‘I’ve got to fly a lot of horses back for myself and Hal,’ said Luke, ‘but if you can put in a substitute for the first two games, I should make the semi-final. How’s Red?’

‘Lousy,’ said Bart. ‘Got himself involved with some actress called Auriel Kingham.’

‘Christ!’ Luke tried not to laugh. ‘Wasn’t she at college with Grace?’

‘Almost,’ said Bart. ‘She’s junked her husband who’s citing Red, so we’ve got reporters staking out the house night and day.’

Bart, however, was much more furious because the underhandicapped player, known in the game as a ringer, whom he’d signed up to play with him, Juan and Miguel in Palm Beach, had been put up two places in the November handicaps, which put the aggregate of the team’s handicap over the required twenty-six.

‘I called the American Polo Association,’ snarled Bart, ‘I said, “We’ve paid him money and he signed the contract eight months ago and we’ll pull out altogether because it wrecks our team”, but the assholes wouldn’t budge.’

Luke privately thought that the APA, having been pushed around once too often by Bart, had probably decided to take a stand.

‘I’ve gotta find another ringer at once,’ said Bart. ‘You got any ideas? I’m pissed off with Juan’s and Miguel’s cousins.’

‘Sure,’ said Luke. ‘Guy called Angel. Plays like one too. He’s rated one here, but he’s at least four. Got class too. I’ll bring him back with me.’

It touched Luke that, despite their differences, his father trusted him more than the O’Briens when it came to finding players. Having told Angel, he limped outside. Christ, his ankle hurt. He saw that Perdita was cantering Tero round the corral. The change in the little mare was amazing. She had filled out, her iron-grey coat gleamed like stainless steel, her long silver-blond mane, still unclipped to indicate she was a novice, fell coquettishly over her eyelashes. Her brown nose looked as if it had been dipped in paprika.

She no longer trembled or flinched away when Perdita touched her, and this morning, a huge victory, she had accepted a Polo from Perdita’s hand. Schooling and stick and balling her mostly behind Alejandro’s back, Perdita had fallen totally in love with the pony and was desperate to buy her for Apocalypse next summer. But Ricky hadn’t answered any of her letters and he’d been out when she’d rung him last night.

Now Tero was executing a perfect figure of eight, not flinching at all at the stick Perdita was swinging around to get her used to it.

Oh, happy horse to bear the weight of Perdita, thought Luke.

Instead he said, ‘Angel’s gonna play on my father’s team in Palm Beach next season.’

‘That’s great,’ said Perdita, battling with jealousy. ‘What did Angel say?’

‘He’s so fired up that he galloped three times round the stick-and-ball field yelling: “Sheet, sheet, I’m going to play for the Flyers.” I warned him he’d have to play with the O’Briens, and that my father isn’t easy, but at least it’s a polo boot in the door.’

‘Lucky thing,’ said Perdita fretfully. ‘I’d love to play in Palm Beach.’

As Luke stroked Tero’s satin neck, it was difficult to tell if his hand was shaking the mare, or the mare shaking him. Not looking up, he drawled, ‘Why don’t you come and spend Christmas with us? It’s kinda wild. And we can certainly arrange some polo.’

‘Dear Mum,’ wrote Perdita that evening, ‘I’m having such a fantastic time. I hate, hate, hate the way the Argentines treat their horses, but I adore them as people. They’re so larky and funny. Yesterday we beat the O’Briens, an incredible turnaround. I got a cup, so at least I’m bringing home some silver from Argentina. And since the match, the Argies have been so nice and are taking me seriously as a player at last. There’s an American here called Luke Alderton. He’s seriously nice too. He’s going back to Palm Beach next week after the Open and has asked me to go with him and spend Christmas there. It’s a fantastic offer, as their high goal season starts in January. And as Ricky’s not coming back to England until March, there’s nothing for me to come home to. Hope you don’t mind. Violet and Eddie’ll be home, and I’d only disrupt things.

Love, Perdita.

PS Hugs and kisses to Ethel and Gainsborough.’

‘That’s the first letter I’ve ever seen you write to your mother,’ said Luke when she gave it to him to post.

Perdita’s face shut down. ‘I keep telling you, we don’t get on.’

Luke still had eight more horses to buy for Hal Peters, so the haggling went on amicable but deadly, for the next four days. Going out into the yard the day before they were due to leave, Perdita was staggered when Raimundo asked her into his little wooden house for some maté, a herbal tea which gauchos drink out of a silver cup from a communal straw. Although Perdita thought it tasted like grass mowings peed on by a dog, she’d learnt enough tact in the last months to say it was delicious and to thank Raimundo for the honour.

As she left his house, she stroked his lurchers who jostled against her, desperate to be petted, and looked at the ponies wandering loose under the gum trees in the twilight. She couldn’t see Tero anywhere.

‘Has she been turned out in one of the paddocks?’ she asked.

‘Alejandro sell her.’

‘To Victor?’ asked Perdita, aghast. ‘She’ll hate it. We must get her back.’

‘Is all right,’ said Raimundo soothingly. ‘Señor Gracias got her very cheap as Alejandro theenk her hopless. It was the only one ’e did. Alejandro overcharge him for the rest.’

Hurtling off to find Luke, Perdita threw her arms round his neck. ‘Oh, thank you, thank you. I’ll persuade Ricky to buy her. Promise you won’t sell her on. Oh, can I ride her in Palm Beach?’

On their last night there was a massive barbecue called an asado under the stars. Luke pointed out the Southern Cross. Guitars strummed in the background. Everything was already packed as they were driving the horses to the airport first thing in the morning. In thirty-six hours, thought Perdita, I’ll be in Palm Beach. She was so nervous and excited she fed all her dinner to the lurchers.

‘Those dogs will go into mourning when you leave,’ said Alejandro. ‘Try this.’ He put some stringy-looking white meat on her plate.

‘Ugh!’ said Perdita. ‘Tastes like chewing gum without any flavour. What is it?’

‘Intestine,’ said Alejandro. ‘No worse than ’aggis. I had ’aggis once in England. It looked like sheet. When I eat it, I wish it was.’

Perdita laughed. ‘My stepfather was Scottish. He used to recite poems to haggises, stupid dickhead.’

‘We will all mees you,’ said Claudia sadly to Luke.

‘You’ll see us in Palm Beach in less than a month,’ said Luke.

‘It won’t be the same. We will not be together every day. Who will mend my washing machine and the children’s bicycles? Who will tell them stories at night?’

As pudding arrived, a beautiful cake of meringues, peaches and cream, Perdita’s mind started to wander. Was she doing the right thing staying with Luke in Palm Beach and obviously sooner or later bumping into Chessie and Bart? Would Ricky ever forgive her for fraternizing with the enemy? Would Chessie still be as ravishing? Perdita was worried, too, because her image of Ricky was becoming increasingly remote. She kissed his photograph every night, but often panicked because she couldn’t remember what he was like. Her heartache had certainly lessened. Would seeing Chessie trigger off all this hurt again? Absent-mindedly she fed a piece of meringue to a hovering lurcher.

‘The Eenglish are a strange people,’ said Alejandro. ‘They love their dogs more than their ’usbands. We Argentines are more romantic. Love is for always.’

Having seen that Claudia was deep in conversation with Luke, Perdita cracked back, ‘But not necessarily with the same woman.’

‘In Argentina,’ went on Alejandro, the firelight flickering on his swarthy, wrinkled face, ‘we ’ave a saying. “With you, bread and onions”. It mean eef you really love someone, money doesn’t matter. Just being with them, even if you only have bread and onions to eat, is enough.’

‘Sure,’ said Luke, who’d been listening with half an ear, ‘I’d go along with that.’

‘Crap,’ and ‘Bullshit!’ howled Angel and Perdita simultaneously. ‘Money ees essential,’ said Angel emphatically. ‘Particularly eef you’ve once ’ad it. I go to Palm Beach to find very rich, beautiful woman.’

Perdita grinned. ‘I’m going to marry the richest man I can stand.’

Luke’s face was in darkness. He turned back to Claudia.

Later, fuelled by Bourbon, Alejandro became very sentimental.

‘I haf to tell you, Luke, Angel, even Perdita eef she learn to control the temper, you are the three best pupil I ever have. But Luke,’ his voice softened, ‘will always be my amigo and special friend. One day Señor Gracias, you step into my boots as the greatest back in zee world.’

Luke was touched, but not too carried away the following morning not to check the horses they were taking with them. Alejandro tried to distract him by merrily checking and re-checking the bill.

‘Wiz inflation at one hundred per cent, eet’s probably gone up in the last five minutes,’ he kept saying, as he fingered his calculator like a lute player.

But Luke was not to be deflected. At the back of the lorry he discovered that Alejandro had substituted a donkey of an old mare for Fantasma. Only after much Argy-bargy and histrionic protestation that Luke was utterly ‘meestaken’, Fantasma was located, muzzled, hobbled, but still trying to kick out, in an old pigsty at the bottom of the garden, with grey dapples ringing her white coat.