Yes, I will change for dinner

   JFK

iii  La Soule, photo Ivan Terestchenko

Not much news of Louise or HHH, or of Jane for that matter

Dear [Son] ~

  It has not been a desperately amusing month here what with one thing or another. If you commit suicide you cannot get disposed of, as gravediggers and cremation workers are on strike. Well-meaning middle class ladies are queuing up for voluntary work in hospitals: they picture themselves dishing up lunch to dear little children and it comes as a painful surprise when they are asked to help with a ward of hideous adult lunatics who cannot feed themselves and have to have their clothes changed every few hours like a baby.

We went to a large drinks party at the Gaselees: there were a lot of people in a confined space and I could not hear a word anyone said which may not have been an intolerable deprivation. After-wards we had supper with the Surtees at the Swan, Great Shefford, kept by a somewhat enigmatic character called 'Jamie' who greeted me with an effusive bonhommie which I could well have dispensed with. We had two courses and a bottle of plonk: bill £30, which is fairly steep for a country pub.

On Friday the Hislops went to Sandown. On going to their car at 5pm they discovered that Mr H had put the keys into the pocket of a coat which he had unfortunately left in the self-locking boot. They had to hire a car in which to get home and the next day Mrs H had to take a Newbury taxi to 

Sandown with the spare keys.

I saw Fitz Fletcher at the Parkinsons. He had been completely marooned in Somerset with no water. The Surtees have got a new car, a red Volvo of immense length that would make a serviceable hearse. Poor Major S is having trouble with his partners, one of whom is only absolutely sober on fairly rare occasions and suing the firm over some grievance. The cottage has now been sold and paid for; the builders are busy gutting it completely. Farmer Luckes is in poor form and just sits staring into space.

The Hurt's house in Derbyshire is the feature article in the current number of Country Life. Unfortunately there is no picture of the Chicken. The dishwasher has broken down and the young man your mother hired to mend it made things a great deal worse. Mr Randall went up to London and saw the Esther Rantzen show which he greatly enjoyed. Not much news of Louise or HHH, or of Jane for that matter.

I thought I had received a rather nice invitation to dinner today but on closer examination I saw it was meant for Major Hamer who has been dead for seven years. However, my bookmaker has invited me to oysters and champagne in London. He is a good old male chauvinist (a bit King Lear, in fact) and never invites women to his better parties. Your mother bought some fish in Reading yesterday: it tasted a bit odd and we both had a very bad night. The de Mauleys came to lunch last week: Lady de M is putting on weight and Gerald is clearly not a member of the local Temperance Association. 

Do you remember the Philips at Winchfield? He has just left his ever-loving wife after thirty-two years and proposes to marry some woman he met in the local lunatic asylum where he spends a fair amount of his time. He once jumped in front of a taxi.                                                  Your affec. father, [__]       [ps] Yesterday I met an old buffer at Newbury who had been at the Gaselee's party. He tried out a new hearing aid there, switched it on to a maximum volume and has been stone deaf ever since.

Roger Mortimer and

  Charlie Mortimer

Dear Lupin ...

Constable, 2011©

Thorny, practicing Thanksgiving

Not one to enjoy a season by halves,

Thorny has taken a sound studio to

rehearse his faculty for exultation.

And why should this not be, he rea-

soned, as only he can; to whom much

is given .. and so forth. But this

no more than true, after all; even

a yawn, for Thornhill, engages his

delight in its execution. When his

invitation declared, that it would

be a Henry Fielding dinner, Betty 

Commilfaux had her seamstress goog-

le the reference, unwilling to be

hacked as an innocent in another

of Thorny's puns. Being told that

it was all about A Voyage to Lis-

bon, she sent down to the cellar

for a tawny Port of opulence.

     

The stage has thus been fairly set

for our Thorny's Tom Jones dinner,

viands of pure hilarity shining of

sweet innocence at a table set for

.. Betty. Who knew, that all their

friends would leap at this chance,

to allow their regrets to advance

the cause of felicity in society?

Knotty, Thornhill's popular major-

domo, is crazed with anticipation,

and sweeps the landing clear of

spotty gulls. 

The present is one of two things

A confusion of excitement and

speculation is the character

we are given of our own time,

because it is easy to say: we

are alleged to know no better. 

Yet we do, and ponder to per-

mit the present to redeem and

shoulder our debt to the past

in generous disposition toward

its natural succession. 

I have a friend who departs

this week from the pursuit of

another degree, in a Miesian
metropolis, to escort his 
sweet and younger sister

through the excitement of her

coming out, in Mississippi.

Here is everything laid up up-

on the levée of our time, to

bring forth the fairest vis-

ion of our future. If I could

glance into that river on the

clock that one would wish, I

would not ever but with hope.
We are really all descended
from this river in some way.

In this way this page began,

stepping more deliberately
one day into the flux. These 
things surpass impressions, 
charming, darling. The boys

deserve their sisters when
they cede to them the night. 

What to shave for Monday

     He was more or less repulsive to himself,

     the little satin parts especially.

     

Adrien Sahores

Anne Carson

Men in the Off Hours

  III. Corps

Random House, 2001©

Are we never to be allowed Palestinian friends?

Does anyone not experience his

lifetime deprivation of a Pal-

estinian friend eventually as

a truly palpable injustice? I

forgot mercy, when I was pur-

chasing an espresso this mor-

ning, hurriedly in town, and

saw Tyler Hicks' photograph on

the front page of The New York

Times as a double-force remind-

er in one glance: the press's

precious pressing of involun-

tary views of life, is almost

vanishing in the convenience

of the self-absorbed device

that lets the self-empowered

know no more than they know.

And the disempowered somehow

seem more evil every day.

Not just less legitimate, not

just more impertinent, as they

were introduced to us in 1948,

65 years as targets unencumbered

by discovery. I forgot mercy long

ago in this fair protocol of pol-

icy, our Parties have competed to

intensify. Like Genet in The Pris-

oner of Love, I only asked if I 

imagined Palestinians, thinking 

of myself. This is the problem of

a portrait in the paper that one

can't expect to see in an internet

café.

Always not supposed to see asserts 

the power of expectation until sud-

denly its pose is thrown off-balance

and one knows there is a part of one-

self missing. I forgot mercy as the

newspaper showed me the soldiers ly-

ing in the bunker as their missile

sped aloft to find something unseen 

to kill, at least to hurt. Fastidi-

ous enforcement of our sovereignty

only deprives us of its image in the

flesh.

Willing a consequence has never been

less meticulous in its means. I for-

got mercy and was interrupted by a

newspaper, even as I was pondering

in my espresso, what I would like to

see to give me pleasure undisturbed

by something awful, done to me. May

I let it go as an agreement, going

on four generations, not to worry?

i    Cerruti dressing room

ii   Tyler Hicks photo, 18 Nov 12

iv  Rina Castelnuovo photo, 18 Nov 12

v   Vlad Averyonov

Saturday commute lxxiii: dissolve, dull stain

Perhaps a single pining mandolin

Throbs where cicadas have quarried

To the heart of all misgiving and there

Scratches on silence like a pet locked in ..

I shall recall nights of squinting rain,

Like pig-iron on the hills: bruised

Landscapes of drumming cloud and everywhere

The lack of someone spreading like a stain.

Lawrence Durrell

The Tree of Idleness

1955

Selected Poems

op. cit.

Suppose it were Friday lxvi: Splashmaker tests another stone

   All that good administration

   was able to do, bad manners

   have triumphantly undone.

 

Villiers David
Advice to my
  Godchildren
op. cit.