On screen, they show a photo of Lady Danbury shaking McEnroe’s hand at the 1983 Wimbledon awards ceremony.
I raise an eyebrow sceptically: despite what she looked like in 1983, Lady Danbury has now assumed the shape of a water butt; which law of physics can allow her to fit into the tiny dress she was wearing back then, I wonder?
I don’t know if I should look or not. It’s like a horror movie: you don’t want to watch, yet an irresistible masochistic instinct forces you keep your eyes open.
The music suddenly changes: now the voice of Lady Gaga resounds from the loudspeakers and the hall fills with smoke, it’s starting to look like the room I shared with Harring at college.
I turn towards thedj, thinking he’ll have to face quite a rough time at the end of the evening.
Harring elbows me in the ribs and tugs at my sleeve. “Look, for fuck’s sake! Look!” And he points at the catwalk.
It’s a Danbury, yes, but it’s the lady’s nineteen year old niece! And the dress she’s wearing has little of the one her grandmother wore at Wimbledon: they shortened it and ripped off the sleeves from the jacket.
Total silence falls in the room: the women are in shock; the men, on the other hand, seem to have recovered from the vegetative state in which they were until a minute ago.
After that, Lord Perry’s twenty year old granddaughter comes out, sporting the updated version of the outfit her aunt wore at a golf championship. And let me say that I wish I had never seen her aunt with those shorts on, neither on nor off the golf course. The niece, on the other hand, collects enthusiastic applause. Harring’s hands, for example, are almost bleeding.
One after the other, the daughters, nieces and grandnieces of the mummies sitting in the hall come out on the catwalk wearing the dresses donated for charity, which have been radically updated.
The ladies are as silent as wax statues, whereas the gentlemen have never been so full of life. And so bent over on their chequebooks. Harring and Samuel, who are next to me, have improvised a jury and raise sheets of paper with points for each girl that comes out.
Even Lord Neville, the Royal Duke, hasn’t stopped applauding since the beginning.
The gentlemen will be grateful to Jemma forever, but I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes when they go home.
Perhaps, I will providentially become a widower.
It’s almost over when the last girl takes to the catwalk: she’s wearing big sixties diva style sunglasses and she’s wrapped in a short white chinchilla fur; when she reaches the end of the catwalk, she undoes her belt with a flirtatious gesture, and she lets everyone see that she’s wearing little else below: a semi-transparent sand coloured lace leotard and a long pearl necklace which hangs down to her groin.
“Who-is-that?” stutters Harring in a faint voice and the sheet of paper with his vote crumpled up in his hands.
“My…” I can’t even say it. “Wife.”
As if to confirm my fears, she turns round, takes off her glasses and lets her fur slip all along her shoulders.
It is Jemma.
I’m clearly picturing my mother’s chair toppling over as she falls to the ground, losing consciousness.
After Jemma finally disappears behind the curtain, darkness falls in the hall.
I’m almost certain that Lady Antonia’s great-grandmother was wearing something else under her fur when she met the Tsarina Alexandra back in 1911.
“Someone up there loves you, Parker,” Harring tells me, still excited about the evening.
“Yeah, sure,” I comment, in astonishment.
*
The following morning, Denby is hell on Earth.
“I will not stand by and watch while the Parker name is dishonoured!” My mother screams, as the servants take out a long line of luggage. “I’m going to Bath!” She goes on, as I look at her on the threshold with indifference.
“Don’t you think you’re being a little melodramatic?” I ask.
“Melodramatic? Your wife shredded the antique fashion pieces of the aristocracy and she went out on the catwalk half naked, am I being melodramatic?”
“I think you’re overreacting,” I shrug and go back inside.
