Galloping consumption
Jeffrey Bernard
She could be mad. Only time will tell. She has a book about the 50 worst movies ever made, with quotes from the dreadful scripts and the gem from Genghis Khan, John Wayne to Susan Hayward, is, 'You are my Tartar woman. I will take you and make you my own. My blood says yes.' Rich, isn't it? She is so captivated by this nonsense that I have to say that to her once a day in the Coach and Horses. Norman Overheard yesterday and he now thinks that it's me that is bonkers. I took her to Lambourn earlier this week in an attempt to arouse her interest in racing and outdoor games. I was also there with a photo- grapher to do a feature on the village for a Sunday colour mag. We arrived at the Swan in Great Shefford at 6 p.m. and, as happens daily in racing circles, nearly everyone was paralytic by 10 p.m. I be- haved fairly badly and fell over a few times and finally had to be taken to the local doctor called Kempton who got quite annoyed at having to search Berkshire for some insulin at midnight. He also got quite annoyed that I kept calling him Lingfield or Sandown. I was getting my parks mixed up. Then our hostess fell over too. The Photographer, who was gazing out of the window like the French Lieutenant's Woman standing on the edge of the Cobb, suddenly screamed, 'I can't bear working With drunks,' and so saying he swept out, Jumped into his car and sped down the drive in a cloud of gravel. Slightly unpro- fessional since She and I duly turned up on the gallops at 7.30 the following morning to watch Peter Walwyn's first lot do some fast Work. He and his wife, Bonk, are two stars. Between first and second 'lots' we had breakfast with them with Joe Mercer and David Yates. It was very jolly and Bonk forced a vodka down me after the eggs and bacon. It was odd that it turned out that Bonk said she had been at school with the ex-sister-in-law of She who would drown, Vanessa Redgrave. Incidentally, at this very moment She is lying on a bed with tea bags over her eyelids in the hope that they will soothe her tear ducts, inflamed she claims, at sobbing over my appalling behaviour. I seem to be surrounded by dramatists and dramatics. Anyway, after the gallops I took her to the George, the Red Lion, the Malt Shovel and then the Swan in the hope that She would get some of the atmosphere of the place. In the afternoon there was a champagne party given by the guvnor of the Swan, Mike Lovett, and we sat by the River Lambourn, which runs through the valley of hate and fear, in the sunshine lacing our bubbly with Cointreau. A nice bloke who lives there and owns a couple of ponds he stocks with trout promised me that he would teach me to become a fly fisherman. Oh, how I long for those days of idleness flicking trout out of the water, a picnic hamper on one side of me and She on the other side of me sobbing her heart out with tea bags on her eyelids. Personally, I've given up crying, although I must say that the raising of money at Wembley last Saturday was incredibly moving. How odd that the fol- lowing day the Sunday Times and Observer should lead the front page with President Reagan's polyps and Neil Kinnock and the Notts miners. But it was awful to get back to London after Lambourn. She lives in a ghetto with her two children, Luke and Jemima, two lovely young things, She claims, but in my opinion two psychopathic layabouts like most people under the age of 30 seem to be. But I can't get over that photographer walking out in a huff. He doesn't like working with drunks? Who else is there to work with? There's no pleasing some people. He could have had the time of his life if he'd hung about a bit. The pictures might not have all been in focus but life in soft focus is lovely. God alone knows what it must look like through two tea bags though. Only She knows that and my blood says yes.
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