Snobs: A Novel

flattened to hear her companion turn to Edith and say, 'Your mother has got a wicked sense of humour. She had me quite taken in for a moment.'

Naturally, Mrs Lavery then laughed like billyo at the thought that Lady Uckfield might have believed her! And she never mentioned it again. At any rate, for all sorts of reasons, I was curious as well as flattered to be asked to be an usher at what was shaping up to be the Wedding of the Year — or so the newspapers told me.

I received the invitation from Charles, who had written to me in his rather charming, round hand, wondering if I would do this for him. It is always hard for an actor to commit in advance to anything social — not least because it is a kind of unwritten law of the theatre that if you accord the slightest importance to anything other than work then you have no talent. I suppose I would have chucked if I had been offered the title role in Ben Hur but I was pretty determined to play my part in the Apotheosis of Edith.

Isabel telephoned me the same morning: 'I gather you're an usher,' she said. 'David isn't.' I answered, as I knew I must, that this seemed a bit hard. 'Well, I must say I think it really is. He's in a sulk, which is a great bore and I don't see that there's anything I can do about it.' I said there was absolutely nothing she could do about it and after all, I was the only one of Edith's friends that Charles had even met before the whole thing began. 'I know that and I've said it, but you know David.'

'What about you?'

'What do you mean?'

'Are you going to play any part in it all? I thought Alice might be one of the bridesmaids or something.' Alice was the Eastons' eldest child. She was as plain as a pikestaff but quite amiable withal.

'No.' Isabel's voice was sodden with disappointment. 'Edith tried but apparently there were covens of prior claims and so she's settled for just having tinies. Much nicer really,' she muttered drearily. I could tell she had not finished. 'I was wondering about Charles's night out.'

'What about it?'

'Is he having one?'

'I don't know. I suppose so.'

'But you haven't been asked?'

'No. Should I have been?'

'Well, it's just that David was wondering if he, or both of you, shouldn't do something about organising one ... ' Her voice trailed away.

'Come off it. We hardly know him. What are you thinking of?'

'I dare say you're right.' I wondered if David was in the room with her. 'You might let us know if you are asked.'

David's background anxiety was becoming uncomfortable. He had obviously started on a lifetime's career of dropping Charles's name and he could not face the obloquy of being publicly excluded from his circle of intimates.

'All right,' I said, 'but I'm sure I won't be.'

As it happened, a month later, ten days before the wedding, I was asked. Presumably because of a dropout. A party of twelve was being flown to Paris in a week's time, three days before the Great Event, to dine and stay overnight at the Ritz. I was sent the ticket by bike and all I had to do was to be ready for collection from the flat at the appointed hour. The flight was to take off from the City airport. Instead of telephoning Isabel, I spoke to Edith. 'I've been asked to Charles's shindig.'

'I know. Completely his idea. I think it'll be fun, don't you? I love the Paris Ritz.'

'I suppose David isn't going?'

'No. The thing is Henry Cumnor and Charles's uncle Peter are organising and paying for the whole thing and so he can't have everyone.'

'Fains I tell David.'

'I've told Isabel.' Edith paused. 'As a matter of fact, I do think they're being tiresome. I am fond of Isabel but they want to be such 'best friends' all the time. I feel like a heroine out of Angela Brazil. After all, I don't know David well and Charles has hardly met him.'

'My dear,' I said sagely. 'This is only the beginning.'

At three o'clock the following Saturday a capped and uniformed chauffeur rang my basement bell and seized my waiting suitcase to carry it up to the car. I had treated myself to a new one in honour of the elevated company I was about to keep so it was especially irritating when he caught it on the corner of the cellar steps and wrenched one of the handles off. As a result, despite my reckless extravagance, I felt shabby for the entire trip. Sic transit gloria mundi, or, I suppose, sic transit gloria transit.

Henry Cumnor was already in the car, his corpulence spilling itself across the back seat in vast folds of Turnbull and Asser-shirted flesh, leaving the barest ledge of vacant leather beside him. As I climbed in, I felt like Carrie Fisher squeezing up against Jabba the Hutt. I knew Henry vaguely, as it so happened that we had attended the same school although in different years, and this afforded me a faint protection against his exclusivity, but only faint. At any rate, I knew what to expect as Edith had made quite a funny story out of her 'first date' with Charles.

There was another passenger in the front seat who was cursorily introduced as Tommy Wainwright and whom I recognised as a rising Member of Parliament — if any Tory could be said to be rising at that time. So far as I could remember from those profiles beloved of the Sunday colour sections he was the younger son of a Home Counties peer and was consequently a slightly surprising inclusion in the group on whom Mrs Thatcher had smiled — she not being much in favour of the aristocracy. He was tall, almost lanky, with an amiable, round face and thinning hair that made him look like a kind of trainee old buffer, although, as I would learn, this was not at all the case. He turned, smiled and shook my hand, which placed him three-nil in the courtesy stakes against Henry and we set off.

The talk on the way to the airport was political and I was amused at the contrast between my two