Low life
Mixed up
Jeffrey Bernard
The amazing woman I wrote about last week who told me that she wanted to drown in the twin blue pools of my eyes turns out to have a delightful flat in Chelsea. In one corner of her bedroom there were 300 pairs of knickers on the floor and in the other corner there was a disgusting marmalade cat that looked like a pile of rotten oranges. On the day of the Cup Final she revealed to me that she thought Everton was a suburb of London somewhere in the Wimbledon area. All this is catching. She asked me would I care to go and see The Seagull with her and I said no, I didn't like Ibsen. Perhaps it isn't altogether her fault. I've had my plays and playwrights mixed up for some time. In 1958, when I was a flyman at the Old Vic, I let in the backdrop for The Merchant of Venice into the last act of Much Ado About Nothing. Anyway, while I was eyeing the woman with 300 pairs of knickers on her floor, eating some toast and reading my Times I saw that Colonel Gaddafi had arrived in Khartoum with 300 advisers. I pondered this for some time. How daft do you have to be to need 300 advisers and how do you get to run a country if you need that many? A second opinion I should have thought should suffice. Fourteen pairs of knickers should suffice as well. (I always keep a fortnight's supply of everything except money.)
Which brings me to another odd aspect of the past week. On Monday evening I went to the private view at the Tate of Francis Bacon's retrospective exhibition. At the end of the evening I told him that he'd have to bung me the fare home as I was skint. Of course, he did. But it made another friend of his quite furious who said to me, 'How could you possibly ask him for some money on such a special occasion?' I don't get it. I once had to ask someone at Golders Green crematorium for the taxi fare back to Soho — up until then they had held their tears back — and I never thought it an unsuitable occasion. But I
don't know why the Spectator calls this
column `Low life'. Apart from slurping champagne with Francis in the Tate I had a lovely evening sipping cocktails with the delightful Rosamond Lehmann at her house. What a splendid woman she is and still looking so. I also had an interesting drink in the new Groucho Club. There was a very pretty girl there who turned out to be the daughter of the man who looks after me in the Middlesex Hospital diabetic clinic. I should have asked her to give me a checkup. I had to do just that one day last year in the Colony Room Club next door.
A doctor friend examined me in the back room by the telephone box. It was rather odd standing there with my trousers round my ankles and people going to and fro without the slightest surprise at the sight of it all. But in spite of the Tate private view and Miss Lehmann an element of low life did creep in last week when I read the excellent story about the death of a certain Mike Kelly who died after drinking mix- tures of whisky, brandy, Tia Maria and Galliano as forfeits when he lost regularly playing spoof in his local in Salisbury. He had, incidentally, four double rums and four pints of bitter before the game began. The pub all this happened in was called the Coach and Horses. Of course it's sad for him and those who loved him but what an extraordinary way to go. The coroner criticised the publican for letting him drink so much and I hope a coroner criticises Norman one day for letting me drink so little. You can't get bloody served in my Coach and Horses any more. Both the barmen have lunch breaks which seemingly last from 11.00 until 3.00 which leaves one woman behind the bar who spends all her time wiping surfaces. The business of wiping surfaces is very much like the business of listening to pop music all day. It nullifies the pain, for some people, of thinking. What, I wonder, are these people frightened of thinking about? The men or women with the earphone contraptions who walk about looking glazed are to be as avoided as digital watches, after-shave lotion and metal briefcases. Another thing to be avoided is a woman who needs 300 pairs of knickers and a ginger cat. Sadly, I can't avoid her. She makes me laugh.
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