Polo (10 page)

    `That means they're happy and relaxed,' said Perdita proudly. `If they lie down. Isn't she beautiful? She's the best friend I've ever had, thank you so much, Mum. I'll be a great polo player one day, and then I can support you.'

    Unbelievably touched, tight from tiredness and Benedictine, Daisy wandered away from the stable door. Then, behind her, from the black church spire, she heard the mad, romping din of the bells echoing down the white frozen valley, celebrating the birth of Christ.

    The hopes and fears of all the years, thought Daisy, overwhelmed with a wave of loneliness and despair. How wonderful to love and be in love at Christmas. Then, wiping away the tears, she chided herself. How ridiculous to thinkthere was more to life than a husband, children and a lovely house.

    `I do love you,' she mumbled much later when Hamish came to bed.

    `Is that because you've drunk half a bottle of Benedictine? D'you want some sex, Daisy?'

    Daisy didn't. She was absolutely knackered, but she thought it might cheer Hamish up. Sex with him was always the same. Hand straight down to the clitoris, rubbing it until she was wet enough for him to go in, then ten brisk thrusts before he came.

10

    Daisy's hangover did not enhance Christmas morning for her. Nor did Eddie playing a computer game he'd got in his stocking, which squawked every time the monkey grabbed the banana on the palm tree, nor did Biddy yakking on and on and letting her croissant get cold.

    Biddy had made a little stocking for Hamish, filled with socks, underpants, shaving soap, disposable razors and initialled handkerchiefs and, finally, a fawn jersey which he was now wearing - `All the things I know you need,' Biddy had added pointedly.

    Daisy, who longed to get everyone out of the kitchen so she could stuff the turkey, clutched her head as the telephone rang. Swearing and falling over the puppy, Hamish grabbed the receiver. It was his leading lady in the Robert Burns film, who'd found a tax bill among her Christmas cards.

    Hamish turned on the charm. `But, darling, you'll get repeat fees.'

    And I ought to get re-heat fees, thought Daisy, as she shoved Biddy's cooling croissant back in the oven for the third time.

    `That was Melanie,' said Hamish coming off the telephone, switching on the kettle and dropping another herbal teabag into his cup.

    `Even on Christmas Day they pester you,' sighed Biddy. `And you ought to eat a proper breakfast. You've lost so much weight.'

    `Seven pounds,' said Hamish, smugly patting his concave stomach, then snatching up the telephone as it rang again.

    `Hamish Macleod, oh, hello, hello.' Turning towards the window, Hamish hunched his broad shoulders over the telephone, jumping as Biddy leapt up to tuck in the Marks and Spencer tag sticking up from his jersey collar.

    `How are
you?'
he went on. No, not yet, we open ours at teatime. Lovely, it's awfully sweet of you. I'll try. Happy Christmas.'

    Trying not to smirk, he put down the receiver. `Isn't that sweet? That was Wendy ringing to wish us all Happy Christmas. She sent special love to you and Violet,' he added to Eddie, `and hoped you enjoyed
Peter Pan.
She's my PA,' he added to Biddy. `Absolutely first rate. I hope you get a chance to meet before you go back.'

    They were late opening their presents because Daisy was still stuffing the turkey and edging it into the Aga, which was harder than parking the Mini in Cheltenham on Christmas Eve.

    `Make a list,' said Hamish bossily, as the children fell on their presents, `or we'll never remember who gave who what, and get a bin for all the paper we can use again, and get that dog out of here,' he added as Ethel pitched in joyously.

    Biddy Macleod gave Eddie a camera, Violet a Walkman and Hamish some gold cufflinks to replace the ones Daisy had lost in the laundry. She gave Daisy a set of cake forks and Perdita two padded, satin coathangers.

    `Judging by your room, I thought you needed something to hang your clothes on,' she told Perdita.

    Daisy, shopping at the last moment, had overspent appallingly. Eddie was overwhelmed with the airgun.

    Violet was too sweet not to pretend to be enchanted with the Laura Ashley dress, but Hamish wasn't remotely pleased with his Barbour and green gumboots nor his silk shirts (after all it was his money Daisy was squandering), and when Biddy opened the box with the beautiful, pale grey silk nightie, she merely said, `Thank you,' very quietly and put it to one side. She made no comment about the Jane
Fonda Work Out Book,
but went into raptures over Eddieand Violet's massive box of chocolates, `I'm going to have one now,' and then there was all the palaver of identifying a coffee creme from the chart.

    `Oh, come on,' said Perdita.

    Biddy went into orbit when Hamish handed her an envelope which told her that the tapes of all his programmes, including
Road Haulage,
and a video machine, would be waiting for her in Glasgow when she got home.

    `One more present,' said Daisy, handing Biddy an unwieldy red parcel cocooned in Sellotape. `It says "Biddy love from Ethel".'

    In the end Hamish had to help Biddy rip it open. She gave a gasp as she extracted a pair of dusty, ancient, down-at-heel boots, one with a piece of chewing gum sticking to the toe.

    `What is the meaning of this?'

    `They're Mummy's boots,' said Violet. `She's been looking for them all day.'

    `I must have packed them by mistake,' said Daisy in a small voice.

    Everyone dressed for dinner. Daisy only had time to wriggle into an old purple-and-red caftan and tone down her scarlet cheeks. Perdita, in a black skirt and shirt that Daisy had given her, came into the kitchen as Daisy was draining the sprouts. Her clean white-blond hair hung in a long plait. With that lovely smooth, white forehead, and long, long, dark eyes, and the Greek nose, and the tiny, upper lip curving over the wonderful passionate mouth, she was pure Picasso, thought Daisy.

    `You look gorgeous,' she said.

    `I wish Daddy and Granny thought so. That was inspired giving boots to an old boot.'

    `Hush,' hissed Daisy. `It was totally unintentional.'

    Violet, loyally wearing her new Laura Ashley, which was quite the wrong colour, and embarrassingly emphasized her emergent bust, was doing valiant work with Biddy Macleod in the sitting room. Biddy, who'd been down since half past seven, pointedly refused a second glass of sherry: `There'll be wine at dinner.'

    Violet admired Biddy's shoes - black glacé kid with high heels to show off Biddy's tiny feet.

    `I thought I disairved a treat.'

    At that moment Hamish walked in expecting praise. He was wearing a frilly shirt, a black-velvet coat with silver buttons, a sporran, a heavy, closely pleated kilt, neat buckled shoes, and a silver dirk in his socks.

    `Oh, Hamish, you look glorious,' said Biddy. "Thou mindst me of departed joys, departed never to return".' She applied a handkerchief to her burnt currant eyes. `You look the image of your father.'

    `I didn't mean to upset you, Mother.'

    `No, it makes me happy to see you carrying on the tradition.'

    `You look lovely in your scarlet, too.'

    `I didn't want to spoil the feast,' said Biddy.

    `What feast?' said Hamish, looking at his watch. `It's nearly nine o'clock. Are we ever going to eat?' he demanded, marching into the kitchen, just as Daisy was carrying a swimming-pool of turkey fat to the sink. Her hair was dank with sweat, her cheeks carmine, only the dead white rings under her eyes showed how tired she was.

    `We'll be about quarter of an hour.'

    `But everyone's starving.'

    `Look at Dirk Bogarde,' said Perdita, who was lounging against the Aga. `You should have put Man Tan on your knees.'

    Hamish's lips tightened. `You ought to be helping your mother.'

    `So ought you. I thought modern husbands were supposed to share the cooking.'

    `Few husbands work the hours I do. Ouch!' screeched Hamish, as Ethel goosed him liberally.

    `You'll never guess what Ethel's done, Granny,' said Perdita dreamily as they sat down to dinner. `She's chewed up St Joseph.'

    `But that crib's been in the family for generations,' spluttered Biddy. `Is this true?'

    `Mary's a single parent now,' said Perdita. `Very topical, although I suppose God the Father's floating about overseeing things so she's not quite alone. I wonder how God impregnated her. AID or just miracles?'

    Perdita,' snarled Hamish, handing a large plate of breast to Biddy.

    `I wouldn't mind God as a father,' went on Perdita. `Just think of the things he could do: magic me up a trailer, flatten the top paddock into a stick-and-ball field; exterminate certain people.' She smiled sweetly at Granny Macleod.

    `Be quiet,' thundered Hamish, putting down the carving knife with a clatter. `I am going to beat that dog.'

    `Oh, no, Daddy,' Violet turned pale. `She chewed it up yesterday. She'll have no idea what she's being beaten for. It is Christmas.'

    Not a word of praise passed Biddy Macleod's lips throughout Christmas dinner, although a great deal of food did. Now they were pulling crackers and Hamish was checking the angle of his blue paper Admiral's hat in the big mirror over the fireplace. He had hardly eaten a thing.

    Perdita pulled a cracker with Eddie and disappeared under the table to get the rolled-up hat and the motto. She emerged a minute later, elderberry dark eyes glittering, looking dangerously elated. Oh help, thought Daisy, I've seen that look before. Violet noticed it too and exchanged uneasy glances with Eddie who was on his fourth satsuma. Hamish poured glasses of brandy for himself and Biddy, and a very small one for Daisy.

    `We don't want a repeat of last night. To absent friends,' said Hamish raising his glass.

    `Indeed,' said Biddy, `To my dear, dear Lochlan.' Perdita refilled her glass with red wine.

    `To Ricky France-Lynch,' she said and drained it. Biddy's mouth vanished and never came back.

    `I hope he gets ten years for merdering that poor wee

    bairn.'

    `He did not murder him,' said Perdita ominously.

    Perdita,' murmured Daisy. Why, she wondered, was she frightened of everything, and Perdita of nothing - not bullfinches out hunting, nor Biddy Macleod.

    `Drunk driving to my mind is murder,' went on Biddy. `No-one has any right to drive when they're off their head with drink.'

    `He'd been celebrating,' snapped Perdita. `He'd just won one of the biggest tournaments in the world.'

    `All polo players are the same to my mind,' replied Biddy. `Spoilt, jet set, indulging airvery gratification.'

    `Rubbish,' said Perdita furiously. `I bet if Grandpa Macleod had run off with some tart, taking Hamish with him when he was two, and you'd been to some Hogmanay piss-up, you'd have jumped into your Austin Seven and tried to get him back, and not given a stuff about drunk driving.'

    Mouthing furiously, Biddy was too outraged to speak. `Go to your room,' thundered Hamish, then turning to Daisy: `Will you control your child.'

    `She doesn't have to,' said Perdita, picking up her cigarettes. `I'm going. I'm not having anyone slagging off Ricky, that's all. You shouldn't judge people you don't know.'

    Pushing back her chair, she picked up the new black shoe which Biddy had kicked off because it was murdering her corns from under the table and threw it among the cracker remnants. The toe had been completely chewed off by Ethel. Biddy burst into tears and Ethel was shut howling in the utility room.

    Daisy went out to the stable where she found Perdita mutinously cuddling Fresco.

    `Darling, how could you?'

    `How could I not? The bloody bitch, poor Ricky.' `She is Daddy's mother.'

    `She's your husband's mother. Do you know what she said to Violet in the sitting room? "Isn't it a funny thing, none of my grandchildren have fair hair like I did," and Violet said: "But Perdita does". And Bloody Macleod said smugly: "I mean my real grandchildren.'"

    `How horrible,' said Daisy, totally unnerved by talk veering towards Perdita's origins. `She's never liked me, and secretly I think she's jealous because you're so much prettier than all her other grandchildren.'

    Perdita waited until much later in the evening when Daisy and the children were watching
The Magnificent Seven.

    `Mummy says Granny's jealous because I'm so much better looking than you or Eddie.'

    `Oh, shut up,' said Violet, who was red-eyed from Ethel's banishment. `Mummy wouldn't say a thing like that, would you, Mummy?'

    `Well,' stammered Daisy. `Oh God, you're a bitch sometimes, Perdita.'

    On Boxing Day Hamish, reeking of Paco Rabanne, went off to the office. Another frost ruled out hunting. Instead Perdita, practising her swing on a tea chest on the lawn, hit a ball straight through the stained-glass window halfway up the stairs. Daisy forgot she'd put a chicken in the Aga for lunch, so it emerged as a charred wren and they had cold turkey and salad instead.

    Swelling with turkey leftovers and righteous indignation, Biddy darned Hamish's socks. If her beloved son was in financial straits, it was entirely due to Daisy's mismanagement and extravagance.

    The sky outside was turning yellow, the forecast said snow.

    `Wouldn't it be lovely,' said Violet, `if we got snowed up and you couldn't go home, Granny?'

    Daisy turned pale. Like an addict needing a fix, she thought she'd go mad if she didn't paint. While Biddy had her sleep after lunch, she surreptitiously got out the sketch book Violet had given her for Christmas and drew Ethel and Gainsborough on their backs in front of the fire. Nor could she resist a quick sketch of Biddy Macleod, mouth open and snoring, chin doubled, two tweed spare tyres, legs apart showing three inches of doughy, white thigh between lisle stockings and wool knickers.

    `Christ, that's good,' said Perdita, creeping up. `Best thing you've done in years. You shouldn't have flattered her so much.'