‘‘Of course,” said Charlie Brooks (OE, failed racehorse trainer and second husband of the “flame-haired temptress” Rebekah Wade), gesturing at the turnout for the party in celebration of the last of these achievements, “none of this would have been possible without good old JC.” “Let me explain,” he continued, placing an arm around my shoulder (a supposedly affectionate gesture, which he is fully aware I find distinctly unsettling) and directing me towards a private sector of his nouveau estate. “It was Clarkson, you see, who introduced us. And while Beks was off with her BlackBerry, asked if I thought, to coin a phrase, that the thatch matched the moat. Well, I’m only flesh and blood.”
“What about Dave?” I interrupted, sparing all our blushes. “She will support him.” “It certainly looks like it.” Over by the croquet lawn they were sharing a Pimm’s during a titanic match between the Freuds and the Murdochs. “Although, if I had my way with Beks, which as you can imagine [chortle, chortle] I often do, it would be Ukip every time. Have you met Nigel?”
“More than once,” I replied. And, doing a Gove, I pretended to be in need of the facilities in order to avoid an increasingly pointless conversation. Charlie needs to be taken in very small doses. Even so, he had attracted a high-octane crowd. Over by the shrubbery, Rupert Murdoch, who, frankly, frightens me, and his henchman Les Hinton, who absolutely terrifies me, were chatting to man of the moment, the tubby Telegraph editor, Will Lewis. I couldn’t swear to seeing anything signed, but the fact that Lewis attempted one of his trademark shimmies (usually reserved for karaoke nights) suggested things were moving his way. Personally, I think he could do quite a good job at the Sun when Beks moves on up to executive level.
Meanwhile, on the makeshift stage, the Carphone Warehouse founder Charles Dunstone, Emily Oppenheimer Turner and Bono sang Dylan covers. In the walled garden, Jon Gaunt played giant checkers against Willie Carson. And sitting in the gazebo was Jeremy Clarkson, signing hardback copies of For Crying Out Loud: the World According to Clarkson Volume III.
As he owed me one for having sold him a last-minute seat for my Margaret Thatcher 30th-anniversary dinner, I asked him to inscribe a copy with a promise that he will host (with Richard Hammond, or maybe even Bono?) a series of party political broadcasts come the spring. Job done, I mingled, chugging Pimm’s and wondering what Anthony Powell would have made of the whole shebang. Nor was I the only one distancing myself from the maddening crowd. Standing alone and aloof on the far side of the croquet lawn was none other than the Prime Minister, feigning deep interest in the game to camouflage the fact that he no longer “knew” anyone at the party. When Emma Freud executed a particularly cruel croquet on her sister-in-law Elisabeth Murdoch, he even went so far as to clap, which brought a nasty scowl from James Murdoch and an immediate retraction from Brown. The speeches, incidentally, were useless. Charlie left no innuendo untested, Beks has a voice that makes Julie Burchill sound adult, and Clarkson read out one of the longer chapters from his book.
