High life
Confused
Taki
My mind is playing tricks on me again. No sooner did I get off the wagon last week than my friend Johnson Somerset (now with a handle in front of his name) discovered futuristic music in my posses- sion. Johnson is a landowner turned disc jockey, and he dropped in to see for himself that one week's abstinence had not done too much damage. Like most people his age he went straight for the record player as soon as he entered my flat — and to my surprise came up with the kind of sounds the Kremlin considers degenerate. That is what confused me more than the return to the bottle. Could I possibly be a Jekyll and Hyde character? A lover of classical music by day, and late at night a degenerate?
What confused me even more was the beautiful girl Johnson was with. Her name is Lucinda Rogers-Coltman and, needless to say, is the type that would make even Quentin Crisp (or the Bishop of Durham, for that matter) look twice. The reason for my confusion was her name. I have two friends called Coltman-Rogers and simply couldn't believe that the sauce could turn things so much around.
Well, it can and did. I began drinking again on Wednesday, and by the evening I was convinced I was an intellectual. My delusions weren't helped by the fact that I attended Naim Attallah's party to cele- brate the 5th anniversary of the Literary Review, now led by the fearless Arabist Emma Mabrouk Soames. I've been a friend of Emma's since my Paris days in the late Sixties. Back then she used to work for Vogue, and I used to hang around the place Palais-Bourbon hoping to meet anyone of the fair sex who emerged from the Vogue
building. Our friendship lapsed for a while when her father took exception to my asking both Emma and her younger sister Charlotte to marry me. But now that we're both intellectuals I hope everything is forgiven. After all, unlike a lot of English- men on the make, I only asked for the hand of the female side of the Soames family.
The delusions continued throughout the week. On Friday they hit an all-time high when the sainted editor of the Spectator FINALLY took me to lunch. (If I am confusing any reader with my reference to the new editor as a saint — in view of the fact that I used to refer to the ex-editor as a saint too — let me explain: as long as any editor keeps 'High life' his entry upstairs is assured.) And where did he take me? Why, to the Gay Hussar, a restaurant that boasts more eggheads per square foot than Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Palm Beach Uni- versity put together. On that particular day, however, the only brain present (the editor excluded) was Sir Nigel Dempster, defender of drug addicts, adulterers, jail- birds, and the criminally insane. (And thank God for that. If! had been invited a day earlier I would have sat near Bruce Kent instead of Sir Nigel, and in my humble opinion that would have been like getting to sit near Karl instead of Groucho — Marx that is.)
Given the fact that the week was spent partly drinking and partly in the company of thinkers, it was only fitting that at the weekend I should run into a man who is renowned for doing both. Drinking as well as thinking, and many other things, as they say in soft-porn books. My landlady's house guest was none other than Gore Vidal, the novelist, essayist and the only man I know capable of bringing in Richard Nixon and Watergate while analysing Shakespeare's 35th sonnet last Saturday night on television. Gore greeted me like a long-lost friend. The first thing he men- tioned — in a loud voice — as I entered a room full of strangers was my problem with Customs and Excise in July. 'Here they are out to catch Jerry Brown [the ex-Governor of California] and myself and they end up with a small right-wing fish like you,' was the way he put it.
He also insisted that I would enjoy myself immensely if and when I go to prison. When I protested and reminded him that I was, after all, heterosexual, he looked stunned and angry. 'There are no Greek heterosexuals,' he declared, and went on to explain why, his explanation not suitable for printing in an elegant weekly such as this.
Gore Vidal is a pagan, incredibly intelli- gent, cultured and civilised. His bitchiness is legendary, but so is his sense of humour. I have often libelled him because of his outrageous political beliefs, but his only reaction to my libels is to remind me of them. When I congratulated him on his novel Lincoln, he said he'd subtract one libel from the list. Well, the week began in
confusion and ended the same way. I hate Gore's politics but I certainly agree with him where libel is concerned. Imagine if it was the other way around, God forbid.
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