Low life
Loopy
Jeffrey Bernard
What people will do to be loved! Dear God. There's a dog in the house I've been weekending in which got me thinking about it. She eats your shoes and clothes and then, tail wagging, presents you with the remnants as though she's done you a colossal favour. Her eyes plead for reward. That's okay, what isn't is the appalling man I met who balances a wine glass on his head at closing time. He also describes a circle through the air with a glass of beer, the idea being that centrifugal force will prevent a drop of it being spilt. On the occasion I saw this odd plea for love and attention most of the beer went over me. Strangely enough I feel sad that this clown is a member of a dy- ing breed. They're brave enough after all, and I wouldn't fancy having been Will Somers and trying to make Henry VIII
laugh all day. But back to the man who balances wine glasses on his head in the hope of a pat on the head.
He's middle-aged, balding, suntanned, well dressed, cuckolded and deserted, well spoken, pickled in whisky and wine and he could have been a tea planter in a Somerset Maugham story or maybe a lounge lizard on a pre-war Cunarder. As it is, I see him utterly alone, shuffling downstairs in his slippers in the morning to make a cup of tea with trembling hands and wondering for the millionth time how and why it all went wrong. After the circus-dog-like tricks with the beer- and the .wine- glass balancing I finally lost patience with him at an other- wise perfectly lovely garden party. He sud- denly leant forward in his deck chair, the white wine sweat pouring down his face, looked at me earnestly and asked, 'Jeff, what do you think life means?' I said, 'You're a prick.' What do I think life means indeed! What a bloody stupid ques- tion, even from a drunk. Undeterred he went on to tell me, 'You see, I'm a philosopher.'
That went a long way towards explain- ing why he was dangerously serious and he went on to tell me how his wife had left him. Apparently she got very depressed and only allowed him the leg over once a month (once a year should have been more like it). He suggested she attend a crazy fortnight's seminar on philosophy some- where, which she did, and when she came back she packed her bags and told him, 'I'm going off to do my own thing.' What a wonderful, meaningless phrase `do my own thing'. And serves him right. If I had a wife I wouldn't let her within a hun- dred miles of a philosopher. Anyway, after the party we went to the pub for more tricks and pleas for attention and at closing time he informed me that 'Life is a dream.' I was sorely tempted to give him a clout over the ear to show him that it isn't but the bell for last orders sounded which also proved it.
The next day he called round to where I was staying and asked my weekend compa- nion if she'd like to go up in an aeroplane for a joy ride. Yes, a philosophical pilot too. 'We can loop the loop,' he said. She was as excited as a 12-year-old boy would be at the prospect of meeting Ian Botham but she asked me did I mind. Well I did bloody mind but I looked at her lovely face and thought she might just as well get killed in an aeroplane crash as meet Mr Right and bring up four children in Penge or Purley. It also occurred to me that hiring an aeroplane for an hour to loop the loop must be just about the most expensive way man has yet devised to look up a girl's skirt. The loop the loop in Wheelers — bisque to you — is only £1.50 and I've had some good results with it. But they came back in one piece each, she exhilarated and he deeply philosophical, either because it was before opening time or maybe because he'd caught a sight of God up there above Felixstowe. (What a dreadful thing to show a girl. Felix- stowe!) Since then I've tried to be perfectly honest with myself, not delude myself and work out just what it is I do to try and get love and attention. I know I'm not loved for smoking and coughing in bed for an hour every morning so it must be something after opening time. A survey reported in last Tuesday's Times said that women like men to be kind and humorous. A survey in next Tuesday's Times will doubtless inform us that Queen Anne is dead. That must be it. I did once offer a woman my barstool and it ended disastrously in marriage. 1 must have told her a joke too on the way to the registry office. But looping the loop is beyond my means and nerves and, anyway, I'm more interested in removing skirts than looking up them. Frankly, I wouldn't have thought aerobatics to be either kind or humorous but the paths to a girl's heart are not as the crow flies. I shall now retire to the Coach and Horses to balance a glass of vodka, lime, ice and soda on my head and ponder on just whose skirt Icarus was planning to look up.
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