Out with Robert Nevil «

Out with Robert Nevil

Sunday 24th April 2016

Just so much to cover – yesterday I saw Him whereas Thursday was all about Her. Then there was the Glenn Close debacle; Harry Rollo and Mercury, Mr Kitten’s new residence (yes, the purchase went through: ‘We had to have it,’ Harry said. So they did. Now they’ve got Hugh Fearnley Wittingstall’s concrete worktops which Bruce MacBain isn’t allowed to remove): not to mention a little dinner I gave and the affair of a pubic hair collected by the murderer, Christie.

Not forgetting my eternal refurb: the chandeliers are up, for the time being. The possibility of money has opened up vistas of aggrandisement in perpetuity. Whatever is done can be done again – with money.

But last Sunday I went out with Robert Nevil. We went to Beth Chatto’s. Robert Nevil was in luxury pale teal knit given him by Blanche Spain. In the car, he was getting through to India where chaos rules as always. They’re all leaving when he arrives. The Indian friends hover at the intersection of the Pony Club/book-writing world or are at no inter-section at all.

Do you know Beth Chatto’s? She is one of England’s leading gardeners, rumoured still to be alive. But her garden is troublesome. ‘It’s just not my kind of garden,’ Robert Nevil said. He loathed the low stone walls in the patio area. Suburban. The previous week he had condemned quite a few of the Monets at the Monet exhibition at the Royal Academy. The Paul Klees also were out. He said the Monets were hit and miss – if miss, messy . The Bonnard should be cut in half and lose the slag on the lounger.

What’s wrong with Beth’s garden? The plants are lovely, the periwinkles most intriguing. Many woodland items. But somehow the sum of the parts… It’s in Essex, maybe. There’s no enclosed space. If a garden is a dream place where you retreat from the world… That’s what Monet did at Giverny during the 1st World War, doing all those huge water-lily pictures when he could have just been retired. Well done! Monet.

It’s a good thing that Beth’s garden isn’t quite right because it brings one closer to importance. ‘You’re not important,’ Robert Nevil kept informing me. But in fact I am. If important people like Beth aren’t quite as important as they appear then there’s more room for me. At the White House they change the sheets if you lie down for ten minutes in the afternoon. That’s what Nancy Reagan said. Well, I don’t feel so far from that world of endlessly renewed bed linen, perpetual vac-ing, everything perfect, new couture outfits every day, armies of staff, conservators crawling over one’s residence… That’s how the world has changed in our day. We’ve all got more important and important people have got less important – or at least I have.

We lunched in Beth’s lunch cafe. I was suffering from hideous swelling and bloating but it was other ancient lunchers who were subject to fart-gas. ‘Quel anal yap!’ Robert Nevil remarked, reducing the neighbouring quiche-eaters to small piles of ash. We wiped out the entire lunch room on exit, Robert Nevil in the luxury teal knit and me cap-a-ped in white with my over-cooked spinach suede jacket, still hanging on as a life-piece. But it was at dinner back in the Nevil res that it got stained – yet again. But I put talcum powder for several days and it recovered.

Anyway Beth’s plants are marvellous and we went in for some perennial wallflowers. On the way back, Joshua Baring What’sApp-ed from Wiltshire, where Bover Baring, father of 6, was roasting an ox for family lunch while Lady Baring and Joshua discussed new curtain treatments for Graham Norton and the richest man in China. The Baringmobile was blocked returning to London and Joshua was under pressure, having an evening engagement requiring a change of clothes because of ox-smoke contamination.

Back at the Nevil res we spent some time trying to find out whether Jill Bacon got cut off by her rich father for marrying Cecil Day-Lewis. Certainly in later life, she had a dreary little car that in no way reflected the head of the British film industry. This led to picking over Rosamund Lehman who was Jill Bacon’s best friend but she stole Cecil from her – or the other way round. RH was a book-writing person who required to be the centre of attention. She commissioned her own biography while still alive then as good as dictated it down the phone. She believed that everyone found her wildly attractive. That’s what I shall do when Robert Nevil is writing my life – to ensure that it isn’t made up.

Robert Nevil made some other noteworthy remarks but I can’t remember what they were.

Oh… I completely forgot to mention about Robert Nevil’s dinner. Two days previously he had given a dinner. His dinner guests are younger than his luncheon guests. The luncheon guests are over 90, in ‘art’ clothing and boat-like lace-up shoes. Their husbands are long-gone and someone incredibly famous like Cyril Connolly or Rab Butler. If Dhiren Bookershortlistgee phones up, they immediately hurl the most stunning abuse. The dinner-guests are twenty years younger and very finished, poised with conversation to do with the Pony Club/book-writing world. I am considered too silly to mix with them. On this occasion, a Countess suddenly revealed that she had been phoned in the middle of the night by Princess Margaret, terribly upset because Edna O’Brien had called her a rude name, she said. Another time, this Countess had been invited to bathe in a pool with Princess Margaret but she had no cossy. ‘Oh, have one of Lilibet’s,’ Prin Marg said.