Polo (86 page)

    No-one by contrast was happier in the parade than Spotty. Incensed to watch his friends Wayne and Kinta going off to the earlier matches, he now had a chance to show off. Revelling in the laughter and cheers of the crowd, who'd been told by Terry Hanlon he was an all-American pony, he flashed his long brown legs beneath his white rump, rolled his white eyes at the band and deliberately let off a volley of the loudest farts to embarrass his mistress as she circled in front of the Prince after her name was called.

    Tero would never have done that to me, thought Perdita with a stab of anguish.

    Frank Sinatra and Dancer were to have sung their individual National Anthems, but Dancer's plane had been diverted with engine trouble, to the disappointment of the English team, so Frank Sinatra sung them both, which brought a tingle to everyone's spine.

    `Shit, Alejandro's umpiring!' said Seb. `He's bound to favour Angel.'

    `I'm going to be sick,' said Mike in a faint voice.

    `Well, be sick in your hat,' said Seb briskly. `We don't want slippery patches on the grass.'

    Still under the careful eyes of the security guards, the Westchester gleamed on its red tablecloth. The television cameras were rolling, a semicircle of cameramen hovered on the edge of the stands solely monitoring Chessie's behaviour.

    Back at the pony lines Perdita glanced at Ricky. He looked really ill. Was he that worried about losing Chessie? What a tragedy that Dancer hadn't arrived in time to cheer him up.

    `Good luck, you chaps,' said Brigadier Hughie.

    `Good luck,' chorused Louisa and the grooms. They had worked so hard and once their precious charges were on the field they could only pray.

    `Just rattle them in the first chukka,' said Rupert, then adding to Perdita, as she changed off Spotty on to one of David Waterlane's ponies, a grey mare called Demelza, `Shark's wildly overweight. He's going to feel the heat.'

    It was only as they lined up for Paul Newman to throw in

    the first ball from the back of a Cadillac that Ricky realized he'd forgotten to bring Chessie's red rose - not even a petal in the bottom of his boot.

    `Come on, you guys,' screamed Perdita, suddenly excited. `Imitate the action of a tiger.' The next minute the ball - a special bright yellow one to show up on television - crashed into the shifting blockade of ponies and riders and the final of the fourteenth Westchester Cup was off.

74

    In fact the Americans played such a dazzlingly aggressive game in the first half that Luke's absence wasn't obvious, and by half-time they were leading 4-0. Taking no prisoners, Shark Nelligan rode Perdita off with such violence that all the breath was knocked out of her body. When she got near the ball his long, beefy arms hooked her stick, and every time she tried to stop him clearing he somehow barged the quarters of one of his huge horses into her. Seb and Mike pressed the battle without let-up, doing their best to stem the American advance, but Ricky's game was definitely off. He had no aggression, his passes didn't connect or went straight to the opposition, and the few stabs he made at goal went wide.

    `What the fuck are you playing at?' yelled Rupert as he came off at half-time. `You select a bunch of kids who are playing like gods. You're meant to lead them over the top and you're being about as uplifting as a five-year-old jock strap.'

    The temperature was still rising. Male hands applied oil to vulnerable female shoulders. The crowd was enjoying the sunshine but had lost bounce and were even doing the Spot the Ball competitions in their programmes. The bars were doing a roaring trade. The press wilted in the heat. Their cameras had become very heavy; they'd come all this way and there was no story. Red and Perdita were showing no sign of falling into each other's arms, and Chessie looked stunned rather than stunning at such an English setback. All the animation had drained out of her face and she refused to talk, even to Bibi, who was reeling with joy because Angel had scored three of the goals.

    Even the arrival of Dancer in Joan Collins's private plane didn't rouse the cameramen. Megastars were two a dime today. Fighting his way to the pony lines, Dancer found the English mounting their ponies for the fourth chukka. `To fink I've been stuck in an Alderton sardine tin for the last fifteen hours just for your sake, Ricky, only to find you're nil-four down. Get yer fucking finger out.'

    Then, seeing how ill Ricky looked: `It's no big deal, sweetheart. If you lose and Chessie loves you, she'll come back anyway.'

    Ricky stared at him bleakly. `You think so?'

    `Course she will. She's looking pretty cheesed off now. Here's somefink to cheer you up,' added Dancer.

    It was a photograph of Little Chef in a polo hat and dark glasses.

    Ricky laughed and turned it over, where Daisy had writ- ten,
`Good luck and love from everyone at Snow Cottage.'
`When did you see her?'

    `Yesterday,' said Dancer.

    `Move your ass, Reeky,' yelled Alejandro, `everyone's waiting.'

    Shoving Little Chef's photograph into his breeches' pocket, Ricky vaulted on to Kinta and galloped back on to the field.

    At the beginning of the fourth chukka a machiavellian Red pulled up on the ball, convincing Alejandro that Seb had crossed him. Up went the American sticks. Alejandro awarded a penalty from the sixty-yard line, which Shark converted gloriously. The rest of the side crowded round him, their patting hands sinking into his fleshy back. Five-nil.

    `Good thing we dropped Luke,' muttered Bart to Brad Dillon. `Shark's playing great.'

    He felt happier than ever before in his life. Red's speciality, the fifth chukka, was coming up. Ricky and the Brits would be utterly humiliated and his beautiful Chessie would stay with him. Earlier he'd seen Grace hanging round the pony lines giving Red advice. She was still a handsome woman, but in the harsh Californian light, she looked sixty. For the millionth time, despite everything, Bart was glad he'd left her for Chessie, whom he adored and understood. She'd be utterly miserable going back to

    the unimaginative, inhibited Ricky, who was playing like a nought. With any luck, he might be put down. It was a joke he could ever be considered a ten.

    As play started again, and they lined up for the throw-in, a bored voice in the crowd called out: `Oh, come on, England.'

    Perdita turned in fury: `We're doing our best, you fucker,' she screamed. `You try playing against this ape.'

    The crowd shouted with laughter. In the ensuing męlée Shark swung his pony's head into Perdita's ribs once too often.

    `You bastard,' she yelled. Then, to herself: `Help me, God! We can't let them win so easily!'

    And from the spacious royal-blue firmament on high the Almighty seemed to answer by suddenly putting wings on her back and on her pony's heels.

    `Cry God for Charlie, England and St George,' she screamed to the others and, cannoning off Shark, then into Red, then stopping short, then wheeling away under their horses' tails, she careered off and put a beautifully angled cutshot from twenty yards into goal. The crowd roared.

    `That's better,' pleaded Terry Hanlon. `Come on, you Brits in the crowd. Give the boys and the girl a chance. They need you.'

    Thirty seconds later Perdita came pounding down again, whacking it to Seb, then racing ahead, picking up the ball again and sinking a big nearside neck shot.

    `Come on, Ricky,' she yelled as she rode back to the centre, `we can't do it on our own.'

    Every time Red and Shark tried to ride her off now, she vas too quick for them and they found they were bumping the breeze. Slowly the English, and particularly Ricky, steadied, and they ended the fourth chukka only 3-6 down.

    `Well done! Fucking marvellous,' said an ecstatic Rupert. `Fantastic play, Perdita! Keep it up all of you. Your job in the next chukka, Seb, is to mark Red mindless. Stop him letting off any fireworks.'

    The fifth chukka was uneven. Mike, rather than let Red score, fouled deliberately in the American goal-mouth, so that Shark had to go back to the sixty-yard line to take the penalty. Overcome by nerves, he hit wide.

    `Luke wouldn't have missed that,' Perdita taunted him.

    Goaded and desperate to make his mark on polo history, Shark was determined to score from the Number Four position, and kept trying to bulldoze the British defence, leaving his own back door wide open and enabling Perdita and Seb to score twice more.

    `Corporal's now been promoted to Warrant Officer Two,' whooped Seb, triumphantly patting Dommie's little brown pony as they cantered back for the throw-in.

    A second later the play was down near the English goal and an utterly rattled Shark mis-hit so the ball ricocheted off the boards over the back line.

    `You stay there, Fatty. I'll be back in a minute,' yelled Perdita at Shark as she belted off to take up her position as Mike hit in. The crowd howled with laughter.

    `Wash your mouth out with soap, Perdita,' said Terry Hanlon, `but isn't she playing well!'

    Catching the other side off guard, Mike powered the ball to Ricky who, keeping moving to lure Angel away, broke off to the right to receive the ball, then before Angel could blink, backed it to a hovering Seb, who, swinging Corporal round, scored yet again.

    `Corporal's an RSM now,' whooped Seb.

    Six-all to England on the bell.

    The whole crowd were on their feet yelling their heads off as the teams went into the last chukka, and the Americans steadied and rallied.

    `England, England, England,' chanted the galvanized British contingent.

    Now they were into a frantic męlée in front of the American goal. Angel somehow managed to clear and Ricky sent the fleet-footed Wayne after the ball. As he could hear Red thundering down on him, the only answer was to back it. Turning round in his saddle, a miracle of cool, Ricky took a lightning look at the posts, then, picking the left-hand one as a target, keep- ing his body steady and Wayne moving, leant over to the left until his head was level with Wayne's gallant, pounding heart and raked the ball over the antheap of players slap between the posts. As the flag went up, the crowd gave a collective sigh of horror and ecstasy. Overheard by everyone, Chessie uttered a shriek of joy and raised a clenched fist in a Black Power salute: `Oh

    Ricky, darling, what a wonderful, wonderful goal,' she screamed ecstatically.

    The cameramen went berserk. They had a picture at last.

    The English were also ahead at last. But with three minutes to go they could feel their ponies wilting. Spotty was panting like an obscene telephone caller and his brown patch foamed, under his breastplate, like an overflowing washing machine. Red and Angel had taken the opportunity when the last goal was scored to change ponies. The English problem was to stop either of them getting the ball. Next minute Mike gave his side a breathing space by clouting the ball firmly into the stands.

    `Unsporting but necessary,' said Seb as the players lined up. `You're learning, Mike.'

    In the closing seconds a perfect eighty-yard drive from Red took the ball down to the English end where it was centred by Bobby Ferraro. One after another, yelling with frustration, Angel, Bobby, Shark and a furiously galloping-up Red tried to hammer the ball between the posts. As Mike cleared for England through a thick curtain of dust, a great groan went up from the stands. For once again Shark had left the American posts unattended. Taking the ball up the boards with two mighty driving passes, kicking up a halo of dust as he went, Ricky could feel Wayne struggling to stay ahead and Red on a new pony gaining on him. Just in time he jumped the boards and did a forehand cutshot to Seb, who, hearing Angel's pony behind him and seeing five seconds left on the clock, took a frantic swipe at goal.

    Realizing it was going wide, Perdita catapulted forward for the offside forehand.

    `Bloody hell,' she screamed as the ball hit a divot and bounced awkwardly to the left. Rupert had permanently taunted her that she had no nearside cut shots. She'd show him.

    Dimly she was aware of the great roar of the crowd chorusing: `Spotty, Spotty, Spotty.'

    Triumphant in his moment of glory, revelling in the circus blood which was now pumping on overtime through his veins, Spotty noticed the ball had shifted. Jamming on his brakes, he pirouetted like Nureyev on his conker-brown legs sixty degrees to the left, thrusting Perdita withinreach of the ball, but at the same time wrapping her in a cloud of dust.

    She couldn't see what she was doing, but, trusting Spotty and her instincts, she leant perilously out to the left and with a flick of her wrist like a tennis backhand stroked the ball where she prayed the posts might be.

    Then she dropped her reins and clapped her hands over her eyes, unable to watch as the dust cleared. Slowly opening her fingers, she saw the miracle of the flag going up, then frenziedly joyful waving. The bellow of the crowd was so deafening that no-one heard the final horn. It had been such a wonderful match that the sporting, marvellously good-natured crowd could forgive a British victory and poured on to the pitch to honour all the eight heroes.

    Perdita's throat was so dry that she couldn't whoop for joy. Instead she hurled her stick high into the blue and people rushed forward to catch it.

    Desperate to get the first quote, a
Scorpion
reporter had pinched one of Bart's ponies and thundered up the field to thrust a tape recorder under Perdita's nose. What with the frantic panting of Spotty and Perdita's delirious croaking, the reply was pretty inaudible.

    `Well done, Perdeeta!' It was Angel, reaching out to shake hands and hug her. Next minute Shark was beside her, looking like his namesake deprived of a nice fat human. Then suddenly his ugly face split into a great grin and he clamped a vast sweaty arm round her shoulders.

    `Well done, honey. I've gotta admit you outplayed us. I never thought I'd say that to a slip of a girl.'

    `Who gave you the slip?' Bouncing through the crowds like a dog through a barley field, Seb hugged Perdita and pumped Shark's hand.

    `Jolly big of Shark,' he added in an undertone. `Evidently Bart offered him a quarter of a million bucks if they won.'

    `Christ!' said Perdita in awe, as Spotty nearly disappeared beneath a wave of patting hands.

    Refusing to shake hands with anyone, his face a death mask, Red galloped past her.

    `Well played,' called out Perdita, amazed that she suddenly felt so sorry for him.

    He turned unsmiling. `Fat lot of good it did me. You did great. Back off, you fuckers,' he snarled at the advancing

    photographers. Then, seriously endangering their Nikons and their lives, he galloped straight through the lot of them.

    It seemed ages before Perdita could wade through the surging ocean of wellwishers back to the pony lines. On the way she lost her hat and her whip and very nearly her shirt. Looking up, she noticed Rupert fighting his way towards her. Seeing the expression of blazing triumph on his face, she glanced wistfully round to see at whom it was directed, but there were only swooning, excited cheering crowds. Slowly it dawned that he was looking just at her. An instant later he'd dragged her off Spotty into his arms.

    `I'm all hot and sweaty,' she stammered.

    `Well done, my darling! Oh Christ,
I'm
proud of you!'

    As she looked up, bewildered, he put a hand on her soaked head and pulled it against his chest. He could feel the frantic pounding of her heart.