For a second he appraised Perdita’s back view as she poured herself a third vodka.

‘You’re losing too much weight.’

Moving forward, feeling for her breasts, he nuzzled the back of her neck. Perdita felt her stomach curling and missed the glass with the vodka bottle, wiping it off the polished table with her sleeve.

‘Your game may be off,’ murmured Red into her hair, ‘but you’re ace at making ponies.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Here’s the good news. Brad Dillon and Juan want me to play Tero tomorrow afternoon.’

‘Tero!’ Utterly outraged, Perdita tried to swing round, but, unwilling to meet her eyes, Red held on to her.

‘She’s hardly had a man on her back since Argentina. You know how fucked up she was when I went off to Singapore. She’ll be terrified.’

‘Terofied,’ mocked Red. ‘She went like a dream. I played a chukka on her this afternoon. Juan reckons she’ll do two chukkas. We saw a video of the Gold Cup this afternoon,’ he went on, trying to railroad her into submission. ‘Juan said I don’t mark closely enough. So, I’m not going to let you out of my sight in future.’ His hand slid down to her groin. ‘Let’s go to bed.’

‘Don’t get off the subject and don’t soft-soap me,’ stormed Perdita. ‘You’re not riding Tero. I’ve spent nearly a year getting her confidence back. I’m not letting you fuck her up just for one match.’

‘Don’t be so unBritish,’ teased Red, who was fast losing his conciliatory manner.

‘I am not letting you ride her in the parade, let alone a single chukka.’

Letting her go, he reached for his drink, then picked up her left hand and examined the huge sapphire.

‘After all I’ve done for you,’ he said softly. ‘And you deny me seven or at most fifteen minutes, when I’m playing for my country.’

‘Tero’s different,’ stammered Perdita.

‘You bet she is. With me on her back she’s a good pony.’

‘You bastard,’ yelled Perdita, drink fuelling her aggression, then jumped at the baying of Bart’s Rottweilers. ‘Oh, fucking hell, Chessie’s back.’

‘Look what I’ve got for your father’s big five O,’ said Chessie, sauntering into the room. Pulling the portrait out of its wrapping paper, she propped it up on a green and white striped sofa.

Red whistled. ‘Talk about a glow job. You look angelic, but kinda overdressed. Why didn’t you take off my father’s wedding ring while you were about it?’

‘Oh, shut up,’ said Chessie, but not unamiably. Perdita’s hostility, however, could have frozen bread straight from the oven.

‘My mother painted that,’ she hissed. ‘That’s our sitting-room sofa.’

‘Needs re-upholstering, like your mother,’ said Chessie. ‘My cheque should help.’

‘It’s a bloody conspiracy. How did you get on to her? I bet she wrote smarming to you. What’s she been saying about me?’

Chessie looked at her meditatively.

‘She misses you,’ she said. ‘I thought she was rather a nice old thing. Quite charming really.’

‘Good at charming snakes like you.’

‘Ay, yay, yay.’ Chessie’s eyes widened. ‘What’s got into her?’ she said, turning to Red. ‘Obviously not you, or she wouldn’t be so bad-tempered.’

‘Red wants to ride Tero in the International. My pony,’ she added scornfully, when Chessie looked blank.

‘That’s great,’ said Chessie. ‘People fall over themselves to lend ponies for the International. You’ll sell her for three times as much afterwards, particularly with Red on her back, and, just think, the whole world will be watching her.’


68



The whole polo world – or rather 27,000 of them – gathered at the Guards Club next day for the Cartier International, the ritziest event in the polo calendar. The blustery weather seemed to be reflecting the tensions of the two teams. Clouds raced across the sky as a warm but frenzied south-west wind whipped off panamas, murdered hairstyles, stripped the petals from the red roses clambering up the clubhouse and fretted the fleet of hospitality tents that lined the pitch like yachts in a regatta. All morning, so their employers could get plastered, chauffeurs, driving everything from Minis to Rollers, edged into the parking lot where picnickers consumed vast quantities of quiche, smoked salmon and chicken drumsticks and drank Pimm’s out of paper cups.

Only the jade-green statue of Prince Albert on his splendid charger gazed bleakly northwards, away from such manic guzzling and later from the play, as if he were blocking some distant shot.

Angel escaped into one of the lavatories in the players’ changing rooms, so no-one could muddle him with more advice. He was outraged that Guards Club officials, themselves outraged that the Yanks had put him in their team, had insisted on frisking him on arrival. He was livid he was playing Number One. What chance would he have of scoring with the ground drying unevenly and the wind whisking the ball in every direction? His heart blackened in hatred against Drew, the enemy, whom he now suspected of cuckolding him. How could he not kill him? He was about to play for a country belonging to a wife who had deserted him, against a country he loathed. He had spent last night painting a white banner with the words ‘The Falklands Belong to Argentina’, which he had smuggled in with the tack and intended to brandish during the presentation.

Perdita, even more miserable and isolated, huddled in the stands next to the Royal Box. She wore dark glasses to hide her reddened eyes and the fact that there was no sun in the sky or in her life. After rowing with Red all night, terrified of losing him, she’d let him ride Tero. Now he’d banished her from the pony lines.

‘You screwed my sleep. I don’t want you hanging around dispensing gratuitous advice.’

The wind was taking everyone’s skirts over their heads. Girls with good legs seemed less embarrassed, reflected Perdita. She tipped Angel’s sombrero further over her nose for there, arriving with Bas, were Rupert and Taggie. Taggie seemed to have solved the force ten problem by wearing a sand-coloured suit with shorts instead of a skirt, showing off her long, beautiful legs. Over her shoulders was thrown a huge crimson cashmere shawl. From her ears hung long silver earrings, both birthday presents from Rupert. He could give her everything in the world except a baby. With her dark hair lifting and her bright crimson lips as smooth as a tulip, she looked absolutely gorgeous. As usual Rupert never took his arm off her shoulders from the moment they sat down. Perdita’s heart twisted with envy and loneliness. Would he never recognize her?

Now the celebrities, who’d come to be looked at, vying to take their seats later than each other, were streaming out of the Cartier tent, replete with champagne, lobster, chicken supreme and peaches poached in Sancerre. As they looked for their seats, they flashed all-embracing smiles at their public.

‘I’ve just seen a Beegee go by,’ boomed Miss Lodsworth as Ringo Starr passed by her seat up the gangway.

‘Looked like a Monkey to me,’ said Mrs Hughie.

‘Who are the Monkeys?’ asked Brigadier Hughie. ‘Those chimps who have tea on television?’

‘No, no, a dance band,’ said Mrs Hughie. ‘You remember the Monkeys when the children were young?’

‘We had a monkey in Borneo,’ said Brigadier Hughie. ‘Dear little chap. Had to leave him behind when I was posted to Malaya.’

‘Expect it’s Prime Minister now,’ muttered Rupert.

A ripple of excitement went through the crowd as Juan O’Brien walked into the stands in a blazer of glory, hailing acquaintances.

‘Hoo-arn, Hoo-arn,’ cried Lady Sharon. ‘Welcome, welcome, or rather bienvenida, back to Inglesias. Are you going to be allowed to play next year? Dave’s mad about the idea.’

Several members of the Guards Club turned purple and started muttering about Bluff Cove. Rapping out commands on his walkie-talkie, covering a field as flawless and as expectant as a newly laid carpet, strode Major Ferguson. The buttons on his blazer gleamed brighter even than the brass instruments of the band of the Irish Guards in their blood-red tunics.

Suddenly the photographers abandoned the celebrities and shot off to concentrate on the Prince and Princess of Wales, who’d just arrived and were shaking hands in the Royal Box. Only a couple of wagtails looking for worms took no notice.

On came the skewbald drum horse and his Life Guards rider in his gold coat, followed by the American team, the Stars and Stripes streaming out behind them. Angel, his face still as a gold coin, sulked because he’d just been sharply ordered to put out his cigarette. Big Bobby Ferraro, on a wall-eyed sorrel, his hat on the back of his head, had his mouth open at all the pomp. Bart was in a state of ecstasy at achieving two ambitions: to ride for his country and meet the Princess of Wales. Red, aware of the crowd’s adulation, was the only one grinning broadly – and he’s riding Tero, thought Perdita in fury. How dare he? Tero looked petrified, her pewter coat lathering up like a washing machine primed with too much Daz, big eyes darting, ears disappeared against her pretty head as Red held her in an iron grip. Nor did Perdita know that four grooms, as well as Angel, Bart and Bobby, had had to hold her in the pony lines to enable Red to get on her back.

The British team followed: Ricky very pale, Drew very red from hangover and jet lag, the Napiers very ugly and saturnine. At the clash of cymbals in ‘God Save the Queen’, the drum horse took off. Only Red sawing savagely at her mouth stopped Tero following suit.

Up in his glass box the commentator, Terry Hanlon, failed to make the boot-faced English team laugh by pulling faces at them, then thanked Cartier for sponsoring the Coronation Cup. As each member of the teams cantered forward to take a bow, Red got five times as many screams of excitement as all the others. I should never have let him ride Tero, thought Perdita bitterly. Not even Terry Hanlon thanking Sir David Waterlane, Sir Victor Kaputnik, Kevin Coley and Perdita Macleod for lending ponies to the Americans could placate her.