It was a Perfect Day – Part One «

It was a Perfect Day – Part One

Friday 14th October 2016

I gained 59 years on 1st October. Really I was going to drift but Genevieve Suzy graciously offered a fish dinner at Hastings with the Picture Editor of the Daily Mail and the dancing master from BBC4, both of whom I’ve met before.

Great Dixter Plant Fayre was to be my private treat, although I planned to buy no plants. The sun came out in autumn gold as I swept into the car park. Lo and behold! The Multis! Reigning down as if from Heaven. What a gift! They were beside one of their oldest cars, now vegetative, returned to Nature. Actually it was all their purchases from the Fayre. Who were they talking to but the daughter of Law Lord, the friend of Bruce MacBain they’d met at his party a few weeks before? She volunteers at Dixter. What a mesh! I drive up randomly to Dixter and at once am connected, completely bedded in, Dixter one of my homes anyway.

At once the Photo Multi poked me into a tiny hut that happened to be there, overgrown with brambles and crammed with debris. I had to wheeze my head through its window and be graphed. But the graphs were good and gave me high outfit satisfaction. I was wearing my Zara palm print t-shirt, Topman grey stretch slacks and my v. old Prada iridescent coat. ‘Evan’s here!’ the Multis said. Evan! Could it get better? ‘His jeans are extraordinary,’ the blond Multi said. ‘Harvey Nicks,’ I said. It all worked out so well with Evan. I hovered near him at a stall then saw some plants had been moved apart as if reserved. ‘Are these yours?’ I said. What an opportunity! Clever me, on my birthday to seize it. ‘I think they are,’ he said. He had a greyhound on the end of a lead. His look! Boots with crenellated soles, leather-like blue jeans, marshall jacket. Extreme for a plant fayre. But others seemed to be buying the plants. He was scarcely involved. ‘You’d better watch out somebody doesn’t make off with your plants,’ I said. ‘Oh, I’m sure everybody is very…’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it’s a moot point how nice gardeners are.’

Multis kindly bade me to tea at their desmesne which is being renovated to the point it’s got no bathrooms, bedrooms or a kitchen at the moment. It was marvellous misty, orange gloaming. The Blond Multi was isolated in the scene on the massive lawn with a teapot while the Photo showed me his gardening. The borders and grounds – well, it’s not that bland paid-for millionaire look. The Photo Multi buys and buys with crazy abandon and somehow something happens. Perhaps he is especially blessed in the plant world. The plant world repays his wild buying. It likes him in a way it likes less those who fuss and pinch. We had savoury muffins from the Fayre for tea then a tour of the house. I was the first to see it, they said. Such a privilege. Incredible work and it will be good, I’m sure. On parting, the Blond Multi said he couldn’t bear the latest trend for massive hugging and clamping together of bodies of any kind as well as kissing when greeting and parting.

So I drove on to Hastings, where Genevieve Suzy, coiffure heightened to glory, had been having my birthday tea with the Dancing Master but no me.