“Thank you, Masser Gary,” said Sandra, as I got her looking presentable. “Sandra love Masser Gary. Masser Gary love Sandra?”

“Masser Gary love Sandra very much,” I said. “Now get a shift on, or I’ll confiscate your head again.”

I do say that by the time we’d finished, Sandra looked pretty good. She’d have passed for living any day of the week. Except, of course, Tuesdays. And when the cab came to pick us up and whip us off to the world-famous night club, I knew that it was going to be a night to remember.

Which, of course, it was.

I don’t know about you, but I love dressing up. I’ve always been something of a dandy and I see nothing wrong in that. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. And if you haven’t got it, then at least you can make the effort, so the fact that you haven’t got it isn’t so glaringly obvious.

Clothes maketh the man, so said the Bard of Brentford. And I’ll tell you this, I looked pretty damn fab dressed in the height of seventies fashion. High stacked shoes with double snood gambolbars and trussed tiebacks of the purple persuasion. A triple-breasted suit cut from Boleskine tweed (as favoured by Mr Penrose, though of course the style was different when he cut a dash as the Best Dressed Man of nineteen thirty-three). A kipper tie, made from a real kipper, dipped in aspic and with flounced modulations on the soft underbelly that glittered against my shirt of quilted fablon. I looked the business and I did feel sure that one day soon I would actually be the business.

If only someone really famous would hurry up and die.

Over my dazzling ensemble I wore a trenchcoat and fedora, in homage to Lazlo Woodbine. Sandra wore a trenchcoat and a fedora too. All invited guests were required to do so. And of course we wore our masks.

The masks were Barry’s idea. He had to maintain anonymity. The book was published under the name that Mr Penrose had given to him, Macgillicudy Val Der Mar. But Barry didn’t dare to be seen. So he’d come up with the idea that everyone should wear masks. Which suited me fine, as I didn’t want my picture in the paper. Nor Sandra’s: questions might be asked if Sandra was seen again in the flesh. They might well be asked by Harry, who was Peter now. So Sandra and I and Barry were all better off in our masks.

I wore an elegant domino in black-and-white check. Sandra wore a rather fetching facsimile of Roy Rogers’ Trigger.

Well, she wasn’t really up to impersonating ponies any more and I thought she looked good in it. Both masks had nice big mouth holes, so that we could talk and drink and stuff our faces with expensive food, which was what you did at such functions.

At a little after nine of the summery evening clock the cabbie drew us to a halt outside “Peter’s” night club.

Now, I don’t know what gets into cabbies. They seem to live in a world of their own. They take you (eventually) to where you want to go, by a route picturesque and circuitous, and then they charge you some fabulous sum and expect you to pay up without a fuss. And then if you do make a fuss they become surly and make threats about calling the police.

When our cabbie disclosed to me the extent of his charges, I counselled him that he should drive us on a little bit and park up a quiet side road, so I could “deal with the matter”.

Which I did.

Peter’s night club looked simply splendid. It was very posh, with lots of flashing light bulbs on the front. They were very nice flashing light bulbs. Mostly PR177s, although I noted several XP701s and a couple of DD109s. I really knew my bulbs by then. I took a pride in it. Knowledge being power and all that.

The bouncer looked like a right sissy boy to me. He was tall and thin and certainly didn’t look as if he knew how to handle himself. I showed him our gilt-edged invitations.

“Got any drugs?” he asked, as he frisked me.

“No,” I said.

“Good,” he replied. “Pass on, sir.”

“‘Pass on, sir’?” I said. “Do you mean to tell me that you’re not going to try and sell me any drugs?”

“Certainly not, sir,” said the skinny boy bouncer. “This is not that kind of night club. Now, pass on, sir, while I frisk this spastic with the horse’s-head mask.”

“Spastic?” I said. “That’s no spastic, that’s my, er, sister.”

“So sorry, sir,” said the skinny boy. “But her left leg is – how shall I put this? – a bit funny. The foot facing backwards and everything.”

“Ah,” said I. And I corrected Sandra’s foot.

The sissy boy reached out his hands to frisk Sandra, then thought better of it and waved her on. And so we entered the night club.

And we were greeted at once by Harry/Peter. “Greetings,” he said. “And welcome.”

“Good grief,” I said. “Harry, you’ve changed.”

“Who’s saying that to me?” asked Harry/Peter.

I lifted the chin of my mask.

“Gary,” said Harry/Peter. “Good to see you. I haven’t seen you since Sandra’s funeral. Are you doing OK?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “You know, bearing up. But look at you. You’re all slim and stylishly dressed and what about that haircut.”

“It’s a mullet,” said Harry/Peter. “The very acme of style. And as style never dates I shall be keeping it for the rest of my life.”

“And all power to your elbow,” I said.

“And are you still working at the telephone exchange?”

“Job for life,” I said. “And still loving every minute of it.”

“Well, good for you. Go in and mingle. I have to greet guests. Here comes the Sultan of Brunei. See you later.”

I led Sandra into the glittering bowels of the world-famous night club.

Barry sat at a table signing copies of his book. He wore upon his head a paper bag with two eye-holes and a mouth cut out. The ironic wit of this disguise wasn’t lost upon me.

I jumped the queue and tipped him the wink. “How’s it going?” I asked.

“Who are you?” asked Barry.

I lifted the chin of my mask. “And who are you?” I asked.

Oh, how we laughed.

Barry signed me a freebee.

“I shall treasure this,” I said. And then a thought suddenly crossed my mind and I leaned towards Barry.

“Barry,” I said, “a thought has just crossed my mind. If you’re here, who’s manning the bulb booth?”

“My brother Larry. He’s my twin brother, so no one will know the difference.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “Drinks later?”

“Sure thing,” said Barry. “By the way, who’s the spastic? Is she with you?”

“See you later at the bar,” I said.

Now, I don’t know whether you’ve ever been in Harry’s/Peter’s world-famous night club. Probably not, if you’re poor, or just working class, which accounts for most of us, but I do have to tell you that it’s rather swish.

There’s lots of chrome and marble and black shiny stuff and lots and lots of women. Beautiful women, and most of those women have hardly any clothes on.

I looked all around and about, at the place and at the women, and I thought to myself, this is for me. This is the life-style that is for me. The life-style I was born to. Oscar Wilde once said that every man reaches his true station in life, whether it is above or below the one he was originally born into. And old Oscar knew what he was talking about. And not just because he was a homo.

I knew instinctively that this was for me. This was where I belonged.

“Masser Gary buy Sandra drink?” asked my lady wife, the late Mrs Cheese.

“Indeed,” I said to her. “I’ll get you a cocktail.”

I ordered Sandra a Horse’s Neck – well, it went with her horse’s head. I was impressed that this time it didn’t come out of the drip tray and it had a cherry and a sunshade and a sparkler on the top.

The barman told me the price of it and I laughed politely in his face. “I’m with Mr Val Der Mar,” I told him. “A close personal friend. The drinks are on his publisher tonight.”

“Fair enough,” said the barman. “I was only trying it on. I’m saving up for a motorbike.”