Polo (89 page)

    Two minutes before the parade Bibi crept into her seat beside Bart. She was almost deafened by the O'Brien supporters with their emerald-green parasols and the Mendoza fans with their primrose-yellow flags and banners, encouraging their teams on with a cacophony of trumpet and drum. Bart, who'd bought a new panama for the occasion, was outraged because he was too far from Luke to bombard him with last-minute instructions. All around him were beautiful, laughing girls unfazed by the heatwave, their shining hair cascading on to slim walnut-brown shoulders. Perhaps there was life after Chessie after all. Bibi was more aware, to the right, of a rampart of Angel's relations, who clearly recognized but studiously ignored her. Only marginally more hostile was Mrs Juan, Sitting Bully in person, whose huge bulk occupied three chairs instead of one.

    `Here they come,' said Bibi in a choked voice. `Oh, come on, Angel! Come on, Luke! Come on, the Mendozas!'

    The heat, which had been stifling as the vast crowd began to file through the turnstiles, was now like a cauldron of boiling oil. With people all fanning themselves with programmes, the two stands were like vast swarms of white butterflies. Despite his air of smiling imperturbability, Luke's primrose shirt was drenched with sweat and his hands were propped on his saddle to conceal their trembling as he rode quietly out on Alejandro's most beautiful liver-chestnut mare. Beside him rode Lorenzo, Patricio and Angel, curls flowing out underneath their helmets, long limbs supple as liquorice sticks, faces white as flagposts. At mid-field waited the O'Briens, four, immensely strong, proud men in the prime of life, hell bent on a sixth victory, who would take no prisoners. Everyone had been looking forward to the band who had guarded the President for nearly 200 years, but they had been banned from the ground because of the coup, so a lone trumpeter played the Argentine National Anthem instead. The tantivy of horn and trumpet and the tumbril-beat of drums intensified.

    `We are going to be keeled,' said Angel through clattering

    teeth, `and Bibi 'aven't even come and say goodbye to me.'

`Oh, God of battles! steel my soldiers' hearts;

Possess them not with fear,'
muttered Luke to himself, but out loud, with a confidence he didn't feel, he said, `Bullshit, we'll bury them.'

    `Now he play bettair,' said Patricio, nudging Lorenzo and looking upwards. Following his gaze, Angel was stunned to see a little plane chugging across the sky trailing a message: `Good luck, Angel, I love you, Bibi.'

    The crowd burst into a collective roar of laughter. Angel went crimson but he was grinning like a pools winner. Now he would play like a king. He could hardly wait for the long-thighed umpire in his bright-blue shirt to chuck the ball in.

    Luke found the Palermo Open quite different to any other tournament, not only because eight chukkas were played instead of the usual six, but also because the pace was twice as fast, the bumps three times as violent and the ponies four times as superior. There was no razzmatazz, no cheer leaders, no balloons, no commentary, because everyone in the madly excited crowd knew what was going on and made whistling sounds every time a foul occurred, often anticipating the umpire. All you could hear between the great roars of encouragement and the din of trumpet and drum was the clatter of incessantly galloping hooves, the snorting of the ponies, the desperate shouts of the players and the blind-man's tap, tap, tap of their sticks.

    By any standard the first chukka was played on fast forward. To boost morale and rattle the O'Briens Alejandro had mounted his sons and Angel on his best ponies. Exploding on to the field shiny as conkers shot from their husks, they outraced the O'Brien ponies with ease. By the bell the Mendozas were ahead by a staggering 5-1, three of the goals scored by Angel.

    The O'Briens' game-plan emerged as they settled down in the second chukka. Seamus O'Brien spent his time either sneakily inserting himself between Luke and the Mendozas' posts or luring Luke away from the goal-mouth so that Miguel and Juan could unleash their thunderbolts from the mid-field which would find the flags immediately or be tipped through by a returning Seamus. Playing with

    pulverizing attack, changing direction all the time, by the end of the third chukka the O'Briens were leading 10-5 and had plunged the volatile Mendozas into despair.

    `Keep your shirts on, guys, you're doing great,' Luke reassured them as he mounted Fantasma, the only grey in the match, for the fourth chukka. As usual her beauty brought gasps of delight from the crowd and once again Luke felt humbled by the combination of courage, competitiveness, steel, intelligence and boundless energy. She always inspired him. Somehow he must try and settle his own side. But almost certainly it was going to be 11-5 as Juan hurtled towards goal on his fastest mare, the legendary Gatto, and like a matador, revelled in plunging another pic into the desperately injured Mendoza bull.

    `We'll show them,' muttered Luke, and next moment Fantasma had streaked like a shooting star after Juan. Coming in from the right, Luke waited until her grey shoulder was level with Gatto's gleaming, dark brown quarters. He could also feel Miguel behind him breathing down his neck like a hair-dryer on high. Coolly he leant forward, hooked Juan's stick out of the way and then, with a lightning flick, backed the ball. Instantly Fantasma swivelled round, so, bypassing an astounded Miguel, Luke was able to hit the forehand straight to Angel who was waiting on the boards. Gathering up the ball like a lost lover, Angel dribbled it round, tossed and hit it in the air twice in a contemptuous piece of clowning, then took it upfield, passing to Lorenzo who galloped off and scored. The crowd erupted in delight at such dazzling play. Overjoyed, Bibi hugged Bart. Even Angel's rampart of relations were looking less supercilious.

    A lone trumpeter up in the gods struck up the Stars and Stripes; Luke grinned and waved his stick. Two beautiful Argentine girls behind Bibi consulted their programmes and agreed the blond Americano was
muy atractivo.

    `My brother,' Bibi told them proudly.

    In the fifth chukka the Mendozas rode their fast ponies again and closed the score to 8-10, but not for nothing did the blood of Irish kings run through the veins of the O'Briens. Refusing to be rattled, they fought back, furiously stampeding the score to 12-8. Having played their trump card to so little effect, the Mendozas started to panic.

    Even worse, a second later Miguel pulled up dead on the line bringing down Luke on the beautiful liver-chestnut just behind him. Luke, winded, staggered to his feet. The chestnut stayed put and had to be shot. Channelling his fury into a superhuman effort against the opposition, Luke hit the ensuing penalty through the posts and into the road and a lorry full of soldiers, who, thinking it was part of the coup, reached for their guns.

    In the sixth chukka the O'Briens were awarded a penalty four which Luke knocked out of the air to Angel who again took it upfield with three almost languorously contemptuous offside forehands and then scored with an exquisite nearside cut shot. The crowd boiled over; 10-12 and Angel's relations were all shaking Bart and Bibi by the hand. Angel's bay mare had a lot to do with that goal, thought Luke darkly, but no-one told her so. In fact none of those gallant ponies had been patted once in the whole match except by him.

    The heat was awful and even the umpires' ponies were white with sweat. He must concentrate. He was exhausted after a long flight, unused to playing eight chukkas, unacclimatized to such punishing heat and the hand smashed earlier in the year was giving him hell. Suddenly the cliffs of yelling faces on either side seemed to be closing in on him and for a terrifying moment he thought he was going to black out.

    Respite came horribly. One of Miguel's ponies, racing Angel's to the boards, tripped and, overturning, broke her back. With a delay of ten minutes before her body was taken away, Luke managed to recover in the shade. Then in the next chukka one of Alejandro's most gallant mares broke a leg doing a lightning turn and also had to be shot. Patricio, who had made the mare himself, was in floods of tears. The crowd moaned in sympathy. Again, rage at such senseless waste fuelled Luke's blast-furnace. As Miguel hurtled towards him, blotting out the sun, bringing the ball down for a certain goal, Luke coolly charged him, buffalo for buffalo, and passing him legitimately on the offside, whisked the ball to Angel who passed just in time to Patricio who scored. Twelve all, proclaimed the sea-green scoreboard in vast, white letters. The crowd had nearly yelled themselves hoarse and resorted more and more to their

    instruments. Two rival supporters, overcome by emotion, started a punch-up. Primrose-yellow flags and banners, emerald-green parasols swooned in the heat.

    It was the last chukka. The O'Briens' legendary temper was roused. It was time for Goliath to despatch David. But, by sheer persistence, the Mendozas, each clamped on his opposing player like Jack Russells, managed to keep the score level until, in the last ten seconds, Seamus crossed Luke. Up went the Mendozas' sticks, twirling in triumph and there was a sharp exchange between the O'Briens and one of the long-thighed umpires who'd been looking at his watch at the time, until the third man came out of the bar and confirmed it was a foul.

    Grimly the O'Briens lined up behind their goal. The Mendoza supporters (now most of the crowd) bellowed without ceasing and, in the bars below the great stadium, started opening bottles of champagne. Lorenzo, Patricio and Angel exchanged surreptitious but delighted grins. The grooms of the Mendozas rubbed their calloused hands in glee. Senor Gracias never missed a penalty. The Open was going to change hands at last.

    The stadium went quiet as slowly Luke circled, a lone figure on an incandescently white horse under the burning sun. Turning Fantasma towards goal, he suddenly panicked. His hand might not hold up and he should have given the penalty to Angel. For a second his concentration flickered. To a man the Mendoza supporters groaned as Luke mis-hit and the ball went wide as the last bell went.

    Overwhelmed by shame, Luke slumped in the saddle, resting his tired head on Fantasma's bristling grey neck. He ought to fall on his polo mallet. Then, realizing the match wasn't over, with titanic effort he pulled himself together and cantered back to the pony lines.

    `Sorry, you guys,' he called to the rest of the team who were on the verge of tears.

    `Sorry,' he shouted to the dead-pan masks of the grooms. `I thought you never miss a penalty,' snarled a furious Alejandro. `Why are you bloody well smiling?'

    `To stop myself crying,' said Luke.

    Only Fantasma seemed to be on his side now. Flattening her ears and striking out at Alejandro, she nudged Lukesympathetically in the ribs as he dismounted, then tried to make him laugh by knocking his hat off.

    Waiting to go into a ninth chukka, Luke took a swig of Seven-Up and soaked an entire towel wiping off the sweat. Alejandro wanted him to ride another flashy, beautiful chestnut called Zou Zou who'd been rested for three chukkas. But knowing Fantasma best, Luke opted to ride her a third time, which is allowed in Argentina. Briefly he put his arms round her neck echoing Sir Jacob Astley's prayer at the Battle of Edgehill.

`Oh Fantasma, thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget thee, do not thou forget
me.'

    Fantasma, who was dying to get back into the action, nipped Luke's polo shirt in acquiescence. Three hundred chukkas with him were better than one with Alejandro.

    `Come on, you guys,' shouted Luke as they rode back on to the field. `I know I goofed, but we've got to hold on. We can do it.'

    The young Mendozas and Angel, who'd all played their hearts out, were now running on pure adrenalin. The shadows were lengthening, a slight breeze swirled pale blue jacaranda petals across the pitch, but the sun seemed even hotter. It was sudden death now. All that mattered was somehow to get the ball between the O'Briens' posts.

    The Mendozas had youth on their side and with kamikaze courage, the three young boys tried to score again and again, until Kevin O'Brien, at back, got fed up and cleared from his own goal. It was a monumental hit, the ball making a huge arc through the air, hurtling towards Luke who was waiting just beyond the halfway line.

    Luke had left his back door open and he knew that Fantasma, despite her gallant, gutsy heart, had completely run out of steam. There was no way she could turn, gallop and keep up with Miguel and Juan, nor shake the pair of them off and take the ball back down to the O'Briens' goal. The ball was still hurtling towards him. He was dimly aware of the screaming, excited blur of the crowd, of the leaping mallets of Juan and Miguel trying to halt the ball as it flew over their heads.

    Now, bearing down on him, bringing death in the afternoon to the Mendozas' hopes, pounded Juan and Miguel,

    ready to whip the ball away from him and together take it down the field and blast it into goal.

    Despite her utter exhaustion, Fantasma never took her eyes off the ball. Trembling with anticipation, shifting from foot to foot, she was determined to position Luke perfectly for the shot. Dropping his reins on her sodden steel-grey neck, grasping his mallet in two huge hands, Luke took a mighty swipe as the ball passed him at eye-level. It was a complete cowboy shot but perfectly met. There was a tremendous crack, like an elephant's tusk breaking, as he connected.