Low life
Past caring
Jeffrey Bernard
As is my occasional habit I went down to the stalls bar for a drink last week to see what was buzzing and who should be there but she would once drown in my eyes. She hasn't changed. She still looks like a walking jumble sale. Now she is busy treading water in someone else's eyes. But it all came back to me. The time we stayed with Alice Thomas Ellis in Wales when she said to me, 'Run me through the meadows to the river's edge and sweep me into your arms,' and the time I threw her a shirt to iron and she got on her little but high horse, pulled a daft face of outrage and said, 'I am Carmen, not Mary Poppins.' What laughs we had. I did anyway. I quite miss those notes she used to leave me on the mantelshelf which always used to read, 'Why do you treat me like a shit?' Of course I didn't. I treated her like Mary Poppins and nearly went bankrupt taking her to a Greek restaurant in Cleveland Street every night.
Oh well, that's all tears under the bridge. It was also interesting to meet Jack Lem- mon in the bar during the interval. He is as delightful as you may imagine. And I met my old friend Joan who was the boss barmaid at the races in the old days and what a good lady she is. (She could reveal some startling things about stuck-up own- ers and trainers.) But the strange spin-off of the play is the amount of rather odd people I have met when I have lurched down the stairs into the stalls bar. It is my bad luck not to look like Peter O'Toole but nevertheless people seem to recognise me and I have met many pleasant oddballs.
These are quite jolly times. How long will they last? Don't ask. The other side of the coin — and there always is one — is that I have to leave my Covent Garden attic because the lease is up and I am at my wits' end to know where to go. My wits' end is not a long way to go, but it is all very alarming. I still remember the horror of living all over the place and out of carrier bags in 1987.
I keep wondering whether or not to live abroad. Ireland or Barbados, where they speak English. But I would miss my mates and the more I think about it I would probably miss even the bores I know in the Coach and Horses. Perhaps bores can become soothing when you know them. A sort of balm. There is a man in the Coach who blots out all thoughts of the Inland Revenue and that is more than vodka can do. And just ten minutes ago I received a letter telling me of a studio flat in Soho which is going. I telephoned and apparent- ly it went yesterday. Is God a joker? Never mind. I thank him for my resilience. Together with that letter I got a bill for £15,850. I feel almost past caring. Perhaps it is the hangover from dinner last night with Charles St George. (Also present was she who would once iron 14 shirts at a standing, which is always a bonus.) But, as I say, I am almost past caring. You can expect to be bowled a bumper per over so I suppose one must expect to be kicked in the balls once every six days. In a strange sort of way I think I may even be winning and the next bouncer God delivers me will be hooked to square leg for six. And yesterday, out of the blue, I got a letter from a man I was banged up with in 1972 in the drying-out bin. He sounded so well, which was marvellous. It makes me want to invite him out for a drink. But that would be wicked, wouldn't it? After all these years. He obviously hasn't been bowled his fair share of bouncers by his nibs up there.
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