Hadji makes a run for it

Nonnie, Nonnie, Nonnie,
Please don’t take on so, it’s not like you at all.
(Well, let me amend that. Of course it is, but not to this degree) Please calm down!

I had just got in and saw your letter on the hall side table beckoning to me with all of the guile you
always call into play when you want something! Yes, Nonnie I know you far too well. So now I am
home and hosed I can pen a reply to you….
I know you have long hankered on some sort of heady reunion, and frankly in my quieter moments
so have I, but we need to bring a touch of reality into this. You are just escaping yet another ill
thought out marriage (although yes, its fair to say I was mighty envious you managed to pull off a
ceremony at Fitzrovia Chapel) but I am still in the thrall of the Bulgarian Snake Charmer.

The only thing that puts me off is that she will insist on the ruddy python sleeping next to us at night and when I get up to have a night time pee, I always worry that the thing has slid along the edge of the bed and taken my place, on account of it being warm and of course next to Dominika. Hmmm

As you can probably guess anyway Nonnie, at my age the only reason we share a bed is to keep her feet warm in winter. She still wont accept that Electric Blankets are safe and also made an unfair remark that because of my age I may well pee the bed and then both of us would end up as singed corpses in the morning. She has assured me that this won’t happen so long as I allow him to sleep with a pair of my pyjamas.

Yes, I know, most bizarre. He coils his body around them and he would think it was me. She said that snakes, especially pythons, have feelings as well and only want to feel loved and wanted. I still don’t know if this is a good idea or not because sometimes in the night I wake up and I can see he is pressing and squeezing said pair of pyjamas so tightly that a couple of the buttons popped off. I do wonder if on one occasion I came back to bed and he thought I was the pair of pyjamas, well, let’s just say I won’t be HERE to receive another one of your letters.

Yes, I know, a double edged sword and all that.

Frankly, its a little like Alice (de Janze) and we all know how that ended up, dont we?
Also, though I am not want to admit it, I think her father is using me for his own ends. No, Nonnie not in “that way” but in laundering his money. There is a lot of coming and going every day and lots of secret whisperings. The whisperings are academic anyway – I don’t speak Bulgarian. Why, even Boris has detected something about him, and he only opens the door for them. I am afraid Nonnie that her father has something on me and the unaccompanied minor. Yes, I know, it was years ago and she now has children of her own, but a rumour is still a rumour however long ago it was and I do want to leave this sorry saga with my candour still intact whilst appearing to still pay lip service to the underworld of Bulgarian Oligarchs .

Oh, what a sewer that man is.
Casually during breakfast one morning, he mentioned that he knew about it and then promptly placed some boxes in my hand and said I was to put them in our Vault at the Chase Manhattan Bank around the corner.

I can tell you now that even though I didn’t dare look inside, it was ruddy heavy
and it only leads me to think that he had something to do with the loss from Cons Gold
(Consolidated Gold fields) of some of the bullion from five years ago. Once I have deposited the boxes I have to return the key to him for safe keeping, but the unfairness of this is that some of our boxes are still stored there and in those said boxes is the key to our retirement so you can understand why I don’t want him getting confused and running off with those as well. I must be very careful and currently have moved them to an old paper carrier bag from Walmart’s which hopefully will throw him off the scent.
Anyway, back to us.
Nonnie, however much I love you (and you know that I still do,) you have to admit that a Somalian War Lord had more stability than we ever did.

Of course, it was fun and exciting when we were younger, pleasing ourselves and probably a lot of others into the bargain but at our tender age, we need warmth and companionship and no plates flying past ears when we are least expecting it. Did you know I still have a scar on my ear where you hurled the carving plate at me, and it shattered into

a thousand pieces? I always thought it a pretty shabby way to treat some Spode, but then of course
when you are brought up with it, as you were, you wouldn’t care. I am still slightly incredulous that
you used to take the hot bran out to the horses in the Spode Soup Tureen and even more speechless when you brought it back, swilled it out and poured the soup in it when we have folks over for dinner.

Talking of dinner, Persephone and Nigel came over the other night and it was during that time that
Dominika dropped another bombshell. Well, I was keeping an eye on the sodding python so was not
listening one hundred per cent but it would appear that I am to become a father. Yes, at my tender
age. More interestingly I know the sprog is not mine. As Billy Bob Clinton was want to say, “ I did
not have sexual relations with that woman” and Nonnie, this much is true. Dominika is firstly very
much in love with the python and secondly she nips out most afternoons for a liaison with Franklin
who is a Texan with much cash and has a “crash pad” as he loves to call it at The Dakota.

It’s not a building I would want to live in, even if the view is sublime as I have always loved our apartment in The Village. Quieter. Without fuss and dear faithful Boris still opening the doors for us some forty years later. Why Nonnie he even carries some sort of gun in his boots. Boots! Yes, I said it. He wears the equivalent of cowboy boots without the spurs even with a suit. I fear he must sleep with them,, if not in them! Who said money doesn’t buy class. Heavens above, its looking straight at me in the form of Franklin Hunter III

Anyway, I know that baby is not mine and if I can get some sort of paternity test done then I will and
my escape will be in view. Currently I can’t upset her, the python or her father. I am biding my time
Nonnie, I really am and when that time comes be sure I will do all I can to settle you back into the
sort of equilibrium that you need and require.

Just to keep the moment light, Sweetie, I wonder if you remember when guests used to do a bit of
bed hopping in the night when we lived at Clouds and how we always turned a blind eye but said
what goes on in the bedroom is fine provided you are all back where you started by the time the
staff come in and make breakfast. I remember when Persephone got so hammered on your Gin
Splits that she got up early in the morning, having left Roger’s bed; barged into our room and
realised it was not hers; left again, then forced her way through the locked door ( heaven knows how
she managed that) of the Harper-Stevensons and then having realised that only Margery was in bed
promptly fell onto it and went back to sleep.

Fast forward ten minutes when he came back expecting to snuggle up with Margery for the thirty minutes before breakfast but found more than a willing partner in Persephone. You can imagine the screams when Margery woke up and found herself in bed with an extra female and that said female between her and Roger and snoring heavily for all to hear. She certainly wrote a whole new chapter on “Menage a Trois!” that day. Must have got her ideas from Alice again!

Oh, such fun times, although sadly both Margery and to a smaller degree, Persephone, has put on a
lot of weight since then. Women like that do tend to run to fat don’t you think? To many Mint Julips
before the sun has even appeared over the yard arm – let alone set. Not sure they would be on
anyone’s A List now but they are kind and supportive friends and in this current debacle we need
friends Nonnie, we truly do..
Since starting off this missive to you and you now having reached this paragraph, we have had a bit
of a domestic. Dominika’s father has found out, heaven knows how, that some of the boxes have
gone missing from the vault. I assured him that it was not me – which it wasn’t = but it would
appear that someone had gone in there rummaging around and helped themselves to more than
they should. For the love of Mike and currently my arthritic kneecaps, was that you Nonnie?
Did you have the spare key to the vault which went missing all those years ago and go in there and
help yourself to the Bulgarian Barons spoils thinking that they were mine. Oh, Nonnie I sincerely
hope you didn’t. If you did then these should be returned at once before he really loses his head –
and I COULD LIKELY lose mine. He is none too pleased and has shouted very loudly at me and said I
was to return them by nightfall otherwise I would not see morning. Now however you dress that up,

I can only see it as a threat so whatever happens Nonnie, if you did take them – PLEASE RETURN
THEM STRAIGHT AWAY

In the meantime, I have asked Boris to fire up the Bentley. He has agreed that Bulgarians in the
Building is most infra dig and is aiding us in our Getaway. I am running as fast as my arthritic knees
will allow me to the Chase Manhattan and scooping up the Walmart bags and making a run
for it. Persephone said she would make a sandwich and meet me at the Docks, but quite frankly,
eating a pastrami on rye is probably the last thing on my mind.
Nonnie, we are all – minus Dominika and her python of course, making our way to Clouds.

Shall I see you there? TBC – I shall write en route in some shape or form.