Acquired Tastes

  Peter Mayle

  ACQUIRED TASTES

  Published by

  Escargot Books Online Limited

  North Yorkshire, England LS21 2JJ

  Copyright © 2012 Peter Mayle. All rights reserved.

  Peter Mayle asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this book.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  ISBN 978-1-908191-58-8 (ePub)

  ISBN 978-1-908191-59-5 (Kindle)

  Cover Design by Betina La Plante

  Author Photograph © Betina La Plante 2012

  eBook editions by eBooks by Barb for booknook.biz

  FOREWORD

  A GENTLEMAN’S FETISH

  THE BLACK STRETCH

  THE MOST COSTLY PASSION OF ALL

  THE BEST FIRST COURSE

  I’LL BE SUING YOU

  WHICH SIDE DO YOU DRESS?

  THE MILLIONAIRE’S MUSHROOM

  DEAR OLD THINGS

  SERVANTS

  IN DEFENCE OF SCROOGE

  HOW THE RICH KEEP WARM

  A MOUTHFUL OF BLACK PEARLS

  THE PERFECT SECOND HOME

  THE TRUE CIGAR

  HOUSE GUESTS

  THE SHIRT DE LUXE

  NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS

  THE HANDMADE HOTEL

  THE MALT

  THE WRITING HABIT

  FEEDING THE HAND THAT BITES YOU

  THE PRIVATE JET

  MANHATTAN

  CHER AMI

  FOREWORD

  This book is probably best read as a period piece. It was written on another period piece, an ancient Olivetti portable typewriter that actually used paper, during the years between the mid-eighties and the early nineties. In that primitive era, we somehow managed to get by without iPads and cell phones. We wrote and received letters. A portable phone, weighing several pounds, was a clumsy novelty. Computers took up half the space of a good-sized room. And the cost of luxury, by today’s inflated standards, was modest.

  As you will see, I haven’t tried to adjust the prices to bring them up to contemporary levels (which will undoubtedly have increased by next month, or even by next week). I decided that the original prices should remain for their historical interest, and because they have a certain nostalgic charm.

  Other things, beside prices, have changed. Sadly, my old friend, the master tailor Douglas Hayward, is no longer with us, although his shop in Mount Street is still providing marvellous clothes for London’s best-dressed men about town. The Connaught Hotel has been given a most elegant facelift. The Concorde has landed in the museum. I’m told that you can now find cut-price cashmere, and that genuine Havana cigars are available—if you know where to go—in America. Madoff has replaced Boesky. Many of the patient and helpful people who made my researches such a pleasure have retired.

  And yet one aspect of human nature remains unchanged. Most of us, I believe, still harbour a latent tendency toward extravagance. It lurks somewhere in the genes, ready to erupt at the hint of good fortune and the drop of a credit card. What else can explain the persistent accumulation of shoes by a woman who already owns 399 pairs, the acquisition of a second helicopter, a third Ferrari, a fifth house, a drum full of caviar? Who needs all that? And why? And are they worth the money?

  As I write, we are going through another period of economic distress and uncertainty, and it may seem inappropriate to dwell on these glimpses of high-level expenditure. But they are life’s consolation prizes, and as such I think they deserve to be celebrated.

  Peter Mayle, May 2011

  1

  A Gentleman’s Fetish

  There are two or three discreet establishments in London that for generations have catered to one of man’s lesser known vices. Their names are not advertised, except by word of mouth. Their premises have the hushed atmosphere that discourages loud speech or sudden movement. Conversation is muted and thoughtful, punctuated by occasional subdued creakings. The clients, almost to a man, sit or stand with heads bowed and eyes directed downward, as if reflecting on matters of considerable importance. And indeed they are. These gentlemen, after all, are investing £750 or more in a pair of hand-cut, hand-stitched, hand-built shoes, created solely for the very personal idiosyncrasies of toes and contusions and bony outcroppings that make up the unique gentlemanly foot.

  To some men—even those who revel in bespoke suits with cuff buttonholes that really undo, or made-to-measure shirts with single-needle stitching and the snug caress of a hand-turned collar—even to some of these sartorial gourmets, the thought of walking around on feet cocooned in money somehow smacks of excess, more shameful than a passion for cashmere socks, and something they wouldn’t care to admit to their accountants. Their misgivings are usually supported by the same argument: what could possibly justify the difference in price between shoes made by hand and shoes made by machine? Unlike the miracles of disguise that a tailor has to perform in order to camouflage bodily imperfections, the shoemaker’s task is simple. Feet are feet.

  They’re wrong, of course. What they don’t understand, and will never understand until enlightened by experience, is the addictive combination of practical virtues and private pleasures enjoyed by the man who has his shoes made by artists.

  It all starts with a ritual of initiation, and like any good ritual this one proceeds at a measured pace. You are not here to buy and run. You are committing your feet to posterity, and you must allow at least an hour for your first visit, maybe longer if your requirements are the kind that raise an eyebrow. But that comes later. First you must meet your guide, the man who will escort you through the opening ceremony. In more humdrum establishments, he might be called the fitter or the head salesman. But this shop is one of the last outposts of late Victorian baroque English, and he would probably prefer to think of himself as the purveyor.

  He will greet you courteously, but his eyes will not be able to resist flickering downwards for a brief assessment of your shoes. Nothing will be said, but you will be conscious, perhaps for the first time in your life, that another man is actively interested in your feet.

  You sit down, and your shoes are taken off. They suddenly look forlorn and rather shabby. Don’t worry about it. The purveyor is not concerned with them anymore; it’s your feet that fascinate him. Having confirmed that there are two, of more or less the same size, he summons his acolyte, who may be a fresh-faced apprentice from the cobbler’s bench or a wizened retainer. In either case he carries a large, leather-bound book, opened at two blank pages.

  The open book is placed upon the floor. You are asked to stand on it, one foot per page, and the purveyor kneels before you. Slowly, almost lovingly, he makes a map of each foot by tracing the two outlines onto the pages of the book. From those nearly prehensile big toes, round the mysterious knurls that embellish the little toes, along the sides, and deep under the arches, not a single wrinkle or irregularity is left unrecorded.

  Once the maps are completed, the topographical survey can begin. Everything is measured: altitude of instep, curve of heel, contours and slopes of the metatarsal range. You might even be asked if you normally wear your toenails that length, because millimetres count. At last you are allowed to step off the book and prepare yourself for decisions. Now is the time to choose the style of your shoe.

  While the choices are almost endless, it has to be said that you will not find Cuban heels, brass snaffles, three-tone snakeskin-overlaid broguing, or anything that might be considered a trifle gaudy. You, of course, have n
othing like that in mind. What you want is a classic, timeless, brown lace-up shoe. Simple.

  All you have to do is decide on the leather (calf, cordovan, crocodile, brushed deerskin); the precise shape of the toe (almond, slightly squared, standard rounded); the height of the heel (nothing too extreme, mind you, but an extra eighth of an inch might be arranged); the shaping around the arch of the foot (a chamfered waist is recommended here for a particularly smart finish); the extent of decoration (again, there are limits, but some restrained work around the toe and instep is highly acceptable); and finally, the laces (woven or leather, flat-cut or rolled). These absorbing details must not be rushed, because you will be living with the results for a long time.

  You eventually take your leave of the purveyor with expressions of mutual satisfaction for a job well and thoroughly done. He looks forward to seeing you again.

  But when? Several months go by without a word. And then, just as you’re beginning to wonder if your order has been confused with the Duke of Glencoe’s stalking boots, you receive a postcard. More baroque language, requesting the favour of a visit for a fitting, assuring you of their best attention at all times while remaining yours faithfully, and generally giving you the impression that they have come up with the goods.

  Your second visit to the premises is accompanied by a pleasant familiarity. The half dozen men—the same ones you saw months ago, for all you know—are still bent in devotion over their toecaps. The difference is that you will shortly be one of them, and here to prove it is the purveyor with your shoes.

  He holds them up for inspection. Two burnished offerings, the colour of ox blood, with brass-hinged shoe trees—works of art themselves—growing out of them. The purveyor trusts they will be satisfactory. Good God, they’re superb! And the minute you put them on, your feet assume a totally different character. They used to be frogs and have turned into princes. They have lost weight. Not only are these shoes lighter than a ready-made shoe, they are also narrower and more elegantly shaped. No wonder all those old boulevardiers spend hours staring downwards, marvelling at their aristocratic feet. You find yourself doing exactly the same.

  You are tactfully interrupted by the purveyor with some practical advice. Always insert the shoe trees immediately after removing the feet, while the leather is still warm. Make sure that whoever polishes your shoes (the assumption is that it will be a minion, and not yourself) works the polish well into the join between sole and upper. And bring the shoes in every year or so for servicing. (When you do, they will be received in the same way that a nursing home welcomes a rich hypochondriac, with solicitous inquiries as to his current state of health, followed by prolonged rest and treatment.) Given this kind of undemanding maintenance, your shoes will last twenty years or more.

  At current prices, therefore, you will be paying about £35 a year for the comfort of wearing shoes that really fit, and the pleasure of wearing shoes that will actually grow more handsome with age. The rituals, the ornately phrased postcards, the poring over leathers and laces and waxes and creams, and the agreeable thought that your lasts, the exact replicas of your feet, are in safe lodgings somewhere in the depths of Jermyn Street or St. James’s—all these are thrown in. As addictions go, this one is a bargain.

  2

  The Black Stretch

  It all started when the world’s first truly status-conscious man realized that the lowliest of his servants had exactly the same number of legs as he did. This posed a social problem—not in the privacy of the home, where the master’s status was part of the furniture, but out on the road. How could the proper manifestations of importance be maintained in the confusion of a pedestrian traffic jam? Suppose someone mistook our status-conscious man for just another two-legged servant? Something had to be done.

  Something was. Ingenuity came to the rescue, as it invariably does in matters of self-esteem. The status-conscious man decided that the way to show the world who was boss was to be transported in as lavish a fashion as possible. It was a notion that caught on.

  Indian princelings developed the chauffeur-driven elephant, with a penthouse balanced precariously on top. In eighteenth-century Europe, competition among the crowned heads to see who could come up with the most impressive set of wheels reached fever pitch. Matched sets of pearl-grey horses, coaches with rococo panelling, flunkies, whip-wavers, outriders—it was enough to make the Detroit designs of the fifties look like models of restraint.

  Fundamentally, nothing has changed. The idea of a form of transport that is at the same time highly visible to the mob and yet insulated from it remains as seductive as ever. And the most satisfying contemporary example of that is the coal-black stretch limousine. (White is vulgar, grey is a compromise banker’s colour, puce and magenta and antique crackle-finish gold are not for gentlemen. It has to be black.)

  There is something almost indecent about using several yards of machinery and the full-time services of another human being simply to move you the short distance between lunch and your next appointment. This, of course, is one of the most emotionally rewarding aspects of travel by stretch, but not one you would necessarily want to mention to liberal acquaintances who are concerned about equality, ecology, and our moral obligation to use mass transit. Better to keep that small pleasure to yourself, and to justify your limo bills on practical grounds.

  These you will find in abundance. All serious limousines are fitted with the following essential items: a telephone, a bar, and an electrically operated glass partition that seals off the driver where he belongs, in the engine room. (There is often a TV set as well, but who needs television when there are so many other ways to amuse yourself?)

  The phone is obviously invaluable for keeping in touch with lady friends and bookmakers, but it has an important business advantage as well. Car phones, fortunately, are still not entirely free from interference. So if the conversation gets sticky or you need time to think, tell your caller that you’re passing under a network of high-tension cables, whistle piercingly into the mouthpiece and hang up. Alternatively, tell him that a call has come through on the other line.

  The bar. Standard supplies usually include gin, scotch, and vodka. The more thoughtful limousine will also provide an ice bucket large enough for a bottle of champagne. There is comfortable seating for five or six people. You can see at once the opportunities for small mobile cocktail parties, with the driver stopping at liquor stores as the need arises. If your guests are the carefree kind who spill drinks, spray morsels of caviar onto the rug or shower the stereo system with cigar ash, at least it’s done on neutral ground and not in your apartment. And you will have had fun. A good stiff drink as you cruise down Park Avenue—or North Michigan Avenue or Beacon Street—tastes even better when the view from your window is of maddened executives locking horns over who saw the cab first.

  The impression of being in a pleasant cocoon, far from real life, is heightened by the decisive use of the glass partition between you and the driver. If your previous experience of partitions has been the greasy Perspex in taxis, which forces you to bellow your instructions at the driver and makes payment of the fare a process of crushed fingers and muttered oaths, the limo partition will come as a revelation to you. One touch of the button in your armrest and the conversation-proof glass hisses up and stops communication dead. (All professional drivers, for some reason, love to chat. Don’t tolerate it. You’re not paying all that money to listen to a lecture on Bush’s fiscal policies.)

  So there you are, a million miles from those yahoos on the street, immune from the weather, protected from small talk from the cockpit, going wherever you want to go in your own controlled environment. A perfect setting for a romantic assignation.

  Women love limos. The minute they settle back in the seat they feel pampered and relaxed. They mentally dab a little scent behind each knee. They take a little more to drink than usual. They tend to lean towards you and whisper. They bloom. A date in a stretch is more intimate, more impressive, and far
less prone to distraction than a movie and a candlelit dinner. It is an extremely focused occasion.

  A word of warning here. Whether on pleasure or business, it is important to observe chauffeur protocol, and this means curbing your natural warmth. We’re not suggesting rudeness; distant politeness will do very well. In other words, don’t try to shake hands with your chauffeur or ask him how he’s doing. Don’t encourage him to address you by your first name. And don’t ever open the door yourself, even if you have to wait a minute or two while he walks down the length of the car to let you out. These boys are pros, and they respect a pro passenger.

  After one or two outings, you will probably start to become more specific in your requirements. You won’t want any old limo. You’ll want a limo in which the details are exactly right. A compact-disc player instead of a tape deck. Leather upholstery rather than cloth. Single-malt scotch, a freshly ironed copy of the Wall Street Journal, a fax machine, a silver vase of freesias—once you get into the refinements you’ll never want to get out. But these come later.

  While, as we have stated, only a black limo will do, we draw the line at black-tinted windows, for two reasons. First, they encourage autograph hunters, who will sidle up when the car is stopped at a light and peer at you and possibly mistake you for Mick Jagger or, worse, Ivan F. Boesky. And second, they make it virtually impossible for your friends—or, better still, your enemies—to catch a glimpse of you as you place phone calls and get to grips with the crystal decanters. Clear-glass windows are our recommendation, but it’s a matter of personal choice.

  In the stretch business, as in most other businesses, there exists a reduced price trial offer. It works like this: Let’s say that you find yourself in Manhattan at the corner of 55th and Third one evening around 6:30. All the cabs are taken, but if you make yourself sufficiently obvious as a man in need of transport, it won’t be long before a prowling limo slows down. Hail it. Providing the driver likes the look of you, he’ll stop, because he’s just dropped his passenger and has a couple of hours to kill before picking him up again. Imbued with the spirit of enterprise, the driver will want to use this time profitably. As long as your destination won’t make him late for his pick-up, nobody will be the wiser and he’ll be a little richer. The exact price should be agreed on before you get in, but you can be sure that it will be less than a formal arrangement with the limo company.