Polo. Part 66

'Not brilliant. He looked dreadful.'

'I 'ear Alejandro is being paid $20,000 a match to play for Hal. Is crazy.'

Perdita took a slug of her Green Devil and choked. It was nearly neat vodka. 'He had a girl with him called Margie. Jolly bossy, but horribly attractive.'

'Bibi say she's very nice.'

Perdita leant against a pine tree. 'Is it serious?'

'She looking after Leroy for Luke so it must be.'

Perdita experienced a jab of jealousy so bad it winded her. Some of the younger players had started a food fight. Wham was pounding round the pine trees. Angel ducked to avoid a flying sausage roll.

'You pick the wrong guy,' he said.

'I did not,' not,' snapped Perdita. 'Red and I are just like that.' She held up two crossed fingers. snapped Perdita. 'Red and I are just like that.' She held up two crossed fingers.

'So it would seem,' said Angel, glancing across at Red who was dancing under a gum tree with the Vanity Fair Vanity Fair reporter. The same height, they touched in the most interesting places. reporter. The same height, they touched in the most interesting places.

'You picked the wrong wife,' said Perdita.

From the nearby barn the occasional stamp or snort of the ponies could be heard. Red-and-silver heart-shaped balloons tied to each box bobbed up to the roof.

'If someone cut the string your heart would float away like one of those balloons.'

'Not yet.' Angel's face was in shadow. 'I 'ave promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.' 'I 'ave promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.'

'Oh, for Chrissake, I'm sick of that b.l.o.o.d.y poem.' The inevitable polo dogs wandered around crunching bones and being tripped over and sworn at. Shark Nelligan's white bull terrier, confined to his master's truck because he tended to kill other dogs, leant genially out of the window, his elbow resting on the ledge, being fed pieces of meat and petted by pa.s.sers-by.

Mixing herself another drink, Perdita couldn't remember when she had last eaten. She could see Juan coiled round a blonde. To make up his days and avoid paying tax a reluctant Victor had had to leave the party and fly out of Palm Beach before midnight, leaving Sharon to chat up the latest beefcake from Brazil. Jesus was ringing England on Sharon's car telephone. 'I weel play for you, Sir Waterloo, eef you pay me $200,000. Veector already offer me that much money. And pay my airplane fare, and a 'ouse. No, I don't need to breeng my wife - you save on that.'

'Is Bibi coming?' Perdita asked Angel.

'She's working,' said Angel flatly. 'Don't drink too much, Perdita. Go 'orne before you do anything silly.' 'Come and dance with me,' said Perdita.

But at that moment Innocenta emerged from the lilac shadows bringing a plate piled with lamb chops, potato salad and barbecue sauce which she proceeded to share with Angel. Red was necking openly as he danced now. If she hadn't been scared of his temper, Perdita would have hurled the greasiest pork chop she could find at the girl's gyrating blue suede bottom.

'They're called barbecues because you queue up to receive barbs,' she said to no-one in particular as she finished her drink.

'How's Luke?' Shark Nelligan came up to her with a plate piled disgustingly high with food. He was interested because he and Luke both played back and would be competing for the same place in the US team, particularly for the Westchester which would mean serious money.

'I hear his career's washed up and Hal Peters is paying Alejandro $50,000 a match,' he went on. 'I want to get my hands on Fantasma.'

'Luke won't sell and he'll recover,' said Perdita, filling her gla.s.s yet again.

Shark grinned evilly. 'I'm not sure Hal will. Myrtle, his ex, is taking him to the cleaners. And his new bimbo's making so free with his Amex he's praying for it to get stolen.

And Luke's medical bills will be even more astronomical if they call in Seth Newcombe.'

'But Hal must be insured?' said Perdita anxiously.

'Sure he is,' said Shark with his mouth full, 'but he's overstretched. He's the best car man in Detroit, but he's so off the wall he exported a thousand Peters' Cheetahs to the UK last week with left-hand drive.'

'But Luke'll be all right, won't he?' persisted Perdita. 'He's got Bart to fall back on.' Shark gave a piece of lamb to his slavering bull terrier.

Perdita shook her head. 'He's too proud.'

'And he's got a pretty sharp new girlfriend,' added Shark spitefully.

'Who?' said Perdita, fis.h.i.+ng, though it hurt her. 'Margie someone. She's a lawyer. She won't let him starve.'

As Perdita turned away stricken, Angel emerged from the gloom with Innocenta looking a lot less innocent. Red was still talking to his journalist.

'Lots of guys won't have s.e.x the night before a big game,' Red was saying caressingly, 'but I always do, and the following morning, although I might try less hard.'

One more drink, thought Perdita, and I'll make a scene and separate them. She didn't think she'd ever been more miserable in her life.

'Hi. Aren't you Perdita Macleod?' said a soft voice.

A man with white-blond hair was smiling down at her. He was wearing a cream suit, a b.u.t.toned-down, pale blue s.h.i.+rt and a blue spotted tie. He appeared mercifully civilized compared with all these polo hicks, thought Perdita. He was nice-looking rather than handsome and had very light eyes in a beige face like Ricky's pony, Sinatra.

'Who are you?' she asked aggressively.

'Simpson Hastings.'

If Perdita had been less drunk she would have heard warning bells. Simpson Hastings appeared to know a lot about polo and particularly about her.

'They say you're a phenomenon beyond genius.' 'Not to my face they don't,' said Perdita sulkily.

'It's a beautiful face. That's your problem. If you were butch and ugly they could slag you off for being almost a man. They find your s.e.x appeal disturbing.'

'Not tonight, they don't. I've got as much appeal here as a mink coat at an Animal Rights meeting.'

'Where did the skill come from? D'your parents ride?' 'My mother's never been on a horse in her life.' 'And Hamish?'

Simpson Hastings did know a flattering amount about her.

Swaying slightly, Perdita clung on to the truck. 'Hamish wasn't my father.'

'Is that a fact?' Simpson Hastings didn't bat a pale-lashed eyelid. 'He certainly didn't look like you.' Then, with the utmost gentleness, 'Who was?'

'I don't know.' To h.e.l.l with everyone. Suddenly an Ancient Mariner compulsion to tell all swept over her. 'My mother went to an orgy in the sixties given by her art master. He was called Jackie Cosgrave. Everyone screwed everyone, particularly my sodding mother. She has no idea which one was my father.'

'Difficult for you,' murmured Simpson Hastings without a trace of excitement. 'Hard to know who to relate to. But he must have been a very good rider.'

Back in Ruts.h.i.+re, Daisy had had a long day finis.h.i.+ng off a painting, which Ricky said she'd never get paid for, of Billy and Janey Lloyd-Foxe's children. As the two-year-old daughter had nearly smashed up Ricky's house on the first sitting while Janey got happily plastered, Daisy had worked thereafter from photographs and had just painted Billy's late mongrel, Mavis, as a dog cherub up in the sky. As a background she'd used the particularly tranquil view from Ricky's bal.u.s.trade of perpendicular woods and jade-green fields dotted with ponies grazing westward towards the setting sun. Not wanting to disturb Ricky, she slipped out of Robinsgrove by a side door. There was an air of tremendous bustle and excitement about the yard because practice chukkas were starting at the Ruts.h.i.+re tomorrow. She paused for a second to watch the twins, Mike Waterlane and Ricky working out fiendish strategies to fox the opposition.

The twins, back from Palm Beach, were dazzlingly blond and brown and shouting their heads off as usual. Despite the high spirits, however, they'd been training incredibly hard together. No-one was going to take the Gold Cup away from them this year.

It was a spellbinding evening. Two grey geese and a squad of pale yellow goslings broke the turquoise surface of the lake. Three days of rain after a spate of warm weather had brought out the white cherries and the bluebells in a sapphire mist on either side of the ride. The poplars, s.h.i.+ny, acid-green, were wafting the scent of balsam down the valley. Crows nesting in Ricky's beeches had splattered the wild garlic leaves like milk of magnesia on green hangover tongues. Daisy had heard the cuckoo through the open window of her studio all day. She felt quite faint with happiness. Ricky had become such a friend recently and her painting was going wonderfully. Perdita was due back in three weeks and surely couldn't sustain the feud for ever; and Daisy was expecting Drew that evening. By the law of sod, if ever she glammed herself up and washed her hair Drew had to back down at the last moment. Today she'd chanced it and put on a dark green jersey he'd bought her and her best jeans. She was in luck, for there outside the cottage was Drew's BMW. Splas.h.i.+ng through the last twenty yards of watermeadow, she clambered over Ricky's padlocked gate, raced up the path, then gave a gasp of disappointment. For outside the door was not Drew, but a glamorous, if slightly grubby-looking, blonde, wearing rather too much eye make-up for daytime, a creased denim suit and scuffed black shoes with the steel high heels escaping from the leather. With her was a man carrying a camera with the leering face of a drunken vulture and snowdrifts of scurf on the shoulders of his s.h.i.+ny grey suit.

'Mrs Macleod?' said the girl, as though she was about to sell Daisy insurance. Ethel, for once, bristled and started to growl.

'We're from The Scorpion,' The Scorpion,' the girl went on. 'Can we have a word?' the girl went on. 'Can we have a word?'

'What about?' stammered Daisy.

'It'd be easier inside.'

Daisy opened the front door.

'Don't you ever lock up?' asked the girl.

'Nothing to steal,' said Daisy. 'Look, if it's about Red and Perdita, I've got nothing to say.'

'Well, it is.' The girl dumped her bag on the kitchen table. Perdita told Simpson Hastings in Florida yesterday that she'd no idea who her father was.'

'Oh, no,' Daisy licked her lips, eyes darting from the girl to the man. 'Perdita's father was killed in a car crash. He never knew I was pregnant.'

'That's not what Perdita told Simpson,' interrupted the girl cosily.

She opened her notebook but made no notes because a tiny tape recorder was rotating in the breast pocket of her denim suit.

'What a nice kitchen. I love all the flowers. Perdita said you went to a party in 1966 and everyone got stoned and screwed each other and you got pregnant as a result.'

'She couldn't have said that,' mumbled Daisy, groping for the kettle switch.

'D'you want to read the exact words?' The girl produced a rather crumpled newspaper proof from her bag. It smelt of Femme. Daisy was too shocked to take much in. Her legs wouldn't stop trembling.

'I loathe my mother,' she read. she read. 'She must have been a tart to sleep with all those men. She claims she was stoned but that's her story. She's lied to me for years that my father was killed in a car crash.' 'She must have been a tart to sleep with all those men. She claims she was stoned but that's her story. She's lied to me for years that my father was killed in a car crash.'

Ethel, having climbed heavily on to the kitchen table, was now licking the blonde's face.

'Don't be disloyal, Ethel,' said Daisy in a high, unnatural voice.

'But I love dogs,' protested the blonde.

'Dogs get on with dogs, I suppose,' said Daisy. 'Sorry, that was frightfully rude. I can't read any more.'

Racing upstairs to the loo, she retched and retched until she thought she would bring up her hammering heart. Then she cleaned her teeth and wiped her face, closing her eyes desperately trying to still the trembling. As she returned to the kitchen the blonde said: 'We thought we'd give you a chance to put your point of view.'

'I've nothing to say. Oh, poor Violet and Eddie.'

'Your kids,' said the blonde consulting an earlier page in her notebook. 'They're at boarding school, aren't they? Let's all have that cup of tea.'

Daisy filled the kettle and switched on the gas, but didn't light it. After a couple of seconds the blonde leapt forward with her lighter.

'Don't want to blow ourselves up. We'd make it very worth your while. You could do with a new was.h.i.+ng-up machine and a lovely conservatory out into the garden, and a new car - that Volkswagen is on its last legs and we could help with the school fees and a really nice holiday so you could escape from all this.'

Then, as Daisy looked at her uncomprehendingly: 'We're talking five or six figures.'

'It's a lovely car,' said Daisy, thinking that Drew had given it to her. 'It goes perfectly well.'

Perdita says a man called Jackie Cosgrave hosted the orgy.' The blonde was getting down mugs and the tea caddy. 'Is he still around?'

'No,' said Daisy in terror. 'I haven't seen him since that winter.'

A flash lit up the room.

'You're awfully young to have a twenty-year-old daughter,' leered the photographer.

'I was only seventeen,' sobbed Daisy. 'Please don't take pictures. I don't remember anyone at the party. I was so drunk, but that doesn't make it any better. Please go away.'

They all jumped as the kettle whistled and the telephone rang.

It was Drew. 'Thank Christ I've got you. I wish you'd stop working up at Ricky's.'

The Scorpion are here,' gasped Daisy. Perdita's told them about the orgy and that she hasn't a clue who her father is.' here,' gasped Daisy. Perdita's told them about the orgy and that she hasn't a clue who her father is.'

'f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h,' said Drew absolutely appalled. 'Oh, my poor darling. Don't say anything to them.'

'They're in the house.'

'I'll come straight over.'

'Oh, please.' Then, after the first blessed relief: 'No, you mustn't. It isn't safe. Sukey, the children ' She stopped, realizing she'd probably said too much.

'I'll ring Ricky,' said Drew. 'Look, I love you. It'll be OK. Don't worry.'

The flash bulbs were going like mad. Gainsboroughcrashed fatly in through the cat door, then crashed out again in dismay.

'Have you got any photographs of yourself when you were seventeen?' asked the blonde, opening a drawer. 'Get out,' shrieked Daisy.

'Hard for Perdita, not having a father. No wonder she's screwed up,' said the blonde losing some of her cosiness.

Kinta had never been encouraged to run away before but, as Ricky, alerted by Drew's telephone call, picked up his whip, the mare thundering down the valley, crus.h.i.+ng cowslips and cuckoo flowers, jumping the bustling stream as it twisted and turned and sending up twelve feet of spray, frightened even herself.

Hearing a thud of hooves, Daisy glanced out of the window. For a second she thought Ricky was going to jump the gate. The skid marks were six feet long after Kinta jammed on her brakes. Next minute her reins had been knotted to the bars and Ricky had vaulted over the gate. As he came through the door his face, jeans and check s.h.i.+rt were splashed with mud and he was so angry that at first he couldn't get any words out.

Instinctively the blonde's hand rose to lift her tousled hair and wipe away the s.h.i.+ne beneath her eyes and on the sides of her nose. Ricky crossed the room and put his arms round Daisy. 'It's all right, pet.'

'Hullo, Ricky,' said the blonde, whose mouth was watering. 'Remember me?' She waved her hand in front of his eyes to break up his blank stare.

With a shudder of disgust, Ricky recognized the author of Rupert's memoirs.

'It's you, Beattie,' he said icily. 'I might have guessed it.'

'Been cheering Daisy up since she became your tenant, have you?' mocked Beattie. 'All the world loves a landlord, and all.'