Polo. Part 41

'Don't,' said Drew, who certainly scrubbed himself very vigorously. 'As long as she doesn't find out, it won't hurt her. Anyway, I've always had a crush on you.'

'Me?' said Daisy incredulously.

'Ever since you got rained on the first time we met at the Pony Club, and I could have hung my polo hat on your nipples.'

'A crush helmet,' giggled Daisy.

'I've been wondering,' went on Drew, 'what you'd look like without your clothes on.'

'Hairy,' said Daisy.

Drew shook his head as he reared out of the bath. 'Absolutely gorgeous.'

Pulling off her towel, he gently squeezed her right breast. 'Promise never to lose any weight.'

He glanced at the watch that he'd left on the edge of the basin. 'Christ, I must go.' Then, seeing the shadow of desolation flicker across Daisy's face, 'I'll ring you tomorrow morning.'

'How?' asked Daisy.

'When Sukey rides out with my mother-in-law.'

Outside, Ricky's ash trees, like a clump of swaying broomsticks, were trying to sweep the stars out of a pearly grey sky. Drew kissed her again. 'Merry Christmas, Mrs Macleod, I'm afraid you've got yourself a toyboy.'

Daisy felt it was all dreadfully immoral, but she couldn't help being hugely cheered up, particularly when Drew rang her as promised next day saying how much he wanted to see her again. Going into the garden, she found midges dancing and crab apples glittering crimson against a bright ultramarine sky. Breathing in the wild-rose scent of a pale pink rambler called The New Dawn, which clambered up to the cottage eaves, and always seemed to be in flower, Daisy hoped it would be a new dawn for her and she might do some brighter paintings.

On Christmas Day she had another surprise. Ricky rang up stammering badly and thanked her for the drawing of Little Chef she'd sent him as a Christmas present.

'It's f-f-fantastic. How is he?' f-f-fantastic. How is he?'

'Fine, but missing you.'

'And Perdita?'

'Fine - in Palm Beach staying with the Aldertons.'

Oh G.o.d, why had she blurted that out? She must have wrecked his Christmas.

But, after a long pause, Ricky asked, 'You're not by yourself?'

'Yes, but I've got a lot of friends dropping in' (well, one friend).

'Good.' Then, after a really long pause: 'Have you got Perdita's number?'

Perhaps he was keen on Perdita after all, thought Daisy after he'd rung off. If she hadn't met Drew again, she might have been very jealous.

Later on Violet rang from LA.

'Daddy and Wendy have gone out. Eddie and I spend our time baby-sitting. Oh, Mummy, it's awful. Daddy was present at the birth, and Wendy insisted we watched the video last night. It was disgusting. Eddie nearly fainted. And they've got a white alb.u.m of even more disgusting photographs - even of the afterbirth, and they show it to everyone, and Wendy breastfeeds in public, in the shops and at parties. And she's gone completely Californian, no salt in food, no getting brown, no drink, no f.a.gs. I wish we could come home. I love you, Mum. You're not too lonely on your own?'

Daisy put down the telephone feeling so happy.

Drew seemed to have ignited some creative spark. Daisy painted and painted late into the night, listening to the foxes barking, and singing 'I just called to say I love you' that she slept until she was woken by Drew's telephone call in the morning.

On Boxing Day it turned bitterly cold. In the west a band of crocus-yellow was fading into daffodil below a dark purple cloud. Having shaved her legs and her armpits, Daisy rigged up a mirror in the drawing room, lit the fire and did a series of sketches of herself in the nude. If Drew liked her body maybe it wasn't that bad. She mustn't be too obvious, she mustn't glamorize herself. Completely absorbed, she didn't hear the door bell at first. Wrapping herself in a rose-pink shawl she'd draped over the sofa to hide two large cigarette burns, she opened the front door and gave a gasp. For there was Drew in a red coat, white breeches and brown-topped boots.

'I decided to change the quarry,' he said, shoving her back into the house and slamming the door.

'How lovely. Where's your horse?'

'Gone home. Sukey thinks I'm having a drink with Rupert.'

'Does he know you aren't?'

'Yes, I've covered up enough for him over the years.' Imagine Rupert being used as an alibi for me, thought Daisy amazed.

'You been down a mine?' asked Drew, taking in her charcoal smudged face and hands.

'D'you want a drink?' asked Daisy.

'No, I want you.' Drew ripped off her shawl.

As he took her in his arms the taut athletic muscular hardness of his body evoked some distant memory, something familiar yet incredibly disturbing, stirring like a hibernating b.u.t.terfly at the back of her consciousness.

His face was ice-cold against hers, so were his hands as they moved over her body. There was nothing measured or leisurely about his approach today. Whisking her into the drawing room, he laid her down on the threadbare carpet, unzipped his flies and, forcing his way into her, came almost immediately.

'Sorry, darling,' he murmured into her shoulder, 'that was b.l.o.o.d.y selfish, but I couldn't help myself - pleasured my lady with my boots on. Stay there. I don't want to ruin your carpet.'

Easing himself out, he returned with some kitchen roll.

'That was lovely,' sighed Daisy truthfully. After years of indifference from Hamish, the greatest aphrodisiac for her was that Drew wanted her so much.

'How was your party at lunchtime?' he asked.

'Undemanding,' said Daisy, flattered that he'd remembered. 'Mawled wine and retired colonels rabbiting on about wind breaks and frost pockets. I still feel awful about Sukey. The same thing happened to me at Christmas. I remember the telephone always smelling of Paco Rabanne when I came back from being out and not understanding why when Hamish claimed no one had rung. Then there were all the dropped telephone calls.'

'Don't torture yourself,' said Drew, leaning up on his elbow and stroking her belly. 'Every situation is different. Ricky married for love, and look where that got him. I didn't. I'm not attracted to Sukey. We never sleep together, but I love Jamie and I'm fond of the old thing. This isn't doing her any harm, and it's doing me so much good,' he slid his fingers inside her, 'and this is definitely not a frost pocket.'

Catching sight of them both in the mirror, he reached over and adjusted the angle so they could both watch.

'Hamish never did that either,' said Daisy afterwards.

'Sounds a prat.' Then, out of the blue: 'If you didn't come with him, what about Perdita's father?'

Burying her face in his chest, Daisy decided to tell the truth and the circ.u.mstances because she trusted Drew to keep his trap shut.

'So it might have been some handsome rock star or polo player,' said Drew afterwards. 'Could have been me. I was eleven and very very precocious.' precocious.'

'Don't think there were any children present. Jackie wasn't into paedophilia.'

Making a joke of it suddenly made the whole thing less awful.

'You're not shocked?' asked Daisy.

'Having been a friend of Rupert's for fifteen years, nothing shocks me. Anyway, you were a baby.' Daisy felt weak with grat.i.tude.

'My parents were dreadfully upset. They tried to sweep it under the carpet, but as they had fitted carpets at home it was rather hard.'

'I'm getting rather hard too,' said Drew, pulling her on top of him.

'Oh, I love you,' said Daisy covering him with kisses, then added hastily, 'but don't worry, I say "I love you", all the time to Ethel and Gainsborough and the children. I'm honestly not getting heavy.'

'I know you're not,' said Drew, guiding his c.o.c.k inside her. 'I told you I didn't want you to lose weight.'

'Can I draw you before you get dressed?' said Daisy later.

'If you want to,' said Drew, sitting down on the sofa. 'As long as you hide it from Perdita. She'd be bound to sneak to Sukey.'

Oh, his face is so lovely when he smiles, thought Daisy, pinning a fresh piece of paper on the board.

'You'll have to draw an erection in in a minute,' said Drew.

They were on the carpet in each other's arms when Drew looked at his watch. 'Jesus, it's nearly eight o'clock. D'you mind running me over to Rupert's?'

'I haven't got a car,' said Daisy miserably. 'I'll try to ring for a taxi, or borrow Philippa's.'

Drew brushed her hair back from her forehead and kissed it.

'The car I came here in is your Christmas present. It's only an old banger, but it'll get you about. It's all right. Sukey didn't pay for it, I bought it with my Sultan of Araby money.'

'An old banger for an old bang-ee,' said Daisy, 'but I really can't take it.'

Drew stopped her protests with a kiss.

After she'd dropped him off and b.u.mped back home, grinding gears and singing at the top of her voice, Daisy hid the drawing of Drew in the potting shed. But she soon retrieved it and put it in her bedroom. After all, the children weren't coming back until the New Year and Drew was without doubt the nicest thing that had happened in all her life.

38.

'Quarantine,' as Luke's comely headgroom, Lizzie, was fond of pointing out, 'is a real a.s.s-kicker.'

But, predictably, Perdita left all the ha.s.sle of scrubbing out the boxes with disinfectant, isolating Spotty and Tero, and dealing with the interminable inspections by vets and government officials to Luke and his grooms. Luke even arranged for Spotty and Tero to be flown to Heathrow cheap, as part of a twenty-pony job lot which Victor Kaputnik was smuggling in from Argentina via Palm Beach. Aware that Perdita had no money, Luke picked up the bill for that, too.

He refused to hear a word against her, but it would be fair to say that his grooms regarded Perdita with a dislike bordering on hatred. They worked for the best boss in Palm Beach, but now this spoilt little b.i.t.c.h had swanned in, ordering him around, squandering his money and dragging him out to the high spots every night. Lizzie had even made a day chart until Perdita went back to England and the barn returned to normal.

Having spent her last day stick and balling in the tiniest bikini to top up her tan for Ricky, Perdita popped in on Chessie to say goodbye on her way to the airport. Luke was delayed at the barn because Ophelia was tied up with colic, but said he would catch up with her.

Perdita found Chessie by the pool in the same lime-green bikini she'd worn the day after Perdita had flown in from Argentina and which was now much too big for her. Nor did Chessie hitch it up in time to hide a dark bruise on her left hip.

'Gosh, what have you done?' asked Perdita without thinking.

'Been gored on the horns of a dilemma,' said Chessie bitterly. 'Oh, for Christ's sake, put on a bikini and come into the pool with me, I'm sure this umbrella is bugged, and probably the ice in your gla.s.s.'

Perdita didn't want to swim. It would crinkle her newly washed hair and she wanted to look her best in case by some miracle Ricky met the plane. But such was the force of Chessie's discontent that five minutes later she was dog-paddling into the centre of the pool.

'Every time I go shopping Bart insists that two guards accompany me,' rattled Chessie, who'd lost all her normal laid-back cool and whose jaw above the blue water was rigid with tension.

'I daren't ring England, I know the telephone's bugged. Look, can you give Ricky a message? Tell him not to risk getting in touch with me. Security's too tight, but tell him I'll ring him somehow the minute I get to London.'

For a stunned second Perdita disappeared beneath the water, then she emerged spluttering and had to paddle backwards until her feet touched the bottom.'I d-d-don't understand.'

'The reason Ricky rang at Christmas,' said Chessie hysterically, 'was to tell me in those few desperate seconds that he's still absolutely mad about me - only me. Talking to you later was just a smokescreen.'

'But he seemed so happy to hear my voice.'

'That's because he'd just heard mine. Can't you understand? All Ricky wants is to have me back. I'd love to go, but I'm not sure if one should turn back the clock, and would I be constantly reminded of Will again, and Ricky hasn't got any money, and would I hate being poor again?'

Despite the warmth of the pool and the day, Perdita suddenly felt icy cold and dizzy. Her mouth had gone dry and acid. She wanted to scream at Chessie not to be so b.l.o.o.d.y selfish, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up Ricky's life again. Then Chessie disarmed her by bursting into tears.

'I'm dying of homesickness. I haven't been back to England since Will died, and now Bart's bought Rutminster Abbey so we can spend the summer there, and think of all the memories. I can't face it, and I know I can't not not face it.' face it.'

Perdita wanted to plunge into the soft silky water, which was the same duck-egg blue as the Alderton Flyer shirt Ricky had been wearing the first day she'd fallen in love with him, and never come up again. Involuntarily her thoughts strayed to Red, the only other man who'd seriously jolted her, but Red was a playboy. As if in answer to her prayer the Rottweilers started barking furiously and there, chatting to one of the guards and stroking the head of the no-longer snarling dog, stood Luke.

'That's the one,' said Chessie reading her thoughts. 'He's the nicest, strongest man you'll ever meet.'

Luke has no money, thought Perdita, and, after the glitz of Palm Beach, she was never, never, going to be poor again.

The divide between rich and poor was further intensified when they got to Miami Airport, which was its usual shambles of bewildered pa.s.sengers and despairing hair-tearing insolent porters. Luke hadn't even had time to change his shirt which was soaked with sweat. His white jeans were filthy, and dust streaked one side of his face. Ophelia was still fighting colic. He ought to drop Perdita off and go straight back to her, but he couldn't tear himself away. She'd been so manic when she'd set off to see Chessie; now her eyes were glittering with unshed tears and her mouth trembling. Perhaps miraculously, she'd suddenly realized she was going to miss him. He bought her a vodka and tonic and they sat in the bar. Perdita, in whom deep unhappiness invariably manifested itself as bad temper, stared moodily at the other pa.s.sengers; Luke stared at Perdita. Frantic excitement was generated because Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward were on the same flight and immediately wafted through to the VIP lounge.

'Christ, he's attractive,' grumbled Perdita. 'Why the h.e.l.l can't I travel First?'

Luke was tired and had to resist snapping at her that she was b.l.o.o.d.y lucky to have her return ticket paid for at all. Committed to play for Hal in Chicago, Houston, Detroit, and then Greenwich in the Fall, there was no way he'd get to England to see her this year.

He took her hand. 'I'm gonna miss you. Will you write?' Perdita shrugged. 'I'm a stinking correspondent.'

Not to Ricky you weren't, thought Luke, remembering the dozens of unanswered letters.

'At least you'll have your own bed back,' Perdita tried to pull herself together, adding listlessly, 'Thanks for everything. It's been great.'

'What did Chessie say to you?' asked Luke.

'Nothing,' said Perdita, about to blurt the whole thing out. 'Oh, h.e.l.l, that's all I need.'