I’m in a hotel for four days, as I’m working in Victoria. It’s the Syon Park hotel, just past Hammersmith. I stayed here for a week after my facelift five years ago. I was smuggled in under a blanket, in case someone took a photo of me and spoiled the exclusive story. I was unable to open my jaw, so I existed on pineapple juice through a straw. I was in incredible pain, forced to lie on my back, so I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking, Oh God, what on earth have I done? My career will be over, as I’m not supposed to agree with things like slicing your face open. My excuse was that, well, you can’t write about frocks and plastic surgery if you don’t know that world inside out, but that was only part of it. I was hoping to look less tired, old, as I felt I wasn’t where I wanted to be, I hadn’t achieved anything. But it was a happy time, too. I was shut away from the world, unable to work (though I did file a long piece on Liz Taylor’s jewellery, and a Diary entry), not having to do anything or be anywhere. I’d thought it was a new start. It wasn’t.
So, here I am again, in the shadow of that lovely Robert Adam house. I’ve brought the puppies, and my room opens on to a lawn, which means they are not cooped up. I walk them twice a day round the park. David is here, too. He drives me to Victoria in the morning, takes the dogs to his flat, walks them, then comes to pick me up. He is trying very hard. I’ve trimmed his eyebrows. He keeps doing things such as running my bath and dropping me right outside the lobby while he parks the car. This must be part of why women get married: good service. Help. I’m so used to travelling the world on my own I find it strange, disconcerting, like having an extra arm.
Last night we had dinner at Farmacy in Notting Hill. They welcomed the dogs with open arms and brought champagne described on the menu as ‘minimum interfered with’.
‘I want to interfere with you,’ said David. You see, this is what he is like. No words from him for a good hour, not a single peep, then he comes out with a cliché. I’d popped into Space NK before we ate, to buy a Laura Mercier tinted moisturiser. ‘This is my natural habitat,’ I told David as we perused the vegan menu, as though I were David Attenborough, whispering near a gorilla.
He didn’t interfere with me later: I was working, sitting on the bed with my laptop like a giant chastity belt. Then we watched separate TV programmes on our iPads. Him: Bad Education. Me: I Know Who You Are, a Spanish thriller. And I was thinking, I just can’t decide. Do I want to be with him? Is it worth it? For someone to bring my bags to the room? There is no conversation.
Anyway, today, Wednesday, we are going on a minibreak. He is picking me up from work with the puppies and the luggage, and we are setting off for Devon, for all the world like Hugh Grant and Renée Zellweger. Unlike Bridget, I told him he doesn’t have to come. ‘What else do I have to do?’ he said. ‘I am Velcroed to your side.’
I warned him the hotel isn’t amazing (‘It doesn’t always have to be amazing,’ he said; you see, he doesn’t really get me, does he?), but it is comfy, dog-friendly, near Sidmouth and the moor, which is perfect for the puppies. I’ve told him to book lunch at the Pig in Combe the next day. This is the sort of place where they time the number of minutes it takes for lettuce to make it from the walled garden to your plate. They are exactly my kind of people. David has half an onion in his fridge for two months. This is my problem: I’d expected the countryside to be like Babington House, and it isn’t. I’ve been warped.
But it’s a normal thing, isn’t it, to be picked up and whisked off for a mini-break. I want to enjoy it and not allow it to be mired by imperfection. Let’s just see how it goes…
Illustration: Bee Murphy