‘Fine,’ said Bibi, picking only lychees and guavas out of the fruit salad, then adding to Luke, ‘I sure appreciate you telling Ricky to look me up in LA.’
Then, smiling evilly, almost toadlike, she turned back to Chessie, ‘I know Dad’s cute, but how could you dump Ricky? He is to die for. We spent a lot of time together.’
‘Really?’ Chessie drew slightly faster on her cigarette.
‘He’s being such a wow with all the movie stars he’s coaching,’ went on Bibi, slowly pouring too much cream over her fruit salad. ‘Being Ricky, he hasn’t a clue who any of them are and keeps yelling “Come here, you” to Stacy Keach and Pamela Sue Martin and Stefanie Powers. They just adore him.’
Luke put a hand over Perdita’s.
‘Don’t rise,’ he murmured. ‘She’s only winding Chessie up.’
‘Of course the women are spectacular in LA,’ went on Bibi. ‘Everyone’s beautiful there.’
‘You must be the exception,’ said Chessie sweetly, but she was balling her napkin.
‘How’s Ricky’s elbow?’ asked Luke.
‘Holding up pretty good,’ said Bibi. ‘In fact he seems to be spending a lot of time on both elbows, screwing his brains out. There are women coming out of his ears.’
‘Oh, c’mon,’ said Luke sharply.
Chessie didn’t react. Perdita had less restraint.
‘I don’t believe it,’ she stormed. ‘Ricky’s not like that.’
‘How d’you know?’ said Chessie sharply.
‘I’m his protegee,’ said Perdita simply. ‘I’ve been working in his yard for the last two and a half years. He fixed up for me to stay with Alejandro, and I’m going back to England to play with him in Dancer Maitland’s team next year. We’ve already met,’ she added to Chessie. ‘You gave me a lift home from David Waterlane’s party the night you got off with Bart.’
There was a stunned pause. Both Bibi and Chessie were looking at her as though she were a maggot who’d strayed into their raddichio.
‘You’ll never guess,’ drawled Chessie as Bart came off the telephone. ‘Your son’s brought a little Trojan polo pony into the house. Perdita works for Ricky and she’s going to be playing for him when we’re in England next year. You could be marking each other.’
‘She’ll give you a hard time,’ said Luke evenly. ‘She’s pretty good. Come on, baby.’ Taking Perdita’s hand, he pulled her to his feet. ‘I’ve got work to do. Thanks for a great lunch.’ Briefly he kissed Chessie’s rigid cheek. ‘See you tomorrow, Dad.’
31
Bart Alderton was an indelibly competitive man, but not altogether a bad one. To spite Grace and Ricky, who had both patronized him, he had stolen Ricky’s wife. Will’s death, however, had shaken him to his working-class roots. Afterwards he had been magic to Chessie, displaying uncharacteristic gentleness and patience, not only wheeling in an army of bereavement counsellors, but also listening endlessly and comforting her himself. He had also been jolted by how much his defection had destroyed Grace and the animosity this had aroused in Bibi and particularly Red.
Until Bart met Chessie, driven on by Grace, he had been a total workaholic, who only played polo so hard because he liked the snob element and was addicted to winning. But in Chessie he had acquired the perfect accessory to flaunt on the sidelines. Having fallen in love with her as well, he was so frantic to stop her ever going back to Ricky that becoming a better polo player and annihilating Ricky on the field had become his ultimate fix.
He was faced, therefore, with the conflict of winning on all fronts. It was hard satisfying Chessie in bed if his elbow had been hit by a ball the day before, his right shin was black and blue from a pulverizing ride-off and he had to fly off to New York first thing in the morning. How, too, could he concentrate on a board meeting, if he felt as though he’d been hit by a truck, or when half his mind was on whether he could dump the sales seminar in Detroit and the speech to the LA Chamber of Commerce in order to make tomorrow’s final?
That afternoon when Luke and Perdita came to lunch in Palm Beach he was desperate to stick and ball, but he was supposed to fly to Washington immediately to meet the Saudi Minister of Defence to clinch an order for 100 helicopters. Picking up his briefcase, he went out to the pool to find Chessie doing backstroke with absolutely no clothes on at all, surreptitiously being watched through the wrought-iron gates by two security guards, whose crotches were bulging as much as their side pockets.
‘Chessie!’ he snarled.
Christ, she was beautiful, with her breasts so small and firm they hardly splayed to the sides at all and her curling waist, and the red jewels of her painted toenails. Smiling sleepily and lasciviously up at him, she deliberately opened her legs, so he could see the pink, shining coral of her labia.
‘Come out of that pool,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Fuck off, you two sons of bitches!’ he roared at the security men.
‘Dad, are you coming?’ Clutching a burgundy briefcase, Bibi appeared impatiently at the drawing-room window.
‘Jolly nearly,’ mocked Chessie, not closing her legs.
‘Christ, you slut,’ said Bibi in disgust.
‘You handle the Defence Minister,’ said Bart, not looking round. ‘Iranians like women.’
‘They don’t listen to them,’ raged Bibi. ‘You oughta be there, Dad.’
‘Give me twenty minutes,’ said Bart.
‘Five’s quite enough for your father,’ said Chessie.
‘You bitch,’ said Bart a minute later, as he slammed the bedroom door. ‘Why d’you keep winding Bibi up, for Chrissake?’
‘Why does your bloody son wind me up?’ screamed Chessie. ‘Why d’you have to play with him tomorrow?’
‘We’ve been through all that,’ said Bart roughly. Then drawing her to him, ‘You’ll have to pay for it, you know.’
He felt her breath quicken.
‘Punish me then,’ whispered Chessie.
He left her after half an hour, sated, sore but satisfied. She hated him, but he had totally cracked her sexually. She wouldn’t be swimming in the nude for a few days.
Perdita was in a far worse mood than Chessie.
‘I do not believe it,’ she stormed, too angry to cry as they drove back to Luke’s barn in Wellington. ‘Ricky is not promiscuous.’
‘Sure he isn’t,’ said Luke. ‘Bibi was just paying Chessie back for asking about her love life. Bibi’s boyfriend Skipper’s what we call a Trust Fund Baby. He lives off his father and does damn all, and now he’s playing her up. He’s an asshole. But it always hurts.’
‘I can’t see Ricky fancying her,’ said Perdita. ‘She’s not remotely glamorous.’
‘Can be,’ said Luke as they drove past scummy canals full of condoms and Coke tins. ‘When she’s dressed up for the evening with her hair loose and her jewels on and her contact lenses in, she looks fantastic. She’s tired too. Grace knew all the polo schedules well in advance so everything ran smoothly. Chessie’s not interested, so Bibi has to do all that as well as running the LA office. She’s got a terrific body.’
‘Pity about the face. And that Chessie’s a bitch,’ said Perdita, gazing moodily out at an airport, where hundreds of private planes – mostly Alderton Lightnings – flocked like seagulls. ‘And she’s so bloody beautiful. Mind you, it’s easy if you’re that rich. Christ, I’d like to spend a million pounds on clothes and a hundred years in a beauty parlour. If only I wasn’t so broke! How can I compete with that sort of thing?’
