the ball up the boards with two mighty driving passes, kicking up a halo of dust as he went, Ricky could feel Wayne struggling to stay ahead and Red on a new pony gaining on him. Just in time he jumped the boards and did a forehand cutshot to Seb, who, hearing Angel’s pony behind him and seeing five seconds left on the clock, took a frantic swipe at goal.
Realizing it was going wide, Perdita catapulted forward for the offside forehand.
‘Bloody hell,’ she screamed as the ball hit a divot and bounced awkwardly to the left. Rupert had permanently taunted her that she had no nearside cut shots. She’d show him.
Dimly she was aware of the great roar of the crowd chorusing: ‘Spotty, Spotty, Spotty.’
Triumphant in his moment of glory, revelling in the circus blood which was now pumping on overtime through his veins, Spotty noticed the ball had shifted. Jamming on his brakes, he pirouetted like Nureyev on his conker- brown legs sixty degrees to the left, thrusting Perdita within reach of the ball, but at the same time wrapping her in a cloud of dust.
She couldn’t see what she was doing, but, trusting Spotty and her instincts, she leant perilously out to the left and with a flick of her wrist like a tennis backhand stroked the ball where she prayed the posts might be.
Then she dropped her reins and clapped her hands over her eyes, unable to watch as the dust cleared. Slowly opening her fingers, she saw the miracle of the flag going up, then frenziedly joyful waving. The bellow of the crowd was so deafening that no-one heard the final horn. It had been such a wonderful match that the sporting, marvellously good-natured crowd could forgive a British victory and poured on to the pitch to honour all the eight heroes.
Perdita’s throat was so dry that she couldn’t whoop for joy. Instead she hurled her stick high into the blue and people rushed forward to catch it.
Desperate to get the first quote, a
‘Well done, Perdeeta!’ It was Angel, reaching out to shake hands and hug her. Next minute Shark was beside her, looking like his namesake deprived of a nice fat human. Then suddenly his ugly face split into a great grin and he clamped a vast sweaty arm round her shoulders.
‘Well done, honey. I’ve gotta admit you outplayed us. I never thought I’d say that to a slip of a girl.’
‘Who gave you the slip?’ Bouncing through the crowds like a dog through a barley field, Seb hugged Perdita and pumped Shark’s hand.
‘Jolly big of Shark,’ he added in an undertone. ‘Evidently Bart offered him a quarter of a million bucks if they won.’
‘Christ!’ said Perdita in awe, as Spotty nearly disappeared beneath a wave of patting hands.
Refusing to shake hands with anyone, his face a death mask, Red galloped past her.
‘Well played,’ called out Perdita, amazed that she suddenly felt so sorry for him.
He turned unsmiling. ‘Fat lot of good it did me. You did great. Back off, you fuckers,’ he snarled at the advancing photographers. Then, seriously endangering their Nikons and their lives, he galloped straight through the lot of them.
It seemed ages before Perdita could wade through the surging ocean of wellwishers back to the pony lines. On the way she lost her hat and her whip and very nearly her shirt. Looking up, she noticed Rupert fighting his way towards her. Seeing the expression of blazing triumph on his face, she glanced wistfully round to see at whom it was directed, but there were only swooning, excited cheering crowds. Slowly it dawned that he was looking just at her. An instant later he’d dragged her off Spotty into his arms.
‘I’m all hot and sweaty,’ she stammered.
‘Well done, my darling! Oh Christ, I’m proud of you!’
As she looked up, bewildered, he put a hand on her soaked head and pulled it against his chest. He could feel the frantic pounding of her heart.
‘Come on, Rupe,’ shouted the
‘You must recognize Perdita as your daughter now.’
Rupert grinned round at them: ‘Course I do. Only a Campbell-Black could have played that well.’ He looked down at Perdita. ‘It’s all right, lovie. There’s no need to cry. You’re mine now. I’ll take care of you.’ Then, to make her laugh: ‘We’d better not hang around or
As the teams lined up, even the normally impassive Ricky was hard put to hide his elation.
‘They said we hadn’t a fox’s chance in a hunt kennel,’ he stammered to the grey-mushroom field of microphones, ‘but we did it. The boys and Perdita played so well, I just had to follow them round. That’s not to say the Americans didn’t play brilliantly. But in the end we played better.’
‘D’you think all the flak you got from everyone in the last month sharpened up your game?’ asked
Ricky smiled briefly. ‘No, I was always good.’
‘Oh, isn’t he macho?’ sighed the girl from the
The Westchester Cup had been described by a former player as a singularly hideous trophy, but nothing had ever looked more beautiful to the English team as Ricky walked up to deafening cheers to accept it from Prince Charles, who was obviously as delighted as he was amazed by the result.
‘Well done, Ricky, absolutely marvellous.’
It was hard to curtsy with any grace in boots and breeches, but when Perdita, still red-eyed from dust and her rapprochement with Rupert, approached the Prince, he bent forward and kissed her cheek, and when he pinned a little ruby brooch in the shape of a rose on her dark blue jersey the crowd roared their approval.
To Perdita’s amazement Spotty won Best Playing Pony. He was so delighted to be stuffed so full of Polos and the centre of attention that he forgot to fart. There was a brief pause as the Most Valuable Player was announced.
‘Must be Red,’ whispered Perdita to Seb.
‘By general consensus of opinion,’ said Brad Dillon rustling his papers, ‘because his utter stability held the American team together and because he refused to ride off a seriously injured player in the true tradition of sportmanship, the award for the Most Valuable Player of the series goes to Luke Alderton.’
An amazed hush was followed by the most deafening storm of cheering of the day and it continued long after Luke, in a pair of torn jeans and an old, blue denim shirt, had fought his way up to collect the beautiful, rearing silver pony. Overwhelmed with longing and pride, Perdita wanted to rush forward and hug him, but the whooping, yodelling, ecstatic crowd divided them and the next moment she found herself being swept off by Ricky to ring Daisy before the press conference.
Only Chessie, the ultimate upstager, having ostentatiously flung off her black silk shawl, managed to pummel her way past a clicking frenzy of cameramen and security guards and fling her arms round Ricky’s neck in ecstasy.
‘You won, my darling, you won! Don’t you realize what that means?’
As the photographers swung into action, frantic to capture the moment, Perdita turned away, horror-struck, and found herself looking straight at Bart and Red.
‘It was your fucking fault,’ Bart was hissing at Red. ‘You forced them to drop Luke.’
Red, greyer beneath his suntan than ever Ricky had been, was looking utterly desolate.
After the match there was a celebration dinner at the Quinta Hotel organized by the American Polo Association and the cock-a-hoop sponsors.
‘Everyone is expected to get plastered,’ Rupert told the England team, ‘but there seems to be a general consensus of opinion that the men will wear ties and you will all behave well, at least for the duration of dinner. That means no eloping before the Queen,’ he added in an undertone to Ricky.
When they met up in the lobby, Rupert looked disapprovingly at Ricky’s black tie. ‘At least you might have left that off after winning the Westchester. You can’t wallow in misery for ever.’ Then, seeing Taggie’s face: ‘No, I’m sorry, you’ve won the Westchester. You can do what you bloody well like.’ Perdita, in a black, backless dress which matched her bruises and the dark circles under her eyes, had a feeling of total unreality. The euphoria of winning and of Rupert at last accepting her was fast receding. She was worried about Ricky who seemed unbelievably
