Monday 22nd October 2012

It’s tomorrow – the great day. Harry Rollo’s perf to storm New York.

Yesterday I sensed from a shudder that Reggie Cresswell, the world-class Ghanaian ceramicist, had come into the City, so far from Gloucestershire, so monstrous and astonishing. On Saturday Rufus Pitman and Raj Zoraster gave an intimate pre-perf dinner in their 29th floor apartment. Raj is here for a while, bringing nations together. Were you to be sitting on the window seat and, forgetting that the window was open, lean back, you’d hurl at once to your death.

Such a strange way to live. But then that’s New York. You keep thinking – why not spread out a bit? There’s plenty of room all around. You don’t have to be crammed on this little island with one park.

Rufus is very pro-America but can’t be doing with Brunch. At the butcher’s he’d had to explain what a leg of lamb is. We contemplated going up the Empire State Building but Rufus said, The trouble is you then don’t have a view of the Empire State Building. Mercury Mr Kitten (that’s his real name, made up of course), who is Harry’s adorable new partner (thereby hangs a tale of Poor Little Rich Gay life), has made friends with a 25-year-old from New Zealand here in New York who operates in text language. She doesn’t laugh but she says LOL instead.

At dinners, the Gay Mother, 88, who has ventured with me to New York for the second time in her life, the first being when she was 82, is like the Queen. She only ever says two things, usually in some way connected with Radio 4 or Bath. Highly impact-making. But she’s fascinated by New York, which is really quite surprising.

Then last night we were bidden to a second pre-perf event at TriBeCa, a ferociously expensive slum.  The penthouse loft apartment, belonging to an old friend of Harry’s from England, was on two floors with at least three roof gardens right underneath where the Twin Towers were. But we very nearly didn’t reach it. The lift was overloaded with greatnesses, including household names who are to perform in Harry Rollo’s perf. The doors shut, the elevator juddered but failed to move. The doors wouldn’t open. It was rather hot. We stabbed at all the buttons and bells started ringing. The major duomo of the apartment, who turned out to be a whippy young man in normal clothes, ran down to winch the car into the basement where we were able to disembark amongst the cleaners’ buckets and mops. Finally getting upstairs the Gay Mother wanted to sit down but the bench hurled her to the floor, being aero-dynamically catastrophic. Luckily she was unhurt. ‘What an evening!’she said. ‘Misfortunes always come in threes. What will the third be?’ Fortunately it came almost at once. The dog licked my Paul and Joe black slacks with a slight sheen. It was a highly specialist dog or hound, about 4 feet high. I was wearing a New York outfit – i.e. no colours, grey, white and black, Prada, Marc Jacobs, Paul and Joe and Prada – all reduced of course.

I think massive money, while kindly offering to receive perfect strangers to honour Harry Rollo, had to bite back a bit.

Oh the apartment! Wood, wood, wood, museum-scale, even bigger than Anthony Mottram’s in Prague. In the middle of it, a whole room with glass walls  – the wine cellar. Six windows across the street front, a hundred could easily have been seated for a concert or even a home staging of Aida. Plenty of room to bring the elephants in from the side. The kitchen area was curtained off while the chef operated, then outside staff flung back the screen to reveal a choice of beef Wellington or Japaned Salmon on a pea pure-ray.  The pudding was Eton Mess styled into two huge glass items which were very definitely vayses not bowls (see graph below for yourself).

I think the Gay Mother wasn’t entirely sure that it was an actual home such was the level of staffing and seating for a considerable number. ‘Do they actually live here?’ she kept saying. ‘Where are the rooms?’ Launching up the stairs for a tour, she passed an artwork by a world artist. ‘I wouldn’t want that,’ she said. I reminded her that we’d seen one by the same in MOMA earlier on. ‘I know. I was quite frightened of it,’ she said.

But really we were very much at home. We sat most convivially with Rufus Pitman at dinner. The Gay Mother mentioned rationing and Rufus said, ‘In America you can never have a dirty plate in front of you for more than two seconds.’ We were so comfortable with chic male waiters and world names all around but not actually speaking to them.

Absolutely engraved on the soul, this evening.

TriBeCa Eton Mess and High, High Macaroons to Celebrate Harry Rollo’s Forthcoming Seizing of New York

New York: Guts Showing: This is the Back of the 21 Club Homeless Person was Proclaming with Great Aplomb to Anyone who would Listen: ‘Doesn’t it Look Seedy?’ But Fearless Expose of America Not Listened To

How They Get Married: In Central Park: All the Guests in New York Black