

She wishes her arms were long enough to take us all into them at once.

She wishes she believed it when she tells us everything will be alright.

She wishes she didn’t have to tell us at all.

We stay like that on the bed for a long time. That night, we all share the bed, close and cramped and warm. To be alone is to be alone with grief and loss. To be together is to be together in love and comfort.

The garage door opens with a drawn out choking creak. It is dark inside, damp and cold. It is a place for spiders and dust.

Against the bare brick wall, where it has always been, rests the beige and brown urn, full to the brim with golf balls. Next to it I put down another urn I carried there in my arms, a far smaller one, unbelievably light for the weight it carries. I look at the pair of them there together. One is large and packed with white golf balls; it is dense and heavy, and I doubt I could lift it on my own. The other is small, less than a foot tall, filled with fine grey ash; I could lift it with one hand, but I know its weight will never leave me.

I take the golf ball I found in the copse from my pocket and put in the beige urn with the brown flowers on the sides.

‘One last treasure, for you,’ I say.

by Tom Velterop

About Hunting for Golf Balls

Hunting for Golf Balls is a four-part memoir about loss, and the last refuge of wilderness. It began with not knowing how to begin, and never really ended. The first installment was published last week and you can read it here. The next installment will be published next Wednesday.