Yesterday his face had been animated with rage. Today it had resumed its normal impassivity. Close up, Perdita noticed the putty-grey pallor, the black hair flecked with grey, the livid scar running from right eyebrow to jawbone. His mouth had vanished in a grim line. Neither the thick, curly eyelashes nor the black rings underneath them tempered the bleak animosity of the slanting dark eyes above the hard Slav cheekbones.
Perdita felt a strange mixture of passion and compassion. I’ll make him better, she thought. He’s going to be my lover and the father I never had. I’m going to be the love of his life and the child he lost.
Ricky looked at Perdita. Even the crude make-up and the obscenely tight clothes could not really detract from her beauty. Yet in her wanton, blatant sexuality, she was terrifyingly close to both Beattie Johnson and Chessie. A waft of Je Reviens reached him, sickly sweet amid the stable smells of horse sweat, leather, straw and droppings. He was overcome with revulsion.
‘Tack up Sinatra,’ he said to Louisa.
Louisa and Frances exchanged awed but gleeful glances. Sinatra was the most difficult ride in the yard. He had to be gagged up to the eyeballs for anyone to control him. Bred in Kentucky, his coat had the mushroom-fawn silkiness of a Weimaraner. Brilliant on his day, he bucked under the saddle and pulled like the InterCity to London.
‘Leave off the running reins – and he doesn’t need a double bridle or that martingale,’ ordered Perdita, following Frances into Sinatra’s box.
‘We’re the best judge of that,’ snapped Frances. ‘He throws his head when he stops.’
‘I’ve been riding him in a headcollar all summer.’
‘On your swollen head be it. My God, is Ricky ever going to knock
‘Talking of shapes,’ drawled Perdita, staring contemptuously at the scrawny, hipless, bustless Frances, ‘yours leaves a great deal to be desired.’
Ricky made no comment about the lack of martingale, but handed her a hat as soon as she was mounted.
Aware it would flatten her hair, Perdita grumbled that she didn’t want to look like Mrs Thatcher going down a mine.
‘Put it on,’ said Ricky sharply.
Ricky stood in the middle of a sandy, oblong corral which was enclosed by post-and-rail fencing except for a gate at one end and a stretch of wall at the other. For a start he made her circle on different legs, leading to small circles, then into figures of eight. Each time Sinatra changed legs perfectly.
‘Blimey,’ said Louisa.
‘Keep your weight on the inside leg,’ said Ricky. ‘Now circle the ring at a gallop, then turn at the top sharply, changing legs.’
Knowing this was the most important move in polo, Perdita cantered round sweetly, calmly, then leaning right forward, she sent Sinatra thundering down the side of the ring, only just preventing him crashing into the wall. Going into a lightning turn which nearly brought the pony down, before Ricky could stop her, she careered back to the other end, executing a turn so sharp that Sinatra’s fawn nearside should have been full of splinters.
‘Stop showing off,’ howled Ricky.
‘Just proving he’s better in a snaffle.’
‘He only stopped to avoid c-c-concussing himself.’
‘Crap,’ said Perdita rudely, and, swinging round, galloped back, pulling Sinatra up five yards in front of the wall, turning so fast that for a second both pony and rider vanished in a cloud of brown dust. Emerging, she thundered up to Ricky, slithering to a halt three feet away from him, running her hand up and down Sinatra’s bristly poll to show him her appreciation.
‘Well?’ she taunted Ricky.
‘Your weight’s too far forward.’
‘It can’t be.’
‘Bloody can. If you hadn’t anticipated those stops, you’d have been right over his neck.’
After a quarter of an hour on Sinatra, by which time his silken coat was dark brown with sweat, Ricky changed her on to Kinta, the widow-maker, who required the brute strength of a Juan O’Brien to halt her wilful stampede.
‘This should be even more fun,’ hissed Frances to Louisa.
‘She rides jolly well,’ conceded Louisa.
‘Ricky’ll never put up with this kind of lip.’
Perdita’s method of stopping Kinta was simple. She rode her flat out at the brick wall at the end, which must have been five foot high. Sitting still in the saddle, she made no attempt to pull her up. Unable to stop, Kinta had no option but to hoist herself over the wall, just catching it with a cannon bone and pecking on landing.
‘I think we’ll walk back, you stupid bitch,’ Perdita chided the hobbling pony as she opened the gate and returned to the ring.
‘What the fuck d’you think you’re playing at?’ White with rage, Ricky bent down to examine Kinta’s leg.
‘Teaching her a lesson. Look how she’s learnt it.’ Swinging Kinta round, she hurtled her towards the wall.
‘Stop,’ yelled Ricky too late.
As if she were doing a dressage test, Kinta swivelled round, changing legs perfectly, hurtled down to the far corner and turned again.
‘Blimey cubed,’ said Louisa in amazement.
‘You keep forgetting to stop in a straight line,’ said Ricky, determined not to praise her, ‘and you never look round to check who’s behind you. Anyone coming down the line would take you clean out.’
‘Nobody here,’ shrugged Perdita.
‘It’s got to be instinctive for when there is someone,’ said Ricky. ‘Look, look and keep looking into the distance, never at your hands.’
At that moment a yellow-and-crimson hot-air balloon came over the hill, letting out a great recharging snort. Kinta, nervy at the best of times, jerked up her head, hitting Perdita smartly on the nose.
Totally unsympathetic, Ricky ordered her to go on circling the ring, doing small turns. For Perdita, frantically wiping away blood as it splattered her and Kinta, the session deteriorated sharply. Ten minutes more on Kinta were followed by twenty minutes on Wayne, Ricky’s favourite pony, still circling, turning, then swinging round and putting her left hand on Wayne’s custard-yellow right quarter at the trot, until her face and neck were streaming with sweat and blood, and her mascara and eyeliner were smeared and making her eyes sting.
Wayne flattened his big donkey ears and rolled his bruised dark eyes in martyrdom. Like an instinctive footballer who doesn’t need to train, he was appalled to be subjected to such boring manoeuvres. The sun grew hotter.
‘I will not give in, I will not give in,’ said Perdita through clenched teeth. Her tits were agony, bouncing around. But just as she was about to crack, Ricky signalled to Frances to bring in a bucket of polo balls. Wayne perked up as Ricky smoothed out the pitted sand in the centre with his boot and put down a ball.
‘We’ll start off with the nearside forehand, so you want him on the nearside leg.’
Desperate to show what she could do, Perdita completely mis-hit three balls in a row.
‘You’re not watching the ball.’
Wayne, getting crafty, skedaddled so near the ball that she couldn’t hit it without bashing his legs. She missed again.
‘Fucking hell,’ she screamed.
‘Now she’ll go to pieces,’ said Frances happily.
‘Come here,’ said Ricky.
Dripping with sweat and blood, make-up streaking her face like a clown caught in a deluge, Perdita rode sulkily up to him.
‘Calm down,’ he said gently. ‘You’re going too fast and getting uptight, and he knows it. And keep at him with your left leg or he’ll move in.’
Back she went, chattering with rage and panic. ‘Please God, or he’ll never take me on.’
Slowly Ricky took her through it. ‘Don’t cut the corner; up out of the saddle; bend over; look at the ball; begin
