Kid Gloves

Kid Gloves Read Free

Book: Kid Gloves Read Free
Author: Adam Mars-Jones
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Buildings, qualified in Edith’s eyes as the ‘suburbs’ of Gray’s Inn, though she had the
demanding and unstable perspective of the socialist snob, embarrassed that the address given on
her birth certificate was Caledonian Road and painfully conscious of being the poorest resident.
When she had first seen the Gray’s Inn in the 1930s, looking down into its gardens from the top
deck of a bus, she had wondered what this place could possibly be. A posh lunatic asylum seemed
to be the likeliest answer, and now she was an inmate of it.
    Gray’s Inn was a little legal parish, though
increasingly a plutocratic monoculture, much less diverse than it had been in my childhood, when
such bohemians as architects and accountants might have their homes there. Earlier in the
twentieth century it accommodated without apparent effort an even more wayward, literary type of
inhabitant, as exemplified by Edward Marsh and Maurice Baring. Successive Rent Acts have
weakened the position of residents, so that only the longest-establishedcan
feel themselves secure. Newcomers can hope for nothing better than an assured shorthold tenancy,
and must accept that widows have no right to remain. Even in the late 1990s, Gray’s Inn was
mainly deserted at weekends and outside legal term. The flats are mainly on the top floors of
the buildings (the third), with offices on the lower levels. Outside the working week most of
those upper windows were dark.
    It felt entirely natural to invite Dad’s friends
to dinner since they were my friends too. And not just dinner: a couple of times I took on the
duty, which had been part of my mother’s routine, of giving ‘the gentlemen’ breakfast on a
Sunday. The gentlemen in question were the Preacher of the Inn, the Revd Roger Holloway, and the
Dean of Chapel, Master (Tony) Butcher. I apologize for a form of words which makes him sound
like a card from a Happy Families pack, but this is correct usage within the Inn when referring
to benchers.
    Roger Holloway was a man whose faith co-existed
with a formidable worldliness – while living in Hong Kong in the 1980s he had appeared every day
on each of the colony’s two television channels, in the morning contributing the equivalent of
Thought for the Day
, presenting a claret-tasting programme on the other channel in the
evenings. There can’t be many preachers who have used Lady Diana Cooper as an authority for a
point of doctrine (the impossibility of repentance as an act of will), quoting her as saying
that when she met her Maker she would only be able to say, ‘Dear God, I’m sorry I’m not sorry.’
    Roger claimed to have a list of names that were
guaranteed to kick-start Dad’s dormant desire to hold the floor. The one I remember is ‘Goronwy
Rees’ (not a name I knew). Accusations of Cold War-era betrayal and double-dealing would follow.
A Welshman who turned his coat was not to be forgiven, even if there was no proof of his
treachery. I can’t say I ever triedmy luck with this Open Sesame. I
accepted the new Dad, who was so different from the old one that any flashback would be jarring.
He became exasperated from time to time but there were no outbursts.
    Dad didn’t seem to have religious faith so much
as religious confidence. Every morning he woke with the expectation of having fine things shown
to him by life or its executive officers. It seemed obvious that God would turn out to (i) exist
and (ii) put in a good word. Round His omnipresent neck he might wear a Garrick Club tie.
    It was strange to see Dad take so little interest
in food after Sheila’s death, and even in drink. Gray’s Inn was, and perhaps is, very male
socially, certainly at the higher levels. Students eat a certain number of dinners in the Hall,
while benchers like Dad are well looked after at table. The cellars of the Inn are grandly
stocked. When I made arrangements for a reception after Sheila’s funeral service in the Chapel,
it was proposed that we serve the Inn’s

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