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first outing right here at Crendlesham Hall some months ago and is for ever associated with an unfortunate social gaffe I inadvertently made in the course of the evening. I also wore the same adorable suit a little later for a crucial dinner aboard an Australian billionaire’s yacht and that occasion, too, brings back discomforting memories. The upshot is that this masterly creation of Blaise Prévert’s is, through no fault of mine or his, unhappily tainted. My mohair and denim slacks by His Majesty would have done admirably, but fate arranged for me to be wearing them at my last birthday party. The result was that not only did they spend part of that night on a bare mountain and the rest in Marta’s sopping slum, but they were all I had left to wear for the next several days. When eventually I retrieved them from the dry cleaner in Woodbridge I realised they were beyond saving. The mud and scuffing of that traumatic night had ruined them. It begins to seem as though anything decent I buy to wear is sooner or later doomed to bring humiliation, ruin and despair upon their blameless owner. But since taking up with Adrian I have had optimism thrust upon me, and it takes more than reverses of fortune to turn a Samper into a sloven. I went to London and did some necessary shopping. Given that practically my entire worldly wardrobe was lying beneath tons of rock and earth on a mountainside high above Viareggio, it seemed a pretty good excuse for doing the January sales.
    I now break out a creamy linen and merino suit by Erminio Zaccarelli so drop-dead gorgeous that even if tonight’s assorted bumpkins affect to be unimpressed by my financial windfall they will at least be obliged to fall properly silent before such sartorial poetry. Adrian has been wittering on in the background about the sort of opera libretto I might write when he breaks off suddenly.
    ‘Good God, Gerry, are you going to wear that suit?’
    ‘I am. It’s rather a masterpiece,’ I say a little stiffly.
    ‘I can see that. All I meant is that it’ll be like putting on tails to do the gardening. You wait till you meet the guests. Have you never seen orchestral players when they’re not in black ties in the pit? Think Oxfam. Or better, Millets.’
    ‘Well, I can’t help that. It’s the job of a peacock to make ordinary fowls look dowdy, and all the more so if the peacock has just sold its film rights for a quarter of a million quid. It’s very salutary for the rest of the barnyard. It pushes the bar higher even as it lowers their spirits. Anyway, what was it you were saying?’
    ‘About your opera? Just that I think your talents are perfect for farce, Gerry. Try this. Two newlyweds go abroad for their honeymoon. Their plane is hijacked and they’re held captive by the modern equivalent of Barbary pirates in one of those pretend countries like Mauritania. A sort of Il Seraglio parody but full of topical zingers. Their captors are extremely radical. In fact – yes – they’re the militant gay wing of Al Qaida, that’s how radical. They’re demanding th—’
    ‘No, Adrian. That’s not at all the sort of thing I have in mind. I’m aiming for the grand and the serious, not a satirical musical.’ I zip up my gorgeous new trousers decisively.
    ‘It can be called Has Anyone Interfered With Your Bag?’
    ‘No it can’t. I admit that’s a great title but no, Adrian. My ideas are running more along the lines of something lofty and sad. I’m toying with the Epic of Gilgamesh.’
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘ What’s that? Honestly, you scientists. Where have –’
    But at this moment there’s a hooting from the drive down below. We go to the window and glinting in the porch light is the roof of a taxi. Standing next to it is a mountainous man in furs, one arm thrust through the driver’s window. When he turns to go into the house the light from the open front door falls on his face, revealing him to be wearing a full gorilla suit. When eventually