Debra Chase is in excellent health
Patrick Skene Catling
BIMBO
fter the intellectual strain, the emo- tional wear arid tear and the rightful triumph at the box office of Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, Keith Waterhouse deserved one of those recreational jeux d'esprit which he can spiel so well into the tape-recorder while lolling in the jacuzzi with a magnum or two. And here it is, a treat for sore brains.
The prolific Mr Waterhouse thus estab- lishes himself (only part time, of course) as England's Anita Loos. Bimbo is our very own Lorelei Lee of 1990, an ambitious, not-so-dumb, teenage blonde who under- stands instinctively that the way to a man's heart is through his urethra.
In the persona of Jeffrey Bernard, Mr Waterhouse put together a witty mono- logue of jaded wisdom. In the refreshing new role of Debra Chase, he now looks at life from the opposite viewpoint of eager innocence. Mr Bernard knows more and usually writes better, and Debra, as she admits, is `nave', but she has the over- whelming overall advantage of measuring 38-25-35.
Born Marjorie Linda Chase in `the better part of Sydenham', the daughter of a swimming-pool superintendent, our heroine grows 'boobs' at an early age and recognises that school is too small for them. By the age of 12, she gives up the idea of becoming a Sun reporter and raises her sights. 'I now knew what I really wanted to do with my life. I wanted to become a Page Three girl.' Naturally, she changes her name to Debra.
Right at the outset, she declares that she is publishing this volume of intimate memoirs to straighten the record, which A was scurrilously twisted by a ghost-written series of articles, 'Debra Chase By Her- self,' in the Sunday Shocker. They were 'a load of rubbish, a virago of lies from start to finish.'
Frinstance, [she indignantly writes] it is just not true that I had one-night stands with half the Seathorpe Wanderers team before I was 17. If it is of any concedable interest I did not even meet most of the lads until I had been selected Miss South-East Coast and that was when I was 18 at least as I can prove.
And that's just the first page.
`A virago of lies' is typical of the malapropisms that add so much Water- house cunning to the text that perhaps they should be hailed as bienapropisms.
Dad's 'bark is worse than his bile', but Debra escapes to Donna Bella Rosa's School of Fashion in Tulse Hill, whose `syllabub' includes 'posture, aerobatics, Yoga, smiling, make-up, hair and fashion, how to handle the media, and a reel live photo session with a professional photo- grapher with Fleet Street credences.'
After a few weeks of lumbering-up exercises' and lessons in how to do a Page Three moist pout, Debra makes it to the big time and finds that the sky is her oyster.
She enjoys the rewards of her high-pop status, such as 'a candlelit supper at a romantic little bisto' in Gay Paree, £1,000 a day for modelling knickers, and even admission to the inner circle of Bonks nightclub, 'a lay-by in the fast lane'. Instead of the sensible vodka and sodas that Jeffrey Bernard might have recom- mended, her drinks include dangerous Happy Hour concoctions such as Che- quered Career — peach brandy, Triple Sec, vodka, light rum, orange and lemon juice and Grenadine. There are heartaches. If only she could have avoided recording the confessions of a nymphomaniacal night nurse for the Dial-a-Thrill Hotline . . . . If only she had not antagonised the mercenary chauffeur of her lover, Sir Monty Pratt, M.P. . . . If only. . . .
But this is no Hogarthian cautionary tale. Mr Waterhouse, as Debra would say, knows London sleaze and tabloid journal- ism like the back of his head and he knows about silver linings. She drinks champagne right to the end of the book, and so, I bet, did he. Why not? At the age of 19, she calls the end The Beginning'. There could be another Debra Chase story every year, for ever.
`Ladies and gentlemen, please don't panic...
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