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Charles Cammell Diary Entry Tuesday, 12 October 1937
Crowley loved parties. He gave a memorable one to celebrate his sixtieth birthday: it was really his sixty-second; but sixty is a round figure suited to festivity. A condition attached to the invitation, which was printed, ordained that every man should bring with him a lady. I took the (alas!) late Betty Roche. She was young and pretty, and sprang from a stock of artists. Her father, Roche, was a founder of the celebrated Glasgow School of painters; her maternal grandfather was Alexander, the Scottish Landseer; and Edwin Alexander was her uncle. It was a tremendous thrill for Betty meeting Crowley and "Louis Marlow" [Louis Wilkinson].
The company met at El Vino in Vine Street, off Piccadilly. That tavern (burned out in the war) was a little sister of the famous Fleet Street El Vino, where Frank Bower, most stately and genial of managers, presides. Except Louis Wilkinson, FitzGerald and Dolores Sillarno, none of the guests were known to me. We were fully a dozen, exclusive of Crowley and his lady of the hour—the hostess. From El Vino we strolled over to the Café Royal, where a large upstairs apartment was ready for the feast.
At dinner I sat beside Dolores. She was a beautiful girl, svelte, with pale gold hair; and hers was the extraordinary distinction of never having had the suspicion of a liaison with A.C. She enjoyed his company, and he availed himself of her really lovely voice for singling his lyrics. Dolores always maintained quite seriously that she and I had been married in a former life, and that I had caused her to be beheaded. In vain I protested that never in any frenzy could I have cut off so pretty a head.
The "guest of honour" was an Austrian Baroness, very rich and rather passée. Crowley's chief preoccupation during dinner was flattering her ample charms and endeavouring to sell her a small pot of his "celebrated magical sex-appeal ointment" for (he said) "the ridiculously small sum of two thousand pounds". He took pride in his knowledge of aphrodisiacs, as of strange drugs. The Baroness was often at the point of purchase; but prudence asserted itself, much to Crowley's disappointment. The dinner was sumptuous—course after course—arrosé by Montrachet and Richebourg (one of A.C.'s favourite Burgundies), Veuve Cliquot and Napoleon brandy.
When the brandy was on its last round; when the Coronas and Romeos were burning low; there was to my discerning eye, some trouble afoot. The bill (which must have been sensational) had just been presented—doubtless on Crowley's instructions—to our hostess, his amoureuse. She now rose from the table and, as I perceived, entered into elaborate diplomatic negotiations with the head waiter concerning the acceptance of her cheque. Crowley the while was looking anywhere but in the direction of the discussion. The maîitre d'hôtel, having no visible option, was at last persuaded to take the cheque ruefully. But the lady had no change for tips—a fresh complication. She went softly round the table, whispering in the ears of the most likely men of the party: Crowley, of course, was not included. I gave her a ten-shilling note which I had loose in my pocket; and perhaps she was luckier elsewhere. At any rate the regiment of waiters appeared to be appeased. I felt rather guilty about my share of that noble dinner, until, a week or two later, I met Crowley and his lady by chance in the Café Royal, which proved the solidity of the lady's banking account—and perhaps explained Crowley's attachment.
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