Low life
Rum do
Jeffrey Bernard
Barbados was very much as I left it three years ago: 80 degrees in the shade, humming birds for breakfast companions, the surf whispering along the beaches, too many sickly rum punches — if you could bother to wait 20 minutes for them — and a bit too much Caribbean music. But. all
quite beautiful. The sun raises the spirits, as do fresh limes, and when the dust settles after ten minutes of tropical rain the exotic flora and fauna of the island seem to vibrate life itself and plunge one into a world of wondrous scents. I even heard a Mozart piano concerto in a hooker's hang-out in Bridgetown one morning but I expect that was a mistake. Anyway, in case anyone should think I have deserted the low life, I should point out that the past ten days were what's called a freebee, courtesy of a PR firm called Infopress and Caribbean Air- ways. But nothing, of course, is really free and I laundered my way through £200-worth of cocktails, gazing at sunsets, wondering at how odd it was to be doing so with garnishee orders out on me back in London. A double life is the only one.
Our party comprised four women representing the Sunday Telegraph, the Sun, Honey and Family Circle, and proud of it too. We male hacks numbered five, all of whom were appropriately appendaged with feet of clay. Now, in these situations — film locations are similar — geographical changes affect some men strangely. Just as I used to naively deceive myself into thinking that books could be written in the country, most men think that most women can be laid on foreign soil. At least it becomes something of a compulsion to attempt the deed. For my part I detach myself, stand back and watch. No one on the Sun could look any better in paradise than they could in Shepherds Bush anyway. So, to our first drama.
One night a very nice bloke indeed arranged a cocktail party in his rooms. Shock, horror, he got drunk. In a fleeting moment of paranoia he told the assembled hacks to fuck off. They did and one of the ladies burst into tears as, of course, any Grub Street lady would do on hearing such appalling language. The next morning at breakfast (orange juice, melon, corned beef hash, poached eggs and more humming birds) our man apologised to the first of the ladies to appear and his apology was greeted by silence. Now, apart from the fact that an apology wasn't really necessary, the high mindedness of a pipsqueak from Fami- ly Circle was something I couldn't quite take. It rankled all day. By the evening, when it was my turn to get drunk, I ex- pressed my feelings with more unfamiliar four-letter words that Fleet Street hackettes never hear. I also said that I found it odd that ladies earning three times as much as I did couldn't buy a round of drinks, that their assumption — in common with most women — was that all and sundry fancied them something rotten, while I personally thought they were a bunch of slags. I was told later that this sparkling discourse was conducted with fortissimo. (Oscar Wilde could have learnt a thing or two at my knee when it comes to calling a woman an old cow.)
What does amuse me in retrospect though is the fact that — so I was later told — our host from the Barbados Tourist Board remained quite cool and made the understatement of the year when he mur- mured, 'I suspect a little tension. A possible clash of personalities.' All that really hap- pened was that one of the ladies threatened to slap my face and I warned her that in the event I would be obliged to break her arm.
But it was a jolly good trip and I must ad- vise the Barbados Tourist Board, Infopress and Caribbean Airways that since my return I have plugged Barbados to everyone within listening range, particularly all of my friends who can afford a £1,000-a-week holiday. And, as the same sun sinks in the west over Great Portland Street and not the steel calm of the Caribbean, I find myself wondering did God ever seriously in- tend that men and women should get on with each other? Do two humming birds make a summer? Is it worth being black to be born in Barbados? Will Bajan Sunshine win the Cesarewitch as I hope? What on earth can the Tourist Board think of English hacks now? All these im- ponderables I shall take to my friend, men- tor and bank manager, Norman Balon, in whom we trust. The awful alternative, I suppose, would be to take out subscriptions to the Sun, Honey and Family Circle. The world is not yet ready for that, my dear Watson.
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