Tuesday 17th July 2012

Lord Arrowby! My part-time love interest, you may recall – interest only on my part; he has always been absolutely correct. Not heard of for some time!  You may have been wondering what has become of.

There have been developments.

Last Friday was his summer party. Such an annual fixture! Many clamour for entrance but are denied. This magnificent Governmental figure (he’s somehow in the highest corridors of power, nobody quite knows what he does) – there he was, prancing at the door in greeting, tanned, in a violently brilliant outfit –   wild smoked salmon trousers in a shimmering silky fabric with pleats by Dries (very bold and completely new: a baggy trouser) and a white broidere anglais confection above.

Lord Arrowby set this summer’s colour for Poor Little Rich Gays here and throughout the world. He decreed coral and salmon shades. That’s why I was in coral for the party.

So Lord Arrowby! Unique. Administrative by day, pin-stripe, not quite a bowler hat, planning the Nation’s pensions for 2060. Committees, minutes, fearful solemnity, known to be thoroughly sound. But in his spare time, he sets fashion notes, whirls forth to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern for a drag show.

He’s recently been re-hung, you know. His art collection, that is. Yes, he collects! He’s got some tormented wax chickens in a lighted box. Except on inspection, they’re not chickens, but humans. Also a rat or mouse or insect (can’t quite recall) on a string.

But for the party we were out on his  massive wrap-around (that’s a terrace if you’re mental), easily double the size of the entire substantial duplex from which it flares into a view of the  Houses of Parliament – the throbbing core of our Nation, our Lord’s domain.Champagne was lavished by staff. The Arrowby family arrived by a secret entrance but the new tall gay bucks were already there with waists and huge shoulders.

Oh yes! Lord Arrowby’s thoroughly got away, taken off in a new direction entirely.

Don’t misunderstand. I don’t imply an orgy.  He wasn’t even holding hands with one in particular, not that he would do such a thing in public. But something’s going on, I’m sure of it. Lord Arrowby was zinging and radiant.

I was mad to think he’d marry me. He absolutely wasn’t having it, wouldn’t be tied down, had to be free to shop whenever. On the other hand he never finally drew a line, would murmur to me confidentially at parties and show his vulnerable side. Resistance is not quite the same thing as rejection. For two years there was never any mention of another. And we were well-suited, both Poor Little Rich Gay, both compelled to the heights in all we do, both  most particular and discriminating and inclined to strain,  and needing to lie alone in a darkened room while wondering what might be going on outside, mistrustful of romance but eager for it.

We could have made a reassuring foundation from which to spin a complex web of relationships including many opportunities for diversion, I’m sure. In the 18th century it would have been insisted upon. The forces of society would have offered no choice but marriage, none of these openings to meet other men, as today.

So there we are! Poor Little Rich Gays: never straightforward, thank the Lord! Lord Arrowby appeared in another outfit with different necklace – red trousers this time. I took more champagne and became intolerable. Dear, darling Guy Bostock would speak to me, though. He’s in the law possibly but recalls a noble manly bust of a martial figure of the Roman times. His manner is ironic and superb.  ‘Have you still got your ex-boyfriend in a remote wing of your flat? Isn’t he a policeman?’ I ask.  No, but wanted by the Police, and anyway gone. Now Guy is ‘in a relationship’ or rather was. As soon as undeclared from being in a relationship found to be  in it more than ever – the same relationship, that is.

Otherwise I could not be borne: Rufus Pitman, our great novelist and columnist, lasted no more than thirty seconds. Poor Reggie Cresswell, the world-class ceramicist – we talked about Val and 0thers keen on a drop, one of whom, I explained, was found six weeks dead by Anthony Mottram. That was in Covent Garden. In the 80s.

Lord Arrowby revealed his third outfit.