We all exchange stunned looks.
“Mother, do you realise what you’re saying?”
“Of course I do! Look, when I was eighteen, I washot. Well, I wasn’t quite eighteen yet, but does it matter? Age doesn’t matter if you’re with Mick Jagger.”
“Your mother had sex with Mick Jagger,” I remark, looking at Ashford with my eyes wide open.
“It can’t be verified,” he mutters, shocked.
“So, we have another great music fan here!” Says my father, to defuse the heavy atmosphere.
“Oh, the Rolling Stones could keep their music to themselves. What mattered was seeing them shirtless and, in my case, not just shirtless.” Delphina rolls her eyes, caught in her memories. “What a night!”
“You and Dad were not together back then, were you?” Ashford’s tone is somewhat concerned.
“No! But what if we had been? Mick Jagger was Mick Jagger, such occasions come up only once in life! And then, what happens in Paris stays in Paris!”
Ashford is in shock. “This inaugurates theWild Paris Chronicles. Chapter One: I could have been Mick Jagger’s son.”
“Or Keith Richards’!” Adds Delphina.
Ashford loses it: “Mother, please!”
“Peyote flour,” I say, beating my forehead with one hand.
Ashford puts his mother back on her feet and escorts her towards the door. “Mr and Mrs Pears, it’s been a pleasure. We have to go, now. Jemma, shall we?”
22
Ashford’s Version
The polo season begins this afternoon, and I have the first match with my team. It will also be the first social event with Jemma.
As winners of last year’s championship, our team will be the centre of attention, with me at the top of the list, because everyone knows about Jemma and me. Many will take part in the event just to see her.
A part of me would prefer that she remained at home but I can’t hide her forever.
The guests who came to our ‘intimate dinner’ have said enough to arouse general curiosity.
I’m at the country club, in the stables, and I’m preparing my horse. Falkland is a beautiful Argentine Criollo horse, he’s dark chocolate coloured, muscular and speedy, and more than one person would be interested in buying him. Especially after how he performed last season.
I take care of him myself, whereas the other players prefer to let the stable lads do it.
While I’m grooming him, I hear someone knocking on the wall of the horse’s stable.
“O Captain! My Captain!” It’s Harring.
“Haz! You’re back!” I walk towards him raising my fist in sign of victory. “Congratulations on your pole position in the Russian Grand Prix.”
He shrugs. “No biggie.”
Harring is a Formula One driver. As heir to the title of viscount, he gets fed up very easily. His uncle, who was just as eccentric as he is, created his own racing team, so Harring grew up developing a passion for cars, until he was old enough to drive them himself.
When in a race, he’s always very theatrical. For example, it once happened that, while he was in the lead in a race at the Silverstone circuit, outdistancing the McLaren cars by forty seconds and with one lap to go, he suddenly decided to go back to the pits. When the journalists interviewed him, he said simply: ‘I was getting bored’.
Another time, in Bahrain, they gave him a penalty for skipping the tests – because he wasbusywith a lingerie model – so the day after, during the race, he made a memorable catch-up and went from next to last to second place.
He may not be very professional, but when he’s in a race, he wins. He’s an extraordinary combination of pure talent, blind luck and no sense of danger whatsoever.
