High life
. . . and on to victory
Taki
It is amazing what laying off the booze for one night will do. As well as a little cheer — coming from a few hons and a lady or two. Most amazing of all, of course, is that most obvious of truths, that practice makes perfect. Well, in my case not so perfect, but certainly better than those far from halcyon days when I would get completely wrecked at night and with no sleep try and compete with men whose only vice was ice-cream, or something as innocuous as that.
As everyone who has ever heard of Aspinall knows, John does not do things in half-measures. His pro-gam round robin at Queen's the Sunday between the two Wimbledon weeks has by now become a fixture. There are two ladders: one in which the great gamblers of his establish- ment compete partnered by Wimbledon players, and the second, in which useful players who have been ranked somewhere along the way play a round robin partnered mostly by 35-and-over ex-Wimbledon greats. Typically, Aspers calls the rich mugs (in tennis that is) the A group, and the useful ones the B group. The organisa- tion is on a par if not better than that of SW19, with the added bonus of a free and extremely exotic lunch, free champagne (as much as one can guzzle), free booze, cigars, and for the winners, not a small amount of money. Oh, yes, and two truly beautiful silver trophies, one of which I am looking at as I type this out with an extremely tender tennis elbow.
The entry fee for the tournament is £500, half of which goes to the Friends of Howletts and Port Lympne — i.e., for Aspinall's immediate family of tigers, lions and gorillas — and the other half into the auction pool. The auction takes place the night before at Aspinall's, and yet again the food, drinks, cigars and everything else one can think of except chips to gamble with, are for free. The auctioneer is that incredibly pink man who used to be very round but now is less so as he has given up the demon drink, Charles Benson. People are known to have come from abroad just to hear him auction people off. His method, needless to say, is to induce high bidding by insulting the subjects being auctioned. Last year two Jews and two Arabs walked out in protest, but the Arabs and one Jew were both seen rooting for their favourites the next day.
This year Benson had been warned by Aspers to lay off, so after quickly insulting the Arabs and Jews who happened to be present, he got on to my case. And stayed on it throughout the auction. Pentonville, and how I perfected my game while attend- ing it, was the theme for the night. But he did manage to get the pool up to around £30,000, I believe — no peanuts, as they say back in Brooklyn.
I went for £1,600, and could only afford to buy a quarter of myself. Had I owned myself wholly, I'd be £15,000 richer today, and perhaps ready to insult the Aga Khan once again. My partner was Geoff Masters, who won the Wimbledon doubles with Ross Case exactly ten years ago. After a rocky start we sort of hit our stride — I say sort of because I choked throughout the day — and qualified for the late afternoon matches by winning four matches of one set apiece. Our semi-final against Lewis DeYonk and Roger Taylor, both left- handers and a pair that plays together the year round, looked very bad for a while as I missed three overheads on game points. But then my partner raised his game even more, and we sailed through to the final against his old doubles mate, Ross Case, and Colin Slater, a past winner and a very good county player.
Aspers had made sure the courts were in perfect shape as he had them covered and blown on throughout the weeks of rain. I must say I didn't get one single bad bounce throughout the match, which I finished by holding my serve and acing my opponents. It was the first time in a long time I had not dropped my serve in a tight match, and it was nice to come back and win it after having lost in the final three years ago. What helped was having Sophia Vane- Tempest-Stewart, Natasha Grenfell, India Jane Colchester, Henrietta Conrad and Amanda Aspinall sit by the wayside and cheer non-stop. What also helped was playing for fun and money, rather than the other way around. In fact, the only match- es I plan to watch at Wimbledon this week are the 35-and-over grandmasters, because if I see that scowling Lendl once again it just might drive me back to getting wreck- ed every night.
In the meantime, I sit in my drawing- room admiring the large silver cup Lady Sally Aspinall presented me with — along with a kiss — and dreaming which libel lawyer will charge £1,500 to defend me.
Previous page
