Polo (23 page)

    He nodded. `I'm lousy at small talk, and it helped.' `Couldn't you just drink occasionally when you need it - like at parties?'

    `Once I start I can't stop - like Kinta.' He uncrossed a pair of knives.

    `I suppose you feel it's a way of making sure it never happens again.' She flushed as red as the mulberry walls. `I'm sorry. I shouldn't remind you.'

    Ricky broke up a piece of brown bread, but didn't eat it. `Does it get better?' asked Daisy.

    `Not much.'

    The flame from a scarlet candle lit up the stubble darkening his chin and the even blacker rings under his eyes. Oh, Christ, that's torn it, thought Daisy.

    `Are you ready to order, Meester France-Lynch?' asked

    the head waiter. `The
moules mariničres
are very very nice.' `I'll have that,' said Ricky, then turned to Daisy.

    Oh help, she thought. One of the things that had driven

    Hamish crackers was her inability to make up her mind. `No hurry,' said Ricky. `Give us a few more minutes.' `I'd like mushrooms
ŕ la grecque,'
said Daisy quickly, `And to follow,
les perdreaux sont superbes.
We serve them

    stuffed with foie gras and cooked in Madeira.'

    `Partridge,' explained Ricky. `They do them very well

    here.'

    Daisy nodded hastily. `I'd like that.' Anything not to irritate.

    `And don't overcook them,' said Ricky. `And we'll have a bottle of the Number Fourteen.'

    `I'll be plastered,' said Daisy, aghast.

    `No-one could accuse me of being a half-b-b-bottle man,' said Ricky. `What was your husband like?'

    `Very half-bottle, very noble-looking, very serious. He thought I was too silly for words, but he made it possible for me to keep Perdita, so I'll always be grateful.'

    `You miss him?'

    `I miss all the things he did - like policies and banks and keeping the children in order. And I miss having a pair of arms round me. It's like being a house without a roof.'

    She was boiling. She'd have to take off her thick blue jersey soon, and she couldn't remember how many buttons had come off the shirt underneath, and it was sleeveless,

    and she hadn't shaved her armpits since Philippa asked her to supper last week.

    `It's such a pity,' she gabbled on, `one can't go out and buy a new husband or wife the next day, like you do with puppies or kittens. I'm sure it'd be much easier to help one get over things.'

    `I don't want a new wife,' said Ricky flatly.

    `No,' said Daisy humbly, thinking of poor Perdita. `I can see that. Chessie was so beautiful. I've seen pictures.'

    `Better in the flesh. Her colouring was so p-p-perfect. It was my fault I neglected her. I was foul-tempered and arrogant and polo-mad. I never had any money to buy her the things she wanted.'

    She had you, Daisy wanted to say. It was no good, she'd have to take her jersey off. Horrors, two middle buttons were missing to show an ancient grey bra. Hastily she breathed in and clamped her arms to her sides to hide the stubble. Then, seeing Ricky looking at her in amazement, said quickly, `Bart Alderton sounds hell.'

    `He's a sadist,' said Ricky as the waiter arrived with their first course. `That's why I must get her back.'

    And while the black mussel shells rose in the spare plate, like cars on a scrap heap, he told Daisy about Chessie's last taunt.

    `But that's wonderful,' said Daisy, `so romantic. You can win the Gold Cup and the Westchester, and go to ten like the labours of Hercules. I'd rather do that than kill the Hydra. You must do it.'

    Ricky passed Daisy a mussel. `They're very good. I will if Dancer has anything to do with it. Now they've lifted the ban on my going abroad, I'm off to Argentina next month to squander his millions on some really good ponies.'

    Perdita adored Dancer,' said Daisy. `These mushrooms are bliss. In fact, the whole thing is a real treat.' She took a huge gulp of wine.

    `How is she?' asked Ricky casually.

    `Suffering from massive withdrawal symptoms. She misses you - all,' she added hastily.

    `I miss her,' said Ricky. `She's a menace, but she makes me laugh.'

    `I wish she occasionally made us laugh at home,' sighed Daisy.

    `Giving you a hard time, is she?' Ricky filled up Daisy's glass.

    It was not in Daisy's nature to bitch, but faced with Ricky's almost clinical detachment, everything came pouring out - Perdita's endless tantrums, her impossible demands, her spite to the other children.

    `I haven't got many wits, but
I'm
at the end of them. That was lovely.' She handed her plate to the waiter. `Hamish going affected her dreadfully. They fought the whole time, but underneath she was frantic for his love and approval.'

    `Who was her father?'

    `It's so shaming,' whispered Daisy.

    `Can't be that bad.'

    She was saved by the waiter shimmying up with the partridges, making a great show of how pink they were inside, pointing out the foie gras stuffing, the celeriac purée and the exquisitely dark and glistening Madeira sauce. But the moment he left Ricky returned to the attack.

    `So, what happened?'

    Being Daisy, she blurted it all out. `I should have told Perdita years ago, but I'm such a drip I funked it.'

    Tears were flooding her face and she wiped them frantically away with the sleeve of her jersey. Aware a drama was taking place and dying to know if this was Ricky's latest, the waiter sidled over.

    `Everything all right, Meester Franch-Lynch?'

   `Perfect, now push off.' Ricky put a hand over Daisy's, a large rough hand with callouses beneath the base of each long finger from endlessly holding a polo stick.

    `You are a good mother,' he said gently. `I can read between Perdita's lies. I know what sacrifices you've made, working in that ghastly Christmas pudding factory, not buying any new clothes for years.' He picked up the frayed, very pointed collar of her shirt.

    `I didn't know I was going out to dinner,' said Daisy defensively.

    `Course you didn't.'

    `I don't know what to do with her.' Daisy blew her nose on her red-checked table napkin, then realized what she'd done. `Oh God, I'll wash it and send it back.'

    `She needs polo,' said Ricky, `but serious polo. She ought to be playing ten chukkas a day with really good players,

    and she ought to get miles away from you so she can't kick the shit out of you.' As he filled her glass again he knocked over the salt cellar and quickly chucked the spilt salt over his left shoulder. `Are you painting?'

    `Not much.' Daisy was pleating the edge of the tablecloth. `All my inspiration seems to have dried up since Hamish left and I seem to have lost all my confidence as a woman. Not that I had much, anyway.'

    `In what way?' Ricky was stripping the partridge leg with his teeth, very white and even except a front one chipped by a polo ball. `Come on, eat up.'

    It is quite difficult cutting up a partridge when your elbows are glued to your ribs. Daisy started forking up celeriac.

    `Last week I went to dinner at Philippa's. She insisted she'd got a lovely man for me. But it was just as an excuse to get her latest lover into the house. He wasn't remotely interested in me and brought Philippa some goat's cheese that looked like Tutankhamun's brain. They disappeared for hours to look at some rare book and Lionel insisted on seeing me home.' Her lip trembled. `I'm sorry, this is awfully boring.'

    `Horror films aren't boring,' said Ricky.

    `And suddenly he leapt on me.'

    `Disgusting old goat!' Ricky was comfortingly furious.

    `Appropriate, really! He tasted of goat's cheese. I've never been very good at rejecting people, so I told him I was frigid. He just leered and said, "I'm a psychiatrist, little girl. I can cure that." ' Daisy gave a shudder.

    `I'll chuck them out,' said Ricky angrily.

    `Joel says they're model tenants,' said Daisy. `They're always cutting their lawn.'

    `Can't imagine Lionel modelling anything. You're not to have anything more to do with them. Understand?'

    Ricky put his knife and fork together. `Let's get back to Perdita. I'll take her to Argentina with me next week. No, it's a good idea. You know Alejandro Mendoza?' Then, with incredulity, `But he's the greatest back in the world. The Mendozas are blood rivals of the O'Brien brothers, Juan and Miguel, who used to play for David Waterlane before the Argies were banned. They invariably end up on opposite sides in the Argentine Open. I'm going out to buyponies from Alejandro. He takes a few players every year on his
estancia.
They bring on the young ponies and in return he teaches them. My handicap went up in twos the winters I spent with him. There are always young boys hanging round the place. Perdita needs a boyfriend. I'll leave her with Alejandro till Christmas.'

    `We couldn't possibly afford the plane fare,' mumbled Daisy.

    `Dancer'll pick that up,' he said. `He wants Perdita to play for him next year. She'll add some much-needed tone. He's been nagging me to take her back for weeks. He can just advance her some salary. There's no need to cry.'

    `I'm sorry.' Daisy wiped her eyes on her sleeve again. `I ought to get the Niagara Falls Award for bawling. I'm just not used to lucky breaks. Are you sure?'

    `Positive. Now Rupert's Minister for Sport, he can fiddle her a visa.' As he smoothed back his dark hair, his signet ring caught the light.

    `What's your motto?' she asked.

    `Never surrender,' said Ricky bleakly.

    And he won't until he gets Chessie back, thought Daisy. Three-quarters of a bottle of wine had loosened her tongue.

    `I've been moaning on about Perdita all evening, but at least she's alive, whereas Will… '

    … isn't,' said Ricky watching the bubbles rise in his glass of Perrier. `Suffering's supposed to make you nicer. Didn't work for me. That's probably why I've been so bloody to Perdita. The guilt still knocks me sideways - just being alive. Sometimes I panic because I can't remember what he looked like. Chessie took all the photographs. She needed them. He'd be six now, old enough to start hitting a ball-around. It comes in waves, doesn't it?' He glared at her. `Look, I really don't want to talk about it.'

    `I just think you ought to try and forgive yourself,' mumbled Daisy. We're like two chickens side by side trying to defrost, she thought.

    `When are you coming back to England?'

    `February or March. I can't stand another English winter. Dancer's fixed up for me to make a bomb coaching movie stars in Palm Springs. My elbow still plays up when I play too long.'

    After that they talked about Dancer and Ethel and Little

    Chef and Ricky's ponies, and drank so many cups of coffee and Daisy even had a
crčme de menthe frappé
that it was long after midnight when they left.

    `The colandered Barbour,' said Ricky, holding out her coat for her. `You've been crawling through my barbed wire!'

    Outside, in the back of the BMW, Ethel's great spotted goofy face was grinning out. Beside her, his front paws on her shoulder, tail wagging his small body into a frenzy, was Little Chef.

    `It's easy for dogs,' said Daisy with a hiccup. `I've had such a lovely time,' she said as Ethel fell on her in ecstasy, `and Ethel's lick is much more efficient than cleansing cream.'

    `This road is awful,' said Ricky as they bounced down the rough track to Snow Cottage. `I must get it fixed before the winter.'

    Seeing all the lights on, Daisy quailed. Surely Perdita wouldn't kick up when she knew she was going to Argentina. Desperate Ricky shouldn't think she was giving him the come-on, she had the door open before the car stopped.

    `Do come in and tell Perdita. She'll be so excited,' she called back as she scuttled up the path. If Ricky was there Perdita might not make a scene, but he had paused to look at the front gate which needed mending.

    Perdita sat on the kitchen table dressed all in black. She looked like a hell cat, sloe eyes glittering, teeth bared in a terrifying rictus grin, body rigid with loathing.

    `Darling - the most heavenly news,' said Daisy.

    `How dare you go out to dinner with Ricky?' screamed Perdita. `I bet his telephone wasn't off the hook at all. You just wanted an excuse to vamp him. You can't do without it, you bloody old tart, can you? I bet you asked
him
out.'

    Next minute Ricky had walked into the room and slapped her across the face. `Don't you ever talk to your mother like that again, you revolting little bitch,' he howled. `Now go to bed!'

    Perdita gazed at him, her white left cheek slowly turning bright scarlet, her eyes widening in horror.