Wednesday 19^th May 2010

As I was saying, before the reviving diversion of Val’s birthday yesterday, there are rumblings deep at the back of the cave. Poor Little Rich Gays are riven. Or some of them are . So many are prep and public you know, on top of everything else. That means boarding school, all boys, from age of 7 or 8, if you’re in US or foreign. And they have to be at the top or, failing that, in the know. As for relationships, is there really time to fit them in, with all this achieving to be done? Those that are fitted in are not quite what they seem. Others are fitted in that shouldn’t be.

The great exception: Rufus Pitman and Raj Zoroaster, our number one couple. They celebrated one year of prosperous marriage on Sunday for which we had the lunch at Coriander. But even they live in different countries. They’re always jetting between. There’s no married home, to be exhibited in Hello!, no linen cupboard, no married dinner service for best.

But we wouldn’t have it any other way. Not for us the full normal life. If you’re straight or a normal gay, thinking of becoming poor little rich, don’t be put off.

On Saturday, the Blond Multi bounded straight downstairs to the kitchen where Robert Nevil was chopping. They’d not seen each other for a long time.

I don’t think I’ve ever explained that it was RN and his partner, Sebastian Archer, now usually absent abroad, who discovered the Multis in their pre-Multi form, back in the 90s, when RN and SA were living in Walthumbria (yes, they really were, Walthamstow!)  For a time, not a day went by without the pre-multi BMW whirling by, the Photographer pre-Multi ferociously at the wheel, and the other three thrilling in the back or beside.

What outings and consumption of estate agents’ details! Leading, as the Photographer Multi recalled, to the exodus from Walthumbria and elevation to the present Regency semi where SA and RN live (more about that another day. It is of course an exceptional res).

Robert Nevil and the Blond Pre-Multi were very thick, the Blond being an astonishing Brideshead reincarnation in looks, hair and frockage. They spent many a happy afternoon in Robin Smallmeal’s kitchen preparing dinner while Sebastian Archer and the Photographer Multi played cards. Every time these last went to unloved opera in Frankfurt or wherever with Smallmeal, the Blond and Robert Nevil enjoyed the cinema, followed by the Lahore Kebab House.

So this dinner was a reunion. The Photographer Multi was in glittering, brilliant form with his epic photograph of sheep on the Robert Nevil family farm behind him. The Blond Multi was at the other end of the table, head in papers with Robert Nevil. I was dimly aware that he was grilling him about Mottram. I just hope RN didn’t let out the big secret.

Maybe he did which is why he went into the kitchen and chopped off his finger. Or sliced into the top quite deep. Arjan Bose had to tend, he being doctor,with me in nurse role. RN was returned to the dining room with fabulous Causality-style dressing which later fell off.

I’ve not heard anything of Mottram since that dinner about a month ago.

Then it was on, the next day, to the Rufus Pitman/Raj Zoroaster celebration lunch. Civil Partnership perfect for them, for others trouble, as we shall see, not in ways you might expect. Harry Rollo, the impresario and performance artist, arrived and removed his trousers.  He and Rufus recalled that they’d collaborated on a ‘performance’ in Germany. When the director gave them bottles of self-made perfume, they both automatically executed ‘Poppers’ stiffs.

Have you heard of Poppers?

The fume wasn’t awfully nice.

Most of the other guests were clients of Bruce MacBain, who was present. Lord Arrowby looked pale and a little glassy, but still beautiful. He went out to a shop and came back with a Sure Deodorant stick. An odd purchase for the middle of lunch. I still don’t know whether it was for use or just to illustrate his theory that it was really a starter sex toy. I said to the stern Scottish lady sitting next to me: ‘I adore Lord Arrowby.’ ‘You should make that less obvious. Play hard to get.’

It wouldn’t be any use. He’d take even less notice of me or none at all. But, in a way, I am playing hard to get. Besides, outside in the street, afterwards, he became confidential.