Will Harris catches up with an old friend

My lunch date was Bryony Tomkins, a society journalist for one of the more caustic tabloids. Having known each other for years, Bryony and I shared a complex relationship, characterised by long periods of intense camaraderie followed by shorter periods when one of us refused to speak to the other over some perceived slight. It was a sort of emotional crop rotation, mutually acknowledged but never discussed; these ‘fallow’ periods, we both knew, were necessary for our friendship to continue to thrive.

“I was being simultaneously winked at by Didier Drogba and the Duchess of Cornwall’s bust”

As I approached the table, Bryony regarded me through a copy of the Evening Standard. She appeared to have torn a small eyehole either side of the fold, giving the unsettling impression I was being simultaneously winked at by Didier Drogba and the Duchess of Cornwall’s bust. “Darling, before you say anything,” she said, “there is an explanation.”

“Oh God, right. I was at a summer fete yesterday, for the children of the Gambia. Well, the idiot PR had said they were expecting an Ecclestone daughter. He thought it was going to be the one with the legs, which is usually a page five, but of course it turned out not to be either of them but…” Here Bryony dropped the name of a business tycoon whose marriage was on the rocks (rocks that had been carefully researched, verified by Bryony herself little over a month previously).

What, she asked me, would I have done in that situation? This businessman, having clearly seen her name on the guestlist, was hovering by the garden’s only exit, one finger tapping the rim of his champagne in a disconcerting manner. In a fit of desperation, she had looked around and seized upon her only possible route of escape: a stall where children were having their faces painted with flags of the world.
“You don’t mean…?” My mouth hung open as Bryony slowly lowered the newspaper. Covering her entire face – faint but unmistakeable, were the triple stripes of the German flag.

“I’ve tried everything,” she said, hurriedly, “and it is coming off, but this stuff is like bloody creosote. I suppose it doesn’t matter if you slap it on the under-fives. They don’t have to sit through a morning meeting with their editor.”
“But…” It took me some time to find the words. “Why the hell did you ask for Germany?”
“I thought it would offer the best coverage. You know, because of the black. Please don’t be angry but that’s why I had to break our plans for the Jubilee. I couldn’t bear the looks I’d get. I mean, it’s not even in the Commonwealth.”