Polo

18

Within a week Little Chef was running the yard, bringing in the ponies from the fields, doing tricks for pony nuts, retrieving lost balls from the undergrowth, then running on to the field and dropping them when there was a pause in play.

He also learnt not to scrabble Dancer’s leather trousers and who was welcome in the yard, biting the ankles of visiting VAT men, growling at Philippa Mannering when, ever hopeful, she dropped in on Ricky, and lifting his leg on the probation officer’s bicycle.

He adored Perdita, but Ricky was his great love, and gradually as the ugly little dog limped after him, barking encouragement during practice chukkas, and even hitching a lift on the back of a pony in order not to be separated, Ricky succumbed totally to his charms.

And when the vet came to take out Little Chef’s stitches, it was Ricky who held the wildly trembling dog in his arms. Any visiting player who was foolish enough to make eyes at Perdita, or disparaging cracks about Little Chef’s appearance, got very short shrift.

By the beginning of August Ricky’s arm was so much better that he was able gently to stick and ball. By the end of August so excessive had been the overtime paid the builders and excavators that Dancer and his gaudy retinue were able to move into Eldercombe Manor.

Miss Lodsworth had a busy summer. When she wasn’t inveighing against cruelty to ponies and disgusting language at Rutshire Polo Club, and furiously ringing up Ricky to complain about Perdita thundering ponies five abreast down Eldercombe High Street, she was writing to Dancer, to grumble about cheeky builders, truculent security guards, and Alsatians chasing her cat, Smudge. Nor was she amused by helicopters with flashing lights landing like fireflies at all hours, nor the deafening boom of all-night recording sessions.

Worst of all, some sadist of a landscape designer had slapped down Dancer’s stick-and-ball field right next to her house, so she not only had fairies at the bottom of her garden, but also a microcosm of Rutshire Polo Club. As Commissioner for Rutshire, how could she hold dignified get-togethers with her guides when expletives and polo balls kept flying over her hawthorn hedge?

Nor did any of the rest of the Parish Council come to her aid. The Vicar, who was a closet gay, and the local solicitor, who reckoned that such development would triple the price of his house, both thought Dancer was splendid.

Dancer, however, was warned well in advance that Miss Lodsworth would be holding an All-Rutshire Jamboree in her garden on the first Saturday in September and had promised there would be no stick and balling that afternoon. A perfect day dawned. Rising early, Miss Lodsworth prayed that it would continue fine and her guides would find enjoyment as well as fulfilment in their Jamboree. Believing in economy, Miss Lodsworth had already baked rock and fairy cakes and spread hundreds of sandwiches with crusts still on with Marmite and plum jam which was cheaper than strawberry. Nor was Coca Cola or Seven-Up allowed. Her guides would have lemon squash because it was better for them and less expensive.

Creaking up from her knees, Miss Lodsworth snorted with indignation. Even on a Saturday Dancer’s bulldozers were still knocking down trees and flattening hillocks to extend one of the loveliest cricket grounds in England into a polo field. Just after lunch, as she was wriggling into her guide uniform, which had grown somewhat tight, Miss Lodsworth looked out of the window and saw a girl not wearing a hard hat clattering five ponies down the High Street.

It was that fiendish Perdita Macleod. Now she had pulled up outside the village shop and was yelling to them to bring her out an ice-cream. The Vicar’s wife, who had parked on a yellow line while her gay husband went into the shop to get a treacle tart, got such a shock when Wayne stuck his big, hairy white face in through the window that she jumped out and ran away. A traffic warden, finding an empty car, gave the Vicar a parking ticket.

Clattering on, trying to hold five ponies and eat an ice-cream, Perdita was not amused to hear whoops and noisy hooting behind her. It was Seb and Dommie Carlisle packed into their Lotus, with two sumptuous brunettes, and a bull terrier spilling out of the luggage compartment.

Aware that she was hot and sweaty and her hair was escaping from its towelling band, Perdita greeted them sulkily.

‘We’re going to see over Dancer’s palazzo,’ yelled Seb, ‘and swim in his pool, which is even bigger than Loch Lomond. Why don’t you come over?’

‘I haven’t got a bikini.’

‘That’s the last thing you’ll need. See you later.’

When she got back to the yard, however, Ricky had other ideas.

‘What the fuck were you doing taking out five ponies at once? I’ve just had Miss Lodsworth and the Vicar’s wife on the telephone. If you step out of line once more you’re fired. And don’t think you’re going to turn them out and slope off. I want each pony washed down and all the sweat scraped off. I’m going out to look at a pony, and don’t forget to double-lock Wayne’s door.’

The Jamboree was in full swing. Guides were marching, pow-wowing, flag-waving and singing stirring songs as Dancer showed the twins over a totally transformed Eldercombe Manor. As they progressed through the great hall, which was now a recording studio, and practice rooms and six master bedrooms, with bathrooms and jacuzzis en suite, and an intercom service so Dancer’s retinue could chatter to each other all night, the twins’ whoops of laughter and excitement grew in volume.

‘I want a mistress bedroom,’ said Seb, bouncing on one of the huge double beds.

Outside they admired a pink brick yard for twenty ponies, which looked like three sides of a Battenburg cake, and an indoor school, completely walled with bulletproof mirrors.

‘Bas said it looked like a tart’s bedroom,’ said Dancer cheerfully.

‘He’s seen enough of them,’ said Dommie. ‘How the hell did you get planning permission?’

‘Bas and I gave a little drinks party for all the local planning committee. An’ greased their palms so liberally their glasses kept sliding out of their ’ands.’

‘And there were German Shepherds abiding in the fields,’ said Seb, keeping a close hold on Decorum, his bull terrier, as Twinkie the security guard prowled past with an Alsatian. ‘But this is designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.’

‘It will be when my ponies arrive next week,’ said Dancer cosily.

Soon the twins and their brunettes and various glamorous hangers-on were all stripped off round the pool. Miss Lodsworth, exhorting her guides to greater endeavour in this modern world, was having great difficulty making herself heard over the din of Dancer’s group, who were warming up in the recording studio.

Seb, standing on the top board with binoculars, was peering into Miss Lodsworth’s garden in excitement.

‘That blonde one looks very prepared to me. Lend a hand, darling,’ he shouted. ‘Isn’t that what girl guides are supposed to do?’

‘I wish someone would lend me a farm hand,’ said Dancer’s interior designer sulkily. ‘Wilhelm won’t speak to me since I chucked his Filofax in the jacuzzi. He’s nice,’ he added, as one of Dancer’s workmen went past wielding his JCB like Ben Hur.

‘Now they’re doing semaphore,’ said Seb. ‘Get me a goal flag, Dancer, then I can signal, “Do you screw?” to that blonde.’

‘She’ll tie a clove hitch in your willy if you’re not careful,’ said Dommie.

‘Then it’ll be a guided missile!’ Collapsing off the diving board with laughter at his own joke, Seb just managed to keep the binoculars above the water level.

Meanwhile over in Snow Cottage, Daisy Macleod, trying to fill up her painting jar, found there was no water in the tap. In the house above her, Philippa Mannering, who wanted to wash her hair before the dinner party to which Ricky had refused to come yet again, found not only no water in the tap but that the washing-up machine had stopped in mid-cycle. Over at Robinsgrove, finding no water to hose down the ponies, Perdita put them in their boxes and, having given them their hay nets and filled up the water buckets from the water trough, raced off to Dancer’s for a swim.

Wayne, Ricky’s favourite pony, had such a low threshold of boredom that he had a special manger hooked over the half-door so he could eat and miss nothing in the yard at the same time. The yard escapologist, he had been known to turn on taps and flood the yard and, even worse, let other ponies out of their boxes when he got bored. At matches he had to be watched like a hawk in case he wriggled out of his headcollar, and set off for the tea tent, where his doleful yellow face and black-ringed eyes could coax sandwiches and cake out of the most stony-hearted waitress. Left to his own vices, deserted even by his friend Little Chef, who’d gone with Ricky, Wayne started to fiddle with the bolt.

At the Jamboree it was time for tea. The Marmite and plum jam sandwiches were already curling on the trestle table under the walnut tree. The guides were hot and thirsty, but as Miss Lodsworth went to the kitchen tap for water to fill up the jugs of concentrated lemon squash, only a trickle came out of the tap.

‘Please, Miss Lodsworth,’ said a pink-faced Pack Leader, ‘the upstairs toilet isn’t flushing.’

‘Nor’s the downstairs,’ said her friend.

Looking out across Dancer’s emerging polo fields, Miss Lodsworth first thought how beautiful as a huge fountain of water gushed a hundred feet into the air, throwing up rainbow lights in the sunshine against the yellowing trees.

Picking up the telephone, she was on to Dancer in a trice.

‘D’you realize,’ she spluttered, ‘that your bulldozers have gone slap through the chief water main? The whole village will be cut off, and my guides have nothing to drink.’ She couldn’t mention the question of lavatories to Dancer.

Round the pool they were all having hysterics as Dancer tried to calm her down.

‘I’ll get on to the emergency services immediately. Of course they work on a Saturday. An’ if it gets too bad, your little girls can come and drink out of the swimming-pool. And we’ve got plenty of Bourbon if you’re pushed.’

He had to hold the telephone away from his ear.

An hour later Perdita sidled into the yard with wet hair to be confronted by Frances quivering with ecstatic disapproval.

‘Why the hell didn’t you bother to dry off the ponies?’

‘I just nipped over to Dancer’s for a swim.’

‘Can’t keep away from the boys, can you? Did you turn Wayne out?’

‘No. Yes, I must have done.’ Perdita always blinked when she was lying. ‘Oh Christ, he must be in one of the paddocks or the garden.’

‘He isn’t, I’ve looked,’ sneered Frances. ‘Thank God Ricky’ll come to his senses and sack you now.’

‘Oh, please don’t tell him,’ pleaded Perdita. She hadn’t realized quite how much Frances detested her.

‘You stay here.’ Frances handed her Hermia’s lead rope. ‘I’ll take my car and go and look for him.’

‘I’ll go,’ sobbed Perdita, and, leaping on to Hermia’s back, she clattered off down the drive.

Perdita couldn’t get any sense out of the gaudy retinue round Dancer’s pool. They were all drunk or stoned.

‘Wayne’s gone missing,’ she screamed. ‘Please someone come and help me look for him.’

‘Probably gone to the Jamboree,’ said Dommie, looking up from his brunette. ‘Miss Lodsworth’ll be teaching him how to untie clove hitches.’

‘Don’t be so fucking flip.’

Pulling on a pair of Garfield boxer shorts, grumbling Dommie tiptoed barefoot across the gravel out to his Lotus.

‘You go west, I’ll go north.’

‘Have you seen a yellow pony with a white face? Have you seen a yellow pony with a white face?’ Getting more and more desperate, Perdita stopped at every house and scoured every field. Ricky would go apeshit if anything happened to Wayne. Then, as she entered Eldercombe Village, she saw a pile of droppings in the middle of the road.

‘Looking for a pony?’ said an old man. ‘He went into that garden.’

Perdita went as green as the guides’ unconsumed lemon squash. For there in the gateway, framed in an arch of clematis as purple as her face, stood Miss Lodsworth. She’d had to buy all her guides Coca Cola from guiding funds, and send them home early in a hired bus in case they electrocuted themselves storming the gates of Eldercombe Manor in search of Dancer. She would be eating Marmite sandwiches and rock buns for months.

‘Dancer Maitland has wrecked my Jamboree,’ roared Miss Lodsworth. ‘Your pony has wrecked my garden. He’s trampled on my alstroemerias and my dahlias, kicked out my cucumber frame and broken down the fence into the orchard.’

‘I’m terribly sorry. I’ll pay,’ begged Perdita. ‘Please don’t ring Ricky.’

‘I’m going to ring my solicitor.’

Wayne was enchanted to see Hermia and Perdita, and gave the appearance of having been searching for them all day. As she only had one lead rope, Perdita had to walk both ponies the mile and a half back to Robinsgrove. At the bottom of the drive, Wayne started to totter, and his yellow belly gave such a thunderous rumble, he started looking round at it in surprise and reproach.

Oh God, colic, thought Perdita; perhaps he’s eaten something he shouldn’t, I must get him home.

Halfway up the drive, Wayne started pawing his belly and rolling the whites of his eyes. Soon he was cannoning off lime trees and, as they passed the second gates, crashed into the left-hand gatepost. By the time he had staggered into the yard he could hardly stand up, hitting the ancient, mossy mounting block and tripping over one of the green tubs filled with white geraniums, as Little Chef came bounding out to lick him on the nose.

Perdita had never known Ricky so angry. Taking one look at the swaying Wayne, he yelled at Frances to ring Phil Bagley, the vet.

‘Tell him it may be a heart attack, or colic, or twisted gut. He could even have been hit by a car. Tell him to fucking hurry.’

Then, turning on Perdita: ‘You stupid b-b-bitch, I told you to double-bolt those doors.’

‘I know. I forgot.’

‘Well, you’ve forgotten once too often. Get out, you’re fired.’

‘Please let me see what Phil says,’ whispered Perdita, whose face was now as white as Wayne’s.

‘Get out,’ hissed Ricky, who needed all his strength to guide the staggering, crashing Wayne into his box. ‘Just fuck off.’

Phil Bagley arrived in a quarter of an hour.

‘I was delivering one of Mark Phillips’ calves,’ he said indignantly. ‘The things I do for you, Ricky. Now, where’s this pony?’

As he went into his box Wayne was still pawing his belly. Then, slumping against the wall, he crashed to the ground.

‘I’ll give him a massive jab of vitamin B,’ said Phil when he’d examined him, ‘and some Buscopan. It’s obviously hurting him. Then we’d better get some fluids inside him. I guess it’s twisted gut. Where’s he been?’

‘Escaped to Eldercombe, got into Miss L-L-Lodsworth’s garden.’

‘Jesus, you’d think he’d been programmed.’

As Phil loaded his syringe and Ricky tried to calm the terrified pony, whose eyes were quite glazed now, they heard frantic barking outside.

Next minute Miss Lodsworth’s head appeared over the half-door, looking even more like a horse than Wayne.

‘I’ve come to make a complaint.’

‘Not now,’ said Phil, who was holding the needle up to remove the air bubbles.

‘Piss off,’ muttered Ricky under his breath.

‘I must speak to someone.’

‘Can you wait somewhere else?’ snapped Phil. ‘I’m sorry, but we’ve got a critically sick horse here.’

‘Sick, my eye,’ thundered Miss Lodsworth, ‘That horse isn’t sick, it’s dead drunk. It’s just eaten all my cider apples.’ There was a long pause. Crouching down, Phil sniffed Wayne’s breath.

‘I do believe you’re right. How many apples d’you reckon he ate?’

‘Close on a hundred.’

Ricky never thought he’d want to hug Miss Lodsworth.

‘Are you sure?’ he said, getting to his feet.

As he plunged the needle into Wayne’s shoulder, Phil started to laugh. A second later, Dommie Carlisle, shivering slightly in just boxer shorts, appeared beside Miss Lodsworth.

‘You’ve found him. Thank Christ. I’ve been looking everywhere. What’s the matter with him?’

‘Pissed as a newt,’ said Ricky.

‘I’m surprised you treat the matter so lightly,’ bristled Miss Lodsworth. ‘What about my apples?’

‘He ought to have some painkillers,’ said Phil, ‘and we ought to get some fluids into him. Don’t want him to wreck his liver.’ But Wayne was sleeping peacefully.

‘Better lay on some Fernet Branca for the morning,’ said Dommie. ‘I think I deserve a drink, Ricky.’

‘You all deserve a drink,’ said Ricky turning to Miss Lodsworth. ‘I’m frightfully s-s-sorry. I’ll refund you for the apples, and any other damage. I haven’t got any cider, but I can offer you plenty of whisky.’

Miss Lodsworth had had a long day. ‘Oh all right, I haven’t been inside this house since I used to come here to dances when your father was a boy. Not that he ever danced with me.’

After Ricky’d settled them in the drawing room with drinks, he went in search of Perdita. She wasn’t on the wooden horse or in the yard or in the tack room. Little Chef tracked her down in the pink dusk at the bottom of the garden, with her arms round an apple tree, sobbing her heart out.

‘Please God, make Wayne better,’ she was saying over and over again, then started as Little Chef stood up on his stumpy back legs to lick her hand.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she wailed. ‘Please give me another chance. I love it here so much. I promise not to cheek Frances and cut corners. I just love the ponies and Cheffie – and you – so much,’ she couldn’t stop herself adding.

In a year of working for him she had never cried or apologized. She looked so forlorn, so utterly defeated, her head drooping like a snowdrop, her wonderfully lithe body clinging almost orgiastically to the tree trunk. Ricky had to steel himself not to take her in his arms, but he would have been putting a match to a petrol-soaked bonfire, and he didn’t want to hate himself any more than he did already.

‘It’s OK,’ he said gently. ‘He’s not ill, just drunk. He’d helped himself to Miss Lodsworth’s cider apples.’

‘Oh, my God! Will he be OK?’

‘Fine, except for a thumping hangover. But you can’t afford to make mistakes like that. He might have got on to the motorway.’

‘Like Little Chef,’ shuddered Perdita, starting to cry again. ‘That’s what makes it so awful.’

‘I over-reacted,’ said Ricky dropping a hand on her hair. ‘You can start full time next week if you like.’

‘Oh, you are lovely.’ Seizing his hand, Perdita covered it with kisses. ‘I could make you better. I really do love you.’

Ricky felt dizzy. It was so long since he’d wanted someone like this.

‘No, you don’t,’ he said firmly. ‘You ought to be meeting more boys your own age, not lechers like Bas and the twins. If you’re coming to work here full time, you’re bloody well going to join the Pony Club.’