She’d just lie on the bed for a minute. Did she imagine it or did a head of bronze curls pop round the door, and were a pair of peacock-blue eyes gazing at her with implacable hatred? Then the door slammed shut and next moment she was asleep.


24



Waking the next morning, she was outraged that they’d left her to sleep. Luke and Alejandro’s three eldest sons had won their match. The teachers had suddenly ended their strike, and the four youngest children had gone back to school. Ricky, exhausted but elated after haggling all night with Alejandro, had bought eight horses.

Perdita, not in the best mood after a cold shower, found him having breakfast.

‘You promised to wake me.’

‘You needed sleep.’

He poured her some black coffee. Sulkily she added milk and buttered a croissant.

‘Nice family,’ said Ricky.

‘Very,’ said Perdita. ‘I’m not sure about that Angel. He looks as though he wants to Exocet me.’

‘Luke’ll look after you,’ said Ricky. ‘Look, I’m leaving at teatime – catching the eight o’clock flight.’

‘You can’t,’ said Perdita hysterically.

‘I’ve got the horses I need. Luke’s going to get them into America. From there we’ll fly them to England.’

‘But why so early, for Christ’s sake?’

‘Alejandro’s got business in Buenos Aires. He’s giving me a lift to the airport.’

Whatever Alejandro’s business was in BA, it necessitated a silk shirt, light grey trousers, a jacket hanging from a coathanger in the back of the car, his Herbert Johnson cap and about fifteen pints of Aramis.

Perdita cried unashamedly after they left, fleeing to her bare room and hurling herself down on the pink counterpane. Half an hour later there was a knock on the door.

‘Bugger off,’ she howled.

It was Luke. ‘Poor baby. Feeling homesick?’

‘No, Ricky sick,’ sobbed Perdita. ‘I can’t live without him.’

Luke sat down on the bed and put a huge arm round her.

‘You’ll see him in less than three months.’

‘That’s a whole school term. I don’t want it,’ she snapped as he handed her a large vodka and tonic, then took such a huge gulp that she nearly choked.

‘Isn’t Ricky kind of old to play Florizel?’ asked Luke.

‘Not having a father, I’m only attracted to older men,’ said Perdita.

‘I used to hero-worship the guy when he played for my father,’ said Luke. ‘He was awesome. I watched him yesterday. He’ll be as good as ever when his elbow heals. He must go to ten.’

‘All he’s interested in is getting bloody Chessie back.’

‘She’s not bloody.’

‘How’s she getting on with your ghastly father?’

‘Pretty happy, I guess. Doesn’t appear to be in any hurry to quit.’

Perdita sat up, blew her nose and looked at him with red, swollen eyes.

‘Jolly odd having a stepmother the same age as you. D’you fancy her?’

‘Couldn’t help it at first, but we’ve become friends. Her marrying Dad didn’t screw me up like the other two. Red and Bibi have given her hell.’

‘Serve her right.’

‘She lost a kid,’ said Luke reasonably.

‘Does she still miss Will?’

‘Yeah, but she won’t show it.’

‘Like Ricky. He’s so good at bottling things up, he ought to work in a ketchup factory.’

Luke picked up Ricky’s photograph. ‘You gotta treat being down here as a chance to learn polo. Meet them halfway and you’ll improve out of all recognition. And you’ll like it here; it’s kinda fun.’

‘How come you’re so nice?’ asked Perdita.

Luke yawned. ‘My brother Red’s better-looking than me. He gets all the girls – very good for the character. Dinner’s about ten, I’ll boil up some water so you can have a shower.’

‘What time do we get up here?’

‘Six o’clock. And on the horses by seven.’

‘God!’ said Perdita, appalled. ‘What else do we have to do?’

‘Shift the cattle, work the horses, stick and ball, come back for lunch, an hour’s siesta, and you go out like a light I can tell you, then we play chukkas in the afternoon. At least you won’t be roped in to build the swimming-pool.’

He left her not much happier. She tried to sleep, but she was desperately nervous about tomorrow. What if she made a complete fool of herself and let Ricky down? At least he wouldn’t be here to witness it. She felt twitchy about that vile Angel who hovered shadowy in the background, waiting to perform some dreadful mischief. She started violently at a knock on the door. Frantically wiping her eyes, she went to answer it and found Luke with only a small towel round his waist. For a terrifying moment Perdita thought he was going to pounce on her. Instead the bull-dog face creased into a huge smile.

‘Honey, I am absolutely shit-scared of spiders, and there’s the biggest son-of-a-bitch in the shower. Could you possibly remove it for me?’

Giving a scream of laughter, Perdita felt better.

Luke Alderton had been only three years old when Bart dumped his mother for Grace and his first memories were of tears and endless shouting. Grace had proceeded to have two children, Red and Bibi, whom she and Bart adored and spoilt impossibly. Grace, however, tended to ignore Luke when he came to stay, doing her duty without love or warmth. Then his mother had married again, to a PT instructor who beat Luke up so badly that a court ruled he should go and live with Bart full time. Here he had always felt an outsider.

At eighteen, because they wouldn’t let him read Polo at Yale, he chucked up any thought of an academic career. Determined to be utterly independent of Bart, he slowly worked his way up, starting as a groom and finally getting his own yard, buying ponies cheap off the race track, or from other players who couldn’t get a tune out of them, making them, and selling them on, which he detested because he got so fond of them. Invariably riding green ponies, his handicap at six was lower than it should have been. He didn’t have the natural ability of his brother, Red, but he was bigger and stronger. You didn’t want to be in the way when Luke hit the ball.

Because he’d missed out on higher education, and because he could seldom afford to go out on the town with the other players, he spent his evenings listening to music and devouring the classics. On long journeys in the lorry he’d keep the rest of the team entertained reciting great screeds of poetry, Longfellow, Macaulay, whole scenes from Shakespeare, now even bits of Martin Fierro, in an ’orrible accent.

All the Argentines adored him and nicknamed him Señor Gracias because he was so grateful for the smallest favour. It was the same in the States. He was always in work because he was cheerful, absolutely straight and very good company. But although he smiled in the face of the direst provocation, underneath he was as determined as Ricky to go to ten.

After such a lousy start in life, and not a penny of the Alderton millions, people often expressed amazement that he was so unchippy. The answer was always the same. ‘There’s nothing to be gained from blaming your background or other people. You’ve got to get out and help yourself.’

A second after Perdita fell asleep, it seemed Luke was banging on the door telling her to get up and to wear a sweater as it was cold first thing. Out in the yard, Alejandro had turned from the charming rogue of yesterday into a roaring tyrant, bellowing instructions to all the boys. In the corral the ponies waited, mostly chestnut, all young and timid, ducking nervously behind each other to avoid being caught. When Alejandro yelled at Perdita to tack up a little chestnut gelding, she was so nervous she could hardly do up the throat lash or adjust the stirrups. Once up, she felt she was straddling an eel. Every male from the neighbouring estancias, except Luke, who was off moving the cattle, seemed to be gathered round the paddock to watch her as she set off in the milky, misty morning light towards a row of poplar trees. Alejandro shouted after her to do turns at the canter.

‘I’ll show them,’ she thought, shoving her nose in the air. ‘Don’t jibe at me, Argentina.’

Reaching the middle of the field, she laid the nearside rein on the chestnut’s neck to tell him to go right. Instantly he did a lightning U-turn and set out back to the stables, leaving Perdita swearing on the stone-hard ground while all the onlookers roared with laughter and Alejandro shouted in broken English at her. She had three more falls before she and a handful of other players started stick and balling. She was just getting used to the chestnut when Alejandro moved her on to a dark brown mare who, when it wasn’t bucking, shied at the ball, and then on to another chestnut, whom she had great difficulty in holding.

She was also staggered by how energetically the Argentines played, hitting balls up in the air, juggling and tapping them, twisting, turning and stopping, followed by Ferrari bursts of acceleration before circling again. Then they did the whole thing all over again without stirrups, and all the time talking and shouting to one another. She was also aware of Angel, the Brit-hater, who hadn’t once eaten at the same table as her since she arrived, who was now riding harder and turning faster than any of the others, urging his pony on with great pelvic thrusts. It seemed he was deliberately galloping very close past her to upset her chestnut mare, who kept taking off into the pampas.

She had fallen off twice more and ridden twelve different ponies by lunchtime and was so tired she could hardly eat. Although Luke translated the whole time for her, she felt desperately isolated and sick with longing for Ricky. He must have nearly reached Palm Springs by now.