Jilly Cooper - Polo

For not only had Bart lost his wife, but his fortune as well. In his obsession with polo he had neglected his business and totally failed to anticipate the stock market collapse. Black Monday had cost him over a billion and chopped the value of Alderton Airlines by ninety-five per cent. Bart had also borrowed heavily to take over oil and property companies, gold mines, theatres and big department stores. Now these had to be sold off for virtually nothing, most of them to a gloating Victor, when the Wall Street merchant banker withdrew a $330,000,000 loan which Bart desperately needed to help lower his enormous interest charges at other banks. He had also had to sell his five houses and put El Paradiso on the market.

Bart was very unpopular, so no friends came forward to bail him out, particularly in the polo world. Ponies he had spent $100,000 on were now being sold off for a fifth of the price. He had enough to live on and would no doubt claw his way back one day, but he couldn’t support a polo team.

The only good thing that had come out of the whole sorry business, reflected Luke, was that his father and he had at last become friends.

One Friday afternoon at the end of November Luke was down at El Paradiso trying to forget Perdita for one second by concentrating on breaking one of Bart’s young thoroughbreds which they’d managed to salvage from the wreckage.

A slender, dark brown filly, with one white sock and a white star who turned both ways automatically, she was such a natural she reminded Luke of Fantasma, when he’d ridden her back from the river after her first, maddened bucking-and-bolting spree in Argentina. He wondered, as he wondered every day, how she was and prayed Alejandro’s grooms hadn’t broken her glorious, cantankerous, tempestuous spirit. A warm breeze shook the ‘For Sale’ sign hanging forlornly outside the barn and sent a waft of orange blossom towards him.

Oh, Perdita, he thought hopelessly. To him, she truly was the Lost One now.

He was roused from his black musings by a groom telling him that Angel was ringing from Buenos Aires in a complete panic. Alejandro, the captain of the Mendozas’ team for which Angel was playing in the Argentine Open, had broken his leg in the semi-final.

‘It’s the final on Sunday,’ begged Angel. ‘Alejandro say you only back in zee world who can stand in for heem.’

‘I have no horses,’ said Luke in despair. ‘Alejandro’s got my best one.’

‘Eef you come and play the Open, Alejandro say you can buy back Fantasma. He say she never go as well for him.’

But, the blissful prospect of getting Fantasma back apart, the moment Luke agreed to play he regretted it. He knew it was every polo player’s dream to play in the Open and no American had ever reached the final. But he didn’t feel up to it. There was no way the Mendozas’ team, which consisted of Angel and Alejandro’s two sons, Patricio and Lorenzo, could win without Alejandro, particularly when they were pitted against the might of Juan and Miguel O’Brien and their cousins Kevin and Seamus, all ten-goal players who’d beaten them five years running. The two teams detested each other and there had been endless squabbles over officials and umpires being bribed and both teams threatening to pull out. Fans would turn up on Sunday to see them tear each other apart. No-one ever shook hands at the end of the game.

Besides Luke didn’t want to go to Argentina. It reminded him far too poignantly of Perdita. Making matters worse, Bart insisted on coming too to lend support, which was the last thing Luke needed, as Bart, unused to being poor, would make a fuss about travelling Economy and not staying in five-star hotels.

They had great difficulty landing at Buenos Aires because there had been a coup and the airport was on strike. Although the whole town was sky-blue with jacaranda blossom, soldiers with cigarettes hanging out of their handsome mouths were everywhere. Armoured cars patrolled the streets. Bart’s wallet was promptly nicked and, when he stormed into the police station an officer with his boots up on the desk told him there was a coup on and no-one had time to bother about stolen goods.

The taxis were also on strike and no-one was there to meet them. Luke was wearily hiring a car to drive out to Alejandro’s estancia when Angel rolled up, black under the eyes, already in a frightful stew about Sunday and not at all pleased to see his bossy father-in-law whom he disliked intensely.

As Angel negotiated the lunatic traffic out of Buenos Aires, using his horn at red lights rather than his brakes, he deliberately excluded Bart by gabbling incessantly in Spanish to Luke, who felt burdened by added responsibility as he realized how crucial Sunday’s match was for Angel. Having deeply offended his family, his fellow players and his country by taking American citizenship, Angel felt he would only be taken back into the fold again if he played well in the Open.

At General Piran all was pain. Every eucalyptus leaf, every speck of brown dust, the pampas stretching like his love to infinity, reminded Luke of Perdita. Claudia and all the children hugged him, the grooms, gauchos and their wives rushed forward to pump his hand, even Raimundo, whom he’d hit across the café after he’d tried to back Tero by tying her to Angel’s car, seemed delighted to see him. Why had Señor Gracias stayed away so long? they demanded and where was Perdida, the little lost one?

But Luke was only interested in seeing Fantasma. Rounding the orange grove, he saw her before she saw him. Flattening her ears, pawing at the floor, she was furiously trying to gnaw wood off her half-door through her muzzle. At least they hadn’t broken her spirit.

At the sound of his voice, Fantasma looked up incredulously, stared for a second, whickered like an earthquake, then once again soared over her half-door like a lark in flight. Charging up to Luke, she began rubbing her head against his chest, nuzzling his pockets as though he’d never been away.

Ripping off her muzzle, stroking and hugging her, Luke ran his hands down her legs, still as familiar to him as the pattern on his own bedroom curtains. Thank Christ, she was OK. His hands trembled so much he could hardly undo the packet of Polos he’d bought her at the airport and in the middle he had to get out a handkerchief to blow his nose and wipe his eyes.

Having crunched up every Polo, Fantasma wouldn’t let him out of her sight, jumping fences and grazing close by when he lunched under the trees with the family, then insanely, shrilly jealous when he tried out other ponies for the match the next day.

Alejandro, who was in a lot of pain, was very bad-tempered and, yelling instructions from his wheelchair, only succeeded in unnerving the rest of the team. For too many years he had manipulated Patricio and Lorenzo like puppets. How would they take orders from Luke?

Luke and Bart stayed the night with Bibi and Angel, who were restoring a romantic ruin near by with a beautiful deserted garden. But, as the match approached, Angel got more and more nervous and ratty, ending up in having such a row with Bibi that she flatly refused to come and watch him.

Match day dawned. True to form, Fantasma started lashing out with both back legs the moment she saw the polo basket containing all the tack going into the lorry. On the day of last year’s final the grooms of the wily O’Briens had reached the Palermo ground three hours early to bag the better stalls on the shadier side of the pitch. This year they were outfoxed by Raimundo and the Mendoza grooms who arrived four hours early to annex the cooler stalls. This so incensed the O’Briens that they started sneering that the Mendozas must be very pushed to include two damned ‘Americanos’ in their team. Soon both sides were hissing like Montagues and Capulets and only Luke shoving his large shoulders between rival grooms stopped a fight breaking out.