It must have been with a deep sense of melancholy that Louis XIII of France heard from doctors on May 14, 1643, that he had less than an hour to live. The king answered: “Ah! Good news.”
Sadly, I am afraid the club has an inordinate amount of the stuff surging about its halls these days as our aging membership looks toward the coming curtain. For some mems there is no cheering up. They want to wallow in the warm mud of misery based on the misplaced perception of wasted lives.
So far I am not one of them, but it is tricky when most of my club friends are so down in the dumps. I refer back to cranky Louis XIII, who might have perked up if only he had known his son Louis XIV, a.k.a. the Sun King, would do more for France than most before him, not the least of which was building the magnificent Versailles. But never mind.
Some people I find hopeless in the “buck-you-up” category. Take last week, when George Smallpiece and I had lunch together at the club. Thursday, as any mem will tell you, is Toad in the Hole Day. Chef Roger really pushes the boat out with his famous Yorkshire pudding, filled with sausages and about a gallon of HP sauce covering it. You could go a long way before you would find something as brilliant as that.
Keep your five-star ratings for people who care, eh? We at the club know when we have a “keeper,” and the memorial dining room was packed to capacity because of it. However even in the face of this mind-stretching meal, followed sharply by the club raisin pie, Smallpiece would not come out of his mope. Perhaps it was because as a boy he had gone to a middle-of-the- road boarding school, but whatever it was, the man could mope for Canada. He is the sort of chap that if the PM came out and said “Free food for everyone” would reply in a tiresome fashion, “What, no marmalade?”
I don’t know what it is these days, maybe it’s in the water or something, but no one seems happy. As I said, I am not yet unhappy.
I did not amount to much, as my wife Kitty will attest, but I did not eat little children or kick my great aunts in the shins when they would not give me hot chocolate before bed. No, I was a pleasant po-faced child, curious and stupid like most others at that age, but not evil in any way.
I was able to take advice from teachers such as Mr. Nind. He once said to me: “You are a fool, Smythe-Brown,” to which I replied, “Yes, sir.” After a short pause he said: “What are you, boy?”
“A fool, sir.” came my reply.
But you see what I mean. I could bring a little sunshine into almost anyone’s life.
There are chaps here at the home of homes who have made a great deal of money but are still upset that at a junior cotillion 50 odd years ago, some bandy-legged debutante stuck her tongue out at them and refused to share their dance card. That was nothing as far as I was concerned, as girls called me horrid and cried if I approached them. They only pencil marks in my dance card said “Buzz off.”
To a gentle and soft mind such as mine at the time, this was hard to bounce back from, until I discovered I was very good at producing shadow animals on walls with my hands. This at least brought a curious few to my corner of the dance, although mostly from the acne school of thought, but a dance was a dance, as a sympathetic waiter pointed out to me.
I lumbered on through life in spite of those and many other setbacks, but to the former captains of industry sitting around at the club, the scars were still suppurating after all these years.
The lesson, I guess, is to never be in awe of others, as many appear, in spite of their outward power and wealth, to have devils churning away at them just like the rest of us and perhaps more so. Remember “toad in the hole.” One cannot go wrong there.
Cheer up, everyone, we could be much worse off. Get out of your chairs and do something.
Copyright Christopher Dalton 2015
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