‘A seriously good jaunt,’ said Mike, swaying towards the swimming-pool and only being saved from falling in by Dommie catching hold of his shirt. Mike’s normally slicked-back hair flopped all over his forehead and he was wearing an outsize T-shirt on which was printed the words: ‘Fran’s Friendly Fornicating Facilities’.

‘We took him to a brothel in Nevada,’ said Seb who was wearing a T-shirt which said: ‘Have a good lay’.

‘Pretty sophisticated. Customers landing all the time on the airstrip,’ he went on.

Dommie’s T-shirt said: ‘Support your local hooker’.

‘We bought ones for you and Perdita,’ he beamed at Ricky. ‘You OK, darling?’ he shouted up to Perdita, who was by now nearly falling out of the window with laughter. Rupert threw his cigar into the swimming-pool, only just missing Sharon’s nose.

‘You took Mike to a knocking shop and got him drunk?’ he said softly.

‘He’s not drunk. He smoked a joint on the way home,’ said Seb, taking the cigarette from Mike and inhaling deeply. ‘You should try this place, Rupert. They’ve got an orgy room with blue shagpile, leading up to the waterbed and a jacuzzi with red lights under the water and we saw some brilliant blue movies. Much better for Mike’s morale than that frightfully depressing video of him letting everyone through in the first match.’

‘We nearly tried the dominance dungeon,’ added Dommie. ‘We thought how much Chessie would have enjoyed it – whoops, sorry,’ he added, giggling, as Ricky’s face tightened with rage.

‘Seriously nice girls,’ said Mike, collapsing on to a sunlounger. ‘Really seriously friendly.’

‘He’s had Mona, Lily and Annie,’ explained Seb. ‘Severally and together, and he’s so tired and relaxed he’ll sleep like a baby for the first time since he’s been out here.’

‘Are you crazy?’ hissed David. ‘You’ve probably caught AIDS.’

‘It’s OK, Daddy,’ said Mike cheerfully. ‘I used a condominium.’

Glancing at Rupert, Perdita saw that he had his head in his hands again, trying to disguise the fact that he was quite hysterical with laughter.


73



The second match was quite different. In losing his virginity Mike seemed to have shed his terrible nerves as well. Primed by Rupert with a vast slug of brandy when his father wasn’t looking, he played with unshakeable authority, sledge-hammering the ball upfield, tigerish on any loose balls and twice pounding down like a Panzer division to score splendid goals. Time and again, the US team took the ball right down the field, but the English wouldn’t let them score.

Realizing Luke was the most dangerous player on the field, Seb and Dommie weighed in like the two musketeers, duelling with their sticks, hooking, bumping and stabbing the ball away from him, playing a stoically defensive game. With Luke pegged, Red and Angel’s life-support machine was cut off and they were unable to score. Ricky, on the other hand, hit form with a knock-out punch. Elusive as the Scarlet Pimpernel, swift as a lurcher, always there to whisk the ball away when Mike or the twins made a frantic last-ditch clear, he played the game of his life.

The crowd, reluctant to witness a second bloodbath, had halved, but now over and over again broke into spontaneous cheers. Umpires Juan and Jesus were so often distracted by Ricky’s virtuosity that they missed fouls on other parts of the field. At half-time the English were leading 7-3 and as word flew round the Californian coast that a tussle was in process, spectators started screeching in in their limos and helicopters swooped down out of the sky like gulls on a newly ploughed field.

The temperature had also rocketed. Huge brown-bottomed clouds like dusty meringues gathered menacingly on the horizon beneath a royal-blue sky tinged with purple. But the English players and ponies under Rupert’s fitness regime were standing up well. Perdita envied the bikinis and sundresses all round her, as once again she sweated in the stands in her England gear.

In the fifth chukka the English steeled themselves for Red’s and Glitz’s legendary bombardment. But due to Ricky’s sticking to Red like chewing gum to a dog’s fur, it never materialized. Bart was gnashing his beautifully capped teeth on the sideline.

‘Come on, England,’ screamed Chessie. ‘Well, I am English,’ she added defiantly to a shocked Bibi.

Terry Hanlon, flown specially over from Cowdray to do the commentary, was so petrified of flying that he’d practically had to be doped before he would get on to the plane. But so encouraged was he by his country’s gutsy performance that he quite forgot his jet lag.

‘And the ball goes out of play. Sorry, Granny,’ he added as Red, in a fury of frustration, hit a ball straight into the stands. ‘If you watch the ball, you’ll never get hit by it. Hit-in to England. And there goes Ricky France-Lynch on his way to ten goals. Did you see the way he just stroked the ball under the nose of Red Alderton, and took it away, sending a lovely lofted pass to Dommie Carlisle? What a chance!

‘But here comes Luke Alderton,’ he went on, ‘steady as the Rockies, thundering down to ride Dommie off, but Dommie flicks the ball back to his captain who powers it between the posts. That’s 8-3 to England.’ Then, waiting for the cheers to subside, ‘You can’t fight the entire English side on your own, Luke.’

With a wry grin, Luke lifted his stick in the direction of the commentary box.

In the closing seconds of the chukka, however, the ball was once more bouncing towards the seemingly insatiable American goal-mouth. Frantic to clear, Bobby Ferraro opened his shoulders and let fly. Valiantly Dommie hurled little Corporal forward to block the shot. As if fired by a cannon, it smacked Dommie just below his kneepad as the bell went.

‘Oh, shit, shit, shit,’ he screamed, slumping over his saddle. To a man, the crowd winced. As the players gathered round and the ambulance roared up, Dommie had gone greener than the inside of an avocado pear.

‘I’m sorry, Dommie, I’m real, real, sorry,’ said a horrified Bobby Ferraro.

‘My fault for riding into it,’ mumbled Dommie.

Fortunately he was near the pony lines and, refusing any help from the ambulance, managed to ride Corporal off the field.

‘I don’t like the look of that,’ said the paramedic.

‘Give me a bucket of Novocaine,’ gasped Dommie, trying not to scream with pain as Ricky, Seb and a demented Louisa lifted him down from Corporal. ‘I’ll be OK in a minute.’

‘You can’t go back into that hell-hole,’ said Louisa aghast.

Rupert agreed and, sprinting along the edge of the boards, yelled up to Perdita in the stands to get her kneepads on.

The only person, in fact, who was happy when Dommie insisted on playing on was Bart. Slapping a clenched fist into his other palm, he moved round the American team. ‘Now we can zap them. Ride into the little bastard’s knee as often as possible. Force him to retire and we can get the girl in.’

‘Don’t be so fucking unsporting, Dad,’ said Luke in outrage. ‘You could put the guy out of the game for good.’

‘Safe journey, my darling.’ Louisa’s voice broke as Dommie rode back on to the field to deafening applause.

Dommie was as brave as his own bull terrier, but the blow had smashed his left knee and the pain was clearly unhinging him. As Red and Angel unleashed a fusillade of shots, the crowd, who had no idea quite how badly Dommie was hurt, kept up a continuous roar of encouragement. As the score drew level, Dommie, battered by the inevitable rough and tumble, grew greener and greener. Ricky was torn. He ought to protect Dommie but, aware that the Westchester was fast slipping out of his grasp, the only answer was to forget him and plunge into the fray. Thirty seconds later, with a glorious cut shot, he put England ahead. Now it was a question of staying there.

Despite the punishing heat Perdita shivered, encased in an ice-cold sweat. Padded and gloved, with her stick resting against the white fence below the stands, she expected any moment to have to leap on to Dommie’s beautiful, fickle pony, Bardot, who was known to be as tricky as she was fast.

‘I must read the play,’ she kept telling herself grimly.

As poor Dommie came down the field it was like watching a bird trying to fly with two broken wings. But slowly, as she forced herself to concentrate, she became aware that Luke, unlike the rest of the US team, was contradicting Bart’s orders and as the man who should have been marking Dommie, and despite the undeniable advantage it would have given him, was deliberately not riding Dommie off on the side of his damaged knee.

There, Dommie had the ball again and Luke, who could have bumped him into the stands, laboriously rode round to hook him on the other side.

Glancing at Perdita, Taggie noticed that tears were pouring down her face. Gently she put her hand over Perdita’s.

‘Luke’s the one, isn’t he?’

Perdita nodded. ‘I guess he always has been,’ she muttered, ‘but I’ve only just realized it, and now it’s too late.’

As the teams lined up, jostling and shoving, for the throw-in, Dommie’s agony was so blinding he thought he’d faint. Pain was in the mind. He must push himself through the pain barrier and go into mental overdrive.

Bardot, his chestnut mare, fond of batting her long eyelashes and giving a colossal buck when chastised, was for once behaving impeccably and carrying her master as smoothly as a Rolls-Royce. When Mike, menaced by Angel and Red, hit the ball upfield ahead of him, Bardot swung round to follow it. Alas, Red didn’t have any of his brother’s scruples. Seeing Dommie pounding towards goal looking for an offside drive, Red cannoned into his smashed knee with his pony’s right shoulder. Howling with pain, Dommie had to cling on to Bardot’s neck to stay on.