ANOTHER VOICE

The perils of answering an advertisement in the personal column of The Spectator

PETRONELLA WYATT

he mating season is supposed to be in the spring. But the fool's mating season is January. More personal advertisements are placed in magazines and newspapers during that month than at any other time of the year.

One New Year, when I was working at the Sunday Telegraph, the then features edi- tor waved a copy of The Spectator in my face. look at that,' she cried, pointing to one such advertisement. I looked. It said, `Son of peer seeks young lady from similar background for friendship and marriage.'

The features editor was ecstatic: 'You must write to him. You're a peer's daugh- ter.' I pointed out, glumly, that my father was merely a life peer, but she waved this caveat aside. 'With a bit of luck he won't find out.'

So I wrote to the PO Box number. I decided to use a nom de plume: Mary Stan- ley. The surname sounded suitably aristo- cratic. One could always claim to be a cousin of the Earl of Derby (Stanley being the family name).

Three weeks later I received my first `Dear Mary'. It had been posted in Budapest. This was a turn-up. My mother comes from Budapest and I visit my aunt there every year. But what attractions could Hungary hold for the son of an English peer? If the address was a surprise, the let- ter was more perplexing.

My correspondent's name was, well, let us be discreet and use his initials, M.M. His grammar was very discreet, in fact it was non-existent. He said he had 'been gone to school in Eton, where I did prodigious'. His family had an estate in the north of Eng- land and oil in Texas. He was in Budapest to 'teach to the ballet'. What a man of parts, as Jane Austen might have said.

I looked up M.M.'s name in Debrett's. It wasn't there. I surmised that he was a Hun- garian hoping to net a wealthy foreign wife. His subsequent letters dwelt on money. He was no longer teaching `to the ballet', but `looking after the horses to be ready to come back to my many estates'. Did I like horses? Did my family have an estate?

In for a penny . . . I wrote back saying that my family had a seat in Gloucester- shire so large that we had been forced to build outhouses to accommodate all the servants. This drove M.M. into a frenzy of excitement. He wrote that he was coming to London as soon as possible.

I was intrigued by M.M. Was he a villain or that age-old dreamer yearning for social betterment? Then I had an idea. I knew M.M.'s address. Why not send my aunt to investigate his story?

Reader, I had been sadly deceived. M.M. lived in the most wretched area of the city — a Hungarian Brixton without the charm. My aunt rang the bell of a flat the size of a dog kennel. It was answered by a dirty child. There were two more infants display- ing varying degrees of cleanliness. Presently a Hungarian woman emerged. My aunt asked her if she knew `M.M.'. It seemed that she did: `He is my husband.'

The features editor, who had been fol- lowing my `romance' closely, was full of glee. She suggested I go to Hungary with a photographer and unmask M.M. I protest- ed that he might kill me, or at least his wife would. This only made her more eager.

A few days later, sitting in my aunt's flat overlooking the silvery, shimmering Danube, I found M.M. in the telephone book. But if I rang him what would I say? `Hello, it's Mary. Surprise!' What if his wife picked up the telephone?

I dialled the number. A man answered. I asked to speak to M.M. 'You are speaking to him.' Astonishingly, the voice was edu- cated and middle-class and it was indis- putably English. I paused. 'I'm a friend of Mary Stanley's.' There was a silence, fol- lowed by a gurgle.

`I have lots of messages from Mary,' I went on cheerily. 'Why don't we meet at the cafe in the Hilton Hotel tomorrow afternoon.' Thankfully, M.M. was curious enough to swallow the bait. `OK,' he whis- pered. 'Just tell me your name."Petr, er, Prunella. Prunella White.'

I met the photographer outside the Hilton shortly before M.M. was to arrive. The photographer wanted `action photos'. Action? Did he expect me to hit him? Run a race with him? 'No, I want you to kiss him.'

`You must be mad.'

`Just on the cheek.'

`No.'

`Well, get him outside the café where I can see him. Say you feel like a walk.'

`But it's raining.'

`Say you feel faint.'

In the café, with its bland formica tables from the communist yesteryear, I sat and waited. Three single men came in and left. Then I noticed a man of around 30. He was wearing a raincoat, a suit and a tie. That was how I could tell he was a man. All the other signals were indistinct. His hair was long. His features were concealed by large pustules. He was the ugliest person I have ever seen.

Somehow, I knew this was M.M. He held out a hand, the skin of which was like the skin on the underbelly of a toad. Trunella?' I looked around the room. Then I remem- bered that I was Prunella. 'Oh yes, let's sit down.' We ordered cake and coffee. He told me how difficult it was being an English aristocrat in a former communist country. One never met one's own kind. I nodded. M.M. said, The Spectator is my only link with good society.'

I asked him if he had written the letters to 'Mary' himself (their appalling syntax was still a mystery to me). He said he had dictated them to a Hungarian acquaintance `for fun'. All the while I could feel him eye- ing me in a way that turned my blood to Freon. Had I known 'Mary' long? Was I married? Did I have a boyfriend? I turned the conversation back to 'Mary'. M.M. looked at me beadily. 'Have you got an estate, too?' I lied, `Yes.' This was a mis- take. I could feel he was contemplating switching his affections to 'Prunella'.

I thought of M.M.'s Hungarian wife and children. 'Don't you meet any nice girls here? Haven't you found one you'd like to marry?' The pustules vibrated. I felt sure one of them would pop. `No. I would only marry someone from my own background.' One wondered whether M.M. was pre- pared to commit bigamy.

Blast. I had forgotten the photographer. `Let's go for a walk,' I said. He protested and said, 'It's raining.' I replied, 'But I feel faint.' M.M. leered, 'Because of me?' We went outside and stumbled over some wet cobblestones. Suddenly, M.M. pushed me into a doorway: 'You're bored with me. You're trying to get rid of me, aren't you?'

`No, no.'

`Then have dinner with me.'

`I can't.'

M.M was white with fury. He looked deranged. I wondered if he had a knife. What a way for me to end my career. Sud- denly his rage subsided. 'OK, another time perhaps. Goodbye, Prunella.'

I watched him stagger off into the haze of car lights. `Mary' never received any more letters. I have never found out who M.M. really was and what he was really after. But one myth had been shattered: Spectator readers are not all gentlemen.