Polo

75

Back in Eldercombe, Daisy, unable to sleep, stayed up all night putting the finishing touches on a painting of Mrs Hughie’s Burmese cats before watching the second half of the match live at five o’clock in the morning. Venturer must be delirious. It was truly gripping television – and Daisy was thrilled Perdita played so brilliantly and didn’t seem unduly fazed about Red. She also experienced passionate relief when Perdita rang to say Rupert had at last forgiven her and admitted paternity and how lovely he’d been.

But all this bounty made Daisy even more bitterly ashamed that she should feel so suicidal at a British victory. Throughout the match her eyes had constantly been drawn to Ricky who, despite his suntan, looked incredibly grim and gaunt.

She ought to be pleased for him and managed to congratulate Perdita very convincingly when she rang up, but when Perdita said, ‘Talk to Ricky,’ Daisy couldn’t face it and had hung up and taken the telephone off the hook. Outside the sun was rising and in the hall mirror she saw, wiping away the tears, that she’d streaked burnt sienna all over her face.

Having let the dogs out, she retired to bed, pulling the duvet over her head and falling into a miserable half-sleep. After lunch she took the dogs out for a walk. She noticed next year’s sticky buds, the same Mars-red as polo boots, pushing their way through the ragged, orange leaves of the horse chestnuts. She passed a burdock bush, so mildewed, brown and shrivelled among all the ravishing autumnal oranges and golds. It left a cluster of burrs on her coat. Shivering, she thought how it symbolized a desperately clinging, defeated, abandoned woman. Oh, please don’t let me get like that, she prayed. A huge, red sun was dropping behind the woods as she crossed Ricky’s watermeadows. The dogs were sniffing frantically beside the gate and there was a strong smell of fox. It must have just killed a baby rabbit – soft, grey fur littered the grass.

Daisy started to cry again. Back in the house she put the telephone back on the hook. Immediately the Daily Star rang.

‘Hi, Daisy, great about Perdita. You must be a very proud Mum.’

‘I am.’

‘Great about Rupert accepting paternity.’

‘It’s lovely, but I don’t want to talk about it. I won’t have any mouth left if I keep shooting it off.’

Slamming down the receiver, Daisy took it off the hook again. She tried and failed to paint and then at eight o’clock took a large vodka and tonic into the sitting room to watch a recording of the match. It was the real thing this time, all six chukkas and Luke winning the MVP award. His freckles were exactly like the puppies, thought Daisy. He’d be lovely to paint. And then she saw Chessie hurtling into Ricky’s arms, and, feeling as though someone had dropped a tombstone on her from a great height, turned off the television. All hope gone. She’d never, never, known misery like it.

Outside the wind was rising, so she shut the windows. In the kitchen the puppies were chewing up a dark red book called The Nude in Painting. On the table was a thank-you letter Violet had started to the mother of her boyfriend:

‘I had a really good time,’ read Daisy. ‘It’s lovely to get away from Rutshire. Mum’s so depressed at the moment.’

And I hoped I was putting on a brave face, thought Daisy. Wondering if Red Indians put on brave faces when they got up in the morning, she started to cry again. The only answer was to get drunk. Sobbing unceasingly, she finished the vodka bottle and then passed out.

She woke to find herself on the drawing-room sofa with the dogs crammed into two armchairs gazing at her reproachfully. Outside the Niagara Falls seemed to have been diverted under the house. Whimpering, she opened the curtains and shrieked as a laser beam of light pierced her eyes. There had obviously been a terrific storm in the night. You could have gone white-water rafting on the Frogsmore as it hurtled past. Branches littered the lawn. She could see several trees down in Ricky’s woods and the track to Eldercombe was full of puddles turned the colour of strong tea by the disturbed earth.

Incapable of anything else, Daisy carried on crying. As the telephone was off the hook, a succession of reporters were reduced to rolling up at the house to discuss Perdita’s great triumph. Unable to face them, Daisy took refuge in the potting shed. Here she discovered the nude she’d done of Drew three years ago and brought it into the kitchen determined to burn it.

At lunchtime, when the whole valley was steaming and a primrose-yellow sun had come through the mist like a halo searching for a saint, a car drew up outside. It was Violet, delighted Perdita had won, but more interested in the weekend she’d just spent in the Lakes with her new boyfriend.

‘How d’you tell you’re in love, Mum?’

‘D’you go weak at the knees when he kisses you?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Violet perplexed, ‘because I’m always lying down. Are you all right, Mum? You look awful.’

‘I think I’m getting gastric flu,’ muttered Daisy.

‘Oh, poor you! Go to bed. Why’s the telephone off the hook?’ asked Violet, putting it back. Immediately it rang.

‘It’ll be for me.’ Violet snatched it up, then, in disappointment as she handed Daisy the receiver, ‘It’s for you.’

‘Where the hell have you been?’ howled Ricky.

‘Oh, out and about.’ Daisy tried desperately to sound bright. ‘It’s terrific you won. You sound as though you’re just next door.’

‘I am next door,’ said Ricky brusquely. ‘We’ve got to talk. I’ll be with you in five minutes.’

Violet picked up her car keys: ‘I’m just popping down to the village shop for some cigarettes. D’you want anything?’

But Daisy had bolted upstairs, cleaning her teeth until they bled, scraping the olive-green moss off her tongue. However many vats of eyedrops she poured into her eyes, they still glowed like carbuncles, remaining determinedly piggy and swollen. Sailors could climb the rigging of wrinkles under her eyes, and when she tried desperately to rub them away they wouldn’t shift. Frantically she slapped green foundation over her red-veined cheeks, but she still looked like a ghoul, so she rubbed it off, which made her cheeks glow brighter than ever.

Suddenly she remembered the mess in the kitchen and, clutching her pounding skull, stumbled downstairs and started throwing things into the washing-up machine. The puppies were now calmly eviscerating a cushion, scattering feathers all over the hall.

‘Oh, oh, oh,’ wailed Daisy. It was all hopeless. Slumping down at the kitchen table she started to cry again. Ethel shambled over and put a muddy speckled paw on her knee. Jumping up, Little Chef tried to lick away her tears, but they flowed even faster. Then, through the shaggy curtain of clematis and honeysuckle, she saw Ricky’s car draw up and, despite everything, felt her stomach disappear as she watched him get out. He looked shadowed under the eyes and terribly grim. Next minute she winced as Little Chef dug his claws into her jeaned thighs and shot off through the door, screaming with joy to welcome him.

‘Oh, please,’ pleaded Daisy, clutching her head as Ethel let out her great bass-baritone bark and the puppies took up a yapping chorus.

Ricky looked even grimmer as he came through the door with Little Chef wriggling ecstatically under one arm. Then he caught sight of Daisy and stopped short.

‘Jesus! What’s up with you?’

‘Hangover,’ muttered Daisy. ‘I feel dreadful.’

‘Shouldn’t drink so much. Serves you right.’

‘I’ve been under a lot of strain. D’you want a cup of coffee?’

‘No. I want you to come outside.’ Taking her hand, Ricky dragged her protesting out on to the lawn where everything dripped and sparkled in the sunlight.

‘I know the garden’s a mess,’ groaned Daisy as the two-foot grass drenched her jeans. ‘Lend me a combine harvester and I’ll make you enough hay to see even Wayne through the winter. I promise I’ll tidy up everything, including myself. I know it’s awkward with Chessie coming back, but we won’t get in your way.’ Then, seeing the unrelentingly bleak expression on his face, ‘Just let us stay till Christmas.’

‘No, I w-w-want you out of here t-t-tonight.’

Daisy’s lip started to tremble: ‘But you’re supposed to give us a month’s notice.’

‘I’ve changed the lease.’ Ricky removed a burr from her hair with a desperately shaking hand. ‘There’s a new clause which says you can’t stay here any longer if your landlord falls in love with you.’

But Daisy wasn’t listening. ‘We’ve got nowhere to go.’

Roughly Ricky turned her round to face the sun, examining her deathly pallor, the hectically reddened cheeks, the swollen eyes spilling over with tears.

‘I’m totally repulsive,’ she sobbed.

But when she tried to jerk her head away, his hands closed on either side of her face like a clamp.

‘Look at me.’

With infinite reluctance Daisy raised her eyes. Even jet lag couldn’t ruin his bone structure or the length of his dark eyelashes.

‘It’s not fair you should be so beautiful,’ she mumbled helplessly, ‘and we’ve got nowhere to go.’

‘What about R-r-r-robinsgrove?’ stammered Ricky. ‘You can bring Perdita and Violet and Eddie and Ethel and the puppies, even that inc-c-c-ontinent cat if you like. I love you,’ he said desperately. ‘Will you marry me?’

‘Me marry you?’ mumbled Daisy incredulously.

His face was suddenly so unbelievably softened that she had to drop her eyes hastily, fearing some cosmic, practical joke.

‘Oh, please,’ Ricky spoke to the top of her head. ‘I couldn’t understand why I was so bad-tempered in America. I couldn’t sleep – I mean even less than usual. Then I realized I was missing you hopelessly all the time. I had to fight the t-t-temptation to ring you and beg you to come over.’ He smiled slightly. ‘I searched everywhere for daisies, but the lawns are so perfect over there they don’t have any.’

The rosiness of her cheeks spread to the whole of Daisy’s face, but she simply couldn’t get any words out. To save her trouble Ricky bent his head and kissed her, first very shyly and tentatively, then, when she responded with alacrity, very hard indeed, by the end of which Daisy’s knees had literally given way for the first time in her life and as she couldn’t speak or stand up they collapsed on to the old garden bench she still hadn’t got round to painting.

‘But what about Chessie?’ she mumbled finally.

‘Buggered off with Red.’

‘What! When?’

‘The night of the Westchester. She vanished in the middle of dinner. I went back to the house we’d rented. I couldn’t face any more celebrating. Didn’t feel there was anything to celebrate. Half an hour later Rupert rolled up with a letter to me that Red had had delivered to the restaurant. He said he was desperately sorry, but he’d been hopelessly in love with Chessie ever since she’d become his stepmother, but had been fighting it because he hadn’t wanted to screw up his father. It all falls into place – why he was so irredeemably bloody to her always, why he was so frantic to beat us. He was far more terrified she’d come back to me than Bart was. Then she hurled herself on me after the match and it finished him off completely. So he finally thought, Sod Bart, declared himself and they ran off.’

‘Goodness,’ said Daisy in awe. ‘Just like that?’

‘Well, not entirely,’ Ricky shrugged. ‘They’ve obviously been sidling round each other for ages. Perdita admitted she caught them in bed after the polo ball.’

‘Oh, the poor little duck,’ said Daisy appalled. ‘Why didn’t she tell anyone?’

‘She promised Red she wouldn’t.’

‘Is she absolutely devastated?’

‘No, at least not about him. Daisy darling, can we talk about us?’

‘Poor you,’ said Daisy in horror. ‘You must have been . . .’

‘Ecstatic, giddy with relief. I’d psyched myself out for so long, obsessed with proving we could win the Westchester, obsessed with getting Chessie back because I felt so guilty about Will. I knew she was miserable with Bart and I’d driven her into his arms in the first place. Suddenly I was free. I felt a great burden falling off my back. Like one of Victor’s ponies at the end of a chukka.’

Daisy giggled.

‘I got the first plane back,’ Ricky went on, ‘getting more and more panicky because I couldn’t get you on the telephone. Did you know there’s been a hurricane? London’s out of action. The Stock Exchange has stopped trading. Fifteen million trees have been blown down.’

‘That’s nothing to losing you,’ said Daisy simply. ‘When I saw Chessie leaping on you and looking so beautiful, I was so unhappy I just got drunk.’

‘I was worried you’d see that,’ admitted Ricky, ‘and I was worried Drew was in Rutshire, festering because we hadn’t asked him to play.’

‘Drew?’ stammered Daisy, going even pinker.

‘Drew,’ said Ricky acidly and told her about finding the puppies eating Drew’s shoe the day before he left. ‘Jesus, I was jealous!’

‘Oh, how awful! I’m so sorry.’

‘I’ll forgive you if you never, never, sleep with him again.’ Ricky cut short her frantic apologies with another kiss, then he drew her head against his chest, stroking her hair.

‘It’s strange,’ he said slowly. ‘I feel so safe when you’re in my arms, but all I want to do is to make you feel safe. You’ve always reminded me of a stray bitch chucked out for getting in pup, who, although she looked after all her puppies in the wild really well, needed a loving master and a home.’

‘Oh, I did,’ sighed Daisy.

‘It’s also a dreadful confession,’ said Ricky, ‘but it’s the first time in my life I’ve loved something more than polo. My nerve failed me at the beginning of that third match, I didn’t want to win because subconsciously I didn’t want Chessie back.’

Snuggling her face happily into his chest, Daisy suddenly saw pink spots before her eyes. Could it be her hangover? Then she blinked again and, putting her hand up, realized they were real pink silk spots on a blue background.

‘You’ve left off your black tie,’ she said in amazement.

Ricky glanced down. For a second he, too, had difficulty speaking.

‘I don’t have to wear it any more. The mourning’s over.’

Wonderingly, Daisy put her hand up and touched the scar on his face. For a second he flinched, then his hand closed over hers. ‘Darling, darling Daisy, are you quite sure you don’t mind being a double parent again?’

Suddenly he looked so vulnerable that Daisy put her arms round his neck and kissed him. They were so engrossed they didn’t hear the dogs barking or pause for breath until Violet appeared in the doorway.

‘Hi, Mum. I’m back. Christ!’

‘Bugger off,’ ordered Ricky. ‘We’re busy.’

‘Okey’doke,’ said Violet.

But two minutes later she put her head round the door with a faint smirk. ‘Sorry to interrupt you two love birds, but it’s Drew on the telephone for you, Mum.’

Ricky’s eyes narrowed. ‘It is bloody not,’ he howled, loping back into the house. Temporarily blinded after the sunlight, he snatched the receiver from Violet.

‘Drew? You can fuck off, and if you ever come within a million miles of Daisy, I’ll smash your head in – and break your bloody jaw. Pity Angel didn’t do it properly the first time,’ and he crashed the receiver back on the hook.

Violet whistled. ‘Wowee! Macho man.’

‘Don’t you get lippy with me, miss,’ snapped Ricky. ‘I’m going to be your new stepfather.’

For a second they glared at each other, then Violet giggled.

‘I had guessed. Look, I’m really, really, pleased. Mum adores you so much. She’s been madly in love with you for yonks.’

Ricky blushed and was about to return to Daisy in the garden when he knocked over the nude of Drew which had been leaning inward against the kitchen table.

‘My God,’ he exploded.

‘I quite agree,’ said Violet. ‘That is definitely one for the log basket.’