Polo. Part 52

As none of the three could keep anything down, there was no question of a team lunch to create solidarity before the match. Dancer, because he liked to get up slowly, cope with his nerves on his own and arrive as late as possible to avoid being mobbed, flew to the Guards Club by helicopter. The others went by car. Ricky drove with Perdita in front because she felt sick and Luke and Little Chef, dancing across Luke's knees to bark at every dog they pa.s.sed, in the back. As he was the team mascot, Dancer had given him a collar of jet from which dangled a tiny ivory horse.

'That dog is so spoilt,' grumbled Perdita, 'he even gets the gardeners to bury his bones for him.'

Luke had done his homework on the Alderton Flyers. He had watched every match they played in England and, by judicious chatting up of grooms and other players, had familiarized himself with every pony they'd be riding and had briefed Apocalypse accordingly.

'Team's top-heavy, with my father and the Napiers yelling their heads off and all wanting their own way. The only person they've got to boss around is this Mexican guy called Jose, who can't understand a word of English, which may enhance his peace of mind, but doesn't make for cohesion. We'll flatten them.'

On paper the Flyers were much stronger. The game plan was to hara.s.s the h.e.l.l out of them until they fouled out of exasperation. Then, against long, accurate penalties from Luke, there would be no defence. If the match went Apocalypse's way, the others would leave Luke as a rock-solid wall of defence and concentrate on attack.

Luke wished he felt more cheerful. As Ricky overtook everyone on the M4, the damp patches under his arms joined across his back until his whole s.h.i.+rt was soaked in sweat and Luke could see his shoulder muscles as rigid as petrified snakes.

It was a close, punis.h.i.+ngly hot day. Thunder grumbled on the horizon. The heatwave was in its third week. Wild roses and the creamy discs of elderflowers draped over the hedgerows shrivelled in a day. A heat haze undulated on the tarmac ahead. It was a relief to come off the motorway into the dark green oak and chestnut tunnels on the road to Windsor. Behind fern-filled verges and ramparts of purple rhododendrons, Luke caught glimpses of large pink-andwhite houses which reminded him of Palm Beach, lawns yellow from the hosepipe ban and paddocks full of jumps and ponies whisking unpulled tails across glossy rumps.

Men in s.h.i.+rtsleeves and girls in sundresses were drinking outside pubs.

'Christ, I'd like to spend the afternoon knocking back Pimm's and watching someone else make a fool of themselves,' said Perdita in a hollow voice. Luke felt as if an ice-cube had been slipped into his hand. Glancing down he saw it was Perdita's hand reaching back to him. Although the nails were bitten and dirty and the palm calloused, he had to resist lifting it to his lips. Instead he squeezed it gently.

'Give us a poem, Luke,' she asked.

'Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,' began Luke, his deep voice slightly croaky from dust. began Luke, his deep voice slightly croaky from dust.

They were pa.s.sing Windsor Castle now and Luke thought ruefully of the sightseeing he had hoped to do. He hadn't been to London yet, let alone Stratford.

'Or close the wall up with our English dead!' he went on. he went on.

'In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility; But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger.'

'Not the Kaputnik Tigers I hope,' said Perdita. 'I'm so scared I'll probably play like Victor. Christ - look at those crowds and those tents.'

From the car-park came a humming like a vast swarm of bees, as chauffeurs, not wanting to melt away, kept on the air-conditioning of their limos. No wind displaced the wilting flags along the pitch, but inside the hospitality tents electric fans could be seen ruffling vast clumps of pink peonies and pale blue delphiniums as men, wis.h.i.+ng they'd worn striped s.h.i.+rts which didn't show the sweat, and beautiful women refusing red wine because it would make their faces even pinker, toyed with lobster, cold beef and strawberries and cream.

Ricky, aware that the Alderton Flyers and their wives were lunching in the tent of Alfred Dunhill, the sponsors, suddenly thought he saw Chessie and nearly ran over a programme seller.

'Oh, look,' said a fat waitress, chucking leftovers into a grey, plastic dustbin, 'there's that Perdita, the one that said "eff off' to Prince Charles.'

'Ow, yes,' said her friend excitedly. 'h.e.l.lo, Perdy, can we have your autograph? Thought you was in the Tower. Stuck up little madam,' she added, as Perdita gazed stonily ahead.

Down by the pony lines crowds surged forward to admire Apocalypse's equine stars. Wayne appeared to be sleeping peacefully but was actually wondering how to bite his way through his new reinforced lead rope. They did awfully good teas at the Guards Club. Spotty, the show-off, was thrilled to see so many people. Fantasma, as usual, was standing on her front legs las.h.i.+ng out simultaneously with both back barrels.

'Thank G.o.d you've arrived,' said Luke's groom, Lizzie, despairingly. 'I've got one more stud to screw into her hoof and I can't get near her in this mood.'

Next door to Fantasma, Perdita was trying to calm down a frantically trembling, sweating Tero.

'G.o.d, the Flyers' horses look well,' she said gloomily. 'There's Glitz, and that chestnut Andromeda's even faster than Fantasma.'

'That's because the Napiers cut their horses up before a match,' said Luke, taking the spanner from Lizzie and picking up a now comparatively docile Fantasma's nearside hoof. 'One touch of their spurs and they fly.'

'b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, I hate them,' stormed Perdita.

'That's the right att.i.tude,' said Luke. 'Napiers keep their horses in all the time. They're not so relaxed as ours.'

'Could have fooled me,' said Lizzie, rubbing a large purpling bruise on her arm.

'I'm sorry, honey.' Luke patted her cheek as he handed her back the spanner. 'Thirty minutes to the parade. We'd better get changed,' he added, propelling Ricky, who, despite the heat, was s.h.i.+vering even worse than Tero, towards the players' changing room.

'And where am I supposed to change?' demanded Perdita.

'In the Ladies,' said Ricky curtly.

'And get gawped at? I'd rather use the lorry, but you can all flaming well stand guard, or Guards, while I have a shower later.'

Ricky sat in a dark corner of the changing room taking ages to zip up his boots, buckle his knee pads and his luckybelt, and b.u.t.ton up his lucky gloves which had almost fallen to pieces. He must get a grip on himself. He'd only get Chessie back by hammering Bart. At the moment he wouldn't know where to stand to hit a sixty-yard penalty.

Suddenly he froze as Bart came in and dived for the nearest loo. Prolonged peeing followed by a volley of farts and a vile smell told him Bart was as nervous as he was. Ricky felt slightly better, and better still when Bart came out and spent several minutes combing his wolf s pelt forward to cover a receding hairline and re-smoothing his s.h.i.+rt into his belt and his breeches into his knee pads and boots. He then dived into his locker and produced some bronzing gel called 'Indela', newly launched by Victor's pharmaceutical empire, which didn't run when you sweated.

Outside, a band, redder than their tunics, were playing the British Grenadiers as clouds, blacker than their bearskins, marshalled on the horizon. A curious light had turned the field viridian as military men with lean figures strode around barking instructions into walkie-talkies.

Ricky, who was madly superst.i.tious, was slightly cheered as the band, bored with military marches, launched, to the ecstasy of the crowd, into 'Four Hors.e.m.e.n'.

'Four Hor-ses, white horse, black horse, red horse, pale horse, plague, famine, justice, death, riding, riding, riding,' roared the crowd stamping their feet in time on the wooden boards, as the menacing music swept through the ground.

'Isn't that marvellous!' cried Perdita.

'Unfair b.l.o.o.d.y advantage, hyping up Apocalypse,' snarled Bart to the Napiers and the uncomprehending Mexican.

'Let's object,' said Ben Napier, two spots of colour staining his cadaverous cheeks as, exactly on cue, a vast, black helicopter cast its shadow over the pitch.

With great difficulty and the help of a dozen security guards Dancer fought his way through to the pony lines.

'f.u.c.kin' 'ell, don't it sound grite?' he grinned at his team-mates. 'I might go out and give them an encore. I love the Guards Club,' he went on, lowering his voice. 'They can't believe anyfink as c.o.c.kney as me can play polo. Colonels keep comin' up and saying " 'Ullo, Dancer, you over from New Zealand again?" '

Perdita giggled; even Ricky smiled slightly. But he was watching Bart who'd cut all the Apocalypse team, even Luke, stone dead and was now shouting at the Napiers and into a telephone at the same time. How could Chessie be married to that, he thought with a shudder. Luke edged closer to his father.

'I don't give a s.h.i.+t if it has crashed,' Bart was saying. 'I can't bring them back to life. Put Winston Chalmers on to it at once. I'll call you later.'

'What's happened?' Luke asked one of Bart's grooms whom he knew from Palm Beach. The groom pulled a long face.

'Alderton Pegasus totalled in the desert with no survivors.' 's.h.i.+t,' said Luke. 'Dad should fly home.'

'And miss a final? Pigs would fly,' said the groom.

The Queen had arrived. State trumpeters and drum horses from the Household Cavalry in their gold uniforms, followed by the band, were lining up between the goal posts to lead the two teams, with the two umpires as a bolster between them, ten abreast on to the field. Players tend to ride their oldest, quietest horses in the parade in case the bands and the crowd overexcite them. Apocalypse, however, stuck to their theme. Ricky rode the pale yellow Wayne, Perdita was on Hermia, her red-chestnut friend from Pony Club days who leapt all over the place s.n.a.t.c.hing excitedly at her bit. Dancer had a safer pa.s.sage on black Geoffrey, the hangover horse. Luke had reluctantly agreed to ride Fantasma, the only white horse in the yard, and had great difficulty controlling her. A natural loner, she longed to be out in front leading the parade. When she wasn't humping her back in temper, she was taking bites out of poor, kind Geoffrey on her right, and, less advisedly, out of umpire Shark Nelligan's horse on her left. Despite this, Apocalypse, in their black s.h.i.+rts with their black hats over their noses, looked both sinister and threatening.

Ricky had just galloped Wayne back after the parade and was mounting a hopelessly over-excited Sinatra when he heard a frantic clicking of cameras as journalists and photographers broke through the ropes. Then he heard a soft voice saying, 'h.e.l.lo, Luke darling.'

Catching a great waft of Diorissimo, Ricky swung round as though a rattlesnake had bitten him, colour draining from his face. The heat had made everyone appear asthough they'd been boiled alive. Chessie, by comparison, looked like a lily of the valley just picked from some cool, shady dell. She wore a pale green linen suit, exquisitely cut to show off the fragility of her body, and flat green pumps on her feet. Her face, faintly flushed from champagne in the Dunhill tent, was tanned to a smooth cafe au lait, cafe au lait, the eyes were turned to aquamarine by the green suit and her full, pouting lips were as palely pink as the wild roses dying in the hedgerows. the eyes were turned to aquamarine by the green suit and her full, pouting lips were as palely pink as the wild roses dying in the hedgerows.

Hugging Luke, but gazing over his shoulder at Ricky, she murmured, 'How exciting you're in the final and how ironic you're playing against your father. What embarras de embarras de Aldertons. The commentator's going to get so muddled.' Aldertons. The commentator's going to get so muddled.'

Then, wriggling out of Luke's grasp, like a sleepwalker she moved over to Ricky. Gazing up, she took in the hollowed cheeks with their suspicion of black stubble and the grim intransigent mouth which was belied by the fierce, yet desperately wounded, dark eyes beneath the black polo hat.

'h.e.l.lo, Ricky,' she said mockingly. 'How's our bet going? Still a long way to go. No Gold Cup yet, no ten goal, no Westchester. You'll have to do better than that.'

Oblivious of the photographers going crazy all round them, Ricky stared down at her. He simply couldn't get a word out as she gently caressed Sinatra's silky shoulder. Sinatra had been known to take people's hands off, but now relaxed almost ecstatically under Chessie's touch.

'Four and a half years is a long time,' she whispered. 'Haven't you missed me?'

Seeing her wanton, taunting little face, flawless except for the velvet smudges under the eyes, and her caressing suntanned hand inching towards his thigh, Ricky wanted to gather her up on Sinatra, gallop all the way back to Robinsgrove, ram every bolt and never let her go again.

They were interrupted by Luke, now mounted on Ophelia and looking more thunderous than the cloud now hanging above the pitch.

'Back off, Chessie,' he said roughly. 'I don't know if Dad put you up to this, but it is definitely out of order.'

Perdita was less reticent. 'f.u.c.k off, you b.i.t.c.h,' she screamed. 'What a b.l.o.o.d.y awful time to stage a comeback.'

The reporters scribbled avidly.

'Any chance of a reconciliation, Mrs Alderton?' asked The Scorpion, The Scorpion, wrestling with one of Dancer's security men. wrestling with one of Dancer's security men.

Chessie gave a sob. 'You'll have to ask my ex-husband,' she said.

'For G.o.d's sake get on, Ricky,' snapped Major Ferguson, who masterminded every move at the Guards Club. The Flyers were already on the field.

'Here come the undertakers,' sneered Charles Napier, deliberately barging his big brown mare into Spotty whom Perdita had just changed on to. 'Black's the right colour for you lot. You'll certainly be flying that f.a.g,' he nodded at Dancer, 'at half-mast by the end of this match.'

Ricky had gone to pieces. White, sweating, shaking violently, he hardly seemed to know where he was.

'Take it easy,' said Luke, putting an arm round his shoulders.

'Thought Dancer was the f.a.g,' taunted Ben Napier. 'Didn't know you and Ricky were having it off. I hear you had to buy the Ruts.h.i.+re, Dancer, to get your handicap up to one.'

'Knock it off,' ordered Shark Nelligan who was umpiring and wanted to throw-in.

'That was definitely below the belt, Dad,' said Luke as he lined up beside Bart. 'If you want Chessie to be a widow before the end of the match you're going about it in the right way.'

'Whaddya talking about?' Bart spat out his gum. 'Sending her out to the pony lines to screw up Ricky.' For a second Bart was roused out of his obsessive pre throw-in catatonia.

'Nothing to do with me,' he said in outrage. 'She must have got looped at lunchtime.'

As the ball thumped into the forest of legs and sticks the first three pairs missed it. Luke and Bart clashed mallets for a couple of seconds, then Luke got the ball out, immediately whacking it up towards the enemy goal posts, then, following his right of way, hit it again. But he wasn't on his fastest pony. At the touch of spurs on her desperately cut-up flesh, Charles Napier's big brown mare bounded forward like a cheetah. Luke could hear the thunder of her hooves on the dry ground behind him. Then suddenly, to his left, Spotty, electrified by a large cheeringcrowd, was streaking down the field with Perdita's arms, legs and whip going like a jockey's.

Aware that Charles was about to hook him, Luke swung Ophelia to the right and cut the ball to Perdita on the nearside. Fleetingly he felt Charles's knee under his but managed to stay put.

'Take your time,' he yelled to Perdita.

Conscious of the cheers of the crowd, Perdita stroked the ball upfield. Then, out of nowhere, Ben Napier was hurtling towards her at ninety degrees like a boulder in an avalanche.

Oh my G.o.d, thought Perdita.

Oh my G.o.d, thought Spotty, who didn't like the look of Ben Napier's big bay gelding any better.

Rolling his white eye, he put on another amazing burst of acceleration, whisking his brown-and-white rump forward so Ben Napier b.u.mped the burning air instead. Then, bearing Perdita on as proudly as a gun dog with his master's newspaper, Spotty positioned her to meet the ball exactly right and flick it between the posts.

Grinning from ear to ear and unashamedly raising her stick to the cheers of the crowd, she cantered back to the halfway line, patting Spotty over and over again. Apocalypse, who had received two goals on handicap, were now 3-0 up.

'You doll,' breathed Luke, hugging her.

Ricky said nothing. He was plainly still suffering from shock. Bart just scowled.

'Aren't you sorry you gave me Spotty for Christmas?' Perdita taunted him.

Euphoria, however, was shortlived. Ricky simply wasn't connecting with the ball. It was as if he was wearing a pair of reading gla.s.ses to run down a steep flight of steps and such, eventually, was his frustration and rage and the ferocity of his ride-offs that he finally sent Bart and black Glitz flying five feet through the air so that even the Queen in the Royal Box could hear the b.u.mp.

Next moment the Napiers were twirling their sticks in the air and Shark Nelligan had blown a foul on Ricky. Contemptuously, Charles Napier converted. Soon it became plain to everyone that Ricky was out to bury Bart. By half-time he had given away three penalties and Ben Napier, whom Ricky was supposed to be marking, had scored three goals.

As the crowd surged on to the field to tread in, Luke rode Fantasma back to the pony lines in a towering rage. The mare was panting desperately, her bottom lip flapping, her nostrils dark red, her tail thras.h.i.+ng at her sweating dock, the blood pumping visibly through her enlarged veins like some biology experiment. Luke had never known her so exhausted. Handing her to Lizzie to cool down, he dragged Ricky aside.

'What the f.u.c.k are you playing at?' he hissed. 'I've just ridden the duck soup out of Fantasma covering up for you. This final is between Apocalypse and the Flyers not you and my father. It's G.o.ddam selfish to take your personal vendetta on to the field.'

Luke had sweat in his eyes, dust in his throat, his ribs ached from a foul hook no-one had seen, he'd had to change ponies twice in the first two chukkas because two had gone lame and he could see his dreams going up in smoke. Nor could he bear to see Dancer and Perdita's dejected faces. They deserved better.

'This match is dirtier than a coal hole,' said Seb Carlisle as he bought Chessie a Pimm's up in the stands during the second half, 'and you ought to be wearing a duck-egg-blue s.h.i.+rt with five stamped on the back, you've contributed so much to Ricky's disintegration and Apocalypse's certain defeat.'

'Oh, shut up,' said Chessie. 'I had to talk to him. With two b.l.o.o.d.y bodyguards tailing me all the time I may not get another chance this season.'

'Why don't you lure them both into your bedroom?' suggested Seb, 'then rush out and lock the door on them. Oh, lovely pa.s.s, Perdita. Luke Alderton has certainly worked miracles with her and Dancer. They're ha.s.sling the s.h.i.+t out of your husband and Ben Napier and, Christ, look at that.' He waved his programme disapprovingly at Charles Napier's pony who was bleeding both from her mouth and her lacerated sides. 'I have nightmares that I'm going to come back in another life as one of Charles's horses.'

Charles Napier was also famous for using his elbows during ride-offs and at the throw-in, and he was usingthem with increasing ferocity in the fifth chukka when he was riding the lightning Andromeda and the Flyers had failed to increase their lead. Fed up with Perdita giving him the slip as they were fighting for the ball on the boards, he deliberately rammed an elbow so hard into her left breast that she gave a shriek.

'Why don't you go back to the kitchen where you belong?' he hissed.

'Why don't you go back to the gorilla house?' screamed Perdita, so doubled up with pain she could hardly lift her stick.

Next minute Luke had thundered up.

'You OK, baby?'

Perdita bit her lip and nodded.

'Well, belt up and leave this to me.'

At the beginning of the last chukka Charles galloped towards goal. As Luke, back on Fantasma again, rode him off, out came Charles's elbows.

'Get out of my way, you G.o.ddam p.r.i.c.k,' bellowed Charles.

'Takes a p.r.i.c.k to know a p.r.i.c.k,' said Luke, putting his arm through Charles's. And such was his ma.s.sive strength that he lifted him off his horse as easily as if he was pulling the plug out of the bath. Charles crashed to the ground. 'Man down,' said Luke, grinning.

'Foul,' yelled Charles furiously.