ay what you like about the biographer Tom Bower, he hits the ground running: from the opening bars of House of Beckham, an epic symphony of snide, you know exactly where you’re going and how you’re going to get there. So, it’s Glastonbury 2017, and Beckham is “in deep conversation with Mary Charteris, a 30-year-old married party girl, the ultimate cool Sloane Raver.” She is, we learn, famous for “being present at parties where others enjoyed cocaine”.
There are much smokier guns in the book, as regards David Beckham’s infidelity, detailed accounts of his text message and travel history with Sarah Marbeck, Celina Laurie, Rebecca Loos, Danielle Heath. All of this is quite historical – the annus horribilis from the institution of marriage’s point of view would be 2004 or, to put that another way, 20 years ago.
One other detail counts as a revelation: that David Beckham’s knighthood was kiboshed, indirectly, by his wife. “The notion of ‘Lady’ Victoria irritated Kerslake,” he writes. She had too many houses, too many servants, also didn’t tip in restaurants. It’s a little bit rum – having a bunch of servants and houses has, historically, been the whole point of being a knight, so it feels class-coded, their offence being not the wealth itself, but that they weren’t posh enough to merit it.