Low life
Jeremy
Jeffrey Bernard
Yet another friend has died and I feel as much angry as sad at what seems like a monstrous injustice. Jeremy Madden- Simpson — christened by Eva whose obituary I had to write here 18 months ago as Jeremy Madman-Simpleton — was ,a dear friend and Irish nutter who hadn't long turned 40. To see him in the Coach and Horses flailing his arms around like a windmill while still managing to cling on to a pint of cider it probably wouldn't have occurred to you that he'd been taught history by Cardinal Hume at Ampleforth. When I was on the brink last year in St Stephen's Hospital he used to visit me every e, vening and bring me a croissant for my breakfast the next day and when a Piss artist takes time off during licensed hours to visit You then you know you've got a real friend. I teased him a few times in this column about his being barred from the Queen's Elm for an age but he was happily reinstated a few weeks ago. You wouldn't want to see a man die while he was barred
from a pub. But it wasn't all pubs and wine bars with us. In the summer — and we were planning to start again next week — we used to go to the ice cream parlour at Harrods in the morning before opening time and giggle over strawberry milkshakes. Then,
sometimes we'd have breakfast in Fortnum and Mason. We first got really friendly after I broke a bone in my right hand on hint one night in the French pub and he'd often laugh at the fact that neither of us could remember why and he'd say, 'What on earth was that about?' and then add
'Well, if f you can't hit a rien, who can you
hit?' What's rotten is thatd he'd recently found a good woman and was very happy and God's timing stinks. And why aren't the real shits dead and why do the people Who've been given warnings survive? Of Course, a lot of grieving isn't only grief for oneself but sheer selfishness. Frank Nor- man, Eva, Bryce and now Jeremy won't be Walking into the Coach today, actually Pleased to see you and showing it, and it's so bloody inconsiderate of them. Needless to say, one thinks of one's own death constantly and sharp, painful reminders such as friends' deaths make me be whether this interval on earth might ue a bowl of shit in spite of the past good days and times. The lunchtime sessions in the Coach with Jeremy and Tom Baker and Conan Nicholas were worth all the trap- pings of all the success stories you've ever heard and I'd rather keep down with the likes of Jeremy than keep up with the awful Joneses. Anyway, I had something of a ‘9,. hit) round to get some flowers for his funeral last night and contributions came from a club owner, three pornographers, an editor, a barrow boy, a shipping clerk and a Publican and in the space of 15 minutes. He Would have liked the assortment. And shuffl- ing off this mortal coil I look around at or think of friends and it seems as though We're in a queue that's moving slowly and shuffling along towards a sort of bus stop.
Who's next?' 'No, sorry. You were before Me.* There's a dreadful little shit in the French Pub who once tried to make a 'book' on Who in Soho was next for the long jump. I'm told he made me 5-4 favourite for the event but the long shots keep going although I'm in and, 'm pleased to survive, it's a lousy
race to have been entered for. So now, of Course, as self-obsessed as the next man, Jeremy's death makes me dwell on my own wretched mortality and another birthday tomorrow — 52 — compounds the mor-
bidity. My ex-wife once sharply observed that all I thought about was myself and she may have been very nearly right but right now I wish to God that I believed in God. The party could go on. Different premises but no closing time. Possibly like a sterilised Colony Room Club. I wish now that I'd never snapped at Jeremy and told him to pull himself together. Thankfully he ig- nored the order. The trouble is that there aren't that many people about who are in- stant laughter and I fear we're running out of heads to break knuckles on. He deserved better than that. I should have hit him over the head with a bottle of champagne and launched him into something much better. Fucking hell, that reminds me, he owes me a fiver.
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