Low life
Keeping the peace
Jeffrey Bernard
Peace. It is heady stuff to contemplate. How on earth can you stop the brain from teeming? I thought I had found it momen- tarily yesterday morning lying on my bed, and then a hornet the size of a pigeon flew in through the window. I was terrified and what on earth does a hornet want to come to London for? There are plenty of succu- lent things to sting in the country. And talking of things that attack without pro- vocation, Norman found temporary peace last week in a clinic in St John's Wood. He has back trouble and just as bumble bees were not designed to fly Norman was not designed to stand up straight.
The clinic must have cost him an arm and a leg. £300 a day? All he had to do was stay at home and lie on the floor for a week. Most of the back specialists I have come across seem to have found it difficult to differentiate their arse from their elbow. Only dermatologists spend more time fumbling in the dark. Anyway, even in the clinic he couldn't lie still for telephoning to have the till roll read out to him and for tearing open boxes of Fortnum & Mason chocolates. He is a suitable opponent for Frank Bruno.
But when all is said and done, this week has been unusually better than hell. Robert Sangster very kindly sent us the money for an extreniely large round of drinks on the occasion of my book launch party at Lingfield Park on 2 November. He sent it in Manx readies with a PS to say that Manx money lasts longer. Not with my mob. All currency is equally digestible. But the horror takes place the day after the party_ have been told to go to a bookshop in Holborn, Bernard Stone's, to sign a few books at 6.30 p.m. Apart from the fact that 6.30 p.m. is a bad time of day for me, can you imagine the embarrassment of there probably being no more than three people there? And plonk of course, but not for this prudent hack,
Speaking of which, I was in the Bar Italia the other morning just before opening time and a woman sipping her coffee watched me pour a miniature vodka into my orange juice. (There can be emergencies on anx- ious days between 10.30 and 11.) She leant across and said, 'Excuse me, are you very unhappy?' I said, 'Not at all, but I can put you in touch with several people who are.' Amazing, isn't it? Then she said, 'Do you have to do that?' I got a little irritated. There's a bloody social worker inside nearly everyone these days that is trying to get out and I wish they wouldn't practise on me. I tried to explain to her that I felt better in the after stage than in the before one but I lost patience with her. And wouldn't you know, she had a copy of the Guardian with her. If I hadn't felt the weight of Mary's crucifix in my pocket I think I could have sworn at her.
The peace won though, and I strolled off to the tranquillity of the pub. And I'll tell you why it's tranquil and that's because we customers are all dying and the bar staff all died years ago. Get your own and drink it in a café. A café without a Guardian reader, that is.
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