Polo

by Jilly Cooper

  Herbert had been violently opposed to the marriage, but when the tetchy old eccentric met Chessie he was as bowled over as his son, even to the extent of moving out of Robinsgrove, which had grooms’ flats, stabling for twenty horses and four hundred acres of field and woodland, and moving into the Dower House two miles away, to make way for her and Ricky. At first the marriage was happy. Herbert went to matches with Chessie and enjoyed her cooking at least once a week, and when Chessie produced an heir two years later the old man was happier than he’d ever been.

  But although Herbert had initially settled £200,000 on Ricky, Chessie, used to having her bills picked up and being showered with presents by besotted businessmen, soon went through it. The land, which included a large garden, a tennis court and a swimming-pool, needed maintaining and the house, with its vast rooms, needed a gas pipe direct from the North Sea to keep it warm.

  Also Ricky’s dedication, aloofness and incredible courage on the field, which had attracted Chessie madly in the beginning, were not qualities she needed in a husband. Ricky adored Chessie, but he was far too locked into polo, and after the first two years too broke, to provide her with the constant approval, attention and material possessions she craved.

  Resentful that Ricky wouldn’t pay for a nanny, Chessie was always palming Will off on his grooms. Most top-class players employ one groom to three ponies; Ricky’s grooms had to look after five, even six, but they never minded. They all adored Ricky who, beneath his brusqueness, was fair, kind and worked harder than anyone else, and they were proud to work for such a spellbinding player.

  Chessie, a constant stranger to the truth, had also failed to tell Bart at the Waterlanes’ party that she had caused Ricky’s rift with his father. Gradually Herbert had recognized Chessie for what she was: selfish, manipulative, lotus-eating, narcissistic, unreliable and hopelessly spoilt. One rule in the France-Lynch family was that animals were fed before humans. Horrified one day when Ricky was away that the dogs had had no dinner by ten at night and the rabbit’s hutch hadn’t been cleaned out for days, Herbert had bawled Chessie out. Totally unable to take criticism, Chessie complained to Ricky when he came home, wildly exaggerating Herbert’s accusations, triggering off such a row between father and son that Herbert not only stopped the half-million he was about to settle on Ricky to avoid death duties, but cut Ricky out of his will.

  Although both men longed to make it up, they were too proud. Ricky, whose family had always been the patrons, was forced to turn professional. Incapable of the tact needed to massage the egos of businessmen, desperately missing Herbert’s counsel, appallingly strapped for cash – Bart’s £25,000 for a season went nowhere when you were dealing with horses – Ricky threw himself more into polo and devoted less time to Chessie.

  In Chessie’s defence, with a less complex man she might have been happy. She loved Ricky, but she burned with resentment, hating having to leave parties early because Ricky was playing the next day. Why, too, when there were ten other bedrooms in Robinsgrove with ravishing views over wooded valleys and the green ride down to the bustling Frogsmore stream, did Ricky insist on sleeping in the one room overlooking the stables? Here the window was always left open, so if Ricky heard any commotion he could be outside in a flash.

  As she staggered downstairs to make some coffee, on every wall Chessie was assaulted by paintings of polo matches and photographs of Ricky, Herbert and his brothers, leaning out of their saddles like Cossacks, or lined up, their arrogant patrician faces unsmiling, as their polo sticks rested on their collar bones. Going through the dark, panelled hall, she glanced into the library and was reproached by a whole wall of polo cups grown yellow from lack of polish.

  Oh God, thought Chessie hysterically, polo, polo, polo. Already on the wall was the draw of the British Open, known as the Gold Cup, the biggest tournament of the year. Starting next Thursday and running over three weeks, it would make Ricky more uptight than ever.

  At least marriage had taught him domesticity. In the kitchen his white breeches were soaking in Banish to remove brown bootpolish and the grass stains from yesterday’s fall. From the egg yolk on the plates in the sink, he had obviously cooked breakfast for Will and himself, but Chessie only brooded that she was the only wife in polo without a washing-up machine. On the table was a note.

  ‘Darling,’ Ricky had written with one of Will’s crayons. ‘Gone to London, back late afternoon, didn’t want to wake you, Mattie’s bearing up. Love, Ricky.’

  Other wives, thought Chessie, scrumpling up the note furiously, went to Paris for the collections. Ricky was so terrified of letting her loose in the shops, he wouldn’t even take her to London. At least it was a hot day. She might as well get a suntan. Going upstairs to fetch her bikini, she heard the telephone and took it in the drawing room. It was Grace, probably just back from a shopping binge at Ralph Lauren, sounding distinctly chilly. Learning Ricky was in London, she asked to ‘speak with Frances’.

  ‘Speak to, not with, you silly cow,’ muttered Chessie. ‘Doesn’t trust me to pass on messages.’

  She was about to go in search of Frances when she noticed a lighter square in the rose silk wallpaper above the fireplace. It was a few seconds before she realized that the Munnings had gone. Valued at £30,000, it had been given to them as a wedding present and was a painting of Ricky’s Aunt Vera on a horse. Ricky must be flogging it in London in order to buy another pony.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ screamed Chessie, storming into the hall, where she found Will applying strong-arm tactics to the frantically struggling stable cat as he tried to spray its armpits with Right Guard.

  ‘Stop it,’ howled Chessie, completely forgetting about Grace at the other end.

  Ricky returned around six. He had managed to get £10,000 for the Munnings. He knew it was pathetically little, but at least it had enabled him to buy from Juan a dark brown mare called Kinta who’d previously been a race horse, whom he’d always fancied and with whom Juan had never clicked.

  He felt absolutely shattered. Now yesterday’s adrenalin had receded, he could feel all the aches and pains. He was in agony where Jesus had swung his pony’s head into his kidneys and where a ball had hit his ribs. His stick hand was swollen where Victor had swiped at him, and there was a bruise black as midnight in the small of his back where Jesus’s bay mare had lashed out at him scrabbling to regain her feet after that last fall.

  Chessie waited for him in the drawing room, fury fuelled by his checking Mattie and the other ponies before coming into the house.

  ‘Hi, darling,’ he said, ignoring the gap above the fireplace, ‘I’ve got another pony.’

  ‘How dare you flog Aunt Vera?’ thundered Chessie. ‘Half of that money belongs to me, how much did you get?’

  ‘Ten grand.’

  ‘You were robbed.’

  At that moment Will erupted into the room.

  ‘Daddy bring me a present?’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ said Ricky, handing him a half-size polo stick for children.

  Will gave a shout of delight, and, brandishing it, narrowly missed a Lalique bowl on the piano.

  ‘Just like Daddy now.’

  Chessie clutched her head. ‘Oh, please, no,’ she screamed.

  5

  Chessie’s froideur with Ricky didn’t melt. But he was kept so busy getting acquainted with Kinta, now known as the ‘widow-maker’, tuning her and the other ponies up for the first Gold Cup match next Thursday, playing in medium-goal matches and worrying about Mattie, who didn’t seem to be responding to treatment, that he hardly noticed until he fell into bed. Then, when he was confronted by the Berlin Wall of Chessie’s back, he tended, after his hand had been shuddered off, to drop into an uneasy sleep, leaving Chessie twitching with resentful frustration all night.

  Grace made it plain that she was livid with Chessie for leaving her hanging on the telephone. Bart had made absolutely no attempt to get in touch with Chessie – perhaps he was still sulking because she had thwarted his pla
ns by giving Perdita a lift home. Surprised how anxious she was to see him again, Chessie went along to the Thursday match and deliberately dressed down, in a collarless shirt and frayed Bermudas, held up with Ricky’s red braces, to irritate Grace. Alas, the grooms were all tied up with the ponies and her baby-sitter had gone to Margate, so she was forced to take Will and his new, short polo stick with her.

  Will was a menace at matches. Having grabbed a ball, he proceeded to drive it into Fatty Harris’s ankles, Brigadier Hughie’s ancient springer, David Waterlane’s Bentley, and finally a lot of little girls playing with a doll’s pram, who all burst into noisy sobs. This was drowned by Will’s even noisier sobs when he saw his father umpiring the first match between the Kaputnik Tigers and Rutminster Hall. Wriggling out of Chessie’s grasp, he rushed on to the field and was nearly run down by Jesus the Chilean. Juan and Miguel were on epic form, and after a frenzied last chukka of bumps and nearly fatal falls, Rutminster Hall ran out the winners by 10–6.

  Victor Kaputnik, whose gloating when he won was only equalled by his rage when he lost, could be heard yelling furiously at the twins and Jesus as they came off the field. Chessie was about to wander down to the pony lines in search of Bart when he emerged out of a duck-egg blue helicopter, followed by Grace, extremely chic in brown boots, a brown trilby and a fur-lined trench coat, her glossy, dark hair drawn back in a French pleat.

  After last week’s heatwave, a bitter north wind was flattening the yellowing corn fields, turning the huge trees inside out, driving icy rain into the eyes of the players and horses, and putting the easiest penalty in jeopardy. Despite this, there was a good crowd to watch the second match between the Alderton Flyers and the Doggie Dins Devils, who included the notorious Napier brothers, an underhandicapped Australian and Kevin Coley, their appalling petfood billionaire patron.

  Not being able to face an hour with Grace, Chessie was thankful when the Carlisle twins bounded up, teeth brilliantly white in their mud-spattered faces, and insisted she watch from their car. Will, who adored the twins, immediately stopped crying.

  ‘Aren’t you flying home with Victor?’ asked Chessie.

  ‘No, he’s pissed off with us because we were late. I’ll go and get us a drink,’ said Seb.

  As the Alderton Flyers rode on to the field, all wearing polo-necked jerseys under their shirts, Chessie was glad of the warmth of the twins’ Lotus. Listening to the whistling kettle sound of Victor’s black-and-orange helicopter soaring out of the trees, she turned to Dommie: ‘I don’t know why you’re looking so smug about losing.’

  ‘Oh, we’ll catch up,’ said Dommie. ‘There are four more matches in the draw. Don’t tell Victor. He thinks we were late because of the traffic. Actually we were selling a pony for about three thousand pounds more than it’s worth. Seb had just lied that its grandsire was Nijinsky when I walked in and said it was Mill Reef, but we got over that hurdle.’

  ‘Who bought it?’ asked Chessie idly.

  ‘Phil Wedgwood.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Chessie. ‘He rang Ricky yesterday. Said he’d just sent the mare Ricky sold him in May to the knackers because she had back trouble and could he buy another. Ricky loved that mare so much he hung up on him. Now Phil’s bought one from you – Jesus!’

  ‘I don’t think your husband’s got his act together commercially,’ said Dommie. ‘He’s got to learn to care less about ponies and more about patrons. Victor is so thick we sold one of his own ponies to him the other day. Quick! Duck! Here comes the Head Girl!’

  Through the driving rain, both suitably clad for the weather, came Sukey and Grace going towards Bart’s limo, which had been driven independently to the match for them to sit in. Grace nodded coolly. Sukey, who was carrying a camera, tapped on the window: ‘I was hoping to video the match, so Drew could isolate his mistakes afterwards, but the visibility’s so awful. Bad luck on losing, Seb.’

  ‘I’m Dommie.’

  ‘Oh, sorry. I can never tell you two apart.’

  ‘I’ve got the bigger cock,’ said Dommie.

  Chessie giggled. Sukey firmly changed the subject. ‘We’ve had the Daily Express at home all morning, doing a feature on Drew. You’d never dream how many rolls of film they used.’

  ‘They wanted to do Ricky and me,’ said Chessie furiously, ‘but Ricky was far too uptight to let them in on the morning of a match.’

  ‘Oh, Drew’s managed to conquer his nerves,’ said Sukey. Then, looking at Chessie: ‘Aren’t you frozen?’

  ‘Not with me around,’ said Dommie, running his hands up and down her bare legs.

  Before Sukey had time to look old-fashioned, Seb had arrived holding three Bloody Marys and a Coke in his hands, and a packet of crisps between his teeth for Will.

  ‘Christ, this weather’s awful. D’you want a drink, Sukey?’

  ‘No thanks, I’ve just had a cup of tea. There’s the throw-in. I must go and watch with Grace. Such a wonderful lady.’

  ‘Silly bitch,’ muttered Chessie, putting the Bloody Marys on the dashboard as Seb got in beside her. Next minute Bart thundered past them, eyes screwed up against the rain, swiping at the ball and missing completely. He was so bad, reflected Chessie, it was a turn-off to watch him. But not as bad as the petfood billionaire Kevin Coley, who was simultaneously hitting his poor pony round the legs with his stick, tugging on its mouth, and plunging huge spurs into its sides.

  ‘Dreadful rider,’ winced Seb.

  ‘He’s just given me a book on dog breeds,’ said Dommie, getting it out of his Barbour. ‘Seb and I are thinking of getting a pit bull.’

  ‘Jesus’s game is distinctly off today,’ said Seb.

  ‘Baby Jesus is a little bugger,’ said Will, his mouth full of crisps.

  The conditions were worsening, the pitch was a black sea of mud. Beyond the clubhouse the pink-and-white sponsors’ tent strained at its moorings. By the third chukka the Alderton Flyers were leading by 8-4, not because of superior play, but because Juan, who was umpiring, was so anxious to curry favour with Bart that he hadn’t blown a single foul on him.

  ‘God,’ said Seb, as Bart crashed into Charles Napier at ninety degrees, ‘that should have been a goal to the other side.’

  ‘Shall we get a white or a brindle one?’ asked Dommie.

  ‘How’s your ravishing schoolgirl?’ asked Chessie.

  ‘Expelled, poor darling. We tried to take her out on Sunday. We were going to Windsor and thought she’d like a jaunt, but they wouldn’t even give us a forwarding address.’

  ‘Oh, she’ll turn up,’ said Chessie. ‘Those sort of girls always do.’

  ‘Ready for another drink?’ asked Seb, as the half-time bell went.

  ‘I quite like Basenjis,’ said Dommie, ‘but they don’t bark.’

  He ran his hand down Chessie’s bare leg again.

  ‘Honestly, Mrs F-L, if you weren’t married to Ricky, I’d make such a play.’

  ‘Feel free,’ said Chessie, then jumped at a tap on the window.

  ‘Divot-stomping time, Francesca,’ ordered Grace Alderton, looking disapprovingly at the row of glasses on the dashboard.

  Dommie lowered the window a centimetre.

  ‘It’s too cold. Mrs F-L isn’t dressed for treading in, and we’ve just got warm for the first time today.’

  Grace didn’t actually flounce, but her body stiffened as she stalked off on to the pitch.

  ‘Good period, baby,’ she shouted to Bart, as he cantered back, muddy but elated, having scored a goal.

  ‘Can we get our diaries together when we get back to the car?’ Sukey asked Grace, as they trod back the divots. ‘I don’t want to have our wedding on a day when you won’t be in England.’

  Will took a great slug of Dommie’s second Bloody Mary and started on a bag of Maltesers Seb had brought him.

  ‘Don’t let him eat them all,’ said Chessie. ‘He’ll be sick.’

  Will ate four, then put the rest in the breast pocket of his shirt. ‘Allbody will think
I’ve grown a tit.’

  The twins roared with laughter.

  Ricky’s breeches were black with mud as he came out for the fifth chukka. His spare sticks were in front of Dommie’s car, leaning against the little fence that ran along the edge of the pitch. Some players used the same length stick for every pony, but Ricky preferred longer sticks for taller ponies, and Kinta, the new dark brown thoroughbred was nearly sixteen hands. If he broke a stick, he expected Chessie to run out and hand him a new one.

  ‘Those are the fifty-ones on the left, and the fifty-twos on the right,’ he shouted to her as he cantered back for the throw-in.

  ‘Are you going to Deauville?’ Chessie asked the twins.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Seb. ‘I want to see how Ricky goes on Juan’s pony, and you can get your nose out of that book, Dom.’

  Ricky was used to riding with his reins completely loose, the slightest pressure on his horses’ necks turning them to the left or right. Kinta, however, coming from the race track where horses are only expected to go one way and used to being yanked around by Juan, pulled like an express train and was almost impossible to stop.

  ‘Christ, Ricky won’t have any arms left,’ said Dommie, as Kinta easily outstripped Charles Napier’s fastest pony. ‘But she’s going bloody well for him. Juan must be as sick as a baby with its first cigar.’

  Both sides were now squelching around the Doggie Dins’ goal. Bart should have dropped back and marked Ben Napier, but, instead, rushed into the mêlée and, losing control of his pony, mis-hit.

  ‘Get back, you stupid fucker,’ howled Ricky.

  ‘Interesting your husband never stammers when he’s shouting abuse,’ said Seb.

  As Will took another slug of Bloody Mary, Ricky and Ben Napier both bounded forward trying to prise the ball out of the mud. There was a crack as Ricky’s stick broke. Swinging round, he galloped towards the boards.