Life inside the club's memorial doors is a kaleidoscope of activity. One day, for instance, after Mrs. Qwackenbush, our pastry chef, provided one of her superb apple crumbles, we gathered in the senior reading room for a little to-ing and fro-ing.
We were entranced by an expert on Alexander the Great who pointed out that his mother, Olympias, murdered father Philip's new son (hence Alexander's rival) and his little sister by pressing their faces into a brazier.
We had another talk for three hours on the importance of weather and armed conflict, particularly concerning Drake and the Armada, with Agincourt as a sidebar. All fascinating stuff that just seems to roll about in the club like expensive scents let loose.
On other occasions, there is hilarity.
Last Wednesday, one of the more surly waiters (Stanislaus) took a header down the main stairwell, which was perhaps unfortunate but very funny.
Tut tut all you wish, but it was one of the most amusing sights we had ever seen and laughed for hours. If you knew the waiter in question, you would have laughed as well for it was one of the few times in life where a fool gets his just deserts.
Here was a man who could not serve without giving a smart remark or a stupid grimace.
In this case, he was making an insipid face when he stepped into space at the top of the stairs and then rolled loudly down to the first landing, where he regained his feet and dazedly fell down the next group of stairs, this time taking out the president of the club, Mr. Baron de Boeuf, who was coming up said stairs with a prospective member.
There hasn't been such language used within the club since a former lieutenant governor spotted his mistress in the arms of one of the staff circa 1923.
An old friend of mind, dear Stuart, who was an expert on constitutional law and would regale us with amusing examples, is leaving us, slowly.
He has recently been diagnosed with that dreaded disease I refuse to name, as I hope it will just go away if I don't. He is being enveloped by a fog.
His wife Ruth drops him off every day, with the doorman escorting him to his chair by the dining room, where he sits nodding pleasantly to all who pass.
We were at school together, and he was by far the brighter of the two of us. I often wondered why he liked me at all, for to be that close to someone who was an intellectual giant was quite intimidating.
But I was deeply grateful for the place of honour and I was always hopeful that at least a small part of his grey matter might rub off on me.
This is a most unfair disease for someone of his ilk, to slowly have the curtain of dullness pulled over his cognitive ability. I have often thought that it must be torture for it to happen slowly so one is aware of one's diminishing talents -- not suddenly, as in an accident, with no realization of time nor place.
At the club we rally around him, ribbing him about past endeavours and times long gone. He smiles and laughs, often in the wrong places, but we carry on, with some holding his hands.
When we take him on excursions to the ocean, which his wife tells us was a favourite pastime, he stares out at the blue horizon as if looking for someone who might be coming soon. We don't know, really, but we stare too.
One day when I was sitting beside him in the reading room as he looked at the far wall, he suddenly gripped my arm and said, "Nigel, you always made me laugh, that's why."
Goodbye, my friend.
