Sunday 5^th June 2011

I’ve been telling the story backwards and never quite getting to the heart of how Lord Arrowby, my part-time love interest, turned down the invitation to visit the Tom Stuart Smith garden in Hertfordshire on June 19th, with the result that we are now more intimate than ever.

On May 10^th I texted Lord Arrowby: ‘Will you attend opening of Tom Stuart Smith garden at St Albans?’ No reply. 18^th May, I go: ‘I’m hurting, Lord Arrowby.’ ‘Why?’ ‘You blanked me.’ ‘But I ignore that text each year – it’s mostly because I don’t like car journeys, especially in summer. You should see my new blouson.’ ‘You’re impossible.’ ‘Oh dear. I’m sorry.’ ‘Talk about poor little rich gay.’

So I was quite firm about attending with Lord Arrowby on the next Saturday morning at Borough Market. That’s when he said, ‘Do stop hitting me.’ He also said: ‘I didn’t realise it was an invitation,’ ‘It sounds as if you sent it to hundreds of people,’ ‘It’s not properly expressed.’ ‘You’re really rather cross, aren’t you?’  ‘I felt battered.’

He was being battered actually, on the left side, just then.

But poor stricken Lord Arrowby! Oh the stricken look on his fine youthful face. He said, ‘I’m no good at texting.’ Me: ‘Well, get better at it.’ It’s nonsense anyway. He’s a first class texter. I said: ‘You’ve got to diarise me, you know. It shouldn’t just be me diarising you all the time.’ ‘Oh, yes,’ he goes, ‘I see. Maybe we could go to the theatre.’

I said: ‘But we went on a car journey, and in summer, years ago with Robert Nevil.’ He said: ‘It was going back to Prep School, in the car. Stopping again and again for me to be sick.’

Prep and Public: they’re kinds of boarding school. Many Poor Little Rich Gays were dispatched at the age of seven. Boarding means you sleep over in term time, never see the home for weeks and weeks. Just imagine, Mr and Mrs Arrowby, with little Lord Arrowby in the back, bowling along towards Normanhurst. That was his Prep. Later he was at Chillingborough. Only the best. Of course he wasn’t yet Lord Arrowby, but I’m sure he had many of the characteristics. ‘Now then, Lord Arrowby,’ Mr Arrowby would have said, once the trunk and tuck box were unloaded, ‘you be a brave little chap.’ Going down the drive in the Humber Snipe, Mrs Arrowby might have dabbed with her hanky. Best not to show the boy you were distressed, would only make it harder for him.

What was little Lord Arrowby to do? All on his own, with awful decor, rock-bottom bedding, filthy food, even at a top Prepper. Not much choice really, but to become a Poor Little Rich Gay.

Anyway – screen goes wonky, dissolve – back to the present. We parted at Borough Market. Lord Arrowby said: ‘We’ve been together for two hours. It hasn’t been too bad.’ I said: ‘We’re getting used to each other.’