Tuesday 8th September 2015
Last night was Fergus Strachan’s 50th birthday, held in Crete. A bombshell was dropped. And the Multis arrived with a perfume by Creed as a present, which the Photo Multi confided to Fergus had cost £200. But first I must go back. I’m in a Cretan village house on the rare south coast (near to Libya, as Dr Whipper is fond of saying) with Merle Barr, former Head of Children. We’re separate bedrooms but living a married-type life: ‘You haven’t shut the fridge properly.’ ‘That peach needs throwing away.’ ‘No, it doesn’t.’ ‘Are you in charge of the toast?’ After 4 days, we’re very much used to each other and it’s a perfect marriage. Merle’s travelling arrangements are incredibly detailed. There’s nothing she hasn’t got in her bag: a selection of teas, two types of coffee, Muesli, a silk liner, in which her person can be bagged, and a large magnifying mirror for the magnification of her person.
On Saturday evening, a tremendous caravan of people and equipment picked its way perilously over rocks to the sea. 15 Poor Little Rich Gays were trekking. The peril was intense. Merle nearly jammed on some scree. A beer can burst. Bowls, glasses, grilling racks, octopus, wines – a panoply for a Poor Little Rich Gay fete was being heaved over rocks to the perfect spot. ‘I want those nudists out,’ Angus Willis, one of the world’s great food and home stylists, was saying and indeed a topless bikini-ed figure, slim-legged with helmet coiffure and face shrivelled and gouged by slavish sun-bathing (in fact a man) was in retreat. So the private space was achieved, perfect with shelter from rocks behind and leading onto a bay for swimming – and no alien humans in sight. But how was a dinner for 15 to occur, how was it to spring out of the rows of plastic bags on the sand? Oh the upward struggle to the night-time beach barbecue as darkness fell. Angus built a fire. His fire-building is second to none. The drinks were poured. What if a Poor Little Rich Gay stepped in the fire though? We would have to chop off the foot and throw it in the sea. Somehow the miracle was achieved. I sat with Cilla Pencilpleat’s partner, James Dean. They live at some cemetery gates in Liverpool. It’s a living cemetery. He only likes old black and white films. Meanwhile Charlie Hurling was explaining about his father, whose third or fourth wife Charlie thought just a weeny bit commercial – in spirit only of course. In a moment of madness he screamed at her, not liking her: ‘You’re nothing but a common prostitute.’ Well,’ the woman said, ‘a girl’s got to earn her living somehow.’ Silence. Rather an astonishing response. She was putting a son through catering college, it emerged. Archie Brahams told me about the ‘Butler in the Buff’ service offered in his mansion rental property for hen parties. Really they’re personal trainers and real intimacy takes place upstairs after japes downstairs – so it is rumoured. One of the Butlers in the Buff, after ten years, can’t face anymore of it. A staggering new member of the party, not nude, was only nineteen. Raymonda is Fern Willis and Mr Dorset’s daughter, therefore Angus’ s niece. By Angus she was roundly abused to her face as dirty, talking nonsense and very bad. My God, the girl’s a tigress, despite her blonde enchantment and delicate frock and no sign of dirt. She was having none of it. What a goer! And her freedom. Charlie Hurling was hurling it about. Her adventures and adventurousness. Such abandon! But also the steeliness of one who lives for pleasure at certain hours. This girl will go far. Shrimps were by now coming off the barbecue. Merle Barr objected to the heads. But the flow was established and octopus and lamb poured forth. We were eating in the dark. Salad was offered. The risk was that certain important Poor Little Rich Gay hats and towels would never be found again. We were teetering on the verge of crisis at this pinnacle of uniqueness. Angus watered the fire and smoke billowed. The whole bay must have been alerted to this extraordinary event. The theatre of it, the spectacle. Another fire of wood was lit for gathering round for a camp fire effect. Poor Little Rich Gays lay on the sand in the exclusive firelight. It was a moment to be a picture but it could not last. Poor Little Rich Gays are not long still or they would never get on. But the immense ordeal of getting back, the packing up, the fearsome trek over rocks and through thorny bushes in complete darkness. ‘Let’s stay all night!’ Olive Wildish cried. But somehow there would have been consequences. At last we stirred to heave forth and the great return began. Merle and Olive nearly fell to their deaths but didn’t. All were restored to the car park intact by great good mercy.