High life
On a high
Taki
The ancestral country seat was never more beautiful than over the weekend. On Sunday morning I looked out on the lawn and saw a girl performing elegant pirouettes to the music of Johann Strauss. When she disappeared behind the yew trees I thought for a moment that I was hallucinating after the Karamazovian bender of the night before. Far from it, as it turned out. Upon closer inspection it turned out to be Marita Phillips, a very pretty girl who is a talented mime, a writer of lyrics, author of children's mystery stories, as well as a dancer. Her only weakness, it seems, is Randall Crawley, to whom she had got engaged the day before. The ancestral country seat was never more beautiful than over the weekend. On Sunday morning I looked out on the lawn and saw a girl performing elegant pirouettes to the music of Johann Strauss. When she disappeared behind the yew trees I thought for a moment that I was hallucinating after the Karamazovian bender of the night before. Far from it, as it turned out. Upon closer inspection it turned out to be Marita Phillips, a very pretty girl who is a talented mime, a writer of lyrics, author of children's mystery stories, as well as a dancer. Her only weakness, it seems, is Randall Crawley, to whom she had got engaged the day before.
Randall is an old friend whose vast knowledge of history is matched only by his unshakeable arrogance. That morning he sat on the veranda and watched while Marita danced gracefully along the drive. They were both obviously quite happy, although Randall's happiness didn't last long. Because after the all too brief dance it was time for tennis. Although Randall is a world champion racquets player, and a fit man who doesn't drink or take foreign tox- ic substances, tennis used to be my racket and old habits die hard. The weekend before, he had beaten me on a tie-breaker but it was in front of a very small audience. This time there were about ten people wat- ching and I rose to the occasion. When one is faced with someone like Randall, who at- tacks every ball and is very quick around the court, it is imperative to blunt the attack not by counterpunching but by lulling him to sleep.
Because of the female audience my tac- tics worked that day. Randall began trying to wipe me off the court, while I chased everything down and occasionally counter- punched by going to the net. Besides being happy to have the all too seldom win, I was also satisfied with the fact that by having run more than five miles around the court I had lost, say, the equivalent of Jeffrey Ber- nard's hourly alcoholic intake.
The beautiful weather, the tennis, Marita's engagement to Randall, all com- bined to make me aware of how I shall miss the country seat one day. Yes, after nearly 500 years of the Taki family holding a coun- try seat in Oxfordshire, matters beyond my control — like pleonexia on the part of my tenants — might force me to sell what a grateful nation awarded my ancestor for saving a whole British regiment from being buggered by an army of Turks. But I don't want to talk about unpleasant matters. Ever since my return to England I have been on a high, and I mean that literally.
Whilst my urban seat is being refurbished I am staying with a friend, the oil tycoon to
be, gebastian Taylor. He has a nice flat in Belgravia and not a small amount of trophies strewn around the drawing room. Unlike mine however, which I keep to re- mind me of the joy sport once gave me — semi-sweetened now with the certain knowledge that my career as an athlete is at an end, a victim of winter and old age — Sebastian's cups are from wins he's had In backgammon. The biggest is a silver tray with the Playboy emblem encrusted in gold and his name below. 'Playboy bookmaker's backgammon tournament winner', it reads. The only thing missing is a nude hooker engraved next to his name. Well, I guess Sebastian is an athlete of sorts too, although his sport is not about to be admit- ted to the Olympics.
Yes, it is nice to be back in England, a place where not too many people outside the extreme Left take themselves seriouslY. On my first day back John Aspinall got me invited to Jonathan Aitken's dinner for ex- President Nixon. Although I know that Nixon is not admired by most people, I ad- mire him more than any other American president. At least he knew how to conduct foreign policy, and knew how to tell the Soviets in private what they wanted to know but did not want to hear in public. Like where to draw the line. But I will keep all that he said that night for my new political column in America. As far as high life is concerned, the lovely drawing room that Churchill paced up and down in, and the kindness and hospitality of Jonathan and Mrs Aitken, were enough to make up for the six months I've been away.
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