Perdita’s arctic blond hair flew loose and newly washed (as usual Luke had boiled up the water for the shower). Her body was starkly but seductively clad in an elongated black T-shirt. Angel’s khaki face was dead-pan. His eyes never moved from Perdita’s, as his body writhed like a snake.
Sharon gazed at Angel greedily.
‘Who does that young man play for in Palm Beach?’ she asked Luke.
‘No one at the moment.’
‘Ay’ll have a word with Victor.’
An hour later, Perdita having bopped also with Alejandro and Victor, came back and threw herself on Luke’s knee like a child.
‘Oh, Luke, darling, I’m having so much fun, it’s all due to you. Without you Alejandro would never have let me play and he’s just been really complimentary, and you’ll never guess . . .’ She put her mouth to Luke’s ear. As her hair tickled his cheek and he smelt her scent and felt the excited heat of her body, his senses reeled.
‘Sharon,’ whispered Perdita, ‘is going to put a Mogadon in Victor’s brandy so she can spend the whole night with Angel. That’ll be three men in one day. She
So Perdita wasn’t falling for Angel. Luke felt almost giddy with relief. Then reality reasserted itself.
‘And Alejandro says I can ring Ricky when I get home,’ went on Perdita joyfully. ‘Aren’t the Argentines the most adorable people in the world?’
Perdita’s euphoria was tempered the next morning. While Sharon enjoyed her beauty sleep and possibly Alejandro as well, Victor played in a practice game with Alejandro’s young sons, and Angel, Perdita and Patricio, who all had fearful hangovers. Determined to try out Fantasma, Victor had only been deterred because Alejandro lied that she’d come up slightly lame from her bang on the knee yesterday.
‘You see how good she was. No need to try ’er.’
Victor’s game had not improved since 1981. He slumped around on other horses like a sack of pony nuts, crossing everyone. As the sun grew hotter, and her headache worse, his uselessness began to irritate Perdita. The others were letting him get away with murder. They couldn’t be that hungover. As he teetered towards her, she rode him off so viciously he nearly fell off.
‘Come ’ere,’ yelled Alejandro who’d just arrived. Then, dropping his voice as she drew near, ‘Lay off, you stupid beetch.’
His conniving little eyes were vicious with fury at the prospect of losing a good deal. ‘Your job ees to make Veector look breeliant, and for ’im to score as many goals as possible.’
So, for the next half-hour, they all cantered round, tipping the ball on to the end of Victor’s stick, greeting every goal with roars of applause.
‘Your horses are much better schooled than the O’Briens’,’ said Victor as he rode off the field, flushed with triumph.
He proceeded to buy twenty horses and said that after lunch he would haggle with Alejandro over a price for Fantasma.
Luke, whose ankle was murder, had spent a frustrating morning in the village telephone-exchange tracking down his patron Hal Peters, the automobile billionaire. He finally located him in the Four Seasons in New York, closing a mega-deal with some Italians.
‘Fantasma’s a dream,’ shouted Luke. ‘Lines me up for every shot, changes legs at a gallop, got acceleration that brings tears to your eyes. She outran all the O’Briens’ ponies yesterday and she’s only four.’
‘You talking about a woman?’ said Hal Peters, who wanted to show off to the Italians and their bimbos. ‘Is she pretty?’
‘Prettiest horse you ever saw, silver as a unicorn and all the grace. If we have her on the team, everyone’ll talk about her. Best publicity you could have, but we’ve gotta move fast. People are after her.’
‘Pay what you like,’ said Hal.
Luke belted back to the house to tell Alejandro he could top any bid of Victor’s and the haggling started in earnest.
‘I buy her for $7,000 as a two year old,’ said Alejandro.
‘Bullshit!’ said Luke. ‘She only came into the yard two months ago and you told me Patricio only paid $700 for her.’
Alejandro gave a great roar of laughter. ‘That was when he bought her. Now I am selling her.’
They settled for $12,000.
In the afternoon Luke had a telephone call at Alejandro’s from his father, also in New York. Off the drink and living on shrimp and diet Coke in order to shed ten pounds before the Palm Beach season, Bart was not in a good mood. He did, however, congratulate Luke on going up to seven in the latest handicap listings and asked him to join him, Bibi and Red in the Fathers and Sons Tournament which began in the middle of December.
‘I’ve got to fly a lot of horses back for myself and Hal,’ said Luke, ‘but if you can put in a substitute for the first two games, I should make the semi-final. How’s Red?’
‘Lousy,’ said Bart. ‘Got himself involved with some actress called Auriel Kingham.’
‘Christ!’ Luke tried not to laugh. ‘Wasn’t she at college with Grace?’
‘Almost,’ said Bart. ‘She’s junked her husband who’s citing Red, so we’ve got reporters staking out the house night and day.’
Bart, however, was much more furious because the underhandicapped player, known in the game as a ringer, whom he’d signed up to play with him, Juan and Miguel in Palm Beach, had been put up two places in the November handicaps, which put the aggregate of the team’s handicap over the required twenty-six.
‘I called the American Polo Association,’ snarled Bart, ‘I said, “We’ve paid him money and he signed the contract eight months ago and we’ll pull out altogether because it wrecks our team”, but the assholes wouldn’t budge.’
Luke privately thought that the APA, having been pushed around once too often by Bart, had probably decided to take a stand.
‘I’ve gotta find another ringer at once,’ said Bart. ‘You got any ideas? I’m pissed off with Juan’s and Miguel’s cousins.’
‘Sure,’ said Luke. ‘Guy called Angel. Plays like one too. He’s rated one here, but he’s at least four. Got class too. I’ll bring him back with me.’
It touched Luke that, despite their differences, his father trusted him more than the O’Briens when it came to finding players. Having told Angel, he limped outside. Christ, his ankle hurt. He saw that Perdita was cantering Tero round the corral. The change in the little mare was amazing. She had filled out, her iron-grey coat gleamed like stainless steel, her long silver-blond mane, still unclipped to indicate she was a novice, fell coquettishly over her eyelashes. Her brown nose looked as if it had been dipped in paprika.
She no longer trembled or flinched away when Perdita touched her, and this morning, a huge victory, she had accepted a Polo from Perdita’s hand. Schooling and stick and balling her mostly behind Alejandro’s back, Perdita had fallen totally in love with the pony and was desperate to buy her for Apocalypse next summer. But Ricky hadn’t answered any of her letters and he’d been out when she’d rung him last night.
Now Tero was executing a perfect figure of eight, not flinching at all at the stick Perdita was swinging around to get her used to it.
Oh, happy horse to bear the weight of Perdita, thought Luke.
Instead he said, ‘Angel’s gonna play on my father’s team in Palm Beach next season.’
‘That’s great,’ said Perdita, battling with jealousy. ‘What did Angel say?’
‘He’s so fired up that he galloped three times round the stick-and-ball field yelling: “Sheet, sheet, I’m going to play for the Flyers.” I warned him he’d have to play with the O’Briens, and that my father isn’t easy, but at least it’s a polo boot in the door.’
‘Lucky thing,’ said Perdita fretfully. ‘I’d love to play in Palm Beach.’
As Luke stroked Tero’s satin neck, it was difficult to tell if his hand was shaking the mare, or the mare shaking him. Not looking up, he drawled, ‘Why don’t you come and spend Christmas with us? It’s kinda wild. And we can certainly arrange some polo.’
‘
