Polo

by Jilly Cooper

  One of the highlights for Daisy, therefore, of a long, cold winter was a surprise party for Ricky’s thirty-second birthday in the middle of February. Louisa had lured him away to look at a pony which turned out to be an absolute dog. Returning irritably home to Robinsgrove, he found a rip-roaring party in full swing with every light blazing, drink from Bas’s wine bar flowing and live music provided by Dancer and Apocalypse pounding down the valley. Taggie Campbell-Black had produced the most succulent home-made ravioli stuffed with lobster purée and braised quails, served with fresh mangoes flown specially down from Harrods. To hide how touched he was, Ricky was absolutely furious. But gradually he and the great gloomy house he inhabited responded almost joyously to the intrusion.

  Daisy was bitterly disappointed that Drew couldn’t make it and very embarrassed about her present; everyone else’s were so much more exciting. Only after several drinks did she drag Seb Carlisle, who’d been bopping with a six-foot inflatable rubber doll he’d had gift-wrapped for Ricky, into the study.

  ‘Alone at last,’ whooped Seb, grabbing her. ‘You and I and Dolly can have a threesome.’

  Giggling, Daisy wriggled free. ‘I’ve done a portrait for Ricky. Will you look at it and promise to tell me if you think he’ll be upset?’

  ‘I’m the one who’s upset, you keep spurning me,’ grumbled Seb, unwrapping the red crêpe paper. ‘Christ! that is absolutely stunning. How the hell did you get such a likeness? It’s Will to a T.’

  He traced the thick flaxen hair and the dark slanting eyes with one finger. ‘He was such a gorgeous child. Ricky will go apeshit.’

  ‘Are you sure he won’t be hurt by it?’

  ‘Au contraire! He’s never had any decent photographs of Will. Chessie swiped the lot. I’ll get him.’

  Shaking, Daisy took a great gulp of champagne. Rutshire Polo Club’s fixture list for next year was already up on the wall. Ricky came in looking boot-faced. He detested people invading his private sanctum.

  ‘I don’t want presents. I can’t think why everyone’s bothered.’ The words died on his lips as he picked up the picture.

  ‘I’ll quite understand if you want to throw it on the fire,’ gabbled Daisy.

  Ricky just gazed and gazed at it and said nothing, then he shook his head in disbelief, tried to speak and found he was quite unable.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ mumbled Daisy. ‘Give it back to me.’

  ‘No, no, it’s beautiful, w-w-wonderful, so like him. I can’t begin to tell you what it mm-m-means. I had no record. I’ve b-b-been haunted by not remembering what he looked like.’

  Daisy, in her delighted confusion, frantically stroked Little Chef who’d bounded in after Ricky, wearing a red, white and blue bow. Glancing up, she was amazed to see Ricky’s eyes wet with tears.

  ‘How the hell did you do it?’

  ‘I was leafing through those old polo books you lent me for a picture of the Rutshire before the war, and Will’s photo fell out. I’ve got it for you at home.’

  ‘I don’t know how to b-b-begin to thank you.’

  ‘Or us you,’ mumbled Daisy, ‘for letting us stay on at Snow Cottage.’

  Later in the evening Rupert took Daisy aside.

  ‘That’s a bloody good picture of Will. Ricky is beside himself. Now all we’ve got to do is persuade Victor Kaputnik to invent a cure for Chessie.’

  Daisy found Rupert so incredibly glamorous and shy-making that she always talked rubbish in his presence.

  ‘Wonderful food,’ she mumbled. ‘Taggie is so clever. They always say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.’

  ‘It’s through his heart,’ said Rupert quite sharply.

  There was a pause, then he said, ‘Cameron Cook’s flying out to Palm Beach with a crew next week to film Perdita in the Rolex Cup. I hope she’s not going to be bolshy. You heard from her?’

  Daisy shook her head miserably. ‘She doesn’t answer letters, and hangs up if I try and ring her.’

  ‘I was just as impossible at her age,’ said Rupert more gently. ‘She’ll come round.’

  All the time Daisy was aware of him watching Taggie who was now rather tentatively asking people if they’d like chocolate roulade or raspberry bombe.

  ‘She’s so beautiful,’ sighed Daisy.

  Rupert’s face softened. ‘She is, isn’t she? The nightmare is trying to stop her doing too much. Look,’ he lowered his voice, ‘Helen, my first wife, painted the nursery the most appalling jaundice-yellow. It’s just been repainted. If I manage to lure Tag away for a long weekend, would you be able to slap on some flowers and birds and butterflies and perhaps the odd horse and dog for a surprise when she comes back?’

  ‘What a gorgeous idea,’ said Daisy.

  ‘Hush, she’s coming,’ said Rupert. ‘I’ll let you know when we’re going, and arrange for you to have a set of keys.’

  Next day it snowed and Ricky gave Eddie a virtually new red-and-silver sledge he’d bought for Will one year there had been no snow.

  ‘Pointless it eating its head off in the attic.’

  ‘It’s Mum’s birthday next week,’ confided Eddie. ‘What d’you think she’d like?’

  The day before Daisy’s birthday Drew arrived bearing flowers, champagne, a side of smoked salmon and a great deal of silk underwear.

  Later, pretending she’d bought it all herself as a birthday treat, she couldn’t resist showing the underwear to Eddie and to Violet, who’d come home for the weekend.

  ‘You goofed there, Mum,’ said Eddie, disapprovingly. ‘Why waste a fortune on stuff no-one’s going to see?’

  Next day they brought her breakfast in bed. Violet gave her a black polo neck, Eddie, having borrowed a fiver off his mother, gave her some fishnet tights. Around twelve Violet said, ‘Ricky’s asked us for a drink.’

  ‘We can’t,’ said Daisy. ‘We’ve imposed on him enough. He doesn’t know it’s my birthday, does he?’ Thirty-nine seemed horribly old.

  ‘Of course he doesn’t,’ said Violet.

  ‘Happy birthday,’ said Ricky as she walked through the front door.

  ‘Pigs,’ hissed Daisy to the grinning Violet and Eddie.

  ‘Happy birthday,’ chorused all Ricky’s grooms and Joel, the farm manager.

  After a glass of red wine, incapable of keeping a secret, Eddie told his mother that Ricky had a present for her.

  ‘Shut your eyes,’ he added, at a nod from Ricky.

  Taking her hands, the children led her up flight after flight of stairs. Acutely aware of fishnet tights wrinkling around her ankles, Daisy wondered if Ricky was following behind. She was walking on bare boards now. Then she heard a door being opened and felt warmth.

  ‘OK, you can look now,’ said Eddie.

  She was in a large attic room, with a window stretching the length of the far wall looking over the Eldercombe Valley to the Bristol Channel. A low winter sun was pouring in. By the window was an easel complete with canvas covered in white drawing paper. On a side table were sketch pads, more rolls of paper, a complete set of new paints, rubbers, pencils, brushes in a jar and a huge bowl of snowdrops.

  ‘The smock’s from Ethel, so you won’t get paint on your clothes any more,’ said Violet.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ muttered Daisy.

  Ricky’s face was expressionless. ‘It’s your new studio. I’m f-f-fed up with you covering my cottage with paint.’

  ‘Oh,’ gasped Daisy. ‘The view, the light, the peace. It’s incredible!’

  ‘There’s no excuse for you to be sidetracked now, Mum,’ said Violet.

  ‘Here are the keys to the front door.’ Ricky dropped them into her hand. ‘Come and go as you like.’

  ‘But I’ll be in your way.’

  ‘I’m out most of the time. Seems a shame to waste such a nice room.’

  ‘I must be dreaming.’ Daisy wandered towards the window.

  On the horizon was a streak of palest turquoise below a lavender sky. Opal-blue smoke rose straight up from
chimneys and bonfires. The woods looked soft and fluffy like the stretched belly of a tabby kitten. Turning, she went up to Ricky and quickly kissed him on the side of his face where there was no scar.

  ‘Ricky can be your toyboy, Mum,’ said Eddie.

  ‘It was all Ricky’s idea,’ said Violet as they floated home an hour later. ‘He’s so knocked out with Will’s portrait.’

  ‘He’s a good bloke,’ said Eddie. ‘We’re going to shoot clays this afternoon.’

  ‘And he says I can practise driving on one of his flat fields,’ said Violet.

  The only person not pleased with the arrangement was Drew.

  ‘How can I possibly get in touch with you if you’re up at Ricky’s all the time?’

  A week later Rupert flew into Palm Beach in a furious temper. Overdoing things, Taggie had nearly lost the baby. James Benson, Rupert’s doctor, had ordered her to rest for the next month and had flatly refused to let her travel with Rupert when he was forced to fly over and sort out the ghastly row that had blown up over the documentary on Perdita Macleod.

  Venturer had already sunk a great deal of money in the project. Cameron Cook and a very expensive crew were out there filming, and now the mighty Ferranti’s had come down like a ton of bricks, saying that their exclusive contract with Perdita precluded her from taking part in anything else.

  Cameron Cook had then waved Venturer’s contract at Ferranti and was defiantly filming Perdita in an early Rolex Gold Cup match when a posse of Ferranti heavies, secretly alerted by Red, rolled up and frightened Cameron off. Knowing how much it took to frighten Cameron, who’d made programmes in Beirut and Grenada, Rupert realized that the heavies must have been very heavy indeed.

  Cameron’s temper had not been improved by Perdita turning on the crew, whose presence had made her miss two easy passes, and screaming at them to eff off and make their piss-pot film somewhere else. It was then that the lawyers moved in.

  They had now reached a stalemate with neither side prepared to budge an inch, but Ferranti’s were infinitely richer than Venturer and had, furthermore, employed Winston – ‘If you’re innocent, you don’t need me’ – Chalmers, Florida’s toughest lawyer, to act for them. Dino Ferranti, the sales director, who was an old enemy of Rupert’s and disliked him intensely, was intending to take no prisoners in the ensuing battle. At this stage Cameron had reluctantly begged Rupert to fly out. It was the sort of tussle he would have relished in the old days, but not since he married Taggie. Under her gentle influence he had shed much of his aggression and he detested letting her out of his sight for a second – particularly now she was having a baby.

  They had been married fourteen months now, during which time Rupert had never dreamed he would suffer such extremes of happiness and misery. There was the miracle of her love, not just for him but for his children. Every day he expected some flaw in her character to be revealed, some pettiness or bloody-mindedness, but she had not revealed even a toenail of clay. There had been the unbelievable joys of initiating her sexually, slowly, slowly breaking down her shyness and inhibitions, until he was rewarded a thousand-fold by the passion and enthusiasm of her response.

  But this wonderful happiness had a flipside. Rupert was absolutely terrified of losing her. With his track record, Taggie was the one who should have been jealous, but she trusted him implicitly and felt so blessed that he had married her rather than any of the legions of others that she had no right to question her exclusivity. It was Rupert who suffered hell-pains. He was jealous of every man she talked to, of her prodigal, importunate family who were always dropping in to borrow money and enjoy Taggie’s cooking, of people she met in the street, even of his own children, dogs and horses. And now she was having his child and he was scared he might be jealous of that too. Although he made heroic attempts to curb this jealousy, every so often it overwhelmed him and he found himself biting her utterly innocent head off. Then, crucified when he saw the bewilderment in her big eyes, he pulled her into his arms frantic with remorse.

  As the months passed things had got better, as Taggie, who originally had such a low opinion of herself she couldn’t imagine anyone being miserable when denied her company, gradually realized how passionately Rupert loved her, and that these outbursts of rage were merely expressions of his love. As Rupert became more sure of her, the outbursts became fewer.

  And, although she still slipped the odd hundred to her family, she had persuaded them to telephone before they dropped in. It had helped, too, that Rupert had installed electric gates after her mother, Maud, had arrived unannounced after a row with Declan to find Rupert in the sitting room using a pastry brush to paint Taggie’s labia with olive oil before photographing her in the nude.

  They had not spent a night apart since they were married, and now Rupert had to leave her at the Priory in the somewhat dubious care of Maud and Declan. But at least it gave Daisy a chance to paint flowers and animals all over the nursery walls and, flying overnight, he hoped he would be able to sort out Ferranti’s in a day and fly back that evening.

  He checked into his favourite hotel in Palm Beach, the charmingly old-fashioned Faversham, where he had been given the Kennedy Suite overlooking the ocean. Showering, then changing his shirt, he found a note in his suitcase from Taggie.

  ‘Darling Rupert, I love you dessparately and miss you, pleese come home quickly, I promiss not too do too much. All my love, Taggie.’

  It was not Eloise and Abelard standard, but to Rupert it was immeasurably more precious. Taggie had tried so hard to conquer her dyslexia. He was tempted to ring her, but hoped she would be having an afternoon sleep. He was unable, however, to resist getting out of a secret pocket in the lid of his briefcase three nude photographs he’d taken of her last week. One from the waist up showed off her glorious breasts, the second three-quarters turned away from him and smiling shyly over her shoulder displayed her narrow waist, high bottom and endless legs; in the third, she was sitting in an arm chair with her legs apart, showing a muff Rupert had shaved down to a small goatee. Rupert felt himself go hard. God, she was beautiful and all his. Bugger Venturer and Ferranti. He swore as the telephone went. It was Cameron ringing from the lobby.

  ‘Thank Christ you’re here. I’ve got a car waiting downstairs.’

  Nine hours later they were still deadlocked – both sides refusing to give an inch. It was immaterial that Ferranti’s contract was for a thousand times as much money. Venturer had signed Perdita up first.

  ‘But not exclusively,’ drawled Dino Ferranti, his beautiful, blue silk shirt creased, his Siamese cat’s eyes squinting with tiredness and irritation. He and Rupert had exchanged very sharp words. But Rupert’s real animosity was reserved for Red Alderton, who, in his promiscuity, viciousness, arrogance and total lack of repentance, reminded Rupert of everything he wanted to forget about his own past. He was also allergic to red hair because it reminded him of his first wife and his appallingly grasping mother-in-law. Red, absolutely terrified of losing the $2,000,000 Ferranti’s were contracted to pay Perdita, much of which had already been spent, kept butting in, until Rupert lost his temper.

  ‘Just fuck off, Maureen O’Hara and curl your eyelashes,’ he yelled. ‘You knew all about the Venturer contract when you set up the Ferranti deal, you little pimp. Fucking leech! You’d make Dracula look like a blood donor.’

  ‘You’re a fine one,’ screamed Perdita, leaping to Red’s defence. ‘What about those memoirs? Talk about a cock in every porthole. You could bore out the Channel Tunnel solo.’

  Dino Ferranti suppressed a smile. Then, as Red weighed in, a fearful slanging match ensued and the lawyers banished both Red and Perdita from the building.

  Back at Red’s house Perdita lounged on his dark blue silk counterpane drinking Green Devils and watching Red pacing up and down, ranting on and on about Rupert.

  ‘Arrogant shit, who the hell does he think he is?’ Then he paused, face lit up with satanic excitement. ‘I’ve got it! I know how we can make him bac
k off.’

  ‘We can’t,’ breathed Perdita in appalled wonder two minutes later.

  At three o’clock in the morning the lawyers decided to adjourn. Rupert rang Taggie, who was still staying at Declan’s, to say he definitely wouldn’t be home next day. Taggie tried not to sound disappointed, saying she was fine and it had frozen last night and now it was snowing and she missed him dreadfully. Rupert said it was a nightmare and the only person going to make any money were the lawyers, and that he loved her indescribably and would ring her in the morning.

  Letting himself into his suite half an hour later Rupert longed to ring her again, but felt he shouldn’t crowd her. The quickest undresser in the world, he stepped out of his clothes in the sitting room and wandered into the bathroom to clean his teeth. He’d have a shower when he got up – he glanced wearily at his watch – in about three hours’ time. Thinking it would make Taggie seem nearer, he decided to have another look at her photographs, then panicked when he couldn’t find them. He was sure he’d left them under his shirts. Checking the bedroom he froze.

  ‘Hello, Rupert,’ said Perdita softly. ‘I’m sorry I shouted at you earlier. I thought you might be lonely.’

  The sheet was drawn up to her chin, but she let it fall, swinging her feet off the bed.

  ‘You shabby little bitch,’ whispered Rupert. ‘Get out of here.’

  ‘Don’t be like that.’ Perdita’s eyes were as shiny as black olives drenched in oil and, as she stood up, her slender naked body seemed almost incandescent with heat and excitement.

  ‘You must know I’ve always fancied you.’ It was like a child actress trying to play Delilah.

  ‘How did you get in here?’ hissed Rupert.

  ‘Easy. I just told them you’d asked me round. The hall porter even winked at me. You must have had loads of girls here in the past.’