Low life
Small mercies
Jeffrey Bernard
Afew minutes ago I asked She who would drown in my eyes to scramble some eggs and she claimed that I treat her like a geisha girl. Then, when I went into the kitchen to console her and reassure her that Greenham Common was a wonderful shambles and that really my idea of heaven is to sit on straw bales drinking tea out of tin mugs and not hanging about at Royal Ascot swilling bubbly she muttered some- thing about wanting to be Carmen and not the Mary Poppins I had turned her into. My God, don't women come out with some strange guff. One minute it's Greenham and Marxism and the next minute she announces, 'Most of my friends will be in the Royal Enclosure this week.' When the barricades go up she'll be jumping from one side to the other like a demented frog. What with her pink socks and baggy trousers it's no wonder Norman refers to her as Coco the Clown. I don't understand why liberals dress to keep down appear- ances. She says my liking for high-heeled ankle-strap shoes is proof that I am a pig and, like a lot of women journalists, she has the maddening and frequently boring habit of thinking aloud. I crave the sanity of five minutes silence but she does, I must say, scramble a mean egg even though making gravy is her forte. I'm afraid it's the old business of beggars being unable to be choosers. When you get to be a 53-year-old skeleton with grey hair you have to be grateful for small mercies. Come to think of it she is not exactly a small mercy. She has an ample bosom and she even has legs on a par with Cyd Charisse's but she will cover them up with those awful baggy trousers. But even worse is a woman friend of hers, an American health freak, who disapproves of drinking except for when I'm buying the rounds. I tell you, these people are causing me a fiscal haemor- rhage. It's drinks and Greek restaurants every night and I don't know how much longer Barclays Bank will take the strain.
Last Saturday I had a break though. Billy, who took me to the Derby on his bus, got married at Marlowe and gave a splendid reception at the Complete Angler Hotel afterwards. It was a glorious day marred only for five minutes by my looking out across the river and pondering my own marriages. The old eyes brimmed over and two tears splashed into my vodka giving it an attractively salty flavour. This is a new cocktail that I have decided to call Mar- riage on the Rocks.
But then the following day I flew over to Chantilly for the Prix de Diane sponsored by Hermes and I nearly wept again when I spoke to Lester Piggott in the changing room after he won the race. The horse didn't win it, Lester did. He threw it over the line. There's something strangely mov- ing about someone doing something bril- liantly and he is very, very special. It was most likely the last classic he will win. It was a very jolly day otherwise and the Hermes people showed that not all press trips have to be ghastly. Their hospitality was stupendous and I booked a bed in the Middlesex Hospital on my return. But the French are something else. There's some- thing rather awful about those chic French women who wear their money on their backs. They really want it to be seen. When we sat down to lunch the charming PR man from Hermes opened a bottle of wine that I had been panting for, took a sip and informed me, 'It should be quite good in a year's time.' I told him I couldn't wait that long. In England you can get into the weighing room on occasions with a Jockey Club press badge but not the changing room. It was fascinating to be in it though at Chantilly. The atmosphere, the colours of the jockeys' silks hanging up around the room and the chat between them between races is really extraordinary. I wish to God that I'd had a classy photographer with me with some colour film. And I'd have liked, as a souvenir, a picture of me talking to a stark naked Lester.
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