‘We can’t prove he’s my father.’
‘Haven’t you ever heard of genetic engineering? I wonder if my mother will feel differently now she knows you’ve got some good blood.’
Letting go of her hair, he began to stroke the back of her neck. It was hopeless. He just had to touch her to make her dripping.
‘Be nice to me, Red. I need you so badly. Don’t leave me.’
Red pushed her back on to the press clippings which littered his dark blue triple bed, and with one practised hand undid the top button of her jeans.
‘I’m not quitting, baby. You’re just getting interesting.’
Afterwards, having plugged her between the legs with a handful of scrumpled press clippings, Red fell asleep. Feeling hopelessly twitchy and in need of comfort, Perdita rang Luke at the hospital only to learn that he had discharged himself that afternoon. So deep was her self-preoccupation that she didn’t even question the utter insanity of such an action, and promptly telephoned him at his barn. ‘Oh, Luke, I’ve done such a terrible thing.’
‘I guess you have,’ said Luke and hung up. Then, turning back to Margie: ‘That was Perdita. I can’t handle her at the moment.’
Fantasma and Leroy, delirious to have him home, had followed him into the tack room. After the first ecstatic welcome, both seemed to sense how excruciatingly painful his hand was and just wanted to be near him as quietly as possible. Leroy sat on his feet to stop him ever going away again. Fantasma rested her pink nose on his good shoulder, blowing adoringly down his neck. On the tack-room wall was a photograph of her racing round the paddock without saddle or bridle as white and as swift and as beautiful as summer lightning.
Luke took a slug of the quadruple brandy Margie had just given him. ‘I gotta sell her,’ he said.
He had learnt that afternoon that Hal Peters had been voted off his own board and gone spectacularly belly- up. Not only had he not paid Luke’s salary since January or for the last half-dozen horses Luke had bought for him, but far, far worse, he had let Luke’s medical insurance lapse, so there would be massive hospital bills to be paid. That was why – despite doctors and sobbing nurses practically restraining him with a strait-jacket – Luke had walked out of hospital that afternoon.
‘You’ve got to sue,’ implored Margie. ‘I’ll defend you for free.’
Luke shook his head. ‘He hasn’t got any money to pay me.’
‘Then go to your father.’
‘He’s in enough shit as it is,’ said Luke wearily.
‘You bloody stubborn Taurean,’ stormed Margie, ‘lend him Fantasma. Lend him all your ponies. If he’s that anxious to smash Ricky this summer, he’ll pay anything.’
‘There’s no way I could ever pay my medical bills and pay him back.’
His hand was agonizingly painful and he was slowly coming to terms with the fact that he might never play polo again. The only honourable way he could pay his debts and see the grooms right was to sell the ponies.
61
At the end of April eighty-five suitcases, fifty-five polo ponies, sixteen grooms, a mountain of tack and polo sticks and a fleet of maids and secretaries were flown in a special Alderton Jumbo over to England. A week later, when everything had been unpacked and made ready for them in Bart’s ravishing Sussex house, Chessie, Bart, Red, Perdita and Angel flew over in Bart’s new private jet – the Alderton Quicksilver. Specially designed to dispel rumours that Alderton Airways were going belly-up, it crossed the Atlantic in three hours and was as gleamingly silver as its name. Bart was hoping to raise the money in Europe to market it next year.
Inside the Quicksilver the atmosphere was as highly charged as usual. Red, failing to hide his dislike of his stepmother, had taken Perdita into one of the back bedrooms. Chessie drank a whole bottle of champagne, because Grace only drank water on flights and because she was still furious with Ricky for giving such public sanctuary to Perdita’s frumpy mother. Bart put aside the balance sheets he ought to be digesting before his meeting with European Electronics tomorrow and read a computer print-out on his ponies.
Perdita, having stuffed her face with caviar, was now lying post-multi-orgasmic in Red’s arms and thinking this really was the life. She and Red had just returned from four magic days in Hawaii where his sexual inventiveness had overwhelmed her. On the Rupert front things had gone unnaturally quiet, with the press switching their attention to a Royal scandal and the lawyers locked behind closed doors. Was Rupert going to sue? Was Perdita going to push for recognition and a massive settlement? It was a war of nerves. She was apprehensive about her reception in England. Sooner or later she’d have to bump into Ricky, her mother, and probably Rupert. But she felt insulated by Red’s love. If she was going to be the new Mrs Alderton, what did it matter if she was nee Campbell-Black?
Angel sat by himself gazing bleakly out of the window at a dazzling dream-topping of cloud. Three hours was too short a time to adjust to entering loathsome British territory. Awaiting him would be a posse of apoplectic colonels and brigadiers utterly incensed that Bart had pulled a fast one and circumnavigated the ban. Angel had also suffered a lot of flak from the other Argentine players, particularly Alejandro, Juan and Miguel, who spoke enviously of the lack of pressure in England, the hospitality, the beautiful, available girls, the freezing-cold swimming-pools they’d been chucked into by fire-breathing fathers, and the utterly revolting food.
‘You ’aven’t died until you ’ave Eenglish cabbage,’ said Alejandro. ‘We’ll send you a food parcel every week.’
‘And a suitcase full of condoms,’ sighed Juan.
‘How can I pull girls,’ Angel had grumbled, ‘when my father-in-law wants me in bed by ten every night? And if Grace comes over I might as well be gelded.’
But all this was irrelevant when Angel’s sole reason for going to England was revenge. His temper was not improved by the latest edition of
Getting out a Pentel, Angel drew in a moustache and some Shirley Temple curls. But the blue eyes were still cool and appraising, so Angel made one of them squint, then cursed himself for his childishness.
Anyway, how could he concentrate on his mission of vengeance when his marriage was in injury time? The publicity hand-out was that Bibi was staying in America to mind the shop while Bart took virtually three months off, and that she would fly over on the Quicksilver at weekends. In fact, Angel was doubtful if she’d turn up at all. The row had started innocently enough. Left on his own so much, Angel had run up more gambling debts. Aware that their anniversary was coming up, strapped for cash, he had taken a modelling job so he could buy her a present with his own money. Bibi, growing increasingly suspicious, had followed him, seen him arrive at a house, kiss a beautiful model who had arrived at the same time and go inside with her. Instead of following him, where she would have found cameras, lights and silver umbrellas, Bibi had gone home in floods. Confronted, Angel had blurted out the truth. After a blazing row, refusing to believe him, Bibi had stormed round to the agency, who confirmed Angel’s story. Mortified, Bibi had flown home early from the office in an Alderton helicopter which was an anniversary present for him. As she walked into the house with her arms full of flowers, however, Angel had walked out of the bedroom with a towel wrapped round his waist. A second later he was followed by Innocenta in Bibi’s silk dressing gown.
‘What’s that scrubber got to offer that I haven’t?’ Bibi screamed later.
