by Jilly Cooper
‘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.
Chessie found herself giggling so much that she had to leave the room and went slap into Bart Alderton, who was clutching another large Scotch. Chessie updated him on the Juan-Clemency saga.
‘She’s crazy,’ went on Chessie. ‘David puts up with murder, even if he is stingy, and he is loaded.’
‘Unlike your spouse,’ said Bart pointedly.
‘Ghastly word,’ said Chessie. ‘And I hear you’re not espousing his cause next year.’
Bart took her arm and frogmarched her outside on to the long grass beyond the lawn, away from a scuffling Victor and Sharon.
‘Who told you that?’ he said sharply.
‘Miguel was overheard boasting to Juan. I wish you the luck of them. Miguel will fleece you and Juan will no doubt offer Grace a good deal more than six inches. At least Ricky’s honest and hasn’t jumped on Grace.’
‘Why’s he so broke?’ snarled Bart. ‘He’s paid enough.’
Chessie put a hand on a stone lion. Though the sun was long set, it was still warm. The scent from a clump of philadelphus was almost overwhelming.
‘Stymied by a massive overdraft,’ she said. ‘He’s spent so much on the yard and ponies and a stick-and-ball field. And he’s no good at selling ponies on at a wicked profit like some people. He gets too fond of them, and always justifies not selling them by claiming they’ll go for three times as much next year, when he’s put more work into them. His father used to help him, but they fell out.’
‘Can’t say I blame his Daddy,’ said Bart heavily. ‘El Orgulloso, indeed.’
‘Actually Ricky’s very shy and introverted,’ protested Chessie. ‘He’s Aquarius you know – aloof glamour, but has difficulty expressing himself.’
‘What sign d’you think I was born under?’ asked Bart.
Chessie laughed. ‘A pound sign, I should think. I want another drink.’
Shrieks were coming from the swimming-pool as people, fully dressed, jumped into the icy water, which David Waterlane had been too mean to turn up until that morning.
Inside, Bart poured a glass of wine for Chessie and more whisky for himself.
‘I’m not sponsoring Ricky next season,’ he said brutally. ‘I’m crazy about my polo, but not with him. It’s costing me a million dollars a year, none of it disposable. Victor scores a goal today and all I get is abuse.’
‘He droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven,’ said Chessie. Seeing her face was quite expressionless, Bart said, ‘He neglects you too.’
‘He prefers polo to sex,’ said Chessie flatly, ‘but what player doesn’t?’
‘I don’t,’ said Bart roughly, stroking her slender brown arm with the back of his hand. ‘I wouldn’t neglect anything as precious as you.’
‘Put me in a packing chest with the rest of your Renoirs, would you?’ taunted Chessie.
The Waterlanes’ ancient gramophone was now playing ‘Anything Goes’. Bart took Chessie off to dance.
‘Where’s Grace?’ murmured Chessie, deciding that Bart was rather excitingly built.
‘Gone home, she was pooped.’
‘Leaving you on the loose? That’s unwise.’
‘Unwise of Ricky and Grace,’ said Bart, drawing her close.
For the first time he looked her straight in the eye and kept on looking. Her skin was translucent, her hair tousled, her wanton sleepy eyes as violet as the shadows beneath them.
‘You could strip a man’s aftershave off with a look like that,’ said Bart.
‘Wish I could strip off Victor’s chest-hair. At least he has the manners to dance with his hostess,’ said Chessie drily as Sharon and Victor quickstepped past.
Gathered round a billiard table in the next room, Jesus, who’d just spent half an hour on David Waterlane’s telephone ringing Chile, Seb, Dommie and Perdita, who still hadn’t returned to her boarding school, were demonstrating polo plays with sugar lumps.
‘At the hit-in you should have tapped the ball to Seb and he’d have hit it to me,’ said Dommie, moving a sugar lump. ‘I was here.’
‘No, you was ’ere,’ said Jesus, moving it to the right.
‘And you should have been here,’ said Perdita, moving it back to the left.
‘You seem to know more about it than us,’ said Dommie, squeezing her waist.
‘I ought to go,’ said Perdita ruefully. ‘They lock the fire escape at midnight. We’ve got biology first thing tomorrow, and I haven’t revised at all.’
‘If you’re weak on the subject of human reproduction,’ said Seb, starting to plait her long, blond mane, ‘Dommie and I could give you a quick crash course. There are plenty of beds upstairs. How old are you?’
‘Fourteen,’ said Perdita.
‘Gaol bait as far as we’re concerned,’ sighed Dommie. ‘Come back in two years’ time. What are you going to do when you grow up?’
‘Play polo.’
‘You’d do better as a stockbroker or a soccer player,’ said Seb. ‘There’s no money in polo.’
‘I know,’ said Perdita, ‘but at least I’d rub up against all the richest, most powerful men in the world.’
‘Like Mrs France-Lynch,’ said Dommie, watching Chessie rotating her flat, denimed belly against Bart’s crotch. ‘That looks like trouble to me.’
‘Bloody ’ell,’ said Jesus ruefully. If he hadn’t spent so long on the telephone, he might have scored there. He toyed with the idea of cutting in, then decided he might want to play for Bart one day.
Aware that they were being watched, Bart and Chessie retreated to David Waterlane’s study. Tearing himself away from the photographs of ponies and matches on the wall, Bart discovered Chessie looking down her vest examining her breasts.
‘Whaddyer doing?’
‘They say everything you touch turns to gold. I wondered if I had.’
‘Let me try again.’ Bart slid his hands inside her vest. ‘Christ, you’re sexy.’
They were interrupted by Mrs Hughie, who, like the Brigadier, rather ineffectually tried to act as a custodian of morals at polo parties, and was now trying to foist strong black coffee on unwilling guests.
‘Hello, Chessie,’ she said, averting her eyes as Chessie re-inserted her left breast. ‘Jolly bad luck about Matilda. Ricky’s been playing so superbly too. I was trying to remember, what’s his handicap?’
‘His personality,’ said Bart bleakly.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that.’ Mrs Hughie gave a nervous laugh as she handed Chessie a cup.
‘D’you take sugar?’
Chessie looked straight at Bart.
‘Only in Daddies,’ she said softly.
‘I actually came to find you,’ said Mrs Hughie hastily, as the whoops increased next door. ‘I’m awfully fond of Seb and Dommie, but they have had a bit too much to drink, and they’re with a dear little soul called Perdita Macleod, who’s boarding at Queen Augusta’s. Could you possibly drop her off on your way home, Chessie?’
‘Thereby killing two birds who might otherwise get stoned,’ said Chessie.
Bart was absolutely furious, but as she and Perdita left the floodlit house for the moonlit night, Chessie reflected that Bart would be more likely to renew Ricky’s contract if she held out.
Storming up Ricky’s drive, twenty minutes later, twitching with desire and frustration, she was alarmed to find the house in darkness. Even worse, the front door was open and no-one was at home.
Panic turned to rage, however, when she discovered Ricky still in his breeches and blue polo shirt, fast asleep in the stable next to Matilda’s. Will, also asleep, lay in his arms. They were surrounded by two Labradors, a whippet, the stable cat, assorted plastic guns and dinky toys and a copy of Thomas the Tank Engine. The Labradors blinked sleepily and thumped their tails. Matilda, hanging from her sling, looked up watchfully. In Chessie she recognized a rival. But Ricky and Will didn’t stir.
4
Chessie woke at noon feeling hungover and guilty. She shouldn’t have got tight or off so publicly with Bart. Gossip spread round the polo community like napalm. If Ricky didn’t know by now, his grooms certainly would. Her fears were confirmed when Will wandered in later from playgroup, bearing paintings to be admired, stories to be read, and his hands crammed full of yellow roses pulled off by the head for her.
Stocky as a Welsh cob, Will had a round pink face and dark brown slanting eyes with long curly lashes tipping the blond fringe of his pudding-basin hair. No child could be more edible, even allowing for a mother’s bias. How could she have dallied with Bart and jeopardized this, thought Chessie, hugging him fiercely.
‘Did you bring me a present?’ demanded Will.
‘I didn’t go anywhere I could get you one,’ said Chessie. ‘Who brought you home from playgroup?’
‘Fuckies,’ said Will, who couldn’t pronounce Frances, the head groom’s name. ‘Fuckies say Mummy got pissed up last night.’
‘Mummy did not.’
‘Mattie got sore leggie,’ went on Will.
‘As if I didn’t know,’ snapped Chessie.
‘Want some crisps.’
‘Ask Daddy.’ Chessie snuggled down in bed.
‘Daddy gone to London.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. Daddy loathes London.’
Ricky avoided London at all costs. Only his passion for Chessie after they’d first met had dragged him up to her flat in the Cadogans, and then he’d always got lost. As Will pottered off crispwards, Chessie thought about Bart. He reminded her of all those rich, ruthless, cynical, invariably married men whom she’d met and had affairs with when she used to cook directors’ lunches in the City. One of them had been about to set her up in her own restaurant in the Fulham Road, called Francesca’s, when she had met Ricky.
It had been at her rich grandparents’ golden wedding. With an eye to inheriting loot rather than a sense of duty, Chessie had reluctantly driven down from London expecting to be bored rigid. Instead she found that her plain, horsey cousin Harriet, who at twenty-five had never had a boyfriend, had turned up looking almost pretty and bursting out of her brown velvet dress with pride because she had Ricky in tow. Despite having absolutely no small talk and the trapped ferocity of a tiger whipped into doing tricks at the circus, he was the most attractive man Chessie had ever seen. It took her exactly fifteen minutes to take him off her poor cousin Harriet, gazing sleepily at h
im across the gold candles throughout dinner, then dancing all night with him. The chuntering of outraged relations was so loud, no-one could hear the cracking of poor Harriet’s heart.
Offhand with people to cover up his feelings, unused to giving or receiving affection, Ricky had not had an easy life. The France-Lynches had farmed land in Rutshire for generations. Horse-mad, their passion for hunting had been exceeded at the turn of the century by a passion for polo. Herbert, Ricky’s father, the greatest polo player of his day and a confirmed bachelor, had suddenly at fifty-five fallen madly in love with a twenty-year-old beauty. Sadly she died giving birth to Ricky, leaving her arrogant, crotchety, heartbroken husband to bring up the boy in the huge, draughty Georgian house, which was called Robinsgrove, because the robins in the woods around were supposed to sing more sweetly there than anywhere else on earth. Ricky needed that comfort. Determined that his son should follow in his footsteps, Herbert was appalled to discover that the boy was left-handed. This is not allowed in polo. Consequently Herbert spent the next years forcing Ricky to do everything right-handed to the extent of tying his left arm to his side for hours on end. As a result Ricky developed a bad stammer, for which he was terribly teased at school.
Although Herbert adored the boy, he couldn’t show it. Only by playing better polo could Ricky win his father’s approval. Herbert went to every match, yelling at Ricky in the pony lines. The cheers were louder off the field than on when Ricky started yelling back. Herbert’s vigilance was rewarded. At just twenty-three, when he met Chessie, Ricky’s handicap was six and he had already played for England.
To Chessie he was unlike anyone she had ever met. In the middle seventies, when men were getting in touch with their feelings and letting everything hang out, Ricky gave nothing away. A tense uncompromising loner, lack of love in his childhood had made him so unaware of his charms that he couldn’t imagine anyone minding being deprived of them.
Chessie had had to make all the running. Smitten by her, Ricky was terrified to feel so out of control and went into retreat. He was always away playing in matches or searching for new horses. He never rang because he was shy about his stammer, and he knew it would wreck his polo career to marry when he needed all his concentration to make the break. Gradually, persistently, Chessie broke down his resistance.