Polo (53 page)

    Luke shrugged. `I don't know. I guess all marriages are Africa. They did an autopsy on one of Shark Nelligan's ponies the other day, the hide looked fine, but inside where the spurs had gone in, the scar tissue, the tearing, and the bruising were appalling. That's marriage. Same way, I gotta horse, cut to pieces outside, scars everywhere; inside, she's one of the best mares ever. Hard to generalize.'

    Ricky felt pole-axed with misery. Even talking about Chessie crucified him, and with performances as lousy as today's, how could he ever win the Gold Cup, let alone get to ten or bring the Westchester back to England?

    `I can't stand other people being happy,' he mumbled shame-facedly. `It makes me s-s-such a shit. D'you think I'll ever get over her?'

    `Sure you will,' said Luke, thinking that he hadn't remotely got over Perdita. `You need some fun.'

    Stretching out a hand, he found Ricky had collapsed on his hay bale, nudged asleep perhaps by the velvet muzzle of Mattie's ghost. Little Chef curled into the hollow of his back with a martyred sigh. Fetching a couple of rugs, Luke covered both of them.

    God, he was handsome, even with that wicked scar running livid down the side of his face. No wonder Perdita loved him. Giving a wide-awake Wayne a handful of pony nuts, Luke wandered off to Ricky's library to find something to read. Tomorrow they'd get down to work.

    A fortnight later Luke went into Rutminster with Ricky to look for a new bit for Kinta. Returning home, he found his grooms and ponies had caught an earlier flight and were already installed. Racing round to the yard, he called Fantasma's name. Recognizing his voice, she promptly tried to bash her way out of her box, and, finding that impossible, stood back on her hocks and cleared the dark blue half-door, clattering up to her master, whickering in ecstasy, nudging him all over, searching his pockets for Polo mints.

    `Christ, what a beautiful horse,' said Ricky who wasn't given to superlatives. `I never expected her to be so big.'

    `I can't believe she's grown so much,' said Perdita in amazement.

    `Nearly a hand,' said Luke proudly.

    `And she's filled out everywhere,' went on Perdita.

    `When you see the girth on her,' said Luke, his voice breaking slightly as he buried his face in Fantasma's neck, `you realize why she's got so much heart. It's a real privilege to own a horse like this. Ouch,' he yelled, as Fantasma, resentful of being abandoned for a fortnight, took a sharp bite out of his arm, then nudged him apologetically.

    `Bitch,' said Luke, grinning and getting out a packet of Polos. `That's because I didn't take her with me on Concorde.'

    He also found it faintly embarrassing, having insisted that all the Apocalypse team get up early and work all their ponies every day, that he waived the rules with Fantasma. Instead he hacked her gently round the Rutshire countryside.

    `She gets awful bored if I stick and ball her,' he told Ricky apologetically, `and only just tolerates practice chukkas. I guess she saves herself for the real thing.'

    `If she takes out your bloody father, I'll forgive her,' said Ricky grimly.

47

    If Ricky's hatred for Bart grew deep inside him like a beast, then Bart was equally obsessed with Ricky. The prospect of coming to England with enough ponies for a cavalry regiment and publicly showing the world who was the better man gave him an unbelievable sexual
frisson.
He was therefore outraged by a piece in the April issue of
Polo
magazine questioning the future invincibility of the Flyers.

    `Hitherto Bart Alderton has been shored up by the mighty ten goalers, Juan and Miguel O'Brien, and wildly underhandicapped ringers. Allied to the volatile and extremely vocal Napier brothers and an unknown Mexican this summer in England, will Bart be able to retain the Flyers' supremacy?'

    Having fired off a solicitor's letter to
Polo
magazine Bart went into an orgy of pony-buying. Nor could the pleadings of Bibi that Alderton Airlines had recorded their first loss in twenty years, that 500 blue-collar and 400 white-collar workers had to be laid off and Bart ought to be there to fire them personally, that the vice-presidents of the various sections of the Alderton empire were at each others' throats, stop him spending May, June and July in England.

    The lay-offs and losses were just symptoms of a worldwide malaise, Bart told Bibi airily. Business would pick up in the fall. Anyway he was always at the end of the telephone or a fax machine. He couldn't understand either why Bibi, as his polo manager, couldn't accompany him and Chessie to England. Things wouldn't run nearly as smoothly without her. But Bibi insisted that one member of the Alderton family must stay home to mind the shop. Nor was she prepared to leave Angel, who was still banned from playing in England, loose on his own on the US circuit for two and a half months. The punishing hours she worked for Bart had already put a great strain on her marriage.

    `Surely Angel could spare you for the big matches? Marriages need ventilating,' grumbled Bart, totally forgetting that he wasn't prepared to leave Chessie on her own for a second in England. As it was, he already hadsecurity guards following her twenty-four hours a day and had bugged the telephones and rooms both at the huge house he had just bought near Cowdray and at the flat in Knightsbridge. Chessie got her revenge by spending a fortune on clothes and enlisting the help of the guards even to choosing the colour and shape of her lingerie. If the world's press was clamouring to witness her first meeting with her ex-husband in four and half years, Chessie reasoned, she better look good.

    To the press's disappointment this meeting didn't occur until the final of the Queen's Cup. Apocalypse, who, under Luke's crash course, had finally got their act together, stormed through their side of the draw, taking huge delight in thrashing the Kaputnik Tigers, consisting of Victor, the twins and the great American Number Three, Bobby Ferraro, in the semi-finals, before meeting Bart, the Napiers and an unknown Mexican in the final.

    Luke's greatest headache on the day was keeping Apocalypse calm. It was like ponying three wild mustangs along a freeway. Perdita, suffering from appalling stage fright, became more histrionic and picky than ever. Ricky, whose stomach had been churning all summer at the prospect of bumping into Chessie, had been throwing up all night. Dancer, the most frightened of the three, hid it the best and consequently became the recipient of a lot of flak from Perdita and Ricky, particularly during practice chukkas and while they were watching videos of earlier Alderton Flyer matches.

    `It's only because you take criticism so well that we can tell you things,' Luke kept comforting Dancer.

    Most patrons worried more about the bank manager than playing badly. Dancer, acutely aware he was the weak link in the team, was terrified of letting Apocalypse down. He had to mark Ben Napier, who was twice his size and four times his strength. He hardly slept the night before and in his fitful dreams was ridden off by the whole world.

    As none of the three could keep anything down, there was no question of a team lunch to create solidarity before the match. Dancer, because he liked to get up slowly, cope with his nerves on his own and arrive as late as

    possible to avoid being mobbed, flew to the Guards Club by helicopter. The others went by car. Ricky drove with Perdita in front because she felt sick and Luke and Little Chef, dancing across Luke's knees to bark at every dog they passed, in the back. As he was the team mascot, Dancer had given him a collar of jet from which dangled a tiny ivory horse.

    `That dog is so spoilt,' grumbled Perdita, `he even gets the gardeners to bury his bones for him.'

    Luke had done his homework on the Alderton Flyers. He had watched every match they played in England and, by judicious chatting up of grooms and other players, had familiarized himself with every pony they'd be riding and had briefed Apocalypse accordingly.

    `Team's top-heavy, with my father and the Napiers yelling their heads off and all wanting their own way. The only person they've got to boss around is this Mexican guy called José, who can't understand a word of English, which may enhance his peace of mind, but doesn't make for cohesion. We'll flatten them.'

    On paper the Flyers were much stronger. The game plan was to harass the hell out of them until they fouled out of exasperation. Then, against long, accurate penalties from Luke, there would be no defence. If the match went Apocalypse's way, the others would leave Luke as a rock-solid wall of defence and concentrate on attack.

    Luke wished he felt more cheerful. As Ricky overtook everyone on the M4, the damp patches under his arms joined across his back until his whole shirt was soaked in sweat and Luke could see his shoulder muscles as rigid as petrified snakes.

    It was a close, punishingly hot day. Thunder grumbled on the horizon. The heatwave was in its third week. Wild roses and the creamy discs of elderflowers draped over the hedgerows shrivelled in a day. A heat haze undulated on the tarmac ahead. It was a relief to come off the motorway into the dark green oak and chestnut tunnels on the road to Windsor. Behind fern-filled verges and ramparts of purple rhododendrons, Luke caught glimpses of large pink-andwhite houses which reminded him of Palm Beach, lawns yellow from the hosepipe ban and paddocks full of jumps and ponies whisking unpulled tails across glossy rumps.

    Men in shirtsleeves and girls in sundresses were drinking outside pubs.

    `Christ, I'd like to spend the afternoon knocking back Pimm's and watching someone else make a fool of themselves,' said Perdita in a hollow voice. Luke felt as if an ice-cube had been slipped into his hand. Glancing down he saw it was Perdita's hand reaching back to him. Although the nails were bitten and dirty and the palm calloused, he had to resist lifting it to his lips. Instead he squeezed it gently.

    `Give us a poem, Luke,' she asked.

`Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,'
began Luke, his deep voice slightly croaky from dust.

    They were passing Windsor Castle now and Luke thought ruefully of the sightseeing he had hoped to do. He hadn't been to London yet, let alone Stratford.

`Or close the wall up with our English dead!'
he went on.

`In peace there's nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility;

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

Then imitate the action of the tiger.'

    `Not the Kaputnik Tigers I hope,' said Perdita. `I'm so scared I'll probably play like Victor. Christ - look at those crowds and those tents.'

    From the car-park came a humming like a vast swarm of bees, as chauffeurs, not wanting to melt away, kept on the air-conditioning of their limos. No wind displaced the wilting flags along the pitch, but inside the hospitality tents electric fans could be seen ruffling vast clumps of pink peonies and pale blue delphiniums as men, wishing they'd worn striped shirts which didn't show the sweat, and beautiful women refusing red wine because it would make their faces even pinker, toyed with lobster, cold beef and strawberries and cream.

    Ricky, aware that the Alderton Flyers and their wives were lunching in the tent of Alfred Dunhill, the sponsors, suddenly thought he saw Chessie and nearly ran over a programme seller.

    `Oh, look,' said a fat waitress, chucking leftovers into a grey, plastic dustbin, `there's that Perdita, the one that said "eff off' to Prince Charles.'

    `Ow, yes,' said her friend excitedly. `Hello, Perdy, can

    we have your autograph? Thought you was in the Tower. Stuck up little madam,' she added, as Perdita gazed stonily ahead.

    Down by the pony lines crowds surged forward to admire Apocalypse's equine stars. Wayne appeared to be sleeping peacefully but was actually wondering how to bite his way through his new reinforced lead rope. They did awfully good teas at the Guards Club. Spotty, the show-off, was thrilled to see so many people. Fantasma, as usual, was standing on her front legs lashing out simultaneously with both back barrels.

    `Thank God you've arrived,' said Luke's groom, Lizzie, despairingly. `I've got one more stud to screw into her hoof and I can't get near her in this mood.'

    Next door to Fantasma, Perdita was trying to calm down a frantically trembling, sweating Tero.

    `God, the Flyers' horses look well,' she said gloomily. `There's Glitz, and that chestnut Andromeda's even faster than Fantasma.'

    `That's because the Napiers cut their horses up before a match,' said Luke, taking the spanner from Lizzie and picking up a now comparatively docile Fantasma's nearside hoof. `One touch of their spurs and they fly.'

    `Bastards, I hate them,' stormed Perdita.

    `That's the right attitude,' said Luke. `Napiers keep their horses in all the time. They're not so relaxed as ours.'

    `Could have fooled me,' said Lizzie, rubbing a large purpling bruise on her arm.

    `I'm sorry, honey.' Luke patted her cheek as he handed her back the spanner. `Thirty minutes to the parade. We'd better get changed,' he added, propelling Ricky, who, despite the heat, was shivering even worse than Tero, towards the players' changing room.

    `And where am I supposed to change?' demanded Perdita.

    `In the Ladies,' said Ricky curtly.

    `And get gawped at? I'd rather use the lorry, but you can all flaming well stand guard, or Guards, while I have a shower later.'

    Ricky sat in a dark corner of the changing room taking ages to zip up his boots, buckle his knee pads and his luckybelt, and button up his lucky gloves which had almost fallen to pieces. He must get a grip on himself. He'd only get Chessie back by hammering Bart. At the moment he wouldn't know where to stand to hit a sixty-yard penalty.

    Suddenly he froze as Bart came in and dived for the nearest loo. Prolonged peeing followed by a volley of farts and a vile smell told him Bart was as nervous as he was. Ricky felt slightly better, and better still when Bart came out and spent several minutes combing his wolf s pelt forward to cover a receding hairline and re-smoothing his shirt into his belt and his breeches into his knee pads and boots. He then dived into his locker and produced some bronzing gel called `Indela', newly launched by Victor's pharmaceutical empire, which didn't run when you sweated.

    Outside, a band, redder than their tunics, were playing the British Grenadiers as clouds, blacker than their bearskins, marshalled on the horizon. A curious light had turned the field viridian as military men with lean figures strode around barking instructions into walkie-talkies.

    Ricky, who was madly superstitious, was slightly cheered as the band, bored with military marches, launched, to the ecstasy of the crowd, into `Four Horsemen'.

    `Four Hor-ses, white horse, black horse, red horse, pale horse, plague, famine, justice, death, riding, riding, riding,' roared the crowd stamping their feet in time on the wooden boards, as the menacing music swept through the ground.

    `Isn't that marvellous!' cried Perdita.

    `Unfair bloody advantage, hyping up Apocalypse,' snarled Bart to the Napiers and the uncomprehending Mexican.

    `Let's object,' said Ben Napier, two spots of colour staining his cadaverous cheeks as, exactly on cue, a vast, black helicopter cast its shadow over the pitch.

    With great difficulty and the help of a dozen security guards Dancer fought his way through to the pony lines.

    `Fuckin' 'ell, don't it sound grite?' he grinned at his team-mates. `I might go out and give them an encore. I love the Guards Club,' he went on, lowering his voice. `They can't believe anyfink as cockney as me can play polo. Colonels keep comin' up and saying " 'Ullo, Dancer, you over from New Zealand again?" '

    Perdita giggled; even Ricky smiled slightly. But he was

    watching Bart who'd cut all the Apocalypse team, even Luke, stone dead and was now shouting at the Napiers and into a telephone at the same time. How could Chessie be married to that, he thought with a shudder. Luke edged closer to his father.

    `I don't give a shit if it has crashed,' Bart was saying. `I can't bring them back to life. Put Winston Chalmers on to it at once. I'll call you later.'