‘Pyjama party ... at 11 Downing Street, Gordon and Sarah Brown ...” It’s coming out slightly muffled, because I’m gingerly levering my immobile post-mastectomy arm into some wispy Zoran silks, while trying to affect unconcern about the Nivea from my scar smearing itself on these clothes which are as expensive as they are lightweight. But it’s still a good line.
Forget thousand-pound-a-ticket charity bashes: the tightest-kept secret of all is that you have to be in children’s book reviewing if you want to name-drop the really swell parties. Lucky I am, then, because while Vogue’s Fiona Golfar has been rattling off A-list gossip all morning, all I’ve been able to counter with is my “Hendon theory” - the one that posits that all important news stories have a Hendon connection.
But when Fiona wants to know if there’s anything particular I need clothes for - other than my date next week with the second, and vastly more expensive, phase of my chemotherapy treatment - I get to say: “Yes, the chancellor and his wife are hosting a launch for a story collection, Stars at Bedtime.” The invitations, studded with the names of attending celebrities, came complete with sets of Boden pyjamas, correctly sized and gendered, for accompanying children.
Grown-ups are expected in day-wear, however, this shopping trip has yet to persuade me out of my current wardrobe staple, the button-down silk pyjama tops from Marks & Spencer. Though these changing rooms are as wide as hospital bedrooms - and for a moment I’m flooded with the full horror of just how awful it would be to undertake this search for post-mastectomy clothing in Brent Cross - and though these clothes are indeed soft, there is no way they withstand the combination of the chemotherapy-induced menopausal hot sweats, and the cream for the scar. The M&S silk, you see, is washable.
We take a break from the body to tackle the face. The other closely guarded secret is how fantastic chemotherapy is for the complexion. “Amazing, translucent, like after giving birth,” the Vogue people marvel. But it makes short shrift of the eyebrows, leaving them scarred-looking, like little storm-tossed caterpillars.
The friendliest woman in London opens a door off Marylebone High Street. Vaishaly Patel, eyebrow-shaper extraordinaire - Liz Hurley, Elle Macpherson, now me - says, “I can always find a line”, and proceeds to do just that, revealing along the way that she hails from, where else, Hendon.
Revived, Fiona now knows what’s needed. Against the skin, wide-armholed, thinnest cotton vests - without Lycra. And on top? We head for Pleats Please, Issey Miyake’s diffusion line - herewith, the solution to breast-challenged dressing. These clothes, composed of knife-pleat folds, are a polyester material which is not only washable, it also stretches then regains its shape, so you can open it wide to fit over painfully unmoving limbs, or ease it over bruised and battered chests. And more: the way the pleats work with the body and the light, they create mystery around flatness. There is a deal to be done between Marks & Spencer and Issey Miyake. Nothing on the high street is like these clothes.
“It’s fine, none of the kids will be wearing the Boden pyjamas,” I tell Anthony, before we leave for Downing Street. “Not dead,” one says of the chances of her wearing the charmingly old-fashioned Boden nightdress, while our son firmly accessorises his violently garish Spiderman pyjamas with Thomas the Tank Engine slippers that toot when you press the toes.
Down the utterly traffic-free road the Browns inhabit, and through the front door where I realise at once that mine are the only children not turned out in pastel clothes devoid of any, you know, cultural references.
Gordon Brown bears down on our son: “Welcome, thank you for coming.” “Yes, hi, guess what pyjamas I’m wear-” He’s is in full flow when a puzzled look crosses his face. Accustomed all his life to total adoration, this is his first political encounter. No sooner does the chancellor of the exchequer begin to bend towards him than his eye is caught by another arrival, and - not a small man - Mr Brown has just shot across the room, faster than a superhero, to press fervently an altogether higher-up hand, that of Bob Geldof. The father’s rights campaigner is here, naturally, without any children in tow.
The really funny thing is, when I raise my very nicely defined eyebrows at Sarah Macaulay in a kind of fellow-feeling gesture - “Men, eh?!” - she just looks straight through me.
18 March 2021: this article has been edited to remove some personal information.
