Fortunately her torrent of abuse was diluted by a downpour of even more torrential rain. All the mothers raced for their Volvos as the players struggled over to another part of the field. Sheltering her sketch pad under her shirt, Daisy looked helplessly around. She had no mackintosh. She’d just managed to catch a joyously soaked Ethel when a blond man with a flat cap pulled over his straight nose asked her if she’d like to sit in his Land-Rover.

‘It’s all right. I don’t mind the dog.’

Ethel clambered into the back and slobbered down his neck.

‘You are kind,’ said Daisy gratefully. ‘Being a Pisces, I normally love rain, but this shirt’s a bit see-through when it’s wet.’

She was wearing a fringed dark purple midi-skirt and a pink muslin shirt from the early seventies, which had tiny mirrors sewn into it, and which was clinging unashamedly to her breasts. Her dark hair fell damp and straight, just grazing her nipples.

‘You look like Midi Ha Ha,’ said the blond man, smiling slightly, but when Daisy unearthed a bottle of made-up vodka and orange from the chaos of her bag he shook his head.

Helping herself, Daisy noticed he never took his eyes off the play and was now turning on the windscreen wipers to watch a dark-haired boy coax a fat roan pony down the field. ‘That child’s definitely team potential, but the pony’s an absolute bitch, I must have a word with his parents. And Christ, that pony’s improved since last year.’ Then, consulting a list on the dashboard, ‘No, it hasn’t, it’s another pony. Do you want my coat?’

‘I’m fine.’ Daisy took another swig out of her bottle. ‘Midi Ha Ha. Laughing Vodka. At least I can’t be done for being drunk in charge of a setter.’

‘Nice dog,’ said the blond man, putting back a hand and rubbing Ethel behind the ears.

‘Isn’t she?’ agreed Daisy, who was beginning to perk up.

She noticed that the man was very handsome in a stolid, heavy-lidded, way. She would have to mix Manganese blue with a little Payne’s grey to get the colour of his eyes. He had a lovely mouth and lovely muscular thighs. Daisy suddenly wanted to check her face, and when he went off at the end of the chukka to talk to the next group playing, which included Perdita, she toned down her rosy cheeks and drenched her neck with Je Reviens, but failed to put the top back on properly, so it stank out the Land-Rover.

‘Je Reviens,’ said the blond man, sniffing as he got back inside. ‘And I did.’

‘You’re too young to have a child playing?’ asked Daisy, fishing.

‘Yes.’ Checking the list of players again, he opened the car door, yelling, ‘For Christ’s sake, Mark, you’re not on your man.’

‘Ought to be called Un-Mark,’ said Daisy, taking another swig. ‘I’m dying to find out which is Drew Benedict.’

‘Really?’

‘Ghastly old fossil,’ went on Daisy happily. ‘He’s giving Perdita such a hard time. I would have thought having worked for Ricky for nearly two years, she might be allowed to evolve her own style.’

She offered the diminishing bottle to him again.

Again he shook his head.

‘How’d you get on with Ricky?’ he asked.

‘Never see him. I just pay his farm manager our rent. He rides past occasionally. He still looks pretty miserable, but Dancer seems to have cheered him up, and the specialist says he’ll definitely be playing again next year.’

‘Then we’ll all have to look to our laurels,’ said the blond man, ‘but he’s not a good teacher. Too impatient and introverted, too obsessed with his own game.’

He’s got a sexy voice, thought Daisy, soft and very quiet. She wished she knew if he were married.

‘There are lots of boys playing,’ she said in surprise. ‘Perdita seems to be the only girl.’

‘Boys tend to avoid the Pony Club, because they’re always being told to keep their toes up and clean tack. Give them a stick and ball and it’s a different story. Some of them are pretty bloody impossible when they arrive. No idea how to play as a team or to think of other people. Most of them get far too much pocket money.’

‘Not Perdita’s problem,’ said Daisy.

‘Nor enough discipline. Parents’ marriages are so often breaking up.’

‘Hum – Perdita’s problem,’ sighed Daisy whose tongue had been totally loosened by drink on no lunch. ‘Everyone keeps telling me she needs a father. But it’s tricky if you’re a single parent – isn’t that a ghastly expression? If you go out at night looking for a father for your children, everyone brands you a whore. People like Philippa Mannering and Miss Lodsworth. D’you know them?’

‘Only too well.’

‘And if you’re too miserable because you’ve been deserted, people think you’re a drag and don’t ask you to parties. And if you’re too jolly, wives think you’re after their husbands. I feel like taking a pinger to parties to stop myself talking to anyone’s husband longer than two minutes. Even girlfriends I know really well get insanely jealous. Mind you, the husbands think you’re after them as well. If you don’t have a man, even the plainest ones think you’re dying for it.’

‘And are you?’ asked the blond man, who was watching Perdita jump the boards and execute a particularly dazzling back shot. ‘Good girl, she kept her head down.’

‘Not really, but on lovely days you’re suddenly overwhelmed with longing to be in love again.’

He turned and looked at her. Did she detect compassion or was it slight wistfulness in those incredibly direct blue eyes? She was just thinking how easy he’d be to fall in love with, and that she really mustn’t start cradle-snatching when he said, ‘Perdita’s seriously good. She’s already been picked for the Jack Gannon, that’s the eighteen to twenty-one group. But she ought to apply for a Pony Club polo scholarship.’

‘What’d that entail?’

‘Six months in New Zealand or Australia. The BPA pay for her ticket out there and put her in a yard. She’d get pocket money. In return she’d look after the ponies, school them and play polo.’

‘Oh, how wonderful,’ sighed Daisy, thinking longingly of the peace at home; then added hastily, ‘For Perdita, of course.’

‘They have to be heavily vetted beforehand, so they don’t let the side down. Some winners in the past have been temperamental and failed to get up in the morning, but on the whole they go out as boys and come back as men.’

‘I hope Perdita doesn’t grow hairs on her chest,’ giggled Daisy. ‘Sorry, I’m being silly. It’s a wonderful idea, but I’m sure Drew Benedict won’t allow it.’

‘Why not?’

‘He thinks she’s useless.’

The blond man looked faintly amused. ‘There’s the bell,’ then, as a woman strode past in plus fours with an Eton crop, added, ‘and there’s the DC. I’d better go and have a word with her.’

‘Looks more AC to me,’ said Daisy, draining the last of the vodka and orange.

The sinking sun had appeared again, gilding the wheat fields and splodging inky shadows in the rain-soaked trees. Daisy got unsteadily out of the Land-Rover. Next moment Ethel nearly pulled her over as Perdita galloped up.

‘Hello, Mum. You’ve got tomato skin on your front tooth. What on earth were you talking to Drew about for so long.’

‘Drew?’ said Daisy faintly. ‘But you said he was old.’

‘So he is, at least twenty-nine, but I really like him now. He’s picked me for the Jack Gannon, and I’m four months under age, and he says Hermia’s really improved.’

Daisy was almost too embarrassed to accept a lift home from Drew.

‘I had no idea,’ she mumbled.

‘I’ll have to be a bit nicer to Perdita in future,’ he said drily.

Perdita was in such a good mood that she and Daisy actually had supper together for the first time in months.

‘Er – is Drew Benedict married?’ asked Daisy as she mashed the potato.

‘To a terrific Sloane called Sukey,’ said Perdita, not looking up from Horse and Hound. ‘She’s just had a baby – it popped out during the semi-finals of the Queen’s Cup. If it had been a girl, Drew wanted to call her Chukka. Bas said it ought to be called Chuck-up because it’s always being sick.’

Daisy added too much milk to the potatoes. ‘Is she pretty?’

‘Sukey? No-oo,’ said Perdita scornfully. ‘Drew married her for her money.’

‘I thought he was gorg – I mean quite attractive,’ said Daisy.

‘Too straight for me,’ said Perdita. ‘I wonder if I ought to take up weight-lifting.’

Daisy nearly said Perdita could start off by weight lifting some of her belongings upstairs, but desisted because it was such heaven to be on speaking terms again.

Encouraged by Drew, Daisy applied for a Pony Club scholarship for Perdita, and they were duly summoned to Kirtlington to meet the Committee in early July. As their appointment wasn’t until the afternoon, Sukey Benedict asked them to lunch beforehand. To the Caring Chauvinist’s extreme irritation, Daisy took the day off and hired a car.

Very out of practice at driving, she had several near-misses on the motorway and her nerves weren’t helped by Perdita spending most of the journey with her hands over her eyes, as Daisy ground recalcitrant gears and proceeded in a succession of jerks down the High Streets of Oxfordshire villages.

Having thought about Drew Benedict rather too much in the last fortnight, Daisy was fascinated to see what Sukey was like. But, as she came down the steps of the beautiful russet Georgian house, first impressions were very depressing. Only five weeks after having a baby, Sukey’s figure was back to an enviable slimness. The perfect pink-and-white skin had no need of make-up. Her collar-length, mousey hair was drawn off her forehead. She wore a blue denim skirt on the knee and a striped shirt with the collar turned up. Noting the lack of creases, the air of calm efficiency, the brisk, high-pitched voice, Daisy thought gloomily that Sukey couldn’t be more different from her. If this was Drew’s type, she didn’t stand a chance. Then she felt desperately guilty. Who was she, who’d been crucified by Hamish’s departure, to hanker after someone else’s husband?