been known to turn on taps and flood the yard and, even worse, let other ponies out of their boxes when he got bored. At matches he had to be watched like a hawk in case he wriggled out of his headcollar, and set off for the tea tent, where his doleful yellow face and black-ringed eyes could coax sandwiches and cake out of the most stony-hearted waitress. Left to his own vices, deserted even by his friend Little Chef, who’d gone with Ricky, Wayne started to fiddle with the bolt.
At the Jamboree it was time for tea. The Marmite and plum jam sandwiches were already curling on the trestle table under the walnut tree. The guides were hot and thirsty, but as Miss Lodsworth went to the kitchen tap for water to fill up the jugs of concentrated lemon squash, only a trickle came out of the tap.
‘Please, Miss Lodsworth,’ said a pink-faced Pack Leader, ‘the upstairs toilet isn’t flushing.’
‘Nor’s the downstairs,’ said her friend.
Looking out across Dancer’s emerging polo fields, Miss Lodsworth first thought how beautiful as a huge fountain of water gushed a hundred feet into the air, throwing up rainbow lights in the sunshine against the yellowing trees.
Picking up the telephone, she was on to Dancer in a trice.
‘D’you realize,’ she spluttered, ‘that your bulldozers have gone slap through the chief water main? The whole village will be cut off, and my guides have nothing to drink.’ She couldn’t mention the question of lavatories to Dancer.
Round the pool they were all having hysterics as Dancer tried to calm her down.
‘I’ll get on to the emergency services immediately. Of course they work on a Saturday. An’ if it gets too bad, your little girls can come and drink out of the swimming-pool. And we’ve got plenty of Bourbon if you’re pushed.’
He had to hold the telephone away from his ear.
An hour later Perdita sidled into the yard with wet hair to be confronted by Frances quivering with ecstatic disapproval.
‘Why the hell didn’t you bother to dry off the ponies?’
‘I just nipped over to Dancer’s for a swim.’
‘Can’t keep away from the boys, can you? Did you turn Wayne out?’
‘No. Yes, I must have done.’ Perdita always blinked when she was lying. ‘Oh Christ, he must be in one of the paddocks or the garden.’
‘He isn’t, I’ve looked,’ sneered Frances. ‘Thank God Ricky’ll come to his senses and sack you now.’
‘Oh, please don’t tell him,’ pleaded Perdita. She hadn’t realized quite how much Frances detested her.
‘You stay here.’ Frances handed her Hermia’s lead rope. ‘I’ll take my car and go and look for him.’
‘I’ll go,’ sobbed Perdita, and, leaping on to Hermia’s back, she clattered off down the drive.
Perdita couldn’t get any sense out of the gaudy retinue round Dancer’s pool. They were all drunk or stoned.
‘Wayne’s gone missing,’ she screamed. ‘Please someone come and help me look for him.’
‘Probably gone to the Jamboree,’ said Dommie, looking up from his brunette. ‘Miss Lodsworth’ll be teaching him how to untie clove hitches.’
‘Don’t be so fucking flip.’
Pulling on a pair of Garfield boxer shorts, grumbling Dommie tiptoed barefoot across the gravel out to his Lotus.
‘You go west, I’ll go north.’
‘Have you seen a yellow pony with a white face? Have you seen a yellow pony with a white face?’ Getting more and more desperate, Perdita stopped at every house and scoured every field. Ricky would go apeshit if anything happened to Wayne. Then, as she entered Eldercombe Village, she saw a pile of droppings in the middle of the road.
‘Looking for a pony?’ said an old man. ‘He went into that garden.’
Perdita went as green as the guides’ unconsumed lemon squash. For there in the gateway, framed in an arch of clematis as purple as her face, stood Miss Lodsworth. She’d had to buy all her guides Coca Cola from guiding funds, and send them home early in a hired bus in case they electrocuted themselves storming the gates of Eldercombe Manor in search of Dancer. She would be eating Marmite sandwiches and rock buns for months.
‘Dancer Maitland has wrecked my Jamboree,’ roared Miss Lodsworth. ‘Your pony has wrecked my garden. He’s trampled on my alstroemerias and my dahlias, kicked out my cucumber frame and broken down the fence into the orchard.’
‘I’m terribly sorry. I’ll pay,’ begged Perdita. ‘
‘I’m going to ring my solicitor.’
Wayne was enchanted to see Hermia and Perdita, and gave the appearance of having been searching for them all day. As she only had one lead rope, Perdita had to walk both ponies the mile and a half back to Robinsgrove. At the bottom of the drive, Wayne started to totter, and his yellow belly gave such a thunderous rumble, he started looking round at it in surprise and reproach.
Oh God, colic, thought Perdita; perhaps he’s eaten something he shouldn’t, I must get him home.
Halfway up the drive, Wayne started pawing his belly and rolling the whites of his eyes. Soon he was cannoning off lime trees and, as they passed the second gates, crashed into the left-hand gatepost. By the time he had staggered into the yard he could hardly stand up, hitting the ancient, mossy mounting block and tripping over one of the green tubs filled with white geraniums, as Little Chef came bounding out to lick him on the nose.
Perdita had never known Ricky so angry. Taking one look at the swaying Wayne, he yelled at Frances to ring Phil Bagley, the vet.
‘Tell him it may be a heart attack, or colic, or twisted gut. He could even have been hit by a car. Tell him to fucking hurry.’
Then, turning on Perdita: ‘You stupid b-b-bitch, I told you to double-bolt those doors.’
‘I know. I forgot.’
‘Well, you’ve forgotten once too often. Get out, you’re fired.’
‘Please let me see what Phil says,’ whispered Perdita, whose face was now as white as Wayne’s.
‘Get out,’ hissed Ricky, who needed all his strength to guide the staggering, crashing Wayne into his box. ‘Just fuck off.’
Phil Bagley arrived in a quarter of an hour.
‘I was delivering one of Mark Phillips’ calves,’ he said indignantly. ‘The things I do for you, Ricky. Now, where’s this pony?’
As he went into his box Wayne was still pawing his belly. Then, slumping against the wall, he crashed to the ground.
‘I’ll give him a massive jab of vitamin B,’ said Phil when he’d examined him, ‘and some Buscopan. It’s obviously hurting him. Then we’d better get some fluids inside him. I guess it’s twisted gut. Where’s he been?’
‘Escaped to Eldercombe, got into Miss L-L-Lodsworth’s garden.’
‘Jesus, you’d think he’d been programmed.’
As Phil loaded his syringe and Ricky tried to calm the terrified pony, whose eyes were quite glazed now, they heard frantic barking outside.
Next minute Miss Lodsworth’s head appeared over the half-door, looking even more like a horse than Wayne.
‘I’ve come to make a complaint.’
‘Not now,’ said Phil, who was holding the needle up to remove the air bubbles.
‘Piss off,’ muttered Ricky under his breath.
‘I must speak to someone.’
‘Can you wait somewhere else?’ snapped Phil. ‘I’m sorry, but we’ve got a critically sick horse here.’
‘Sick, my eye,’ thundered Miss Lodsworth, ‘That horse isn’t sick, it’s dead drunk. It’s just eaten all my cider apples.’ There was a long pause. Crouching down, Phil sniffed Wayne’s breath.
‘I do believe you’re right. How many apples d’you reckon he ate?’
‘Close on a hundred.’
Ricky never thought he’d want to hug Miss Lodsworth.
‘Are you sure?’ he said, getting to his feet.
