‘It says, “Please don’t tether any horses to this roof, or they’ll pull it off’,’ translated Luke.

Dancer’s latest hit single, ‘Girl Guide’, was belting out of the tack room. A pack of emaciated lurchers with burrs in their rough dusty coats charged forward, whimpering and weaving against Perdita’s legs. But as she bent to cuddle them a small boy, brushing down a pony, picked up a lump of mud and hurled it at the dogs to drive them off. Perdita was about to yell at him when her attention was distracted by a man with a cruel leathery face wearing gaucho pants and a white shirt who was galloping a pony very fast round a tiny corral. The horse’s nostrils were vastly inflated and it was panting rhythmically as its hooves struck the hard ground. The man’s control was undeniable. She could hear the horse groan as he squeezed it with his calves.

‘That’s Raimundo the peticero, master of the horse,’ said Luke, with a slight edge to his voice.

‘Looks a nasty piece of work.’

‘Work isn’t the operative word. He’s acting busy because Alejandro’s here.’

In the yard an old man in a beret was clipping a pony’s mane. The pony was rolling its eyes but stood motionless because a young boy relentlessly twisted its ear. Other horses wandered loose among the gum trees, while still others were muzzled and tied up. They looked very thin, but well-muscled.

‘They’re playing this afternoon,’ explained Luke. ‘Argentines don’t feed or water their horses eight hours before a match. I guess they are thin, but again Argentines don’t like their horses to carry a lot of weight.’

Perdita grew increasingly boot-faced when every pony she tried to cuddle cringed away with terror.

‘They’re all headshy,’ she complained furiously.

‘Shut up,’ said Luke. ‘You’re here to learn not beef.’

Fortunately Alejandro was concentrating on Ricky, boasting that every pony in the yard had been entirely responsible for clinching last year’s Argentine Open. They were distracted by a boy in his twenties cantering into the yard on a beautiful red chestnut. He had a bony, tortured face, angry, slanting peacock-blue eyes, bronze curls and a sallow complexion.

Wow! thought Perdita.

‘Angel,’ yelled Alejandro, ‘breeng that mare ’ere. I want Reeky to see ’er.’ Then with a touch of malice, ‘These are my friends, Reeky and Perdeeta. Isn’t she beautiful? Won’t she need the charity belt?’

Angel pulled up in horror and a cloud of dust, growled something incomprehensible, but undeniably insulting, threw down the reins, kicked his right foot out of the stirrup and, swinging it over the horse’s withers, jumped to the ground and ran into the house.

‘Zat is Angel,’ said Alejandro with a shrug, ‘still fighting zee Falklands War.’

Amazing cooking smells were drifting from the kitchen. Seeing Perdita beginning to wilt, Luke took her back to the house.

Ricky and Alejandro had to be dragged away from the horses to a lunch laid out on a blue-and-white checked tablecloth under the gum trees. They needed two tables to accommodate the ten children.

Ranging from twenty-one downwards, there were three boys, Patricio Maria, Luis Maria and Lorenzo Maria, followed by three ravishing plump girls, followed by four more boys, the youngest being little Pablo, who was three. All had the dark eyes and dark curls of their father.

Claudia exclaimed in delight over the presents Ricky had brought, which included a dark red cashmere jersey, a length of Harris Tweed, a striped silk Turnbull and Asser dressing gown and a Herbert Johnson tweed cap for Alejandro. Then she introduced her children to Perdita.

‘Don’t warry,’ said Alejandro with his great laugh. ‘I don’t recognize them myself sometime.’

‘Only the ones that play polo,’ said Claudia without rancour.

‘Have a wheesky, Ricky,’ said Alejandro, brandishing Ricky’s duty-free Bourbon. Then, when Ricky shook his head, ‘But you used to dreenk half a bottle before chukkas. It was your petrol.’

‘I’ve changed.’

‘Luke?’ asked Alejandro.

‘Not if I’ve gotta play this afternoon,’ said Luke, sitting down next to Perdita.

‘You are, because I’m not,’ said Alejandro, splashing whisky into his glass. ‘The opposition’s very weak today,’ he explained to Ricky, ‘but Luke is a good back. I must look after my laurel.’

Two silent maids served them. Perdita felt too tired to eat, but when she tried her steak it was pure poetry, tender as velvet, juicy as an orange, and so exploding with flavour that she was soon piling her plate with potato purée, tomato salad and geranium-red barbecue sauce.

‘I can’t believe this food,’ she said to Claudia five minutes later. ‘It’s wonderful.’

‘We in Argentina are very like the Breetish except in their cooking, which is ’orrible,’ said Alejandro, who was now wearing both his new dressing gown and the tweed cap over his black gollywog curls. ‘I like to dress like an Englishman.’

The talk was all of polo. Claudia didn’t contribute and concentrated on the younger children.

‘I love to play again in England,’ Alejandro said to Ricky. ‘When you theenk the ban will be lifted?’

‘I don’t know,’ sighed Ricky, who was eating hardly anything. ‘Prince Charles is Colonel of the Welsh Guards, which makes it very difficult for him. And there’s the security problem.’

‘That is a point,’ said Alejandro, looking round. ‘Where’s Angel?’

‘Not ’ungry,’ said Claudia, trying to force potato purée into little Paolo.

‘Not ’ungry, angry. Angel,’ he explained to Ricky, ‘was an ex-Mirage pilot. He ’ate the English, but when he gets to know Perdita,’ Alejandro smiled at her from under the peak of his cap, ‘he will forgeeve.’

Perdita, having taken far too much, was now feeding the rest of the steak to the shaggy lurchers who ringed the table, but kept their distance.

‘They’re so thin,’ she protested to Alejandro.

‘Raimundo don’t feed them. They live on hares and badgers they catch out in the pampas.’

Perdita didn’t think she could eat another thing, but the figs in syrup that followed were so delicious she was soon piling on great dollops of cream.

‘Angel is stupid,’ went on Alejandro. ‘The rest of us in Argentina ’ave forgiven you for the Falklands War.’

‘Oh good,’ said Perdita, brightening up. ‘Why is that?’

‘Because of Benny Hill,’ said Alejandro. ‘We love heem, and all those lovely girls with no clothes on. I love Eenglish programmes, Upper Stairs, Down Stairs. The only thing I watch else is polo on cable, and we’ve got a veedeo of last year’s Open. I’ll show it to you, Reeky.’

‘And you can point out all the ponies you’ve just showed me who allegedly played in it,’ said Ricky drily.

Alejandro giggled. ‘Some was previous year.’

‘Our doctor has tiny plane that was conscripted during the Malvinas War,’ said Claudia. ‘The military say they want to fly rockets on it, but when they see ’ow small it was, it didn’t get called up.’

‘All the food parcels people sent us from abroad was stolen by the post office,’ said Alejandro.

What heavenly people, thought Perdita. They’re so merry and funny.

The spear-shaped leaves of the gum tree were dappling their faces as the sun moved towards the Andes. A dragonfly was bombing the table. Luke pointed out a stork, black and white between the silver trunks. Beyond, the pampas seemed to swim in the midday heat.

‘Ow long are you weeth us, Reeky?’ asked Claudia, who’d had a secret crush on him in the old days and was appalled to see how grey and tense he looked.

‘Probably the day after tomorrow.’

‘But you said you’d stay a week,’ said Perdita in horror.

‘Where are you going next?’ asked Luke.

‘Palm Springs.’

‘That’s great,’ said Luke. ‘My half-sister Bibi’s out there. Working in LA. You must call her. She doesn’t get out enough. She’s on a zero handicap, but she’d play super if she played more.’

‘Who’s your patron now, Reeky?’ asked Alejandro.

‘Dancer Maitland,’ chipped in Perdita proudly.

Alejandro nearly fell off his seat. All the Mendoza children were roused out of their pallid apathy.

‘You get his autograph?’

‘You send us records?’

‘He numero uno this week.’

‘Is he nice? Please breeng ’im ’ere.’

‘He’s a sweet man,’ admitted Ricky. ‘But he’s very busy, and has difficulty even finding time to stick and ball. You stupid bitch,’ he murmured furiously under his breath to Perdita, ‘now Alejandro’ll quadruple his prices.’

‘Please stay, Reeky,’ pleaded Claudia. ‘You need a holiday. Let us pamper you.’

‘Let them pampas you,’ said Perdita bitterly.

She loves him, thought Luke. Perdita was very pale now, her skin the parchment colour of her white-blond mane. She’ll be like a little palomino when she turns brown, he thought.

‘Have a siesta,’ Claudia urged her as they’d finished coffee.

‘No, I want to look at the ponies with Ricky,’ said Perdita, frantic not to miss a minute.

‘Just for an hour. We all do,’ said Claudia soothingly.

Upstairs, feeling utterly suicidal, Perdita looked round her tiny bare room. The only furniture was a wardrobe, a chest of drawers with no lining paper, a straight-backed wooden chair and a narrow single bed with a carved headboard. There was an overhead light with no lampshade and a bedside lamp on the floor which didn’t work. The only colour came from a picture of a gaucho cracking a whip, a tiny red mat and a shocking pink counterpane. She ought to unpack, but she only got as far as getting out Ricky’s photograph in its blue silk frame and putting it beside the bed. The thought of all those blonde movie stars in Palm Springs pursuing him made her feel quite sick. She’d gone off Luke since he suggested Ricky ring his sister.