The Big Smoke

1.10pm: David visits the Von Posch Gallery

David in Gerda’s world
12noon: Last-minute panic
The cab taking us to the Von Posch porcelain shop in Chelsea is idling outside Time Out but David is nowhere to be seen. There’s a family crisis: he needs to get money to his daughter, who’s recently out of a job. ‘Can we go via Aldwych to drop it off?’ he asks.

12.29pm: The taxi
David bounds down the street in a natty blazer, bowler hat perched on his dreads. ‘I’m sorry, I was born late!’ he exclaims. He is unfazed by the prospect of an hour with Gerda’s porcelain but ‘I couldn’t spend the whole day inside a shop waiting for people to come in. I’d have to get out on the street and flog the stuff.’ At lunch, we’re meeting Gerda’s partner, Roger. David’s most intrigued by the charity cocktail party which will end our day. ‘What’s a cocktail?’ he enquires. It’s surprisingly hard to explain. As to why people don’t necessarily drink cocktails at a cocktail party – that’s definitely an etiquette challenge too far.

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1pm: Greetings
David and Gerda – who last met just over a week ago – greet each other with theatrical relish. They’re flamboyant together: Gerda, bejewelled and indulgent, is three parts grande dame and two parts pussy cat. David, less imperious, gestures grandly too, like an on-his-uppers impresario. ‘Darling!’ says Gerda, ‘one of my friends has two sofas and a table for you. All we need is a van.’ David is thrown but touched: ‘She’d done it out of genuine concern.'

1.10pm: ornaments at Gerda's Von Posch Gallery

1.10pm: The Von Posch Gallery
Flying pigs, performing monkeys and nude maidens crowd around us. It’s like a pagan orgy made of china. David admires a set of Herend china dinner plates (£95 apiece): ‘Wow, that’s what you call a delicacy, isn’t it?’ But he can’t quite believe these ornamented objects are actually useful. ‘Would someone really eat from that?’ he asks, more than once.

Outside the gallery peering in, we meet Roger. We admire a portrait of Gerda, taken about ten years ago: ‘Just after she came out!’ jokes Roger, gallantly. David’s eyebrows shoot up. He’s already been slightly perplexed by Gerda’s talk of ‘girlfriends’. Here’s another expression which moves from describing a social institution to a sexual preference when it crosses the social divide.

2pm: lunch at La Brasserie

2pm: Lunch at La Brasserie
Gerda, David, Roger, and Gerda’s church buddy Tim (owner of a Staffordshire stately pile) are ushered into the bustling Brompton Road eaterie by the maître d’, who knows Gerda well. They sit down to a very decent lunch (total £204.86), although David struggles to finish his veggie soup and salad. Gerda nobly confines herself to the two salads allowed by WeightWatchers. But the men polish off three courses and wine. ‘How can they eat that much?’ David wonders aloud.

The conversation flows, although it’s not without flashpoints. Oddly, the moments which make me glance anxiously at David – when Tim defends Enoch Powell, or worries that large parts of Bradford are ‘no-go areas for whites’ – don’t spark any ire. The drama for David here is meeting Roger who, he discovers, is ‘a copper. Not a top brass type either, but a real uniform.’ David’s experience of the police while on the streets was never as enjoyable as doing lunch. But Roger is very willing to talk about his experiences on Harlesden and Kilburn estates. He gains David’s trust: soon he’s being advised that ‘all policemen should have to be community officers before they’re sent out on the beat.’

4.30pm: David admires work in the Wallace Collection

4.30pm: The Wallace Collection
David and Gerda are encouraged to look at the china, portraits and sumptuous furniture together, but they drift apart. Gerda’s perceptions are often about recognition. ‘Oh look, there’s Pulcinelle!’ she exclaims, over a portrait. David is discovering. ‘It’s different from a photograph, isn’t it?’ he remarks about a portrait of ‘The Toper’ by Ferdinand Boz. ‘It’s his perception of that person, isn’t it?’

6.30pm: Lepra meeting
Gerda’s charity co-committee member Jodie Hawn is hosting a meeting, then Champagne and nibbles. The flat – overlooking Hyde Park – is sleek, pale and minimal. So are the Lepra committee: impeccably dressed, crisply well-informed business people and philanthropists. David, intimidated, sinks ever deeper into the white sofa, but Gerda is keen to introduce him: ‘This is my wonderful David!’ And he’s equally proud of her. ‘Can’t talk now,’ he says when his phone rings, ‘I’m with my Baroness.’

6.45pm: Find and Treat show and tell
The Lepra committee wants to hear about David’s experience of TB; Gerda persuades him to speak. ‘I was diagnosed in August 2004,’ he says, the rhythms of a familiar story gradually soothing his nerves. ‘I went to the doctor. Nothing was apparent. Before I could have a chest X-ray I collapsed.’

6.30pm: cocktail hour

David’s experience clearly fascinates Gerda’s committee. ‘Where we work,’ Gerda explains, ‘it’s a third-world disease.’ But David objects strenuously to Roger’s fairly standard description of Aids as ‘a disease of poverty’. ‘Anyone can catch Aids. Anyone can catch TB,’ he protests. ‘A disease of ignorance, then,’ offers Roger. But David won’t concur, pointing out that ‘the lifestyle of poverty makes you vulnerable but, just like an alcoholic, a victim of disease can come from all classes.’

8.30pm: The end of the day
Being able to have his say has made David feel more at home in Gerda’s world. He lingers convivially, swapping stories with Gerda, the Lepra committee and several other guests.

Gerda in David's world | David in Gerda's world | What have we learned?