Low life
Living dangerously
Jeffrey Bernard
The trouble is I have other dependants too. Apart from 'Mad' Jock who sleeps beneath the awning of the Palace Theatre and who needs a pint of bitter every day to keep his kidneys in working order, I have just been informed that I have a newish daughter in Bangkok who will need rice, clothes and schooling. Also the rent is due and it was impossible to foresee Beech Road winning the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham last week. And I am expecting a cri de coeur — if not a cri de poche — any day now from my daughter in Sydney.
Oh well, we must soldier on. Anyway, Salman is still churning it out. He leaves a chapter a week on the front doorstep and my secret agent, a Unigate milkman, pas- ses it on to me and- [then leave it in the Groucho Club for his publisher. I have begun to think that writing is a dangerous business. Those two Camden beauties, Alice Thomas Ellis and Beryl Bainbridge, risk kidnapping by gypsies every time they venture out into the streets. I have had to warn Salmi] that Ladbrokes are laying 33-1 on him reaching the Muslim-run corner shop in one piece if he sallies forth to buy the Times Literary Supplement.
The business of having to lie low must be one hell of a bore and your room would get very stuffy if you didn't dare go to the window to open it for fear of snipers across the road. I daren't open my own modest window because of the air extractor on the wall of the genito-urinary hospital behind me. God knows what germs it is pumping out in my direction. I don't want anything else to go wrong with my genitals. They have already ruined my life.
This is a dangerous place to live. It is a potential fire-trap and now that flat racing is with us again I am more than ever aware of the fact that I live directly over a betting shop. I would even feel safer if it was taken over by Muslims and turned into a mini- market. Oddly enough, I feel slighted in a way at not having been selected by nut- cases as an object of persecution, but maybe the anti-smoking loonies and the silly medical profession that wants to keep everyone alive for ever may get around to it. It won't be as dramatic as the case of Salman, though, and I quite like a little drama, especially when it brings in a couple of million pounds. I could write an extremely rude letter to the Ayatollah, I suppose, but since I am convinced that these people can't even read a letter never mind a bestseller of their own making there seems to be little point. Thank God I am incapable of writing a novel. It must be like playing Russian roulette with six bullets in the chamber. Not a bad idea for some.
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