‘Why are you all right? Didn’t you eat any either?’
Serena wrinkled her nose. ‘I wasn’t hungry.’
‘Here we go!’ The enterprising Georgina had found a service door at the back behind a curtain that a few people, but not many, were taking advantage of. Behind us, the whistles and general shouting had increased in volume, and it was clear that those who had tried to leave in a more orthodox manner were being subjected to hideous humiliations before they were allowed to do so.
‘My God, the press is outside!’ This from Lucy, who had started down the main stair, only to make this unwelcome discovery and beat a retreat whence she had come. ‘If I get in the paper my father will kill me.’ It’s funny. We were so much more governed by these considerations than our equivalents are now.
Following our leader, Georgina, we came to a landing at the top of a stone, service staircase. Guests in various stages of dishevelment were hurrying down it. One girl broke her heel and fell the remainder of the second flight with a scream, but without pausing she scrambled up, tore the shoe off the other foot and plunged on. Unfortunately, Damian seemed to be getting worse. He had now ceased his requests for us to clap our hands and had decided instead simply to go to sleep. ‘I’m perfectly all right,’ he murmured, his chin sinking deeply into his chest. ‘I just need a little shuteye and then I’ll be as right as rain.’ Down went his chin even further, followed by his eyelids, and he began to snore.
‘We’ll have to leave him,’ said Georgina. ‘They won’t kill him. He’ll just have his name taken, and a warning or something of the kind, and that’ll be the end of it.’
‘I’m not leaving him,’ said Serena. ‘Who knows what they’ll do? And what happens afterwards? If he has his name on a list at a drugs raid, he might never get a passport or a security rating or a job at an embassy or anything.’ This string of words, flooding out as they did, created a rather marvellous contrast to the life we were leading at that precise moment, cowering on a dingy, back stairway, on the run from the police. It conjured up images of embassy gatherings at which Damian would shine, and foreign travel and important work in the City. I found myself wishing that Serena had voiced such fragrant worries about my destiny.
But Georgina was unconvinced. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said. He’s not newsworthy. That’s the only thing we have to worry about. You’re a headline. She’s a headline. Even I’m worth a mention. He’s not. Leave him here to sleep it off. Maybe they won’t come up this far.’
‘I’m not leaving him,’ said Serena. ‘You go without us if you want.’
I remembered her defence of Damian at Dagmar’s ball, when she stood up for him alone and all the rest of us were silent. I decided I was not prepared for a repetition. ‘I’ll help,’ I said. ‘If we balance him between us we’ll manage.’ She looked at me. I could tell she was pretty grateful not to have been taken up on her suggestion of facing the Mongol hordes alone. So we did just as I said. Hoisting him up, and against a low chorus of Damian’s mumbled protests about just needing a little shuteye, the group of us somehow got him to the bottom of the stair. We hurried past the ground floor, since we could hear the shouted protests of indignant adults being stopped and questioned, as well as screams and yells and singing coming from the young. Eventually we found ourselves in a basement, searching for a door or window that would open.
We were alone, a little club against the world, in a very murky passage, when a side door opened and a girl stuck her head out. ‘There’s a window here that seems to lead out to an alley,’ she said and ducked back inside the room. I did not know her well. Her name was Charlotte Something and she ended up a countess, but I forget which one it was. Nevertheless, I shall always remember her with real gratitude. She had no obligation to come back and tell us of her useful find, instead of just climbing out and running for it. That kind of generosity, when there is nothing in it for the giver, is what always touches one most. Anyway, we followed her into what must have been a sort of cleaning cupboard because it was full of brushes and dusters and tins of polish, and sure enough there was an unbarred window, which had been forced open for what looked like the first time since the Armistice.
Here, as before, the problem was Damian, almost comatose by this point, and we wrestled with him for a bit until finally Georgina, who was stronger than any of us, bent down and threw her shoulder beneath him in a sort of fireman’s lift and, with an exasperated sigh, flung him at the open space. Serena had already climbed out and was able to grab one arm and his head, and with her and Lucy pulling, while Georgina and I pushed, we did succeed in getting him through, although it was too much like assisting at the delivery of a baby elephant for my taste. There were men’s voices in the passage outside, as Georgina squeezed out, and I would guess I was probably the last to make it to freedom by that route before it was sealed off by the enemy. We pulled down the window as quickly as we could, then raced to the end of the alley, Georgina and I dragging Damian between us. You will understand that to be pulling a largish young man, naked except for underpants and a dinner jacket, was unusual to say the least of it, and we could not consider ourselves out of danger until Serena, waving us into the shadows, had managed to stop an innocent taxi driver, who had no idea what he was letting himself in for.
‘Where shall we take him?’ she hissed over her shoulder and even I could see that this would be a large mouthful for the Claremonts to swallow on an empty stomach. I imagine he had originally planned to drive himself back to Cambridge, after a cup of coffee or two, as I blush to say we did in those days, but clearly that was now out of the question.
‘My flat. Wetherby Gardens,’ I said. My parents were there, but after nineteen years of me they were not entirely unequipped for this sort of escapade. Serena gave the address and, opening the door, she climbed in ready for Georgina and me to rush Damian across the pavement and into the welcoming darkness of the cab. We made it, clambering in with puffing and sighing, and Lucy hurried in behind us. It may sound as if the taxi was overloaded and so it was, but you must understand we thought nothing of that, neither passenger nor driver, and nor did the powers that be. They weren’t concerned with micro-managing our lives, as they are today, and in this I think, indeed I know, that we were happier for it. Some changes have been improvements, on some the jury is still out, but when it comes to the constant, meddling intervention by the state, we were much, much better off then than we are now. Of course, there were times when we were at risk and the smug, would-be controllers will tut-tut at that, but to encourage the surrender of freedom in order to avoid danger is the hallmark of a tyranny and always a poor exchange.
‘Should we put his trousers on?’ Serena had somehow managed to keep the flapping items with her. We all looked down at Infant Damian curled up like an unborn child and the thought of the task defeated us.
‘Let’s not,’ said Lucy firmly.
‘What about your poor parents?’ asked Georgina. ‘Suppose they’re still awake?’
Another glance confirmed the earlier decision. ‘They’re strong,’ I said. ‘They can take it.’ With its distinctive rattle, the taxi started off, but as we came back out on to the Euston Road we could see that the police were still there with a host of cars and vans, and there was that now familiar, but then rare, accompaniment of the popping of cameras, blinding the poor wretches caught in their glare, all destined for unwelcome fame on the morrow.
My parents were philosophical, as they stood, blinking, in their dressing gowns, staring down at Damian slumped in a chair, still in his lively and distinctive costume, but now with his trousers deposited in a crumpled pool at his feet, like a ritual offering. ‘He’ll have to sleep on the floor in your room,’ said my mother, without the
