Polo

59

Red’s temper was blazing like a forest fire when Perdita got home.

‘Where the fuck have you been? You were supposed to be at a Ferranti promotional lunch.’

‘I went to see Luke. I rang Dino’s secretary and said I couldn’t make it.’

‘Bullshit. You’re under contract. Buyers flew in from all over the world to meet you. Dino went apeshit. What in hell are you playing at? How was Luke anyway?’

‘Awful, simply terrible.’

‘You can’t have helped. I’ll go and see him tomorrow and you better call Dino and crawl or they’ll slap Winston Chalmers on you.’

Dino Ferranti was icy with rage. ‘You step out of line once more, right, and you’re fired, and we’ll sue you for breach of contract.’

All in all Perdita wasn’t in a very chipper mood to go to a barbecue that evening, particularly when Red was immediately collared by a comely female feature writer in a groin-level, blue suede skirt from Vanity Fair.

The party was held in a copse near one of the polo barns. Coloured lights hung from the trunks of the pine trees, which soared upwards like pillars blotting out the stars. The still air was heavy with the smell of charcoal, pine needles, long-marinaded hunks of lamb, pork and chickens which sizzled and spat as they turned on the barbecue. Rather like me, thought Perdita as she looked across at Red working his magic on the sexy journalist. He’d given up his yellow blazer because all the young bloods in Palm Beach had slavishly copied him. Now he had reverted to his pale blue one braided with emerald green. A lock of hair had fallen over his forehead; his eyes were dreamy; he looked like Rupert Brooke.

‘I prefer to ride mares, in and out of bed,’ he was saying. ‘They’re more competitive.’

The girl smiled and arched her lean and hungry blue suede pelvis towards him.

There’s no point being jealous, thought Perdita echoing one of Red’s commandments, it hurts only yourself.

Away from the fire was a large wheelbarrow, stacked with drink people had brought. Perdita was mixing herself a Green Devil when Angel came up.

‘You saw Luke. ‘Ow was he?’

‘Not brilliant. He looked dreadful.’

‘I ’ear Alejandro is being paid $20,000 a match to play for Hal. Is crazy.’

Perdita took a slug of her Green Devil and choked. It was nearly neat vodka. ‘He had a girl with him called Margie. Jolly bossy, but horribly attractive.’

‘Bibi say she’s very nice.’

Perdita leant against a pine tree. ‘Is it serious?’

‘She looking after Leroy for Luke so it must be.’

Perdita experienced a jab of jealousy so bad it winded her. Some of the younger players had started a food fight. Wham was pounding round the pine trees. Angel ducked to avoid a flying sausage roll.

‘You pick the wrong guy,’ he said.

‘I did not,’ snapped Perdita. ‘Red and I are just like that.’ She held up two crossed fingers.

‘So it would seem,’ said Angel, glancing across at Red who was dancing under a gum tree with the Vanity Fair reporter. The same height, they touched in the most interesting places.

‘You picked the wrong wife,’ said Perdita.

From the nearby barn the occasional stamp or snort of the ponies could be heard. Red-and-silver heart-shaped balloons tied to each box bobbed up to the roof.

‘If someone cut the string your heart would float away like one of those balloons.’

‘Not yet.’ Angel’s face was in shadow. ‘I ’ave promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.’

‘Oh, for Chrissake, I’m sick of that bloody poem.’

The inevitable polo dogs wandered around crunching bones and being tripped over and sworn at. Shark Nelligan’s white bull terrier, confined to his master’s truck because he tended to kill other dogs, leant genially out of the window, his elbow resting on the ledge, being fed pieces of meat and petted by passers-by.

Mixing herself another drink, Perdita couldn’t remember when she had last eaten. She could see Juan coiled round a blonde. To make up his days and avoid paying tax a reluctant Victor had had to leave the party and fly out of Palm Beach before midnight, leaving Sharon to chat up the latest beefcake from Brazil. Jesus was ringing England on Sharon’s car telephone. ‘I weel play for you, Sir Waterloo, eef you pay me $200,000. Veector already offer me that much money. And pay my airplane fare, and a ’ouse. No, I don’t need to breeng my wife – you save on that.’

‘Is Bibi coming?’ Perdita asked Angel.

‘She’s working,’ said Angel flatly. ‘Don’t drink too much, Perdita. Go ’ome before you do anything silly.’

‘Come and dance with me,’ said Perdita.

But at that moment Innocenta emerged from the lilac shadows bringing a plate piled with lamb chops, potato salad and barbecue sauce which she proceeded to share with Angel. Red was necking openly as he danced now. If she hadn’t been scared of his temper, Perdita would have hurled the greasiest pork chop she could find at the girl’s gyrating blue suede bottom.

‘They’re called barbecues because you queue up to receive barbs,’ she said to no-one in particular as she finished her drink.

‘How’s Luke?’ Shark Nelligan came up to her with a plate piled disgustingly high with food. He was interested because he and Luke both played back and would be competing for the same place in the US team, particularly for the Westchester which would mean serious money.

‘I hear his career’s washed up and Hal Peters is paying Alejandro $50,000 a match,’ he went on. ‘I want to get my hands on Fantasma.’

‘Luke won’t sell and he’ll recover,’ said Perdita, filling her glass yet again.

Shark grinned evilly. ‘I’m not sure Hal will. Myrtle, his ex, is taking him to the cleaners. And his new bimbo’s making so free with his Amex he’s praying for it to get stolen. And Luke’s medical bills will be even more astronomical if they call in Seth Newcombe.’

‘But Hal must be insured?’ said Perdita anxiously.

‘Sure he is,’ said Shark with his mouth full, ‘but he’s overstretched. He’s the best car man in Detroit, but he’s so off the wall he exported a thousand Peters’ Cheetahs to the UK last week with left-hand drive.’

‘But Luke’ll be all right, won’t he?’ persisted Perdita.

‘He’s got Bart to fall back on.’ Shark gave a piece of lamb to his slavering bull terrier.

Perdita shook her head. ‘He’s too proud.’

‘And he’s got a pretty sharp new girlfriend,’ added Shark spitefully.

‘Who?’ said Perdita, fishing, though it hurt her.

‘Margie someone. She’s a lawyer. She won’t let him starve.’

As Perdita turned away stricken, Angel emerged from the gloom with Innocenta looking a lot less innocent. Red was still talking to his journalist.

‘Lots of guys won’t have sex the night before a big game,’ Red was saying caressingly, ‘but I always do, and the following morning, although I might try less hard.’

One more drink, thought Perdita, and I’ll make a scene and separate them. She didn’t think she’d ever been more miserable in her life.

‘Hi. Aren’t you Perdita Macleod?’ said a soft voice.

A man with white-blond hair was smiling down at her. He was wearing a cream suit, a buttoned-down, pale blue shirt and a blue spotted tie. He appeared mercifully civilized compared with all these polo hicks, thought Perdita. He was nice-looking rather than handsome and had very light eyes in a beige face like Ricky’s pony, Sinatra.

‘Who are you?’ she asked aggressively.

‘Simpson Hastings.’

If Perdita had been less drunk she would have heard warning bells. Simpson Hastings appeared to know a lot about polo and particularly about her.

‘They say you’re a phenomenon beyond genius.’

‘Not to my face they don’t,’ said Perdita sulkily.

‘It’s a beautiful face. That’s your problem. If you were butch and ugly they could slag you off for being almost a man. They find your sex appeal disturbing.’

‘Not tonight, they don’t. I’ve got as much appeal here as a mink coat at an Animal Rights meeting.’

‘Where did the skill come from? D’your parents ride?’

‘My mother’s never been on a horse in her life.’

‘And Hamish?’

Simpson Hastings did know a flattering amount about her.

Swaying slightly, Perdita clung on to the truck. ‘Hamish wasn’t my father.’

‘Is that a fact?’ Simpson Hastings didn’t bat a pale-lashed eyelid. ‘He certainly didn’t look like you.’ Then, with the utmost gentleness, ‘Who was?’

‘I don’t know.’ To hell with everyone. Suddenly an Ancient Mariner compulsion to tell all swept over her. ‘My mother went to an orgy in the sixties given by her art master. He was called Jackie Cosgrave. Everyone screwed everyone, particularly my sodding mother. She has no idea which one was my father.’

‘Difficult for you,’ murmured Simpson Hastings without a trace of excitement. ‘Hard to know who to relate to. But he must have been a very good rider.’

Back in Rutshire, Daisy had had a long day finishing off a painting, which Ricky said she’d never get paid for, of Billy and Janey Lloyd-Foxe’s children. As the two-year-old daughter had nearly smashed up Ricky’s house on the first sitting while Janey got happily plastered, Daisy had worked thereafter from photographs and had just painted Billy’s late mongrel, Mavis, as a dog cherub up in the sky. As a background she’d used the particularly tranquil view from Ricky’s balustrade of perpendicular woods and jade-green fields dotted with ponies grazing westward towards the setting sun. Not wanting to disturb Ricky, she slipped out of Robinsgrove by a side door. There was an air of tremendous bustle and excitement about the yard because practice chukkas were starting at the Rutshire tomorrow. She paused for a second to watch the twins, Mike Waterlane and Ricky working out fiendish strategies to fox the opposition.

The twins, back from Palm Beach, were dazzlingly blond and brown and shouting their heads off as usual. Despite the high spirits, however, they’d been training incredibly hard together. No-one was going to take the Gold Cup away from them this year.

It was a spellbinding evening. Two grey geese and a squad of pale yellow goslings broke the turquoise surface of the lake. Three days of rain after a spate of warm weather had brought out the white cherries and the bluebells in a sapphire mist on either side of the ride. The poplars, shiny, acid-green, were wafting the scent of balsam down the valley. Crows nesting in Ricky’s beeches had splattered the wild garlic leaves like milk of magnesia on green hangover tongues. Daisy had heard the cuckoo through the open window of her studio all day. She felt quite faint with happiness. Ricky had become such a friend recently and her painting was going wonderfully. Perdita was due back in three weeks and surely couldn’t sustain the feud for ever; and Daisy was expecting Drew that evening. By the law of sod, if ever she glammed herself up and washed her hair Drew had to back down at the last moment. Today she’d chanced it and put on a dark green jersey he’d bought her and her best jeans. She was in luck, for there outside the cottage was Drew’s BMW. Splashing through the last twenty yards of watermeadow, she clambered over Ricky’s padlocked gate, raced up the path, then gave a gasp of disappointment. For outside the door was not Drew, but a glamorous, if slightly grubby-looking, blonde, wearing rather too much eye make-up for daytime, a creased denim suit and scuffed black shoes with the steel high heels escaping from the leather. With her was a man carrying a camera with the leering face of a drunken vulture and snowdrifts of scurf on the shoulders of his shiny grey suit.

‘Mrs Macleod?’ said the girl, as though she was about to sell Daisy insurance. Ethel, for once, bristled and started to growl.

‘We’re from The Scorpion,’ the girl went on. ‘Can we have a word?’

‘What about?’ stammered Daisy.

‘It’d be easier inside.’

Daisy opened the front door.

‘Don’t you ever lock up?’ asked the girl.

‘Nothing to steal,’ said Daisy. ‘Look, if it’s about Red and Perdita, I’ve got nothing to say.’

‘Well, it is.’ The girl dumped her bag on the kitchen table. ‘Perdita told Simpson Hastings in Florida yesterday that she’d no idea who her father was.’

‘Oh, no,’ Daisy licked her lips, eyes darting from the girl to the man. ‘Perdita’s father was killed in a car crash. He never knew I was pregnant.’

‘That’s not what Perdita told Simpson,’ interrupted the girl cosily.

She opened her notebook but made no notes because a tiny tape recorder was rotating in the breast pocket of her denim suit.

‘What a nice kitchen. I love all the flowers. Perdita said you went to a party in 1966 and everyone got stoned and screwed each other and you got pregnant as a result.’

‘She couldn’t have said that,’ mumbled Daisy, groping for the kettle switch.

‘D’you want to read the exact words?’ The girl produced a rather crumpled newspaper proof from her bag. It smelt of Femme. Daisy was too shocked to take much in. Her legs wouldn’t stop trembling.

‘I loathe my mother,’ she read. ‘She must have been a tart to sleep with all those men. She claims she was stoned but that’s her story. She’s lied to me for years that my father was killed in a car crash.’

Ethel, having climbed heavily on to the kitchen table, was now licking the blonde’s face.

‘Don’t be disloyal, Ethel,’ said Daisy in a high, unnatural voice.

‘But I love dogs,’ protested the blonde.

‘Dogs get on with dogs, I suppose,’ said Daisy. ‘Sorry, that was frightfully rude. I can’t read any more.’

Racing upstairs to the loo, she retched and retched until she thought she would bring up her hammering heart. Then she cleaned her teeth and wiped her face, closing her eyes desperately trying to still the trembling. As she returned to the kitchen the blonde said: ‘We thought we’d give you a chance to put your point of view.’

‘I’ve nothing to say. Oh, poor Violet and Eddie.’

‘Your kids,’ said the blonde consulting an earlier page in her notebook. ‘They’re at boarding school, aren’t they? Let’s all have that cup of tea.’

Daisy filled the kettle and switched on the gas, but didn’t light it. After a couple of seconds the blonde leapt forward with her lighter.

‘Don’t want to blow ourselves up. We’d make it very worth your while. You could do with a new washing-up machine and a lovely conservatory out into the garden, and a new car – that Volkswagen is on its last legs and we could help with the school fees and a really nice holiday so you could escape from all this.’

Then, as Daisy looked at her uncomprehendingly: ‘We’re talking five or six figures.’

‘It’s a lovely car,’ said Daisy, thinking that Drew had given it to her. ‘It goes perfectly well.’

‘Perdita says a man called Jackie Cosgrave hosted the orgy.’ The blonde was getting down mugs and the tea caddy. ‘Is he still around?’

‘No,’ said Daisy in terror. ‘I haven’t seen him since that winter.’

A flash lit up the room.

‘You’re awfully young to have a twenty-year-old daughter,’ leered the photographer.

‘I was only seventeen,’ sobbed Daisy. ‘Please don’t take pictures. I don’t remember anyone at the party. I was so drunk, but that doesn’t make it any better. Please go away.’

They all jumped as the kettle whistled and the telephone rang.

It was Drew. ‘Thank Christ I’ve got you. I wish you’d stop working up at Ricky’s.’

‘The Scorpion are here,’ gasped Daisy. ‘Perdita’s told them about the orgy and that she hasn’t a clue who her father is.’

‘Fucking bitch,’ said Drew absolutely appalled. ‘Oh, my poor darling. Don’t say anything to them.’

‘They’re in the house.’

‘I’ll come straight over.’

‘Oh, please.’ Then, after the first blessed relief: ‘No, you mustn’t. It isn’t safe. Sukey, the children . . . ’ She stopped, realizing she’d probably said too much.

‘I’ll ring Ricky,’ said Drew. ‘Look, I love you. It’ll be OK. Don’t worry.’

The flash bulbs were going like mad. Gainsborough crashed fatly in through the cat door, then crashed out again in dismay.

‘Have you got any photographs of yourself when you were seventeen?’ asked the blonde, opening a drawer.

‘Get out,’ shrieked Daisy.

‘Hard for Perdita, not having a father. No wonder she’s screwed up,’ said the blonde losing some of her cosiness.

Kinta had never been encouraged to run away before but, as Ricky, alerted by Drew’s telephone call, picked up his whip, the mare thundering down the valley, crushing cowslips and cuckoo flowers, jumping the bustling stream as it twisted and turned and sending up twelve feet of spray, frightened even herself.

Hearing a thud of hooves, Daisy glanced out of the window. For a second she thought Ricky was going to jump the gate. The skid marks were six feet long after Kinta jammed on her brakes. Next minute her reins had been knotted to the bars and Ricky had vaulted over the gate. As he came through the door his face, jeans and check shirt were splashed with mud and he was so angry that at first he couldn’t get any words out.

Instinctively the blonde’s hand rose to lift her tousled hair and wipe away the shine beneath her eyes and on the sides of her nose. Ricky crossed the room and put his arms round Daisy. ‘It’s all right, pet.’

‘Hullo, Ricky,’ said the blonde, whose mouth was watering. ‘Remember me?’ She waved her hand in front of his eyes to break up his blank stare.

With a shudder of disgust, Ricky recognized the author of Rupert’s memoirs.

‘It’s you, Beattie,’ he said icily. ‘I might have guessed it.’

‘Been cheering Daisy up since she became your tenant, have you?’ mocked Beattie. ‘All the world loves a landlord, and all.’

‘No, I have bloody not,’ snapped Ricky. ‘Now beat it.’

‘Perdita worked for you and had a crush on you.’ Under Ricky’s ferocious glare Beattie started backing towards the door. ‘She says all she wants to do is find her real father and experience some real love and understanding.’

‘Bullshit,’ thundered Ricky. ‘She’s had a bloody sight too much love and understanding. Perdita is basically a good child who’s fallen among thieves. Do I have to throw you out?’

‘You wouldn’t dare,’ said Beattie in excitement, then screamed as Ricky opened the window, gathered her up and threw her out kicking and struggling into a flowerbed.

‘Sorry about your wallflowers,’ he added to Daisy as, two seconds later, the photographer and his expensive camera followed suit.

‘You bastard,’ yelled Beattie, picking herself out of a rose bush. ‘These tights are Dior and new on. I’ll get you for assault.’

But as Ricky went out of the front door in pursuit they jumped into their BMW and drove furiously away. Ricky turned back to Daisy. Her eyes were huge and staring. She was still shaking uncontrollably.

‘I never knew Perdita hated me that much,’ she whispered through white lips. ‘And what am I going to do about Violet and Eddie?’

Ricky went to the cupboard and, finding an inch of vodka in a half-bottle, tipped it into a glass and topped it up with orange juice.

‘Get that down you, then I’ll drive you over to tell them.’

‘But it’s the beginning of the season. You’ve got so much on. It isn’t fair you should be dragged in.’

‘I’m in already. Don’t imagine Beattie’ll forget her hurt pride and her laddered tights in a hurry.’

They didn’t talk much as they drove through the emergent spring thirty miles to Violet’s school and then another twenty miles on to Eddie’s. In her numbed state Daisy wondered if Ricky was working out polo plays. When he met Violet’s headmistress his coolness and detachment seemed to diffuse her disapproval. She was obviously captivated by his looks.

Violet went scarlet when Daisy stumbled out with the truth, then she put her arms round her mother. ‘Perdita’s a bitch, but she’s so off the wall at the moment and she’d probably just had a row with Red. You were younger than her when it happened. We’ll look after you.’

Eddie’s headmaster, a breezy, bearded homosexual, couldn’t look Daisy in the eye, but his voice became much warmer when he spoke to Ricky. Eddie seemed outwardly unfazed.

‘Perdita’s father might be a pop star then. Can I come home with you? We’ve got a history exam tomorrow and I haven’t revised.’

‘Come home at the weekend,’ said Ricky. ‘We’ll shoot clays. I’ll lend you a rod and you can fish in the lake.’

Drew rang up when they got back to Ricky’s house. He was forced to be very matter of fact, but Daisy could tell he was worried sick.

‘I’ll come over and see Ricky tomorrow,’ then with an endearing stab of jealousy, ‘it’s a good idea for you to stay there tonight. He’ll protect you from the press. But don’t fall in love with him.’

‘Of course I won’t,’ stammered Daisy.

Never had she missed Drew more. But Ricky was angelic. He gave her two sleeping pills left over from the ones prescribed for him when Will died and had left orders, despite the warmth of the evening, for one of the grooms to light a fire in the spare room.

‘You said one very important thing to me about Will’s death,’ he told her, ‘that night we had dinner together, that I’d got to learn to forgive myself. You’ve got to do the same.’

But, however angelic Ricky was, nothing prepared Daisy for the horror of The Scorpion next day.

‘Gang, bang, thank you, Mum,’ said huge front-page headlines. Then beneath a ravishing, tremulously tearful picture of Perdita, a caption: ‘Please find my real Dad,’ pleads Perdita, ‘everyone had Mum that night.’

Inside under a headline: ‘Red’s Raver tells all,’ they had printed the full interview with Perdita, saying how much she detested her mother for cheating her out of a father. Even worse, they had somehow got hold of a ravishing photograph of a seventeen-year-old Daisy, with a sixties fringe, long, straight hair and huge eyes, and superimposed it on an incredibly voluptuous, naked, Page Three body.

‘If you recognize this girl, you may be Perdita’s Dad,’ said the caption.

Over the page under another headline: ‘Caring Ricky in Mercy Dash,’ the copy began: ‘Fun-loving Daisy was hiding out yesterday with her landlord, ace polo player Ricky France-Lynch (Family Motto: Never Surrender). Caring Ricky left his ten-bedroom Georgian home and galloped through his 400-acre estate on a polo pony to stand by his lovely tenant. Known as El Orgulloso for his snooty manner, Ricky once employed Perdita as his groom. “Perdita has got into bad company,” claims Ricky, “Daisy has been a very supportive mother.”’

‘Poor old Daisy,’ said Bas Baddingham to Rupert. ‘Gosh, she was pretty in those days.’

Taking The Scorpion from him, Rupert examined the photographs. ‘Pretty now. Christ, Beattie’s excelled herself this time. At least it might make Ricky finally get his act together where Daisy is concerned.’

‘Didn’t we used to know a creep called Cosgrave?’ asked Bas. ‘Used to give wild parties in the sixties?’

‘Everyone gave wild parties in the sixties,’ said Rupert.

Jackie Cosgrave hadn’t prospered in later life. Teaching art bored him, his waist had thickened, his yellow hair turned white, his white teeth yellow, his mouth petulant. Women were no longer so keen to buy his paintings, nor girl students to sleep with him.

‘Oh, Mr Cosgrave, it’s all about you in The Scorpion,’ said the art college cleaner as she swept up charcoal, paint-stained rags, old tubes of paint and scraps of newspaper.

Picking up The Scorpion Jackie looked long and hard at Daisy. He remembered her and, after wracking his brains, he remembered the party. In those days when he had beauty and could get drugs, the world was his friend. Returning to his flat, he took down his diary for 1966 and turned to February which he’d been wise enough to illustrate with photographs. The central heating had been turned up to tropical that night, he’d taken a lot of photographs and written down the names of all the people who’d been at the orgy. Studying Perdita’s face, the answer was cut and dried. Picking up the telephone he rang The Scorpion News Desk.

‘I’ll tell you who Perdita’s father is, but it’s going to cost you.’