Low life
A doctor's calling
Jeffrey Bernard
The build up to this latest move had me cracking at the mental seams. I haven't known such anxiety and depression for an age. But at least the Gentle Ghosts did a good job. It was miraculous that they got my plaster bust of Nelson here without shattering it. Now I sit here surrounded by cardboard boxes and I haven't even got the strength or energy to put them out. They say that moving is third only to bereave- ment and divorce but, having been through three divorces, I think it is worse.
In fact, when my third wife divorced me I was rather amused. She cited my occa- sional spells of sobriety during which, she claimed, I was morose, sullen and uncom- municative. How very true. Why else should she have thought I drink? Anyway, I have another wall to stare at for a year. It is a nice little flat this one, but it is a hundred miles from the West End. Public transport is not my cup of tea but a taxi costs the earth. But even with a decent flat, West Hampstead is not a place in which to loiter. There isn't a class food shop in sight and the only butcher here is an actor who murders scripts.
Anyway, I did venture forth to Soho yesterday and I met a very nice and rather extraordinary woman from Vienna who came into the pub to see me. She teaches English and speaks it fluently. Certainly better than any American I have ever met. She has been making herself busy collect- ing cuttings about me and getting photo- copies made of this column. Now here's the funny thing and you're not going to believe it, but she has chosen me as the subject to write about to get her PhD. No, she is not mad but this has to be an incredible absurdity. I don't know whether to feel flattered or embarrassed. Both. In a way I am surprised that any Austrian can understand the back end of The Spectator. Rich fascist shits, The Coach and Horses and a speechless baby in that order. I'm not sure I can understand it either.
When the Austrian lady, Renate, talks about Vienna and Salzburg I feel strongly tempted to visit the place. By her accounts the countryside is quite beautiful and I would like to see the house in which Mozart lived but I am not a man for cream cakes and coffee, neither do I need to see a psychiatrist until I have to move house again. I also gather that Strauss must have been colour-blind if he thought the Danube was blue. I shall give it a try in the spring and laze by a lake, which will be a damn sight more soothing than staring at a West Hampstead wall.
And now I am preoccupied with the play again. Tom Conti is leaving and on Mon- day James Bolam is taking over from him. The third star making an Orion's Belt. When I met James the other day for the first time in an age he said not to come to his first night, but the second, or preferably the third, because he would be nervous. Who wouldn't be? I very much want to see James and think he is a splendid actor, just right for the part, but I shall nevertheless drag my feet to the Apollo. I have seen enough of myself.
Someone told me that he went to the show last week and sat behind two Amer- ican women. One of them said to the other, 'I think it's very funny, but what a pathetic life'. I'm not sure I like that. I may not be a merchant banker or hot shot film director but I don't think the journey from the cradle towards Golders Green has been exactly pathetic, just manic depressive. Once I have got rid of these cardboard boxes it will hopefully be manic again for a while. But that is very typical of Amer- icans. Had the play been called Jeffrey Bernard is Eating Lots of Bran, or Jeffrey Bernard is Jogging, they would have lap- ped it up. Well, he is doing neither. He is as sick as a dog, never mind unwell.
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