‘And his name was death to the Flyers’ hopes,’ murmured Chessie.
The wind, which had been Ricky’s enemy all day, had moved slightly to the south. Slowly he cantered a circle that would have won a dressage prize. The picture of control, his gait as smooth as his yellow face was ugly, Wayne floated proudly towards the ball. There was a ripple of muscle, the piston arm hurtled down again, Ricky aimed deliberately to the left and nudged back by the wind, the ball sailed high above the leaping Flyers’ sticks, slap between the posts. The crowd, who could hardly see through the rain, waited on tenterhooks, then, seeing the waving yellow flag, bellowed their delight.
‘The penalty is mightier than the sword,’ cried Chessie, clapping ecstatically.
There were two and a half minutes to go, the score was 6-5 and Dommie, mis-hitting, clouted the ball towards the Flyers’ goal-mouth, but to no-one in particular. Ahead of everyone, Red scorched after it, flogging Glitz like a jockey at Tattenham Corner. Glitz, however, was fed up with the weather and too many hidings. He was used to cheering crowds under a Palm Beach sun as he shook off the opposition like a dog a towel. Out of the corner of his beautiful eye, he saw Wayne hurtling down to ride him off. Wayne was very ugly and his pale face was fearsome. Red turned his heel into Glitz’s sodden right flank to turn him left. He had heard that Wayne was spooked about bumping and anticipated no contest. The next minute Glitz had ducked out and Ricky had taken the line.
‘You fucking son of a bitch,’ screamed Red to Glitz, but it was too late.
‘I misjudged you, you old bugger, I’m sorry,’ said Ricky in amazement, as Wayne pulled away from the tiring Glitz.
The buttercup-yellow posts rose out of the gloom to his left. Master of the cut shot, Ricky sliced the ball, but, scuppered by nerves, he misjudged and hit the post.
‘Oh,’ groaned the crowd.
Bart hit in. A minute and a half to go. Seb blocked the shot and passed to Dommie, who tapped it in, screaming with frustration as again it hit the post.
‘The afternoon of the woodwork,’ said Terry Hanlon sympathetically.
But an instant later Ricky had thundered in and slapped in a tennis shot in the air. Chessie’s scream of joy was not the only one. Six all, a minute to go.
Suddenly the rain stopped, every tree and flat cap dripped, water cascaded down spectators’ necks as other spectators lowered their umbrellas. The Gold Cup on its green baize table was carried out and glittered like the Holy Grail in a lone shaft of sunlight. As the ball flashed frantically from goal-mouth to goal-mouth and Bart crashed round like a maddened Rottweiler, bumping into everyone, the crowd were on their feet yelling their heads off. Now they were down the Flyers’ end and Seb, Dommie, Ricky and Dancer were all taking desperate swipes at the ball until it was buried, trodden deep into the ground, with everyone frantically looking for it until the whistle went.
After a lot of shouting, the ball was dug out and thrown in where it had been buried, twenty yards in front of goal.
‘This is very dangerous for the Flyers,’ warned Terry Hanlon. ‘The fat is in the fire, the chips are in the pan.’
‘Get it out,’ screamed Red, as the frantically thrashing sticks hit ponies’ and players’ legs indiscriminately in a churning whirlpool of mud. Then, god-given, the ball rolled out on Perdita’s side. At last she had a chance to redeem herself and get the ball back upfield. Throwing herself forward, her fingers in her slippery glove lost control of her stick, which totally mis-hit the ball.
‘Oh no, please God, no,’ she screamed in horror, as the ball slowly trickled between her own goal posts. For a second the goal judge seemed as stunned as she was, then slowly up went the flag once again. Bart’s anguished howl of rage was drowned by the sound of the bell.
And it was all over and Ricky was shaking hands with everyone and thanking Shark and Drew, who, abandoning any attempt at impartiality, put his arm round Ricky’s shoulders, yelling: ‘Fucking, fucking marvellous.’
Dancer was crying openly.
‘You did it, you bleedin’ did it,’ he shouted at the twins.
‘You bleeding did it,’ shouted back Seb. ‘You hooked Red when he would have scored the winning goal, didn’t he, Dommie?’ But Dommie was streaking up the field as fast as tired, little Corporal could carry him and was next seen locked in an ecstatic Louisa’s arms. Little Chef darting through equine and human legs, as the crowd spilled overjoyed on to the pitch, took a flying leap on to Ricky’s saddle, frantically licking away the tears of joy that striped his master’s blackened face.
‘We won, Cheffie,’ Ricky babbled to him incoherently. ‘We fucking did it, Cheffie.’
Mishearing him, a maddened Bart stopped in his tracks.
‘You may have won the cup, you asshole, but you won’t get her. She’s fucking mine!’
Bewildered for an instant, Ricky realized that, in the joy of winning, he’d forgotten all about Chessie.
As he rode off the field, shaking hands with everyone, Louisa, extricating herself from Dommie’s embrace, ran up to him.
‘Oh, it’s so lovely, Wayne’s won Best Playing Pony.’
Seb, shaking up a magnum of champagne, made everyone even wetter than they were already. Terry Hanlon had to exert all his vocal skills to get things on course for the presentation.
‘Put your cigarettes out before you come up,’ he chided the teams. ‘We’ll have the bad boys first.’
As Seb sauntered up, he turned grinning to the jostling reporters and cameramen and made a very pointed V-sign.
‘Too many late nights indeed.’
Good-naturedly, they cheered and whooped.
Ricky’s face was impassive as he accepted the huge glittering cup from Lord Cowdray, but later, when it was filled with champagne, he grimly raised it to Chessie who was making no attempt to contain her delight.
Bart couldn’t make a scene because of the Germans, but the moment he’d seen them into one of his helicopters he unleashed his fury on Perdita. It was entirely her fault for fouling and scoring an own goal at the end.
‘Comes of playing with a fucking broad. Of all the fucking stupid things to do,’ he yelled, to the edification of the entire pony lines. Red was even more lethally nasty, until Angel put an arm round the hysterically sobbing Perdita.
‘Eet could ’appen to anybody,’ he protested. ‘Eef you hadn’t got hooked because you were messing around in front of goal, they’d never ’ave caught up.’
‘Shut up,’ screamed Red. ‘And for Christ’s sake, stop blubbing, Perdita.’
‘It wasn’t her fault,’ shouted Angel.
‘Piss off,’ said Bart. ‘I don’t pay you to have opinions.’ He found Chessie talking to Lord Cowdray, stuck into her third glass of champagne and looking radiant.
‘We’re leaving,’ he snapped.
‘How very unsporting,’ said Chessie. ‘I wanted to watch the second match.’
‘Well, you can’t.’
Two more teams were doing a lap of honour before playing off for third place, as Perdita raced towards Bart’s helicopter. Blinded by tears, she ran slap into a man stalking in the other direction.
‘Can’t you look where you’re fucking going?’ she screamed, then gasped and shrank away, for it was Rupert. For a second they gazed at each other, assessing the damage.
‘I’m sorry,’ sobbed Perdita. ‘I didn’t mean to screw up your life. I’m sorry Taggie can’t have babies, and I’m sorry I played so badly. I can’t do anything right any more. When I dumped about Mum, I didn’t know I was your child. I’d never have hurt you deliberately. I’ve just lost the m-match for them. Red’ll never talk to me again. Please let me come and explain. Please help me.’ Hysterically she clung to him.
‘I’m not fucking social security,’ said Rupert, his eyes suddenly as cold as an Eskimo’s graveyard. ‘And there’s no way you’re my child. No Campbell-Black could ever ride as badly as you just did.’
As the rain came down again, mingling with her tears and running nose, Perdita gave a wail and stumbled away from him. As she clambered into the helicopter, Chessie was saying happily, ‘Oh, look, Bart, I’ve just found your lucky belt under the seat.’
