Polo. Part 44

'I sent him to Worth Avenue,' said Bart, 'and I called them to make sure he hires the right gear.'

Bibi was thrown into a turmoil. I hate him, she thought furiously, he's my social and professional inferior. I must not let myself be fazed.

But instead of the black-and-white sack-dress, which made her look like an overweight zebra, she picked from her wardrobe a clinging, coral-pink dress which had a short skirt and was cut low back and front. She'd bought it to wow Ricky in LA, but had never had the guts to wear it. Chessie and Bart had gone off to a drinks party and, in a rare act of charity, Chessie had sent her maid, Esmeralda, who used to be a beautician, to help Bibi dress.

'Oh, Miss Bibi, just let me make you look gorgeous.'

By half past seven Bibi was ready. Her mane of hair flopped dark red and curly round her face and down her back. Replacing her heavy spectacles with contact lenses, she had allowed Esmeralda to draw kohl round her big, brown eyes and apply three layers of black mascara. She'd always been embarra.s.sed by the size of her mouth and painted well inside it as Grace had taught her, but tonight Esmeralda took the lipbrush round the full outline and filled it in with bright coral.

The voluptuousness of Esmeralda rubbing moisturiser and brown make-up into her back and shoulders, with those magic fingers that daily ma.s.saged Chessie, had made Bibi realize with a pang how much she craved the caress of another human being.

Her red shoes had spike heels which she would plunge into Angel's feet if he started cheeking her. Then she put on her diamonds, chandeliers at each ear, stones as big as marbles round her neck and left wrist. Inherited from Grace's mother, they lit up her sallow skin, which the coral dress had already warmed.

'You look beautiful, Miss Bibi,' cried Esmeralda in ecstasy. She'd always felt Bibi got a raw deal.

'If only my nose weren't so big.'

'You crazy?' said Esmeralda. 'No one worries about a Borzoi having too big a nose.'

Bibi was so excited she thought she'd faint. I am waiting for a man I really really want, she thought. Then Angel ruined it by arriving an hour late, by which time Bibi had drunk three-quarters of a bottle of champagne to steady her nerves. She needed it. Angel, with his bronze curls slicked back to show off the exquisite bone structure of his forehead, temple and cheek bones, his beautifully planed cheeks and jaw denuded of stubble and his eyes flashing like an angry Siamese cat, completely took her Gold-Spotted breath away. How could such angelic features conceal such a black heart?

With one of those diamonds I could buy half a dozen ponies, thought Angel sourly, as he paused to admire the beautiful pale pink house, the pale turquoise sweep of swimming-pool, the tree house in the multi-branched grasp of the ficus, the blue-decked lawn going into the ocean and the other wonderful houses peeping out of the trees on the opposite bank. Bad luck to live in Fairyland, reflected Angel, when you didn't look like a princess. All the same Bibi looked much better than he expected, and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were amazing; tawny smooth and full in that tight coral dress and he'd never dreamt the rest of her was so slim.

'We're not going in that,' she said in horror, as Angel opened the door of his filthy Mini. 'We go in mine.' 'No, in mine.' Angel took her arm firmly.

Bibi was about to jump away, but the sureness of his touch made her feel very unsteady on her red heels. For a second they glared at each other. Bibi dropped her eyes first and, getting meekly into his car, threw a wicked-looking pair of spurs he'd left on the pa.s.senger seat into the back.

'You going to use those on me?' she spat, trying to control the hopeless thumping of her heart.

'Not unless I 'ave to.' Leaning across her to lock the door, Angel deliberately brushed her breast with his arm. 'I only keep them for big matches.''And I'm only a low-goal friendly?'

Angel switched on the ignition. 'Nothing friendly about you,' he said.

It was a hot, muggy evening. The ball was held in the garden of a house which reared up ghostly white in the moonlight like the Taj Mahal. Faint stars dotted a gleaming grey sky like children kept up too late. Vast oblong cars dropped off their pa.s.sengers outside a big blue and white striped marquee. One of the men valet-parking looked at Angel's Mini in disdain and took the keys from him by the tag, as though they were some particularly mangled shrew the cat had brought in. Lurking paparazzi paparazzi went beserk when they saw Bibi with such a handsome stranger. went beserk when they saw Bibi with such a handsome stranger.

'Look this way, Miss Alderton. Smile, Miss Alderton. Who's your escort, Miss Alderton? What's he been in, Miss Alderton?'

Angel looked as though he was going to smash all their cameras, so Bibi hustled him into the marquee.

'He's called Angel,' she shouted over her shoulder. 'Can you spell that, Miss Alderton?'

Bibi had worked hard. The marquee looked enchanting. Palms were banked at each end. Round the edge were tables draped in long, pale pink tablecloths, topped with pink roses, pale blue delphiniums and white freesias. A pale pink balloon rose from each da-glo pink number. The floor was covered in green astra-turf, which kept catching the high heels of the women, so their swooping progress towards one another was not unlike that of mechanical dolls. Their faces were doll-like too, thought Angel, beautiful, tremendously overmade-up, and unsmiling because smiles betrayed lines round the eyes. Their jewels glittered in the candlelight, but although they made a lot of noise as they chattered away, like the Everglades outside, there was no real communication between them. And their eyes swivelled continually and rapaciously to see if anyone over their partners' shoulder was richer, more famous or more interesting.

Bibi, used to attending parties like this with Trust Fund Babies who were perfectly at ease and tended to know everyone, was worried Angel would be gauche and out of place. But although she was kept frantically busy, organizing the tombola, finding people's seats, seeing the waitresses kept the Moet circulating, and working the room herself because half the people in the room hadn't yet bought Alderton airplanes, every time she glanced across at Angel he had been collared by another predatory lady and was looking quite at ease.

Fighting her way to his side, she introduced him to a Master of Foxhounds from Virginia in a red coat, who announced that the hunting season went from September to December.

'Pity it's over,' said his mettlesome wife, gazing hungrily at Angel. 'We must have a dance later. Argentines have such a wonderful sense of rhythm. I've got a big, big, day tomorrow,' she went on. 'I'm organizing Adopt a Handicapped Animal Day.'

'Does that include Lame Ducks?' drawled Chessie, ravishing in black lace, who had popped up on Angel's other side.

'You OK?' Bibi asked Angel.

'Don't be unflattering,' said Chessie. 'I'll look after him. Your father wants you to go and chat up George Ricardo, Bibi. He's not struck by Alderton Lightnings enough yet. She looks quite good tonight,' she admitted, as Bibi sulkily retreated into the centre of the room.

Angel shrugged. 'OK eef you cut off her head.' Chessie laughed. 'Not very kind.'

'I 'ate leetle Hitlers,' said Angel moodily.

'It's in the blood,' sighed Chessie. 'Bart is the biggest bully, and Grace is appallingly bossy, never stops trying to improve people. It's rubbed off on Bibi. She always goes out with such wimps, they never answer back. Oh G.o.d, Bart's glowering at me. He's He's wildly jealous of you. Hasn't forgiven me for chatting you up on Christmas Day.' wildly jealous of you. Hasn't forgiven me for chatting you up on Christmas Day.'

Angel flushed slightly. 'It was best part of dinner.'

Looking across, Bibi went cold. Not content with enslaving Ricky and her father, Chessie was out to catch Angel as well. By a hasty shifting of place cards, Bibi made sure she and Angel were nowhere near her and Bart.

Unfortunately, when they sat down she discovered that on Angel's right was a beautiful, very tarty woman, withtanned shoulders rising out of a turquoise taffeta, strapless dress, turquoise toe and finger nails, and turquoise pearls to match.

'My husband's thinking of sponsoring a polo team,' she said, squeezing Angel's arm. 'How would you like to come and play for us?'

'He plays for my father,' snapped Bibi. Champagne and longing had made her more aggressive.

Angel had been drinking Perrier. Starving, he wolfed his own egg mayonnaise and ring of caviar, and then Bibi's.

Continuing to drink, Bibi tried to pump him about Miguel and Juan.

'I don't want to talk about them,' said Angel. 'Eef I tell you, you will run to your father, and why you interrupt when ozzer people,' he nodded at the tarty woman in turquoise, 'want me to play for them?'

'She says that to all good-looking players. She hasn't got a husband.'

'What prospect do I 'ave wiz you? Your father say to me, eef you stick at one, you go on playing wiz me, eef you go up, you're fired. If I play well, I lose my job; eef I don't, I get fired anyway.' He gazed moodily at a quivering pink balloon, 'Full of 'ot air, like everyone in Palm Beach.'

Angel had such a big mouth, thought Bibi, that when he yawned he looked really bored.

Stuffed breast of chicken followed and every time she tried to engage him in conversation, a new vegetable was plonked between them. Once again Angel wolfed everything on his plate, and Bibi ate nothing.

'Are you sleeming? You don't need to.' Angel looked her up and down. 'You look good tonight. Why don't you look like that all the time?'

'I could hardly wear this dress to the office.'

'You'd get better results,' said Angel, forking up her chicken.

'I want to be taken seriously as a woman.'

'No-one know you're a woman in those 'orrible suits. Why you deliberately make youself look awful with those beeg gla.s.ses and your hair sc.r.a.ped back? I nevair knew you had a body before this evening. Why you 'ide it?'

'I don't know,' mumbled Bibi.

'Because you're frightened of s.e.x. You don't think anyone will love you except for zee money.'

'And would they?' asked Bibi with a sob.

'Of course, if you stop hurling zee weight around.' Leaning across, Angel pinched the turquoise woman's roll, spread it thickly with b.u.t.ter and tipped salt over it.

'That's so bad for you,' reproached Bibi.

'Zere you go again. Stop trying to improve people.'

Across the room Bart was singularly unamused to see his grossly underhandicapped ringer getting on far too well with his daughter. He should never have let them sit by themselves. Detesting small talk, he'd intended spending dinner talking polo with Angel.

'What's a toyboy?' boomed the Queen of England's second cousin who was sitting on Bart's right. 'You Americans, Mr Aldgate, are so good at remembering names.'

Bibi felt as though for twenty-two years she'd been a ship wrecked at the bottom of the ocean which is suddenly aware far above of a sun warming the surface.

'What kind of woman are you looking for?' she asked Angel.

'Like my mother, but with none of her defects.' He took Bibi's wrist, examining each diamond. 'I want a woman who is s.e.xually liberated with a mind of her own,' then, looking straight into Bibi's eyes, 'that I can dominate utterly.'

Bibi felt her entrails go liquid. 'That is obnoxious,' she said furiously. Out of the corner of her eye she could see her father bearing down on them, looking boot-faced. He was going to order her to work the room again. The band were playing.

'Shall we dance?' she asked Angel.

'No,' said Angel. Then, seeing her face fall, 'Let's start wiz the first lesson. I do zee asking. Will you dance wiz me?'

'Oh, yes, please,' breathed Bibi, leaping to her feet.

And her fate was sealed, because Angel was the best dancer she'd ever met. As he instantly became one with every horse he rode, he now became part of the music.

'Wow,' said Chessie enviously, watching Angel's gyrating pelvis and flying feet, and his utterly still face, 'talk about Travoltage.'

Gradually the room cleared. To keep up, Bibi kicked off her red shoes. Her scarlet toenails flashed like swarming ladybirds, her dark red hair flowed like seaweed and her lovely body writhed like a flame. Then the band switched to 'Rock Around the Clock', and each time Angel took her hand and put his other hand on her waist to swing her around, it was as though he was giving her an electric shock. Finally, such was the violence of her turning that he had to catch her as she fell.

'Don't move,' he hissed as she tried to wriggle free. 'That's zee second lesson, don't move until I say.' Meekly Bibi rested in his arms, luxuriating in the heat of his body and the strength of his arms.

'We go now,' said Angel.

'We can't,' said Bibi aghast. 'They haven't even drawn the raffle yet.'

Returning to their table, Angel took a sheaf of pink tickets from her bag and, tearing them into tiny pieces, dropped them on the floor.

'You win me. I am first prize.'

Bibi's jaw dropped. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hardly whisper. 'Your place or mine?'

'Mine,' said Angel. 'I want you to see my 'ovel, and I don't want your father barging in in zee middle.'

Ignoring a furiously waving Bart, they slid out of the french windows. Picking a gardenia whiter than the moon, Angel put it behind Bibi's ear.

40.

Angel lived in a rundown housing estate near the airport. Bibi was appalled by his room which was tiny, airless and impossibly hot, with only a minute chest of drawers, a narrow bed little wider than an ironing board, no carpets and no curtains.

'This is awful. Why didn't you tell me?'

'Would you have listened?'

'Why've you put tin foil on the windows?'

'Zee sun gets up earlier than I like to do.'

Down the landing was a grimy bathroom, with a john, a cracked basin and a creaking inadequate shower.

'Miguel found this room,' said Angel. 'He theenk eet five star for spy of Alejandro.'

'We'll move you tomorrow, right. I'm so sorry. I feel terrible.'

Bibi moved to the chest of drawers, admiring first the photograph of Pedro. 'He's like you, and so handsome.' 'He's dead,' snapped Angel.

'That's a purple heart,' said Bibi in surprise. 'Dad got one in Korea.'

'Eet was sent me by American pilot.' Removing his dinner jacket and black tie, Angel threw them in the corner. 'He won eet in Vietnam. He say it was the most important of his medal, and he wish to present it as a token of respect to the professionalism and unbreakable courage of Argentine pilots.'

'But that's wonderful,' sighed Bibi.

'The Eenglish say we were kamikaze, but a fighter pilot 'as to be in complete control. We were fighting for something that was ours. We knew it was dangerous, but we 'ad to go on.'

Slightly frightened by the fanaticism in his eyes, Bibi picked up the jar of earth. 'What's this?'

'Malvinas earth. I brung it back. One day it will be Argentine earth.'

Tears triggered off by champagne filled Bibi's eyes. 'I'm so sorry.'

'I don't need peety,' snarled Angel. 'I need vengeance.'

A Simenon paperback lay face down by the bed. Bibi blushed as she remembered how she and Red had b.i.t.c.hed in French about Angel at Christmas. As he pulled his shirt out of his trousers, she went over and put her arms round his neck. For a second Angel went rigid. 'I thought I was the one calling the shoots.'

'I'm just checking the monitors,' whispered Bibi.

Looking down, he could see between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s to her scarlet pants and breathed in the remains of Giorgio and the acid reek of hot, hopelessly excited woman. Her nose might be like Concorde, but her eyes were dark, long, loving and glazed with desire. She was Bart's daughter,rich as an Arab sheik and the key to worldly goods.

Angel laid a warm, steady hand on the back of her neck, then stretched his long fingers round to the front to gently stroke her cheek. Bibi gave a moan as he spat on the thumb of his other hand and smoothed away the mascara that had streaked under her eyes. Her mouth, huge, red and smudged, was trembling as Angel ran a lazy tongue along her upper lip then back along the lower one, then, slowly, as his hand slid down her neck to caress her collar bone, he kissed her properly. Simultaneously he turned her sideways, so his left hand could slide into her coral dress to stroke her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The bra was built in. His right hand reached for the zip, and she was naked except for her red pants and her diamonds.