Julian Fellowes - Past Imperfect

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 possibility of any disagreement. ‘I have a committee meeting in here at ten tomorrow morning, and there is no guarantee he’ll be up and about by then.’

‘No,’ I said. And together we dragged Damian down the passage, depositing him on a folded eiderdown with some blankets on top.

‘Where are the rest of his clothes?’ asked my mother. I looked at her blankly. ‘His shirt and so on.’

‘At Madame Tussaud’s, I suppose.’

‘From where he had better not reclaim them.’ Her voice was, I thought, unnecessarily severe. ‘He could have got you all into a great deal of trouble.’

‘That’s rather unfair,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t his fault.’ But my mother paid no attention to my attempted defence. She was only displaying the behaviour that I have since discovered was absolutely endemic to her and to many like her. When they approve of someone in their children’s lives, and when it is because of the social position of said individual, they will never admit it and will find endless excuses for no matter what bad behaviour. But when, instead, they disapprove, again for social rather than more meaningful reasons, rather than concede this, everything else about the unwanted friend must be condemned. This falls into the same category as when they give directions. If it is desirable that you should attend an event, it is ‘easy-peasy, straight down the M4 and you’re there,’ but when they do not believe you should go, the same journey becomes ‘quite endless. You trudge down the M4 forever and when you get off it there’s an absolute maze of roads and villages to be negotiated. It’s not worth it.’ My mother was not a snob in any normal sense, she would have been shocked at the notion that she might be, but that didn’t stop her being offended when she felt I had been ‘latched on to’ (her phrase), and this is what she felt about Damian. There was some truth in her analysis, of course.

Damian woke in the early hours of the following morning, I would guess at around three. I know this because he woke me, too, by whispering ‘are you awake?’ into my ear, until I was. He was completely sober. ‘I’m starving,’ he said. ‘Is there anything to eat?’

‘Couldn’t it wait? You’ll have breakfast in a minute.’

‘I’m afraid it just can’t. I can go and look for myself if you like.’

This seemed like a worse option, so I pulled myself to my feet, pulled on a dressing gown over my pyjamas, all of which garments date the incident, since, like almost every other male, I have abandoned traditional nightwear at some point during the subsequent decades, and I set off through the flat, with Damian following. With difficulty I persuaded him against a fry-up, and he settled for a bowl of cereal followed by some toast and tea. I joined him in the last, as we sat hunched over the tiny kitchen table. He started to laugh. ‘What’s so funny?’

‘The whole evening. Lord only knows what they’ll put in the papers.’

‘Not us, which is the main thing. Poor Terry.’ Nobody seemed to feel at all sorry for the ruin and waste inflicted on our hostess. I felt it was time someone did.

But Damian shook his head. ‘Don’t worry about her. She’ll get a big story out of it. It’ll probably be the defining moment of the Season before she’s finished.’

‘Perhaps it is.’

‘Perhaps.’ Looking back, that party did come to represent a moment for a lot of us, when the past, present and future fused together in some kind of crazy way. When the anti-authority, destabilising counterculture, which would win eventually (although not in the way we all then thought), swept in through the doors of our safe little, nearly-pre- 1939 world and carried us off with it. Damian put another piece of plastic bread in the toaster. ‘I don’t know why I’m so hungry. Does hash make you hungry?’

‘I’m not really the person to ask.’

He looked at me, hesitating and then deciding to speak. ‘I’m afraid you got quite a shock when you pulled back that curtain.’ I was silent, not exactly through indignation or a sense of being wronged. I just couldn’t imagine what I could say that would convey the right message, because I didn’t know what the right message might be. He nodded as if I’d spoken. ‘I know you’re keen on her.’