Polo

66

Back at Robinsgrove next morning Ricky, still high on euphoria, was the only member of Apocalypse not laid waste by a hangover. Clutching their heads, groaning, some of them still drunk, the grooms leant against the tired ponies as they walked them out for Ricky to inspect. Wayne had an inflamed tendon and had been ordered a few days’ box rest. The others – except for a few cuts and bruises – were miraculously free from injury, so Ricky ordered them to be turned out for forty-eight hours. Leaning on the gate, he fondly watched them, revelling in the sunshine, walking poker-legged at first, then, realizing they were free, breaking into a canter, crinkly tails flying and charging down the valley to roll and cool their bruised legs in the stream which raced and hurled itself against the rocks after yesterday’s deluge.

Although his ash trees were still a feathery blue-green without a trace of yellow, Ricky could see the slow beginnings of autumn, the toasting of the beeches, the gilding of the poplars, the occasional tree garlanded by acid-green traveller’s joy, the barley beyond the stables slowly losing its green flecks. But for once the prospect of winter didn’t depress him.

The telephone had rung all morning, patrons suddenly wondering if there was any chance he could play for them next year, friends to congratulate, newspapers wanting quotes – one would have thought the powers of darkness had fallen. The morning papers were equally ecstatic. ‘Flyers France-Lynched,’ said The Times, which was a slight exaggeration when they had only been beaten by an own goal. ‘Flyers Bomb,’ said the Telegraph. The tabloids concentrated on Dancer’s delight and Perdita’s anguish, with variations on Rupert’s rejected daughter, Auriel’s toyboy, Bart’s fury, all reporting the grisly details of the shouting match afterwards.

Looking at the bowed-down heads of the barley still dripping with raindrops, Ricky was reminded of Perdita yesterday, sobbing, bitterly ashamed and desolate. He had talked to Daisy earlier that morning and persuaded her not to weaken. ‘Looks as though Red’s on the way out, thank God. Let her come back in her own time.’

Returning to the yard, Ricky went into Wayne’s box to find him lying down asleep. But as he sat down in the straw, Wayne opened a baleful black-ringed eye, whickered and, accepting several barley sugars, listened attentively as his master took him through every stroke of the chukka in which he had seen off the great Glitz.

‘We won, my brave Wayne, we won,’ Ricky told him exultantly.

The telephone was ringing again. Remembering the grooms had the day off, Ricky sprinted into the kitchen.

‘Hello, Rick,’ said The Scorpion. ‘Congrats on beating your ex-wife’s hubby. Your ex seemed over the moon. Any chance of a reconciliation?’

‘F-f-fuck off,’ said Ricky.

The telephone rang again immediately. Ricky snatched it up. ‘F-f-fuck off.’

‘Hello, hello.’ It was Brigadier Hughie. ‘Thought you might like to know that it’s rumoured that you’re going up to ten.’

Replacing the receiver, Ricky took it off the hook and, picking up the cup, already covered in a thousand ecstatic fingerprints, held it up to the light.

‘We won, Cheffie, we won.’

Little Chef thumped his curly tail and sniffed appreciatively at the chicken his master was cooking for him as a celebratory treat. Neither had eaten much yesterday. Then he gave a strangled croak, all he could manage after barking himself hoarse yesterday, and shot off into the yard. Still hugging the cup, Ricky wandered into the hall, holding it up for the photographs of his grandfather, uncles and father to see. ‘I did it, you old b-b-buggers.’

‘You look like one of the wise men bearing gold. Melchior, was it?’

Ricky almost dropped the cup, for there in the kitchen doorway stood Chessie.

‘As I was ripped untimely from yesterday’s celebration,’ she drawled, ‘I thought I’d come and congratulate you personally. I see you haven’t painted anything except the stables since I left.’

Wandering back into the kitchen, she noticed that the shelves, from which she’d swiped all her recipe books, were piled high with old copies of Horse and Hound and Polo magazine. The spice shelves were down to salt, pepper and mixed herbs. She could smell that there was no tarragon in the chicken Ricky was cooking. A calendar for 1981, the year she’d walked out, still hung on the wall, probably because it bore a photograph of a whippet who looked like Millicent. The washing machine, black inside with Apocalypse shirts, quivered on ‘pause’.

She turned to Ricky, who was still holding the cup and staring at her. ‘Aren’t you pleased to see me?’

‘I don’t know.’

All he knew was that the sun had gone in and the cup had lost its glitter. Chessie was wearing a clinging black jump suit, sawn off at the knees, with a T-shirt top clinched in with yesterday’s leather belt. She appeared to be wearing no make-up at all, but in fact had spent twenty minutes smudging blue-black shadow and a subtle blending of green and beige base to make herself look tired, frail and wildly desirable. Ricky felt himself churning.

‘Got a hangover?’ she asked.

‘I don’t drink.’

‘I thought you might have made an exception. It is the first rung.’

‘I know,’ said Ricky flatly.

The Slav face was impassive. Above the high cheekbones, his eyes were as dark as the rain-soaked cedars in the churchyard.

‘Everyone’s saying you’ll go to ten at the end of the season. All you have to do is win the Westchester.’ Her voice was mocking. ‘Can I have a look round?’

Sauntering to the window, showing off the slightness of her figure, she caught sight of Wayne, who, having decided to get up, was now leaning nosily out of his box to see what his master was up to. ‘Is that Mattie?’ How clever of me to remember names, thought Chessie.

‘Mattie was put down, if you remember, the day you first slept with Bart.’

Chessie didn’t hesitate. ‘Oh yes, how stupid of me.’

Putting the cup down, he followed her into the hall.

‘You’ve let the moth get at that tapestry, and look at the damp,’ she said reprovingly. ‘This place needs a woman’s touch. Pity I can’t touch Bart for a million to do it up.’

Ricky’s cards were still up from his birthday in February, along with an Easter egg Violet had given him for letting her drive in his fields. Absent-mindedly, he started breaking it up and giving pieces to Little Chef.

‘What d’you want?’ he said bleakly.

‘To talk.’ She looked him straight in the eyes. ‘To find out if you still want me.’

‘Don’t be bloody silly.’

Her eyes moved to his mouth and back to his eyes again, glancing at him under her lashes, then smiling slowly in a way that had always destroyed him.

‘Shall we go to bed?’ she whispered. ‘Who’s up there?’

‘The twins and Dancer, all with assorted partners.’

‘Christ, the twins are such gossips they’d fax Bart in Dusseldorf with the news in two minutes.’

Fretfully Chessie crossed the room, noticing a Lalique bowl and a Rockingham Dalmatian from her side of the family. If she were coming back to stay, there was no need to take them. The dust was awful. Didn’t Ricky have a char any more? Then a shaft of sunlight suddenly illuminated Will’s portrait.

‘Oh my God, that’s beautiful!’ Taking it off the wall, she examined it more closely. ‘It’s stunning. So like him. Oh Christ, he was sweet!’

For the first time there was genuine emotion in her voice as she longingly caressed the blond hair, and the round, roguish face. ‘It was his birthday last week.’

‘I know.’ Yet again Ricky felt the whole buckling weight of responsibility for Will’s death. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I was a good mother, wasn’t I?’