Polo. Part 51

At half-time, profoundly depressed, frozen without his jacket, Luke went out to stomp in the divots. Dogs whisking everywhere made him long for Leroy. Daisy had drifted to the right, and Luke noticed that the first player back, on a dapple-grey with black points, was Drew Benedict. Luke watched him ride past her, masking her for a second from the stands and Sukey.

'I'll ring you this evening,' said Drew softly, and rode on. Perdita, next back, charged up to Luke.

'I haven't had the f.u.c.king ball all afternoon. I'm really p.i.s.sed off.'

'Take out the Prince. He was loose most of the first half, then at least Ricky can come through.'

Luke's advice worked. With the Prince pegged, Ricky took the game by the throat and in a flurry of breathtaking goals, had pulled back the score to 10-11 by the end of the fifth chukka. The crowd forgot the icy wind.

'Ner, ner, ner-ner, ner,' Dancer's minders taunted the Prince's boot-faced guards.

It's the last chukka and I've done nothing, thought Perdita furiously. Spotty, a fearful exhibitionist who only caught fire when applauded, was also sulking. Then, miraculously, Mike hit a lovely backhand in Perdita's direction. There was no one between her and the goal posts.

'Leave it,' bellowed Ricky.

Ignoring him, Perdita put her reins in her stick hand and gave Spotty a couple of whacks with her whip. Spotty bridled in outrage, then shot forward. Perdita's first forehand put the ball ten yards in front of goal.

'Man coming,' yelled Ricky.

Heedless, Perdita careered after it. She was going to tie up the score on Luke's first day. Almost nonchalantly, oblivious of the shouting behind her, she lifted her stick, then howled with exasperation as she was hooked.

'You f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.d!' she screeched. Then turning round, she gave a gasp of horror: 'Gosh, I'm terribly terribly sorry, Sir.' sorry, Sir.'

'Off,' thundered Ben Napier.

'Don't be f.u.c.king stupid!' In a second Perdita switched from abject contrition to outrage.

'There's nuffink in the rule book abart swearin' at Royalty,' said Dancer, galloping up.

'Off,' insisted Ben Napier, pointing towards the pony lines.

'You a.s.shole,' shouted Perdita. 'Why don't you get out the f.u.c.king rule book and learn to read?'

'Off,' said Ben Napier, triumphantly. 'Abuse of umpire.' 'For Chrissake, help me,' Perdita pleaded to Seb, the second umpire.

But Seb, terrified of opening his mouth in case he was sick, merely shook his head.

In a blind fury Perdita lifted her stick and hit the ball straight into the bonnet of a nearby Bentley. Choking on his cuc.u.mber sandwich, the owner leapt out, waving his fist. Miss Lodsworth turned puce and everyone else looked very excited as Perdita galloped off.

'Straight to the Tower of London,' said Dommie.

Luke gave a highly embarra.s.sed Daisy a rea.s.suring smile. Three against four is no contest. Rutminster Hall ran out the winners by 13-10.

Luke found Perdita sobbing into Spotty's shoulder. 'We could have won, we could have b.l.o.o.d.y won.'

He took her in his arms. 'It's OK, sweetheart.' Over her shuddering shoulder he saw an utterly dejected Dancer riding up.

'You coming back to Robinsgrove?' he asked.

'I played like a pig wiv the trots; fink I'll go home,' said Dancer.

'You did pretty good, except for being late,' said Luke. 'I'll call you tomorrow.'

Back at Robinsgrove, having dropped Perdita off at Snow Cottage, Luke put on two sweaters and went into the yard, where all was activity. Louisa trundled by with a wheelbarrow loaded up with tack to be hung up. Kinta had a cut mouth which one of the younger grooms was rinsing out with salt and water. Another groom was sweeping up the yard and swearing at Little Chef as he chased the stable cat through a pile of straw and shavings, while yet another was being greeted with a thunder of whickering and whinnying as she raced round lobbing wodges of hay into racks. Later most of the ponies would be turned out. Luke felt a wave of longing for Fantasma.

'Is there an axe round here?' he asked Louisa.

'You going to chop off Perdita's head for treason?' Louisa tried to make a joke, but she was depressed about losing and having wolfed two KitKats to cheer herself up on the way home.

'I'm going to light a fire,' said Luke. 'I don't want to die of pneumonia.'

The logs were wet and took a long time to kindle. Like Perdita, thought Luke wryly. He noticed the yellowing cups and the gap still over the fireplace where the Munnings had been. He had just retrieved his duty-free Bourbon from the kitchen and was pouring himself three fingers when Ricky stalked in, glaring disapprovingly at the greeny-blue flames and the acrid smoke that was drifting out into the room.

'Bit late for a fire,' he snapped. 'Daisy's just rung. Says you're welcome to supper any time after eight.' 'You coming too?' asked Luke.

'Christ, no.'

He was about to stalk out again, when Luke said, 'We oughta talk.'

'We?' Ricky raised his eyebrows. 'There's nothing to talk about.'

Luke poured a second large Bourbon and handed it to Ricky.

'I don't drink.'

'You better start,' said Luke gently. 'You gotta loosen up.'

Hearing the crackling from a painted stick, Little Chef trotted in and, seeing the fire, stretched out blissfully. Sitting down, Luke took a slug of his whisky and a deep breath. 'You should've walked it today.'

'With three f.u.c.king incompetents?'

'It was your fault,' said Luke steadily. 'Entirely your fault. You've totally demoralized Perdita and Dancer for a start. Perdita's dying of hypothermia and loneliness out there waiting for a pa.s.s, and when she gets one she's so uptight she goofs. Dancer's the same. He's worried the whole time, not where to hit the ball, but whether he's going to hit it at all. And Mike Waterlane's out to lunch. He was just cantering about not marking anyone.'

Then, when Ricky opened his mouth in outrage, Luke went on. 'No, I haven't finished. No one knows what they're meant to be doing, there's no game plan. You just fl.u.s.ter them by shouting, right, and at the same time you're telegraphing every punch to the opposition. You're always going to be the most marked man on the team. If you give the others the ball, they can take it away.'

The logs, suddenly deciding to be co-operative, burst into flames. Flickering over Ricky's set, frozen face, they gave it a rare illusion of mobility. Luke got up and threw on another log. 'Forget the Gold Cup,' he said brutally. 'If you're not careful you'll lose every game this season.'

'Have you flown three thousand m-m-miles to give me this c.r.a.p?' said Ricky softly. 'I was playing for England when you were still in High School. I'm captain of Apocalypse.'

'Sure you are,' said Luke, 'and you've got unique charisma, right, that'll make guys go over the top into the face of h.e.l.l for you, and make horses run till they drop, but you're abusing it. You're too f.u.c.king arrogant. I know you're sore Dancer hired me without asking you. I don't want to steal your thunder. I wanna learn all I can from you, and I wanna give something back. Potentially, we've got a brilliant side. And you're so G.o.ddam lucky you've got a patron who's a saint - a patron saint, he pays you a f.u.c.king fortune and all you do is give him earache.'

Little Chef jumped on to Ricky's knee and started to growl at Luke. Ricky's face was grey, his eyes black whirlpools of fury, his long fingers curled round his gla.s.s. For a second Luke thought he was going to hurl it in his face.

'My horses haven't left,' he said slowly. 'I'd rather get on the next plane home than spend summer watching you self-destruct.'

'Get out,' hissed Ricky.

In the kitchen Luke found that his legs were shaking violently. Outside, the wind was systematically stripping the cherry trees and the montana. Out in the yard Wayne, confined to barracks with a puffy hock, and suffering mild indigestion from wolfing too many cuc.u.mber sandwiches, cream cakes and a clubhouse tablecloth, hung out of his specially bolted door like a burglar about to crack a safe.

He'd hoped the footstep would be Ricky's, but Luke would do. Unable to stop shaking, Luke clung on to the ugly, yellow, lop-eared head.

'I've blown it,' he groaned.

He'd been so excited this time yesterday, flying over the Atlantic dreaming of Perdita, of the Gold Cup, of shaking hands with the Queen and going to Stratford and Tintern Abbey. He'd have to pay back Dancer's fee, and holding a sobbing Perdita in his arms earlier had made him realize once again how hopelessly he was still in love with her.

He jumped as the stable cat weaved her way round his trembling legs. Picked up, she purred against him for a second, then, jumping on to Wayne's withers, settled down happily on his quarters.

Christ, thought Luke in horror, that poor guy killed his kid when he was looped and I force liquor on him.

'Look, I'm sorry,' he said, going back into the drawing room. 'I came on too strong.'

Ricky looked up, then suddenly smiled. 'No, you didn't. Everything you said was right. I know it in my head, but the moment I get on the field I tense up, and ever since Chessie b.u.g.g.e.red off and Will died I've never trusted anyone, least of all myself.' Picking up his gla.s.s, he examined it for a second, then drained it. 'Let's get plastered.'

Reluctant to break the mood, Luke waited until an hour later, when Ricky went off to have a pee, to call Perdita. He got an earful.

'Tell your mother I'm really sorry,' he said, when he could get a word in, 'but Ricky and I've got a lot of things to work through. I'll take you both out tomorrow.'

'What makes you think I'd want to come?' snapped Perdita. Even though she knew there was no hope with Ricky, she was furiously jealous of Luke spending an evening alone with him.

'I'll take your mother then,' said Luke, hanging up.

After midnight, when they'd moved four white and four black horses round the green baize board until they could see sixteen of them, they tottered out to the stables. The ponies, surprised to be roused, blinked sleepily. Tero's feed was still in her manger and she shrank to the back of her box as they approached.

'Get's so uptight she won't eat for forty-eight hours after a game,' said Ricky, clumsily putting another rug on her and having great difficulty doing it up.

'She will when we start winning,' said Luke. 'You wait till you see Fantasma - sweeps down the field like a yacht in full sail.'

'I had a horse called Mattie once,' said Ricky, stumbling off towards the forage room. 'Best pair of legs I ever saw on a pony, or a woman. Christ, she was beautiful. Faster than Kinta, cannier than Wayne, turned quicker than Spotty. You always have one you love best, don't you?'

Absolutely plastered, he tripped over an upturned bucket and, just managing to right himself, sat down very suddenly on a bale of hay. His black curls were ruffled, his black eyes crossing. 'You know Ch-Ch-Chessie, don't you?'

'Sure,' said Luke, leaning against the door.

'Beautiful, isn't she?'

'Incredible.'

'She happy with your father?'

Luke shrugged. 'I don't know. I guess all marriages are Africa. They did an autopsy on one of Shark Nelligan's ponies the other day, the hide looked fine, but inside where the spurs had gone in, the scar tissue, the tearing, and the bruising were appalling. That's marriage. Same way, I gotta horse, cut to pieces outside, scars everywhere; inside, she's one of the best mares ever. Hard to generalize.'

Ricky felt pole-axed with misery. Even talking about Chessie crucified him, and with performances as lousy as today's, how could he ever win the Gold Cup, let alone get to ten or bring the Westchester back to England?

'I can't stand other people being happy,' he mumbled shame-facedly. 'It makes me s-s-such a s.h.i.t. D'you think I'll ever get over her?'

'Sure you will,' said Luke, thinking that he hadn't remotely got over Perdita. 'You need some fun.'

Stretching out a hand, he found Ricky had collapsed on his hay bale, nudged asleep perhaps by the velvet muzzle of Mattie's ghost. Little Chef curled into the hollow of his back with a martyred sigh. Fetching a couple of rugs, Luke covered both of them.

G.o.d, he was handsome, even with that wicked scar running livid down the side of his face. No wonder Perdita loved him. Giving a wide-awake Wayne a handful of pony nuts, Luke wandered off to Ricky's library to find something to read. Tomorrow they'd get down to work.

A fortnight later Luke went into Rutminster with Ricky to look for a new bit for Kinta. Returning home, he found his grooms and ponies had caught an earlier flight and were already installed. Racing round to the yard, he called Fantasma's name. Recognizing his voice, she promptly tried to bash her way out of her box, and, finding that impossible, stood back on her hocks and cleared the dark blue half-door, clattering up to her master, whickering in ecstasy, nudging him all over, searching his pockets for Polo mints.

'Christ, what a beautiful horse,' said Ricky who wasn't given to superlatives. 'I never expected her to be so big.'

'I can't believe she's grown so much,' said Perdita in amazement.

'Nearly a hand,' said Luke proudly.

'And she's filled out everywhere,' went on Perdita.

'When you see the girth on her,' said Luke, his voice breaking slightly as he buried his face in Fantasma's neck, 'you realize why she's got so much heart. It's a real privilege to own a horse like this. Ouch,' he yelled, as Fantasma, resentful of being abandoned for a fortnight, took a sharp bite out of his arm, then nudged him apologetically.

'b.i.t.c.h,' said Luke, grinning and getting out a packet of Polos. 'That's because I didn't take her with me on Concorde.'

He also found it faintly embarra.s.sing, having insisted that all the Apocalypse team get up early and work all their ponies every day, that he waived the rules with Fantasma. Instead he hacked her gently round the Rutshire countryside.

'She gets awful bored if I stick and ball her,' he told Ricky apologetically, 'and only just tolerates practice chukkas. I guess she saves herself for the real thing.'

'If she takes out your b.l.o.o.d.y father, I'll forgive her,' said Ricky grimly.

47.

If Ricky's hatred for Bart grew deep inside him like a beast, then Bart was equally obsessed with Ricky. The prospect of coming to England with enough ponies for a cavalry regiment and publicly showing the world who was the better man gave him an unbelievable s.e.xual frisson. frisson. He was therefore outraged by a piece in the April issue of He was therefore outraged by a piece in the April issue of Polo Polo magazine questioning the future invincibility of the Flyers. magazine questioning the future invincibility of the Flyers.

'Hitherto Bart Alderton has been sh.o.r.ed up by the mighty ten goalers, Juan and Miguel O'Brien, and wildly underhandicapped ringers. Allied to the volatile and extremely vocal Napier brothers and an unknown Mexican this summer in England, will Bart be able to retain the Flyers' supremacy?'

Having fired off a solicitor's letter to Polo Polo magazine Bart went into an orgy of pony-buying. Nor could the pleadings of Bibi that Alderton Airlines had recorded their first loss in twenty years, that 500 blue-collar and 400 white-collar workers had to be laid off and Bart ought to be there to fire them personally, that the vice-presidents of the various sections of the Alderton empire were at each others' throats, stop him spending May, June and July in England. magazine Bart went into an orgy of pony-buying. Nor could the pleadings of Bibi that Alderton Airlines had recorded their first loss in twenty years, that 500 blue-collar and 400 white-collar workers had to be laid off and Bart ought to be there to fire them personally, that the vice-presidents of the various sections of the Alderton empire were at each others' throats, stop him spending May, June and July in England.

The lay-offs and losses were just symptoms of a worldwide malaise, Bart told Bibi airily. Business would pick up in the fall. Anyway he was always at the end of the telephone or a fax machine. He couldn't understand either why Bibi, as his polo manager, couldn't accompany him and Chessie to England. Things wouldn't run nearly as smoothly without her. But Bibi insisted that one member of the Alderton family must stay home to mind the shop. Nor was she prepared to leave Angel, who was still banned from playing in England, loose on his own on the US circuit for two and a half months. The punishing hours she worked for Bart had already put a great strain on her marriage.

'Surely Angel could spare you for the big matches? Marriages need ventilating,' grumbled Bart, totally forgetting that he wasn't prepared to leave Chessie on her own for a second in England. As it was, he already hadsecurity guards following her twenty-four hours a day and had bugged the telephones and rooms both at the huge house he had just bought near Cowdray and at the flat in Knightsbridge. Chessie got her revenge by spending a fortune on clothes and enlisting the help of the guards even to choosing the colour and shape of her lingerie. If the world's press was clamouring to witness her first meeting with her ex-husband in four and half years, Chessie reasoned, she better look good.

To the press's disappointment this meeting didn't occur until the final of the Queen's Cup. Apocalypse, who, under Luke's crash course, had finally got their act together, stormed through their side of the draw, taking huge delight in thrashing the Kaputnik Tigers, consisting of Victor, the twins and the great American Number Three, Bobby Ferraro, in the semi-finals, before meeting Bart, the Napiers and an unknown Mexican in the final.

Luke's greatest headache on the day was keeping Apocalypse calm. It was like ponying three wild mustangs along a freeway. Perdita, suffering from appalling stage fright, became more histrionic and picky than ever. Ricky, whose stomach had been churning all summer at the prospect of b.u.mping into Chessie, had been throwing up all night. Dancer, the most frightened of the three, hid it the best and consequently became the recipient of a lot of flak from Perdita and Ricky, particularly during practice chukkas and while they were watching videos of earlier Alderton Flyer matches.

'It's only because you take criticism so well that we can tell you things,' Luke kept comforting Dancer.

Most patrons worried more about the bank manager than playing badly. Dancer, acutely aware he was the weak link in the team, was terrified of letting Apocalypse down. He had to mark Ben Napier, who was twice his size and four times his strength. He hardly slept the night before and in his fitful dreams was ridden off by the whole world.