Polo (31 page)

    Perdita was now riding a beautiful chestnut called Cuchilla.

    `Good milk, Perdita,' Angel called to her as they cantered upfield for the throw-in. Perdita ignored him.

    `I say, good milk, Perdita.'

    `Oh, fuck off,' she snapped. She assumed it was some beastly crack implying that she should be breast-feeding rather than playing.

    Somehow in the last chukka the Mendozas steadied. But it was a pandemonium of frantic swordplay and scrimmaging around the Mendoza goal-mouth until it seemed impossible that the goal-hungry green-and-white posts hadn't swallowed the ball. Finally, taking a fearful risk, Luke left his back door open and took the ball upfield, outrunning Juan, snaking Fantasma past the two O'Brien cousins, then passing to Angel. Once again only Perdita, who was glued to Miguel, stood between him and goal. Aware there was no way Angel would give Perdita the chance to score, Miguel galloped forward to bump him off the ball. Discounted, ignored, Perdita waited despondently behind him. Good milk indeed. Then, to her amazement, Angel had passed Miguel with a ravishing offside forehand landing right at her feet. For a second she froze as Miguel yanked his horse round so violently that he cut its mouth and pounded towards her. Then, with her back to the goal and no time to position herself, she executed that most foolhardy of shots, known as the millionaire's, becauseonly a rich man can afford to jeopardize his pony in this way. Pulling the ball towards her, she slammed it between Cuchilla's beautifully clean front and back legs and under her bound-up tail. Having miraculously missed any limbs, the refractory ball hit the posts and bounced back.

    `Bad milk, Perdita,' shouted Angel, then galloped up screaming,
`Dejala, dejala, dejala.'

    Next moment he had scored and the crowd went wild. Only one goal behind with two minutes left.

    `Bad milk, Perdita,' said Angel, riding up to her as they cantered back for the throw-in.

    Jaime Calavessi, who longed for an O'Brien victory to get him off the hook, hurled the ball in. Taking no chances, Juan tapped it away and set out, like Paul Revere, on his thoroughbred black pony Glitz. As he galloped down the boards Patricio raced alongside him waiting for a chance to ride him off and pinch the ball. Failing to tempt Patricio on to his line, Juan suddenly pulled Glitz up in a frenzy of outrage, twirling his stick to indicate he'd been crossed.

    `Manufactured,' yelled Luke, Patricio, Angel and Perdita in unison. Then, advancing on a cringing Jaime, `That foul was manufactured.'

`Faulazo,'
yelled the O'Briens, closing in on Jaime.

    Jaime fingered his aching jaw. Glancing up, he saw an unsmiling Mrs Juan draw her finger across her throat. In a superb display of arrogance, Miguel walked his pony off to a spot thirty yards from the Mendozas' goal as though the penalty was a
fait accompli.
Jaime awarded the penalty to the O'Briens.

    `It's not bloody fair,' said Perdita as they lined up behind their back line. `This whole game is rigged and why does that bastard Angel keep saying good and bad milk to me?'

    Luke was revving Fantasma up to block Miguel's shot, but suddenly he laughed. `The word
leche
means milk
and
luck in Spanish. I guess Angel was trying to wish you luck.'

    Jaime's conscience was troubling him. There was only a minute left and Miguel was messing around joking with the other umpire, his brother-in-law, making a great play of teeing up the ball. Jaime caught sight of Perdita's anguished face. She'd played so well and she was so much prettier than Mrs Juan - and

    he was, after all, a susceptible Argentine. Shutting his eyes, waiting for a thunderbolt to descend, he blew a foul on Miguel for wasting time. When all the O'Briens closed in on him he appealed to the third man, who woke up with a start. Deciding that the O'Briens were getting above themselves, he upheld Jaime's decision. Giving the O'Briens no time to reassemble themselves, Luke lofted the ball over their heads, slap between the posts.

    With a minute to go the score was tied. The throw-in was murder, sticks going everywhere. Luke felt Fantasma wince as the ball hit her smack on the knee, but such was her courage that she limped for only a few paces, then set out again, vroom, vroom, vroom, to defend her own goal.

    The clock showed only twenty seconds left as Luke saved the Mendozas from certain defeat with another backshot. Swinging round, he streaked up the field like a man on a motor bike, outrunning Juan's black thoroughbred, passing the two O'Brien cousins. What a glorious horse! Any minute he expected her to take off like Pegasus.

    Leering like some terrible shark, Miguel was now coming towards Luke and Fantasma at right-angles. Luke waited until the last moment to pass to Patricio who passed to Perdita.

    I'm going to score at last, she thought joyfully, then groaned in horror as she hit wide. They were all in the goal-mouth now, raising such a dust with their flailing sticks that no-one could see. Five seconds to go. Then, miraculously, Perdita saw the ball six feet in front of her. One of the O'Brien cousins was looming in through the smokescreen on her right. Clambering halfway up Cuchilla's neck, only just managing to stay on by clinging on to the martingale with her left hand, she lunged forward and, with a one-handed billiard-cue shot, ignoring the pony crashing in on her left, she shunted the ball between the posts. She would have fallen under the pounding hooves if someone hadn't grabbed her primrose jersey, ripping it apart in the process so her slim brown shoulder was laid bare, and tugged her back into the saddle.

    Coughing and spluttering, she swung round, reluctant to take her eyes off the jubilantly waving red flag, then realized in amazement that it had been Angel. For a second they glared at each other, then yelling, `We've beaten the O'Briens,' they fell into each other's arms.

29

    Having drunk a great deal of champagne, they drove home in a manic mood, yelling, `Juan O'Brien's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, but his cock goes pumping on,' and howling with laughter. It was a beautiful evening, a great stretch of brown-flecked cloud lay like a turned-down sheet over an endless blue blanket. They had each been given a little silver cup. Perdita's lay between her thighs, clinking against Luke's. Angel clutched his and in its reflection he occasionally examined an eye that was turning purple where Miguel's elbow had caught him. Luke drove, his heart simultaneously bursting with pride and heavy with foreboding. Hanging from the windscreen was the red, white and blue rosette Fantasma had won as Best Playing Pony. Even though she'd nearly savaged the VIP presenting the awards when he tried to pin it on her headcollar, everyone wanted to buy her now. Alejandro might even overcome his greed and hang on to her himself. Worse still, Angel's arm lay along the back of the seat, grazing Perdita's hair. Was he going to lose her
and
Fantasma, wondered Luke. Then he told himself not to be absurd. Neither was his to lose. As he listened to Angel and Perdita re-living every stroke of the game, it never occurred to him to mind that it had not occurred to either of them that he had set up every goal they scored.

    `Juan asked me for my card,' said Angel.

    `He asked me for other things,' said Perdita. `Stupid prat. I don't like used men. I wouldn't touch him with a pitchfork.'

    `Don't talk to me of peetchforks,' shuddered Angel. Then, waving airily at the pampas, `My great-grandfather used to own all this land. We was in charge of the frontier. To the North to Buenos Aires it was civilized, to the

    South it was Indian. My great-grandfather and the Army destroyed the Indians. They were 'orrible - very non-U.'

    Perdita giggled. `You make Margaret Thatcher sound like Karl Marx. How long did it take to tattoo that heart on your arm?'

    `About a bottle of wheesky,' said Angel.

    Perdita screamed with laughter.

    Oh Christ, thought Luke, I meant to bring them together, but not that much.

    `Give us a poem, Luke,' said Perdita. `Something to cool us down.'

    Luke thought for a minute.

`Whose woods these are I think I know,'
he began. His voice was hoarse from the dust and shouting.

`His house is in the village though:

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill
up
with snow.'

    Listening, Perdita thought about snow in Rutshire and battling through the drifts to take hay to Ricky's ponies.

`The woods are lovely, dark and deep,'
went on Luke with a slight break in his voice,

`But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.'

    I've got miles to go before I sleep, thought Angel, until I get to England and avenge Pedro's death.

    `Eagle,' said Luke, pointing to a quivering dot in the sky.

    `There are three good things about the Argentines,' said Angel, `their nature: birds, flowers and theengs; their women, and their individuality. But they are very ghastly in a crisis.'

    `You were pretty good today,' said Perdita. `I think the Argentines are the loveliest, funniest people in the world.'

    Later they went to a local night-club to celebrate. Sharon Kaputnik, regal in midnight blue with her red hair piled up on top, was practically held together by sapphires.

    `If you threw her into the river,' murmured Luke, `she'd sink like Virginia Woolf.'

    `Alejandro's the wolf,' said Perdita. `He's had his hand up her skirt all dinner. I don't know if it's a complimentto Alejandro's right-arm muscles or the beef that he can cut it up with a fork.'

    Victor, as usual adoring the sound of his own voice, was slagging off the O'Briens.

    `All Argentines are crooks.'

    `Alejandro's not laike that,' said Sharon, whose eyes were getting rather glazed.

    `Nevair,' said Alejandro, whose hand was still burrowing. `Miguel boasted they'd win easy today,' went on Victor. `Easily, Victor, easily,' corrected Sharon. `You ought to

    learn to talk proper, laike what I do.'

    `She very beautiful,' whispered Angel.

    `She's hell,' hissed Perdita. `All you Argentines are too stupid to see how naff she is - and someone should get Alejandro a finger bowl.'

    `All ay'm interested in is buyin' that lovely waite pony, Fandango,' said Sharon.

    Luke, aching all over from bangs and bumps, was overwhelmed with tiredness. The strain of captaining the team was now telling on him. A bang on the ankle, which was now so swollen he couldn't get a shoe on, ruled out any dancing, so he was forced to watch Perdita and Angel joyfully celebrating their armistice on the dance floor. Perdita's arctic blond hair flew loose and newly washed (as usual Luke had boiled up the water for the shower). Her body was starkly but seductively clad in an elongated black T-shirt. Angel's khaki face was dead-pan. His eyes never moved from Perdita's, as his body writhed like a snake.

    Sharon gazed at Angel greedily.

    `Who does that young man play for in Palm Beach?' she asked Luke.

    `No one at the moment.'

    `Ay'll have a word with Victor.'

    An hour later, Perdita having bopped also with Alejandro and Victor, came back and threw herself on Luke's knee like a child.

    `Oh, Luke, darling, I'm having so much fun, it's all due to you. Without you Alejandro would never have let me play and he's just been really complimentary, and you'll never guess… ' She put her mouth to Luke's ear. As her hair tickled his cheek and he smelt her scent and felt the excited heat of her body, his senses reeled.

    `Sharon,' whispered Perdita, `is going to put a Mogadon in Victor's brandy so she can spend the whole night with Angel. That'll be three men in one day. She is a whore. D'you think Angel will shout Port Stanley at the moment of orgasm and stick a blue-and-white flag on her bum?'

    So Perdita wasn't falling for Angel. Luke felt almost giddy with relief. Then reality reasserted itself.

    `And Alejandro says I can ring Ricky when I get home,' went on Perdita joyfully. `Aren't the Argentines the most adorable people in the world?'

    Perdita's euphoria was tempered the next morning. While Sharon enjoyed her beauty sleep and possibly Alejandro as well, Victor played in a practice game with Alejandro's young sons, and Angel, Perdita and Patricio, who all had fearful hangovers. Determined to try out Fantasma, Victor had only been deterred because Alejandro lied that she'd come up slightly lame from her bang on the knee yesterday.

    `You see how good she was. No need to try 'er.'

    Victor's game had not improved since 1981. He slumped around on other horses like a sack of pony nuts, crossing everyone. As the sun grew hotter, and her headache worse, his uselessness began to irritate Perdita. The others were letting him get away with murder. They couldn't be that hungover. As he teetered towards her, she rode him off so viciously he nearly fell off.

    `Come 'ere,' yelled Alejandro who'd just arrived. Then, dropping his voice as she drew near, `Lay off, you stupid beetch.'

    His conniving little eyes were vicious with fury at the prospect of losing a good deal. `Your job ees to make Veector look breeliant, and for 'im to score as many goals as possible.'

    So, for the next half-hour, they all cantered round, tipping the ball on to the end of Victor's stick, greeting every goal with roars of applause.

    `Your horses are much better schooled than the O'Briens',' said Victor as he rode off the field, flushed with triumph.

    He proceeded to buy twenty horses and said that after lunch he would haggle with Alejandro over a price for Fantasma.

    Luke, whose ankle was murder, had spent a frustrating morning in the village telephone-exchange tracking down his patron Hal Peters, the automobile billionaire. He finally located him in the Four Seasons in New York, closing a mega-deal with some Italians.

    `Fantasma's a dream,' shouted Luke. `Lines me up for every shot, changes legs at a gallop, got acceleration that brings tears to your eyes. She outran all the O'Briens' ponies yesterday and she's only four.'

    `You talking about a woman?' said Hal Peters, who wanted to show off to the Italians and their bimbos. `Is she pretty?'

    `Prettiest horse you ever saw, silver as a unicorn and all the grace. If we have her on the team, everyone'll talk about her. Best publicity you could have, but we've gotta move fast. People are after her.'

    Pay what you like,' said Hal.

    Luke belted back to the house to tell Alejandro he could top any bid of Victor's and the haggling started in earnest.

    `I buy her for $7,000 as a two year old,' said Alejandro.

    `Bullshit!' said Luke. `She only came into the yard two months ago and you told me Patricio only paid $700 for her.'

    Alejandro gave a great roar of laughter. `That was when he bought her. Now I am selling her.'

    They settled for $12,000.

    In the afternoon Luke had a telephone call at Alejandro's from his father, also in New York. Off the drink and living on shrimp and diet Coke in order to shed ten pounds before the Palm Beach season, Bart was not in a good mood. He did, however, congratulate Luke on going up to seven in the latest handicap listings and asked him to join him, Bibi and Red in the Fathers and Sons Tournament which began in the middle of December.

    `I've got to fly a lot of horses back for myself and Hal,' said Luke, `but if you can put in a substitute for the first two games, I should make the semi-final. How's Red?'

    `Lousy,' said Bart. `Got himself involved with some actress called Auriel Kingham.'

    `Christ!' Luke tried not to laugh. `Wasn't she at college with Grace?'

    `Almost,' said Bart. `She's junked her husband who's citing Red, so we've got reporters staking out the house night and day.'

    Bart, however, was much more furious because the underhandicapped player, known in the game as a ringer, whom he'd signed up to play with him, Juan and Miguel in Palm Beach, had been put up two places in the November handicaps, which put the aggregate of the team's handicap over the required twenty-six.

    `I called the American Polo Association,' snarled Bart, `I said, "We've paid him money and he signed the contract eight months ago and we'll pull out altogether because it wrecks our team", but the assholes wouldn't budge.'

    Luke privately thought that the APA, having been pushed around once too often by Bart, had probably decided to take a stand.

    `I've gotta find another ringer at once,' said Bart. `You got any ideas? I'm pissed off with Juan's and Miguel's cousins.'

    `Sure,' said Luke. `Guy called Angel. Plays like one too. He's rated one here, but he's at least four. Got class too. I'll bring him back with me.'

    It touched Luke that, despite their differences, his father trusted him more than the O'Briens when it came to finding players. Having told Angel, he limped outside. Christ, his ankle hurt. He saw that Perdita was cantering Tero round the corral. The change in the little mare was amazing. She had filled out, her iron-grey coat gleamed like stainless steel, her long silver-blond mane, still unclipped to indicate she was a novice, fell coquettishly over her eyelashes. Her brown nose looked as if it had been dipped in paprika.

    She no longer trembled or flinched away when Perdita touched her, and this morning, a huge victory, she had accepted a Polo from Perdita's hand. Schooling and stick and balling her mostly behind Alejandro's back, Perdita had fallen totally in love with the pony and was desperate to buy her for Apocalypse next summer. But Ricky hadn'tanswered any of her letters and he'd been out when she'd rung him last night.

    Now Tero was executing a perfect figure of eight, not flinching at all at the stick Perdita was swinging around to get her used to it.

    Oh, happy horse to bear the weight of Perdita, thought Luke.

    Instead he said, `Angel's gonna play on my father's team in Palm Beach next season.'

    `That's great,' said Perdita, battling with jealousy. `What did Angel say?'

    `He's so fired up that he galloped three times round the stick-and-ball field yelling: "Sheet, sheet, I'm going to play for the Flyers." I warned him he'd have to play with the O'Briens, and that my father isn't easy, but at least it's a polo boot in the door.'

    `Lucky thing,' said Perdita fretfully. `I'd love to play in Palm Beach.'

    As Luke stroked Tero's satin neck, it was difficult to tell if his hand was shaking the mare, or the mare shaking him. Not looking up, he drawled, `Why don't you come and spend Christmas with us? It's kinda wild. And we can certainly arrange some polo.'