Low life
Poles apart
Jeffrey Bernard
For a moment I thought I was going mad. There I was, sitting quietly in the Coach =and Horses minding my own business and having my 11 a.m. gargle, when this man walked up to me and said, `D'you remember Peter the Pole who worked in the dirty bookshop in St Anne's Court? You know, the bloke whose father is an ear, nose and throat surgeon in War- saw? Well anyway, he's just moved to Hounslow.' There's no answer to that. It has to be the most extraordinary address I've ever had aimed at me. Not only do I not know Peter the Pole, have never even heard of him, nor care greatly how his father scrapes a living, I also have very little time for a man who moves to Hounslow and wouldn't trust him an inch. But what an amazing thing to walk up to someone out of the blue and ask them that.
So I said no, I didn't know the said Peter the Pole and I turned my back on the man — feeling distinctly apprehensive — and continued to ponder the meaning of life and man's incredible ascent from the discovery of fire and the invention of the wheel to Hounslow. Well might I have been ap- prehensive. Just as I was beginning to feel a little calmer the charming Mrs Balon, Nor- man's unfortunate mother, snuck up behind me and whispered, 'I bet you didn't know my grandfather had an umbrella shop in Gower Street.' Oddly enough the possibility of Mrs Balon's grandfather ever having had an umbrella shop in Gower
Street has never crossed my seething brain although, God knows, I'm a broad minded man. Well, after a short but emotional discussion on the subject of the 1890 um- brella boom in Gower Street Mrs Baton and I went our separate ways; she to the snack bar and me back to what was rapidly becoming a strictly medicinal drink. Just as I was draining that a man approached me and said, with a thick Glaswegian accent, 'Hey Jimmy, I bet you've never seen a black man's funeral.'
Then it clicked. I was in the middle of some dreadful plot. These mad utterances were codes or ciphers like the 39 Steps or the Five Orange Pips or the Dancing Men. Obviously I was to meet a man with a Polish accent in Hounslow who would give me a message to deliver to a dead black man in an umbrella shop in Gower Street. Nothing so extraordinary about that after all, is there? But it called for another drink and just as I ordered it the Glaswegian sprang at me again. 'No, you haven't,' he said. 'When they die they make them into tyres.'
Now I am aware, you know, of the fact that if you have the odd drink in pubs you have to pay the penalty of mixing with nuts. But it's going over the top now and, talking of going over the top, it was suggested yesterday that we organise a Coach and Horses concert party to go out and enter- tain our lads in the Falkland Islands. You know, remind them what they're fighting for. Mum Balon's umbrella recitation is pure Stanley Holloway stuff. The Glaswegian comic would, I'm sure, find a warm welcome in the engine room of HMS Invincible but I can't really see a slot for Peter the Pole. As for my own meagre talents, picking the loser of a two-horse race and losing my insulin, I see no place for me although I've told Norman I'd be willing to assist him in any catering venture he may be considering. Sadly we boast no latter-day Vera Lynn to cheer our marines and it would be cruel to bring No Knickers Joyce out of retirement to do just that. Yes, I'm afraid the ladies are very thin on the ground in the Coach and Horses and I now have to live with my memories. Could it be that the fifth Mrs Bernard is at this very moment lurking in a pub in Hounslow or Gower Street? I fear not. There isn't a single pub in Gower Street come to think of it and I fear there might not be one in the Falkland Islands either.
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