Mary Killen

Q. I have lived in Indochina for more than six years but I am still invited to various society weddings, exhibition openings, concerts and parties in London. Here in Cochinchina plenipotentiaries are kind enough to include me to garden parties on their national days and receptions when they have visiting dignitaries. Even my host government extends its welcome on occasion. My problem is, how to display these invitations in a house without fireplaces and therefore without mantelpieces? One doesn’t want it assumed that one has become a social pariah just because one lives overseas and it would be a shame if visiting friends failed to realise that I am a part of the English social scene.

Your problems solved Q. I have recently moved from New York to London to join my husband who is English and who works here. My problem is that when we are out together at, for example, early evening gallery openings or at the opera we often meet people my husband knows but who are new to me. Sometimes people will invite us to come and stay with them in the country or come to dinner. I am finding it very confusing to know what to say because my husband is always standing beside me smiling in so friendly a manner and nodding as though he wants to accept the invitation, but afterwards he says to me, ‘Why did you say yes? I really don’t want to go!

Q. I have just moved into a sizeable townhouse which also comprises a separately owned basement flat (occupied by a young family). The entrance to the flat is set half-below street/garden level round the side of our property and down some steps at the back. The house has not been occupied for several months and it would appear that the family in the basement flat had taken to using the garden during this period. The garden is unoccupied during the day as we are at work and belongs solely to the house. (The family below know this.) However, the family’s two young children continue to use the garden when we are out. Yesterday I was outside and the husband simply opened the gate, walked in, and politely asked if we would allow his children to use the garden during the summer holidays.

Q. I recently managed to put together a large party for a summer country-house opera at the Grange near Winchester. We decided not to picnic, but instead I had booked one of the private dining-rooms there. However, from past experience, it often happens that some guests will cancel at the last moment for one unforeseen reason or another. To avoid wasting the tickets and the dinners, this year I decided to ask some friends well in advance whether they wouldn’t mind going on the ‘standby’ list in case someone drops out. Most were flattered by my idea and agreed willingly. However, one said this was an insult and they didn’t want to have to arrange a babysitter for nothing. What do you think, Mary? Have I been insulting, or not? M.K., Mildenhall, Wiltshire A.

Q. My daughter has left her appalling husband and come to live with me while her new house is being made ready. Today a parcel arrived with the usual sort of impenetrable wrapping which needs to be cut through with secateurs. I attacked the packaging with gusto and threw it on to the fire. Only then did I see the delivery note which showed that the parcel was not for me but for my daughter. Inside was a battery-driven ‘erotic aid’. Clearly I cannot mortify my daughter by handing her the device, but nor can I repackage it and put it through the post again as it would then be postmarked from our part of the world — which is quite a remote little pocket of England. What should I do? Name and address withheld A.

Q. I am sorry this is anonymous, but I volunteered to write on behalf of a good friend — call her Anna Finch — who is terrified at the prospect of being identified in the small conservative village where she has lived for a dozen years. Here is the problem: when A.F. moved to the village and looked for a char she was advised to engage a treasure who had lived in the village all her life, was related to most of the inhabitants and had an encyclopaedic knowledge of all the local tradesmen. The arrangement has lasted ever since, but the treasure has gradually become a passenger and now appears to regard her position as one of permanent confidante and adviser. Virtually no work is being done.

Q. While staying for a weekend in a five-star Umbrian paradise south of Siena, you can imagine my horror when my breakfast partner recoiled at my pulling out my Baedeker on Siena. I always carry Baedeker when centreville-ing, but my companion expressed abject mortification and begged me to put it away. I consider myself to be a person of reasonably good lineage but did not realise it was bad form to have Baedeker in a public place. Can you rule, Mary? A. It depends on whether you are interested in posing as so entrenched an habitué of Siena that you do not need Baedeker or whether you are more interested in self-improvement.

Q. I have edited a selection of letters which is to be published later this summer. It is more than likely that, as part of the promotion process, I shall be asked to sign a copy here and there. However, it is not really my book, but that of the distinguished and, alas, departed correspondent. What is the protocol, Mary? Name and address withheld A. There is no need for you to feel so modest. You have had all the work of deciphering the letters, putting them into context, writing the footnotes. The book is your creation in that you are its midwife. It would be correct for you to sign it even if the person writing the letters was still alive — in which case you might jointly sign it. Imagine if Charlotte Mosley refused to sign the collection of Mitford letters she compiled.

Q. While staying in Gascony a local grandee, with a formidable brain and a château of great historical importance, was invited to dine. As dinner proceeded one of the two female houseguests seated next to him transmogrified herself from a kind, cosy, close and down-to-earth friend of mine, into a cross between Simone de Beauvoir, Françoise Hardy and some sort of Mata Hari. She poured (recently acquired) intellectual and musical opinions down the poor throat of the Frenchman while the other female friend, who also lives in an important house in England, was able to chat amiably and casually to this rather imposing guest. My hostess speaks perfect French and thus she too was able to exchange Proustian pleasantries. My presence went almost entirely unnoticed.

Q. I want to give a drinks party for 200 friends. The alcohol is within my budget. Most of my friends are recovering alcoholics and the others are too old to binge drink, but I have been quoted £30 a head for food. I do not want to pay £6,000 for, effectively, a few kilos of trussed up ingredients in exotic sauces. Most people will be going out to dinner afterwards in any case. What is the solution, Mary? I do not want to seem mean. N.S.C.C., London W14 A. Status canapés have become the norm at smart parties but your guests may well be grateful if you do not tempt them and add to their calorific intake. Satisfy their expectations instead by providing only the illusion that there is food at the party.

Q. I travel frequently to Cape Town where I have a house. I always fly in business class or sometimes in first class. I wonder when it is permissible as opposed to rude to put up the barrier between me and a total stranger in the seat next door during the 11.5 hours flight? J.L., London SW10 A. It is generally accepted that all first and business class passengers want mental privacy during the flight but there are two schools of thought regarding the etiquette of achieving this. One frequent-flying über-alpha of my acquaintance holds that, ‘It is always appropriate to put up the barrier.

Q. I am in despair because I am growing fatter and fatter with every week that passes. I seem to have developed the most enormous appetite and now want roughly double what I used to eat. I have had all the relevant medical checks done privately and there is nothing wrong with me other than what my doctor calls ‘straightforward greed’. I have been to three clinics/spas already this year but each time I come out I start gorging again. One of the problems is that I work at home. The other is that I know for a fact that Weight Watchers is the only method which has worked for me in the past but these days I am what is called ‘high profile’, so it would not be advisable for me to rock up at meetings.

Q. I have started receiving regular emails from a very old friend inviting me to avail myself of the services of the wealth management company in which he is a partner. Since I am penniless, and from the uncharacteristically humour-free tenor of these letters, I can tell that I was never meant to be a recipient, and that my email address has somehow osmosed from his personal contacts to his customer database. That other, equally impecunious old friends have received the same letters would seem to confirm this. But we know that pointing out that our respective net worths preclude us from becoming his clients would greatly embarrass him (he is painfully sensitive to issues of etiquette), as would simply asking him to remove us from his business mailing list. What would you suggest, Mary?

Q. During a lavish lunch party last month, our host was insulting about my new boyfriend, whom I had brought along with his permission. His actual words were, ‘He’s not my particular cup of tea, darling.’ He said this privately to me, not to the whole table. At the time I laughed it off and changed the subject because I did not want to create a bad atmosphere and he, our host, was slightly drunk (but only slightly). I am a stickler for writing to thank and have picked up pen and paper many times since that day but have been unable to bring myself to present the usual fulsome compliments without including a reprimand. Therefore I have not written at all. How should I break this stalemate? I don’t want to lose my old friend.

Q. Later this summer my boyfriend and I are flying out to the Aegean. Our hostess emailed to say we can get a lift from the airport with another couple who are coming for the same week on the same flight and who have already booked a hire car. She says she only needs one extra car to transport everyone around during the week and so we should not hire another for ourselves as this would be un-eco. We only barely know the other couple but we do know they will have booked the most expensive car available. What is the etiquette? Should we offer to pay half the cost of the week’s hire since we will be getting lifts in it all week? My boyfriend says we should not pay half because he will not be a named driver and the driver should pay the lion’s share of a hired car.

Q. I have caught a cold from a senior member of the royal family. I feel sure there must be ways in which I can turn this to my social and/or financial advantage and I admit that I have deliberately been sleeping in a draught in order to prolong the symptoms. What do you suggest, Mary? Name and address withheld A. There are very few socially acceptable ways in which one can market such a condition or even use it to boost one’s status. For example if anyone said ‘Bless you!’ when you sneezed, it would be quite wrong to then remark on the provenance of your cold. Where charitable fundraising is concerned, however, it is a different matter and, if you act quickly, you could offer your services at some Tatler-y party.

Q. Please advise me. I have a friend whose mobile has no signal when she is at home. When I ring her landline her father always says he will pass the message on that I have rung but he often forgets. She does not call me back and I do not like to annoy her father by ringing again in case she is still not in. He always says, ‘No problem. I’ll make sure she gets the message,’ but he always seems to forget. P.W., Wiltshire A. Say ‘Would it be all right if I call back in a bit? I’m going somewhere where there is no signal so she won’t be able to call me on my mobile. So when would be a good time to call again?’ Precede the call you make later with 141 so as to disguise the fact that you are indeed ringing from your mobile. Q.

Q. Since I now live alone and have spare bedrooms my house in London has become something of a destination for old friends who want to stay overnight. I love seeing them. I love making them welcome and giving them drinks and food if they want it but the one thing I have to admit I do resent is the domestic drudgery aspect. I cannot bring myself to pay the going rate for a cleaner and it seems to take four hours or more to bring the house up to scratch. Even if people left tips — for some reason those who do in the country never seem to do it in London — they would be unlikely to leave £60 which is roughly what I would have to shell out to professional cleaners to come in for four hours on a random basis. What do you suggest, Mary? Name and address withheld A.

Q. A very dear friend has lugged back a present from China. It is the most hideously frightful, huge, garish, golden ‘money’ cat with a waving paw which he has specifically asked me to put in ‘my’ drawing room (along with the Meissen and Chippendale). My problems are fourfold; I do not want to upset him after all the trouble he’s taken; I live in a National Trust house so ‘my’ drawing room is not actually ‘mine’ and is open to the public most of the year; I certainly do not want to lose the opportunity of money for myself; I fundraise for a charity and obviously do not want to lose money for them either. What on earth should I do? A.H., Wiltshire A. There is no need to cause any upset.