{"id":4176,"date":"2023-12-25T09:34:25","date_gmt":"2023-12-25T09:34:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/websprintersdemo.in\/blogs\/?page_id=4176"},"modified":"2023-12-26T04:32:16","modified_gmt":"2023-12-26T04:32:16","slug":"dangerous-liaisons","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/websprintersdemo.in\/blogs\/dangerous-liaisons\/","title":{"rendered":"Dangerous Liaisons"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t

DANGEROUS LIAISONS<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
<\/h5>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

One evening, around five thirty, I had a call from Christine Keeler.\u00a0 She sounded panicky and insisted I meet her \u2018at once\u2019 in the pub she was calling from. Take a cab, I\u2019ll pay for it, you must come immediately, she said.\u00a0 I stalled, I was busy. I was not being churlish to the lady but I knew that Christine could be very off-the-wall. I hadn\u2019t known her for all that long, and hadn\u2019t seen her for a while, to deserve the call, though she had been to a few dinner parties in our flat, and I had been to a few parties which she had been at.<\/p>

I had first met her when I was commissioned to write something up on her for Penthouse <\/em>magazine, which I was reluctant to do and never did. Christine Keeler was pass\u00e9.\u00a0 She had been the most notorious woman in England, having brought down the Harold Macmillan government in 1963. She had been the mistress of his Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, and at the same time sleeping with a Russian naval attach\u00e9.\u00a0 She had been \u2018introduced\u2019 to both by a Dr. Stephen Ward, who ran a call girl service. The domino theory came into play \u2013 Profumo denied the affair, the newspapers found out and therefore he had lied in Parliament.\u00a0 Profumo resigned. Down came the government.\u00a0 Ward committed suicide before his trial. And Christine went to jail for prostitution as the fall guy.<\/p>

She was just 21-years-old at the time but her \u2018fame\u2019, if we could call it that, would outlast that of any celebrity, actor or singer. Their fame is limited to the present mostly and would soon flame out. Christine was linked firmly to history, even if a small footnote, but the link to history is more durable than any celebrity fame. A century from this day, when the celebrities are forgotten, Christine Keeler will remain embedded in those books as the \u2018infamous woman\u2019.\u00a0 Certainly, everyone involved in that scandal paid a dear price but Christine paid much more only because she was a woman. The men she slept with were rich and powerful and slipped back into their manors and castles. All she was left with was her de-flowered name, and her misdeed. She came from a poor family and there was no such escape for her.<\/p>

I guess we could call her the Monica Lewinsky of her day \u2013 another woman whose life entangled with a powerful man, and her life falling tattered by the wayside.\u00a0 She too nearly, very nearly, unseated the most powerful man in the world. If Clinton\u2019s impeachment, by a biased Senate, had succeeded, Lewinsky too would have made history.\u00a0 Now, I\u2019m not sure about a footnote even.\u00a0 Her blemished celebrity hood will pass one day into obscurity.\u00a0 Both the women were very young, Lewinsky an ambitious intern, and were totally ignorant that it could be very dangerous to get too close to powerful men. But is must have been too tempting. It was Henry Kissinger who pronounced that \u2018power is an aphrodisiac\u2019 and, tragically, women succumb to this magic potion.<\/p>

But Christine\u2019s liaison dangerous<\/em> had taken place ten years ago and Christine was still living off her notoriety, selling and re-selling her story to various down-market newspapers, when we met.\u00a0\u00a0 She was a pretty girl with regular features, a good body, worth a second glance on a street corner (to be chauvinistic), and I certainly wouldn\u2019t have called her beautiful. And she certainly wasn\u2019t a nuclear scientist!\u00a0 She was a simple girl, with a simple mind, enough to get by on in an average life but not enough to skirt the dangers that befell her and would continue to pursue her life.\u00a0<\/p>

I wasn\u2019t sure why I was \u2018urgently\u2019 needed, as I wasn\u2019t her lover.\u00a0 She had once announced to me at a dinner party for others to hear too that \u2018I wouldn\u2019t sleep with you as you\u2019re coloured\u2019.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t made a pass, which would have ruined my relationship with my then girl friend, and I knew it was Christine\u2019s way of telling a joke.\u00a0 She had a skewered sense of humour, especially as we knew whom she slept with it and colour wasn\u2019t a criterion in her choice. At another dinner, she was boasting to us that she had had her breasts lifted. And to prove it, she lifted up her blouse to show us. They were indeed perfectly formed and very firm. I wasn\u2019t aroused but felt a sense of melancholy that this was all she had to offer the world.<\/p>

She was naturally a magnet for men, the rich, the celebrity and the also-rans, who wanted to boast they had slept with Christine Keeler. At some point in our friendship (not a relationship) if I could call it that, she suddenly married a very wealthy man whose family was in the steel business in Birmingham or Manchester. She brought him over to dinner one night. He was possibly younger than her, charming and friendly, none too bright either, but came from such a different background that I wondered how long it would last.\u00a0 What did he expect from Christine in this marriage \u2013 a housewife? A doting mother? (She had a child already, parked with her mother in a council flat somewhere) Fidelity?\u00a0 She moved into his townhouse in Chelsea and now played the hostess for us. His house had all the accoutrements of the rich, including a cook who made the dinners, while he served expensive wines.\u00a0<\/p>

I didn\u2019t see her in marital bliss for a few months until I had a call from her.\u00a0 She was weepy and wanted me to help her move her belongings out of the townhouse.\u00a0 If I wasn\u2019t surprised by the break-up, I was by her call for assistance. I wandered around to the townhouse, helped her carry her cases down to the waiting car and carried them up to the flat she was going to crash in for a few weeks until she found her own home.<\/p>

So that evening when Christine began to sniffle and weep, my resistance broke down. I caught a cab to the pub that was just off Sloane Street.\u00a0 It was a gloomy place, almost deserted, and I had to peer through the shadows to find Christine. She was sitting alone in a booth, quite elegantly dressed, but all huddled up and looking very nervous. She waved me over like a drowning swimmer and I slid into the booth next to her.\u00a0 She grabbed me by the arm, as if I were a long-waited lover late for a date.<\/p>

\u2018What\u2019s up?\u2019 I asked, getting slightly worried.<\/p>

\u2018I just wanted you to be here\u2019, she said and her eyes flicked across the room towards three men at the far end of the bar. They were staring at us, and at me particularly. \u2018The one in the middle wants to sleep with me\u2019, she said, \u2018and I don\u2019t want to.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>

\u2018What gave him that idea?\u2019 I joked.<\/p>

\u2018He called me for a date to meet him here and, as I\u2019ve changed my mind, he\u2019s getting aggressive so I told him I was waiting for my boy friend.\u2019<\/p>

\u00a0 Which meant me.<\/p>

I didn\u2019t like the look of the men \u2013 they were white, hard-looking, two in leather jackets, her date was in a sleek suit. I peered harder and knew I was in deep shit. I recognized him. He was one of the Kray brothers. The Krays were East end gangsters who were into armed robbery, extortion, drugs and killing people. And she had made a date with him!! I glanced to the barman, assiduously polishing glasses, avoiding my look. I unhooked Christine\u2019s arm and slid quickly out of the booth.<\/p>

\u2018You can\u2019t leave me\u2019, she wailed.<\/p>

\u2018Just watch me\u2019, I said and then, against my better instincts, added chivalrously: \u201cYou coming?\u2019 hoping we\u2019d make the door fast.<\/p>

She shook her head and I slipped out of the pub, avoiding eye contact with Kray and his hoods.\u00a0 The worst that could happen to Christine would be to sleep with Kray; the worst that could have happened to me was a broken arm or jaw.\u00a0 I resented being drawn into what I saw as the magnetic attractions of two notorious characters. Gangsters too are an aphrodisiac for some people, their dangerous power only fractionally more amoral than some politicians\u2019. Christine and Kray could boast they had slept with each other. (The Krays ended up in prison for life).<\/p>

That wasn\u2019t the last time I saw Christine. A couple of years back I was standing in a bar with a friend. He looked over my shoulder, stared at someone and said \u2018isn\u2019t that Christine Keeler?\u2019\u00a0 Eventually, I did turn and barely recognized the worn and faded woman sitting alone. That prettiness had seeped out through drink and disillusion, leaving a sad shell. I thought of saying \u2018hi\u2019, then doubted she would remember me after all these years and left the bar.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DANGEROUS LIAISONS \u00a0 One evening, around five thirty, I had a call from Christine Keeler.\u00a0 She sounded panicky and insisted I meet her \u2018at once\u2019 in the pub she was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4176","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/websprintersdemo.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/websprintersdemo.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/websprintersdemo.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/websprintersdemo.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/websprintersdemo.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4176"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/websprintersdemo.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4235,"href":"https:\/\/websprintersdemo.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4176\/revisions\/4235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/websprintersdemo.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}