High life
Je ne regrette rien
Taki
n F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1931 short story, `Babylon Revisited', the hero returns to Paris after an absence of two years to find that things and people are not the way he left them. The stock market crash has wiped the glitter off the smart set and the excesses of the Twenties have ravaged his old gang beyond recognition.
I thought of poor old Scott last weekend, and of Thomas Wolfe as well, who wrote that you can't go home again. Well, I guess both of them got it wrong, at least where my week-end was concerned. It was exactly 35 years ago, on a soft summer evening, that I stepped off a lumbering Dakota at Orly Airport and into a love affair with Paris that has yet to end in tears. There were no ugly sights in Paris back then. The buildings were covered in grime, but they were beautiful buildings, like the women with their worn-out shoes and runs in their nylons. As dusk descended and I watched the yellow headlights of cars crossing the Pont de l'Alma and inhaled the black tobacco of my first Gitane I knew that the romance would last and last.
And it did. For 15 years, to be exact. In fact, it turned out to be one long party. There was the tennis at Roland Garros and the polo every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, with the obligatory blast following late into the night. Most important, howev- er, were my friends, the Porfirio Rubirosas, the Juan Capuros, the Carlos Miguenses, and, of course, les demoiselles de Paris. It was the best education a young man could have had if his ambition was not to set the world on fire. Even now, I don't regret it.
I thought of all these things last week as I once again landed in the City of Light, this time at the super-modern Charles de Gaulle, with just a little nostalgia for lost youth. Paris, mind you, never changes. The grandeur of its buildings is undiminished, its monuments to politically incorrect sol- diers and statesmen are as imposing as they ever were to the impressionable eye of a 20-year-old, and the sirens of the night still beckon. Better yet, Jimmy Goldsmith was throwing a grand ball for his daughter Jemima, and I was there with my little girl, escorting her to her first Paris dance.
Now as everyone who has ever heard of Sir James Goldsmith knows, he doesn't do things halfway. Laurent, the restaurant he owns, is among the grandest in Paris, and he filled it to the brim with the great and the good, but also with those of his friends who have not been so lucky in life and depend on him for a living. I don't know of many tycoons nowadays who help those who can't help themselves, except, of course, for those who give to museums in order to have a wing named after them. The only bad surprise I had was upon arriv- ing, when the paparazzi hurled themselves towards me and began to snap wildly. Alas, it was not for me, but for Henry Kissinger and Oscar de la Renta following the poor little Greek boy.
Once inside it was full of old friends and memories. Plus Rupert Murdoch, with whom I had a long and very pleasant chat, Kerry Packer, Prince Michael of Kent and his Princess, with whom I did not, and the sainted owner of the Speccie, to whom I introduced my wife, whereupon he whis- pered, 'Is this really your wife or are you bullshitting me as usual?' There were too many pretty girls to pick from and too many old French friends to mention. Suf- fice it to say that no song written later than 1945 was performed, and nobody over 45 went home until long past midnight.
I was dragged away from talking to Nico- la Formby by the mother of you-know-who at 4 a.m., which was the lowest point of my week-end. Oh yes, and my daughter left to go to a night-club and didn't come home until five in the morning, which means she takes after her old man, which is the worst news I've had since the fall of Constantino- ple in 1453.
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