by Jilly Cooper
It was the last chukka. The O’Briens’ legendary temper was roused. It was time for Goliath to despatch David. But, by sheer persistence, the Mendozas, each clamped on his opposing player like Jack Russells, managed to keep the score level until, in the last ten seconds, Seamus crossed Luke. Up went the Mendozas’ sticks, twirling in triumph and there was a sharp exchange between the O’Briens and one of the long-thighed umpires who’d been looking at his watch at the time, until the third man came out of the bar and confirmed it was a foul.
Grimly the O’Briens lined up behind their goal. The Mendoza supporters (now most of the crowd) bellowed without ceasing and, in the bars below the great stadium, started opening bottles of champagne. Lorenzo, Patricio and Angel exchanged surreptitious but delighted grins. The grooms of the Mendozas rubbed their calloused hands in glee. Señor Gracias never missed a penalty. The Open was going to change hands at last.
The stadium went quiet as slowly Luke circled, a lone figure on an incandescently white horse under the burning sun. Turning Fantasma towards goal, he suddenly panicked. His hand might not hold up and he should have given the penalty to Angel. For a second his concentration flickered. To a man the Mendoza supporters groaned as Luke mis-hit and the ball went wide as the last bell went.
Overwhelmed by shame, Luke slumped in the saddle, resting his tired head on Fantasma’s bristling grey neck. He ought to fall on his polo mallet. Then, realizing the match wasn’t over, with titanic effort he pulled himself together and cantered back to the pony lines.
‘Sorry, you guys,’ he called to the rest of the team who were on the verge of tears.
‘Sorry,’ he shouted to the dead-pan masks of the grooms.
‘I thought you never miss a penalty,’ snarled a furious Alejandro. ‘Why are you bloody well smiling?’
‘To stop myself crying,’ said Luke.
Only Fantasma seemed to be on his side now. Flattening her ears and striking out at Alejandro, she nudged Luke sympathetically in the ribs as he dismounted, then tried to make him laugh by knocking his hat off.
Waiting to go into a ninth chukka, Luke took a swig of Seven-Up and soaked an entire towel wiping off the sweat. Alejandro wanted him to ride another flashy, beautiful chestnut called Zou Zou who’d been rested for three chukkas. But knowing Fantasma best, Luke opted to ride her a third time, which is allowed in Argentina. Briefly he put his arms round her neck echoing Sir Jacob Astley’s prayer at the Battle of Edgehill.
‘Oh Fantasma, thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget thee, do not thou forget me.’
Fantasma, who was dying to get back into the action, nipped Luke’s polo shirt in acquiescence. Three hundred chukkas with him were better than one with Alejandro.
‘Come on, you guys,’ shouted Luke as they rode back on to the field. ‘I know I goofed, but we’ve got to hold on. We can do it.’
The young Mendozas and Angel, who’d all played their hearts out, were now running on pure adrenalin. The shadows were lengthening, a slight breeze swirled pale blue jacaranda petals across the pitch, but the sun seemed even hotter. It was sudden death now. All that mattered was somehow to get the ball between the O’Briens’ posts.
The Mendozas had youth on their side and with kamikaze courage, the three young boys tried to score again and again, until Kevin O’Brien, at back, got fed up and cleared from his own goal. It was a monumental hit, the ball making a huge arc through the air, hurtling towards Luke who was waiting just beyond the halfway line.
Luke had left his back door open and he knew that Fantasma, despite her gallant, gutsy heart, had completely run out of steam. There was no way she could turn, gallop and keep up with Miguel and Juan, nor shake the pair of them off and take the ball back down to the O’Briens’ goal. The ball was still hurtling towards him. He was dimly aware of the screaming, excited blur of the crowd, of the leaping mallets of Juan and Miguel trying to halt the ball as it flew over their heads.
Now, bearing down on him, bringing death in the afternoon to the Mendozas’ hopes, pounded Juan and Miguel, ready to whip the ball away from him and together take it down the field and blast it into goal.
Despite her utter exhaustion, Fantasma never took her eyes off the ball. Trembling with anticipation, shifting from foot to foot, she was determined to position Luke perfectly for the shot. Dropping his reins on her sodden steelgrey neck, grasping his mallet in two huge hands, Luke took a mighty swipe as the ball passed him at eye-level. It was a complete cowboy shot but perfectly met. There was a tremendous crack, like an elephant’s tusk breaking, as he connected.
The crowd gave a great shout of amazement as the ball took off back again. As though carried by the slight breeze and the indrawn breath of everyone in the ground, it flew like a white gull towards the posts. The great shout of amazement had become a greater one of ecstasy and encouragement. Had it gone far enough? Kevin O’Brien bucketed back. But he was so busy looking up in the air and whipping his pony that he didn’t give himself enough time to get in position. Swiping at the ball as it thudded to the pavement-hard ground, he missed and the next second it had somehow bounced to the right and sidled in through the posts.
With agonizing slowness, as though the goal-judge couldn’t believe his eyes, the red flag suddenly went into a frantic jive of joy.
For a few seconds there was utter silence as it dawned on the vast crowd that the Titans had at long last been toppled. The six-year wait was over. Then followed a mighty explosion of cheering that must have been heard by the foals at General Piran and, just as if the huge stands had leant forward to see better, the fans fell, as though toppled, on to the field. Fantasma’s breath was coming in sobbing gasps. Her nostrils flared red as traffic-lights, her pale coat was black with sweat; like cobras, her veins writhed with her heaving body.
‘Gracias, gracias,’ croaked Luke, collapsing on her neck again.
Next moment Juan and Miguel were pumping him by the hand and he had been pulled off Fantasma and was being carried shoulder-high round the stadium.
‘Americano, Americano,’ shrieked the crowd in ecstasy, over and over again.
They knew Luke had stepped into the boots of the mighty Alejandro at the last moment and they wanted to salute his courage because he had turned the game around and never stopped fighting.
‘Americano, Americano,’ roared the crowd as, with his widest grin, Luke went up to collect the great Gold Cup with the soaring eagle on its lid and they roared on and on, refusing to let him go. Glancing up at the stands, Luke saw that Bart was yelling his head off, tears of joy coursing down his cheeks.
Another great cheer went up for Angel, olive skin tinged with colour, peacock-blue eyes bloodshot, bronze curls clinging damply to his forehead. All his cousins were shouting, crying and congratulating each other. He knew now that he’d been taken back into the fold.
As Angel brandished his own gold trophy he smiled across at Bibi who was crying as much as Bart and he thought how lovely she looked with her mascara running and her long nose red.
Luke ruffled his hair. ‘I guess God looked after his Angel today.’
Luke won the Best Player Award. Fantasma won the two Best Playing Pony prizes and was only just restrained from kicking the President of the Argentine Polo Association when he put the white blanket of honour on her even whiter back. She had never looked more beautiful, thought Luke, shimmying round in her new white rug, ears pricked to hear the cheers, dark eyes searching restlessly for Luke, terrified to let him out of her sight for a second. Soon she would be his again.
Determined to clinch the deal at once, leaving the others swigging champagne and signing autographs, Luke set off to find Alejandro. Post-mortems were already going on in the bars in every language under the sun. The Buenos Aires Herald stopped Luke for his views on the match.
‘We should remember the horses,’ he said, suddenly sombre. ‘They played their hearts out in this heat and three of them died. It was the worst I’ve ever known.’
He
found Alejandro ecstatic, tearful and already drunk.
‘Well done, amigo. I taught you well.’
‘And now you can sell me my horse back.’
Suddenly Alejandro looked shifty.
‘She play well. I decide I cannot part with ’er. Friendsheep ees friendsheep, but business ees business.’
‘I’ll give you one hundred and fifty thousand bucks,’ said Luke in desperation. ‘It’s all I can raise.’
But Alejandro refused to budge. He had put nothing in writing.
‘If you hadn’t broken your leg, I’d beat you to a pulp, you greasy, double-crossing son of a bitch,’ shouted Luke, storming off.
77
Luke was so distraught that he nearly boycotted the massive celebrations afterwards, but he felt it was unfair to his own team who had played so well and to the O’Briens who had defended so gallantly. Everyone wanted to discuss his last goal which seemed to grow in length and splendour by the glass. He was almost more bruised by people clapping him on the back than by the game. He tried to get plastered, but it didn’t work, and after a few hours he drove back to Angel’s and Bibi’s house. Arriving at dawn he found a primrose-yellow banner across the drive to welcome him, and bitterly remembered how he had covered up Perdita with a shawl the same colour when she’d ridden naked into the Casino.
He longed to drive over to Alejandro’s to tell Fantasma in private how brilliantly and bravely she had played, but having raised her hopes once, he couldn’t bear to raise them again – not if he was no longer going to be able to take her back to Palm Beach.
All the next day it poured with rain and Angel’s cousins, still tight from the night before, swarmed through the house and the telephone rang with congratulations and offers for Luke and Angel to play next season anywhere in the world.
By six o’clock the rain had cleared and Luke, desperate to be on his own, went out for a ride with Leroy who had had a boring day confined to barracks. It was a beautiful evening with the turquoise sky reflected in the huge puddles and the acid-yellow and green sweep of the pampas, only interrupted by the occasional windmill or grey fringe of gum trees, stretching to infinity. Luke wished he could ride off the edge of the world.
Every bone in his body ached but not nearly so much as his heart. Tonight the cousins were giving a celebration for him and Angel. But what was the point without Perdita? Even the loss of Fantasma was nothing by comparison. He wondered if there had been a moment in the last three years when he hadn’t longed for her or if there would ever be in his life again. Even yesterday’s success had already turned to ashes in his mouth.
He had so wanted to go to her after she broke up with Red, and again on the night of the Westchester when Red had bolted with Chessie. She’d looked so desolate that evening in her black dress, he’d longed to help her pick up the pieces. But he knew it would be wrong. His love was so strong he’d never be able to control it and she’d feel claustrophobic. She could never marry anyone she didn’t love or survive in captivity like Chessie had for so long.
Down by the river into which Fantasma had once galloped, he dismounted and sat on the bank letting his horse graze and Leroy charge off after hares. He watched a flock of white birds winging slowly homewards, turning pink in the setting sun. In three weeks it would be Christmas and suddenly the pain became unbearable as he remembered that first Christmas in Palm Beach with Perdita when he still had hope.
Luke had always had brilliant eyesight but his eyes were so misted over that at first he couldn’t identify the cloud of brown dust on the horizon. Then, as he got to his feet, he heard hoof beats and realized it was a pony and rider going ludicrously fast. He couldn’t identify the colour of the horse because they were against the sun. Now they were flashing through a blue puddle, now disappearing behind a field of alfalfa, faster and faster. As they curved round towards him down the rough track, he realized the rider was bareback and guiding the pony in just a headcollar.
Luke recognized the pony first. Rose-pink in the sunset, as she had been in that sunrise after he had saved her life, she was covering the ground at breakneck speed with that beautiful, low, inimitably smooth action. He had a moment of outrage that anyone should ride her so dangerously fast after such a gruelling match yesterday. A split second later he recognized the rider. No, he was hallucinating. No-one rode so aggressively, so gracefully, or in such a hurry to get to goal. It must be a mirage.
Perdita was only wearing a khaki shirt and shorts. Her face was caked with dust, her features set, her whole body trembling as she tugged Fantasma to a halt in front of him. Luke, who had a lump as big as a polo ball in his throat, couldn’t speak. Neither could she. They just gazed and gazed at each other. Fantasma, however, had no such reserve. Whickering with delight, she shot forward nudging and licking and nuzzling her old master all over, searching his pockets for Polos.
Still unable to get a word out, Luke put his arms round her lovely head, breathing in the smell of her sweat, fighting back the tears. ‘You didn’t ride all the way?’ he mumbled stupidly.
‘Only from the airfield.’
‘You didn’t steal her?’
‘No. I bought her.’
‘But Alejandro said she wasn’t for sale.’
‘Every Argie has his price. Rupert gave me some money,’ she added by way of explanation. ‘It seemed the only way of spending it.’
‘But that was your security,’ said Luke, appalled.
Perdita shook her head violently.
‘It’s for us. You’re my security. You’re the only person I’ve ever felt secure with in my life.’
Tears were pouring down her face now, streaking the brown dust.
Frantically she wiped her eyes and nose with both hands like a child, streaking the dust sideways as well.
‘I love you,’ she sobbed. ‘If you love that revoltingly beautiful lawyer and don’t love me any more, I shall quite understand. But once you said you did and I hoped you still might. Ricky thought that perhaps . . . and Rupert too . . . we might try again. Oh, Christ’ – she gave a wail and put her hands over her face – ‘I’m such a cow.’
Next moment Luke had pulled her off Fantasma and into his arms and was kissing her harder than he’d ever hit a sixty-yard penalty.
‘I don’t believe it,’ he groaned. ‘I simply don’t believe it. I was sure it was still Red.’
‘I haven’t loved him for ages, not ever really. I always felt as though I was wearing boots on the wrong feet. I loved all the money and the trappings. Then I realized they didn’t mean anything. With you it’s truly bread and onions.’
‘I guess it is,’ said Luke ruefully. ‘I haven’t got a cent.’
‘Bullshit,’ said Perdita. ‘Now you’ve won the Open everyone wants you, including me. I only came back because you’ve become such a star.’
Luke grinned. ‘Double bullshit! You bought Fantasma before the match. That’s why Alejandro wasn’t looking nearly as guilty as he should have done yesterday.’
‘You’re right,’ gasped Perdita, when at long last he stopped kissing her. ‘I wanted something to cheer you up in case you lost.’
Luke took both her hands in his and kissed them.
‘Gracias,’ he said shakily. ‘The only thing better in the world you could have given me is yourself.’
Exactly on cue Leroy bounced up with a mud-caked nose and threw himself on Perdita. For an outraged second, Fantasma flattened her ears and stamped her foot, then, recognizing her old friend, she once more whickered in delight as Leroy barked ecstatically and licked her pink nose.
Luke turned back to Perdita.
‘I love you more than anything else in the world.’
‘More than Leroy and Fantasma?’
‘Don’t push your luck.’
‘Don’t push my Luke,’ said Perdita, reaching up to kiss him again. ‘I’ll have to change my name.’ She gave a sigh of happiness. ‘I’m not the Lost One any more.’
‘You’ll have to change you
r name anyway,’ said Luke slowly.
With a trembling hand he tugged out the bit of Fantasma’s mane that was left long on the whithers to stop the saddle rubbing and wound it round Perdita’s wedding-ring finger.
‘I can’t go down on one knee because of my cartilage.’ For once the deep, Florida drawl was coming out in a rush. ‘But d’you figure you could possibly love me enough to . . . ?’
He didn’t need to go on. With an instinct that knew that neither Perdita nor Luke would take any notice of her for some time, Fantasma gently started to eat the grass.
THE END
