by Jilly Cooper
Alejandro wouldn’t help him. He was jealous of new blood, particularly when it was as blue as Angel’s, but Luke, who knew how hard it was to get established, had recognized Angel’s talent. Before Perdita arrived he and Angel had spent hours talking in the evenings trying to improve each other’s English and Spanish. Luke realized that, beneath his corroding bitterness and pyrotechnic bursts of Latin temperament, Angel was by nature merry, with a kind heart and an even greater sense of the ridiculous. The latter had for the moment deserted him. The Brits had taken Pedro, now this blonde witch had stolen Luke. Angel was biding his time.
25
Perdita refused to admit it, but she was terribly homesick. There was no post nor telephone because of the strike, and she was tormented by fantasies of Ricky being ridden off by starlets in Palm Springs. Used to smothering any animal she met with love, she felt dreadfully deprived when the Argentine ponies flinched away from her. Only Raimundo’s lurchers responded when she combed the burrs out of their coats and fed them bits of meat.
Visiting players, Raimundo, the grooms and Alejandro looked at her with ill-concealed lust, but her dead-pan hauteur and Señor Gracias’ large, looming presence kept them at bay. Angel smouldered at a distance, losing no chance to bitch her up. She was aware that none of the men except Luke took her seriously as a player.
Claudia was enchanting, endlessly kind and sympathetic, but, beneath her preoccupation with her children, Perdita sensed a deep sadness. Her daughters were also charming with their big dark eyes and exuberantly glossy hair and breasts rising like pomegranates, and they giggled in amazed delight when Perdita swore and yelled at the grooms and even screamed at their father. Heavy chaperonage, too, seemed to enhance their value, like jewellery locked in glass cases rather than scrambled in trays on the counter. But to Perdita they appeared curiously passive, sitting and waiting for some man to make them unhappy.
Luke was her salvation. The Argentine night came down like a blind, but, when it was too dark to ride, he seldom took a siesta, struggling instead through Martin Fierro, Don Quixote, or El Cid with the aid of a Spanish dictionary, or listening to music, mostly Mozart. But he was always prepared to turn off the tape and listen to her ranting on about how she missed Ricky and how bloody the Argentines were being to her and to their horses. An inspired listener, he seldom volunteered information about himself.
‘Have you got a girlfriend?’ she asked him once.
‘Yeah.’
‘Are you going to marry her?’
‘Nope.’
‘Why not?’
‘Not in love with her, I guess. There’s only one reason to get married, because you can’t not. And I’ve seen too much unhappiness caused by broken marriages. I want mine to stick.’
A few weeks later Perdita sat under a jacaranda tree which was scattering purply-blue petals all over the parched brown ground. At least the drought had driven off the mosquitoes.
‘Darling Ricky,’ she wrote, ‘David Waterlane’s been here today. He brought a letter from Mum. He’s going on to New York, and promises to post this for me. He bought four ponies, all of which Alejandro swore played in the final of last year’s Open. That makes over fifty ponies he’s sold this year that he claims took part. He must have changed ponies an awful lot. How are you getting on? Have you been signed up to star in a film yet? Has Luke’s bloody sister been in touch with you? Do you miss me a bit? I think I’m getting a bit better at polo. There is a beautiful little iron-grey mare here that Alejandro has frightened out of her wits and says is too wet for polo. I wish you’d bought her, I think she’s brilliant. If you send me the money, I think we could get her for $1,000.
‘Christ, the Argentines are cruel. Last week they started breaking the wild three year olds and goodness, Raimundo and the grooms adored it, treating it like some macho game. Did you realize they drive the ponies into a corral, then tie them to a stake in the burning sun for five days with no food or water? Alejandro caught me stealing out to water them the first night. We had a frightful row. He said the English were fine ones to bang on about cruelty when they sent little boys off to boarding school when they were eight. I said it had done Eddie a power of good. Anyway after that he put Raimundo on guard with a gun. I wouldn’t mind being shot, but I’m sure Raimundo would insist on raping me first. He’s such a lech.
‘Anyway on the sixth day, it’s really horrific. I came back from moving the cows, and found Raimundo and his merry men engaged in breaking proper. Five of them to one desperately weakened pony with sunken eyes and ribs you could play tunes on – lassoing it with weighted thongs, and pulling it over and over on the desperately hard ground, until it was crapping everywhere in terror. God, I loathe Alejandro for allowing it.
‘Finally on the seventh day, I thought that, being Catholic, they’d rest, but still unfed and unwatered, each pony was blindfolded and tacked up, and Raimundo got on each one’s back, and whipped it and whipped it out into the pampas, until the pony’s spirit was completely broken, and it’ll never argue with man again. How can any horse fail to be screwed up, when its first contact with man is fifth degree burns, starvation, and flagellation? No wonder they’re terrified.
‘I kicked Raimundo in the shins – there was a bit of a row. Alejandro wouldn’t let me stick and ball for a week. And it’s not just the animals they’re cruel to. Claudia was crying the other morning and I caught Luke hugging her. He said he was comforting her. Utterly bloody Alejandro has a mistress in BA. He went to see her that day he took you to the airport. According to Luke, Argentine men feel they’ve failed to demonstrate their virility unless they have a mistress, and that only their wives get married, they remain single. Christ, what an attitude, just like Rupert Campbell-Black’s when he was married.
‘I hate Argentine men, particularly that Angel. All they’re interested in is screwing and thumb-screwing. And as there isn’t an Inquisition any more, they take it out on the horses. If Luke wasn’t here, I’d go crackers. God, he’s nice, and he really works at his polo, every evening, lining up ball after ball, and practising penalties.
‘He’s a brilliant teacher too. Alejandro gets pissed off and shouts if you don’t do the right thing straight away. Luke tells you what to do all the time, but quietly, and he never loses his temper, except if he thinks you’re not trying.
‘Please, please write. I hope your elbow’s better now. Think of me sometimes. I must go, as David W is leaving in half an hour. All my love, Perdita.’
Having handed over her letter and waved goodbye, Perdita wandered down to the stables. The sun, which had burnt the stick-and-ball field and the pitches to a dusty liver chestnut, had now set, but it was still impossibly hot. She could hear whoops of laughter. What devilish torture had Raimundo dreamed up now? Running through the orange grove, which already had little green oranges on, past the chickens, she froze with horror. In the middle of the yard the little pony Alejandro regarded as useless stood quivering with terror.
Her iron-grey coat was black with sweat and dust, her thin sides heaving, her eyes rolling. Umberto, Alejandro’s laziest groom, was holding tightly on to her, while Raimundo, who was wearing a leather apron to protect his gaucho pants, his little eyes glinting with pleasure and cruelty, was attaching a long lead rope to her headcollar. He then took the rope through her front and back legs and tied it firmly to the back bumper of the Mercedes, which Angel had backed into the yard. Angel was now sitting in the driving seat, a fag hanging out of his sulky mouth, revving up the engine.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ exploded Perdita.
Angel looked round. ‘Your little darling won’t back,’ he sneered. ‘This lesson should teach ’er,’ and he revved the engine even more loudly.
‘Right,’ yelled Raimundo.
Umberto leapt clear, the grey pony made a bolt for freedom.
‘Stop it,’ screamed Perdita, making a lunge at Angel. But she was too late. He had rammed his foot down on the accelerator, the Mercedes shot forward, the l
ittle grey’s neck jerked frantically and she cartwheeled violently in the air crashing to the ground, to be dragged ten feet before Angel braked.
The surrounding grooms roared with laughter and cheered. Picking his way over the diarrhoea, which had splattered all over the ground and avoiding the frantically flailing hooves of the shocked, utterly terrified, pony, Raimundo grasped her headcollar and, aided by Umberto and the other grooms, yanked her to her feet. Four of them hung on to her. She made a frantic leap to shake them off, as they lifted her back and front nearside feet over the rope and positioned her with her back to the revving Mercedes again.
‘Three or four goes should make up the mind for her,’ said Raimundo evilly, as Perdita picked herself up off the dusty ground.
Angel crouched over the wheel. That should teach that stuck-up bitch to fall in love with ponies. He wished it were Perdita at the end of the rope, he’d like to see her crashing to the ground over and over again. But with her, he’d keep on driving.
Raimundo was taking his time. Angel glanced round and gave a shout of warning. Too late – Perdita, her face ashen, her black eyes blazing, had a pitchfork poised a foot from Raimundo’s capacious buttocks. Next second she had plunged it into them.
Giving a bellow of pain and rage, Raimundo jumped a foot in the air and let go of the pony, who took off, jerking to a halt as the slack of the rope ran out.
‘Leave her alone, you bastard, or I’ll kebab you,’ screamed Perdita.
All the grooms doubled up with laughter. Swinging round in a fury, Raimundo was about to leap on Perdita when she brandished the fork in his face.
‘D’you want your eyes gouged out, you fucking sadist? Untie that pony.’
Raimundo’s sallow face had turned a dark red.
‘La puta que te pario,’ he spat at her, but backed away as the evil-looking prongs stroked his eyelashes.
‘Get her off me,’ he bellowed at the other grooms. But, enjoying the sport too much, they continued to barrack and laugh.
‘Olé,’ shouted Umberto.
Then, out of the corner of her eye, Perdita saw Angel approaching. There was murder in his eyes; the beautiful pouting mouth had disappeared completely.
‘Don’t you come near me,’ hissed Perdita, rage driving out all fear, flickering the pitchfork like an adder’s tongue between him and Raimundo. ‘No wonder you lost the Falklands War. Bullies are always cowards. You run away from real men, so you take it out on horses, you lousy Latin creeps.’
Clenching his fists, rigid with rage, Angel advanced on her, translating what she had said for the others. Perhaps she had better make a bolt for it.
‘I keel you, English beetch.’ Angel’s grey shirt was touching the pitchfork now.
Perdita had drawn it back to ram it into him when suddenly she found her arms gripped from behind.
‘Drop,’ thundered Luke.
‘Fuck off,’ screamed Perdita. ‘Don’t bloody interfere.’
‘Drop!’ Luke tightened his grip on her and the pitchfork clattered to the ground.
‘That hurt,’ shouted Perdita. ‘Are you on those bastards’ side?’
Just as Angel was about to leap on her, Luke picked her up and carried her yelling into the house. Desperately she kicked backwards like a buck rabbit, trying to get him in the groin.
‘Let me go, put me down,’ and when he wouldn’t, she tried to plunge her teeth into his arms which were clamped round her like steel bands. The next second he had put her under the shower and turned on the cold tap. For once it decided not to have cystitis and gushed out like the Victoria Falls funnelled through a hose pipe.
‘Had enough?’ he said fifteen seconds later.
Gasping, choking, spluttering, she struggled to escape.
‘Are you going to behave yourself?’ He pulled her away from the driving jet of water.
‘No,’ screamed Perdita, aiming a kick at his shins. ‘Now I know how Enid Coley felt.’
‘Well, go back under again.’
Her drenched hair stranded her face, her pale lilac dress clung to her body, her eyelashes divided like a starfish as he pulled her out a second time. As she opened her mouth to shriek, he grabbed a green towel hanging over the shower rail and slapped it over her mouth.
‘Pack it in,’ he said sharply. ‘D’you want to get sent home?’
‘I don’t care,’ mumbled Perdita, trying to bite him through the towel. ‘Bastards, how can you stand there and not mind?’
‘Of course I mind, but we’re here to learn, Miss McEnroe.’
‘Don’t call me that, you great jerk,’ said Perdita, hammering her fists against his chest, which was as hard as the ground outside. ‘They’re going to break that pony’s leg.’
‘Or teach it to rein back,’ said Luke. He drew back the dingy plastic curtains covering the small window overlooking the yard.
‘Angel’s on her back now, and she’s reining back pretty good. Their methods are cruel, but they get results.’
‘I hate this bloody country,’ hissed Perdita.
Luke made an attempt at levity. ‘There are good things about it. Polo boots are three times cheaper than they are in the UK.’
‘Oh, shut up.’ Out of the window, she could see a huge pink moon, like the inside of a guava, climbing out of the gum trees.
‘Even the moon’s blushing at the horrible way they treat ponies,’ she snarled. ‘Why’s it that stupid colour anyway?’
‘Catching the last of the sun’s rays,’ said Luke. ‘Sun’s rising in the East now; gone to shine on your Mom.’
Suddenly Perdita had a vision of Daisy, kind, scatty, busty, in her awful clothes, constantly making concessions, whom she hadn’t written to since she’d arrived. Glaring at Luke, she burst into tears.
‘Hush, honey, hush, I hate it too,’ he murmured, enfolding her in his arms and stroking her sopping hair. ‘I know it’s awful. I guess I wanta play polo better so I can beat the shit out of them on the field.’
One moment she was sobbing her heart out, then, lulled by the bearlike warmth of his chest and the comforting shelter of his great arms and shoulders, she had fallen asleep like a child. Gazing down, Luke thought how beautiful she was despite the tear-stains and the swollen eyelids. She hardly stirred as he pulled off her lilac dress and carried her in her bra and pants into her bedroom. Laying her gently on the bed, he removed the dark red blanket from his bed and put it over her.
Perdita woke at two in the morning. Slowly the events of the previous evening re-assembled themselves. Had it been a nightmare? No, her bra and pants were still wet. Luke must have put her to bed.
Oblivious of any guards, she stole downstairs. Outside, huge stars blazed like shaggy white chrysanthemums; the moon had stopped blushing and was now flooding the pampas with ghostly silver light. A warm breeze ruffled the leaves of the gum trees, which cast a thousand ebony shadows on the burnt dusty yard, which was now palest grey instead of brown. She could hear the occasional snort and stamp of a pony, then jumped out of her skin, as something cold and snakelike was thrust into her hand. It was the wet nose of one of Raimundo’s shaggy lurchers, who was frantically waving her long crooked tail.
‘Sweet thing,’ Perdita crouched beside her, stroking her rough fur, as the bitch writhed against her in delight. Both jumped as a great snore rent the air. Umberto, tonight’s guard, was slumped against the bottom of a tree, an empty bottle at his feet.
Now was her chance. Out in the corral, tied so tight to the big stake in the centre that the Argentines call a palemque that she couldn’t even move her head, was the little grey pony.
‘You poor little duck,’ said Perdita gently.
Nearly breaking her neck, the pony pulled away in panic, the whites of her eyes glinting in the moonlight, coat curled with dried sweat like an Irish Water Spaniel.
At first, when Perdita held out the bucket, she was too frozen with fear to drink. But when her muzzle was dunked in the water almost over her nostrils, the temptation became too muc
h. Sucking in great drafts, she drained one bucket and then half another.
Watching her fondly, Perdita was reminded of Fresco. If only she could jump on her back and not stop galloping until she got to Ricky and Palm Springs. As she laid her hand on the little mare’s neck, she quivered violently, but didn’t move away.
‘I’m going to call you Tero,’ she whispered, ‘because you and I are going to fly away from this hellhole.’
Loosening the rope so the mare’s nose could reach the ground, she left her with a pile of hay.
Next morning the post strike ended, bringing five letters from Daisy, none of which Perdita opened. She was in a black gloom because not even a postcard had arrived from Ricky.
Alejandro, having been out on the bat the night before, returned at breakfast time with the pallor and red eyes of a white rat. He was then thrown into a frenzy by a letter announcing the impending arrival of Lando Medici, the richest of American patrons who always paid for ponies in readies out of a Gladstone bag.
Soon Alejandro was venting his hangover on all the staff, yelling at them to tidy up the place and all the ponies.
‘Where’s Raimundo?’ he shouted at a wincing Umberto.
‘He sick,’ said Umberto.
‘Well, get him up.’
‘What’s the matter with him?’ demanded Perdita, who was busy trimming the hairy fetlocks of a gelding that resembled a Clydesdale more than a polo pony.
Just for a second Umberto forgot his own hangover. ‘Señor Gracias give heem the eye black.’
‘He what?’ gasped Perdita.
‘Raimundo was in the bar with his friends last night. Señor Gracias come in and talk to eem very quietly, then he heet him across the room. Everyone cheer. They no like Raimundo – very hard man.’
‘What did Raimundo do?’ asked Perdita in awe.
‘He run away,’ said Umberto with a grin. ‘He leave very quick. Señor Gracias – how you say? – too beeg to tango with. Angel was in the bar too. Upchatting girl from the gas station. Señor Gracias turned towards him and Angel ran away too – all down the road like Carl Lewis. He was very frightened. He not drive car tied to pony again in an ’urry.’
