You Can Walk Across It On the Grass

(5 of 10)

∙ SCENE ONE. Jack Aspinall's Clermont Club on Berkeley Square, located in an 18th century town house, small, plush and, since it opened in 1962, almost incredibly exclusive (the membership fee of $84 a year is a trifle compared with the need for the "proper credentials"). Time: a weekday night. After a late, after-the-theater supper with friends at Annabel's, London's leading discothèque (which happens to be right downstairs), the handsome son of a peer breezes up for "a spot of chemmy." Chairs are found for his group to watch; drinks are passed. In three hours, playing with flair, he wins $210,000. Satisfied, but not flaunting his coup, he departs. But before the chauffeur can wheel his Bentley out from all the others, the Right Honourable realizes that he forgot to get a chit for his winnings. He goes back. Tempted by his luck, he tries another few shoes. Two hours later he has lost $450,000.

∙ SCENE TWO. Saturday afternoon in Chelsea. Up from the Sloane Square tube station swarm the guys and dollies, girls in miniskirts (three to six inches above the knee) or bell-bottom trousers. The morning has been spent "raking" among the Edwardian bric-a-brac, dusty candelabra and other antiques in the stalls on Portobello Road. Now, as if by a common instinct, the whole flock homes in on King's Road, site of such bird boutiques as Bazaar, and Granny Takes a Trip, as well as Hung On You, the "kinkiest" (wildest) men's shop, which features "The '30s Look": George Raft lapels, Bogart fedoras, Al Capone boutonnieres. The sport of the day is mainly sauntering, not shopping, but, as Cathy McGowan explains, "it's a very serious business. The point is to show off your close gear, and you have to do it in the proper style." Cathy, with Mick Jagger, 21, lead vocalist for the Rolling Stones, stops in at the Guys and Dolls coffeehouse, where a pretty blonde teenager, her yellow and black P.V.C. (polyvinyl chloride) miniskirt hiked high over patterned stockings, perches staring at a copy of the French Vogue. Mick leans over her. She beams. "Luv," he says, "you've got it upside down."