Cheap tricks

The telephone rings and a downmarket voice greets me with a cheery hello. ‘This is Peter McKay, your old friend,’ says the bubbly one. ‘We hear that Vanity Fair paid for your party.’ For any of you unfamiliar with McKay, he is a scandal-purveyor of talent, malice and unparalleled mischief, who writes under the pseudonym of Ephraim Hardcastle in the Daily Mail. My first reaction, needless to say, is to wonder why VF should pay for my party. And I tell him so. ‘No, VF did not pay for my party, but Graydon Carter, the editor, and his wife Anna, as well as Dominick Dunne, a VF columnist, were invited as they are old and good friends of mine.’ McKay obviously read this as an affirmation because the next day he led off with an item which stated that ‘the shindig, which lasted until 5 a.m., was planned in consultation with Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair, which flew its society writer, Dominick Dunne, to London, berthing him at Claridges, to report exclusively on the bash. Columnist Taki often rebukes vulgarians whose parties feature in celebrity magazines. Did VF buy up his birthday bash?’

The mind boggles. The English language provides words only up to a point when one wishes to answer in the negative. If one goes on too long, one tends to protest too much. So, what to do? Hang up is one way, but it will be taken as an affirmation. Make sure gossip merchants do not have one’s telephone number is another, but that, too, will be seen as an affirmative answer to their non-posed question. Kill all gossip columnists seems to be the only solution. But then I might have to commit suicide myself.