* * *
1969: the hostess in an outfit of PVC which was about as near as they were coming in those days to the stark sleek mechanical styles of the current trend, regrettably needing to be underpinned with the badly engineered and somewhat uncomfortable brassière and girdle appropriate to it—a discovery she had made too late, not having obtained and tried on the costume until it was too close to the start of the party to change her mind. But at least the slick surface was a kind of foreshadowing of 2010; she hated the idea of fur or velvet or one of those other crudely textured fabrics women used to stuff themselves into.
“My dear, haven’t seen you in lightyears! That’s a most marvellous rig you’re sailing under—did it belong to your grandmother?”
19??: Norman House in a full set of jet-black evening dress with a genuine stiff shirt and white bow-tie and even shoes of that revolting stuff called “patent leather”—a hundred per cent genuine to judge from the cracks in them. Guinevere gave him a venomous smile for not allowing her an instant opening for attack and wished that he didn’t look so inarguably magnificent in the sombre garb.
“You mean this is really tobacco? Cigarettes of that stuff that was supposed to cause so much cancer? My dear, I must try some—my parents didn’t smoke it ever and I hardly believe I saw the stuff before!”
1924: Sasha Peterson in a softly draped tea-gown of semi-translucent chiffon hanging almost to her ankles but slashed behind to the waist, invoking an old-fashioned air called “elegance”. Guinevere thought of what the mode-masters were saying about a swing back to a more natural look in shiggies and wished she had never dreamed up this sheeting party.
“Well, if I can’t have a whistler whatinole can I have? Oh, give me some bourbon on the rocks, then—I take it that’s allowed? I mean, if they had cold drinks at the court of Emperor Nero they had them in the last century?”
1975: a very young shiggy with a beautiful bosom wearing a niltop over a minisarong. Can’t legislate for that—any girl who’s recently discovered that her body attracts men will go the available limit to display it to them.
“Are we not even supposed to talk about the real scene? I mean, I don’t know whatinole people did talk about at parties in the last century—I wasn’t old enough to go to them.
1999 and only scraping under the limit by a chronological accident: Donald Hogan in a curiously antique-seeming brown and green totalsuit with a spiral zipper going from right ankle twice around to the left shoulder, face flushed and apparently worried about something but ascribing it for official purposes to the fact that if Norman hadn’t remembered to book him whatever was available from the rental agency he’d have had to turn up in the only universally acceptable costume—his skin.
“I shouldn’t hope for too much, darling. All tobacco ever did to me was make me throw up. I don’t know whatinole people used it for. No, darling, you can’t take it in like the smoke from a joint, you have to sort of puff it in straight and then accustom yourself to inhaling it without dilution.”
1982 or thereabouts: a positive travesty in the literal sense, in one of these ghastly outfits with five or six layers of mesh in contrasting colours hanging from the hips and shoulders, and shoes of enormous size sticking out below.
“One of the reasons I come to Gwinnie’s parties is she doesn’t feel obligated to ask all these sheeting brown-noses you keep treading on everywhere else, but there are too many of them here for my liking tonight!”
* * *
Right. Find out who they are and why.
* * *
“Of course the whole thing is sheeting crazy. That was the wildest roller-coaster of a century the human race has ever lived through, if you can call it living—hey, notice that good in-period catchphrase I used?”
Any time: Elihu Masters in a regal suit of Beninian robes, a loose red-and-white top over baggy pants and open sandals his round balding head framed in a kind of crown of upright feathers varnished into brown rigidity around a velvet skullcap.
“Yes, but what kind of a twentieth-century party? One of those stiff soirées you read about in old magazines dating back to 1901, or something right up close to our own day like a Sexual Freedom League meeting? I don’t know whatinole I’m supposed to be doing and Gwinnie has that forfeit light in her eye. Maybe it’s safest to tag along after her and be in the support group when she picks on someone.”
1960: Chad Mulligan perspiring in a hound’s-tooth check tweed suit which was all the costume rental agency had left in his size when he shrugged and let Guinevere persuade him to attend.
“Yes, of course I’m nervous. I hate to miss these parties of Gwinnie’s because normally I make out fine and she’s never picked on me yet, but this time I’m violating the conditions so flagrantly—I mean, this isn’t a last-century costume, it’s all I could dig out from my father’s wardrobe and it says right on the label ‘Summer collection 2000’ but there wasn’t anything older.”
1899: an incredible multi-caped garment vainly hauled in around a large waist and a skirt dangling to the ground and a silly bonnet on top of it all and the excuse prepared that there was no reason in those days why a dress shouldn’t have been worn for two years or even longer.
“When Gwinnie gets really nasty I’m going to blast off. I know another party which ought to be humming by then.”
Any time: Gennice, Donald’s one-time shiggy, in a minor stroke of genius, an undatable Japanese happi-coat and traditional slippers to match.
“Must have been funny living in those days. I know someone who rebuilds and runs cars for a hobby, for instance, but for all he can do to the—what’s it called? Exhaust?—they stink worse than a barrel of whaledreck. Makes my eyes water just to go near one when he’s got it running!”
1978: Horace, a friend of Norman’s, in a ventilated parka with contrasting hood over jodhpurs, a perfect memorial to the way men’s fashions were going over the edge into pure schizophrenia in that hysterical epoch.
* * *
SITUATION: a lot of people drifting about and looking each other over covertly or sometimes overtly, knotting gradually into groups of former acquaintances separated by strands of people who never met before and who haven’t yet softened their self-consciousness to the point of blending in. In short, as was probably the case in Pharaonic Egypt where they first established the tradition of giving parties, a party that hasn’t jelled.
* * *
“That’s a very curious perfume you’re wearing, darling.”
Nervous laugh. “Of course, you’re an expert on that, aren’t you? Do you like it? It’s a bit musty, isn’t it? It’s something called Dior Catafalque that my mother gave me when she heard I was coming to your party.”
“Catafalque? Really? Isn’t that the thing they lay out corpses on when they’re lying in state?”
“Yes—I think that’s the idea. It’s supposed to be sort of musty and decaying.” Shudder. “Actually it’s pretty horrible, but it is in period, isn’t it?”
“Goodness, I wouldn’t know for certain. I’ll take your word for it, though.”
* * *
SITUATION: same.
* * *
“Don! Don!”
“Oh—hullo, Gennice. Nice to see you again.”
“Don, this is Walter that I’m living with now—Don Hogan that I was with before, Walter. Don, you don’t look as if you’re enjoying yourself at all.”
It shows that much? But they said keep on with your ordinary life until you leave, so … Wish I had the guts to back down. I’m frightened!
“I need a lift, I think. Don’t suppose Guinevere would approve, though.”
“There’s plenty of pot. And someone did say that that codder there—I think the name’s Ladbroke—was from Bellevue. He may have something.”