nearside. Fleetingly he felt Charles’s knee under his but managed to stay put.
‘Take your time,’ he yelled to Perdita.
Conscious of the cheers of the crowd, Perdita stroked the ball upfield. Then, out of nowhere, Ben Napier was hurtling towards her at ninety degrees like a boulder in an avalanche.
Oh my God, thought Perdita.
Oh my God, thought Spotty, who didn’t like the look of Ben Napier’s big bay gelding any better.
Rolling his white eye, he put on another amazing burst of acceleration, whisking his brown-and-white rump forward so Ben Napier bumped the burning air instead. Then, bearing Perdita on as proudly as a gun dog with his master’s newspaper, Spotty positioned her to meet the ball exactly right and flick it between the posts.
Grinning from ear to ear and unashamedly raising her stick to the cheers of the crowd, she cantered back to the halfway line, patting Spotty over and over again. Apocalypse, who had received two goals on handicap, were now 3-0 up.
‘You doll,’ breathed Luke, hugging her.
Ricky said nothing. He was plainly still suffering from shock. Bart just scowled.
‘Aren’t you sorry you gave me Spotty for Christmas?’ Perdita taunted him.
Euphoria, however, was shortlived. Ricky simply wasn’t connecting with the ball. It was as if he was wearing a pair of reading glasses to run down a steep flight of steps and such, eventually, was his frustration and rage and the ferocity of his ride-offs that he finally sent Bart and black Glitz flying five feet through the air so that even the Queen in the Royal Box could hear the bump.
Next moment the Napiers were twirling their sticks in the air and Shark Nelligan had blown a foul on Ricky. Contemptuously, Charles Napier converted. Soon it became plain to everyone that Ricky was out to bury Bart. By half-time he had given away three penalties and
Ben Napier, whom Ricky was supposed to be marking, had scored three goals.
As the crowd surged on to the field to tread in, Luke rode Fantasma back to the pony lines in a towering rage. The mare was panting desperately, her bottom lip flapping, her nostrils dark red, her tail thrashing at her sweating dock, the blood pumping visibly through her enlarged veins like some biology experiment. Luke had never known her so exhausted. Handing her to Lizzie to cool down, he dragged Ricky aside.
‘What the fuck are you playing at?’ he hissed. ‘I’ve just ridden the duck soup out of Fantasma covering up for you. This final is between Apocalypse and the Flyers not you and my father. It’s goddam selfish to take your personal vendetta on to the field.’
Luke had sweat in his eyes, dust in his throat, his ribs ached from a foul hook no-one had seen, he’d had to change ponies twice in the first two chukkas because two had gone lame and he could see his dreams going up in smoke. Nor could he bear to see Dancer and Perdita’s dejected faces. They deserved better.
‘This match is dirtier than a coal hole,’ said Seb Carlisle as he bought Chessie a Pimm’s up in the stands during the second half, ‘and you ought to be wearing a duck-egg-blue shirt with five stamped on the back, you’ve contributed so much to Ricky’s disintegration and Apocalypse’s certain defeat.’
‘Oh, shut up,’ said Chessie. ‘I had to talk to him. With two bloody bodyguards tailing me all the time I may not get another chance this season.’
‘Why don’t you lure them both into your bedroom?’ suggested Seb, ‘then rush out and lock the door on them. Oh, lovely pass, Perdita. Luke Alderton has certainly worked miracles with her and Dancer. They’re hassling the shit out of your husband and Ben Napier and, Christ, look at that.’ He waved his programme disapprovingly at Charles Napier’s pony who was bleeding both from her mouth and her lacerated sides. ‘I have nightmares that I’m going to come back in another life as one of Charles’s horses.’
Charles Napier was also famous for using his elbows during ride-offs and at the throwin, and he was using them with increasing ferocity in the fifth chukka when he was riding the lightning Andromeda and the Flyers had failed to increase their lead. Fed up with Perdita giving him the slip as they were fighting for the ball on the boards, he deliberately rammed an elbow so hard into her left breast that she gave a shriek.
‘Why don’t you go back to the kitchen where you belong?’ he hissed.
‘Why don’t you go back to the gorilla house?’ screamed Perdita, so doubled up with pain she could hardly lift her stick.
Next minute Luke had thundered up.
‘You OK, baby?’
Perdita bit her lip and nodded.
‘Well, belt up and leave this to me.’
At the beginning of the last chukka Charles galloped towards goal. As Luke, back on Fantasma again, rode him off, out came Charles’s elbows.
‘Get out of my way, you goddam prick,’ bellowed Charles.
‘Takes a prick to know a prick,’ said Luke, putting his arm through Charles’s. And such was his massive strength that he lifted him off his horse as easily as if he was pulling the plug out of the bath. Charles crashed to the ground.
‘Man down,’ said Luke, grinning.
‘Foul,’ yelled Charles furiously.
‘No foul,’ said Shark and Dommie Carlisle, the other umpire, in unison. Both had been the recipients of Charles Napier’s elbows far too often.
The sun behind the stands lit up the thundery indigo clouds, the acid-yellow fir trees, the jade-green statue of Prince Albert on his horse, the yellow-and-white goal posts and the tiring ponies. It was stiflingly hot and stuffy.
‘Luke must be very much in love with Perdita to risk a foul like that,’ said Seb to Chessie.
No one quite knew how it happened, but in the following frantic melee in front of the Apocalypse goal, Charles Napier took a mighty swipe at the ball and instead hit Luke on the head with his stick. As Luke slumped in his saddle, Fantasma pulled up with a jerk and the pitted field came up to meet him.
Perdita was off Tero in a trice, begging Luke frantically to be all right. Beside her Fantasma gazed down at her master with huge, dark, worried eyes, nudging him impatiently in the ribs to get up, then raking his shoulder gently with her hoof.
‘Out cold,’ said the doctor, who’d arrived with the ambulance, bending over Luke. ‘Ouch,’ he howled a second later as Fantasma bit him jealously on the bottom.
Bart and the Napiers belted off to change ponies.
‘I’ll get another player,’ said Ricky, at long last coming out of his coma. But as he galloped towards the stands, the heavens opened, lightning ripped the inky clouds apart and rain, coming down in torrents, bounced eighteen inches off the dry ground. In the stands, spectators huddled under coloured umbrellas. Others fled for the hospitality tents or their cars. The deluge almost halted the windscreen wipers of the ambulance as it ploughed off to hospital.
As the substitute calmly changed into a spare black shirt and borrowed Luke’s helmet which was too big and fell over his handsome nose, a demented Perdita kept demanding if Luke would be OK.
‘I ’ope so,’ said Dancer who was looking very shaken himself. Without Luke, he felt as though his rudder had been taken away.
‘You don’t look very happy, Dancer,’ sneered Bart.
‘I’m
After ten drenching minutes the rain let up and play started again. It had always been arguable that Fantasma was wasted on a Number Four player, who is mostly occupied with defence. With her handiness and dazzling turn of speed, she was more suited to a Number Three. The substitute was a brilliant rider. Everyone noticed how wonderfully Fantasma went with him. Luke had been so busy covering up for Ricky earlier, the mare had had no chance to show off her paces. Although she now swished her tail furiously and rolled her eyes when the substitute gave her half a dozen whacks, she set off towards goal like a Derby winner.
What a horse, thought the substitute, as ghostly white Fantasma streaked through the gloom. And what smooth action – he could have carried a glass of champagne without spilling it. Then, as Bart raced to cut off the ball and back it up the field, Fantasma swung round like a weathercock when the wind changes.
I want this horse, decided the substitute as the gallant mare reached the ball, waited while he backed it once
