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Gertrude Stein had the right idea about parties. When the poet and modernist art collector invited artists to her Parisian apartment, she would hang their paintings on the wall opposite their seat and let them bask in the glow of their own genius.
My dinner party is going to be full of writers, so I will either have to hammer up pages of their work or think of another way to keep things cheerful. Luckily, Stein is my co-host for the night and stomps in early, far more cheery than Picasso’s severe portrait makes her appear. She squints approvingly at the guest list, declares the group perfectly dissonant and begins rearranging the furniture.
I want somewhere cosy and dark to gather, so we travel back to the haunted summer of 1816, when ash from the Mount Tambora volcano blocked the sun in many places around the world and there was little to do but sit inside, eat and tell stories.
We are dining in a villa near Lake Geneva, staving off the cold with fire and candlelight. We have not invited our neighbours, the year’s most famous group of travelling writers. Although Stein would like to press Lord Byron on his poetry and poor Mary Shelley could do with some fun, we agree that tormented twentysomethings might spoil the mood.
But a kitsch cocktail should start the evening off nicely. Tonight we have fairy-pink Femme Fatales, a sweet champagne-based cocktail made with crème de fraise sauvage and cognac, which I drank once in Phnom Penh’s fancy Raffles Hotel Le Royal and haven’t stopped thinking about since. Stein accepts hers without looking, already directing the conversations. Nancy Mitford appears at my elbow, cooing over the pretty drink.
The novelist is in high spirits, full of jokes and compliments. But she can’t help noticing material ripe for mockery in future stories. Her eye lands on the walls. “Did you nail these pages of my novel up yourself, darling? That’s a funny thing to do.” Before I can answer, country music sweetheart Dolly Parton bursts through the door — a tiny, laughing vision in glittering sequins — linking arms with Frank O’Hara. The American poet is humming a Marlene Dietrich song and ready for gossip.
Last, and a little bemused to be here, is Satoshi Nakamoto, the mystery computer programmer who created bitcoin. The search for Nakamoto has been a decade-long game for the obsessive cryptocurrency community. After clarifying that he is not Elon Musk, Nakamoto joins in a loud discussion with the poets on the similarities between decentralisation and the death of the author, until Parton points out that the food has arrived.
On the table sit buckets of iced champagne and carafes of a peculiar purple and yellow plum liqueur that Stein has brought from home. There are dishes of Morecambe Bay potted shrimp, covered in a thick layer of butter and served with toast. Mitford declares this a favourite food of the British royal family. Oh, but not the Queen Mother, whom she calls “Cake”.
Stein has no patience for royal chit-chat and any hope she had nurtured of a sober dissection on art has been blotted out by this rowdy crowd. O’Hara begins reading aloud one of his poems and asks Parton to sing along.
I excuse myself to check on Samin Nosrat, the California-based chef and writer. I find her heaving a pan of buttermilk-roasted chicken from the oven, its skin brown and crackling. We carry it out to the table with bowls of salad and rice scented with saffron and sweet onions. My guests, who have consumed quite a lot of champagne, all cheer.
I lean over to ask Parton about her role in funding the Covid-19 vaccine but Mitford and Stein, who haven’t been told about the current pandemic, confuse this for a reference to the 1918 flu and start a conversation about lost generations. Hoping to stop the night from becoming maudlin, I hurry out our final course, a steaming bowl of my mum’s bread and butter pudding, served with cold custard.
Pudding or dessert? Mitford denies having an opinion, notwithstanding the satirical “U and non-U” article on class distinctions in speech she wrote in 1955.
“A pudding is a pudding is a pudding,” shouts Stein. Unsure whether this is an example of her notorious use of repetition or just the plum liqueur talking, I hand out cups of strong coffee and tiny pop biscuits. Harvested that morning from Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree, they burst in your mouth and are full of honey. Somebody gives Stein a few pickled limes, the craze that caused Amy so much trouble in Little Women. They are so sour that she immediately starts to sober up.
Suddenly she catches a glimpse of Nosrat through the kitchen door and rushes off to argue about Oakland, California, where Nosrat lives happily and Stein, who grew up there, once bleakly described as a place where “there is no there there”.
Parton and O’Hara start dancing towards the door. Someone has let slip that a group of young artists is staying next door and they are determined to keep the party going. Parton winks as she hands us our coats. “C’mon darlins, let’s see what else this night has to offer.”
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