Country life
Holiday talk
Leanda de Lisle
hat a mean old bag I was, you must have all thought, writing about fishing the week Jeffrey Bernard died. The thing is I had sneaked off to Morocco, and, although I had heard that Jeff had refused to stay on dialysis, I didn't believe he was really going to die. I never met him. That was cow- ardice, I'm afraid. I kept fantasising about ringing him up and arranging to go round to his flat armed with goodies from Fort- num and Mason, but I feared he would think me very stupid, bringing him things he couldn't eat or drink. And I don't sup- pose a Soho wit would find meeting Mrs Country Life a very enticing prospect at the best of times. How sad I am that I will now never be able to ask him to sign my 1981 copy of collected 'High life', 'Low life' columns or tell him how much he made me laugh.
At least I didn't come back to find the Queen's head impaled on the gates of Buckingham Palace. The atmosphere when I left England was simply poisonous. In Tangier, people came up in the street to clutch one's hand and say, 'Lady Di', with a moist look in their eye, but no one was cry- ing out to heaven for vengeance. Not Moroccans and not the English friends we took the house with. As for Mother Tere- sa's death, I did think it was a bit odd that the BBC described the death of an 87-year- old saintly nun as a 'tragedy'. We greeted the news with a few shakes of the head. Well, apart from the person who chose to tell us how an American company, stuck with a mountain of ET dolls, had dressed them up in white and blue saris and sold them as Mother Teresa dolls. We should have drunk vodka in Jeff's memory, but gin was the tipple of the week, consumed between enormous meals and going out on pot-buying expeditions. As in ceramic pots.
Taking a house abroad with friends is very popular with the twenty- and thirty- somethings. Not least, I suppose, because so many are still single. But, for a married couple living in the country, it is a particu- lar pleasure. No children, no housework, no need to drive and plenty of time to relax with old friends and new. Peter and I were, in fact, the only married couple on this hol- iday. But as most of them were paired up there weren't nearly enough tales of romantic failure from older singles. I had to wait until I got home for that kind of entertainment. On the top of our pile of post, my husband's farm secretary had placed a fax from my friend Elizabeth. I've changed the place names, but this is what she wrote: Dear Leanda
I had a simply grotesque time in Ruritania with this totally monstrous Ruritanian I had gone out to pursue a liaison with. In fact, in the end I had to flee his castle in the early hours, two days after I arrived. What a ghast- ly country Ruritania is and what pigs the peo- ple are (although I did meet a charming man in Ruritaniaville). Never again.
I particularly liked the aside about the charming man in Ruritaniaville. 'Never again', my foot.
I rang her to ask whether her aristocrat had turned into a bat at midnight. She wouldn't tell me as she was at work, but I think the odds are quite high. Her descrip- tion of how she paced her room, wondering whether the feudal serfs in the village would help her escape by taxi, was distinct- ly reminiscent of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Still, I'm not sure how much sympathy I should give her. Over the past few weeks people in England have been able to think of nothing but the dead. And even holiday- ing with the undead is less grim than that.
'Why don't we have a power breakfast some other morning?'
Previous page
