How many times had Drew sworn she was the only other woman he’d ever slept with since he’d been married?
‘How horrible!’ she moaned, suddenly nauseated by a waft of cat food. Bending down to pick up the plate, she saw it was crawling with maggots. Gagging, she threw it in the bin. Suddenly she remembered Sukey shaking and shaking, the tears pouring down her face, when Angel had knocked Drew off Malteser in the Queen’s Cup.
‘Did you confront him?’ she whispered.
‘He denied it,’ said Sukey sadly. ‘Said the girl was a bit potty, and obsessive, and he adored me and the children and would never leave us. I know it’s vulgar to talk about it,’ Sukey was frenziedly pleating the tablecloth, ‘but he still makes love to me three or four times a week. I never say no to him.’
And Drew had sworn that once the children were born they had had a
‘Let’s have a drink, I’m afraid there’s only vodka.’ She added diet Coke and ice.
‘I could cope with casual flings,’ said Sukey, ‘but this time I think he’s really serious about someone. I was doing his VAT this afternoon. He’s gone to America for a couple of days to fix up playing in the US Open and some other tour before the Westchester. I know it’s utterly despicable, but I went through his Amex and his cheque stubs. He’s been spending a fortune on flowers and hotel bills and restaurants this month, and there’s a bill back in May for a diamond and topaz brooch for five thousand pounds.’
That’s my daisy brooch, thought Daisy, appalled.
‘Perhaps it was for you,’ she said quickly.
‘I’m Capricorn like Drew,’ said Sukey tonelessly.
Daisy suddenly felt bitterly ashamed and utterly suicidal at the same time.
‘One doesn’t mean to be mean,’ continued Sukey. ‘I’ve got a private income, but it’s always been a bit of a struggle to make ends meet. Polo’s awfully expensive, and the children’ll be starting school soon. I never minded going without things, but when I find all his earnings being blued on other women and I’m paying for his ponies and everything else, even his subscription to Boodles, it makes one a bit bitter.’
The magician’s saw was definitely deep in Daisy’s flesh now, tearing away bone and muscle.
‘Who is she?’
‘Bibi Alderton. Drew hid some letters under his mattress. They weren’t that passionate, just passionately grateful for Drew being so kind to her. And there’s been a lot of dropped telephone calls, and he keeps urging me to go out and walk the dogs, and although he claims no-one’s rung the telephone reeks of his aftershave when I get home.’
‘I had that with Hamish,’ said Daisy. She shivered, too, at how often she’d breathed in the tangy, lemony smell on Drew’s beautiful strong brown neck and jaw, and felt faint with longing.
‘It’s awfully easy to imagine these things,’ she added helplessly.
Sukey shook her head. ‘I was staying with Mummy last week. Drew’d been invited to dinner with Rupert and Taggie. You know what a wonderful cook she is. Drew described every course when I got back. Unfortunately I met Taggie in Sainsbury’s the day Drew’d left for America and she said she was so sorry Drew’d only stayed for a quick drink and she hoped the pony with colic was OK. Well, I checked with the grooms, very casually. They said none of the horses had been sick. It’s so revolting. One gets just like Miss Marple. There’s this ghastly sick exultation in the detective work, then when you stumble on the truth it’s the gates of hell. But I always felt Drew wouldn’t leave me,’ she raised streaming eyes to Daisy, ‘because he needs my money to play polo, but Bibi Alderton could buy me out a hundred times over.’ Putting her face in her hands, she burst into tears.
Rushing round the table, Daisy put her arms round her.
‘Please, please don’t cry. He’s a bastard. He’s not worth it.’
‘Why, you’re crying too,’ said Sukey, as she dried her eyes a couple of minutes later. ‘You’re so kind, Daisy. You really mind for me, don’t you? I shouldn’t have dumped on you. All this must remind you of your own marriage breaking up so much. What d’you think I ought to do? I love him so, so, much.’
‘I’d sit tight,’ said Daisy, then thought what a stupid expression. She’d been tight for days after Hamish left her. ‘From what I gather Angel and Bibi are still very snarled up about each other. Angel’s gorgeous, but he’s been playing Bibi up dreadfully because she’s such a workaholic, and she probably wants to make him jealous, and Drew’s probably only flirting with Bibi because he wants to get his own back on Angel for jabbing pelhams into his kidneys and trying to break his jaw.’
‘It’d be so lovely if you were right,’ said Sukey.
‘Have another drink.’ Daisy felt a ghastly, sick, masochistic craving for more detail.
‘No, I
With Sukey gone, Daisy wandered distraught into the garden. The sweet tobacco scent of buddleia was cloying, almost overpowering now. She knew she would hate the smell for ever as a reminder of paradise lost.
The owls were hooting from the woods. She had never seen that much of Drew because of the children and because he’d been away so much, but it had been such a heavenly affair; and with his apparent, utter integrity and strength, he had restored her faith in men. In anguish, she realized that dreaming about him and looking forward to seeing him again had been the one thing that had made her life bearable. How stupid not to realize that if a man’s capable of being unfaithful to his wife, he’s bound to be unfaithful to you. As she sobbed in the darkness, there was no-one to hear her except the hooting owls and the swooping bats.
If anyone was more miserable than Daisy that night it was Perdita, wandering barefoot two hundred miles away through an infinitely more beautiful Sussex garden, where totally weedless, herbaceous borders towered above shaven lawns and stone nymphs blanched by the moonlight frolicked at the end of rides battlemented with yews. Floodlighting cast a golden glow on the splendid Georgian house Bart had acquired as his English base. Chessie and Bart inhabited the heart of the house. Angel, without Bibi, smouldered in the West Wing. Perdita and Red appropriately waged cold war in the East Wing. Feeling mossy, stone steps cool beneath her feet, Perdita could see into Bart’s and Chessie’s jade-green drawing room where the Chippendale table acquired specially to display the Gold Cup had, on Bart’s insistence, been left bare to remind and punish Perdita.
Red’s definition of a great player was one who raised his game when the chips were down. Luke’s, slightly different, was someone who could pick himself off the floor and rise above mistakes that had brought a whole team down.
But Perdita wasn’t given the chance because Bart had dropped her from the team after the Gold Cup and, without her, the Flyers had already notched up two dazzling victories in the Cowdray Challenge Cup. She was suffering a total loss of confidence. She was still reeling from Rupert’s total rejection, and now at the time of year when patrons were making up their teams for next year, the telephone only rang for Red and Angel. For the first time people were whispering that she was committing that deadliest sin in polo – playing below her handicap.
Even worse, she couldn’t stop crying, which drove Red crazy when he was awake. The moment his head hit the pillow he fell asleep, leaving Perdita to toss and turn, tormented by visions of him and Chessie, but not daring to crossquestion him, crawling with frustration, praying that, forgetting the impasse, he would reach out for her when he was half-asleep. But he didn’t. They hadn’t made love since the marathon at the Savoy.
By day he was frantically busy, playing for Bart, making up his mind whether to play in Saratoga, Deauville, Hawaii or Sotogrande in August, and revving up for the Cartier International on Sunday.
Special tension had been added to this occasion because the first match of the afternoon between England and America would be a trial for the Westchester. An American team consisting of Red, the newly naturalized Angel, Bobby Ferraro and Bart, standing in for Shark who’d been sidelined by a shoulder injury, were to play Ricky, Drew and the repulsive Napiers, which was the squad England planned to field in the Westchester in October.
As the Americans wouldn’t have unlimited access to ponies, as they would in a home match, and they weren’t fielding their first team, it would bode ill for the Westchester, Venturer and the sponsors if England didn’t walk it. Bart, Red and Angel, thirsting to avenge their defeat in the Gold Cup, were determined to rattle the Brits.
Perdita had earlier returned from London, where she’d been seeing a specialist about a sprained wrist, to find the house empty except for servants. Chessie was out somewhere. At least she couldn’t be with Red, as he’d gone with Angel and Bart to a dinner and team meeting.
