'That's better. D'you want to stay with me?'

Frantic he was going to chuck her, Perdita nodded. 'Well, you better keep your trap shut for a change.

No blathering to Simpson Hastings this time. If you tell anyone, in fact, you and I are over - understand?' 'Yes, of course.'

'And since you interrupted what I'd started with Chessie, I'd quite like to finish it.' As he pulled her towards him, his c.o.c.k jabbed her stomach. Beneath the feline languor, she could sense his frenzied excitement. Never had he made love to her more pa.s.sionately, and when the manager rang up asking them to check out he booked in for another night.

65.

Perdita told no-one about Red and Chessie except Tero into whose sympathetic grey shoulder she sobbed endlessly, trying to make sense out of what had happened. Did Red really loathe Chessie? Had he just pulled her to prove he could and that Chessie was a wh.o.r.e, or was it for the novelty of something as utterly verboten as a verboten as a cream bun in a health farm? Even more confusingly a couple of days after she'd stumbled on them, she had a letter from Chessie: cream bun in a health farm? Even more confusingly a couple of days after she'd stumbled on them, she had a letter from Chessie: 'Dear Perdita, Sorry about Thursday morning, but please don't blame me. I'd never have gone to bed with Red if he hadn't pestered me ever since I married Bart (that's why he's always been so poisonous to me), so that I finally gave in, because I was flattered, I suppose, and because I was so miserable about Ricky. I'm sorry you're hurt, but ifyou hadn't come back you'd never have found out. Yours, red-faced and red-handed, Chessie.'

Even when she'd shattered someone's life, Chessiecouldn't avoid being flip. Either she or Red was lying, but Perdita couldn't imagine Red pestering anyone. She knew she should pack her bags, but where could she go? Tero and Spotty could hardly live in a bedsit, and would Red give her custody of the six ponies, and all the jewels and clothes he'd given her? She hadn't saved a penny, relying on the wads of dollars and pound notes he'd thrust so freely into her eager hands. What terrified her most was the total loss of pride and willpower. She loved him too much to walk out, however much he humiliated her. As electrodes of jealousy wracked her body, she realized for the first time how much Luke must have suffered.

Perdita's game disintegrated. If Red and Angel hadn't continued so majestically together, the Flyers would have never reached the final of the Gold Cup. After a very tough draw, in which they beat the Tigers in extra time, Apocalypse also reached the final.

Ricky tried to sleep on the eve of the match but kept listening for the banging of hooves against the stable walls, which would tell him one of his horses had cast itself or was down with colic. When he did drop off, he found he was playing the whole world in his dreams. At three he got up and wandered round the house. It was unbearably hot and stuffy with distant thunder grumbling round the Rutshire hills. Little Chef, who'd trailed his restless master all day and tried to bring a smile to his lips by rushing in with a clothes brush or lying on his back sneezing with his paws over his eyes, followed yawning and blinking. The thunder was getting nearer.

On the drawing-room table lay the endlessly rescribbled and crossed-out lists of tomorrow's playing order. He had spent hours working out which horses would go best in which chukka, so one always had a balance of speed and manoeuvrability. Heavy rain would change all that. He was also in a dilemma about Wayne, who, as an old horse, didn't go well in very hot weather and who'd got crafty recently and, fed up with Ricky making him do sharp turns at a gallop, had started falling over deliberately. Nor was he entirely reliable in ride-offs. Seeing a b.u.mp coming, he'd hesitate and take Ricky out of it. Young horses loved to b.u.mp. Old horses like Wayne tended to cheat on you.

Like young wives, thought Ricky bitterly, which brought him back to Chessie. If he won tomorrow - what then? It was the first rung reached, but if Chessie came back, would he ever trust her again? He wished Luke were here. Dancer was frozen with panic, unable to eat. Even the twins were subdued, like puppies removed too early from their mother, so Ricky himself had to be the stabilizer. The smell of meadowsweet drifted hot and soapy from the lake. At the bottom of the moonlit valley, like a low, low star, Ricky saw Daisy's light on. He glanced at her painting of Will which had brought him such bitter-sweet pleasure. Suddenly the temptation to dump was too much. If he weren't playing Wayne tomorrow, he could ride him down to see Daisy.

'Hullo.' Daisy answered the telephone on the first ring, her voice tremulous with excitement.

'It's Ricky.'

There was a pause.

'How are you?' said Daisy, trying to keep the desperate disappointment out of her voice.

'Can't sleep. It's so light outside. Can I come over?'

The same moonlight that flooded the Eldercombe Valley silvered Chessie's naked body as she lay in the great, green silk four-poster listening to the crunch of the security guards on the gravel outside. Beside her, Bart churned with demoniacal s.e.xual excitement. Challenges were his fix, and this was the greatest challenge he'd ever faced.

Alderton Airlines was about to merge with EuroElectronics. Determined to merge with a splurge, Bart was flying in both his own and the German boards who would enjoy a splendid lunch in a duck-egg-blue tent before watching the Flyers retain the Gold Cup.

Bibi had been so incensed by such extravagance that she'd refused to come.

'We can't pay wages or suppliers, Dad.'

'We can after we've closed the deal,' said Bart. Helmut Wallstein, the Chairman of Euro-Electronics, owned race horses and would recognize quality when he saw Bart's ponies.

He longed to screw Chessie to release the tension, but he always avoided s.e.x before a key match. He needed the built-up pressure to zap the other side. Hearing her reachout for a gla.s.s of water, he said, 'Remember that red suit you wore at last year's Gold Cup? It brought us luck. Will you wear it again?'

'On one condition,' Chessie wriggled up to him, 'that you f.u.c.k me stupid now.'

In contrast to its cool, silver, moonlit appearance, her sweating body gave off a white-hot heat.

'I mustn't,' said Bart regretfully. 'Tomorrow night I'll bang you insensible.'

'Real men screw their wives and win matches,' taunted Chessie, climbing on top of him and taking his c.o.c.k between her lips.

'With access to this,' mumbled Bart, as the oily, silken warmth tickled his face, 'I must be the luckiest guy in the world. I'd kill to keep you, you know that.'

The thunderstorm broke in the west around breakfast time and reached Cowdray by midday, with lightning unzipping a purply-black sky and deafening claps of thunder unnerving the ponies. The storm pa.s.sed on, but driving rain birched the faces of the two teams as they cantered a lap of honour and bounced off a pitch which, after weeks of sunshine, was now dangerously slick and greasy on top and as hard as Red Alderton's heart underneath.

But rain had never stopped play at Cowdray. The scarlet ribbons on the hats of the band playing 'Four Hors.e.m.e.n, Riding, Riding, Riding', the umbrellas of the spectators and the duck-egg-blue shirts of the Flyers provided the only colourful notes.

'And they'll be black with mud by treading-in time,' said Dommie through chattering teeth, 'and we'll all be black and blue before it's over.'

Wayne loathed rain and his long, yellow ears never left his ewe neck as Ricky rode him in the parade. But when he was untacked and realized he wouldn't be playing, he put his ugly head down, hunched his shoulders and, ignoring everyone, sulked in the corner.

Angel, who hated rain even more than Wayne, was near suicide. Bibi hadn't come over for the match and the icy west wind whistling across the pitch felt to him as if it was coming directly from her in New York. Perdita felt even worse than Angel. Ricky had cut her dead again, so had Dancer, and Rupert had just come into the stands.

Yesterday, she'd begged Red to stick and ball with her in a faint attempt to capture her lost form. He had rolled up an hour late.

'You got me out of bed, OK?' he had snapped. 'Whatja want me to tell you?'

Then, at the team meeting in the pony lines, Bart had had such a row with Red and Angel, who'd both refused to lunch in the Alderton tent with all the Krauts, that nothing was discussed at all. Bart, in turn, was enraged because Chessie had turned up late for lunch wearing a brown suede jacket and gauchos tucked into black boots and clinched with a big black leather belt, and making all the other women, who'd expected a heatwave, look silly in their flimsy dresses.

'You promised you'd wear your red suit,' hissed Bart. 'I tried it on,' said Chessie lightly, 'but the skirt was last year's length.'

Bart was a powerful and consistent player, but Chessie's feverish s.e.xual demands last night and again this morning had sapped him and, with all the Krauts and his own board to entertain at lunch, he didn't have a chance to distance himself. He'd also mislaid his lucky belt and had turned the house and the barn upside down looking for it. Grace would have found it, he thought darkly, and and hosted this lunch hosted this lunch and and made made every Kraut and his wife feel special. Why was he blowing his entire livelihood on this exquisite, irresponsible malicious child? every Kraut and his wife feel special. Why was he blowing his entire livelihood on this exquisite, irresponsible malicious child?

Perdita watched Chessie, who'd now topped the whole outfit with a black sombrero, saunter up the gangway of the stands, swinging her hips like Gary Cooper in High Noon. High Noon. G.o.d, I hate her, she thought. Three players, Bart, Red and Ricky, are all obsessed with her, Angel wouldn't say no, and the twins have probably had her in duplicate, which only leaves me and Dancer immune. No wonder she's looking so chipper. G.o.d, I hate her, she thought. Three players, Bart, Red and Ricky, are all obsessed with her, Angel wouldn't say no, and the twins have probably had her in duplicate, which only leaves me and Dancer immune. No wonder she's looking so chipper.

Huddled under their coloured umbrellas, the crowd chattered in an incredible number of languages. Sharon Kaputnik who'd been lunching in the Davidoff tent, it was noticed by the press, was sharing her rose-lined parasol with David Waterlane because Sir Victor, having been knocked out by Apocalypse, refused to come to the match.

'So unsportin',' said Sharon rolling her blue eyes. 'Ay wouldn't refuse to come because I'd been beaten.'

'I'll bet you wouldn't,' murmured Chessie, who, seeing the front rows occupied by Helmut and Gisela Wallstein and the rest of the Euro-Electronics Board, deliberately sat down between Rupert and Sukey Benedict in the row behind.

'Davidoff Waterlane is obviously about to havidoff with Lady Shar,' she said in a stage whisper. 'I do hope Dancer's wearing waterproof mascara in this rain. Oh, stop looking so boot-faced, Rupert. Haven't you forgiven me yet?'

But Rupert had turned his back and was gazing moodily at the huge green field with its egg-yolk goal posts and flags and its panorama of rolling green-and-gold cornfields beneath glowing black-and-grey clouds. The grooves made in the cornfields by the drillers were not much deeper than the lines on either side of Ricky's mouth as he gave last-minute instructions to his team. 'Don't go into a daze, Dancer. For Christ's sake concentrate, and if you're going to change ponies, Dommie, ask first. Last time it cost us a goal.'

'I thought it was a penalty, so I buzzed off,' said Dommie, mounting his pony. 'Christ, my reins are starting to slip already.'

'We're the better side, so we attack,' Bart ordered the Flyers as they rode grimly on to the pitch.

'Solis de Gonzales and Red Alderton have dominated every headline this summer,' said William Loyd of the Telegraph, Telegraph, frantically trying to make his biro work on a wet page. 'Nice to get France-Lynch into a headline.' frantically trying to make his biro work on a wet page. 'Nice to get France-Lynch into a headline.'

'France-Lynched is the only headline you're likely to get,' said JNP Watson of The Times. The Times. 'Case of too many late nights, I'm afraid. Seb, Dommie and Dancer were evidently playing poker till three in the morning last night.' 'Case of too many late nights, I'm afraid. Seb, Dommie and Dancer were evidently playing poker till three in the morning last night.'

'Better than boozing,' said William Loyd giving up and resorting to pencil. 'Is Bart going to keep his best pony for the last chukka?' he asked Chessie.

'All my husband's ponies are best,' said Chessie tonelessly.

It was raining even harder now, but nothing doused the loathing between the two teams, which seemed to singe the clouds above and set the drenched cornfields on fire. Drew was waiting to throw-in as they lined up.

'I don't want any aggro,' he said crisply. 'Anyone who swears or argues with the umpire will be sent off, except any Argentines,' he added with a glint, 'who will be shot.'

Only Bart grabbing Angel's shirt stopped him flying through the air and landing on Drew.

'Pack it in. I'm paying you to bury the opposition not the umpire.'

In the first chukka Angel and Red tried to play at their usual breakneck speed, but it was as if someone had spilt turkey fat all over the kitchen floor, and after both had overturned their ponies and Angel had nearly been trampled to death by a furiously galloping Seb, they slowed down. The Flyers were infinitely superior in pony power, but for once they couldn't take advantage of their fleet, light, thoroughbred horses. The much slower ground played havoc with their timing and the rain not only aquapunctured their faces, drastically reducing visibility, but made reins, gloves and sticks incredibly slippery and almost impossible to hold. Accustomed to such conditions and on much heavier ponies, Apocalypse started winning the ride-offs and, having endlessly practised lofting the ball over a sea of mud, were therefore unfazed when the whole field became black with skidmarks and divots.

Apocalypse had also learnt one vital lesson from Luke. They had practised, played, almost slept together all summer and knew each others' ponies backwards. They wanted not individual glory, but for the team to win. The twins, normally attacking players, were marking the h.e.l.l out of Angel and Red, driving them crackers.

There were plenty of spats. Angel, thundering down the boards, was being threatened by Ricky.

'Get out of my way, you f.u.c.ker,' he howled. 'Puniatero, forro, 'Puniatero, forro, Eenglish preek!' Then, seeing Drew out of the corner of his eye, added with excessive politeness, 'Excuse me, Meester France-Lynch, my line I theenk,' and clouted the ball straight between Kinta's legs. Eenglish preek!' Then, seeing Drew out of the corner of his eye, added with excessive politeness, 'Excuse me, Meester France-Lynch, my line I theenk,' and clouted the ball straight between Kinta's legs.

Up went Ricky's stick. 'Foul!' he yelled at Drew. 'Dangerous stick work.'

'He crossed me,' protested Angel.

'He pulled up on the ball,' shouted Ricky. 'If Kinta's got any legs left, it's no thanks to him.'

Drew, reluctant to be accused of bias, turned to Shark Nelligan, the other umpire.'Apocalypse foul,' said Shark.

'Thank you, Mr Nelligan,' said Angel making a V-sign on his mud-spattered thigh, but only lifting it an inch in Ricky's direction. He found the flags without difficulty.

'High time the Argies came back,' said David Waterlane, returning the pressure of Sharon's leg.

In the third chukka the score stuck at 3-2 to the Flyers, as ponies and players, all plastered with mud, groped desperately for a foothold, trying to gain the ascendancy as the usual thunderous dry rattle of hooves was replaced by the dull relentless thud of a murderer's cudgel. the third chukka the score stuck at 3-2 to the Flyers, as ponies and players, all plastered with mud, groped desperately for a foothold, trying to gain the ascendancy as the usual thunderous dry rattle of hooves was replaced by the dull relentless thud of a murderer's cudgel.

Then by some miracle Dancer, who'd been marked by Bart, got the ball.

'And here comes Dancer,' said Terry Hanlon, the Cowdray commentator, 'heading for goal; riding, riding, riding, famine, justice, pestilence, and whoops, oh dear, he didn't connect with that offside forehand and the ball went wide. Got the mud to hide your blushes. Stick to singing in future, Dancer.'

The stands giggled. As Dancer hung his head, Bart picked up the ball and backed it to Red, who missed it completely, then, spinning round, picked it up and came triumphantly down the field, dummying past Seb, then Ricky, then Dommie, whipping and whipping Glitz into a breakneck gallop until the crowd started grumbling with disapproval.

'And here comes Red Alderton,' said Terry Hanlon, dropping his voice an octave, 'who's lived more nights than days. Look at him opening up his shoulders for the big one. And it's a goal, ladies and gentlemen and seahorses, 4-2 to the Flyers.'

Back in the pony lines, grooms had the thankless task of getting the mud off and drying utterly exhausted ponies in torrential rain. The Apocalypse grooms, in their black bomber jackets, had experienced such conditions and were far more cheerful than the Flyers' Argentines who hated rain as much as Angel. Wayne, utterly unplacated by four ounces of barley sugar and a bucket of water, still sulking with his head down, suddenly heard his old friend and last year's team-mate, Spotty, yelling out for Tero, who was still on the field, and started calling back like a lunatic. Ducking out of his headcollar, whickering with delight, he bustled off to join Spotty across a sea of mud and started kissing and nuzzling him all over.

'Get that f.u.c.king dog off the pitch,' roared Bart, as his weary pony nearly tripped over Little Chef racing out to welcome Ricky as the players came off at half-time.

Apocalypse had contained the Flyers very well, and Bart, not best pleased, went off to shout at his team. 'We should be at least five goals up by now.'

'Well done,' said Ricky quietly to Dancer and the twins. 'We've rattled them. Now we've got to get some goals.'

Hearing 'Tea for Two' over the tannoy, Wayne bustled off towards the tea tent. Drew, tweed cap resting on his eyelashes, riding round on his drenched pony as the crowd swarmed back to the stands after treading in, thought how amazing it was that the field, which, five minutes ago, had been a black sea of holes and divots, was now a smooth sweep of emerald green again. Like my marriage, he thought wryly, and for a second scoured the stands for Daisy, hoping she might have turned up. He'd promised to ring her during the week, but he'd been too busy to get over to Eldercombe and he hated hearing the disappointment in her voice. He'd try and get her this evening, although he could hardly cheer her up with the news that Perdita was playing well.

Perdita was equally conscious she wasn't pulling her weight. Bart had yelled at her so continually she hardly heard him. Then, in the fourth chukka, Angel gave her a pa.s.s, and there was only forty yards between her and goal. Perdita was so surprised she hesitated, but Tero, putting on an amazing turn of speed, took her upfield, placing her beside the ball, so she was able to judge the first shot beautifully. Now the ball was waiting for her, ten feet in front of the goal. Oh, please G.o.d. G.o.d blocked his ears, and she hit a divot instead of the ball. Frantically she tugged at the sodden reins and, willing Tero, turned on her hocks at full gallop. That's a good pony, thought Red.

But as the little mare floundered to stay upright, she slipped and came down with Perdita beneath her. The crowd gave a gasp of horror and agreed it was not a girl's game. Tero rolled off m a trice. Seeing Perdita was moving, Red belted off to change ponies. When he returned, Perditawas screaming at Bart: 'I can't go on. I've got to change my breeches.'

Glancing down, Red saw blood mingling with the mud. All the trauma over Chessie had made the curse so late Perdita'd forgotten all about it.

'There's only ninety seconds to go,' shouted Bart. 'Everyone'll notice.'

'If you play in a man's game, you play by men's rules,' howled Red. 'Get back on that pony. Pull your shirt outside.'

Angel put an arm round Perdita's shoulder, feeling her shaking with sobs. 'No one can see zee blood for zee mud,' he said comfortingly.

'Your daughter seems to be getting rather a lot of earache from my husband,' said Chessie slyly to Rupert as the clock started again.

Rupert gazed stonily ahead, holding Taggie's hand so tightly that she winced.

'Mr Alderton is a very forceful captain,' said Gisela Wallstein, who was bitterly cold and couldn't understand what was going on at all.

'Oh, Bart always shouts when he's near the stands,' said Chessie lightly. 'The team don't take any notice, but the crowd think what a what a big macho guy.' big macho guy.'

Helmut Wallstein looked round at Chessie speculatively. 'I have not often seen such beautiful horses.'

'Subsidized by Alderton Airlines,' said Chessie with a shrug.

Sukey paused in the menus she was writing out for two dinner parties next week. If Drew were just umpiring, she felt it was all right only to keep half an eye on the game.

'How can you be so unsupportive, Chessie?' she murmured.

'Vot is the name of that bay mare he's riding now?' asked Helmut.

'I haven't a clue.'

'You should be able to recognize Bart's ponies,' reproved Sukey. 'That's Marina, a Criolla pony from Argentina,' she told Helmut.

Chessie turned smiling to Sukey. 'Do remind me to take your husband to bed when I get a moment.'

Sukey went magenta, but her reply was drowned by Terry Hanlon telling them that the head had broken off Ricky's stick in the desperate mlee in the Apocalypse goal mouth.

'And Ricky France-Lynch is managing to do an amazing amount of damage with his stick alone, but it's looking very dangerous for Apocalypse. Is it going to be 6-2? No, Seb Carlisle's taken the ball upfield.'

Swinging round, Ricky thundered towards the boards where his sticks were leaning against the fence, their handles fretting in the wind.

'Fifty-one,' he bellowed to Louisa. But for once Chessie was too quick. Bounding down the gangway, she s.n.a.t.c.hed the right stick and handed it to Ricky. For a second their eyes met.

'Good luck darling, you're doing brilliantly,' she called out quite audibly.