Polo (81 page)

    `At least she keep my name. I know eet ees abortion.' He had to count on his fingers three times to work it out. `Could be my child. Could be Drew's.' His face blackened.

    Thrusting a fistful of tenners into Daisy's hands to pay for the telephone calls, he was out of the house in an instant, storming off to Heathrow to catch the next plane to Palm Beach.

    Sadly, tearfully, Daisy was finishing off the Muscadet and wishing someone had ever loved her as much as that when the telephone rang. Alas, it was not Drew but Sharon Kaputnik.

    `Ay've just seen a fraightfully good paintin' of Chessie Alderton in the Noddy. Dave - we're together now - wants a portrait of me to grace the Long Gallery. Ay wonder if you'd oblaige, Daisy?'

    Angel took a taxi from Miami Airport. His only luggage was his polo sticks, which he left as security for the driver, as he bounded out of the moving car and dived through a door marked Emergency into the hospital.

    The receptionist, who was used to the histrionics and antics of South American polo players, had never seen one so fired up as Angel.

    `There were flames coming out of his hair, the glass petition nearly melted,' she told her friend that evening. `Then I had to explain to him that Mrs Gonzales had gone down to the theatre. Sister Passolini had just stopped by to say "Hi", when this fruitcake falls on her, grabs her by the throat, threatening strangulation if she doesn't take him to the theatre right away. I buzzed a guard, but this Argy KOed him and ran off before we could stop him.'

    Loose in the hospital, Angel had raced past rest rooms and elevators and started throwing open doors. In the first room, he found a lot of fat women gazing at a nurse who was drawing a large carrot on the blackboard.

    `You can't go in there,' screeched Sister Passolini who, rather taken by Angel, had caught up with him. `That's Over-Eaters Anonymous. Or in there!' she added in horror, as Angel discovered a lot of sheepish-looking men gazing at another blackboard on which a male nurse with a beard was drawing an even bigger carrot, `That's the Impotency Support Group. You won't find your wife in there, nor in Freedom from Smoking next door, and beyond that are all the Consultation Rooms. Try the next floor straight on to the end of the passage,' she whispered. `You better beat it. The heavy brigade has just arrived.'

    Chased by two more security guards, Angel sprinted up the stairs past a sign saying, `Please be quiet, Theatre in Use'. To left and right he was faced with rows of pale grey doors. Seeing a blonde nurse passing by with a syringe in a kidney-shaped bowl, Angel grabbed her. `My wife, Bibi Gonzales,' he panted. `Please, she is somewhere in here.'

    `Wasn't she Bibi Alderton?' asked the blonde nurse. `Right? She's in there, first left after the swing doors, but they're operating. You can't go in.'

    When the two guards tried to restrain him, Angel fobbed them off with fifty dollars each and started breaking upequipment. A trolley loaded with instruments went flying, a kidney machine crashed to the floor, a cupboard full of medicines was wrenched off the wall and went flying through the window. Angel was just kicking over an X-ray machine when a man in a green overall wearing a mask and rubber gloves backed out through the swing doors, crunching on the glass.

    `What the hell's going on? I'm about to operate.'

    Angel leapt on him, grabbing him by his gown, shoving him against the wall.

    `You not going to abort my child,' he hissed.

    `Don't be ridiculous,' squawked the surgeon. `I don't do terminations.'

    Angel's mad eyes were suddenly vast with fear. `Ees more serious? She 'ave cancer? Oh, my poor Bibi.'

    `For goodness sake, cool it,' said the blonde nurse in amusement. Then, ignoring the frantic signals of the surgeon: `Mrs Gonzales is only having a nose job.'

    If she'd hoped to placate Angel, she was quite wrong. Even more incensed, he stormed into the theatre, where Bibi, pale as her white nightgown, like a corpse in a morgue, lay on the operating table, surrounded by people in masks. Woosy from her pre-med, she was not too far gone to whip off the disfiguringly ugly bathcap.

    `What zee fuck?' howled Angel. Then, stopped in his tracks: `What 'ave you done to your beautiful 'air?'

    For, spilling over the white pillow, instead of the thick, shaggy, dark red curls was a long, sleek, totally straight, blonde bob.

    `Ees thees what Drew Benedict like?' said Angel furiously. `He may prefer blondes, but 'e is no gentleman.'

    Bibi burst into tears. `I love you so much. I figured if I had long blonde hair and a tiny nose like all the other polo wives, you might love me, too.'

    Angel gave a groan. `I loff you as you are!' Then, running a finger down her nose: `She is the theeng I like most about you. You are most beautiful girl I haff known. You geeve me the duck bumps. I haff nevair been more meeserable in my life. When you ran away, I theenk I die.'

    And, seizing her hands, he covered them with kisses, and then he kissed her lips. There wasn't a dry eye above the masks except for those of the plastic surgeon who was

    incensed at losing such a rich customer, and who had been intending to remodel Bibi's entire body over the next few years.

    `I weel keel Drew Benedict,' said Angel as he paused for breath.

    `Oh, please don't,' protested Bibi. `It was hopeless with him. I thought about you the whole time and how much I loved you.'

    `I 'urt you so bad,' moaned Angel. `I was jealous of your work, I 'ate being a kept boy.'

    `You won't be much longer,' said Bibi. `If Dad goes belly-up, I won't be an heiress any more.'

    `You won't be anyway, after paying for all the equipment Rudolph Valentino's just smashed up,' said the plastic surgeon nastily, and he was even crosser when Angel just swept Bibi up and carried her out to the still-waiting taxi, banging on the door of the Impotency Support Group, yelling, `Keep eet up, two three four,' as he went by.

70

    Heeding Ricky's advice, Perdita buried herself in work, standing in for his grooms when they took holidays before the Westchester, playing in low- and medium-goal matches. But she was still desperately pale, thin and unnaturally subdued.

    Nor did the situation improve when Violet and Eddie returned from staying with schoolfriends not prepared to be as forgiving as Daisy and stepping warily round their perfidious sister. Soon they were at each other's throats, all three thinking they had exclusive rights to the television, the bathroom and Violet and Perdita the use of Daisy's rickety Volkswagen. Matters grew worse when Violet got straight As in her four A levels, was rewarded with money to buy a car by a delighted Biddy Macleod, and Violet's schoolfriends rang the whole time comparing results and having endless discussions as to what they were going to do in their year out.

    Eddie, blissfully unaware that Ricky had pulled strings with the muscular energy of a bell ringer to get him into Bagley Hall, a nearby co-ed, was half-terrified, half-excitedat the prospect of boarding with girls in September. He had now reached adolescence, loving and co-operative one moment, moody, withdrawn and resentful the next.

    There were compensations. Suddenly the small boy, who Daisy'd had to threaten within an inch of his life to pick up a toothbrush, was cleaning his teeth three times a day and bathing and washing his hair more often than Violet and Perdita. When he wasn't counting his spots and perfecting a sexy pout in the mirror, he poured over
Penthouse
and
The
F-Plan Diet.
Soon envelopes addressed to body-building firms were lying around in the hall.

    To add to Daisy's problems, the puppies were crapping everywhere and chewing up everything and Sharon Kaputnik had to be painted. Not wanting to trouble Ricky or subject him to constant sexual harassment by painting Sharon in his attic, Daisy used the sitting room at Snow Cottage. This meant that every afternoon Sharon rose like Page Three incarnate from a sofa lined with Jaffa-cake crumbs, chewed crayon and puppy fur, surrounded by a sea of Coke tins, beer cans, mugs, kicked-off shoes and overflowing ashtrays, while being eyed by Eddie as he pretended to watch programmes on re-upholstering and re-runs of
Falcon Crest.

    Nor was Daisy any longer buoyed up by the prospect of seeing Drew again when the holidays were over. She found her thoughts turning more and more to Ricky, and how awful it would be when he finally went back to Chessie. He'd taken to dropping in late in the evening, often bringing a take-away, and was so wonderful at separating and shutting up the children.

    `If you'd ever umpired the Napiers, Bart Alderton and the O'Briens in the same match, you wouldn't have any problems.'

    `Unfortunately, one can't send one's children off for arguing,' sighed Daisy.

    By the middle of August everyone was revving up for the Westchester, or West-Chessie-ter, as Daisy called it to herself. The English team had been confirmed: Ricky as captain, Drew and the Napiers; the same as the International, with the twins as reserve. Not an exciting team, but a solid one. Ricky detested the Napiers, but they were both nines and, under pressure from the BPA, he couldn't

    see any way not to select them. He found the prospect deeply depressing, particularly as the very few practice matches they were able to organize were incredibly acrimonious. Rupert, who had high-handedly appointed himself unofficial team manager, because Venturer's stake was so vast and because `although I don't know that much about polo, I know all about winning', was all too ready to put his show-jumping boot in and tell the players exactly where they were going wrong.

    The ponies were due to fly out to California in mid-September to acclimatize them for the match which would begin the first week in October. With an eye to the extra buck, however, the Napiers and Drew had defiantly flown their horses out the third week in August to play in Oakbrook and in the US Open. This, as Ricky furiously pointed out, was the last way to rest them before the Westchester.

    A week later Ricky got a telephone call from Charles Napier. His voice had the oily ingratiating timbre of a reporter about to ask a husband what he feels about his wife shoving off.

    `Ben and I want to level with you, Ricky. Frankly, we were fucked by the International. Five of our best horses were screwed up, not to mention Ben's cracked collar-bone and my broken finger.'

    `So?' said Ricky curtly.

    `That's bad enough, but the Westchester's a different ball game.'

    `In what way? It involves four people on either s-s-side trying to hit the ball through each other's goal posts. Seems remarkably similar to me.'

    Charles wasn't to be deflected. `There'll be three matches, three times as gruelling and much tougher opposition.'

    `It might help,' said Ricky acidly, `if you rested your horses instead of carting them all over America.'

    `If you want the bloody truth,' Charles dropped any attempt at amiability, `Ben, Drew and I are totally pissed off with putting ourselves and our ponies on the line for the honour of our country. Only women and horses work for nothing. We're professionals.'

    `You could have fooled me.'

    `Don't be so bloody sarky. We're going on strike. Noneof us will play unless we get thirty grand each and a share of the TV action.'

    Ricky sighed. Knowing there was absolutely no way Venturer or the big British and US sponsors could pull out at this stage, the Napiers and Drew, feeling they could easily afford the extra cash, were plainly determined to force his hand.

    `You still with me, Ricky?'

    `I was temporarily speechless. Have you bastards no idea of the honour of playing in the W-w-westchester? Have you no sense of history?'

    `Just to bring back some stupid pot your ancestors couldn't manage to hang on to. Ten losses on the trot, wasn't it? Well, we don't want to make it eleven.'

    `Look,' Ricky was trying not to lose his temper, `I'll try and get you ten grand each, but not a cent more. Venturer can't afford it.'

    `Surely Rupert could take out a mortgage on his fifth house?'

    `Let me talk to Drew,' said Ricky grimly.

    There was another long pause. Ricky could almost hear the sweat bubbling on the palm of Charles's great, red, meaty hand as he clapped it over the receiver. After an age Drew came on.

    `You've spent nearly thirty grand on this telephone call already,' snapped Ricky. `I thought you were supposed to be a friend of mine.'

    `I am. I also have a living to make.'

    `Bullshit. You're just fucking greedy. You wouldn't expect to be paid for the Olympics.'

    `I would if I were likely to screw up my best horses.' Then Ben Napier seized the telephone.

    `Thirty grand or no deal,' he said roughly. `And that'll only replace a couple of ponies.'

    `OK,' said Ricky. `I'm dropping the lot of you.'

    `You can't,' said Ben, outraged. `We've flown our ponies over specially.'

    `To play in the Open. Go screw yourselves.'

    `The BPA will go apeshit.'

    `Good,' said Ricky and hung up. He didn't think he'd ever been so angry in his life.

    He was unprepared for the storm which broke over his head. Venturer and the BPA went into shock horror to a man and called an emergency meeting in London the next day.

    `What the hell are you playing at?' howled Rupert. `They can't have any television rights, but we could easily have raised another ninety thousand pounds. That's peanuts. We could even stretch to one hundred and fifty thousand.'

    `It's immaterial,' said Ricky wearily. `I was always worried about this team. There were too many chiefs and not an Indian in sight. I could never have made it gel.'

    `Remember in Karachi, we had an Indian chappie, brilliant player, but hopeless if you gave him any responsibility,' mumbled Brigadier Hughie. `Perhaps you'd feel happier if Charles was captain, Ricky.'

    `I don't take orders from gorillas,' said Ricky. `If you don't let me pick my own team, I'll drop out.'

    David Waterlane, who had a bad back from an excess of Sharon-shagging, hit the roof. `Don't be bloody silly. Who the hell did you have in mind?'

    `Seb and Dommie.'

    `Ludicrously inexperienced,' snapped David, throwing his cigar butt at the half-open window and missing. `And far too erratic.'

    `Mike Waterlane,' added Ricky with the faintest smile. `Mike!' said David dumbfounded. `D'you think he's up to it?'

    `Easily,' said Ricky. `I've played all summer with the three of them and,' scowling round the room, defying anyone to challenge him, `I'm going to take Perdita Macleod as reserve.'

    Leaving the meeting in uproar, Ricky drove to Rutshire Polo Club where the last match of the season - always an elegiac occasion - was taking place. It had been raining. As he arrived, the drying boards were shimmering in the sinking sun, which was also warming the feathering willowherb. The huge, domed trees round the pitches were echoed by the grey-blue clouds of a Constable sky as a red tractor chugged back and forth weighed down by bales of straw. Perdita, her hair now shoulder-length and in a net, was watching the second match with Dommie and Mike Waterlane, who had a silver cup under his arm.

    Little Chef bounced ahead to greet his friend Decorum, the bull terrier, who grinned down at him, triangular eyes genial, tail going like a
vivace
metronome as he pirouetted on stiff, poker legs.

    `How did you do?' asked Ricky.

    `Buried them 17-1,' said Dommie.

    `Thank Christ for that.'

    `Corporal won Best Playing Pony. We're thinking of promoting him,' crowed Dommie.

    Seb lay stretched out on the bonnet of his Porsche, his head on the windscreen, his newly washed hair flopping. He had changed into white jeans and a pale blue bomber jacket and had a glass of whisky in one hand and his portable telephone in the other. He opened a bloodshot eye and grinned at Ricky.

`Ciao,
sweetheart. I'll meet you at Annabel's around ten. I'll book. Hi, where've you been?' he asked Ricky as he switched off the telephone.

    `Reselecting the team for the Westchester.'

    `Who's in it?'

    Ricky told them.

    `Yippee,' yelled Dommie, chucking a ball twenty feet in the air.

    `Good Lord, I must ring Daddy,' said Mike Waterlane, going as scarlet as the Virginia creeper now smothering the clubhouse.

    Perdita, turning to stone, always became most angry when she was frightened. `I won't go. I can't believe it. I'm not up to it. Whose bloody stupid idea was it to select me?'

    `Mine,' said Ricky calmly.

    `But I'll have to play against Red.'

    `Stop over-reacting,' said Seb. `You're only reserve. We're much too tough to get injured.'

    `Not unless you get a few early nights,' said Ricky, removing Seb's whisky and emptying it on to the grass. `Annabel's is going to miss you, Seb.'

    To the shock horror of Venturer and the BPA were added next day the furious protests of the British and American sponsors and the American Polo Association, who all felt Ricky was making a total mockery of the Westchester. The thirty-five-goal English team had struggled in the

    International. How did Ricky imagine he could field a bunch of babies with a team aggregate of twenty-six against the might of the Americans in their own country? The media were equally outraged.

`Cannon fodder,'
said a huge headline in the
Daily Express. `How can David without a sling beat Goliath armed with an exocet? It'll be annihilation.'

    Frantic preparations ensued in the next week. Good horses about to be turned away had to be wheedled out of other owners and flown over to America for Mike and Perdita in case she had to play. Longingly she thought of the six ponies Red had given her. He'd probably be riding them against England. At least she still had Spotty, but he was in a frightful temper, as was Wayne. Announcing that they were both much too fat and that Argentines won matches because their horses carried no spare flesh, Rupert had put both ponies on a rigorous diet. Much to Ricky's irritation, Rupert was in fact supervising the diets of all the ponies. He also insisted that all the team took the equivalent of a Marine's assault course to get fit, but even he couldn't make Ricky go out jogging.

    Hell, thought Perdita a day later, as she gritted her teeth to stop herself crying, is being coached by Rupert Campbell-Black. God, he was sarcastic as he rode up and down, blue eyes narrowed, whip tapping his boots, not missing a trick, the nerve-gas hostility in no way abated, the drawling commentary more bitchy than ever.

    `I see Ricky's given you a second chance,' had been his first bleak words to her. `I certainly wouldn't.'

    For two chukkas, each time anyone missed a ball or a stab at goal it was greeted with sighs of `Oh dear, a Perdita pass again'. After shouting at her every time she picked up her stick, he called her over.