Polo

by Jilly Cooper

  Later Perdita cornered Luke. He looked tired and his eyes were bloodshot from the dust.

  ‘I thought we were here to learn not to criticize,’ she said sternly. Then that wonderful once-a-year smile split her face in two. ‘You have definitely won the Man of the Macho Award.’

  Standing on tiptoe, she kissed him on the cheek. Luke blushed beneath his freckles and his heart jumped several beats. It’s only because there’s a dearth of available women out here, he told himself sternly.

  Alejandro, fed up with Raimundo’s laziness and his exorbitant whining demands, was put in such a good mood when he saw the black eye that he agreed that Perdita could take over the breaking of little Tero.

  ‘She no good for polo, too cheeken, but eef you want to waste your time.’

  26

  Luke had temporarily routed Raimundo and Angel, but their animosity towards Perdita, if less overt, was in no way abated. To give Perdita a break, Luke took her away the following Saturday to see a high goal match at the famous Hurlingham Club which left her speechless with wonder, then on to Buenos Aires to an English production of The Merchant of Venice throughout most of which she slept.

  Her only comments at dinner afterwards as she gorged herself on tournedos, raspberries and cream and St Emilion were that Shylock was almost as beady about money as Alejandro and that Bassanio was a wimp.

  ‘Portia’d have done much better with that suitor who talked about his horse all the time. At least he’d have given her some decent ponies.’

  Luke, who knew the play backwards, had been moved to tears by the moonlit love scene between Lorenzo and Jessica. A lemon-yellow half-moon was hanging overhead as he and Perdita left the restaurant. But any hope he might have had of sliding his arm round her and trying a tentative first kiss on the drive home was scotched when she fell asleep the moment she got into the car.

  Her white dress had fallen off the shoulder nearest him, her skirt was rucked up to mid-thigh, her hair rippled silver. With her scornful mouth softened by sleep and pale eyelids hiding her furious eyes, she looked as vulnerable as she did desirable. Wracked with longing, Luke drove through the grey lunar landscape, only broken by occasional white towns or ebony clumps of trees.

  Up at five and sleeping badly of late, Luke kept his mind off Perdita and himself awake on the long straight roads, as he had done so often in the past, by concentrating on a particular horse. This time it was Maldita, a grey mare who had slipped into the yard already broken as part of a job lot a few weeks ago.

  Alejandro was allergic to greys, particularly the whiter ones. His father had been paralysed by a fall from a white stallion. On the one recent occasion when the Mendoza family had got near winning the Argentine Open, it had been on a grey mare that Alejandro had missed the clinching penalty. His phobia had spread to his grooms when Raimundo’s even crueller predecessor had broken the leg of a grey filly, hurling it to the ground for branding, and the following day he had died of snake bite. Whenever they passed a grey on the road, the grooms crossed themselves.

  The iron grey, Tero, got by because her coat was almost black, but Maldita was so dazzlingly white, except for a sprinkling of rust-brown freckles on her belly, that she looked as though she’d been through the car wash. At fourteen hands she was on the small side for polo, with a lovely intelligent head, wide-apart dark eyes, clean legs and a smooth, effortless stride. Unfortunately she was as bitchy as she was beautiful, lashing out with teeth and hooves at any human who came near her, and bucking them off if they tried to get on her back. Even when Raimundo strapped one of her back legs to her belly to stop her kicking, she struck out with the other leg and, crashing to the ground, laid about her with her front legs and teeth.

  Alejandro was all for putting a bullet through this she-devil’s head and dispatching her to the nearest abattoir. Luke, however, who was a genius with difficult horses, begged to be allowed to have a crack at her.

  He had begun by putting Maldita in a stable with no straw and taking water and feed to her every eight hours, then, when she went for him, immediately removing them. After twenty-four hours she was so hungry that she dived her pale pink nose into the bucket instead of at him. Two days later she allowed him to stand in her stable while she ate. Starving her until the next evening, he coaxed her with pony nuts into a stall which Raimundo used for branding and saddling bigger horses, which was so narrow she couldn’t turn round. Tying her lead rope so tightly she couldn’t move her head, Luke had climbed up and approached her from above. Talking softly the whole time, he slowly ran his hands over her, caressing, gentling and scratching up and down her mane where once her mother would have lovingly nibbled her, then progressing to her back and flanks. After the first minutes of trembling outrage, Maldita had stopped behaving as though his fingers were red-hot pokers and reacted almost voluptuously to his touch. Luke wished Perdita were as responsive. At the end of half an hour, back in her box, he rewarded her with hay and water.

  After a week of such treatment, he mounted her, sending her into the same orgy of bucking that had dislodged the grooms and all the Mendoza boys. Finding she couldn’t unseat him, she paused for breath, anticipating her next devilry. She was so small, and Luke so long in the leg, he looked like some father riding a seaside donkey to amuse his children.

  ‘You won’t need a mallet on that one,’ shouted Alejandro. ‘You can kick the ball with your feet, or if you miss, that beetch will kick it for you.’

  Unnerved by Alejandro’s great roar of laughter, Maldita had taken off into the pampas, somehow miraculously missing rabbit holes and fallen logs as she hurtled along. Luke sat still and gave her her head, amazed that the more she warmed up, the faster she went, staggered by the distance she could carry his 190-pound bulk in the burning sun.

  After nearly four miles she ran into the river that bordered Alejandro’s land, which was so deep she was forced to swim. On the opposite bank, Luke rolled off her back and lay on the grass. The heaving mare glared back at him, too exhausted to move. Afterwards he hacked her quietly home and was further amazed that she responded to his legs and hands and had the perfect mouth and balance of a made polo pony. It didn’t stop her lashing out at him with her teeth and back legs as he unsaddled her, but he felt he was making progress and, the next day, stick and balling her he found she was a natural. In her dark-eyed pallor and arrogant bloody-mindedness, she reminded him of Perdita. If she could trust one human, he felt, she could achieve anything. Driving home from the theatre he pondered his next move. Seeing General Piran ahead, he decided to try her in practice chukkas tomorrow.

  It was past three o’clock, but the tack room light, besieged with huge crashing moths, was still on. Raimundo’s shaggy lurchers swarmed round Perdita as she staggered groggily out of the car.

  ‘I’ve never been so exhausted in my life. Christ, what’s that?’ she shrieked, as fat Umberto, clearly drunk and absolutely terrified, lurched out of the shadows brandishing a gun.

  ‘What in hell’s the matter?’ said Luke, taking the gun from him.

  ‘Maldita, she is dead,’ gabbled Umberto in Spanish.

  ‘What!’ howled Luke.

  Raising his hands in panic, begging Señor Gracias not to shoot him, Umberto whimpered that Maldita had developed colic that morning.

  ‘We fight all day to save her.’

  ‘What did you try?’ demanded Luke furiously.

  ‘Everything, enemas, catheters, fluids to hydrate her. All impossible, she more busy fight us than the colic. She get up, she get down, she roll, she kick the stomach, like crazy woman. We try real hard.’ Then, seeing the expression on Luke’s face, Umberto indignantly lifted his loose trousers up above his boots to display two huge purple bruises: ‘What you think these are, love bites?’

  ‘What did the vet say?’

  ‘A lump of sand block her gut.’

  ‘When did he last come?’

  ‘This afternoon. He no come back. His daughter getting married this evening.’


  ‘Then where the fuck’s Alejandro? Humping in BA, I suppose.’

  ‘He didn’t even went,’ explained Umberto, who couldn’t ever have imagined Señor Gracias being so angry about anything. ‘He go to wedding of vet’s daughter.’

  ‘Along with everyone else, I guess,’ said Luke. ‘Why didn’t anyone take her to the veterinary hospital? They could have operated.’

  ‘Alejandro say she too weak,’ said Umberto, leaving unspoken the truth that Alejandro would be too mean to fork out the equivalent of $5,000 for a green and vicious mare.

  ‘Where is she?’ asked Luke.

  ‘In the first paddock under the gum trees. Alejandro tell me shoot her if pain get too bad. He say best stable for that mare is a coffin.’ Umberto crossed himself. ‘But bad luck to kill white horse. Anyway she already die, she not move for twenty minutes.’

  Followed by Perdita, who only half understood what was going on, Luke sprinted out to the paddock. Although the moon had set, they could see Maldita’s ghostly white body slumped in the corner like a cast-off shroud.

  ‘Poor little bitch.’ Luke was shaking with rage. But as he put his hand beneath her nearside elbow, he felt the faintest heartbeat and, to his joy, the mare struck feebly out at him with her off-fore and gave a half-whicker of recognition which turned into a groan. Her white coat was drenched with sweat, her belly horribly distended.

  ‘Put some rugs on her,’ he ordered Perdita, as he raced back into the house. Under his bed he had a complete medicine chest, full of stuff given him by a veterinary friend in Palm Beach. There was one thing that might save the mare, and that was only a 10,000 to 1 chance.

  Back in the paddock he was greeted by a stream of expletives. Even in her hopelessly weakened condition, Maldita had lashed out when Perdita tried to put a rug on her.

  ‘What are you giving her?’ asked Perdita as Luke plunged the needle into the mare’s neck.

  ‘Neostymine. Push her into internal contractions. It’ll either kill her or make her pass the sand.’ The mare writhed and groaned as another spasm of pain shook her body.

  ‘She’s in such agony,’ stormed Perdita, ‘why don’t we just put her out of her misery?’

  ‘We’re giving her a chance,’ said Luke curtly. ‘Now help me get her to her feet.’

  They both jumped as a black shadow fell across the mare’s contorted body. It was little Tero, turned out in the same paddock, offering silent sympathy.

  Round and round they staggered like the end of some ghastly marathon, Luke dragging Maldita upright and along by her headcollar, supporting her with his body, Perdita propping up her other side. Tero followed them at a distance, watching her new friend with sorrowful anxious eyes. Luke could have done with more help, but Umberto had barricaded himself into the tack room with another bottle.

  After twenty minutes Luke felt his titanic strength was supporting both Maldita and a buckling Perdita, and ordered the latter to bed. When she refused, flopping with exhaustion by the gate, he threw a spare rug over her.

  The huge expanse of sky was lightening now, the stars growing pale, a far cry from Lorenzo’s ‘patines of bright gold’. Occasionally a farm dog barked, a frog croaked by the water trough gleaming in the half-light, a rabbit caught by some predator shrieked in terror, a distant pounding of pop music indicated that the wedding of the vet’s daughter was still being celebrated.

  Twice Maldita collapsed. It was hard to tell now if it was Luke’s sweat or hers that drenched her rug. Occasionally she groaned and made half-hearted kicks at her agonizingly swollen belly.

  Walking her round, Luke was reminded of his school-friend Spike, who’d been caught in the locker room with another boy. Terrified that the publicity could ruin his father, who was a senator running for president, Spike had OD’d on barbiturates. By talking to him all night and keeping him on his feet, Luke had saved Spike’s life, only to have him try again successfully a week later when the story finally hit the press. Somehow Luke felt he owed it to Spike’s memory to save the mare.

  ‘Come on, baby,’ he urged her. ‘You gotta pull through. Just try and crap, then you’ll feel better.’

  To keep them both awake, he reeled off endless poetry; Shakespeare, Hiawatha, then because Maldita might prefer her own language, he started on Martin Fierro.

  Afterwards he couldn’t tell if he had dreamed it, but he was sure little Tero drew close to Maldita several times, trying to prop her up, and twice he felt Tero’s timid nudge of encouragement in his back when he was buckling with exhaustion.

  By the time the stars had faded, Maldita’s heart had rallied, beating almost as fast as her pounding little hooves had on the pampas. Her belly gave a massive rumble.

  ‘Come on, honey,’ mumbled Luke. ‘If you pull through, I swear I’ll take you to Palm Beach, Windsor, Cowdray and Deauville. You’ll have a life without winters, playing the best polo in the world.’

  But the mare was arching her back and groaning in such agony now that Luke only just managed to keep her on her feet. It was as though Vesuvius had erupted inside her. He could see a faint pink glow in the East. From the tack room Umberto’s snores rent the air. In a distant field a mare whinnied, and a stallion whinnied back. Luke staggered. His strength was giving out.

  ‘Come on, Spike baby,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t die, you’ve gotta see another sunrise.’

  Waking very cold and aching, Perdita saw little red flames flickering across the great blue arch of sky and thought for a terrified second that she was in the middle of a forest fire. Then she became conscious of a vast blood-red sun warming the pampas. The trunks of the gum trees soared bright pink, the tack room windows flared crimson and all the birds in the world seemed to be singing for joy. Sitting up stiffly, Perdita gave a gasp, for in the corner beside Tero, a beautiful rose-red mare, her coat mackerelled with dried sweat, was quietly grazing. Fast asleep against the fence slumped Luke, his face as rumpled as an unmade bed, his shirt, as Perdita shook it, drenched with dew.

  ‘Maldita,’ whispered Perdita incredulously, ‘she’s OK?’

  Luke opened a bloodshot eye and grinned triumphantly.

  ‘She passed the sand. What a mare! If she can fight off that medication, she’ll take on the whole world.’

  Hearing Luke’s voice, Maldita glanced up, gave a whicker of joy and, a little unsteadily walked towards him, pressed her nose against his shoulder and breathed lovingly down his neck.

  ‘She knows you saved her life,’ said Perdita in awe.

  But, as she stretched out a hand to stroke the mare, Maldita moved even closer to Luke, flattening her ears and lashing out at Perdita protectively with a hind leg.

  Umberto, snoring in the tack room, barricaded against ghoul and hobgoblin by one of the feedbins, was woken to a punishing hangover by the increasingly irritated din of muzzled horses kicking their water buckets. Peering through the cobwebs at the stable clock, Umberto realized he should have been up an hour ago. Any minute Alejandro would be back from the wedding breathing fire and brandy fumes. Alejandro didn’t like dead mares around; it looked bad if potential buyers dropped in. He’d better get that she-devil shifted.

  Clutching his head, Umberto set out to rouse the other grooms. The sun had now lost its rosy tinge and shone extremely painfully into his eyes. Next moment, he nearly died of fright. For, ghostly in the pale light, glaring through the fence at him, was a dazzling white Maldita.

  ‘Fantasma! Aparecido!’ he shrieked. Frantically crossing himself over and over again, he fled screaming towards the grooms’ quarters as fast as his fat legs would carry him.

  ‘What’s up with him?’ asked Perdita in amazement.

  Luke shook with laughter. ‘He left her for dead. He figures she’s a ghost.’

  ‘Figured she didn’t have a ghost of a chance,’ giggled Perdita. ‘Why don’t you call her Fantasma? It’s a much prettier name than Maldita.’

  And so Maldita the malevolent became Fantasma the fantastic. Within a few days she had recovered
enough to play practice chukkas, going straight into fast polo as though she’d played it all her life. She adored the game so much, Luke only had to shift his weight or touch her mouth to get her to do what he wanted, and she was so competitive she would bump anyone, at first even riding off ponies on her own side. She was still bitchy. If Luke were grooming her, she lashed out if he brushed her belly or round her ears, and went for anyone else who came near her. But she could sense when he was getting her ready for a match and stood like a statue, even dropping her head for him to clip her mane.

  The only other being Fantasma adored was Tero. The two mares had become inseparable and cried bitterly if they were parted, Fantasma even bashing down fences to get at her friend. Alejandro was so staggered by Fantasma’s progress that he decided to waive his prejudice against greys; not so much that he was prepared to get on her back, but he spent a considerable time wondering how he could flog Fantasma to a rich patron without them finding out how vicious and unmanageable the mare could be when she was away from Luke.

  27

  One of the great debates raging through the Argentine polo world was whether Alejandro Mendoza was a greater player than the mighty O’Brien brothers, Miguel and Juan. Certainly the Mendoza family’s ambition in life was to beat the O’Briens. Over twenty years the two great polo dynasties had battled it out in the Argentine Open at Palermo. In the eighties the O’Briens, with Juan and Miguel on ten and their two cousins on nine, had predominated. The Mendozas, however, were biding their time. Alejandro had married at twenty. In two or three years Luis, Patricio and Lorenzo would be catching up with Miguel’s cousins, and by this time Miguel, who drank and ate too much, might well be over the top. And Juan – as Alejandro (who as one who lived in a glass house and was in no position to hurl polo balls) pointed out – might well have died of sexual excess.