Polo

followed by six children and a nanny. By the time they had reached him, however, Jose had jumped up, dusted himself down and remounted, which meant the poor wife, nanny and children had to flounder desperately back to avoid getting run over by Red.

‘So uncool to behave like that,’ said Perdita scornfully.

‘Christ, Red’s playing badly,’ said Dommie.

‘How good d’you reckon he really is?’ asked Perdita.

‘If he’s on form we win, it’s as simple as that.’

I loathe and detest Red, thought Perdita, but he was the only player she watched on the field.

In the next chukka Red bore down on Jose, attempting to hook him and getting his pony’s legs entangled with the back legs of Jose’s bay pony. Red was so far out of his saddle that he couldn’t save himself or his pony and crashed to the ground with both ponies on top of him. There was a horrible pause as the ponies struggled to their feet.

‘He’s moving. He’s OK,’ said Dommie.

‘He’s not,’ whispered Perdita.

Auriel, who’d just rolled up flanked by minders, ran gracefully on to the field as though she was doing classical ballet, throwing her arms round Red, begging him in her deep throaty tenor to be all right, and crying loudly, but not enough to make her mascara run: ‘Oh, Reddie, my darling. Oh, Reddie.’

‘Steady, go,’ giggled Dommie, pretending to play a violin. ‘Stupid old ham.’

‘We must ambulance him to hospital at once,’ moaned Auriel.

Both Venturer and the paparazzi, out in force for the Prince of Wales, were capturing the full tragic scene when, like an unleashed Dobermann, Perdita erupted on to the pitch.

‘Back off, you fucking geriatrics, he belongs to me,’ she screamed, sending two French doctors, two umpires and Auriel flying.

With absolutely no thought for her mascara, she flung her arms round Red sobbing unrestrainedly. ‘Please, please don’t die. I love you so much.’

‘Can I have that in writing?’ said a muffled voice.

Leaping away, Perdita realized that Red was quite all right and shaking with unrepentant laughter. Despite her frantic struggles, his hand clamped over the back of her neck and he pulled her down with all the muscle in his forearm and carried on kissing her until an enraged David Waterlane, who was umpiring, ordered him to stop fooling around and get on with the game.

‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ murmured Dommie to a boot-faced Drew. ‘I wondered when that was going to happen. It was only a matter of time. Shits rush in where angels fear to tread. What the hell is Luke going to say?’

Wriggling out of Red’s embrace Perdita fled across the pitch with Venturer’s film crew pounding after her.

‘Hang on a second,’ yelled Cameron Cook.

‘If you think you’re going to re-shoot that . . .’ howled Perdita. ‘Oh no!’ The little bridge over the race track had just closed and she wouldn’t be able to get across until after the next race.

Ignoring the shifting rainbow of jockeys’ silks in the distance and the announcement that they were under starter’s orders, she scrambled over the five-foot railing, tore across the track and only just missed being trampled to death by the 4.45.

Several apoplectic race officials now joined in the chase as well as Venturer and the paparazzi. But Perdita was too swift for them. Shopkeepers, raising their blinds after the long afternoon siesta, paused in amazement as this fierce Valkyrie with wild eyes, inflamed cheeks and flying hair pounded past sending holiday makers for six, running until she reached the Hotel Normandie with its hundreds of white balconies, fretting flags and brilliantly coloured flowerbeds. She had just locked herself into her room with a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door when the telephone rang.

‘Hi, Perdita,’ said the Sun. ‘You taken Auriel’s place?’

‘Fuck off!’ Perdita slammed the receiver down, took it off the hook and threw herself down on her bed in utter confusion.

Red had kissed her as though he meant it. She could still feel the burning heat of his lean, far from languid, body and smell the heady mix of horses’ sweat and Givenchy for Men, and see the thick, dark eyelashes fanning the flawless cheekbones when for a terrible moment she’d thought he was dead. Then, when she had finally opened her eyes, his had been already open and full of amusement and devilry at the shattering effect he was having on her. The earth had moved so far she’d need a Pickford’s van to bring it back.

Impossibly restless, she paced the room. In the mirror she looked deranged and feverish. Tearing off her clothes she clutched her breasts, fingering her nipples, as hard as biro tops, wondering what they would feel like to Red, running her hands over her waist and hips, holding back her head until her white-gold hair cascaded down to caress the cleft of her bottom. What the hell could she wear at the fancy dress party tonight? Everyone else would be so glamorous and expensively dressed. Draping herself with onions as the Lady of Shalott seemed not only tame but malodorous. Suddenly she had a brainwave. It was certainly medieval. It would infuriate Auriel, shock Sukey, enrage Luke, Drew and Ricky, if he arrived in time, and certainly require the kind of daring Red would admire. Dialling room service, she ordered a bottle of champagne.

Luke, feeling he needed a day on his own, had gone to visit the Normandy beachheads. He went first to St Laurent-sur-Mer and stood by the plaque that marked the spot where the first wave of US troops had fought their way doggedly up the sandbanks. Below him lay Omaha Beach, platinum-blond as Perdita’s hair, the stormy, grey waters of the Channel the same colour as her eyes. Then he wandered round the beautiful, American graveyard, admiring the tidy, white crosses and the lawns as greenly immaculate as the Deauville polo fields. Passing the graves of two Roosevelts, he put a bunch of red-and-mauve asters on the grave of his mother’s eldest brother.

Afterwards he drove to Point du Hoc, where his grandfather had been one of Colonel Rudder’s American Rangers who had stormed its perilously steep cliffs and seized and held its German fortifications under terrible bombardment. Out of forty-eight, fourteen had survived intact. His grandfather had been killed – only for his family to learn later that the Rangers had attacked the wrong promontory. Was he, like them, barking up the wrong tree?

I’m alive, they’re dead, thought Luke. He had hoped that seeing the setting for so much greater a tragedy than his might diminish his heartache, but tears kept embarrassingly filling his eyes. Facts had to be faced. He loved Perdita hopelessly. Even the brief few hours away from her today had been an agony. Her tantrums and indifference were better than being without her.

He bought a salami roll and a beer, sat on the front and wrote postcards to his mother and his grandmother telling them what he had seen. A big, black, stray dog wandered up, reminding him painfully of Leroy and he gave it most of his roll. If Leroy was in Europe he might miss Perdita less. At least he wouldn’t have to sleep alone every night.

He wished there was another war he could fight in, or that he could run away and lose himself visiting Chateaubriand’s house and Proust’s birthplace, then drive to Paris and on to the South of France and Italy. But his heartache would follow him.

He knew with a terrible foreboding, as the French must have waited for the Germans to sweep across Europe, that Red was going to sweep Perdita off her feet at any minute. He’d seen many, many girls fall in love with Red before and recover, but Perdita was so vulnerable because she was so passionate and uncompromising and he knew in the end it would destroy her.

As he walked to the edge of the cliffs the waters swirled below him. It would be so easy to jump. Would anyone really mind? Christ, he must get a grip on himself. There were grooms to be paid, horses to be fed, Leroy waiting patiently and probably with ebbing hope in Florida and there was Apocalypse to be steered to victory in the French Championships. He had promises to keep and miles to go before he slept.

Returning to the Normandie he felt that sick churning in the belly that was chronic these days. Perdita’s key wasn’t hanging downstairs and she wouldn’t answer her telephone. Ignoring the ‘Do Not Disturb’ notice, he banged on the door.

‘You OK? It’s Luke.’

‘Piss off. I’m trying to get some sleep.’

‘Let me in.’

‘I’ll see you at the party.’