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 Jose, 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-and-white 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.
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.
‘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 lucky belt, 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
