Walking to the party
Z-Girl Fun
It was my friend Z-Girl's birthday last week (or at least that's when she celebrated it). It was such a gorgeous evening that I snapped some pictures as I sauntered toward the venue in question.
A group of us met for a few pre-dance-like-a-maniac drinks at the CVO Firevault which is a fireplace showroom which happens to have a restaurant and lounge hidden downstairs. The concept it a bit bizarre. It was very trendy, but quite comfy nonetheless.
Afterward, we stopped off outside a pub near Carnaby Street to drop off the Girl with the Loudest Laugh in the World. It was the kind of evening where more patrons are outside in the street than actually in the pub. Nights like this make London seem the friendliest, loveliest city in the world.
After abandoning She Who Laughs Like a Hurricane, we pressed on to the Kitsch Lounge Riot which was extremely trendy and kitschy and pretentious, but also staggeringly fun and quite cool.
The rich and gorgeous were in abundance and there were a series of West End Stars with a live band singing croony Sinatra tunes and belt-out-loud show tunes. The woman currently playing Velma in Chicago at the Adelphi absolutely thrilled me with her rendition of "Big Spender" and I forced my way to the edge of the stage where I danced like a rapturous acolyte from some cult.
I think somehow the magic was within me or perhaps I just stood out so much among the trendy and moneyed crowd that I dazzled like a farm-girl in dungarees at a debutante's ball. In any case, I was almost kidnapped into the harem of an Arabian Princess. It was frightening. I was dancing away, minding my own business, when this very expensively dressed, middle-eastern woman celebrating her 40th birthday put her arm around my waist and dragged me into her circle of dancing harpies. I escaped but was dragged back in again and again.
Eventually, I fled to the bar where I bought my first and only drink at the Kitsch Lounge (£7 for a vodka and tonic, a bit rich for my wallet). Even here, my sex appeal was undiminished. The barmaid, Fluffy according to the bill, treated me like a long lost high-school boyfriend. She insisted on serving me ahead of the teeming hordes already waiting and called me "pumpkin". Yes, it may possibly have been a reference to the hue of my shirt, but equally possibly it may have been an achingly hopeful term of endearment.
Later, a man wearing a shirt so thick it could have been cut from a tablecloth – complete with champagne stains – accosted me during a lull in the music. He was smoking a cigar the size of a zucchini. He put his arm around my shoulders and shouted we were destined to be friends for the rest of our lives.
"Do you realise," he said, "that we have danced with the same six women tonight?"
I think he may possibly have meant Z-Girl and a couple of her friends and was just seeing double. I’d noticed him staring fixedly at their bottoms and other curvy bits as he lurched around the floor burning lesser beings with his flaming zucchini.
I considered staying and becoming his friend for real. I got the sense that he would have been delighted to buy me a tray of £7 drinks, but there was an evil glint in his eye that worried me. What if I said something wrong and he sent a minion to set fire to my kidneys while I slept.
Reassuring him that I loved him truly like a brother, I slowly backed away and scrambled out into the London night.
The magic was not over yet, though. I walked through the West End and found myself outside this swanky old building that had often intrigued me. It looked like a grand old gentlemen’s club out of a Wodehouse novel. I paused to try to find some sign or label that would reveal its identity. As I did so, a somewhat shaky old man stopped beside me and spoke.
"That would be the Garrick Club," he said. "Yes, sure to be it. This is Garrick street and that’s the Garrick Club."
I stepped away from the brass plate that held a doorbell and nothing more and cocked my head attentively.
"It’s a writerly kind of club, I believe. Yes, yes, many famous writers belonged to that club. And lawyers too, I believe. Oh yes, sure to be it. Lord. M– is, or was, a member. He’s dead now. Oh my goodness, he’d be an old man now if he was still alive. Sure, over a hundred at least. I used to seem him coming out of the Garrick Club many an evening."
He began walking as he spoke and I followed. We were both going in the same direction so it seemed impolite not to. He nattered on about this and that and eventually stopped again and began fumbling with his keys.
"Well," he said. "Good night to you, sir."
"And a good night to you," I said and shook his hand. He seemed a bit surprised by this but he smiled and waved just before he stepped through his door. It was three in the morning. I was standing on the cobblestones of Covent Garden and although my Audrey Hepburn wouldn’t be back in London for another two days, I was pretty pleased with the world.