Jilly Cooper - Polo

‘I’ve been so awful to Mum and you and Taggie, and, worst of all, to Luke. How could those dickheads drop him?’

‘Lucky for us they have,’ said Rupert. ‘Shark’s a killer, but he’s nowhere near Luke’s class. There’s no-one else who can do the things Luke can do under pressure.’

‘It makes me so mad.’

‘Good,’ said Rupert. ‘Now listen to me. The Americans dropped Luke because he’s too much of a gent to take you out. Your sole task tomorrow is to show the world how stupid they were. Without Luke, we’ll bury them.’

‘Look at this,’ roared Ricky storming into Rupert’s bedroom the next morning and thrusting the Daily News under his nose.

‘You might bloody knock,’ grumbled Rupert, hastily drawing the duvet over Taggie’s voluptuous naked body.

‘ When Francesca Alderton left her husband Ricky France-Lynch, captain of England, six years ago ,’ he read, ‘ and ran off with airline billionaire, Bart Alderton, she taunted her former spouse with a challenge that she would only come back to him on certain conditions: if he won the British Gold Cup, which he did earlier this year, went to ten, the highest rating for a polo player, which he’s tipped to do later this year, and won back the Westchester Cup for Britain. Will he achieve this second rung at Eldorado Polo Club this afternoon? Red Alderton must feel he is riding with the responsibility of his father’s marriage and happiness in his pocket .’

Rupert looked up. ‘Great stuff,’ he said blandly, ‘and at the worst it’ll ensure that everyone in England and America will tune in to see the result of your marriage. Think of the viewing figures.’

‘Who leaked it?’ thundered Ricky.

Rupert shrugged. ‘How would I know?’ His eyes didn’t quite meet Ricky’s. ‘You had any breakfast? You really should eat something, today of all days.’

‘Don’t get off the subject,’ said Ricky furiously. ‘What’s that piece going to do to Chessie?’

‘She’ll love it,’ said Rupert soothingly. ‘You know how she laps up publicity and I’ll tell you something else: the New York Over-Eighties Polo Club have invested in a television set for the first time in their history so they can watch the match.’

‘Stop taking the piss,’ exploded Ricky. Then, turning to Taggie: ‘If you don’t want to be a widow, you better keep your husband out of my way.’

Despite Rupert’s air of insouciance, however, he was worried he might have gone too far. At the team meeting beforehand, Ricky seemed totally out to lunch, his eyes staring, his face dishcloth grey, the lines round his mouth and between his eyebrows so heavy they looked as though they had been etched with a dagger. He seemed to be taking nothing in as Rupert harangued them.

‘Go to the man, force every play, make every play a hard one, don’t let anyone set up to hit the ball, stop them gaining possession. The Americans are so hot every goal you score’ll be a victory. Each time you stop Shark backing the ball you’re worth nine goals, Perdita.’

The temperature had soared and it was intensified down at the polo ground by more than five hundred of the world’s press, who’d invaded the club in search of a story. Everywhere cine-cameras whirled, tapes rotated, notebooks filled up with superlatives and speculation. Looking up at the mountains as they drove to the game, Perdita had an uneasy feeling that the wrinkled sleeping elephants would wake up and stampede the pitch and that the day would end in terrible disaster.

The press fell on the British team as they got out of their car, but Ricky walked through the lot of them.

‘Like trying to interview a rock face,’ wrote a girl from the Mail on Sunday petulantly. ‘I hope El Orgulloso comes before a fall.’

An old man on a stick tottered towards him. ‘Ricky France-Lynch? Your father lent me a pony for the 1939 Westchester. Damn fine player. Hardest man I ever had to mark. Is he still . . .’

Leaving him in mid-sentence, Ricky walked on down to the pony lines where the horses were tied up in the shade of straw palisades.

‘I’m sorry,’ Perdita apologized to the old man. ‘He gets funny before a big game. I know he’d love to hear about his father afterwards.’

Hollywood was out in force. Once again Perdita thought she’d never seen so many beautiful girls – it must be all that orange juice. But still the brightest star in the firmament was Chessie. She was wearing a scarlet dress and scarlet shoes, but over her slender brown arm she carried a fringed black silk shawl.

‘If I’m in mourning at the end of the game,’ she told the frantically scribbling reporters with an equivocal smirk, ‘I’ll put on the black shawl.’

The match kicked off with an amazing show of Hollywood glitz. Pale mauve and dark blue balloons, the colours of the team, were let off in their thousands. Blue-and-mauve hot-air balloons floated overhead, giving great snorts and making any dog that had been brave enough to face the heatwave bristle and cower. Helicopters trailed good luck messages. Vintage cars circled the field bearing celebrities. Pop stars, bands and cheerleaders, flashing more flawless golden limbs, entertained the happy, excited crowd. Ferranti’s, who’d done an about-turn, handed out free bottles of ‘Perdita’ in the stands. Revlon countered with red carrier bags containing bottles of shampoo and conditioner. The Americans were way-out favourites, but the odds were shortening on the Brits as the American team led the parade on to the field, following the glittering gold instruments of the band.

Gazing at the lounging, willowy elegance of Red’s back, catching frequent glimpses of his perfect profile as he flashed smile after lazy smile at the swooning girls in the crowd, Perdita could only marvel that he’d once had the power to hurt her so much. Then, as they drew up in front of the hastily run-up Royal Box, where the Prince, slightly pink in a lightweight suit, stood smiling down at them, she noticed the size of Shark Nelligan’s shoulders, his brawny arms and his walrus torso rolling over his leather belt, and shivered. Soon he’d be waiting for her like his namesake in a still lagoon. For the first time in her career she was terrified, not just that she’d let down her country, but that she might also be killed. If only it were Luke. She couldn’t see him or Leroy anywhere in the crowd.

No-one by contrast was happier in the parade than Spotty. Incensed to watch his friends Wayne and Kinta going off to the earlier matches, he now had a chance to show off. Revelling in the laughter and cheers of the crowd, who’d been told by Terry Hanlon he was an all-American pony, he flashed his long brown legs beneath his white rump, rolled his white eyes at the band and deliberately let off a volley of the loudest farts to embarrass his mistress as she circled in front of the Prince after her name was called.

Tero would never have done that to me, thought Perdita with a stab of anguish.

Frank Sinatra and Dancer were to have sung their individual National Anthems, but Dancer’s plane had been diverted with engine trouble, to the disappointment of the English team, so Frank Sinatra sung them both, which brought a tingle to everyone’s spine.

‘Shit, Alejandro’s umpiring!’ said Seb. ‘He’s bound to favour Angel.’

‘I’m going to be sick,’ said Mike in a faint voice.

‘Well, be sick in your hat,’ said Seb briskly. ‘We don’t want slippery patches on the grass.’

Still under the careful eyes of the security guards, the Westchester gleamed on its red tablecloth. The television cameras were rolling, a semicircle of cameramen hovered on the edge of the stands solely monitoring Chessie’s behaviour.