Polo

20

Apart from Perdita, the Rutshire team for the Jack Gannon Cup consisted of Justin and Patrick Lombard, farmer’s sons who’d spent their lives in the saddle and who made up for lack of finesse with dogged determination, and David Waterlane’s son, Mike, now nearly twenty-one, who played like an angel when his father wasn’t on the sideline bellowing at him.

In an exhausting, exhilarating fortnight, they moved round the country triumphing gloriously at Cheshire, being demoralized at Cirencester, where they drew against a vastly inferior team, cockahoop at Kirtlington, and nearly coming unstuck at Windsor, where Perdita was sent off for swearing, so Rutshire had to play the last chukka with only three men, and only just won.

On the first Friday in August they finally reached Cowdray and won the semi-finals by the skins of their gumshields. The Quorn, opposing them, had rumbled Drew’s Exocet weapon, and spent the match giving Perdita so much hassle that she only hit the ball twice. The Lombard brothers and Mike Waterlane, however, scored a goal apiece to put Rutshire into Sunday’s final against the mighty South Sussex, who hadn’t been beaten for three years.

The entire Championships were being sponsored by petfood billionaire and fitness freak, Kevin Coley, Chairman of Doggie Dins, Moggie Meal and the newly launched Fido-Fibre. Kevin had formerly sponsored show-jumping, but five years ago had run off with Janey, the wife of Billy Lloyd-Foxe, one of his professionals and Rupert Campbell-Black’s best friend. After Janey went back to Billy, Kevin had patched up his differences with his wife, Enid, but one of the conditions had been that Kevin would sponsor polo instead of show-jumping to avoid bumping into Janey on the circuit, and because their daughter, Tracey, would meet a nicer class of young man in polo. Trace – as she liked to be called – at eighteen was playing in the crack South Sussex team against Rutshire in the final. If she wasn’t quite up to her other team-mates, her presence there vastly increased her father’s generosity. The whole South Sussex team had been driving round the country in a vast aluminium horse box, evidently the latest thing in America, and Kevin had provided each player with four top-class ponies.

The South Sussex team was also more than compensated by the rock solidarity of a boy called Paul Hedley at back, and the dazzling Sherwood brothers, Randolph and Merlin, who’d pulled out of high goal polo for a fortnight to piss it up with the Pony Club.

Randy Sherwood, who was known as the Cock of the South, had a handicap of two and was so glamorous with his long, long legs and curly hair that fell perfectly into shape, that girls clamoured to groom for him for nothing. Merlin, who was quieter, but just as lethal, had pulled a different groupie every night of the Championships. Randy, going amazingly steady for him, had spent the fortnight screwing Trace Coley, who was as pretty as she was spoilt, because he’d heard rumours that Kevin was thinking of including him in his team next year.

Perdita and Trace had detested each other on sight and, together with Randy, Trace spent a lot of time when they weren’t screwing, winding Perdita up. Not only did they drench her in a water fight when she didn’t have a change of clothes and throw her on the muck heap, but on Friday evening offered her a roll filled with Doggie Dins, so she spent the rest of the night throwing up. Perdita reacted with screaming tantrums. Trace, suspecting Randy’s incessant baiting might have some basis in desire, stepped up the spite.

And now it was Finals’ Day and the number two Ambersham ground at Cowdray was a seething mass of caravans, tents, trailers, canvas loose-boxes for 200 ponies and rows of cars belonging to team managers and exhausted parents. Breakfast of sausage, egg and chips was sizzling over camp-fires. The mobile loos had worked until the day before, but now each bowl was an Everest of Bronco and the stench was getting worse.

With fifty teams present, there had also been one hell of a party the night before. Now, revellers nursed their hangovers. All the Beaufort and the VWH had been penalized for skinny-dipping. One of the Quorn had been discovered in a very loose-box with a girl from the Cotswold and dropped from his team. Perdita, not in a party mood, had stayed in her tent reading The Maltese Cat.

Daisy, having taken a fortnight’s holiday to drive Perdita around in yet another hired car, had never felt so shattered in her life. She spent the morning scrubbing out the ponies’ boxes because the Rutshire team manager, miffed that Drew seemed to have utterly taken over, threatened dire reprisals if a blade of straw was left on the floor. In despair at the greasiness of her hair, Daisy had washed it in the river – how the hell had women coped in biblical times? – and it had dried all crinkly. The cornflower-blue dress she had brought to wear at the finals had been slept on by Ethel and was impossibly creased, as was her face after two nights sleeping in the car. Her legs, not brown enough, were becoming bristly.

She was miserably aware of getting on Perdita’s nerves, and, as all the fathers had rolled up, of the loneliness of being a woman on one’s own. She was almost abject with gratitude to Drew who’d insisted she use his Land-Rover as her base, and who’d come up specially that morning to invite her to lunch and to watch the match with him and Sukey.

Among the Pony Club, Daisy noticed, Drew was a Superman. A fortnight ago he had played for England against America in the annual International. Only his two hard-fought goals and grimly consistent defence had prevented the game turning into a rout. Now he couldn’t move twenty yards without signing autographs. In his cool way Drew found this gratifying.

Marrying Sukey had admittedly enabled him to buy a string of cracking ponies and build a much-envied yard, but he was increasingly irked by the curbs on his freedom. Sukey raised eyebrows when he ordered rather too good a bottle of claret in restaurants. She winced at the size of his tailor’s bill and questioned him going to Harley Street to replace two teeth knocked out in the Gold Cup when there was a perfectly good National Health dentist down the road. And just because Miguel O’Brien had switched to a new, ludicrously expensive, lightweight saddle, why did all Drew’s ponies need one too?

Drew had never been extravagant, but he couldn’t see the point of parsimony for parsimony’s sake, so he had decided to look for a patron, some ignoramus who would pay him a long salary to coach him and look after his ponies. Kevin Coley was rumoured to be fed up with the dreadful Napiers and looking for a new senior professional. Trace Coley was impossibly spoilt, but Drew felt he could handle her. It was therefore in his interest to be the coach responsible for toppling South Sussex this afternoon.

While the South Sussex team, by invitation of Kevin, were all lunching on lobster, gulls’ eggs, out of season strawberries and champagne in the Doggie Dins’ Tent, half a mile away in one of Lord Cowdray’s cottages, the Rutshire were having a team meeting. The curtains were drawn so they could see the video that Drew was playing of their semi-final against the Quorn. Drew leant against the wall, his thumb on the control button.

‘Today we have one problem – you have to mark the other guys or we’ll lose. You should never be more than two horse-lengths away from your man at any time. You must concentrate. Justin. You were loose in the first chukka, so were you, Patrick.’ Drew froze the picture for a second. ‘Their Number Three was all on his own. If Randy Sherwood gets loose with the ball we’re lost. Trace Coley’s their weak link. You won’t have any trouble with her, Mike, so give Patrick all the back-up he needs and both mark the hell out of Randy.’

‘I’ll try,’ said Mike, who had a hoarse voice like a braying donkey, the gentle timidness of a Jersey cow, and blushed every time he was spoken to.

Drew turned to Perdita, who was deciding whether to race to the loo and be sick again.

‘Remember you’re playing polo, not solo, Perdita. Their back, Paul Hedley, is quite capable of storming through and scoring, so stay with him. And, above all, no tantrums. South Sussex may be ludicrously over-confident, but we can’t beat them with three players.’

Then, to Perdita’s squirming embarrassment, he replayed the clip of her rowing with the umpire three times, freezing the frame of her yelling with her mouth wide open, until her team-mates were howling with laughter and rolling round on the floor. A shaft of sunlight coming through the olive-green curtains wiped out the picture.

‘Let’s go and have lunch,’ said Drew.

Daisy hung about until Drew and the team came back to the Land-Rover. Sukey had done everyone proud, and the Lombard boys, who were Labradors when it came to food, were soon wolfing smoked salmon quiche, marinated breast of chicken, mozzarella in brown rolls, ratatouille and potato salad made with real mayonnaise.

Mike, who’d gone greener than the minted melon balls provided for pudding, and Perdita, who was lighting one cigarette from another, couldn’t eat a thing.

‘You must get something inside you,’ insisted Sukey bossily, ‘and you too, Daisy.’

I’d like your husband’s cock inside me, Daisy was absolutely horrified to find herself thinking. It was only because Drew had remembered she liked vodka and orange and had poured her two really strong ones. In her present vulnerable state she was hopelessly receptive to kindness.

‘Oh, where’s Ricky?’ moaned Perdita for the millionth time.

‘Don’t be too upset if he doesn’t come,’ said Drew in an undertone. ‘I know he wants to, but all these children riding and such family solidarity may be too much for him.’

He’s so sweet to her, thought Daisy gratefully, getting out her sketchbook as Drew took the team off to the pony lines to tack up.

Sukey firmly screwed the top on the vodka. ‘You’re driving. I expect you’d like coffee now instead of another drink.’

‘Aren’t you nervous?’ said Trace Coley fondly, as Randy accepted a glass of brandy.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Mike Waterlane’s their only decent player, and he’ll go to pieces as soon as his father turns up.’

David Waterlane drove his Rolls-Royce with the leaping silver polo pony on the front towards Cowdray. He had made the mistake of going via Salisbury because his bride of six months, who was twenty years younger than him, wanted to look at the cathedral. As they drove through rolling hills topped by Mohican clumps of trees and moved into the leafy green tunnels of Petersfield, his bride, who’d been primed by Drew, put her hand on her husband’s cock and suggested that it would be more fun to stop and have their picnic in a field than join the crowds at Cowdray. It was only two o’clock, they’d seen the parade many times before, and Mike’s match wouldn’t start before 4.15.

Ponies tacked up in the pony lines yawned with boredom as their owners gave them a last polish. Mothers cleared up the remnants of picnics. Fathers looked up at the uniform ceiling of grey cloud and decided to put on tweed caps instead of panamas.

Mrs Sherwood, Randy’s and Merlin’s mother, divorced, with a Brazilian lover, and too glamorous for words in a peach suede suit, was talking to Kevin Coley, who looked like a pig with a thatched, blond tea-cosy on its head. Kevin, in turn, was being watched by his wife, Enid, who had gaoler’s eyes, was more regal than the Queen, and in her spotted dress looked like a Sherman tank with measles. Daisy marvelled that she and Kevin could produce a daughter as pretty as Trace.

Cavalcades were riding quietly down to the ground, past trees indigo with recent rain, and cows and horses grazing alongside the faded grey ruins of the castle with its crenellated battlements and gaping windows. Of the fifty teams taking part in the parade, only eight were playing in the four finals, but there was still the prize for the best-turned-out team to be won.

The ground, a huge stretch of perfect emerald turf, was bordered to the north by fir trees and to the south by mothers having fearful squawking matches about the authenticity of various junior teams who weren’t allowed to ride bona fide polo ponies.

‘Tabitha Campbell-Black’s pony played high goal at Cirencester!’

‘No, it didn’t!’

‘Yes, it did!’

Brigadier Canford, Chairman of the Pony Club, and lover of pretty girls, was less amused to be stampeded by Valkyries.

‘The Beaufort are cheating. They’ve back-dated membership of their Number Four. He’s American and only been in the country two weeks.’

‘The Bicester are cheating too. I’ve just caught them trying to ditch their weak link and import a brilliant boy from Rhinefield Lower who doesn’t have a team.’

‘Ladies, ladies,’ said Enid Coley, joining the group of howling mothers. ‘Polo is only a game.’

‘And she’ll have the South Sussex team manager stoned to death at dawn with vegetarian Scotch eggs if they don’t win,’ murmured Bas Baddingham who’d just rolled up and was kissing Daisy.

At two forty-five the parade began. On they came: chestnut, bay, dark brown, dappled grey, palamino, the occasional extravagantly spotted Appaloosa, ears pricked, tack gleaming, stirrups and bits glittering.

Daisy marvelled at the shifting kaleidoscope of coloured shirts, and the great, ever-moving millipede of ponies’ legs in their coloured bandages. Many of the riders wore faceguards like visors in some medieval contest. Daisy wished she could paint it, but you’d need to be Lady Butler to capture that lot. Fatty Harris, Rutshire’s club secretary, seconded for the day to do the commentary, had had rather too good a lunch in the Doggie Dins’ Tent and was waxing lyrical over the ancient names.

‘Here comes the Beaufort, the Bicester, the Cotswold, the Vale of the White Horse, the Craven, the Shouth Shushex Shecond Team.’

‘Thought he’d have trouble with that one,’ said Bas.

‘And a big cheer for the Rutshire,’ went on Fatty Harris, ‘today’s finalists in the Jack Gannon.’

On came the Rutshire in their Prussian-blue shirts, Prussian-blue bandages on their ponies’ gleaming legs. Little Hermia, a changed pony after a fortnight’s attention from Perdita, danced and snatched at her bit in excitement.

‘She should have ridden Felicia in the parade,’ said Sukey disapprovingly. ‘Hermia doesn’t need hotting up.’

But Hermia’s the nearest she can get to Ricky, thought Daisy, and she’s still hoping he’ll turn up.

Next to Perdita rode Mike Waterlane on Dopey, a deceptively sleepy-looking pony, who was faster than a Ferrari and nipped all the opposition ponies in the line-out. Beyond him rode the Lombard brothers grinning broadly and enjoying themselves.

‘Oh, don’t they look lovely?’ Suddenly the tears spurted out of Daisy’s eyes and she had to turn away and bury her face in Drew’s Land-Rover. Next moment a large piece of kitchen roll had been shoved into her hand. A minute later, when she’d got control of herself, Drew was back with another glass of vodka and orange.

A great cheer rang out as Cowdray, the home team, came on in their orange shirts.

‘And here we have the other finalists in the Jack Gannon, unbeaten for the last three years, the South Shushex.’ Fatty Harris got it half right this time.

Randy, Merlin, Paul and Trace rode with a swagger and there was no doubt their ponies were the sleekest, fittest and most expensive of all.

‘I’m sure you all know that Trace Coley, the daughter of Kevin Coley, Chairman of Doggie Dins and our sponsor, is South Sussex’s Number One in the final today,’ announced Fatty Harris.

Kevin raised both clasped hands in a salute to acknowledge luke-warm cheers; Trace lifted her whip.

‘She’s left her hair loose, the little tart,’ said Perdita contemptuously. ‘That’ll cost them the turn-out prize even if they win everything else. Oh, I wish Ricky was here.’

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Fatty Harris, ‘I give you the Pony Club.’

At the sight of these serried, beautifully turned-out ranks, this huge army with their polo sticks on their collarbones like bayonets, a deafening cheer went up. Fathers rushed about with video cameras, mothers wiped their eyes. Randy and Merlin Sherwood’s beautiful mother adjusted her mascara in the driving mirror and eyed Rupert Campbell-Black who’d just rolled up alone in a dark green Ferrari to watch his daughter, Tabitha, play in the first final for the under-fourteens. Rupert, who’d just been appointed Tory Minister for Sport, eyed Mrs Sherwood back.

Then, suddenly, out of the sky like a vast whirring hornet came a black helicopter. Perdita gave a gasp as it landed to the west of the pitch. The door flew open and, like a page from Nigel Dempster, out jumped the Carlisle twins, Seb carrying Decorum, their bull terrier, and Dommie helping out a redhead and a blonde whose skirts immediately blew above their heads to show off wonderful suntanned legs. They were followed by Dancer in dark glasses and black leather, Twinkle and Paulie, each with an Alsatian, and finally – Perdita gave a scream of delight – by Ricky with Little Chef in his arms.

‘Now, members of the Pony Club, will you please walk off the pitch,’ exhorted Fatty Harris. ‘We owe it to the Cowdray ground and to Lord Cowdray to walk off.’

In the past the temptation to gallop across the hallowed Cowdray turf, which so many of them were not going to have the chance to play on, had been too much for the teams. Dreadful stampedes had resulted, with the whole field being cut up before a ball had been hit, which had resulted in turn in threats of not being allowed back. The sight of Ricky, however, was too much for Perdita.

‘I’m here,’ she screamed, and digging her heels into Hermia, went straight into a gallop towards the helicopter, followed by 199 yelling Pony Club members, who fortunately veered off to the left, and didn’t trample the new arrivals to death.

‘Disgraceful,’ spluttered Sukey. ‘She should lose her scholarship for that.’

Drew shrugged. ‘The sooner she’s packed off to New Zealand away from Ricky the better.’

Seeing her master, Hermia ground to a halt and whinnied with pleasure. Little Chef leapt up and licked her nose.

Jumping off, Perdita threw herself into Dancer’s arms, hugged the twins, and then turned more shyly to Ricky. Her heart was crashing around like Big Ben about to strike.

‘Thank you so much. I never thought it’d make so much difference,’ she gabbled.

Ricky put up a hand and touched her cheek.

‘Hermia looks well,’ he said, ‘and much h-h-happier.’

‘She shakes hands for a Polo now,’ said Perdita.

‘You’d better win. We’ve all got money on it,’ said Dancer. ‘Can you get that crate of Moët out?’ he added to Twinkle.

The twins, who had only left the Pony Club two years ago, pushed off to see their old chums. Everyone else landed up beside Drew’s Land-Rover. Soon the autograph hunters were swarming round Drew, Bas and Dancer. It broke Perdita’s heart that Ricky, who’d only been out of top-class polo for three years, was totally ignored.

‘What a lovely shirt,’ said Sukey to Bas. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘Marks and Spencer, I think,’ said Bas.

‘There, you see,’ Sukey chided Drew. ‘I’m always telling you there’s no need to go to Harvie and Hudson.’

Seeing the flash of anger in Drew’s eyes, Bas tactfully enquired after the baby. He’d forgotten what sex it was.

‘Oh, Jamie’s at home,’ said Sukey. ‘I’m amazed how Drew dotes on him. Men love having a boy, don’t they?’ She turned to Ricky. ‘It matters so much to a man having an heir.’

For a second, as Ricky’s face went dead, Bas and Dancer exchanged horrified glances.

‘Isn’t that Tabitha Campbell-Black playing for the East Cotchester?’ said Bas, as a tiny figure, jaw thrust out, white stick-like legs flailing, thundered down the boards. ‘Come on, Tabitha.’

‘Man, man, man,’ screamed the tiny figure to the East Cotchester Number Three. ‘Take the fucking man, for Christ’s sake.’

The umpire blew his whistle. ‘That’ll be forty against you for swearing, young lady. Consider yourself lucky you haven’t been sent off.’

Bellowed on by her father, Tabitha scored three goals and East Cotchester won the Handley Cross.

Leaning against the Land-Rover, Daisy drew Rupert. Goodness, he had a beautiful face. Then she drew Ricky with his sombre, slanting dark eyes and then Drew twice, trying not to make him too handsome. In pencil, she could never capture the blueness of his eyes. Having sketched Bas as a merry Restoration rake, she had a crack at Sukey. Not easy – Sukey’s charm was all in her colouring. She had a long face and such a naked forehead, Daisy found herself turning her into a polo pony.

‘I’d hide that if I were you.’

Looking up with a start, Daisy saw that Ricky was actually smiling.

‘Oh my God.’ Daisy ripped out the page.

‘Very appropriate,’ said Ricky, taking it from her. ‘I’m sure Sukey turns on sixpence.’

‘She has a turn if Drew spends sixpence,’ said Bas, peering over Ricky’s shoulder. ‘Bloody good, that’s brilliant of Rupert. I’m much better looking than that.’

Giggling, Daisy stuffed the page into her pocket.

‘I’ve done a couple of Hermia, in fact several,’ she shoved the book at Ricky. He really was the most shy-making man.

Ricky flicked through, really looking. ‘You’ve got her, even that little scar over her eye. They’re marvellous.’

‘Keep them,’ said Daisy, blushing.

‘I framed your cat. You must come and see it.’

‘You must come and have supper sometime,’ Daisy was staggered to hear herself saying. It must be the vodka.

‘I’d like that,’ said Ricky.

And he always says no to Philippa Mannering, thought Daisy. Perhaps if he fancied Perdita he saw her as a potential mother-in-law.

‘Hello, Ricky,’ said a shrill voice. Grinning up at him, her two front teeth missing, was Tabitha Campbell-Black.

‘Hello, Tab. D’you know Mrs Macleod?’

‘You played very well,’ said Daisy.

‘I know. None of the others did.’ Tabitha, who had all the beauty and arrogance of her father, was now gouging out the centre of Sukey’s home-made fruitcake with both hands.

‘Have you had a good camp?’ asked Ricky.

‘Great. I haven’t cleaned my teeth for a week.’

‘They’ll fall out.’

‘No, they’re used to it.’

‘Where’s your father?’

‘Chatting up Randy Sherwood’s mother. He’s given Beattie Johnson the push, which is a shame. She never minded me getting into bed with her and Daddy.’

‘Has he bought any new horses?’

‘Yes, a stallion called Lord Thomas. He’s so good, I hold the mares when he mates with them. Lord Thomas is the perfect gentleman, he always licks the mares afterwards.’

‘Unlike his father,’ murmured Ricky to Daisy, as Tabitha scampered off.