Polo (38 page)

    A chukka's anonymity, however, was more than enough for Auriel. As Red rode back to the pony lines after failing to score once again, Auriel called out to him. Instantly a smile illuminated his scowling face and he cantered towards her. Immediately she whipped off her fur hat, her dark glasses, her silk scarves and her Barbour; everyone recognized her and screamed with delight, and the press swarmed on to the field, lighting up the gloom with a firework display of flash bulbs. Auriel then insisted on going down to the pony lines and massaging Red's shoulders and running her hands through his damp hair.

    `This is a fucking circus,' said Luke, on whose shoulder the latest shot of Novocaine had totally failed to work.

    Hal Peters, in the meantime, was kneeling down in the pony lines: `Dear Lord Jesus, if you think it's right make Hal Peters and his team win this match… ' and was nearly run over by Shark Nelligan returning on his fastest pony for the last chukka.

    `Now will you start playing properly?' begged Luke as he and Red rode back on to the pitch.

    `Don't worry, I'll win this match for you,' said Red.

    `What a beautiful woman,' said Hal Peters, gazing so hard at Auriel that he bumped into the umpire.

    Red, who always got a charge from holding back and lulling the opposition into a feeling of false security, now proceeded to storm through with a volley of goals all in front of the press and the television cameras.

    `Red, Red, Red,' was suddenly the only word on the commentator's lips. Despite disapproving strongly of Red, Perdita couldn't help melting. As he hit the ball on the ground, in the air, to the left, to the right, underneath,over, behind and in front of his matching sorrel pony, she realized that he was so supremely gifted he could win a match off his own stick.

    `If he played like that all the time,' said Bart in an I-told-you-so voice to Chessie, `he'd go straight to ten.'

    Red also had Ricky's ability to get the last ounce out of his pony. As he felt her tiring, he picked up his whip. Hal Peters was in ecstasy.

    `The Lord has answered my prayer,' he told Luke.

    The Tigers were only one goal ahead now, with two minutes to go. Victor, at this point, decided to fall off and lie on the ground. Sharon, busy making an assignation with Juan, looked without interest at the pitch. Then the horrid possibility dawned on her that if Victor passed away she'd never be Lady Kaputnik.

    `Oh, Victor, oh, may husband,' she screeched.

    `He's done it on purpose,' muttered Chessie to Perdita.

    `Then they'll put in a ringer instead to win the match.' `Water, water,' moaned Victor.

    On ran an official with a silver tray, a jug and a glass. Picking up the jug, Shark emptied it over Victor, dislodging his ginger toupee.

    `Get up, Victor,' he said brusquely. `You're not hurt.' `Don't speak to me like that,' squealed Victor. `You haven't had your cheque yet.'

    From the ground he could also see the freckling of rust spots on Fantasma's belly.

    `It is that mare, Alejandro, I remember the marking.' Spitting with fury, he laboriously climbed on to his pony. The umpire chucked in the ball.

    `Come on, you guys,' said Luke faintly. All he could see was a swirling mist in front of his eyes; it was like riding through a snow storm. Next moment Victor had crossed Red and the Argentine umpire, suddenly taking against Alejandro, awarded a rightful penalty three to the Cheetahs.

    `Now is Luke Alderton's chance to be a hero for his team and level the score for another chukka,' said the commentator.

    `I can't take it, my shoulder's fucked,' gasped Luke. `You take it, Jesus.'

    Down came Jesus in a slow theatrical canter. Alejandro,

    cantering across goal, blocked the shot for the Tigers. Jesus pounded down to score, but the next moment Alejandro, with a ten-goal swing, had hit the ball again, lofting it halfway upfield into the stands, only just missing Sharon, as the whistle went.

    As the players surged together to shake hands, Fantasma, showing a responsibility belying her four years, swung round and gently bore Luke back to the pony lines as though she were carrying a tray of Waterford glass.

    `Luke's hurt,' cried Perdita, fighting her way through the crowds. She found Luke slumped on an upturned bucket, with Fantasma and Leroy ferociously but misguidedly protecting him from two of Bart's paramedics.

    Mrs Peters sportingly stood down so that Auriel could present the prizes. The crowd surged forward to get a closer look. Auriel had reached an age when people wanted to see how many times her face had been lifted, if it was all make-up, or whether the cracks were showing. In fact she was an astonishingly beautiful woman. She wore a smoke-blue chiffon dress to match her smoke-blue eyes, and her wafting dark hair certainly wasn't a wig and she had a good enough pink-and-white skin not to need much make-up. With her full bosom and hips emphasizing her incredibly slender waist, wrists and ankles, she made the lean, blond, suntanned polo beauties look slightly commonplace by comparison.

    Up came the players. Victor, his toupee firmly in place, was vulgarly delighted to win the cup.

    `It takes two teams to make a game,' droned on the commentator, `and they need two towels and a mirror to wipe away the perspiration. Each player gets something to take home, I expect most of them would like to take home Miss Kingham.'

    Red, however, was the only player Auriel kissed and the crowd and the photographers went crazy.

    Despite his totally non-contributory first five chukkas, Red also won the Most Valuable Player award to Auriel's somewhat exaggerated ecstasy. He's stolen Luke's thunder and probably his patron, thought Perdita furiously. Fantasma, who won Best Playing Pony, came on muzzled and gazing fretfully back for Luke. A shimmerof silver white in the sun that had just returned, she disappeared under a royal-blue rug which stretched from her flattened ears to her newly brushed-out but angrily whisking tail.

    `These horses are thoroughbred and specially trained,' chipped in the commentator. `We honour these brave animals which are seventy-five per cent of the game. The Blanket of Honour is just our way of saying thank you to the ponies.'

    `That's my pony,' yelled Victor, clutching his cup. `I'm getting Winston Chalmers on to you and Luke, Alejandro.'

    `If I'd known how good she was,' said Alejandro to the Argentine umpire, `I'd have keep her myself.'

    Any disappointment Hal might have felt at not winning was dispelled when he was photographed arm in arm with Auriel by the entire press corps.

    `You smell wonderful, Miss Kingham,' he said, his Dutch cheese face redder than ever.

    `It's my own fragrance,' said Auriel, who had a heavily mascared eye for publicity. `It's going to be called "Auriel". I'll send your wife a presentation pack. I just adore your Cheetah Convertibles.'

    In the Players Club Hal, who was teetotal, bought everyone else champagne.

    `Where's Luke?' he asked.

    `Gone to hospital,' said Perdita, who'd arrived with Leroy on a lead. `He's dislocated his shoulder. He was in agony even before the match started. Bart clobbered him by the pony lines and threw him into an ambulance. I'm going to see him in a minute. He asked me to make his apologies.'

    `Oh, poor Luke, wish him our best,' said Mrs Peters. `How brave of him to play with a dislocated arm.' `When did he do it?' asked Hal.

    Red suddenly looked wary.

    `On Thursday night,' said Shark Nelligan evilly. `Luke's been knocking off a married woman. Her husband stormed into Cobblestones with half-a-dozen heavies and took him out.'

    Both Hal and Mrs Peters looked extremely disapproving. `Who was the woman?' asked Sharon.

    `Winston Chalmers's wife, Lucy,' said Shark, who was really enjoying himself.

    `Pretty woman,' sighed Bobby Ferraro.

    `Winston Chalmers is handling my divorce!' said Auriel in amazement. Then, turning to Red: `You didn't tell me Lucy was having an affair with your brother.'

    `Didn't think it was any concern of mine,' said Red, going dead-eyed. `That was a barnstorming game you played, Hal.'

    `I'd never have guessed it of Luke,' said Mrs Peters, really shocked.

    `Nor would I,' said Red, shaking his head.

    `Thou shalt not commit adultery,' said Hal sanctimoniously.

    Perdita looked out at the evening sunlight slanting across the pitch. The thunderclouds had retreated and were turning coral pink. In the Players Club garden begonias and impatiens glowed like jewels after the rain. Horses were being ridden home three abreast to their barns.

    `I wouldn't put anything past Luke Alderton,' Shark was saying. `People who steal patrons steal other people's wives.'

    `And their horses,' chipped in Victor.

    `Bullshit,' said Perdita, draining her glass of champagne. `It isn't Luke who's having an affair with Lucy Chalmers, it's Red. Every time he gets Winston on the telephone he pretends to be Luke. I'd stick to someone your own age in future,' she added to a furiously mouthing Auriel, `and always remember to put your toyboys away before you go to bed.'

35

    `The moment I divorce you,' Chessie screamed at Bart over the buzz of his electric razor, `you'll be cut out of the Forbes four hundred richest people list, and I'll be in it.'

    Christmas had got to Chessie as it had always got to her when, married to Ricky, she'd had to look after Will as well as having Ricky's father and her parents to stay. This year, when she had nothing to do except instruct a fleet of servants, she'd decided she missed feeling sweaty,exhausted and put upon like 99 per cent of the world's married women.

    Watching his wife rearing out of the bath, her maenad's face sullen as the water slid off her golden boy's body, Bart tried to be conciliatory.

    `I know you miss Will worst at Christmas, honey, but there's a perfectly simple remedy. Have some more kids with me. Give you something to do and fill the gap.'

    `Any child I had with you could never mean as much as Will,' yelled Chessie.

    Bart had walked out after that. It was the pattern of their relationship that she would play him up and he would punish her if she went too far. But this time she knew she had overdone it and when she called his office, on the flimsy excuse of asking him to find out if Red was coming, his secretary, Miss Leditsky, who was mean, lean and sexy, said he had meetings all day and had asked not to be disturbed.

    Feeling like a row, Chessie rang Red.

    `The number you have called is being checked for trouble,' said the operator's recorded message.

    `You bet it is!' Chessie slammed down the receiver. The little beast must have had his telephone cut off again.

    The post didn't improve her temper. The first Christmas card she opened was postmarked Australia and addressed to Bart and Grace, the second to Bart and Chrissie.

    `I saw three yachts come sailing by,' said Chessie gazing moodily out on to an ocean as blue as Mary's robes.

    Then, with a stab, she remembered Will tunelessly singing: `Little Lord Jesus, asleep in the hedge.' It had been one of hers and Ricky's few shared jokes. No-one came to sing carols at Alderton Towers. They'd be too terrified of the Rottweilers and the security guards and the
paparazzi
still hanging around for the latest news on Red's break-up with Auriel.

    She'd go crackers if she didn't do something. Grace was in Uruguay with a woman friend, so tomorrow, for the first time, Bibi, and supposedly Red, as well as Luke and Perdita, were coming to Christmas dinner with her and Bart, who was cock-a-hoop at having all his family under one roof.

    They're bloody well going to have a better dinner than

    ever they had with Grace, thought Chessie, suddenly excited at the challenge.

    The telephone rang. `Mr Alderton for you, Mrs Alderton,' said Conchita.

    Chessie's heart eased. Bart had forgiven her. `Mr Luke Alderton,' added Conchita.

    Yet Luke calmed her more than Bart would have done, as he said, in his deep, slow, sleepy voice, that he and Perdita would be there at eight tomorrow, and would Chessie mind if they asked Angel who was on his own and might cheer up Bibi, whose boyfriend, Skipper, had begged off again at the last moment.

    `Anything to put her in a better mood,' said Chessie. `Is he presentable?'

    `Christmas present-able,' said Luke. `Wouldn't even need gift-wrapping. He's very glamorous.'

    `Good,' said Chessie. `Might put your rotten brother's perfectly straight nose out of all those joints he smokes. Is he coming?'

    `Haven't seen him.'

    `How's your shoulder?'

    `So, so,' - which means bloody painful, thought Chessie - `I'll be off games till mid-January at least. I'll miss the Challenge and the January cups and have to put in a substitute for the Sunshine League.'

    `Christ,' said Chessie, appalled. `That's losing serious money. Let Bart help out. You know he's dying to.' `Nope,' said Luke firmly.

    `And is it true you're squeezing into one of those grooms' caravans while Perdita hogs your bed? I can't believe you haven't bonked her yet.'

    Luke laughed. `Making ponies taught me one thing - to be patient. If you bump young horses too early they'll throw in the towel.'

    Chessie sighed. `You love her, don't you? She's a lucky girl.'

    Luke, in fact, was fighting depression. A caravan was indeed not the ideal place for a shoulder injury or for lying awake night after night wracked by desire. Out of the tack-room window he'd just seen Perdita flying off to the mail box, desperate for a word from Ricky. She pretended it was because she was frantic for him to buy Tero whowas improving by the day, but Luke understood that all the loving kindness of Christmas and pop songs singing `I just called to say I love you' every five minutes on the radio made her miss Ricky more than ever.

    Luke's heart was even heavier because he'd had to sell a favourite pony that morning. It was the only way he could feed his other ponies and pay the grooms' wages and give them Christmas presents and take Perdita out in the evening, which was what she expected after long days schooling all his ponies.

    In addition, Perdita, having screwed up Red and Auriel by spilling the beans about Lucy Chalmers, was getting increasingly uptight about meeting Red tomorrow at Christmas dinner. Finally Luke had spent an agonizing two hours yesterday trying to comfort his ex-girlfriend, Cassandra Murdoch, who was coming apart at the seams.

    Chessie spent a fraught and joyful Christmas Day doing what she did best in the world after sex - cooking, keeping the kitchen staff in a flurry, stuffing a fresh goose with truffles, creating an exquisitely delicate smoked salmon mousse in the shape of fishes, one for each person, and finally, as it was Christmas, making a surprise pudding which she knew Red adored.

    By seven-thirty she was really pleased with herself. The ten-foot Christmas tree which grazed the top of the
El
Paradiso
living room was covered with tinsel and glass balls the exact duck-egg blue of the Alderton Flyers' shirts. Holly, with the berries painted blue, decorated every priceless painting, blue paperchains criss-crossed the room and three huge vases were filled with sky-blue delphiniums. In the dining room the dark crimson tablecloth was laid with a new blue-and-gold dinner service, decorated by blue candles and crackers, with a centrepiece of gentians, forget-me-nots, scabious, dyed-blue carnations and Father Christmas in a blue polo shirt and white breeches driving a sledge pulled by four model polo ponies. The whole effect was gloriously vulgar.

    Bart, who'd spent the day working and stick and balling, absolutely adored it, principally because of the tremendous effort the chronically lazy Chessie had made to please him. She was wearing a duck-egg-blue watered-silk dress,

    very clinging to emphasize the fragility of her body and leaving one arm and shoulder bare to show off the flawless tawny-gold skin. The colour, which exquisitely enhanced her bruised-blue eyes and her greenish-gold curls, had never suited any of his players, even Red, so well.

    `Christ, you look miraculous.' Bart put his hands under the diagonal of duck-egg-blue silk to stroke a small pointed breast which seemed to leap upward at his touch. He noticed that the scheming minx had left her neck and wrists bare in anticipation of his present and he loved her for it.

    `Open it before the others arrive,' he said roughly, taking a blue velvet box out of his white dinner-jacket pocket.

    Even Chessie gasped. It contained a pendant, bracelet and earrings of emeralds as big as wrens' eggs.

    `Oh, Bartholomew,' breathed Chessie. `They
will
make everyone green-eyed!'

    `Very old,' Bart couldn't resist boasting. `The stone of the pendant comes from Louis XIV's sword.'

    They had drinks outside. Now that the blazing heat of the day had given way to a suavely cool, beautiful evening, Christmas didn't seem so impossible. A pale, luminous, prairie sky arched overhead, the palm trees rattled and on the velvet air drifted a heady scent of orange blossom, Chessie's Diorissimo and merrily roasting goose stuffed with truffles, which was driving the lean, stable cat crazy as he weaved himself around Chessie's bare brown legs. The frogs and crickets croaked to a counterpoint of contented snorts from Bart's ponies who'd had an extra Christmas helping of carrots and molasses.

    Chessie put a hand, cold from clutching her vodka and tonic, in Bart's.

    `I love you,' she said softly. `I've started my New Year's resolution a week early. I won't bitch all evening.'

    Bibi arrived first and dropped a pile of presents unceremoniously under the tree to stress the insignificance of the occasion. With her frumpy black dress which bypassed every curve, her lack of jewellery and make-up, and her hair scraped back, she looked like a minor character in a sixth-form production of Lorca. What was the point of dressing up for her father and two brothers, when Skipper, her boyfriend, had stood her up yet again? Getting into the office at 4.30 a.m. every day for the last year so thatshe could handle the 7.30 a.m. calls coming from New York had drained her emotionally and physically. Even the knowledge that, against all the odds as a woman, she'd managed to settle a strike of 650 mechanics this week didn't lift her spirits.

    She made no comment on Chessie's decorations beyond remarking acidly there had certainly been some changes, and why didn't they stick up the blue Argentine flag to match. Then, as she kissed her father, she caught sight of Chessie's emeralds.

    `Emptying Cartiers
again,
Daddy?' she said even more acidly. Then, still speaking directly to Bart: `One thing to cheer you up. Red and Auriel are definitely off. It was on the car radio. Auriel is quoted as making no comment, which must be unique for her; Red as saying it wasn't the difference in age that screwed them up, but Auriel being such a famous woman that the press wouldn't leave them alone.'

    `That's the best Christmas present I'm gonna get,' said Bart delightedly. Then, as Bibi asked for a Perrier: `This is a celebration, for Chrissake,' and he filled her glass with champagne.

    Again to exclude Chessie, Bibi started discussing a fax that had just come in from Hong Kong. She would reserve the heavy sniping for later when Red arrived. The growing tension was broken by the arrival of Perdita, Luke and Leroy, who had a red bow round his thick neck and who promptly chased the stable cat up a palm tree and collapsed panting on the floor. Luke, as black as his dinner jacket under the eyes, still had his arm in a sling.

    `Just a formality,' he explained as he kissed Chessie. `Stops people clutching it.'

    His bottle-brush hair, slicked back in the shower, was beginning to stick up. Spiky hair, unspiky personality, thought Chessie. `Those are lovely cufflinks,' she added.

    Perdita bought them for me - and a shirt,' said Luke, not adding that he'd given her money to buy them, and all the other presents she was happily putting under the tree.

    Having made no comment about Chessie's duck-egg-blue dress, Bibi went into ecstasies over Perdita's cream silk trouser suit.

    `You look sensational. You must have been jet lagged last time we met. And you have terrific dress sense.'

    `Not me - Chessie,' said Perdita simply. `She took me to Worth Avenue and pointed me at the right shops. I'm sorry about wearing trousers, but my legs are so bruised from practice chukkas.'

    `You've heard Red and Auriel are officially kaput?' Bibi asked Luke.

    `Can't say I'm not pleased,' admitted Bart, `and Grace was going bananas.'

    `Shall we call and tell her?' Bibi picked up one of the portable telephones.

    Chessie bit her lip.

    `I think you're a shade premature,' said Luke, trying not to laugh as Leroy went into a frenzy of barking as the most stretched limo in the world drew up and out jumped an Indian chauffeur in a turban to open the doors for Auriel, Red and two Yorkshire terriers. Luke only just grabbed Leroy's collar in time.

    `I am not ready for this. I am truly not ready for this,' screeched Auriel. `Don't forget to get all those gifts out of the car, Raschid. This must be the most glorious barn ever, and the perfume of the orange blossom is just like my own fragrance.'

    Orange blossom! Glancing at Auriel's left hand, Bart was at least relieved to see no engagement ring, despite jewellery everywhere else, including a diamond bracelet on her perfect ankle.

    Grinning insolently, Red dropped the Yorkshire terriers in front of Luke.

    `I told you I'd bring a Christmas take-out for Leroy. Merry Christmas, Dad,' he added to Bart.

    `Merry Christmas, my ass,' snapped Bart.

    `So glad to know you, Mr Alderton,' said Auriel, taking Bart's hand. Then, turning to Bibi in her frumpy black dress, `And you, Mrs Alderton.'

    Chessie gave a gasp of laughter.

    `I'm afraid I'm Mrs Alderton.'

    `But you look sixteen.'

    `For that you may call me Chessie.'

    `I prefer Francesca,' said Auriel. `It's more gracious and I can see, Francesca, you are a very gracious lady.'`Gee, thanks,' said Chessie.