Low life
Under pressure
Jeffrey Bernard
Acouple of months ago I had the opportunity to move into a good flat in Swiss Cottage. I turned it down in favour of another in Soho. It was the biggest mistake I have made in the last five years of moving from pad to pad. Soho has fallen through and my lease here has a mere three weeks to run. If I hadn't been told otherwise by the medical profession and the Ministry of Health I would say that it is stress that is keeping me alive. And I have yet to have the nervous breakdown that I expected. The potential landlady at Swiss Cottage, with the strangely charming name Lemma, even returned my deposit, and promptly too. That was a turn-up for the books in my ghastly experience.
So I suppose it is back to living out of carrier bags unless Norman can come up with something. He reads out the small print of the To Let columns in the Evening Standard to me, which I can only struggle to see through a trembling magnifying- glass (the shakes are getting worse because of neuropathy).
I went to see a flat in Belsize Park last night and it had a formica-topped table in the sitting-room and two single beds in the bedroom. I expect formica in lousy pubs, and single beds are for children. These sorts of places and those offered by agents are all about £150 a week. I would live abroad if I was a linguist, or in Dublin if I were a better listener. I can't really count Dublin as being abroad because I have always felt at home there. That may be because of the pubs, racing and the hacks. What I don't quite understand, as I cruise through St John's Wood in my minicab every morning and look at the houses, is where. on earth did the residents get the money from and how. What recession? Can they all be American film producers? My other preoccupation at the moment is whether or not I am sitting on a case of nitroglycerine. Despite the plumber's warn- ing that my gas boiler is 'potentially lethal' I switched it on again last night. I can't shiver in bed every night during this flam- ing June and I can't go to the Groucho Club whenever I want a bath even though the staff are angels of mercy. But I don't think the plumber meant that the boiler was about to explode, I think he meant I might get gassed while asleep in bed. I don't much like the idea of being discov- ered in a decomposed condition by bailiffs or VAT men. The trouble is you can't smell this North Sea gas and when I switched the bedside light on last night I thought it was even money on my being blown through the ceiling into the great micturator's flat upstairs.
One of the good things about the possi- bility of roaming the streets with carrier bags will be not having to hear that again or listen to the music played downstairs. The thumping of rhythm sections makes it like trying to sleep next to a ship's engine room but without the reassuring feeling that sound can give a voyager.
Anyway, as I say, thank heaven for a bit of stress. I have had a very big bet — by my standards — on this Test Match at Lord's and I can't make up my mind whether to put soda water in the vodka next to me or fresh orange juice. Neither can I make up my mind these days whether to have the lemon chicken or the orange duck when I go to the Ming restaurant. I am under pres- sure.
And here's an odd thing. The woman who owns the Ming, Hong Kong Christine, gave me a house-warming present for the Soho flat last week. An electric kettle and very kind of her too. Where the hell am I going to plug it in?
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