Low life
Same old scripts
Jeffrey Bernard
We were strolling towards Soho just before opening time yesterday and She suddenly said, 'Isn't it a lovely day.' I made the nonsensical but obligatory reply, 'Any day that you are in is lovely.' (One has to make these sorts of utterance from time to time to remind them that they are women.) Anyway, in response to that She said, 'Jeffrey, you make my heart sing with happiness.' On reflection it seems quite obvious to me that we both need new script- writers. There is a vast reservoir of drivel in the back of our minds and I think I may have been Pavlov's dog before I became Norman's Boswell. And another annoying thing is if I can make her heart sing with happiness — in a minor key I suspect — why can't I make my own heart sing with happiness? It would halve the dinner bills. Taking her to the Tower Grill every night in Cleveland Street is killing me and my pocket. Last night she claims that I fell asleep in my plate of kleftika. 'I was looking for a Stanley Kowalski,' she moaned, 'and I've ended up with Winnie the Pooh.' Well, it works both ways. I've been searching for Tosca and have ended up with Snow White. She claims that she's torrid — it is one of her favourite words — so I peered into the Oxford Dictionary to make sure what it means and it told me 'very hot and dry, intense, passionate'. I can only hope that she will still be as hot this coming December.
But I did manage to get a day off on Monday when I went to the funeral of a dear old friend called Terry Jones. First there was a church service and then we went to Finchley where he was buried. I found it terribly depressing when that coffin was lowered into the ground. We worked in the same coal mine years ago, played darts together in the old City of London pub in Berwick Street, had lunch at Isow's every day and shared what we had long ago. 1 don't really believe in an after life but She who would drown tells me that it is probably no worse than closing time at 3 p.m. and that it will probably be like just going to the Colony Room Club. Well the Colony is pure purgatory. Perhaps heaven comes at 5.30 p.m.
Then, the next day, I took She with me to see dear Anna — Alice Thomas Ellis — to deliver my book. They talked absolute rubbish in the garden while Janet and I discussed philosophy in the kitchen. Anna sometimes comes over like an extremely clever Mrs Tittlemouse but she's as sharp as razor blades and if I get one more bollocking from her husband, Colin, for being late with manuscripts I shall have a heart attack. Luckily the good doctor, Jonathan Miller, lives next door. What amazing neighbours has Anna. Claire Tomalin, the head girl at the dreaded Arts Council, lives down the road and Alan Bennett lives opposite. Beryl Bainbridge lives under their kitchen table and I rather suspect that Professor Ayer kips in the cellar. But Janet is quite remarkable. She irons 28 shirts a week for Colin, who presumably walks back and forth from the Old Piano Factory four times a day to change shirts. Not only is he a shirt fetishist and real tennis player, he can make puns in Ancient Greek. Anyway, he says they're puns but we have no way of telling being as we are unfamiliar with the language. He could be saying anything for all I know.
But I can now breathe a sign of relief. She has just this minute left — She I mean, not Anna — having gouged yet another fiver out of me for the fare home. Unfamil- iar as I am with public transport it still comes as a surprise to learn that it costs £5 to get from Great Portland Street to the Fulham Road. These people have no mer- cy. She is as tough as an Inland Revenue collector. It is my wallet and not my eyes she wants to drown in but since Norman is already there there's no more room. Then she has the cheek to tell me that her psychiatrist chum says that the reason I'm always broke is because I want to remain an adolescent for ever. He, by the way, is going to sort out the problem of my disgusting nightmares. I had such a stinker last night so I am now going immediately to the Coach and Horses to deaden it. Deaden everything.
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