High life
Slowly does it
Taki
New York I had a wonderful time down in Delray and Palm Beach, where my friend Lord Longford and colleague Nigel Nicolson would be seen as approaching middle age. The only problem is driving. The limit is 25 mph, but everyone except for bank robbers drives at around 5 or 6 mph, and it does get awfully frustrating. Mind you, one can always get out and walk when in a hurry, although there are speed limits even in the wheelchair lanes. Joggers are monitored by radar and regularly ticketed for excessive speed, while ambulances and fire engines are horse-drawn in case they scare the elderly with their engine noise.
But the weather is fine, Florida did go for President Bush, and its washed-out Wasps playing out superannuated rites of privilege and propriety are to be preferred to those pelvis-churning disco cretins and freaks that inhabit the Bagel. And there's always the tennis. Florida used to produce its share of champions, and it still does, except that now they grunt and still wear diapers.
While down there, the talk was about one of Palm Beach's longest marriages doing a York. Yes, I'm referring to our old friend Roxanne Pulitzer (of the literary prize for sexual shenanigans) divorcing husband number two, John Haggin Jr, after some 47 days of wedded bliss. They were married on 16 October 1992 and filed for divorce on 2 December. Oh well, as some- one paraphrasing Rick in Casablanca said, `at least they'll always have November'.
Roxanne is the lady who made ear trum- pets famous (for any of you who don't read the scandal sheets, she and her hubby Peter Pulitzer were rumoured to take some pret- ty curious items to bed with them, includ- ing Roxanne's ear trumpet), almost as famous as another Palm Beach perennial, Luis Basualdo, the greatest Argentine since Evita Peron.
Again if any of you missed it, Basualdo is the male equivalent of Roxanne, a man who is to rich women what Nijinsky was to leaps. His latest armful is Martha Reed, widow of Stas Reed and a lady who is con- sidered old even in Palm Beach. Stas and Martha were friends of mine back in the Fifties, when Basualdo was still in the pam- pas and dreaming of one day seeing Buenos Aires. When I ran into the happy couple Martha was relaxing and Luis was sort of going through some bills. In her bag. They were in a playful mood, with the bounder complaining to Martha that if she would learn to cook they could save money by getting rid of her cook, and Martha very sharply — telling Luis that if he could learn to make love she could fire the chauf- feur.
Although the badinage did not exactly have the sweep of Russian literature, it wasn't bad for Palm Beach. After all, the rich are known for speaking their minds, however limiting it is to their conversation. Martha Reed swears that Basualdo is a reformed character, which I don't doubt, and he is now busy doing social work among the rich, but only time will tell. In the meantime it's nice to know that love is In the air, a love that Woody Allen should envy. (Why is it that Oedipus is OK, but Oedipus in reverse is not?) Otherwise it was a healthy time for me. I played some good tennis, went to bed early and did not get wrecked once. Well, only once. The reason for my abstinence is that I'm on my way to London and some serious partying. There is a shindig by the greatest Persian since Darius, a blast by our benev- olent proprietor, and the upcoming mar- riage of Christopher Gilmour with its preceding bachelor parties. The only thing I regret is that after the coming week I will feel and look like a Palm Beach senior citi- zen. Oh well, it could be worse. I could look like George Carman.
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