incredibly slender waist, wrists and ankles, she made the lean, blond, suntanned polo beauties look slightly commonplace by comparison.
Up came the players. Victor, his toupee firmly in place, was vulgarly delighted to win the cup.
‘It takes two teams to make a game,’ droned on the commentator, ‘and they need two towels and a mirror to wipe away the perspiration. Each player gets something to take home, I expect most of them would like to take home Miss Kingham.’
Red, however, was the only player Auriel kissed and the crowd and the photographers went crazy.
Despite his totally non-contributory first five chukkas, Red also won the Most Valuable Player award to Auriel’s somewhat exaggerated ecstasy. He’s stolen Luke’s thunder and probably his patron, thought Perdita furiously. Fantasma, who won Best Playing Pony, came on muzzled and gazing fretfully back for Luke. A shimmer of silver white in the sun that had just returned, she disappeared under a royal-blue rug which stretched from her flattened ears to her newly brushed-out but angrily whisking tail.
‘These horses are thoroughbred and specially trained,’ chipped in the commentator. ‘We honour these brave animals which are seventy-five per cent of the game. The Blanket of Honour is just our way of saying thank you to the ponies.’
‘That’s my pony,’ yelled Victor, clutching his cup. ‘I’m getting Winston Chalmers on to you and Luke, Alejandro.’
‘If I’d known how good she was,’ said Alejandro to the Argentine umpire, ‘I’d have keep her myself.’
Any disappointment Hal might have felt at not winning was dispelled when he was photographed arm in arm with Auriel by the entire press corps.
‘You smell wonderful, Miss Kingham,’ he said, his Dutch cheese face redder than ever.
‘It’s my own fragrance,’ said Auriel, who had a heavily mascared eye for publicity. ‘It’s going to be called “Auriel”. I’ll send your wife a presentation pack. I just adore your Cheetah Convertibles.’
In the Players Club Hal, who was teetotal, bought everyone else champagne.
‘Where’s Luke?’ he asked.
‘Gone to hospital,’ said Perdita, who’d arrived with Leroy on a lead. ‘He’s dislocated his shoulder. He was in agony even before the match started. Bart clobbered him by the pony lines and threw him into an ambulance. I’m going to see him in a minute. He asked me to make his apologies.’
‘Oh, poor Luke, wish him our best,’ said Mrs Peters. ‘How brave of him to play with a dislocated arm.’
‘When did he do it?’ asked Hal. Red suddenly looked wary.
‘On Thursday night,’ said Shark Nelligan evilly. ‘Luke’s been knocking off a married woman. Her husband stormed into Cobblestones with half-a-dozen heavies and took him out.’
Both Hal and Mrs Peters looked extremely disapproving.
‘Who was the woman?’ asked Sharon.
‘Winston Chalmers’s wife, Lucy,’ said Shark, who was really enjoying himself.
‘Pretty woman,’ sighed Bobby Ferraro.
‘Winston Chalmers is handling my divorce!’ said Auriel in amazement. Then, turning to Red: ‘You didn’t tell me Lucy was having an affair with your brother.’
‘Didn’t think it was any concern of mine,’ said Red, going dead-eyed. ‘That was a barnstorming game you played, Hal.’
‘I’d never have guessed it of Luke,’ said Mrs Peters, really shocked.
‘Nor would I,’ said Red, shaking his head.
‘Thou shalt not commit adultery,’ said Hal sanctimoniously.
Perdita looked out at the evening sunlight slanting across the pitch. The thunderclouds had retreated and were turning coral pink. In the Players Club garden begonias and impatiens glowed like jewels after the rain. Horses were being ridden home three abreast to their barns.
‘I wouldn’t put anything past Luke Alderton,’ Shark was saying. ‘People who steal patrons steal other people’s wives.’
‘And their horses,’ chipped in Victor.
‘Bullshit,’ said Perdita, draining her glass of champagne. ‘It isn’t Luke who’s having an affair with Lucy Chalmers, it’s Red. Every time he gets Winston on the telephone he pretends to be Luke. I’d stick to someone your own age in future,’ she added to a furiously mouthing Auriel, ‘and always remember to put your toyboys away before you go to bed.’
35
‘The moment I divorce you,’ Chessie screamed at Bart over the buzz of his electric razor, ‘you’ll be cut out of the Forbes four hundred richest people list, and I’ll be in it.’
Christmas had got to Chessie as it had always got to her when, married to Ricky, she’d had to look after Will as well as having Ricky’s father and her parents to stay. This year, when she had nothing to do except instruct a fleet of servants, she’d decided she missed feeling sweaty, exhausted and put upon like 99 per cent of the world’s married women.
Watching his wife rearing out of the bath, her maenad’s face sullen as the water slid off her golden boy’s body, Bart tried to be conciliatory.
‘I know you miss Will worst at Christmas, honey, but there’s a perfectly simple remedy. Have some more kids with me. Give you something to do and fill the gap.’
‘Any child I had with you could never mean as much as Will,’ yelled Chessie.
Bart had walked out after that. It was the pattern of their relationship that she would play him up and he would punish her if she went too far. But this time she knew she had overdone it and when she called his office, on the flimsy excuse of asking him to find out if Red was coming, his secretary, Miss Leditsky, who was mean, lean and sexy, said he had meetings all day and had asked not to be disturbed.
Feeling like a row, Chessie rang Red.
‘The number you have called is being checked for trouble,’ said the operator’s recorded message.
‘You bet it is!’ Chessie slammed down the receiver. The little beast must have had his telephone cut off again.
The post didn’t improve her temper. The first Christmas card she opened was postmarked Australia and addressed to Bart and Grace, the second to Bart and Chrissie.
‘I saw three yachts come sailing by,’ said Chessie gazing moodily out on to an ocean as blue as Mary’s robes.
Then, with a stab, she remembered Will tunelessly singing: ‘Little Lord Jesus, asleep in the hedge.’ It had been one of hers and Ricky’s few shared jokes. No-one came to sing carols at Alderton Towers. They’d be too terrified of the Rottweilers and the security guards and the
She’d go crackers if she didn’t do something. Grace was in Uruguay with a woman friend, so tomorrow, for the first time, Bibi, and supposedly Red, as well as Luke and Perdita, were coming to Christmas dinner with her and Bart, who was cock-a-hoop at having all his family under one roof.
They’re bloody well going to have a better dinner than ever they had with Grace, thought Chessie, suddenly excited at the challenge.
The telephone rang. ‘Mr Alderton for you, Mrs Alderton,’ said Conchita.
Chessie’s heart eased. Bart had forgiven her. ‘Mr Luke Alderton,’ added Conchita.
Yet Luke calmed her more than Bart would have done, as he said, in his deep, slow, sleepy voice, that he and Perdita would be there at eight tomorrow, and would Chessie mind if they asked Angel who was on his own and might cheer up Bibi, whose boyfriend, Skipper, had begged off again at the last moment.
‘Anything to put her in a better mood,’ said Chessie. ‘Is he presentable?’
