Polo (56 page)

    `They're OK,' Luke grinned weakly.

    `I'll get rid of them in a minute. I've just spoken to Ricky. He's had another look at Fantasma. She'll be fine. If it's any comfort, we had five ponies lame after thesecond match. We're all going to be out of horses by the Gold Cup.'

    Putting more grapes and a new book on polo pony management down on the bed, he nodded to the others.

    Daisy, who'd gone as red as a peony, again pretended to gaze out of the window. She'd popped in on Luke to establish an alibi and her blood froze at the thought that Perdita might have decided to go for a walk in Windsor Park and disturbed Drew and her in the bracken.

    Drew, following her, removed more buttercup petals from her hair.

    `That was heavenly,' said Daisy faintly.

    `It always is with you, my love,' whispered Drew. Then, more loudly: `D'you need a lift back to Rutshire?'

    `No, I've got the car,' said Daisy, which Drew already knew.

    `Oh my God,' howled Red as Chessie swanned in carrying two bottles of Dom Perignon, a vast box of chocolates and a new translation of Dante's
Inferno.
`How you've got the gall to barge in here, having nearly screwed Luke's match yesterday?'

    `Good girl,' said Seb, relieving her of the bottles. `We've just run out of drink.'

    Having nodded fairly coolly to everyone else, Chessie kissed Luke. `So sorry you had a shunt, angel, bloody bad luck.' Then, lowering her voice: `Has Ricky been in?'

    `First thing this morning,' said Luke.

    `Hell, I missed him,' said Chessie furiously. `How was he?'

    `Tired,' said Luke, lying back on his pillows. The snowstorm was whirling in front of his eyes again. He couldn't handle all the cross-currents.

    Chessie departed almost immediately but no-one else showed any signs of shifting.

    `Your taxi's arrived, Red,' announced Seb, who'd started on Luke's chocolates as Auriel's pink helicopter landed on the lawn outside, sending patients on crutches and in wheelchairs leaping for safety.

    As everyone crossed the room to have a look, Daisy noticed how green Luke had gone. Getting an envelope out of a carrier bag she timidly handed it to him.

    `I thought you might like this.'

    Opening it, Luke had great difficulty in not breaking down.

    `Wow, it's terrific, beautiful!' he said finally in a choked voice. `Thanks a million.'

    It was a miniature of Fantasma standing fetlock deep in Ricky's watermeadows, faintly rose-pink in the rising sun, ears pricked, lovely eyes slightly suspicious and with ash woods soaring up like organ pipes behind her.

    `It is good, isn't it?' said Drew, who'd already seen it in several stages, trying to subdue the pride in his voice as he ran a hand up the back of Daisy's jeaned thigh.

    `It's
very
good,' said Red, topping up Daisy's glass. `How much d'you want for that pony?'

    `She's not for sale.' Luke was still gazing in wonder at the painting.

    `She will be,' said Red arrogantly. 'Everyone'll be after her after yesterday.'

    `They already are,' snapped Drew, who didn't like Red, `and we ought to leave Luke alone.' Then, as a couple of nurses staggered in buckling under more bunches of flowers, `Christ, you're popular.'

    Just for a second Red's face tightened. Then he turned to Daisy: `Did you say you'd just been to an Exhibition of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters?' he asked softly. `What did you think of Auriel's portrait?'

    `I'm afraid there was so much to look at I didn't get round to it,' said Daisy, going crimson again. Mercifully Perdita was nose to nose with Seb on the other side of the room.

    `Hardly surprising,' drawled Red, just above a whisper. `The exhibition closed yesterday. Nice one, Mrs Macleod!' Then, laughing at her discomfort, added, `What's it worth not to tell your cantankerous daughter?'

    `Oh, please don't,' begged Daisy.

    She was saved by the arrival of José the Mexican brandishing a huge bunch of clashing mauve and salmon-pink gladioli, and by the return of Dommie and Nurse O'Grady with more flowers and her white cap on back to front.

    `Rosie's coming to Paris with us,' said Dommie joyfully. `She's off duty in ten minutes.'

    `That's great,' said Seb. `You can tell us apart, Rosie,because I've got a scar on the inside of my right knee and I'm the one Decorum loves best.'

    `He bloody doesn't,' howled Dommie, brandishing an empty bottle.

    `I very sorry.' José the Mexican handed Luke the gladioli and accepted some champagne in a teacup. `I hop you very better now.'

    `Thanks a lot,' said Luke, trying to sound really grateful. The snowstorm had become a blizzard. For a second he closed his eyes.

    `Hello, Luke. Ayve brought you some Lucozade and some Penhaligon's Bluebell to remaind you of Rutshire.' It was Sharon Kaputnik wafting graciousness and Jolie Madame. `Hello, boys, hello, Red. Victor's absolutely delaighted you're goin' to be on our team. He's convinced he's got a winning formula at last.'

    `Not if he's part of it,' murmured Red.

    But Sharon had turned to the Mexican, feigning amazement, `Well, hello, Hosé. Fancy seein' you here.'

    Dommie giggled. `We've got a hosé-pipe ban in Rutshire. You better keep your willy under wraps when you play down there, José.'

    `Have a look at
Taller,'
said Seb, handing Sharon a porn mag. `I'm sure you'll find yourself in it.' But Sharon was gazing deep into José's black eyes.

    Drew was talking in an undertone to Daisy. Seb and Dommie were making plans with Nurse O'Grady.

    `We'll buy you something to wear,' Dommie was saying.

    I want to go to Paris, thought Perdita furiously. I want to go to Maxim's and the Ritz and the Faubourg St Germain. I want to deplete some man's cheque-book.

    Red was getting restless. `We oughta go. Are you coming with us, Daisy?'

    `Don't be fatuous,' said Drew sharply. `Daisy's got a family to look after and all her painting commitments.'

    `Let Daisy answer for herself,' said Seb, dabbing Penhaligon's Bluebell behind his ears.

    `I really can't,' giggled Daisy.

    She was saved this time by the arrival of Matron, six foot high and breathing fire. `A pink helicopter has just landed on the lawn seriously jeopardizing the lives of the patients,' she thundered. `I assume it belongs to one of you.'

    `You suspected right, Lofty,' said Red, gathering up Daisy's roses. `These are nice. They'll do for Auriel.' `They're Luke's,' protested Daisy.

    `Any more flowers and he'll get hay-fever. Come on, you

    guys.'

    Matron, who'd been mouthing ineffectually, found her voice.

    `Where are you taking that nurse?' she demanded.

    `To Paris.' Dommie handed Matron two empties as he sauntered out.

    `She's off duty,' said Seb, handing her two more. `See you,' they chorused to Luke.

    `Where are you living?' he called after Red.

    `With Seb and Dommie. I'll call you, and I'll certainly call
you.'
Blowing a kiss at Daisy, Red vanished, grinning like the Cheshire cat.

    Daisy was not sure who was angrier - Perdita, Matron or Drew.

    Perdita disapproved of everything about Red. He shouldn't have stolen the job of his friend and fellow American, Bobby Ferraro. He shouldn't keep trying out horses, laming them, playing the hell out of them in a couple of chukkas, then handing them back saying they were no good. His grooms worked for him for next to nothing because he was so handsome, and, even worse, on the field he was the soul of dishonesty, endlessly manufacturing fouls, and avoiding a sixty, if a ball crossed the line, by tapping it back and claiming it hadn't gone over.

    The twins were wild enough, but in the company of Red they became impossible, whooping it up all night, with groupies coming out of their ears.

    In the weeks running up to the Gold Cup one prank followed another. The twins, for example, pinched Victor's helicopter just as he was about to fly to Frankfurt for a Board Meeting in order to scour the countryside for a missing Decorum whom they were convinced had been stolen for pit-bull fighting.

    Then there was the Saturday afternoon they all got drunk round the pool and set off in Victor's open Bentley with Red lolling naked between the twins and using a road map as a figleaf. Stopping an old lady by a T-junction theyasked her to show them the way to Rutminster on the map, which she did until the map slipped upwards and she ran shrieking into the nearest beechwood. Next they passed a deaf old man on a bike and asked
him
the way to Rutminster. When the old man, who was deaf, didn't answer immediately Red shot him with a starting pistol, whereupon the old man had a mini-heart attack and fell off his bike. A yokel taking Victor's car number reported the incident to the police, who needed a lot of hush money. Victor was absolutely furious.

    Even worse, Red held his birthday party in Victor's house. Victor had expected two dozen people. Nearly two hundred turned up and all treated Red as the host. Decorum ate one of Victor's toupées, mistaking it for a hamster.

    `This is a genuine surprise party,' Red kept saying, `because I asked everyone when I was looped and I have no idea who's coming.'

    Apocalypse boycotted the party and went to bed early. Perdita, who longed to go, felt incredibly cheated. She was fed up with working long hours for a measly salary. At nineteen she wasn't getting any younger and she wanted some fun. It further irked her that she must be the only girl in the South of England whom Red hadn't made the slightest pass at.

    The afternoon after the party Apocalypse met the Tigers in the opening match of the Warwickshire Cup which was played at Cirencester and was, after the Queen's Cup and the Gold Cup, the most prestigious tournament of the year. It was Luke's first match back and he was still feeling groggy. Ricky, laid low by a vicious bout of flu, was also very weak and a lot more of their horses had fallen by the wayside in the Royal Windsor.

    But, as Victor was the only member of the Tigers' team who wasn't still plastered from the night before, Apocalypse had no difficulty thrashing them 12-1 and going on to win the entire tournament. As the three-week-long toil of Gold Cup matches started at the end of June, at last giving Ricky a chance to win the first leg of his bet with Chessie, he grew increasingly remote. Perdita had abdicated any hope of his love, but it still hurt that he might be seeing Chessie on the sly. He had certainly hit miraculous form.

49

    And so Apocalypse - the hottest favourites for years - came to play the Tigers in the finals of the Gold Cup. The Alderton Flyers, who'd never reconciled their differences since the Queen's Cup, were playing Kevin Coley's Doggie Dins in the second match for third place.

    The long, hot summer had taken its toll. With pitches burnt brown from the hose-pipe ban and harder than the M4, a pony with four sound legs was as rare as an icicle in the tropics. Kinta was lame, Ophelia was lame, so were Tero, Willis, Sinatra, Hermia and Portia. Of the equine stars, only Spotty, Wayne and Fantasma soldiered on. Apocalypse were down to stick-and-ball horses; even fat Nigger, Ricky's oldest pony, would have to be loaded up and taken to Cowdray.

    The day before the match Ricky grew increasingly picky and bloody-minded. At sunset, to avoid coming to blows, Luke took Fantasma for a gentle ride round Ricky's estate, admiring the red-gold barley and the sudden, bright mauve flash of willow herb against the darkening trees. He also noticed conkers on the horse chestnuts as big as golf balls, and realized with a shiver that the season was nearly over. After Deauville he'd have to leave Perdita and return to Florida. Earlier in the week, having a drink with Daisy, he'd asked her idly if she knew whether he was going up.

    Daisy had blushed and said that on the grapevine (which, translated, meant on the pillow beside Drew) she'd heard that all the Apocalypse team were going up: Luke and Ricky to nine, Dancer to two and Perdita in a great leap to four. This meant their aggregate would be twenty-four, too high to play together any more in England. He would have to declare himself in Deauville. He and Perdita seemed to be growing further and further apart. She was very abstracted. He dared not think with whom.

    Inattentive, he was nearly unseated as Fantasma gave a shrill, alarmed whinny like a skirl of bagpipes and went up on her hind legs. Luke saw nothing in the grassy ride to frighten her except an old disused tractor. She was obviously picking up Ricky's pre-match nerves. Butby the time he got back to Robinsgrove her fetlock had swollen to three times its size like a vast white beachball.

    Phil Bagley, summoned immediately, was totally flummoxed until he shaved away some of the hair, saw small fang marks and diagnosed adder bite.

    `She won't die,' he reassured a demented Luke, `but she certainly can't play tomorrow. I'm terribly sorry. You've lost your lethal weapon.'

    `At last she's met something that bites worse than herself,' snarled Ricky.

    He couldn't actually blame Luke for Fantasma not being sound, but he had to kick out at someone. Emerging trembling with rage from her box, he saw the young girl groom, who'd only started that week, gingerly trying to pick out one of Spotty's hind hooves.

    `For Christ's sake,' he roared at her, `you're supposed to lift the hoof with your left hand, and just lay it along your thigh - like this.' He picked up Spotty's foot.

    Giving Ricky a reproving look for shouting, Spotty calmly removed his hoof from Ricky's thigh and placing it in the small of his back, gave a brisk shove, catching Ricky off-guard and spreadeagling him on the ground. Perdita made the mistake of screaming with laughter.

    His dignity bruised more than anything else, Ricky picked himself up. `You bloody animal.' He raised his fist at Spotty.

    `Don't you touch my pony,' screamed Perdita, seizing the yard broom.

    `Knock it off both of you,' yelled Luke.

    `This is
my
yard.'

    `And you're not fit to run it!' Luke lowered his voice. `Jesus, man, simmer down. God knows where your head was in the final of the Queen's Cup, but we don't want a repeat performance tomorrow. Perdita's got
Champions
and
International Velvet
out of the video shop to keep you quiet. Just fuck off and watch them and give us all a break.'

    For a moment Luke expected Ricky to land him one, then he swung round and stalked into the house.

    Gazing mindlessly at
International Velvet
ten minutes later, Ricky felt bitterly ashamed of himself and wished he had as nice a nature as Nanette Newman. What a fucking

    awful example to set to Perdita and the grooms. Sitting grimly through both films, he was continually distracted by visions of Chessie, exquisite in her pale green suit, taunting him that he hadn't even won the first leg of his bet.

    He woke in tears to find himself gazing at a black leaping screen. It was dark outside. He'd better go and apologize yet again. But he found Luke slumped at the kitchen table, fallen asleep over
The Maltese Cat,
a hardly touched ham sandwich on a plate beside him.

    It was still impossibly hot as Ricky wandered out into the yard. The air was heavy with meadowsweet and the night-scented stock Louisa had planted in the stable tubs this summer around the geraniums. Overhead the sky was crowded with stars. There was the Swan, winging out of the Milky Way, and Pegasus soaring above the clock tower and Boötes, the Shepherd, going gently home in the west. Then Ricky caught his breath, for striding jauntily above him was the constellation Hercules. That must be a sign. Hercules had won immortality and his heart's desire by accomplishing all ten labours. Ricky had only three to achieve and the first leg, the Gold Cup, must surely be within his grasp tomorrow. Fantasma might have dropped out this evening, but the Kaputnik Tigers, after Red and the twins' roughriding, had even more horses unsound.

    A whicker of affection startled him out of his trance. Wayne, as usual avid for distraction, was hanging out of his box.

    `You've got a lot of work to do tomorrow.' Ricky scratched him along his bristly mane. `We don't have Fantasma to get us out of trouble any more. You've got to outrun and ride off everyone, and forget about the Cowdray tea tent.'

    Wayne's lop ears flickered as he listened to every word.

    `If we win tomorrow,' went on Ricky, burying his face in the pony's silky, yellow neck, `you can have every cucumber sandwich in the world.' Then, his voice becoming a sob, `Oh, Wayne, just help me get my wife back.'

    Next morning, after three months of drought except for the thunderstorm on the afternoon of the Queen's Cup, the temperature plummeted and torrential rain and vicious east winds stripped the roses of their petals and blew

    straw all round the yard. At the last moment Perdita had another screaming match with Ricky and opted to go in the helicopter with Dancer. The drive from Robinsgrove was long and dogged by roadworks. At each sign pointing to `Polo' Ricky felt sicker.

    As they passed the greying blond ruins of Cowdray Castle, with the cows and horses grazing around the battlements, he had to leap out of the car and throw up behind an oak tree.

    Down by the pony lines everyone was uptight. Grooms bumped into each other and cursed as tails refused to go up and bandages wouldn't go on smoothly. Ponies were flattening their ears and lashing out at each other. At Thursday's semi-final the problem had been flies; now it was keeping them warm.

    `Golly, I wish Dancer hadn't chosen black rugs; every hair shows up,' moaned Louisa.

    `I scored with Red Alderton last night,' said Victor's prettiest groom. `Fucking marvellous, marvellous fucking, but the moment it was over he looked at his watch and said, "Christ, I'm dining at Windsor Castle in half an hour!" and was out of bed like a rocket.'

    Which means Red'll be hung over today, thought Louisa with satisfaction. What on earth was that din coming from the direction of Dancer's helicopter?

    The row had blown up because a distracted Perdita had not only forgotten to get the second set of Apocalypse shirts out of the cleaners, but, far worse, hadn't shut the hatch of the helicopter properly so the first set of lucky shirts which had been worn in every final this season had all fallen out and were now probably being worn by rabbits and squirrels all over the Savernake Forest. Ricky was yelling at Perdita, who was half-yelling, half-crying back.

    `It's no big deal,' Luke was shouting at Ricky. `It was us won the matches, not the goddam shirts.'

    Apocalypse were therefore forced to play in white shirts which matched their complexions but considerably reduced their air of menace.

    `We'll all be pale riders,' said Dancer, trying to make a joke.

    Sobbing, Perdita rushed off to change in the Ladies' loo.

    Venturer Television, on their first day of making a documentary about Perdita, were out in force. Directed by Cameron Cook, Rupert's ex-mistress and a virago with short spiky hair and a rapacious body, they had gleefully filmed the entire row. Now they were filming another one. Perdita, because she wanted to compete with Red's army of groupies, had bought a new pair of breeches for the final.

    `Oh my God, can they go any tighter?' whooped Dommie Carlisle, clapping his hands over his eyes as she came out of the Ladies. Then, peering through splayed fingers: `And you're not wearing any pants. How wildly exciting.'

    `Go and put some on,' snarled Ricky.

    `It'll ruin the line,' shrieked Perdita.

    `It'll ruin your reputation if they split, for Chrissake,' yelled Luke. `Go back and change.'

    The Gold Cup had been sponsored by Davidoff who'd laid on a splendid lunch in their marquee. Drew, who was umpiring and playing for Kevin Coley in the second match, had wangled Daisy a ticket. He'd also seen Sukey into hospital that morning to have her baby, ringing on the hour to see how she was. As Daisy ate lobster, prawns and ratatouille, followed by strawberries and cream, and drank a great deal of Pouilly Fumé and admired Drew's handsome profile and enjoyed his left hand on her thigh as he forked up strawberries with his right, she was desperately ashamed to find herself praying that Sukey might die in childbirth.

    `My father was an MFH,' said Brigadier Hughie, who was sitting opposite. `When I was a baby I was knocked out of my pram and nearly eaten by two hound puppies. My father said it would have been a glorious death.'

    Daisy was acutely conscious of Chessie at the next table, who ate nothing but drank a great deal of excellent burgundy which matched her ravishing, red wool Yves St Laurent suit. Hardly addressing a word to Bart, she seemed wildly elated at the possibility of Ricky winning the first leg of his bet within the next two hours.

    As everyone poured out to watch the final, wincing at the cold, Chessie wrapped a pale grey, fringed shawl round her shoulders. Despite a plethora of gorgeous girls yearning after Red, she was easily the most glamorous woman in thestands. What a prize for Ricky to win back, thought Daisy.

    Down by the warm-up area Apocalypse, looking curiously vulnerable in their white shirts, were being geed up by Ricky. Stammering and swearing, he ran for the twentieth time through the game plan, urging on them the need to win, win, win.

    `The Tigers are brilliant in attack, but they have no defence. We must attack. Your job, Dancer, is to make Victor foul.'

    `He's foul enough already,' said Perdita through chattering teeth.

    `Don't be fatuous,' snapped Ricky. `And then Luke can convert the penalty. At least he will if the wind's behind him. All I want you to do for the first two chukkas, Perdita, is stick to Red till he loses his temper. He's hellishly quick, too, in the line-out. He scored two goals from there in the Warwickshire, so watch him.' Suddenly he paused in horror. `What the fuck's Miguel O'Brien doing here?'

    No-one could fail to recognize the hulking shoulders and the crinkly, greasy mop of black hair. Miguel, looking like a Mafia hood in a belted fur coat and dark glasses, was hissing instructions at Victor, Red and the twins. Bart was hovering in the background.

    `I guess Bart isn't too keen on you winning the Gold Cup,' said Dancer.

    `He's probably just advising Dad in the second match,' said Luke. `Let's go and bury them.'

    From the start both teams played with colossal driven intensity. Apocalypse's greatest fear was letting the twins and Red, all dazzlingly aggressive players, get loose, knowing they'd go straight down and score. But between them, Luke and Ricky managed to hold the twins, while Perdita shadowed Red the whole time, until he was screaming with rage. Then, suddenly, at the end of the second chukka Ricky hit a miraculous nearside forehand from the halfway line and the wind carried it through the goal. In the next chukka Victor, on his favourite pony, Tiger Lily, showing profound contempt for his enemy's right of way, gave away two penalties which Luke converted despite the wind. In the third chukka, after a pep-talk from Miguel, Red pulled himself together and scored twice, but was countered by Ricky picking up a short pass from Perdita and sinking a

    big nearside neck shot. 4-2 to Apocalypse at half-time.

    `You're doing great,' Luke told his huddled team-mates. `You're doing terrific. Just don't let up. Red's greatest buzz is to lull us into a state of false security and then pow, he'll zap us, the later the better. If we're gonna win, we've got to attack.'

    Treading in the divots, running to get warm, Daisy was towed straight up to Drew by Ethel, who started singing with delight to see such a familiar friend umpiring.