The smell of dark wood and old tobacco hits your senses as soon as you walk through the door. The lights are low, golden, almost hypnotic, and the murmur of deep voices intertwines with the clinking of glasses. You know this is not a place for you, not at all; God knows what goes on here, but something in the atmosphere compels you to stay.

A first glance, and you see a man taking charge of a screen and a projector, showing others images he has taken of women. Some with less clothing, others with more make-up. The others laugh and whistle, as if it were the best thing they've ever seen in their lives, and yet they dismiss it every time the projector moves on to the next photo. Further away, cigars are handed out while they talk about wars and allies. With the occasional joke that would be in poor taste anywhere else. But not here. Not in this men's club where gatherings are organized to watch pretty waitresses serve whiskey.

When you take a second glance at the spacious hall, you see him: the king consort Philip Mountbatten. In the centre of the room, without raising his voice, but with a magnetism that draws everyone's gaze towards him. You don't know him, or at least not really, and yet you recognise the authority he projects: his straight shoulders, his calculated posture, the way he moves, suggesting that he effortlessly controls every corner of the place. They say he is one of the founding members of this after all.

The men around him laugh knowingly, exchanging barely perceptible gestures, while you remain silent, observing. There is no one to explain the rules to you, and you don't dare ask; here you are just a foreign body, an intruder who shouldn't be here.

He glances at you out of the corner of his eye, and for a moment he seems to notice your presence. The glance is quick, assessing, without hostility, but not without curiosity either. As if he knows you are out of place and yet allows you to stay, a privilege you don't dare to fully accept.