handsome mouths were everywhere. Armoured cars patrolled the streets. Bart’s wallet was promptly nicked and, when he stormed into the police station an officer with his boots up on the desk told him there was a coup on and no-one had time to bother about stolen goods.
The taxis were also on strike and no-one was there to meet them. Luke was wearily hiring a car to drive out to Alejandro’s
As Angel negotiated the lunatic traffic out of Buenos Aires, using his horn at red lights rather than his brakes, he deliberately excluded Bart by gabbling incessantly in Spanish to Luke, who felt burdened by added responsibility as he realized how crucial Sunday’s match was for Angel. Having deeply offended his family, his fellow players and his country by taking American citizenship, Angel felt he would only be taken back into the fold again if he played well in the Open.
At General Piran all was pain. Every eucalyptus leaf, every speck of brown dust, the pampas stretching like his love to infinity, reminded Luke of Perdita. Claudia and all the children hugged him, the grooms, gauchos and their wives rushed forward to pump his hand, even Raimundo, whom he’d hit across the cafe after he’d tried to back Tero by tying her to Angel’s car, seemed delighted to see him. Why had Senor Gracias stayed away so long? they demanded and where was Perdida, the little lost one?
But Luke was only interested in seeing Fantasma. Rounding the orange grove, he saw her before she saw him. Flattening her ears, pawing at the floor, she was furiously trying to gnaw wood off her half-door through her muzzle. At least they hadn’t broken her spirit.
At the sound of his voice, Fantasma looked up incredulously, stared for a second, whickered like an earthquake, then once again soared over her half-door like a lark in flight. Charging up to Luke, she began rubbing her head against his chest, nuzzling his pockets as though he’d never been away.
Ripping off her muzzle, stroking and hugging her, Luke ran his hands down her legs, still as familiar to him as the pattern on his own bedroom curtains. Thank Christ, she was OK. His hands trembled so much he could hardly undo the packet of Polos he’d bought her at the airport and in the middle he had to get out a handkerchief to blow his nose and wipe his eyes.
Having crunched up every Polo, Fantasma wouldn’t let him out of her sight, jumping fences and grazing close by when he lunched under the trees with the family, then insanely, shrilly jealous when he tried out other ponies for the match the next day.
Alejandro, who was in a lot of pain, was very bad-tempered and, yelling instructions from his wheelchair, only succeeded in unnerving the rest of the team. For too many years he had manipulated Patricio and Lorenzo like puppets. How would they take orders from Luke?
Luke and Bart stayed the night with Bibi and Angel, who were restoring a romantic ruin near by with a beautiful deserted garden. But, as the match approached, Angel got more and more nervous and ratty, ending up in having such a row with Bibi that she flatly refused to come and watch him.
Match day dawned. True to form, Fantasma started lashing out with both back legs the moment she saw the polo basket containing all the tack going into the lorry. On the day of last year’s final the grooms of the wily O’Briens had reached the Palermo ground three hours early to bag the better stalls on the shadier side of the pitch. This year they were outfoxed by Raimundo and the Mendoza grooms who arrived four hours early to annex the cooler stalls. This so incensed the O’Briens that they started sneering that the Mendozas must be very pushed to include two damned ‘Americanos’ in their team. Soon both sides were hissing like Montagues and Capulets and only Luke shoving his large shoulders between rival grooms stopped a fight breaking out.
Oblivious of all this, Angel sat on an upturned bucket with his head in his hands, not bothering to check his horses or even warm up.
‘She’ll show up,’ said Luke, resisting the temptation to shake Angel. ‘Don’t be so goddam histrionic.’
Ten minutes before the parade both captains were giving last minute pep-talks. The Mendozas had speed and the courage of lions, but the O’Briens were technically superior and hit the ball harder and more accurately.
‘The only way to beat them,’ urged Luke as he pulled on his lucky gloves which were mostly hole now, ‘is to stop them opening up and press them all over the field, which means sticking like leeches.’
The O’Briens, who, like Perdita, had been watching videos of the Westchester, realized they must obstruct Luke as much as possible and divert his fusillade of deadly passes away from his young team.
‘Don’t hang on to the ball,’ ordered Miguel, swinging his mallet round and round to loosen up his massive shoulders, ‘and don’t let the Mendozas see what you’re doing.’
Despite being surrounded by the skyscrapers of Buenos Aires, few grounds are more beautiful or dramatic than the Number One field at Palermo with its forest of white flagpoles, lush tropical trees, green hedges lined with pink roses and huge stands rising like cliff faces to a white-hot sky on either side of a sage-green ground.
Two minutes before the parade Bibi crept into her seat beside Bart. She was almost deafened by the O’Brien supporters with their emerald-green parasols and the Mendoza fans with their primrose-yellow flags and banners, encouraging their teams on with a cacophony of trumpet and drum. Bart, who’d bought a new panama for the occasion, was outraged because he was too far from Luke to bombard him with last-minute instructions. All around him were beautiful, laughing girls unfazed by the heatwave, their shining hair cascading on to slim walnut-brown shoulders. Perhaps there was life after Chessie after all. Bibi was more aware, to the right, of a rampart of Angel’s relations, who clearly recognized but studiously ignored her. Only marginally more hostile was Mrs Juan, Sitting Bully in person, whose huge bulk occupied three chairs instead of one.
‘Here they come,’ said Bibi in a choked voice. ‘Oh, come on, Angel! Come on, Luke! Come on, the Mendozas!’
The heat, which had been stifling as the vast crowd began to file through the turnstiles, was now like a cauldron of boiling oil. With people all fanning themselves with programmes, the two stands were like vast swarms of white butterflies. Despite his air of smiling imperturbability, Luke’s primrose shirt was drenched with sweat and his hands were propped on his saddle to conceal their trembling as he rode quietly out on Alejandro’s most beautiful liver-chestnut mare. Beside him rode Lorenzo, Patricio and Angel, curls flowing out underneath their helmets, long limbs supple as liquorice sticks, faces white as flagposts. At mid-field waited the O’Briens, four, immensely strong, proud men in the prime of life, hell bent on a sixth victory, who would take no prisoners. Everyone had been looking forward to the band who had guarded the President for nearly 200 years, but they had been banned from the ground because of the coup, so a lone trumpeter played the Argentine National Anthem instead. The tantivy of horn and trumpet and the tumbril-beat of drums intensified.
‘We are going to be keeled,’ said Angel through clattering teeth, ‘and Bibi ’aven’t even come and say goodbye to me.’
‘
‘Now he play bettair,’ said Patricio, nudging Lorenzo and looking upwards. Following his gaze, Angel was stunned to see a little plane chugging across the sky trailing a message: ‘Good luck, Angel, I love you, Bibi.’
The crowd burst into a collective roar of laughter. Angel went crimson but he was grinning like a pools winner. Now he would play like a king. He could hardly wait for the long-thighed umpire in his bright-blue shirt to chuck the ball in.
Luke found the Palermo Open quite different to any other tournament, not only because eight chukkas were played instead of the usual six, but also because the pace was twice as fast, the bumps three times as violent and the ponies four times as superior. There was no razzmatazz, no cheer leaders, no balloons, no commentary, because everyone in the madly excited crowd knew what was going on and made whistling sounds every time a foul occurred, often anticipating the umpire. All you could hear between the great roars of encouragement and the din of trumpet and drum was the clatter of incessantly galloping hooves, the snorting of the ponies, the desperate shouts of the players and the blind-man’s tap, tap, tap of their sticks.
By any standard the first chukka was played on fast forward. To boost morale and rattle the O’Briens Alejandro had mounted his sons and Angel on his best ponies. Exploding on to the field shiny as conkers shot from their husks, they outraced the O’Brien ponies with ease. By the bell the Mendozas were ahead by a staggering 5-1, three of the goals scored by Angel.
The O’Briens’ game-plan emerged as they settled down in the second chukka. Seamus O’Brien spent his time
