“A Saturday evening in May, 1949, and I am taking a moonlight leak in the garden at Ditchley. Hedges and statuary cast elegant shadows nearby, but I’ve had a bit of wine and it probably doesn’t occur to me that this is one of the better alfresco loos I have visited – the Italianate garden installed by Sir Geoffrey Jellico in 1935, as a culminating grace note to the celebrated Georgian pile of Ditchley Park, in Oxfordshire, designed by James Gibbs and built in 1722. Ditchley, with a deer park and a village within its borders, is headed inexorably for the English Heritage Register but for the moment remains the country home of my old friend Marietta FitzGerald and her delightful, fairly recent second husband, Ronald Tree, who is standing a few feet to my left here, in identical posture, his chin in the air as he breathes in traces of boxwood and early primrose. Beyond him, also aiming, is Major Metcalfe, a neighbor of Ronnie’s and another dinner guest of his on this evening. He is the same Major Metcalfe who proved such a staunch friend to King Edward VIII at Fort Belvedere during the difficult abdication days, in 1936, and who stood up as best man the following year, when the King, reborn as the Duke of Windsor, married Wallis Warfield Simpson in Monts, France. Major Edward Dudley Metcalfe, M.V.O., M.C., I mean, who at any moment, surely, will invite me to call him Fruity, the way everybody else does. He and I are in black tie, and the moonlight lies magically on his satin lapels, just as it does on mine. Ronnie is wearing a beige velvet smoking, perfectly O.K. for a country host, I guess, but he looks less dashing or narrow, less right, than Fruity and I do. Good old Fruity.”
– from “La Vie en Rose,” an essay in Roger Angell’s wonderful Let Me Finish.
Writing this fine should not be read during Lent, even on Sunday.
It is times like these that I suffer from penis envy. Never would a woman be able to write so beautifully and languorously of a “midnight leak,” and it pains me. If a woman were to write of such a thing, it would look something like this:
…A Saturday evening in May, 1949, and I am taking a moonlight leak in the garden at Ditchley, because the line for the women’s bathroom went on forever. I stood there at the end of it for the longest time and it simply was not moving. I watched five women pile in there together and shut the door behind them. Fifteen minutes later not one of them had emerged. Surely, they were in there gossiping leisurely, reapplying powder, leaving those of us in line to suffer. Selfish tarts! So here I am now, crouched behind a hedge, having had a bit too much wine, trying to hold the manifold ruffles of my petticoat above my waist, an intrepid mission, and perhaps it would occur to me that this is one of the better alfresco loos I have ever visited if I weren’t trying so hard not to pee on my shoes. This Italianate garden installed by Sir Geoffrey Jellico in 1935, as a culminating grace note to the celebrated Georgian pile of Ditchley Park, in Oxfordshire, designed by James Gibbs and built in 1722…holy crap my thighs are burning. Burning! This is a form of torture. No one can be expected to hold a drop squat for two whole minutes. And with such awkward footing! Why did I drink all of that wine??? Why??? Ditchley, with a deer park and a village within its borders, is headed inexorably for the English Heritage Register but for the moment remains the country home of my old friend Southern Expat, who is crouching a few feet to my left here, in identical posture, her face cringing in pain as she shouts, “This is worse than P90X!” Beyond her, also crouching and wrestling with a petticoat, is Betty Duffy, a neighbor of Expat’s and another dinner guest of hers on this lovely evening, who whispers, “I kicked off my shoes so I wouldn’t pee on them, and I think one of them landed in the pond! I heard a splash!”
“Oh, crap!” shouts Expat.
“Does anyone know if England has poison ivy?” I shout. “Because some kind of foliage is brushing up against my bare ass, and it better not be poisonous.”
The moonlight lies magically on the water, which sends out concentric ripples from where Betty Duffy’s slipper sunk to its doom. As she hobbles back into the Great Hall, she is sure to look less dashing, less right, than Expat and I do. But that is the toll, I suppose, of a midnight leak in the garden.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner.
It is times like these that I suffer from writer’s envy.
Brava.