Polo (8 page)

    `The stables are fantastic,' said Perdita with rare enthusiasm when she returned twenty minutes later with the others.

    When the telephone rang, Daisy answered. From the way their mother stiffened and her voice became nervous and conciliatory, the children knew it was their father. Now she was apologizing for forgetting to get his suit back from the cleaners.

    `I'll pick it up first thing in the morning. Perdita's home. Would you like a word?' For a second Perdita's normally dead-pan face was vulnerable and hopeful.

    `Well, you'll see her later. Oh, I see, you must be frantic. See you tomorrow night then. He's not coming home,' explained Daisy, putting down the receiver.

    `Because he knows I'm back,' said Perdita flatly.

    `Nonsense,' blustered Daisy. `He sent tons of love.' All three children knew she was lying.

    `He's only got love for Eddie,' sneered Perdita, `and not-so-shrinking Violet. Can I have a vodka and tonic? I am fifteen now.'

    `Oh, all right,' said Daisy. Anything to keep the peace.

9

    `Dark, dark, dark,' wailed Daisy a week later. `The Hoover's gone phut, the washing machine's broken down, Hamish says the place is a tip, and the kitchen brush has alopecia.'

    `I'm off.' Perdita, dressed for hunting in boots, skin-tight breeches and a dark blue coat, went straight to the housekeeping jar.

    `What are you doing?' asked Daisy.

    `I need money for the cap.'

    `You took a tenner yesterday.'

    `I'll pay you back out of my Christmas present money,' said Perdita, rushing off towards the stables.

    `Where's my dark green sweater?' bellowed Hamish from upstairs. `There are two buttons missing off my blazer and why the hell isn't there any loo paper?'

    Daisy sighed. Hamish had come back exhausted after a week's filming last night to watch one of his programmes - a documentary on road haulage. Daisy hadn't helped matters by falling asleep because it was so boring. The moment the final credits went up, Hamish's mother was on the telephone telling him how wonderful it had been. When no-one else rang, Hamish, who was pathological about his beauty sleep, retired to bed. The telephone then started up again, but instead of being congratulations from Jeremy Isaacs and Alasdair Milne, it was friends of the children, catching up on gossip and wondering what life in the country was like, until Hamish was screaming with irritation.

    Now he was downstairs bellyaching because Perdita had whipped the last of the housekeeping money. `I told you to always keep a float. I don't know them well enough in the village shop to ask them to cash a cheque. What time's
Peter Pan?'

    `Oh, Christ,' said Daisy hysterically. `I'd forgotten all about
Peter Pan.
I can't go. I've got to get everything ready for your mother tomorrow, and do all the cooking, and shopping, and buy the stocking presents, and I haven't wrapped any of the other presents, and I've got to stay in for the washing-machine man. We haven't got any clean sheets.'

    Hamish looked at her pityingly. `I can't understand why you can't treat Christmas like any other weekend. I suppose you've got your period coming.'

    `I've got your bloody mother coming,' muttered Daisy into the sink.

    `Wendy can do the shopping,' said Hamish loftily,
`and
the stocking presents. Give me the list.'

    `But she must be frantic,' protested Daisy. Wendy was Hamish's PA, who seemed to work for him twenty-four hours a day.

    `It's always the busiest people who find the time,' said Hamish sanctimoniously. `Wendy can take the children to
Peter Pan.
I'll bring them and the shopping home afterwards. I hope,' he added ominously, `you're going to get things shipshape for Mother. She's had a very stressful year and needs a rest.'

    In the past, on hearing Hamish's car draw up outside, Daisy had been known to take mugs out of the dish washer and frantically start washing them up in the sink, so much did Hamish hate to see her inactive. He was a successful film producer because he was good at keeping costs down, finicky about detail, and had brilliant empathy with his leading ladies who found him attractive because, to use one of his favourite phrases, he `targeted' on them. Hamish, in fact, looked rather like an Old Testament prophet who regretted shaving off his beard for a bet. Copper-beech red hair rippling to his collar, a wide noble forehead, smouldering hazel 'eyes beneath jutting black brows, and a fine, hooked nose with flaring nostrils lapsed into a petulant mouth and a receding chin. Hamish also loved the sound of his own voice, which reminded him of brown burns tumbling over mossy rocks in the Highlands. Having muscular hips and good legs, he also wore a kilt on every possible occasion.

    He was now, however, soberly dressed in grey flannels, and applying a clothes brush to the small of his blazered back, as he grumbled about cat hair. The moment he'd borne Eddie, Violet and the shopping list off to work, Daisy felt guilty about making such a scene. With the pressure off, she started reading the
Daily Mail.

    `I believe it is possible,' a young American girl was quoted as saying, `to have a caring, supportive husband, cherishing children, and a high octane career.'

    I have none of these things, thought Daisy, I only want to paint.

    Later that evening she and Violet decorated the house. Violet organized a bucket of earth and red crępe paper for the tree, and Daisy was comforted by the rituals of hanging up the same plastic angel with both legs firmly stuck together and the tinsel with split ends and the coloured balls which had lost their hooks, and had to be tucked into the branches until they fell prey to Gainsborough.

    In the alcove by the front door they set up the crib, which had been in the Macleod family for generations. There had nearly been a divorce the year Daisy painted the plain wooden figures, putting Mary in powder blue and Joseph in a rather ritzy orange.

    `Did you enjoy
Peter Pan?'
asked Daisy, as she arranged straw from the stables in Baby Jesus's manger.

    `It was fun,' said Violet. `I'd forgotten Captain Hook went to Eton. Daddy loved it too.'

    `Daddy came with you?' said Daisy in amazement.

    `Wendy got an extra ticket,' explained Violet, standing on a chair to tie mistletoe to the hall light. `He gets on awfully well with Wendy. They're always laughing.'

    That's nice, thought Daisy wistfully. Hamish seldom laughed at home.

    `The lost boys reminded me of Perdita,' said Violet.

    Life would be so peaceful, thought Daisy, if it were just her and Violet. Now they were alone, she could tell Violet how wonderful her report was.

    Daisy also felt guilty that Perdita's new pony had cost Ł1,500. A beautiful bay mare called Fresco, she had arrived with a saddle and a pound note tucked into her bridle for luck, which Perdita had nailed to the tackroom wall.

    But that was only the beginning. Fresco's trousseau of rugs, so new they practically stood up by themselves, and headcollars and body brushes and curry combs, not to mention feed, had cost a fortune. At least Perdita was blissful. Having established an instant rapport with the pony, she was totally organized and reliable about looking after her. It was such a relief having her in a good mood and out of the house, hunting and exploring the countryside, particularly near Ricky France-Lynch's land, but Daisy still felt she ought to buy better presents for the other two children.

    Hamish had violently discouraged Daisy against taking any interest in money, on the grounds that she was too stupid to understand it. But she had felt mildly alarmed when he told her they were only going to rent Brock House, because he had invested almost the entire proceeds from the London house in a co-production with the Americans. The resulting movie, he assured her, would be such a sure-fire hit he'd recoup his original stake five times over and be able to buy Brock House or something far grander in a year or two. The spare cash left over gave Daisy the illusion that for once they were flush. She must find something more exciting for Violet than that Laura Ashley dress. Suddenly she had a brainwave.

    At least Bridget coming made her tidy up, thought Daisy the following day, as she plumped the cushions in the drawing room and used eight fire-lighters and all yesterday's
Mail
and
Telegraph
to light the logs Hamish had grudgingly chopped that morning. And at least they weren't going to Bridget's for Christmas. With a shiver, Daisy remembered the year when baby Eddie and Violet, and particularly Perdita, had trodden Lindt kittens into Bridget's carpet and sacked her ultra-tidy house more effectively than any Hun or Visigoth.

    Going into the garden to pick some pinched pink roses and winter jasmine for Bridget's bedroom, Daisy breathed in the sweet, just freezing air, the acrid smell of bonfires and leaves moulding into the cocoa-brown earth.

    The red had gone out of the woods now; they were uniformly dun and donkey brown, with the traveller's joy glittering silken over the tops of the trees in the setting sun.

    In a fringe of beeches across the valley, rooks grumbled like waves scraping on shingle.

    It was so beautiful. If
only
she could paint, but Hamish would be driving Biddy, as his mother was nicknamed, down from the airport now. I must try to be efficient and nice to her and forget about painting until she leaves, Daisy told herself firmly. I must be grateful for the millionth time to Hamish for saving me from solitary evenings in peeling bedsitters with one bar on the fire, and a forty-watt bulb and no money. And look at Perdita whom Hamish had enabled to live in this glorious house and hunt this wonderful pony. Every Macleod had a silver lining.

    As always, she felt even guiltier when Hamish came through the door with his mother, such a frail little person with tears in her eyes who smelt of Tweed cologne and brought home-made fudge and shortbread and a bottle of whisky for Hamish.

    How could I have turned her into such a monster, thought Daisy as she put on the kettle. There was a clatter of hooves outside and Perdita appeared at the back door.

    `I suppose there's no hope the Glasgow shuttle crashed with no survivors?' she asked.

    `Hush, she's arrived,' said Daisy. `You must try and be nice to Granny, and for God's sake, tidy your room when you've sorted out Fresco. Daddy's bound to show her round the house. Did you have a good day?'

    `Brilliant, we got three foxes. I got a brush.' Perdita's face was muddy, but her pale cheeks were for once flushed with colour and her dark eyes sparkled like jet.

    `Rupert Campbell-Black was out. Christ, he's good-looking. He gave me several swigs of brandy, and Billy Lloyd-Foxe too; he's really nice and gave me two fags, and they both said it wouldn't hurt Fresco to hunt her and play polo. Hunting was the best way to get used to a young horse, and Rupert told me he was going to have one more crack at the World Championships next year, and then give up show-jumping. And Drew Benedict was there, and the twins. They're off to Palm Beach just after Christmas, but we're going to get together in the spring holidays, and Fresco jumped a bullfinch at least six foot high, and that journalist Beattie Johnson came to the meet. She said she was getting material for an in-depthinterview with Ricky. Rupert pissed her up and said he was only interested in in-depth intercourse. Of course she was only digging up dirt. Evidently Ricky's taken Will's death terribly hard, and that bitch Chessie buggered off with all the France-Lynch jewellery, and when you think how rich Bart is. It's all right, I'm coming, sweetheart,' she turned back to Fresco. `I can't tell you how much I like living in Rutshire. Rupert and Billy gave us a lift home in their lorry. We really must get a trailer.'

    Not at the moment,' said Daisy, coming out to give Fresco a piece of carrot.

    `Where's the newly-wid now?' asked Perdita.

    `She's upstairs,' Daisy giggled. `You mustn't be naughty. It must be awful being widowed.'

    `Bet she's knocked out. She can't have loved Grandpa, the way she bossed him around. The poor old sod must be having the best Christmas ever, first time he's rested in peace for forty years.'

    By the time Biddy Macleod had expressed joy and amazement at the increased growth and splendour of Violet and Eddie, and at Hamish's taste in putting up pictures (none of them Daisy's) and arranging the furniture, although Aunt Madge's chest of drawers in the spare room could do with a `guid' polish, and come downstairs having unpacked -I'm not happy till I get straight' - and how it was late for tea at five, although flying made one work up a thirst, and what a nice young fellow had insisted on carrying her hand luggage at the airport, Daisy had decided Biddy was an absolute monster again.

    And she didn't look remotely frail any more - just a bossy old bag with mean little eyes like burnt currants, a tight white perm and a disapproving mouth like a puckered-up dog's bum. She doesn't mind being widowed at all, thought Daisy. It leaves her free to indulge her real passion: Hamish.

    The first black Daisy put up was to forget Biddy had lemon in her tea.

    `Trust Hamish to remember,' said Biddy, smiling mistily. Chuntering, Daisy belted back to the kitchen, but got distracted. Through the clematis and winter jasmine which framed the hall window, she could see the red afterglow of the sunset, blackly striped by a poplar copse. I must

    remember it just like that, she thought, it wouldn't be a cliché with the picture frame of creeper.

    `Mummy!' called Violet. `You were getting Granny some lemon. Mummy was looking out of the window,' she explained to her grandmother and Hamish. `She finds things so beautiful sometimes she forgets what she's doing.'

    Hamish's and Biddy's eyes met.

    `I must get that creeper cut back, it's ruining the brickwork,' said Hamish.

    `I got seventy-five Christmas cards,' Biddy was boasting as Daisy came back having scraped the mould off a wizened slice of lemon. `I'd prefer it black,' Biddy said pointedly.

    `Can't you remember anything?' snapped Hamish, glaring at Daisy.