Jilly Cooper - Polo

‘Don’t call me that,’ howled Ricky. ‘Daisy had a bloody awful marriage. She’s just getting over it and getting her career together. The l-l-last thing she needs is some hole-in-the-corner affair which could easily end in a m-m-messy divorce. She needs a proper relationship.’

‘Relationships that pass in the night,’ sighed Drew.

‘Don’t be fucking frivolous. With someone who’s free to look after her.’

‘Like you I suppose. I’ve always thought you had the hots for her.’

‘I have not,’ said Ricky coldly.

‘Oh, we all know your heart belongs irrevocably to Chessie, so stop snarling like a guard dog in the manger and give me a drink.’

Little Chef whined querulously, unnerved by the shouting. A new moon the colour of unsalted butter was untangling itself from the racing-fox weathercock over the stables. Furiously clashing decanters, Ricky asked how long it had been going on.

‘Nearly three years.’

‘Three years,’ said Ricky, utterly aghast. ‘How often d’you see her?’

‘Whenever I can get away from Sukey and Daisy’s bloody children aren’t hanging around murdering each other. No ice, please.’

‘You’re a disgrace,’ roared Ricky. ‘No, not you boy,’ he added, gently stooping to stroke Little Chef who was shivering with terror.

‘It’s absolutely no business of yours,’ protested Drew.

‘I only happen to be captaining the Westchester team – thank Christ I dropped you. I would now, if I hadn’t – in which Daisy’s daughter may well have to play. Perdita’s impossibly near the edge at the moment. She’s never been able to accept Daisy’s sexuality. If she finds out about you two, she’ll go through the roof.’

‘The leaking roof,’ corrected Drew. ‘You should really fix that before winter comes, particularly in the bedroom. Talk about raindrops falling on one’s cock.’

‘Stop taking the piss,’ yelled Ricky. ‘You ought to pack her in. It can’t lead anywhere.’

‘It’s not meant to. I can’t divorce Sukey. That dog must be the father of Ethel’s puppies. It just gives Daisy and me an enormous . . .’ he lingered over the word mockingly, ‘amount of pleasure, and you’ve completely drowned that whisky. Christ, it’s worse getting a drink here than the bar at the club.’

‘What happens if Sukey finds out?’

‘She won’t if you lend me a pair of shoes.’

‘I hope they cripple you,’ snarled Ricky.

He was insane with rage, but he decided not to say anything to Daisy, who somehow managed not to cry when she and Little Chef bade him and Perdita goodbye and good luck the following morning. Just as they were leaving, Perdita ran back and hugged her mother tightly.

‘I love you, Mum. I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch.’

But, as the car crunched away over the conkers and acorns that littered the drive, Daisy didn’t think she’d ever been more unhappy.

‘I wish we could climb into his suitcase and go too,’ she said to a drooping, desolate Little Chef. ‘You could nip Chessie’s perfect ankles for me.’

Five minutes after they’d gone a truck rolled up and out jumped one of Ricky’s gardeners.

‘Mr France-Lynch said you were nearly out of logs, so I’ve brought you another load.’

Then Daisy really did go upstairs and cry. If only it were Ricky not his logs keeping her warm. Please God, she prayed, I’m sorry to be so indecisive. I know I asked you to get me over Drew, and you did. Now could you please get me over Ricky.

From the moment she landed in California, Perdita had felt like a patient waiting for the morphine to wear off and the serious, unbearable pain to take over. In England she had been numb with shock. Now the certainty that Red would swan in at any moment had reduced her to crawling, churning, hepped-up, bowel-opening panic.

She found herself leaving half-drunk cups of coffee and glasses of Perrier everywhere, starting sentences, forgetting what she was going to say, asking questions and not being able to take in the answer, putting on deodorant twice or not at all, fussing around trying on a hundred T-shirts before she went out, jumping out of her skin everytime she saw a red-headed man or a red Ferrari.

In fact, she had a three-week wait because the prick-teasing American Polo Association refused to announce the team until the eve of the first match. Their ponies had arrived, however, and were evidence that Bart had snapped up every Best Playing Pony in North and South America. Never had a US team been better mounted.

The English were pleased to find their own ponies in excellent spirits after their rest. Under Rupert’s supervision they had been slowly put to work and were now fully acclimatized to the dry, desert heat which soared into the nineties in the afternoon. With the grooms watching like hawks for dehydration, they had also adjusted to different hay, grain and water. Perdita had to hand it to Rupert. Never had England taken the field with a fitter team of ponies.

All the ponies were stabled at Eldorado Polo Club where the Westchester was being staged. It was a friendly, homely place with palms, orange groves and a little wooden clubhouse where no-one minded you putting your boots on the table. The polo, on the other hand, was so good that members jetted in at weekends from Calgary and New York and movie stars drove down in their hordes from LA. Surrounded by mountains, the Club was set in an oasis of green polo grounds hewn out of the desert.

The American team were booked into La Quinta Hotel which had a golf course and tennis courts, fifteen miles drive from the polo ground. Rupert, insisting on a strict policy of non-fraternization and particularly not wanting Chessie to wind up Ricky, was determined to keep the teams apart and had rented a condominium on the Quinta estate, but well away from the hotel.

A little, pink-roofed, white-walled house, it was called the Villa Victoria, which they all hoped would be symbolic. Reached through lush avenues of brilliantly coloured hibiscus and bougainvillaea, it had a jacuzzi, a swimming-pool, a garden filled with stephanotis, orange and lemon trees and overlooked a beautifully landscaped golf course, interspersed with palm trees and lakes, which was caressed all day with sprinklers. To Perdita it was beautiful, but as totally unreal as a Hollywood set.

There was plenty to do, though. The fresh, dry, desert air and the mountains were very invigorating and encouraged them to get up at six to jog, play tennis and work the ponies. The twins played endless golf with Ricky and Mike Waterlane to sharpen up their concentration and help them relax. Rupert was frantically dealing with sponsors and television networks. Taggie kept herself amused cooking for everyone. The wonderfully friendly Californians invited them to dinner parties and barbecues and all Ricky’s old movie-star pupils, whom he’d coached in Palm Springs the first winter after he’d come out of prison, rang up and invited them to parties in Beverly Hills and took them on trips to Disneyland and round Hollywood. The twins were in their element. Mike Waterlane, on the other hand, who got frightfully excited by all the beautiful girls and then didn’t know what to do with them, wasn’t sleeping and was getting increasingly terrified about the first match.

Ricky, too, was becoming increasingly edgy. Usually he went into himself twenty-four hours before a game. Twenty-one days to wait was much too long. It all boiled up in a blazing row in which he tried to persuade Rupert to be less bloody to Perdita. Taggie, when Rupert eventually came spitting to bed, had more effect. ‘She’s so desperate for your approval, Rupert, and trying so hard to behave and be brave about Red. If you could just be a bit gentler with her.’