Jilly Cooper - Polo

Drew Benedict couldn’t stay long at the party, as he had to dine with Sukey’s parents, his future in-laws, but, ever diplomatic, he found time to talk to Bart, his patron, telling him how well he had played and how the team would never have reached the semi-finals without him.

‘It’s disappointing we didn’t make the finals, but a good thing from my point of view,’ added Drew philosophically. ‘I’m supposed to be guarding some nuclear weapons this weekend, and I’d have had difficulty getting leave on Sunday.’

Having mugged up on the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times every day, Drew was also able to comment on the progress of Bart’s latest take-over. Admiring Drew’s well-worn but beautifully cut suit, his striped shirt and blue silk tie, and his dependable handsome face with the turned-down blue eyes and juttingly determined jaw, Bart thought that he was quite the best kind of Englishman – a sort of butch Leslie Howard. Briefly he touched Drew’s pin-striped arm with the back of his hand, the nearest he ever got to intimacy with men.

‘The Army’s loss’ll be Sukey’s gain,’ he said roughly. ‘She’s a very lucky young woman.’

Drew grinned. ‘London’s fortune-hunters are out to lynch me.’

Having taught himself Spanish because he realized what an advantage it would be understanding what the Argentines were gabbling to each other on and off the field, Drew had also overheard Miguel talking to Juan. Before he left, he took Chessie on to the terrace. The setting sun was turning the house a warm peach and gilded the lake around which cows were lying down. Catmint brushed against Chessie’s legs as Drew adjusted the shoulder-strap of her coloured vest which had flopped down her arm.

‘As your husband’s best friend . . .’

‘ . . . You want me to stop flirting with Jesus!’

‘That too,’ said Drew. ‘Look I’ve just overheard that oily sod Miguel telling Juan that Bart’s fed up with Ricky and things look rosy for next year. Ricky should be here guarding his patch.’

‘Well, he’s not,’ snapped Chessie. ‘When did a party ever come before a pony? He’s just rung up to say they’ve X-rayed Matilda’s leg and it’s a cannon bone, so they’re going to slap it in plaster and then sling her up.’

‘Thank Christ, so he’ll be here soon.’

‘Some hope,’ said Chessie bitterly. ‘He prefers to stay with Mattie. He’s already collected Will from the baby-sitter. He’s so bloody arrogant, he’ll never dance to Bart’s tune.’

‘He who pays for the Piper Heidsieck calls the tune,’ said Drew, deheading a rose.

‘Drew-hoo, Drew-hoo,’ Sukey was calling from the french windows.

‘Shades of the prison-house begin to close,’ mocked Chessie.

‘Don’t be subversive,’ said Drew, kissing her on the cheek. ‘You’d better chat up Bart instead of Jesus, or your husband’s on a collision course.’

The party roared on. Coronation chicken was served, although Seb Carlisle was heard to remark that it was debatable whose coronation it was celebrating. A few bread rolls were thrown. Dommie Carlisle added to the rising damp by filling a condom with water and spraying it round the drawing room. All the players’ dogs, which followed them everywhere, lay around panting, finishing up the food and being tripped over.

In a dark corner Juan O’Brien, a beautiful animal with big, brown eyes, long, black curls and a vast, slightly bruised, lower lip, was gazing limpidly at Clemency Waterlane: ‘You haf the most wonderful eyes in the world. My best mare in Argentina ees due to foal soon. Eef it’s a filly, I shall call her Clarissa after you.’

‘Actually my name’s Clemency,’ said Lady Waterlane, ‘but it’s awfully sweet of you, Juan.’

Victor Kaputnik, the pharmaceutical billionaire, bald pate gleaming in the candlelight, black chest-hair spilling out of his unbuttoned shirt, was boasting in his thick Hungarian accent about his prowess as a businessman.

‘I have discovered a cure for the common cold,’ he was telling Fatty Harris, the club secretary.

‘I wish he’d find a cure for the common little man,’ muttered Seb Carlisle. ‘He’s an absolute pill.’

‘No, he makes pills,’ giggled Dommie, shooting a jet of water into the round red face of Fatty Harris who was too drunk to realize where it had come from.

Bart’s mood was not improving. Once a heavy drinker, he had cut out booze almost entirely, to improve his polo, but now really longed for a huge Scotch. Desperately dehydrated after the game, he had already drunk two bottles of Perrier. He was livid they’d lost the match, livid that Victor had scored that goal, which he was boasting to everyone about, livid that Victor had got into the final with the Prince, and might well appear photographed with the Prince and Lady Diana on the front of Monday’s Times , and livid that Victor was now dancing with his red-headed night-club hostess, his six o’clock shadow grating the sunburnt cleavage of her splendid breasts.

And there was Clemency Waterlane wrapped round Juan, and that ravishing schoolgirl bopping away with Dommie and Seb. Bart knew that Grace was a wonderful wife, but he had never forgiven her for being from a better class than him, and was fed up with her criticizing his polo, pointing out that if he hadn’t bumped Victor so hard today Jesus would never have been awarded that penalty. Now she was being charming to that old bore Brigadier Hughie, and his wife.

‘I’ve broken m’right leg twice, m’left leg once, my right shoulder three times, cracked three ribs and dislocated m’thumb and m’elbow,’ droned on Hughie.

‘Polo players are very brave people,’ said Mrs Hughie, who looked like an eager warthog.

‘Brave enough to face the Inland Revenue every year,’ drawled Chessie on her way to the bar.

Ignoring Chessie, Grace listened politely, thinking how dirty Clemency Waterlane’s house was and how much better she, Grace, could have arranged the flowers. Then, noticing Bart pouring himself a huge Scotch, she left Mrs Hughie in midflow, as she strode across the room.

‘Baby, we weren’t going to drink. Look, I’m exhausted. Shall we go?’

Bart said he wasn’t tired, and still had some business to discuss with Miguel. Why didn’t the pilot fly Grace home and come back for him in an hour.

Chessie France-Lynch, rather drunk, sat in the depths of a sofa, letting conversations drift over her. From a bench on the terrace, she heard an outraged squawk as Victor’s pudgy hand found the soft flesh between Sharon’s stockings and her suspender belt.

‘Hey, d’you fink I’m common or somefink, Victor? Tits first, please!’

In front of the fireplace still full of ash from a fire last March, four young bloods were discussing next week’s tournament in Cheshire.

‘Seb and Dommie are definitely coming and they’re mounted.’

‘Who’s going to mount Drew?’

‘Simon can’t, because he’s mounting Henry. Bas is mounting himself.’

‘Well, Bas will have to mount Drew too then.’

Nor did the young men deflect in the slightest from their conversation when David Waterlane, having found Juan mounting his beautiful wife in an upstairs four-poster, was forced to expel the frantically protesting Argentine from the house.

Clemency was sniffing in an armchair and receiving a pep talk from Brigadier Hughie, who felt that, as chairman of the club, he should provide moral guidance. ‘D’you really feel, Clemency, m’dear, that it’s worth leaving a tolerant husband, three lovely children and nine hundred acres for the sake of six inches of angry gristle?’

Clemency sniffed and said yes she did, that David could be very intolerant, and Juan’s gristle wasn’t angry and was considerably more than six inches.