DIARY JILLY COOPER
Stress, one is told, is caused by the inability to say No. And I have unwittingly coincided working for The Spectator with our first family holiday since 1980. Forget- ting how hellishly difficult journalism is, and how it sends me straight to the bread bin, I gain seven pounds on pre-holiday crash diet. Nor do I have time to buy fash- ionable leotards and sarongs to keep up with the ritzy trio who are joining our party. Our destination is the Val de Gilly in Provence where we will be tended by a cou- ple whose name sounds like Grisly. We have seen photographs, but in the flesh, like Princess Diana, the villa turns out to be a 100 times more beautiful — duck-egg blue shutters smothered in plumbago and the scent of chicken Provengale drifting from the kitchen. Lawns green as wood- peckers fall into vineyards ringed by blue Astrakhan hills topped by the floodlit ruins of Castle Grimaud.
When you arrive in heaven, your favourite dog is supposed to race towards you wagging its tail. On cue in this par- adise, Fanny, a chien de chasse of sorts, sidles out of the rose-pink dusk. Plied with chicken, and discovering that the invaders are friendly, she summons two mongrel col- leagues. Later they romp by the light of the pool like animated coats-of-arms. Next day friends arrive from Plan de la Tour. By bizarre coincidence, they are staying in the same mill which Leo and I shared in 1969 with a woman friend and her incredibly glamorous toy-boy, who was sourly described by one husband as 'the nasty lit- tle bug all our wives caught that summer'. Inhabiting the other half of the mill were French intellectuals, a ménage a. trois of husband, wife and mistress. Considerable stress was caused three days later by the toy-boy's inability to say Non to the French husband. They bolted together, leaving Leo to cope with me and three very disgruntled ladies.
Nothing so traumatic happens this year. The men in our party seem more interested in comparing the size of their lardons, and harmony is only disturbed by the rattle of backgammon dice, the pat of tennis balls and shrieks as the prickles of a sweet-chestnut husk are mistaken for a lurking wasp. So many mosquitoes have also dined on my ankles that I'm tempted to open a restaurant called Mozzimans. Fanny and friends have now been joined by a tabby cat called Julia. Replete with sar- dines, she is now playing with the Mistral- fretted paper in my typewriter. I felt sure Herrick doted on his Julia — whose leg was as white and hairless as an egg' because she was the only girlfriend who didn't pinch his razors.
0 ne by one the members of our party fall silent as they devour The Silence of the Lambs. On the eve of the Conservative Party Conference, John Major should dis- patch this author's entire works to Mrs Thatcher. My best holiday reading is Grizel, an enchanting collection of letters by the wife of a housemaster at Eton. The book is so appallingly edited that often one has no idea whom Grizel is writing to or about what, but the learning, the generosity and the wonderful irreverence shine through. `But surely that's what choirboys are for,' she once protested when some master was sacked for jumping on a chorister.
Only the French would make a sugar lump called Daddy and have a foreign Min- ister called M. Leotard. Perhaps I should annex him to jazz up my wardrobe when we visit St Tropez from whose foam once rose people more beautiful than Venus. Alas, 20 years after, the town is sleazy beyond belief. Like daughters of the American Revolu- tion, great motor yachts with names like Sophisticated Lady line the front. On the deck bateau-ed wives in peaked caps strut about pretending to ignore the video-ing grockles on the quay. Their husbands, jew- ellery flashing in the sunset which their boats are totally blocking out, grumble about the rigours of the recession. In fact the only things bottoming out here are the tarts they are eyeing, whose shorts are pulled up so high, they look like upside down Nell Gwynnes. Even so, there are enough terrifyingly chic girls about to make me pray that Air France lose all my wardrobe on the flight home.
Lord King once told me that his recur- rent nightmare was other people's luggage going astray. Invited pheasant shooting recently by some very rich Americans, it was his own suitcases that vanished for 24 hours. A zealous minion seeing 'King' on the label had put them in King Constan- tine's room. Shooting the next day, Lord King was somewhat surprised when flock after flock of duck was driven over, but proceeded to slaughter his full. 'That was terrific,' he said, as he handed the gun back to his loader, tut I thought we were shoot- ing pheasant.' Pheasants next,' explained the loader, handing it back again.
As the result of an inability to say Non to Madame Grisly's dauphinoise potatoes and drinking daily what Esther Rantzen wouldn't allow in a week, we are all suffer- ing from midriff crisis. Instead of staging a Potbellied Olympics, however, we waddle off to Port Grimaud, capital of Pseud de France, which promptly inspires a scene for my new opera. The town square at mid- night. Reflected carriage lamps ripple in the dark canal. Weary council workers, pos- ing as petanque players, stow away their balls. Suddenly the square is invaded by dainty maidens singing how awful it is to live in Surbiton and how much they prefer these sunny climes where everyone from Surrey is now domiciled. Enter gauche Pierre Mayle with a chorus of truffle pigs demanding liberte and a cut of the takings. Defiantly singing: 'There'll always be a Cartland,' Lady Non-Dispenser descends from on high clutching treasures from Althorp. Fishing her out of the canal, M. Leotard throws her on the barbecue and distributes treasures. Everyone including the pigs joins in a roasting chorus in sup- port of the new British Colony of Pork Gri- maud. Packing up, I have to admit that Leo is right about women taking much too much. Of the 65 pieces of clothing brought out I have worn only ten. At least flying both ways we have been spared the harrow- ing sight of desperately frightened and thirsty livestock crammed into lorries on their way to foreign slaughter-houses. After 1992, we will be spared the sight altogether, because the animals will be forced into sealed containers for hygiene's sake and not fed, watered or looked at for 24 hours by which time most will be dead, which I suppose cuts down on abattoir costs.
Woken at 6 am by the hiss of lawn sprinklers. Upstaging a pearly dawn, the planet of love is on high, bidding us come into the Garden Grimaud. As Orion fol- lowed by yawning dogs tugs on his boots and climbs up the sky, M. Grisly and Fanny wearily gather up discarded clothing round the pool. Cicadas like telephones ringing in distant offices fade to a crescendo of crow- ing cocks. Only knowing we can return, are we happy to be going home.
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