Low life
Greece or Groucho?
Jeffrey Bernard
Iknow it sounds horribly like an adver- tisement, but there is no substitute for Vera. Her stand-ins, waiting on the substi- tute bench, are well-meaning and kind enough but three days without her have turned this flat into what nearly amounts to a shamble of sorts. The bed hasn't been made for three days which doesn't worry me, but it is irritating to have to explain to a home help what a cos lettuce is and what the difference is between olive oil and corn oil, and so it goes on. Mind you, it must be very nerve-racking to go to a stranger's home for the first time and get the hang of his or her wants, needs and dislikes.
I am not sure why it is that there is such a good rapport between Vera and me, but it might have something to do with the fact that we were probably very street-wise from an early age. The trouble with understudies is that the ones who are doing it temporari- ly and who are a bit daft are the ones who supposedly have had good educations, like the drama student who came here one day and told me that she couldn't hoover the sitting-room because there was already a plug in the wall socket. And a new woman from the Home Care people, who make sure I get some supper, is starting tonight and I hope to God she realises that it doesn't take an hour to cook cabbage.
The other new person arriving this after- noon is my new accountant who doesn't realise what he has taken on. In three days time the Inland Revenue want me to give them £9,600 which is rather a lot of money, and I'm not even sure what to say to the man who presides over the County Court. One thing is certain and that is that it will prevent me front killing myself with an attractive self-indulgence. I had another bill two weeks ago from the Groucho Club for £741 which was for the last ten months, excluding the four weeks it took for Mr Cobb and Mr Sweetman to cut through a Not another "Sex For Teenagers" video, can't we do the Corn Laws, Sir?' leg even tougher than the ones sold by the dreaded Lord Vestey in his awful chain of Dewhurst butcher's shops. I believe, because of clever accountancy, that his last demand from the Inland Revenue was about £5.
I met the man once at Cheltenham races when I was a typically low life guest of the Duke of Devonshire in the Turf Club tent. There was no sign of Taki anywhere. Per- haps he was having a high old life in the nick. My old chum is arranging for me to have a little break on a Greek island for a few days next month — if he remembers — and I am wondering who I could possibly take as a nurse, wheelchair pusher and companion. A couple of women have offered their services who think that they might be in for a free and platonic sightsee- ing tour of the Aegean. How anybody could bear to wheel about a cantankerous old sod like me, thinking I am harmless, is beyond me.
Perhaps I should stay here and just get pushed out two or three times a week to the Groucho Club, whose staff are at least very good and kind to me, apart from the fact that no one on the committee even offered me one lousy drink when I paid my £741 bill. You could say that the Evening Standard covered that when they paid me generously for one of the most boring arti- cles I have ever written on that old subject of the Derby. Talk about being type-cast. If it isn't the Derby then it's reviewing books about vice or the history of the English pub. Give a dog a bad name. But God bless a couple of literary editors for not sending me contemporary novels. What I could review is the court order brought against me for owing £9,600. Pure science fiction.
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