Painstaking
Jeffrey Bernard
Here we are in the middle of flaming June, with me accompanied around the house on MY promenades by a positive chain reaction of an explosion of herbaceous colours and With one particular raspberry plant strain14. like Gulliver against the nets, and all my v. 'siting neighbours want to talk to me about is, the forthcoming winter. 'Yes', they say. feign what will you do in the winter?' They 'eign concern about the high elevation of my estate and, pointing roughly in a northeasterly direction, they tell me, 'You're so exposed. You'll never keep your place N.,v,arm in the winter.' That's what they hope. Ion see, it's sheer jealousy and the passing tradesman, friend or bailiff can hardly be blamed for hoping that my Xanadu will be flaw-filled come December. If there's one thing that people love it's to be able to regard others in the shit from a safe and comforable distance. There is an epidemic of Schadenfreude going the rounds, and I believe it originated in the Royal County of Berkshire. I spotted one Severely afflicted case last week and pointed poin him out to a friend. I said, 'Now there'sa i bloke who'd love to see you cuckolded or n a car crash.' No,' he corrected me. 'In a car crash and cuckolded.'
But my particular favourite is the woman who glances with exaggerated nonchalance at the scene beyond the kitchen window. She sits at my table, sipping what may be the last of the Jackson's tea, hunched up with crab-like fury picking holes in heaven. Looking beyond the bouillabaisse simmering on the stove, out over the geraniums on the window sill and towards the racehorses silhouetted on the horizon where an eagle has just plucked a careless farm labourer from his toils for its dinner, she carefully puts down her cup, screws up her face and says, 'Yes, it's alright now, but, I mean how on earth are you going to cope in the winter?'
She can hardly hear my answer for the insomniac nightingales that gather in the walnut tree. Leading her into the drawing room with the largest of the open fire places in the house I repeat that the fires heat radiators scattered along various corridors— they can spit-roast animals too if they have to during power cuts — and she grudgingly admits they might 'keep the chill off'.
But she's still unhappy about everything and I still wait for her to get at some aspect of my good fortune that's upsetting her. She wanders over to a window and peers over the edge at a growing plant. 'Just look at those plants. What sort of weed is that?' It's a tomato plant actually,' I tell her. 'Ugh. Well anyway, you've got slugs.' She's still got something up her nose, something to do with racing I guess, and I don't have to wait long for it.
'How did you get an invitation to the Hems on Sunday?' she asks me. That's it. Major Dick Hem n and his wife Sheila gave a party to celebrate Troy's Derby victory and the sight of me under the marquee was and has been since more than she can bear. 'Oh, I met them at a party at the Turf Club last week and they asked me to come along.' 'The Turf Club? How the hell did you get in there?"0h, Hartington .and the Morleys asked me."Huh, I bet that was pretty awful, wasn't it?"No, it was lovely.' Are you sure you really want to know people like that? I mean, you can't have anything in common with them. Don't you feel out of place?'
We wander slowly out into the garden. Across the yard she sees the rear end of my old banger sticking out of the garage door. 'How's the car?' she asks. 'Fine.' It's going to let you down one day, then what are you going to do? You'll be stuck here, won't you?'
'No, it's fine. It's going like a bomb. Hardly uses any oil at all,' I say. `Mm, but it's not exactly the sort of car you can take to Royal Ascot, is it? Well, look at the number plate I ask you. F-O-C. Fock.' That doesn't rhyme with anything I know,' She leaves and she's still waiting down there in the valley for something to go wrong up here. Perhaps I'll get sunstroke next week. That'll please her.
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