Persuasion

Not long ago,a week before her nuptials, a friend of mine was presented with Persuasion by an old flame to whom she was still quite attached. 'Why is he giving me this bible for second-time-around lovers now?' she asked. 'It's so flirtatious, don't you think? Is he saying I should have waited? Is he asking me to? I shouldn't should I?'

'Perhaps it's just a book he really likes,' I suggested, because the alternative versions were a bit dazzling at this the eleventh hour. Brief enquiries amongst his friends revealed that Persuasion was this young man's break-up gift of choice. It was known that he had given it to at least three other girls.

'Does he mean to keep us all hanging on indefinitely? The arrogance!' My friend was cross now. 'What a moron! I cant wait to get married now. Some people!'

It is not always a good idea to look for high meaning in the gifts that we are given, but when my mother made me a present recently of a tome entitled The Power of Glamour, it did require a certain amount of analysis, I felt. Presents from parents are often ripe with subtle communications. They can snatch at some inner truth which is a close guarded secret between you, revive some past forgotten achievement or even usher in a whole new phase. When I shower Mary with tutus and pale pink cross-over ballet cardigans, she knows it's because I see her future at Covent Garden, like any loving mama. No matter it's the bacon sandwiches after dance classes that she really prizes.

My mother's book was a series of photographs and essays on 'The Women who Define the Magic of Stardom.' It was full of handy life hints. Gloria Swanson liked to wear one cuff of a jacket trimmed in fur because asymmetrical lines suit a slightly uneven frame. 'The public don't want the truth' she asserted. 'I have decided that when I am a star, I will be every inch a star, every moment a star.'

A few pages later came Joan Crawford's advice on what becomes a legend most: 'a boat neck dress, cut down in a V at the back', with 'belled dolman three quarter sleeves.' This was followed by a description of Norma Sheerer as 'a cork on a sea of wantonness'. Ok, Mum, I thought, vaguely. I think I hear what you're saying. My inner show girl has been a little neglected of late and this is a gentle reminder.

So yesterday I took myself off to see a showing of the world's biggest diamonds in a hushed and sparkly chamber off Bond Street. 'The trouble with big diamonds,' my husband suddenly began as I was leaving -I am proud to be married to someone who starts sentences like this - 'The trouble with big diamonds is that they're just never going to be that big. Are they?' 'What d'you mean?' I asked. 'I mean they're not going to be as big as, like, I don't know, a bicycle seat or something are they?' His tone was dismissive.

'Oh, yeah,' I nodded, wide-eyed. 'These ones are going to be huge. As big as your head!' I called behind me as I shut the door.

The rocks my inner show girl and I went to see were courtesy of Vivid diamonds, one of the world's finest diamond houses, which had brought over its wares from Russia via its Fifth Avenue show room. (I guess people in diamond houses can throw stones.) These XXXL gems had arrived in London, along with thirty security guards who, in tuxedos, paced the bow windowed room in which where they were being displayed, with pride and some menace.

Feeling like a chunky extra in a Russian homage to the Bond films, I peered at the fifty five carat emerald-cut diamond ring, a snip at 8 million dollars. The diamond peered back. It was beautiful, and really quite dazzling, but that was really the beginning and end of the conversation I could have with it. I love diamonds, especially pink ones, and would always be happy to receive any that came my way, but I can see that they don't exactly mean anything. Besides, could you go anywhere wearing a rock the size of a big toe? Would Vivid do you do a deal on a security guard time-share? Every other saturday night, say, plus three weeks in Sardinia in August for your annual spree on Roberto Cavalli's yacht?

I left the display and hopped on the 13 with a tin of Diet Sprite, leafing through a little booklet I had been given about the gems. I thought of ringing my mother to tell her about my afternoon, but then a description of the diamond I had communed with caught my eye. 'One-of-a-kind, Fancy, Intense and internally Flawless' I read. Perhaps that's all she wants from me, after all.

susie@susieboyt.com