Beautiful People: My Family and Other Glamorous Varmints Read Online Free

and Henriettas, who I might add, did not have any floor pillows chez eux and were therefore of very little interest to us.
    I was having slightly more luck finding the Beautiful People than Biddie.
    I took a job dressing windows at Aquascutum, the snottiest raincoat shop on Regent Street. Here I met a hilarious, well-heeled older gentleman who seemed to have the makings of a Beautiful Person. He did not need his paycheck but chose to while away his days selling trench coats to aristos and Japanese businessmen because it amused him. This petit eccentric was known among the staffers as the Baroness.
    The Baroness was so called because of his fancy Belgravia address and his even fancier black-marble-clad basement flat, wherein he entertained regularly.
    The Redgraves were neighbors. If you stood on the Baroness’s toilet seat, waited for the flush to stop gurgling, and angled your head a certain way, you could just about hear them on their back patio trying to outrant each other about left-wing causes and the latest theatrical scandals and triumphs.
    Even more excitingly, the Baroness lived a couple of houses down from Lord Lucan, the notorious gambling aristocrat who, only months prior, had bludgeoned his children’s nanny to death. He had mistaken her for his wife, the Countess Lucan. When he realized his error, he clobbered the countess as well and left her for dead. With the aid of friends in high places, Lord Lucan then went on the lam and has not been seen since. The Lucan story was the big news of 1975, and the Baroness basked in the reflected tabloid glare. Biddie and I were only too happy to bask in the reflected glare of the reflected glare.
    The Baroness was generous, fun, glamorously situated and, most tellingly, he had loads of floor pillows. Despite all this, we were beginning to suspect that he might not be one of the Beautiful People, especially given his habit, during cocktail parties, of slipping off his caftan and standing stark naked in the ornamental fountain in the middle of the living room, spotlit by one of those color-wheel revolving lights. Though he was undeniably in good shape and well-tanned from regular trips to Marbella, the Baroness’s ornamental years were long gone.
    And that light fixture was a bit rusty. It would squeak poignantly while our host stood waiting for a polite round of applause.
    No, the Baroness was not one of the Beautiful People. You might say he was Beautiful People–adjacent.
    The Baroness notwithstanding, London was hardly the whirligig of fabulousness we had anticipated. It was hardly fabulous at all. Our day-to-day lives were pretty much asturgid as they had been in Reading. We remained, however, insanely optimistic and terminally excitable.
    While waiting to be swept into the bracelet-encrusted arms of the Beautiful People, we kept boredom and madness at bay with regular trips to the Malaysian Simulator, an educational installation located permanently at the nearby Commonwealth Institute.
    The Malaysian Simulator was a dark, gallery-size room, the walls, ceiling, and floor of which consisted of back-projection screens. Visitors to this little-known, free-of-charge multisensory extravaganza consisted of Biddie, myself, and the occasional homesick Malaysian.
    “You will now be transported to Malaysia,” intoned a Big Brother voice as we gazed in awe at the entrancing images of rice fields, painted elephants, and beautiful dancing girls wearing exquisitely applied eyeliner and silver, pagodalike hats.
    “You will now experience the extreme humidity of Malaysia,” warned the voice as gusts of hot, moist air rushed into the darkened, magical room via strategically placed vents and up our fashionably wide trouser bottoms. We visited the Malaysian Simulator several times a week. This warm-weather minivacation provided a compelling and addictive antidote to the grim reality of our new lives, our rooming house, and our new neighbor Rita.
    As previously stated, Biddie and I