Jilly Cooper - Polo

‘ Burns is going to be a seminal work, of course, but I think Haulage is my favourite,’ she was now saying, as Biddy greedily scraped up the remains of a second helping of passion fruit mousse. ‘Hamish is a cut above other producers because he’s so caring – not just for actors and directors, but the crew as well.’

And for you too, thought Daisy, watching Hamish’s enraptured face. Hamish had been given to crushes throughout their marriage, but Daisy had never seen him so besotted. Nor did Wendy make the mistake of ignoring Daisy. She kept suggesting other food when Daisy couldn’t manage to eat anything, bringing her into the conversation as a coarse fisherman occasionally pulls on a spare rod.

‘What a lovely meal,’ said Biddy, folding her napkin.

‘As it’s Hogmanay I should have served you haggis,’ said Wendy, ‘but I couldn’t get one. “Great chieftain of the pudding race”,’ she added skittishly to Hamish.

‘I see you know your Burns,’ said Biddy approvingly.

‘The Hag is astride, this night for a ride,’ muttered Daisy.

‘I really like that young person,’ yelled Biddy, when Wendy, refusing any help, went next door to make coffee.

‘What a poppet,’ yelled Wendy, as Biddy went off to the loo.

Daisy only started getting jumpy when Wendy, having asked Biddy if she’d like some background music, put on ‘If On-lee’.

‘I really love this tune,’ Wendy said, dancing a few steps. Her eyes shining, she couldn’t have been prettier.

If on-lee, sighed Daisy, I was at home in bed, but I suppose we’ll have to see in the New Year. Hamish, however, was most solicitous about getting her home early and sending her straight to bed.

Next morning Biddy left, hardly saying goodbye to Daisy or Perdita, but kissing Violet and Eddie very fondly.

‘I feel so much happier about things now,’ Daisy heard her saying to Hamish.

Daisy felt jumpy, but for the next few days screaming matches over thankyou letters and getting three trunks packed left her little time to think. Neither Violet nor Eddie wanted to go back to school and loathed being parted from Ethel and the airgun respectively, but Perdita was worst of all, clinging round Fresco’s neck, sobbing and sobbing. ‘I can’t leave her, Mum, please let me go to the local comprehensive. I promise I’ll work and pass my O levels.’

Once they were back, it was reversed-charge calls three times a day to see if Fresco and Ethel and the airgun were OK, driving Hamish demented.

The Sunday after term began the sky turned the colour of marzipan and it started to snow. By teatime it was drifting. Appleford was completely cut off and Hamish couldn’t get home for ten days. It was very cold, but Daisy lived on tins, Ethel tourneyed with the drifts, and fat Gainsborough tiptoed along the white fences using his ginger tail as a rudder. Daisy also painted maniacally and joyfully. Brought up in London, she was unused to snow like this.

The thaw brought a telephone call from Hamish, saying snow had held up filming, but he’d be back at the weekend. More sinister, the postman got through again, staggering under a pile of brown envelopes.

Daisy left them for Hamish as usual. Then a letter arrived to both of them, complaining that none of last term’s school fees had been paid and requesting settlement for the spring and winter terms at once. Pickfords were also agitating to be paid for the move. Even more alarming, all the cheques Daisy had written for Fresco and Ethel and Hamish’s silk shirts came winging back. Daisy rang up the bank manager.

‘I’m afraid there’s nothing to honour the cheques, Mrs Macleod, and now you’ve sold the London house, no security.’

‘I’ll talk to my husband this evening,’ whimpered Daisy.

In panic, detesting herself, Daisy went to Hamish’s desk and went through his bank statement – £35,075 in the red. How on earth had the penny-pinching Hamish managed that?

With frantically trembling hands, hating herself even more, Daisy went through Hamish’s American Express forms, and nearly fainted. The restaurant and hotel bills were astronomical, and he must have spent more at Interflora in a year than she’d spent on Perdita’s pony. She supposed leading ladies had to be kept sweet and suppressed the ignoble thought that Hamish had paid for all those freesias banked in Wendy’s flat.

There was also a £500 bill from Janet Reger for December, of which Daisy had never seen the fruits. Her heart cracking her ribs, she looked at the minicab bills. Hamish, terrified of losing his licence, never drove if he’d been drinking. Daisy went cold. The December account was for £450. Nearly every journey was to or from Wendy’s flat.

Hamish was always saying he had a bed in the office. Maybe he regarded Wendy’s flat as his office. She mustn’t over-react. But if she’d known how desperately they were in debt, she’d never have spent so much money at Christmas. She jumped guiltily as the telephone rang.

It was an old friend, Fiona, who’d always bossed Daisy about at school.

‘Can I come and spend the weekend?’

‘Of course.’ Daisy quailed at how irritated Hamish would be. ‘Did you have a good Christmas?’

‘Course not. You don’t if your lover’s married.’

Wendy seemed to manage, thought Daisy.

‘Fiona, have you heard anything about Hamish?’

‘Well, one’s heard he’s keen on some PA. But let’s face it, Hamish has always liked ladies. And no doubt in the end he’ll get as bored sexually with her as he did with you. Sit tight, don’t rock the boat. I’ll see what I can suss out before the weekend.’

Daisy sat down and cried, and Ethel, who’d been disembowelling one of Biddy’s stuffed coathangers, leant against her and licked her face. Daisy wasn’t raging with jealousy. Hamish had ‘stood by her’ as the papers called it for fifteen years. She couldn’t expect him to always lie on top of her as well. Then Hamish rang to tell her he didn’t want any supper, and not to wait up.

Next morning Daisy sat hunched over a cup of coffee, trying not to think about Wendy, listening to Hamish’s bath running out. Gainsborough was chattering at the window, crossly watching robins, tits and sparrows feeding on the bird table. Then a predatory magpie swooped down and they all scattered. ‘One for sorrow,’ said Daisy, crossing herself with a shiver. ‘Good morning Mr Magpie, how are your wife and children – and your mistress?’ she added as an afterthought.

Turning to the front page of the Daily Mail , she saw that Ricky France-Lynch had been sent down for manslaughter.

‘ Orgulloso Gets Two Years ,’ said the headline.

Bastard, thought Daisy, looking at the sensual yet implacable face of the judge.

‘Sir Anthony Wedgwood QC, defending,’ read Daisy, ‘said that his client had had extreme provocation. A wife he worshipped was taken off him by his patron, and he has been punished a million times by the death of a son he adored, and terrible injuries which have almost certainly put an end to his polo career.’

If that hasn’t, thought Daisy furiously, two years in jug certainly will.

The judge sounded just like Biddy Macleod.

‘The defendant ,’ he had told the jury, ‘is a member of the jet set, the jeunesse dorée, who raised a thousand pounds a match playing for his patron. He may just have been left by his wife, but he was used to living in the fast lane, and already had convictions of speeding and drunken driving. I feel,’ went on the judge, ‘there should be some redress for his young wife, who has sustained the terrible loss of a child. Nor do I believe there should be one law for the rich.’