should be at least five goals up by now.’
‘Well done,’ said Ricky quietly to Dancer and the twins. ‘We’ve rattled them. Now we’ve got to get some goals.’
Hearing ‘Tea for Two’ over the tannoy, Wayne bustled off towards the tea tent. Drew, tweed cap resting on his eyelashes, riding round on his drenched pony as the crowd swarmed back to the stands after treading in, thought how amazing it was that the field, which, five minutes ago, had been a black sea of holes and divots, was now a smooth sweep of emerald green again. Like my marriage, he thought wryly, and for a second scoured the stands for Daisy, hoping she might have turned up. He’d promised to ring her during the week, but he’d been too busy to get over to Eldercombe and he hated hearing the disappointment in her voice. He’d try and get her this evening, although he could hardly cheer her up with the news that Perdita was playing well.
Perdita was equally conscious she wasn’t pulling her weight. Bart had yelled at her so continually she hardly heard him. Then, in the fourth chukka, Angel gave her a pass, and there was only forty yards between her and goal. Perdita was so surprised she hesitated, but Tero, putting on an amazing turn of speed, took her upfield, placing her beside the ball, so she was able to judge the first shot beautifully. Now the ball was waiting for her, ten feet in front of the goal. Oh, please God. God blocked his ears, and she hit a divot instead of the ball. Frantically she tugged at the sodden reins and, willing Tero, turned on her hocks at full gallop. That’s a good pony, thought Red.
But as the little mare floundered to stay upright, she slipped and came down with Perdita beneath her. The crowd gave a gasp of horror and agreed it was not a girl’s game. Tero rolled off in a trice. Seeing Perdita was moving, Red belted off to change ponies. When he returned, Perdita was screaming at Bart: ‘I can’t go on. I’ve got to change my breeches.’
Glancing down, Red saw blood mingling with the mud. All the trauma over Chessie had made the curse so late Perdita’d forgotten all about it.
‘There’s only ninety seconds to go,’ shouted Bart.
‘Everyone’ll notice.’
‘If you play in a man’s game, you play by men’s rules,’ howled Red. ‘Get back on that pony. Pull your shirt outside.’
Angel put an arm round Perdita’s shoulder, feeling her shaking with sobs. ‘No one can see zee blood for zee mud,’ he said comfortingly.
‘Your daughter seems to be getting rather a lot of earache from my husband,’ said Chessie slyly to Rupert as the clock started again.
Rupert gazed stonily ahead, holding Taggie’s hand so tightly that she winced.
‘Mr Alderton is a very forceful captain,’ said Gisela Wallstein, who was bitterly cold and couldn’t understand what was going on at all.
‘Oh, Bart always shouts when he’s near the stands,’ said Chessie lightly. ‘The team don’t take any notice, but the crowd think
Helmut Wallstein looked round at Chessie speculatively. ‘I have not often seen such beautiful horses.’
‘Subsidized by Alderton Airlines,’ said Chessie with a shrug.
Sukey paused in the menus she was writing out for two dinner parties next week. If Drew were just umpiring, she felt it was all right only to keep half an eye on the game.
‘How can you be so unsupportive, Chessie?’ she murmured.
‘Vot is the name of that bay mare he’s riding now?’ asked Helmut.
‘I haven’t a clue.’
‘You should be able to recognize Bart’s ponies,’ reproved Sukey. ‘That’s Marina, a Criolla pony from Argentina,’ she told Helmut.
Chessie turned smiling to Sukey. ‘Do remind me to take your husband to bed when I get a moment.’
Sukey went magenta, but her reply was drowned by Terry Hanlon telling them that the head had broken off Ricky’s stick in the desperate melee in the Apocalypse goal mouth.
‘And Ricky France-Lynch is managing to do an amazing amount of damage with his stick alone, but it’s looking very dangerous for Apocalypse. Is it going to be 6-2? No, Seb Carlisle’s taken the ball upfield.’
Swinging round, Ricky thundered towards the boards where his sticks were leaning against the fence, their handles fretting in the wind.
‘Fifty-one,’ he bellowed to Louisa. But for once Chessie was too quick. Bounding down the gangway, she snatched the right stick and handed it to Ricky. For a second their eyes met.
‘Good luck darling, you’re doing brilliantly,’ she called out quite audibly.
‘And Mrs Alderton is giving her ex-husband stick,’ announced Terry Hanlon drily. ‘Ex-wives generally do, I expect she was asking for more dosh.’ The crowd, despite being drenched, giggled.
Mr and Mrs Wallstein exchanged surprised glances. ‘Is it customary in England you support the other side?’
‘Only if your name’s Oswald Mosley,’ snapped Rupert.
Conditions were worsening, the rain coming down in a steady torrent, the wind growing more vicious. Ricky had found Kinta’s strength in the third chukka a two-edged sword. She was powerful enough to play two, even three chukkas, but in these conditions she was a liability because she wouldn’t stop.
Ricky couldn’t afford any more penalties if Kinta cannoned into other ponies or barged across their right of way. As he rode back to the pony lines at the end of the fourth chukka, he shouted to Louisa to tack up Wayne for the last chukka. This was the kind of weather when you needed old friends.
‘Oh my God,’ muttered Louisa as she handed his new, dark brown pony, Corporal, over to Dommie. ‘Wayne’s sunk a bucket of water, had half a ton of barley sugar and I’ve just retrieved him from the Flyer’s pony lines with chocolate cake all over his whiskers trying to mount Spotty. Should I tell Ricky?’
‘Leave it,’ said Dommie. ‘If he gives Ricky confidence, that’s what matters.’ He looked down at Louisa’s plump, freckled, mud-spattered face. Her hair clung to her head like a mermaid.
‘Will you sleep with me if we win?’
Louisa’s smile suddenly lit up the Cowdray gloom. ‘I thought you’d never ask. Yes, please.’
‘And if we lose, so I don’t shoot myself?’
‘Yes, please,’ said Louisa.
The mud in fact had been too thick for any of the crowd to notice the blood, but, still numb with embarrassment and misery and shaken by the fall, Perdita felt even more conspicuous riding back on to the field in snow-white breeches.
‘You’ve got two chukkas left to redeem yourself,’ said Bart bullyingly. ‘You don’t want to be the reason we lost the cup.’
The Flyers had a good fifth chukka, dominating the play and pushing the score up to 6-2, then Apocalypse caught fire, and Seb and Ricky both scored in the closing minutes and the stands went wild.
As the players rode out for the last chukka, it was noticed that Red had taken off the white sweater he wore under his blue polo shirt for the first time this season.
‘That’s ominous,’ said Ricky. ‘Get your fingers out, Apocalypse.’
After two minutes of frantic barging and bumps-a-daisy, Red took matters into his own hands. Giving Dommie and Seb the slip and Glitz his head, he raced off upfield.
That’s it, thought Ricky dully. That’ll be 7-4; there’s only Dancer anywhere near him.
God had let Dancer down last time, so this time he concentrated on Red, who was messing around in front of goal, insolently positioning himself so he could score the clinching goal. But as he lifted his stick, he found himself nearly pulled off his horse. Dancer had hooked him.
‘With pressure it is better,’ said Helmut Wallstein. ‘He had all zee time in the world, and he relaxed.’
‘Well hooked, Dancer. You read the play,’ hollered Dommie, grinning out of his round ruffian blackamore face, as he raced Corporal down to bring the ball back to Ricky. Perdita, who was out of position and should have been marking Dancer, raced back towards the Apocalypse goal. But as all the players converged on Ricky trying to help or hinder him, a pony kicked a divot up in Perdita’s eyes, totally blinding her, so she crashed across Ricky’s right of way. Up went every Apocalypse stick.
‘Foul,’ screamed the twins.
Ricky on Wayne took the penalty.
‘Pale rider, pale horse,’ said William Loyd.
