Arriving at his Club for the first time as a newly elected member (he has visited many times before, as a guest), My Father’s excitement and sense of achievement are muted by quite a high degree of procedural anxiety. His Club is known, even among gentlemen’s clubs, for having numerous forms and customs that members are required to observe. And My Father knows that failure on his part to do so could result in a rare but not unheard of retrospective blackballing. New members of his Club are, he is painfully aware, on probation for 12 months, and the prize of belonging to this revered institution can – unimaginable horror – be snatched away from them at any time within that period.
My Father belongs, as of today, to the Burbage, arguably London’s Most Prestigious Club. This would depend on whether you attach prestige to achievements such as having played Hamlet at the Old Vic in the late 1950s, having helped a disgraced former Cabinet minister win a libel action and avoid prison, having twice featured on the Booker shortlist, or having been one of the original presenters of Panorama. The Burbage is a club favoured by distinguished actors, lawyers, authors and other assorted media types.
My Father – who, as an old post-war Socialist of the Atlee era, might be expected to oppose the principle of the exclusive members-only establishment – would contend that the Burbage is exceptional in being London’s only truly meritocratic club; a place where men of real distinction and achievement, in different fields, can enjoy each other’s company, in the comforting knowledge that each has been weighed, measured, and not found wanting by his peers.
Like every other member, My Father has spent several years on the waiting-list, before enduring a heart-stoppingly stressful election, lasting seven long days – in the course of which any one of the Club’s 1500 or so members could, if he so wished, have popped a fatal black ball into the hessian bag suspended from the mantelpiece of the grand Adam fireplace in the Thackeray Salon.
In honour of the occasion, My Father is unusually kempt. He is dressed in a dark suit, his shoes have been polished, and he is wearing the Club tie (the hideousness of which somehow increases members’ pleasure and pride in being seen in it). Sweatily clasped in the palm of his left hand is a gold Sovereign.
“Good afternoon, sir.”
A young liveried doorman is holding the door of the Burbage open for My Father, who fills his lungs with oxygen, and steps inside.
It’s early for lunch, and – as My Father has calculated – the lobby is sparsely populated. He doesn’t want too big an audience for the ritual he is about to enact.
He steps onto the faded square of carpet outside the porters’ lodge. He coughs three times. Old Filkins emerges, yawning, and brushing crumbs from the front of his uniform.
Oh God, has My Father transgressed by arriving at Old Filkins’s lunchtime?
If so, it’s too late to rectify his error now; My Father is standing on the Dickens Aubusson, so must – like a Jumbo jet approaching the end of a short runway at take-off speed – go through with what he has started.
He bows his head, three times in rapid succession. And then – just as he has rehearsed it at home with the Woman He Loves – he pirouettes through 360 degrees with his left hand held out behind him. And by the time he returns to his starting position, face to face with Old Filkins, the gold Sovereign is no longer in his possession.
“Welcome to the Burbage, sir,” says Old Filkins. “May your run be a long and happy one.” (A reference to the club’s theatrical heritage.)
Relief floods My Father’s being; he has come through the new member’s first visit test without falling flat on his face, or otherwise making a fool of himself.
Fortuitously – or perhaps not – a shaft of golden sunlight pierces the Burbage’s famous cupola, and picks him out as he stands in the lobby, alone now that Filkins has retreated to his lair.
My Father is 65 years old. He feels a lightness, an elation, a warm sense of being accepted by those whose acceptance really counts for something that he hasn’t felt since he was a boy. With elastic stride, he crosses to the grand staircase, which he must ascend to penetrate his Club’s most exclusive recesses. He takes the first three steps in a single bound, before forcing himself to proceed at a more dignified pace, appropriate to a member of arguably London’s Most Prestigious Club.
Above him, a small group of early-lunching members spill out of the Thackeray Salon and make their ambling convivial way towards the dining room.
Isn’t the one at the centre of the group – with the luxuriant silver-grey hair and the prosciutto-coloured face – Kingsley Amis? My Father has every reason to think it might be.
***
1992
As I hurry along Danvers Street towards the Burbage, I become aware that my father is waiting for me on the steps outside. He isn’t actually glancing at his watch, but there’s something about his demeanour that suggests he might, at any moment. It’s true I am a few minutes late; but since he, in his entire life, has never once arrived on time for any rendezvous, it seems a little unreasonable that he should be so ostentatiously anxious about my punctuality.
“Sorry, I had a thing that over-ran,” I say, not very apologetically, as we briefly shake hands.
(In fact, I have just emerged from a subterranean studio in Covent Garden where I have been recording an ad voice-over with a fairly well known actor who has turned out to possess an unsuspected speech impediment that renders him incapable of articulating the client’s brand name – which is the reason for the over-run. But since the artiste in question is not a member of the Burbage, my father won’t have heard of him. And since, by this stage of his life, my father does not even pretend to be interested in anyone outside the nexus of extreme wealth, fame and political power that fascinates him, I don’t risk boring him with any circumstantial detail.)
“You remembered,” he says. And I realise his anxiety has been nothing to do with my time-keeping, but based solely on concern over my ability to comply with his Club’s dress code. For a moment, I consider feigning incomprehension (“Remembered what?”), but instead I say, “Well, you did remind me. Twice.” And I make a show of straightening the tie I am wearing; the only one I possess, hastily knotted on the way from the studio.
My father ushers me into his Club, and upstairs to the dining room, where we will be seated at one of the small satellite tables that fringe the enormously long refectory table at which members unaccompanied by guests are, by custom, bound to eat.
By now, the Burbage has become if not a home-from-home for my father, then at least woven into the fabric of his daily life. When he is in town, he pops in at least once a week, sometimes for lunch with one of the ageing political journalists he still cultivates, but more often for a large Scotch or two in the Thackeray Salon, followed almost invariably by a short siesta in the library. From time to time, he invites a friend or family member to lunch at the Burbage, which he regards as among the greatest privileges and pleasures one human being can confer upon another.
Desultory chat. My father enquires after my children. I ask about the preparations for the exhibition the woman he loves will soon be having in a small but highly regarded gallery in Cork Street. My father lengthily bemoans the quality of the two candidates currently contending for the vacant leadership of the Labour Party, taking the view (shared by literally no one) that his old friend Peter Shore could have walked away with it, if he had only allowed himself to be persuaded to throw his hat into the ring.
I switch off (in exactly the way my father does when the conversation doesn’t interest him), and – while continuing to murmur assent and nod from time to time – let my glance wander, fairly discreetly, around the high-ceilinged room. It’s still quite lightly populated, but the Amis group – one of whom, I now realise, is Melvyn Bragg – are making an impressive amount of noise, considering the hour. At the long central table, half a dozen older members are hunched over their food, exchanging the odd muttered remark, but hardly taking full advantage of the opportunities for interdisciplinary intellectual stimulation that the Burbage prides itself upon. I note that Jeremy Paxman has just entered the dining room, with another man I vaguely recognise.
“ . . . in any case,” my father is saying, “I suppose either of them would be a slight improvement on the Hopeless Kinnock”.
“I still feel rather sorry for him,” I say, partly because I do have sympathy for the recently deposed Labour leader, whom I regard as a decent man hideously maligned and roughed up by the Tory media; and partly because I want to goad my father, whose hostility towards Neil Kinnock is largely based on the intellectual contempt an Oxford man feels for an alumnus of Cardiff University.
“Ah, Raoul,” my father says brightly, before I can continue my political analysis. “We’re very honoured!”
“How are you, sir?”
An elderly waiter has appeared at our table. He is a small distinguished-looking man, walnut-coloured, with a head that seems several sizes too big for his body and the far-seeing eyes of one who has lived through some immense sadness.
“I’m well, thank you, Raoul,” replies my father. “And how is Mrs Raoul? Better, I hope?”
“A little better, thank you, sir. Are you and your guest ready to order?”
“This is my son,” says my father. “My younger son, up in town for one of his rare visits. He’s been making a TV commercial.”
In fact, I have been making a radio commercial, but this minor inaccuracy hardly registers in comparison to my surprise that my father has any sense at all of the reason for my being in London.
“Very pleased to meet you, sir,” says Raoul, inclining his head slightly in my direction.
I smile, and nod goofily in return.
“Raoul is our Chief Steward,” explains my father. “He’s worked here for – what, nearly 40 years, isn’t it?”
“Thirty seven,” says Raoul. “And a half.”
“He knows everything there is to know about the Burbage,” continues my father. “Don’t you, Raoul?”
Raoul smiles, sadly.
“He’s met – well, everyone. You must have overheard a few secrets, in your time, eh, Raoul?”
Raoul continues to smile, and mimes zipping his mouth. He minutely adjusts the order pad he is holding, in his left hand.
“So, what will you have?” says my father, turning to me. “We should let Raoul get on; he’s our Chief Steward, you know. The fish pie is frightfully good.”
In fact, having eaten it at my father’s recommendation on my previous visit to his Club, I know that the fish pie is functional, at best; maybe two rungs up the gastronomic ladder from hospital food. But my father seems keen for me to have it, so I say, “In that case, I’ll have the fish pie, please.”
“And maybe the potted shrimps, to start with?” says my father. “Are they good today, Raoul?”
This is a joke. The potted shrimps have been served at the Burbage, prepared to precisely the same recipe from precisely the same ingredients, every day for over 200 years.
“They’re excellent today, sir,” says Raoul, with a smile of ineffable sadness.
*
Later, on the train home, I think about my father and his Club and the pleasure – inexplicable to me – that belonging to it seems to bring him. In particular, my thoughts snag on the satisfaction he took from introducing me to Raoul. What, I wonder, was that really about? I lead a fairly blameless life, and make a decent enough living; but, judged by my father’s criteria, I don’t bring any great credit to him, as my begetter. Raoul was hardly likely to be impressed by – or remotely interested in – my professional accomplishments, or any other aspect of my life.
And then it occurs to me that I have got it back to front. My father’s enjoyment was not in introducing me to Raoul, but in making Raoul – the living embodiment of the Burbage’s tradition, prestige and meritocratic exclusiveness – known to me. Look at the easy, informal, almost familial terms on which I inhabit arguably London’s Most Prestigious Club!
***
1993
“One Diamond,” says My Father, realising even as the words are leaving his mouth that this is the wrong bid.
He is playing bridge, as he does every Tuesday afternoon, in the card room at the Burbage with the Old Queers, his disrespectful collective term for three nonagenarian fellow-members, who each in their heyday made a living in the theatrical profession.
They have fairly recently admitted My Father to their regular game, clearly (though unspokenly) on a trial basis, as a replacement for the most distinguished member of their foursome, the great Shakespearean Sir Joshua Reilly, now sadly deceased.
“No bid,” says the One Who Was in The Forsyte Saga.
“No bid,” says My Father’s partner, the One Who Played the Assistant Chief Constable in Softly, Softly.
“No bid,” says the One Who Was Mostly in Stage Musicals.
Damn. My Father, who has dealt himself a fiddly hand, with eight Diamonds to the King Jack and 13 points in all, would have been very happy indeed to be outbid. But now he has to lead, and he is fairly sure his efforts will be met with scorn and derision, particularly by his partner, who has an extensive repertoire of non-verbal expressions of contempt.
My Father has fallen in love with bridge late in life, plays at every opportunity, and feels certain that a man of his intellectual powers should have a natural aptitude for the game. He is wrong; either about his intellectual powers, or about their applicability to bridge. All three of the Old Queers, he has come to realise, are much better than he is, though he tries to console himself with the thought that they have been playing regularly since before he was born.
He leads a high Diamond. The One Who Was Mostly in Stage Musicals replies with a low Heart. And, as the One Who Played the Assistant Chief Constable in Softly, Softly turns over the dummy – to reveal four more Diamonds – there is a sharp intake of breath all around the table.
“Ouch!” says the One Who Played the Assistant Chief Constable in Softly, Softly, sounding as if he is in actual physical pain as a result of My Father’s near-criminal misjudgement in under-bidding so grotesquely.
My Father plays the hand, and duly makes five Diamonds, which would have been game. The Old Queers say nothing more, but no eyeball remains unrolled, no despairing sigh goes unexhaled. If they were to hold up cards giving My Father’s performance marks, in the manner of ice skating judges, they could not make their condemnation clearer.
Eventually, My Father’s ordeal is over. More hands are played, which he manages to negotiate without serious mishap. Points are tallied, and small sums exchanged (My Father loses £2.40). And when the clock strikes four, My Father’s companions order fresh drinks, as they always do, and raise a glass to “Dear Josh, whom we will see beyond the final curtain.” Then, with elaborate courtesy, they raise their glasses to My Father, to thank him for “another sparkling performance from our understudy” – which he, rightly, interprets as meaning that he will never be invited to take on the role in a permanent capacity.
As they disperse, he briefly considers staying for another, larger Scotch, before heading home. But for today at least, his Club has lost its lustre. To be honest, he feels disappointed with the Burbage; as so often throughout his life, something that he thought would bring him satisfaction, a real sense of achievement, has turned out to be a let-down, nothing special at all, a place mainly frequented by geriatric has-beens.
On his way out, he pops his head around the door of the Thackeray Salon, but nobody of any interest is there. Even that frightful old drunk Amis has somewhere better to be on a wet Tuesday in March.
***
Not long afterwards
My Father is having lunch at his Club. He has a guest, so he is seated at one of the satellite tables. My Father has ordered the fish pie, but very surprisingly, the potted shrimps are off today, so for his starter he is eating a strange mushy concoction (which he doesn’t remember ordering) strongly reminiscent of the semolina served every Monday at his prep school. His guest is Raoul, who is eating the food that he usually serves with an air of grave judiciousness. My Father senses that others members present, at the long communal table, disapprove of him lunching with the Club’s Chief Steward. But he has been a member of the Burbage for well over a year now, so there is no danger of being blackballed.
“And how is Mrs Raoul?” he asks, loudly enough to be heard across the room. “Better, I hope?”
But as he is making this formulaic enquiry, My Father knows that he is, in fact, asking a completely different question, one that Raoul is the only person on earth capable of answering.
“A little better, thank you, sir,” says Raoul.
This is cryptic, but My Father knows exactly what Raoul, keeper of the Burbage’s secrets, is trying to tell him. My Father lays down his spoon, rises from the table, and strides purposefully from the dining room – conscious of being followed by numerous pairs of eyes.
Entering the library, opposite the dining room, he follows the instructions that Raoul has in some sense given him, and approaches a large full-length portrait of a black-clad man holding a skull; Sir Henry Irving as Hamlet, My Father assumes. Reaching out his hand, he lightly touches the skull, causing the portrait to swing open on a hinge. My Father steps through the door into a massive light-filled vestibule, hung with vast crystal chandeliers (a touch vulgar, perhaps, he thinks), a part of his Club to which he has never gained entry before.
The vestibule is deserted; no sign even of the porters. But, in front of him, a grand staircase – much grander than the one My Father climbed earlier, to reach the dining room – leads to further undiscovered regions, and from these he can hear laughter, voices, a lively hubbub of sparkling well informed conversation.
Stepping onto the staircase, My Father finds that he is floating six inches or so above it, and that he can ascend by merely thinking upward thoughts. But as he rises effortlessly, the knowledge comes to him, with terrible certainty, that he is now invisible. No one on the floor above will be able to see or hear him, or know that he exists.
Floating upstairs is fun, and My Father resolves that he will never again climb stairs in the conventional way. But this delightful new ability is a very small consolation for the sadness he feels knowing that, even within the four walls of the Burbage, there is another more prestigious Club to which men of real distinction belong, and which, for reasons of invisibility, he will never be able to join.
***
In 1992, 1997, and again in 2001, not long before my father’s death, the Club to which he belongs opens for debate among its members the question of whether women should be allowed to apply for membership. On each occasion, by significant margins, the gentlemen vote against the admission of ladies. On each occasion, my father – socialist, egalitarian, devoted husband of the woman he loves, author of novels highly regarded for their insightful depiction of female characters – votes with those who believe that their Club should remain a haven for distinguished men, a place of refuge from the pressures of the modern world, where they can mix, freely and without inhibition, with others of their own kind.
*****
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