Polo (60 page)

53

    From that moment Perdita was a leaf, ripped untimely and whipped hither and thither by the whirlwind. Within quarter of an hour they were out of the back door of the hotel and flying to Paris in Auriel's helicopter. Perdita was now wearing a scarlet cashmere jersey of Red's over the ivy-green dress and, because her feet were killing her, had swapped last night's new black, spike heels for flat, black pumps. Except for her polo gear, Red insisted she left her other clothes behind, claiming they were all gross.

    `But what about the stuff we bought last night?' wailed Perdita.

    `They'll send it on to Palm Beach. You won't need wool suits where we're going.' He glanced sideways at her. `You won't need any clothes at all.'

    Nor would he let her leave a note for Luke or for Ricky. `Never explain, never apologize.'

    Landing in Paris, he had whipped her into the smartest hairdresser in the Faubourg St Germain and handed her over to George the boss, who flexed his gold razor in glee at such a challenge.

    `I want the whole lot off and the colour changed,' said Red. Then, when Perdita grew hysterical: `Pack it in. D'you want the press off our backs or not?'

    `I'll be like Samson. I'll lose all my strength and probably you.'

    Returning three hours later, even Red was jolted by an almost unrecognizable Perdita. Her hair, short as a schoolboy's, thick and darkest Prussian blue as a magpie's stripe, clung sleek to her exquisitely shaped head, emphasizing the long neck, the curling mouth, the long, Greek nose, the smooth, white forehead and the blue-black, blazingly angry, wide-apart eyes. And as her face looked more fierce,more vulnerable, more like a Picasso, more boyish, by contrast her body looked more feminine and voluptuous.

    `Omigod!' Red prowled round her. `What a piece of work! Christ, you look as sexy as hell.'

    `I look like hell,' snarled Perdita. `I hate it, I hate it.'

    `Don't be silly. Before you were just any old blowzy blonde. Now you look like no-one else on earth. No, leave it,' he said sharply as she frantically tried to pull some tendrils over her forehead.

    `I loathe short hair.'

    `Well, I like it, and after two years of Bore-iel I'm not taking up with another woman who spends all day clutching a blow dryer. I've got better things for you to blow.'

    `I'll have to spend all day washing my neck and ears now.'

    `Stop beefing.' Red slotted the arms of a huge pair of dark glasses behind her ears. `We've got a plane to catch.'

    An hour later they were in the front First-Class seats of an Air France flight to Singapore, drinking champagne and eating caviar. Red's only concession to disguise was dark glasses and a dark blue baseball cap pulled down over his nose hiding most of his hair.

    `I'm sorry,' said Perdita. `I only bitch when I'm rattled.' `Don't worry on my account. I like rows.'

    `Last time I travelled First Class was because you upgraded me.'

    Red took her hand and kissed it. `You're upgraded for good now,' he said softly. Then, as Perdita's heart lurched, longing to ask what he meant, he started examining her hands. `We'll have to get you a manicure in Singapore. You must've been skipping out the entire Apocalypse barn without a pitchfork. Christ, look at that.'

    Two English businessmen across the gangway were drooling over a double-page coloured photograph of a naked Perdita riding Spotty into the Casino with Victor in his dragon's head gazing up at her.

    `They've airbrushed your boobs to make them twice as big,' said Red, `and blackened your bush.'

    `And my character,' hissed Perdita.

    `Nice tits,' said the nearest businessman thickly, putting on his bifocals to examine them more closely.

    `Lucky horse,' said the other. `Bet he's enjoying it. She's

    a raver that Perdita; told Prince Charles to eff off. They say all that stimulation between their legs all day makes ladies really randy.'

    `I'm thinking of taking up polo,' said his companion, drawing frantically on his cigar, `or at least sponsoring a polo function next year. Crumpet's fantastic.'

    Perdita was about to erupt. Shaking with laughter Red put a hand on her arm. `Now aren't you glad you've changed your hair? Flattering picture of Victor though. He should use it in his annual report.'

    Spotty's wall eye, caught in the flash, looked both alarmed and disapproving.

    `He will be OK, won't he, and Tero too?' pleaded Perdita, taking a slug of champagne. `I've never been parted from them for a day since I came back from Palm Beach. Tero's petrified of strangers.'

    Still drunk when she had walked out on them that morning, she was trying not to sober up.

    `I rang Manuel while you were in the hairdressers,' said Red. `He's going to fly them straight to Boston. We'll stay at the Ritz-Carlton. You'll like that.'

    Perdita couldn't eat much dinner, but she kept on drinking. She was also incensed after the lights had been dimmed and the screen pulled down to discover the flight movie was
Treadmill,
Auriel's latest
tour de force,
in which she played a stunning middle-aged woman rediscovering passion and sexuality with a young boy.

    `That's good. Won't need a Mogadon,' said Red, pushing back his chair and putting the navy-blue blindfold over his eyes.

    `Aren't you going to watch?'

    `Why should I? I've had the real thing. Good-night, sweetheart. See you in the morning.' And immediately he fell asleep.

    Perdita was outraged. It had been just the same on that long flight to Argentina with Ricky when she'd lain writhing with desire under two blankets and Ricky hadn't lain a finger on her.

    What the hell was Red playing at? Having not slept for two days, she had been feeling drowsy and sexy. Now she was wide awake, and however hard she tried not to watch, her eyes seemed to force themselves open as, with horrifiedfascination, she watched Auriel, big-bosomed, mature, her long, dark hair spilling over pillows, being let down, taken up, tumbling over her shoulders in the shower, as she murmured endearments in her throaty voice, and exuded Experience with a capital E.

    `Fucking gorgeous tits,' leered the businessman across the way, whose hand seemed to be revoltingly active beneath his blanket, `and lovely hair. You can't beat a really attractive mature lady.'

    `I wouldn't mind beating her,' said his friend.

    Perdita clutched her head. God - her hair was short! It suddenly occurred to her that the only time she'd slept on a plane was when she'd been with Luke.

    Three performances of
Carmen
on the headphones, a second film mercifully starring Charles Bronson, and three meals later, during which time Red woke up and read an entire Wilbur Smith, hardly pausing to speak to her, Perdita found herself staggering out into the stifling Singapore dusk.

    After that things became a little hazy. The drive from the airport was even more terrifying than Argentina, with people crouching in the back of lorries wearing crash helmets over their coolie hats. A hot breeze wafted a voluptuous smell of soy and frangipani. Little clouds, turned pink by the setting sun, rose like puffs of smoke from the tops of soaring skyscrapers. Fortunately Red had booked them into the most charming hotel, the legendary Goodwood Park. Amid all the modern buildings it looked like a little Persil-white castle, complete with turrets, plucked from the Black Forest and plonked down on a green hill and wrapped in a muffler of jungle greenery.

    Even more excitingly, they were staying in the Brunei Suite normally inhabited by kings, princes, prime ministers, and the Sultan of Brunei when he was in town.

    `I played for him once,' said Red, propping his polo sticks against the bedroom wall. `Every time he changed ponies all the crowd stood up and weren't allowed to sit down until the royal ass was back in a different saddle.'

    `This place is incredible,' said Perdita, padding from room to room over the thick golden carpet. `We can have a sauna, give dinner parties in the dining room and play hide and seek.'

    `Hyde and Jekyll, if you play with me,' said Red. `Geminis are totally schizophrenic.'

    `What an incredibly comfortable bed,' said Perdita, collapsing on to the golden counterpane. `Wish I had one as big as this at home. Is this what they call king-size?'

    `Depends on the king,' said Red, who had poured himself a huge Scotch on the rocks. `George VI of England was quite small. Henry VIII bloody large. Edward VII even larger. What d'you want to drink? Shall we eat out or in?'

    But Perdita was asleep. In the impossibly crumpled ivy-green taffeta dress she looked like some fourteen-year-old schoolboy playing Amanda in the house production of
Private Lives.
Gripped with lust, Red wondered why he wanted her so much - because she was different, or because she was Luke's, and he had to beat Luke in everything? He toyed with the idea of waking her up, but, as he removed her dress, she didn't stir. Folding the counterpane round her, he left her to sleep.

    Waking, Perdita had no idea where she was. Fumbling for the light switch, she saw Red's polo sticks had gone. Perhaps he'd done a bunk. She was just opening the french windows on to a roof garden, filled with tropical plants and blazing sunlight, when there was a knock on the door. Three gently smiling waiters had arrived bearing, first, breakfast of coffee, orange juice, scrambled eggs and croissants, then a vast bunch of incredibly scented yellow orchids, and finally a cardboard box tied with pink ribbon. Inside the box was a pair of black and grey striped silk pyjamas, and a note.

    `Darling Perdita, I'm playing polo. Back at sundown, prepare yourself for a Gaudy night. Love Red.'

    Looking at the drawing-room clock, she saw it was 5.30 and was so overwhelmed with terror that she forgot to tip the waiters.

    By running away with Red, and leaving a trail of broken hearts and contracts, she had totally burnt her junks. What happened if she couldn't deliver the goods tonight? There wasn't a woman Red couldn't have. How could she not be a terrible letdown? And what would happen when he discovered her fearful secret? Skin had formed on the hotmilk, the scrambled eggs had congealed and the croissants cooled before she pulled herself together.

    Her legs, shaved for Godiva, were already slightly bristly. Using Red's razor, she was shaking so much she cut herself twice. Anyone would think she'd slaughtered a pig. She had a shower and scrubbed every centimetre of her body, and between her legs about twenty times, then rubbed scented body lotion all over herself, particularly into her calloused Brillo-pad hands. Then she rubbed Red's Givenchy for Men into her hair and slicked it back like Lord Snooty. The silk pyjamas were incredibly seductive but too hot, so she folded them on the side of her bed and instead put on a grey and white striped shirt of Red's. The twins and Chessie had often intimated that Red was bisexual. If she looked like a boy, perhaps he would fancy her more.

    At seven, by which time two unobtrusive maids had tidied the room and put her flowers in water, a bottle of champagne arrived on ice. Champagne reminded her of walking out on Luke, so she settled for two miniature bottles of vodka and topped them up with lime juice and ice. Sitting out on the roof garden with a guide book of Singapore, she watched a pallid half-moon grow gradually more luminous and Venus quivering golden between the skyscrapers, as the sun went down in a bonfire of orange. Red should have a shirt in that orange. Then, because her stomach was rumbling, she got a packet of peanuts from the fridge, and was so nervous she cleaned her teeth between peanuts. Night had fallen and a slight breeze was lifting the coloured mantillas of the bougainvillaea when Red returned.

    He was still wearing boots and breeches. His dark blue polo shirt was dripping, his hair almost black with sweat. `Christ, it's hot!' He threw his whip on the bed. `Like playing in a Turkish bath.'

    `Good game?' asked Perdita. He looked so glamorous she wanted to run into his arms, but she must play it cool.

    `Great. I played nine chukkas. There was a tropical storm after lunch, but the pitch dried out half an hour later.'

    `What was the standard like?'

    `Pretty average, but there was a wild guy playing for

    the other side called Barry Bartlett, just flown in from Australia with half-a-dozen Walers. He's a six, so we spent our time hitting the ball to each other like a Wimbledon final. And those Walers are as tough as shit, legs like iron and wonderful mouths. I'm gonna offer for the lot.'

    `Did anyone recognize you?'

    `Sure. They all did, but I said we were avoiding the press, so they'll keep their traps suit. They'd also heard about the twins being fired. The story's escalated. Not only were they caught in bed with Sharon but also a pony. How've you been?'

    `Fine,' lied Perdita. As she came back into the lit-up bedroom a slow smile spread across Red's face.

    `My shirt.'

    `Your haircut.'

    `My schoolboy,' said Red, running his hand over the slicked hair. `Fix me a Scotch on the rocks. I'm going to have a shower.'