The first arrival was usually Mig from San Francisco. A highly intelligent ex - diplomat who had links to the famous Schwartz toy store in New York. It was Mig who always bought the latest music and so it was that we were able to listen to Sergeant Pepper and Tommy in real time not Calcutta time. She was passionately attached to Desmond and constantly offered the security of an American passport if he would but marry her. There were some perilous times when my mother was called in to ensure his chastity. Despite this Mig and Mum were good friends - perhaps each recognised the other's hopeless obsession.
Mig would start her holiday with us in Calcutta, staying at the Grand and giving us all the chance to spend the evening there. She and Desmond would glide around the dance floor and, if she was lucky, the hold would be tightened and a light pinch of the bum would cause her to float, glassy eyed and helpless in his grasp. Do not for one minute think that my mother took this lying down - in fact there was,most evenings, a hissed row about leading the poor woman on. Her great moment of revenge came late one evening when Desla and Migla had spent a great deal of time swaying to Bessame Mucho - too much in her opinion - and she was bored and irritated.
Into the restaurant came the legendary figure of Boris from Kathmandhu. He was White Russian, had been a dancer in the Ballet Russe and set up Kathmandhu's must stay hotel, the Royal. There was much joy at meeting of old friends and he joined us for a drink. It wasn't long before Desmond led Mig back onto the floor and then Boris asked my mother to dance. Like a greyhound out of the traps she was on her feet and they soon were foxtrotting and quickstepping everyone else from the floor. Her teenage years had been during the war and her dancing was honed from endless nights when dancing was the only release from the fear of the war and the bombs. Boris just loved to move in time with the music and between them they created an atmosphere of wonder as we watched them slip and glide and run and turn in perfect synchronicity.
Needless to say someone got jealous and, when the music stopped, casually handed Mig to Boris and took Mum into hold - what followed still makes me smile with the sheer joy of it. They did their Calcutta Grind - inspired by God knows what - but fabulous to watch. It involved legs entwined, slow pauses just behind the beat of the music followed by swift staccato movements to bring back to that rhythm. You would think it was something they had rehearsed for months but it was truly improvised and it was their being perfectly in tune with one another that allowed such risk taking. They were of course still involved in the hurling of epithets at each other, "Bitch," we heard as they passed one way, "Gigolo," as they returned. And when it was over and Begin the Beguine was closing the night, they danced more normally and laughed and laughed.
Mig would leave us to go to Kalimpong and the aunties - usually following this up with a quick trip to Bhutan or Sikkim. Then, the next group of visitors would arrive. There were normally Desmond's friends, mountaineers or journalists. Ed Hillary and his wife Louise would always stop in Calcutta en route to Nepal. Ed was extremely fond of Desmond and always wanted a few days with his friend. Mum and Louise got on very well - two men's women who respected and liked each other. One year they arrives full of excitement; they were going tot spend the next year in Kathmandhu. Over dinner Louis invited Mum and me to come up and stay when they had found a house to rent. It was agreed and plans were made.
Some two weeks later we woke to the horrible news that Louise, on a visit to her charity, Schoolhouse in the Clouds, had become a victim of the very dangerous landing of a plane in the Kathmandhu valley. The Statesman carried a picture of Ed looking up at the mountains that had made his fame, waiting for his wife to come back from them. It was an incredibly moving picture and one that Desmond branded as too intrusive.
The Hillarys would be followed by the French aristocrats - they would actually stay with us and so Janie and I were shipped off to friends or made to share a room. There would follow a week of frantic activity, delicious food and sightseeing - a mutually beneficial arrangement that allowed both parties to bend the rules on the use of hard currency. Later in the year we would go to Paris and stay at the George V - be wined and dined by the creme de la creme. Sadly I missed the wining and dining, too young, but I was taken to Fouquets for petit fours and hot chocolate. It started a love affair with Pairs that continues to this day.
They too would disappear into the mountain to return three weeks later remorselessly stripped of their Parisian chic and humbled into blue jeans and soft woolly sweaters. A few days recovery and then they would depart and we would await the next coming with anticipation and some unease.
Kalimpong. They would stay in a small hotel just off Chowringhee and attendance was mandatory both morning and evening. Annie Perry's bath was full of bottles of Johnny Walker Red Lane and the talking. drinking and dancing would continue late into the night. Mum was expected, with car and driver, not later than nine in the mornings to chaperon and ferry the three on their annual shopping spree. People keep telling how Calcutta has changed and yet I look at videos and see little more than some building work that has altered the skyline. For the aunties this was also the case, they shopped at the same shops they had used as girls: linen was bought and glasses and crockery - all inspected with sharp eyes and bargained for intensely - even an eight anna reduction was seen as a triumph. Then to silk shops as bolt after bolt of raw silk and pure silk were spread out for their delight and then to Flurys or back to us in Alipore for lunch followed by a rest and preparation for the night's festivities.
It was normally at this point that we all decamp to Puri, Mum needing a rest from the frantic hospitality and Dad needing a rest from having to be so social. After ten day of sunshine and sea we would return eager to pick up the baton again. And still they came, journalists reporting on the Bangladesh war, many of them verterans of Vietnam, without fear of authority and without thought for the consequences of their actions. Desmond would be awoken at tow or three in the morning to come and get them out of custody after they had been caught trying to creep up to the border. Chogyal and Hope from Sikkim, lovely meals eaten with gold cutlery and off silver and gold plates. The Bhutanese - wild parties, that I was yet again too young for, where dancing was de rigeur and the alcohol flowed a little too freely. Jockeys out out for winter's working holiday - at any one time there would be Geoff Lewis, Walter Swinburn Senior and Rimp or Lenny Dorji playing pontoon while on the other side of the room a passing BBC wallah was engaged in hot debate abut China's intentions for India and Tibet.
By now Dad would admit Desmond to Woodlands for a few days citing angina and forbidding all but essential visitors. He would also put his foot down firmly about the constant parties and my mother, in a state very close to total exhaustion, would submit joyously to his tyranny and we would slip gently and gratefully towards the hot weather and the slower pace of life this would demand.
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