Notice at Siena - what Poor Little Rich Gays never are

Wine label loved by one of the Multis

Classic Multi Holiday Footwear - worn with shorts and jacket

Wednesday 26^th August 2009

 Monday, inexpensive and good lunch in the square at Panzano. Out of nowhere a menacing black Bentley appears. It is a dead-ringer for Robin Smallmeal’s. A cross face can just be seen at the wheel. The real giveaway is the dry-cleaning hanging in the back. Smallmeal always has dry-cleaning. Who would have dry-cleaning in Tuscany? The vehicle makes an abrupt circuit of the square and disappears.

 Can it have been Smallmeal?  Surely not.  But it might as well have been. A shudder of terror goes through me. Yes, I am afraid of Smallmeal or was when I knew him which was for ten years. I didn’t realise it at the time. Was it the power of money? Others certainly deferred to him. There were endless treats, paid for by Smallmeal – villa holidays, Glyndebourne, the Ivy.  Was there a price to pay? I think there was. Certainly, in our falling out, he has not treated me as an equal.

 Then there is the question of Simon Limpney, of course, the Smallmeal partner.

 I must pull myself together. Things can’t be so dull at Rimini that Smallmeal is reduced to driving all the way to Tuscany in the remote hope of terrorising me. It’s more the sort of thing I would do. I’m sure he’s having a wonderful time with that awful couple, one of whom called me ‘rather pompous’. He can’t possibly be finding it necessary to get ahead with his Christmas cards.

Besides I’m here with the Multis. Who are enchanting. I’m thrilled with the budgeting so far. I think I’ll have a fair bit of change from that £6000 I set aside. We’ve visited yet more surprisingly simple and good restaurants. The only major expense is the wine, on which the Multis must have spent £2000 with daily further outlay. And Donatella, who comes at 12 euros an hour – and there are a lot of them. They really aren’t like Smallmeal at all. Apart from anything else, Smallmeal, although absolute number one head of landfill or whatever in UK, is nevertheless an employee. And they are not.

 One of the Multis has bought some chutneys in unusual small jars which give him great pleasure. The other loves throwing beach balls from one end of the swimming pool to the other, then swimming after them, the whole process now repeated in the other direction. The chutney Multi is given to sudden outbursts of affection; he is an excellent photographer and has been going about the neighbourhood making friends through photography. Yesterday he came back from Panzano with reams of shots of a young het French couple he had come across by chance. They had a dog.

 Then, last night, whenever you opened a door or rounded a corner in this vast mansion, there was the photographer Multi being held at bay by Fergus Strachan, the glamorous lawyer and rationalist (who, it turns out, has been visiting a back-street collagenist in Hastings with marvellous results): ‘The American model is a disaster. You can’t be serious. They spend 16 % of GDP on health care.’ ‘I just think with public services you get waste… there need to be controls’ the poor Multi gasped. ‘Sixteen per cent,’ Fergus repeated, wagging his finger.  They were arguing about the NHS, the British, state-funded health service. So it went on, all over this vast, baronial mansion.  The cat’s paw would snatch at the bird; the bird would get away; the cat would pounce again.  But later at dinner I heard them murmuring contently to each other.

 I would never have dared to speak to Robin Smallmeal like this. The Multis are tolerant; they take a huge amount of trouble with their guests; they are kind and generous; they relish being surrounded by people who are not like them,  who are polar opposites even. No, they will never allow themselves to be hollowed out by money.

A surprisingly simple lunch much enjoyed