Polo

by Jilly Cooper

  ‘Look after Daisy, both of you. Take her up in the stands and buy her a bloody big drink. Perdita’s just put the boot in.’

  In a trice the twins had caught up with her.

  ‘Daisee, Daisee, Give me your answer do,’ sang Seb, putting an arm round Daisy’s shoulders.

  ‘I’m half crazy, all for the love of you,’ sang Dommie, putting an arm round her waist.

  ‘I haven’t got a handkerchief,’ sobbed Daisy.

  Diving into the men’s changing room, Seb came out with a roll of blue Andrex.

  ‘Here you are,’ he said, pulling out at least eight feet and handing it to Daisy. ‘We’re going to force-feed you vodka and orange.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that poxy daughter of yours,’ said Dommie. ‘After the number of times she’s kicked you in the teeth, you ought to buy a gum shield. She’s only in a bait because Red’s playing her up. Now, we’ve all got to cheer for the Tigers, because they’ll be so much easier to beat in the final than the Flyers.’

  The stands were unusually packed for a weekday, because so many people had turned up to see the Argentine who had broken the ban, and who was alleged to be the handsomest Latin to invade British soil since Juan O’Brien had cut such a swath through everyone’s wives before the Falklands War.

  ‘You cannot imagine the bliss,’ said Seb, hardly lowering his voice, as they sat down, ‘of not playing for Victor any more. Ricky’s a tartar – he doesn’t regard bonking and bopping all night as keeping fit – but you don’t have to brown-nose him all the time. And have you seen Drew’s new Lamborghini? I bet that’s a reward for services rendered from Lady Sharlady, although Drew’s already got some lady. I wish I knew who it was.’

  Giggling, Dommie pointed a frantic finger at two rows in front, where Sukey, wearing a khaki shirt, canvas jodhpurs and a pith helmet, had just sat down.

  ‘She looks as though she’s been shooting Tayger,’ he whispered to a twitching Daisy. ‘Can’t you see her resting a well-shod foot on Drew’s back?’

  Next moment Daisy felt even worse, for Bas had come into the stand with Rupert and Taggie. All in dark glasses, they totally ignored the photographers who were going berserk. Rupert was wearing a panama over his nose and holding Taggie, who was looking very pale and thin, tightly by the hand. Daisy hadn’t seen him since the awful row when Ricky had thrown him out.

  ‘Here they come,’ said Seb, as the players cantered on to the field. ‘Have you ever seen ponies like the Flyers? Bart must have bred every single one from Derby winners on both sides.’

  But Daisy was watching Drew who, as he rode past, was still issuing last-minute instructions to the Brazilian ringer. She hoped the back of Sukey’s very clean white neck wouldn’t be scorched by her longing. Red, who was now hitting a ball around near the stands, very pointedly blew a kiss at the leggy blonde with the King Charles spaniel puppy.

  ‘Who’s she?’ asked Daisy.

  ‘A slag,’ said Seb. ‘Dommie and I had her last week.’

  ‘Why are you two so addicted to threesomes?’ drawled a voice.

  ‘Because Seb’s too lazy to get girls for himself,’ said Dommie. ‘Hello, Mrs Alderton.’

  As Chessie, minxy as ever in white jeans and a navy-blue cashmere jersey, but wearing a fraction too much rouge to hide her pallor, sat down beside him, Dommie kissed her on both cheeks.

  ‘Thank God your ex is only umpiring,’ he went on, ‘so you can’t put a hex on his game. We were only just saying how beautifully your husband’s mounted his team.’

  ‘Costs him enough!’ Chessie helped herself to Dommie’s drink. ‘Oh, there’s Ricky,’ she added wistfully. ‘You have to admit, he’s the best-constructed man in polo. Look at the way those broad shoulders narrow into the hips, and at the length of his thighs. Christ, he’s gorgeous.’

  As if drawn by her desire, Ricky glanced up, and glanced hastily away.

  ‘We’ll have to throw a bucket of water over you in a minute,’ said Seb. Then, lowering his voice: ‘Do look! Suke’s neck’s gone bright pink with disapproval.’

  ‘Silly bitch,’ said Chessie. ‘Bart’s livid. Jesus was the first umpire he objected to, because he’d once sacked him. Then they offered him Charles and Ben Napier, and Bart objected again, because he’d sacked them too. Then they came up with Ricky, and Bart said, “My wife sacked him, so he’s not going to be impartial.” After that Ronnie Ferguson stuck his toes in, thank God.’

  ‘Ricky hated doing it,’ said Dommie. ‘He loathes coming within a million miles of your husband, but he reckoned the best way he’d size up the opposition was to umpire the match.’

  ‘I’m sure we’ve met,’ said Chessie, knowing perfectly well who Daisy was, and that Ricky’d been protecting her. God knows why thought Chessie. Daisy struck her as being extremely plain.

  ‘This is Daisy, Perdita’s mother,’ said Seb.

  ‘Ah,’ said Chessie, ‘Perdita wouldn’t be my favourite person if I were you.’

  ‘She’s none of our favourite person,’ said Dommie. ‘No, don’t cry, sweetheart,’ and, unrolling another eight feet of blue Andrex, he proceeded to wipe Daisy’s eyes.

  ‘Dommie’s madly in love,’ announced Seb.

  ‘Do we know her?’ asked Chessie, mildly interested.

  ‘It’s a “he” and a pony,’ said Dommie excitedly. ‘No, I know horses bore you rigid, Chessie, but this one’s something else. He’s a little Australian Waler with legs like crowbars. I saw him at a gymkhana last summer and he was so competitive, he galloped ahead in the sack race and brought the sack back every time in his teeth. His owners wouldn’t part with him then, but this summer he started napping badly so they let me have him for meat money. He is so brilliant and so clever and so gutsy like Fantasma he’ll take anything on. And he’s got two white stripes on his withers, so I’ve called him Corporal.’

  ‘Oh, belt up, Dom,’ said Seb. ‘Go and get us all another drink.’

  Down below them on the field, Angel couldn’t stop shaking. He could hardly hold the reins, let alone manage his whip and stick. He’d spent an hour at the nearest Catholic church that morning, but how can one ask for absolution for a murder one is about to commit? On the other hand, as Bibi still wouldn’t return his calls, his marriage was obviously over, so what did it matter if he spent the next twenty-five years in some British gaol? The Guards Club, with its rain-soaked banks of azaleas, fields stretching out like eternal billiard tables and revolting English ex-army officers in blazers barking instructions into walkie-talkies, made him feel sick. No-one knew that there was a sprinkling of Malvinas earth in the bottom of his polo boots, and no one had noticed the silhouette of the Malvinas stamped on the front of his pale blue helmet. A plane flew over and he wished he was on it.

  But there was the loathsome Captain Benedict unconcernedly tapping a ball around a few yards away. Instantly, Angel was back in the Malvinas, with Drew lounging behind a table with a borrowed sheepskin coat round his shoulders against the punishing cold, drinking one cup of coffee after another and not offering anything to Angel, who was standing on his agonizingly smashed-up knee, trying not to sob with pain, as one question relentlessly followed another in Drew’s strongly accented but fluent Spanish.

  At that moment in Angel’s terrifying reverie his dark bay mare, Maria, took advantage of his inattention to give a colossal buck, which sent Angel flying through the air.

  ‘There’s Angel Solis de Gonzales, ex-fighter pilot, showing us how well he can fly without a plane,’ mocked Terry Hanlon, polo’s joker, from the commentary box.

  The crowd roared with laughter. Angel ground his teeth. Red, who had caught Maria, brought her back to him. As Angel replaced his hat, Drew noticed the Malvinas silhouette stamped on the front. Taking in the wild, haunted eyes, the deathly pallor, the stubble and the damp, bronze curls escaping from beneath the rim, he knew he’d seen Angel before somewhere and was assailed by a feeling of menace.

  Two by two, like animals going into the ark, the team
s lined up. Victor beside Perdita, the Brazilian beside Angel, Drew beside the leaping, dancing Red, and hulking Shark beside a constantly shouting Bart. Ricky hurled the ball in with unaccustomed viciousness.

  As planned beforehand, Angel and Perdita rode their opposing players off the line to let the ball pound through to Red, who whacked it towards the boards, scorched after it, then stroked a beautiful forehand round to Perdita who had galloped upfield towards the centre. Caught off guard and making gallant attempts to catch up with her, Drew felt as if a truck had hit him as he was ferociously bumped by Angel, who then thundered upfield so that when Perdita, out of nerves, totally missed a long shot at goal, he was able to charge up behind her, pick up the ball and, with a beautiful nearside forehand, pass to a racing-down Red, who effortlessly stroked it between the posts.

  ‘Oh, Christ,’ said Seb in awe, ‘if those two are going to be the pivot of the Flyers’ team, they’ll be bloody hard to beat on Sunday. Come on, Tigers, sock it to them.’

  Victor took a swipe and missed the ball.

  Behind the stands the sun, which had had difficulty getting through, like Bart, at last pierced the grey curtain of cloud, spotlighting the drama on the field. Rupert put his panama on Taggie’s head.

  ‘Rupert’s alleged daughter has hardly touched the ball at all,’ murmured Dommie to Chessie.

  Shark was meant to be marking Perdita, but as no-one gave her any passes, he left her and went to Drew’s aid. But although he and Drew were both incredibly powerful defensive players, they couldn’t contain Red and Angel.

  ‘Red, Red, Red, Gonzales, Gonzales, Gonzales’ (he hadn’t time for Solis) seemed to be the only words on Terry Hanlon’s lips.

  Then Angel jumped the boards at mid-off and hit a nearside backshot of forty yards, placing the ball just in front of the opposition posts. Before Shark or Drew could get there, Red had whistled down like a bullet and in it went. The crowd were in ecstasy, bursting over and over again into roars of applause.

  At first Drew thought he was imagining things. As his opposing Number Two, Angel was meant to mark him, so initially he dismissed the hurtling kamikaze bumps as Latin exhuberance. Then a pelham bit was jabbed into his kidneys, a pony’s head swung into his shoulder so hard that even the pony shook its head for twenty seconds, elbows rammed his ribs and, riding up beside him, Angel got his knee underneath Drew’s leg and tried to tip him out of the saddle.

  Finally, the ball came out in Drew’s direction and he had a lovely open sweep to goal in front of him. As he swung his stick back, he was hooked perilously low, Angel’s stick catching his pony’s legs and nearly bringing her down.

  ‘What the fuck are you playing at, you bloody wop?’ yelled Drew.

  Ricky blew his whistle and, having awarded a thirty to the Tigers, took Angel aside.

  ‘You’re pushing your luck. Pack it in.’

  Drew took the penalty, deliberately spending as long as possible to get his breath back. His ribs were agony. Forward went his stick, then back, then whistling down like Jove releasing his thunderbolt, slap between the posts.

  ‘Well done,’ cried Daisy in delight.

  Drew looked straight at Angel. ‘Well?’ he said coolly.

  It was a mistake. Thirty seconds later Angel rode him off at ninety degrees, sending his pony flying. As Drew turned in fury, he was suddenly terrified. There was the icy madness of the killer in Angel’s eyes.

  In the third chukka Drew was riding Malteser, his fastest but most explosively excitable pony. It usually took half a chukka to calm her down. Red was loose again. Giving Malteser her head, Drew galloped over to mark him, but on his way Shark backed the ball somewhat wildly up towards him. Attempting to stop it, Drew leant right out of his saddle. Hearing a pounding of hooves behind him, and feeling Angel’s knee under his, he crashed to the ground.

  ‘Oh no,’ screamed Daisy, caught off her guard.

  Sukey leapt to her feet. ‘That Argentine is trying to kill my husband,’ she called out in a trembling voice.

  Oh God, thought Daisy, feeling an icy hand squeezing her heart. If Angel was a Falklands pilot, perhaps he was taking Drew out for being on the other side.

  Numb with horror, she watched Ricky, then Bart, then Red, remonstrating with Angel, as Drew climbed groggily on to his pony to take the penalty. As he hit the ball, Angel bounded forward and blocked the shot, then, as the ball bounced awkwardly in the air, miraculously hit it again twenty yards upfield and was galloping furiously in pursuit. Drew, carried down by the impetus of taking the penalty, swung round to ride Angel off. Together they raced for the ball. Angel, riding Minerva, Bart’s fastest pony after Glitz, pulled ahead.

  ‘D’you remember me, handsome capitán?’ he said, smiling evilly round at Drew. ‘“’Ow many planes ’ave you got? ’Ow many pilots? When is zee next attack planned and where? Eef you wish to play polo again, you better answer my questions.”’

  Drew let out a sigh. ‘So it is you, you fucking dago.’

  The next moment Angel had pulled over towards Drew, and his wicked-looking spur had caught the cheek strap of Drew’s bridle, narrowly missing Malteser’s terrified, rolling eye, and ripped it apart. A second later his stick crashed into Drew’s jaw and Drew slumped to the ground like a felled pine. But his foot was caught in the stirrup. Picking up her master’s sense of panic, Malteser dragged him for twenty yards before Shark caught up with her and yanked her to a halt.

  As the ambulance screamed on, Ricky rode furiously up to Angel. ‘Off, you bastard.’

  ‘Don’t you send him off,’ shouted Bart. ‘He’s my best player. Fucking biased umpiring.’

  ‘Off,’ bellowed Bobby Ferraro, the second umpire, in agreement.

  In the stands, Bas had put an arm round a shaking, sobbing Sukey’s shoulders.

  ‘It’s OK, old duck. He’s tough, he’ll be OK.’

  ‘Oh no, no, no,’ moaned Daisy, gazing in agony and horror at a lifeless Drew.

  There was a crack and, looking down, she saw she had broken her dark glasses. She had already nearly bitten her lower lip through trying not to cry out. As she watched Drew being lifted unconscious into the ambulance, she gave a shuddering wail. Glancing round, Dommie suddenly realized everything. ‘So you’re the one,’ he whispered. Then, pulling her into his arms: ‘Hang on to me. For Christ’s sake, don’t blow it, sweetheart. He’ll be all right.’

  Dommie was utterly angelic.

  ‘She’s upset about Perdita,’ he told everyone blandly as he hustled a sobbing Daisy out of the stands. ‘Little bitch bit her head off just before the match.’

  And when Daisy sobbed even louder in protest, Dommie told her to shut up. ‘Perdita’s committed enough crimes against humanity for it not to matter if one of them’s blamed on her unfairly.’

  Although it was only half-time, he insisted on driving Daisy’s rickety old Volkswagen faster than it had ever been driven back to Rutshire.

  ‘I’m not letting you near Ricky in this condition. He’d be bound to winkle it out of you and you know how pompous he is about extra-marital frolics – although this was plainly more than a frolic.’

  ‘The awful thing,’ said Daisy numbly, ‘was that Sukey was so upset. I really did think it was a marriage of convenience.’

  ‘Convenient for Drew. Move over, Granny,’ said Dommie, honking furiously as he overtook some Sunday afternoon drivers admiring the Rutshire countryside at twenty mph. ‘No wonder he was so ratty when Red and I tried to take you to Paris last summer.’

  ‘He’s been so kind to me since Hamish left.’

  ‘Not difficult. I’d be kind to you – and unlike him I’ve got weekends, Christmas and Easter free.’ Dommie put his arm round her shoulders. ‘He’s a lucky sod.’

  ‘Not if he dies,’ sobbed Daisy.

  ‘Course he won’t.’

  Without a car telephone he was unable to ring the hospital for news until they got home and even then the Intensive Care Ward would only tell him Drew had been admitted.
/>   ‘But it’s his father speaking.’ Dommie put on a gruff military voice.

  But all he could glean was that Drew had not yet regained consciousness.

  Dommie and Daisy were stuck into the vodka and Dommie was trying to distract her by telling her more stories about his new pony, Corporal, when the telephone rang. Daisy jumped out of her skin. Perhaps it was news of Drew. Then she thought how bloody silly; she was only the mistress who had to grin and bear it. Why should anyone tell her anything? Fighting back the tears, she grabbed the receiver.

  It was Ricky.

  ‘You OK?’ he asked brusquely. ‘Sorry about Perdita.’

  ‘She always gets uptight before a game.’

  ‘No bloody excuse.’

  ‘Have you heard anything about Drew?’

  ‘Still out cold, but he hasn’t broken anything.’

  When he had told her all he knew, Ricky asked Daisy if she’d like him to come over. ‘You shouldn’t be on your own.’

  ‘Dommie’s here.’ There was a pause.

  ‘Be careful,’ said Ricky.

  ‘Hospital says Drew’s in a stable condition,’ Daisy told Dommie as she put down the receiver.

  ‘Fatuous expression. You’d think he was sleeping on wood shavings!’ Dommie filled up their glasses. ‘Needs a muzzle, too, to stop him babbling on about you in his delirium.’

  ‘Ricky said the only thing he’s calling out for is Malteser,’ said Daisy sadly.

  Eventually she managed to persuade a reluctant Dommie that she was really happier on her own.

  ‘You’ve been so kind, but I just want to slink into my lair and lick my wounds.’

  ‘I’d lick much more exciting parts of you,’ grumbled Dommie as he borrowed her car to drive home.

  Only after she’d finished the vodka and sobbed it all out in tears did Daisy rashly ring the hospital.

  ‘It’s very late. Are you a relation?’ enquired the night sister.

  ‘Yes, I’m Drew’s Great-Aunt Araminta,’ said Daisy. ‘I just want to know he’s OK.’

  Twenty seconds later she nearly dropped the receiver.

  ‘If that’s The Scorpion or anyone else pretending to be Drew’s father, who incidentally died five years ago’ – Sukey’s normally brisk no-nonsense voice was cracked with strain – ‘you can sugar off.’