‘Blimey it’s ’ot,’ she said to Sukey. ‘Why do the ’orses keep bumpin’ into each uvver?’

Grace would have ignored Sharon, regarding her as both common and part of the opposition. Sukey was kinder and enjoyed imparting information.

‘It’s called a ride-off,’ she explained. ‘When a ball is hit, it creates its own right of way, and the player who hit it is entitled to hit it again. But if another player puts his horse’s shoulder in front of that first player’s horse’s shoulder, and a good horse will feel the pressure and push the other horse off the line, then the second player takes up the right of way. If you cross too closely in front of another rider – like someone shooting out in front of you on the motorway – it’s a foul.’

‘Ow, I see,’ said Sharon, who plainly didn’t. ‘And why does the scoreboard say Victor’s team’s winning when there seem to have been more goals down the uvver end?’

‘That’s because they change ends after each goal,’ said Sukey kindly, ‘so no-one gets the benefit of the wind.’

‘I could do with the benefit of some wind,’ said Sharon, fanning herself with her programme. ‘It’s bleedin’ ’ot.’

‘It is,’ agreed Sukey. ‘Would you like to borrow my hat?’

Grace Alderton thought Sukey was a lovely young woman who would make a splendid wife for Drew. She did not feel at all the same about Chessie France-Lynch who rolled up halfway through the fourth chukka in a coloured vest, no bra, frayed denim bermudas and torn pink espadrilles, clutching a large glass of Pimm’s and a copy of Barchester Towers. Chessie, who had bruised, scabious-blue eyes, and looked like a Botticelli angel who’d had too much nectar at lunchtime, made no secret of the fact that she found polo irredeemably boring. Being stuck at home with a three-year-old son, William, polishing silver cups and taking burnt meat out of the oven, because Ricky hadn’t got back from a match or was coping with some crisis in the yard, was not Chessie’s idea of marriage.