Polo

acceptable, she thought, laying them on the bed. She ought to get ready for church but she couldn’t find her boots anywhere.

Looking for them downstairs, she found Ethel crunching something up in the hall. She was so adorable with her thumping tail and speckled head. Then, as Ethel coughed up a piece of wood, which was definitely orange, Daisy let out a moan.

‘What’s up?’ said Perdita, who was eating Philadelphia cheese with a spoon in the kitchen.

‘Ethel’s eaten St Joseph,’ wailed Daisy. ‘Granny’ll have a heart attack.’

‘Hooray,’ said Perdita. ‘I’ve bought her the Jane Fonda Work Out Book for Christmas. Hopefully it’ll finish her off. It’s nearly midnight, let’s go out and see if Fresco’s kneeling down to honour the birth of Christ.’

The grey, lurex lawn crunched beneath their feet. Jupiter, Orion, Capella and the Dog Star blazed overhead. There were never such stars in London, thought Daisy. Fresco gave a low, deep whinny of welcome, but didn’t bother to get up as Perdita sat down beside her.

‘That means they’re happy and relaxed,’ said Perdita proudly. ‘If they lie down. Isn’t she beautiful? She’s the best friend I’ve ever had, thank you so much, Mum. I’ll be a great polo player one day, and then I can support you.’

Unbelievably touched, tight from tiredness and Benedictine, Daisy wandered away from the stable door. Then, behind her, from the black church spire, she heard the mad, romping din of the bells echoing down the white frozen valley, celebrating the birth of Christ.

The hopes and fears of all the years, thought Daisy, overwhelmed with a wave of loneliness and despair. How wonderful to love and be in love at Christmas. Then, wiping away the tears, she chided herself. How ridiculous to think there was more to life than a husband, children and a lovely house.

‘I do love you,’ she mumbled much later when Hamish came to bed.

‘Is that because you’ve drunk half a bottle of Benedictine? D’you want some sex, Daisy?’

Daisy didn’t. She was absolutely knackered, but she thought it might cheer Hamish up. Sex with him was always the same. Hand straight down to the clitoris, rubbing it until she was wet enough for him to go in, then ten brisk thrusts before he came.

10

Daisy’s hangover did not enhance Christmas morning for her. Nor did Eddie playing a computer game he’d got in his stocking, which squawked every time the monkey grabbed the banana on the palm tree, nor did Biddy yakking on and on and letting her croissant get cold.

Biddy had made a little stocking for Hamish, filled with socks, underpants, shaving soap, disposable razors and initialled handkerchiefs and, finally, a fawn jersey which he was now wearing – ‘All the things I know you need,’ Biddy had added pointedly.

Daisy, who longed to get everyone out of the kitchen so she could stuff the turkey, clutched her head as the telephone rang. Swearing and falling over the puppy, Hamish grabbed the receiver. It was his leading lady in the Robert Burns film, who’d found a tax bill among her Christmas cards.

Hamish turned on the charm. ‘But, darling, you’ll get repeat fees.’

And I ought to get re-heat fees, thought Daisy, as she shoved Biddy’s cooling croissant back in the oven for the third time.

‘That was Melanie,’ said Hamish coming off the telephone, switching on the kettle and dropping another herbal teabag into his cup.

‘Even on Christmas Day they pester you,’ sighed Biddy. ‘And you ought to eat a proper breakfast. You’ve lost so much weight.’

‘Seven pounds,’ said Hamish, smugly patting his concave stomach, then snatching up the telephone as it rang again.

‘Hamish Macleod, oh, hello, hello.’ Turning towards the window, Hamish hunched his broad shoulders over the telephone, jumping as Biddy leapt up to tuck in the Marks and Spencer tag sticking up from his jersey collar.

‘How are you?’ he went on. ‘No, not yet, we open ours at teatime. Lovely, it’s awfully sweet of you. I’ll try. Happy Christmas.’

Trying not to smirk, he put down the receiver. ‘Isn’t that sweet? That was Wendy ringing to wish us all Happy Christmas. She sent special love to you and Violet,’ he added to Eddie, ‘and hoped you enjoyed Peter Pan. She’s my PA,’ he added to Biddy. ‘Absolutely first rate. I hope you get a chance to meet before you go back.’

They were late opening their presents because Daisy was still stuffing the turkey and edging it into the Aga, which was harder than parking the Mini in Cheltenham on Christmas Eve.

‘Make a list,’ said Hamish bossily, as the children fell on their presents, ‘or we’ll never remember who gave who what, and get a bin for all the paper we can use again, and get that dog out of here,’ he added as Ethel pitched in joyously.

Biddy Macleod gave Eddie a camera, Violet a Walkman and Hamish some gold cufflinks to replace the ones Daisy had lost in the laundry. She gave Daisy a set of cake forks and Perdita two padded, satin coathangers.

‘Judging by your room, I thought you needed something to hang your clothes on,’ she told Perdita.

Daisy, shopping at the last moment, had overspent appallingly. Eddie was overwhelmed with the airgun.

Violet was too sweet not to pretend to be enchanted with the Laura Ashley dress, but Hamish wasn’t remotely pleased with his Barbour and green gumboots nor his silk shirts (after all it was his money Daisy was squandering), and when Biddy opened the box with the beautiful, pale grey silk nightie, she merely said, ‘Thank you,’ very quietly and put it to one side. She made no comment about the Jane Fonda Work Out Book, but went into raptures over Eddie and Violet’s massive box of chocolates, ‘I’m going to have one now,’ and then there was all the palaver of identifying a coffee creme from the chart.

‘Oh, come on,’ said Perdita.

Biddy went into orbit when Hamish handed her an envelope which told her that the tapes of all his programmes, including Road Haulage, and a video machine, would be waiting for her in Glasgow when she got home.

‘One more present,’ said Daisy, handing Biddy an unwieldy red parcel cocooned in Sellotape. ‘It says “Biddy love from Ethel”.’

In the end Hamish had to help Biddy rip it open. She gave a gasp as she extracted a pair of dusty, ancient, down-at-heel boots, one with a piece of chewing gum sticking to the toe.

‘What is the meaning of this?’

‘They’re Mummy’s boots,’ said Violet. ‘She’s been looking for them all day.’

‘I must have packed them by mistake,’ said Daisy in a small voice.

Everyone dressed for dinner. Daisy only had time to wriggle into an old purple-and-red caftan and tone down her scarlet cheeks. Perdita, in a black skirt and shirt that Daisy had given her, came into the kitchen as Daisy was draining the sprouts. Her clean white-blond hair hung in a long plait. With that lovely smooth, white forehead, and long, long, dark eyes, and the Greek nose, and the tiny, upper lip curving over the wonderful passionate mouth, she was pure Picasso, thought Daisy.

‘You look gorgeous,’ she said.

‘I wish Daddy and Granny thought so. That was inspired giving boots to an old boot.’

‘Hush,’ hissed Daisy. ‘It was totally unintentional.’

Violet, loyally wearing her new Laura Ashley, which was quite the wrong colour, and embarrassingly emphasized her emergent bust, was doing valiant work with Biddy Macleod in the sitting room. Biddy, who’d been down since half past seven, pointedly refused a second glass of sherry: ‘There’ll be wine at dinner.’