Low life
Night visits
Jeffrey Bernard
0 ne night last week my doorbell rang at 3 a.m. My heart gave a lurch as I instinc- tively thought first that it must be the police and second that my daughter, Isabel, must have had some awful accident. As it turned out, it was simply a lunatic motor- bike messenger from the Daily Telegraph delivering a letter from a reader that the Books pages were passing on to me. Why 3 a.m.? The letter simply said that the sender agreed with everything I had said about a book I had reviewed, but I felt sick for the rest of the night and couldn't sleep again. It was the first time that my rather expensive aquarium has served much of a purpose. I switched their light on and watched the fish, until Vera came to make breakfast. The fish are pretty enough in themselves, especially the Neons, but the more I look at them the nastier and more stupid they become. Territorial rights and food are just about all they can think about and I wonder what football team they support.
But it must be a little traumatic to be plucked from the Amazon and dumped in Soho. And that reminds me, The Times was going to give me a travel piece to write but they have forgotten me, and I would have thought that going up the Amazon or any- where else in a wheelchair apart from my kitchen might have been of some interest. As it is, the only adventure on the horizon — having done the boat trip to Greenwich — is a trip in the opposite direction, up- river to Kew Gardens. Boats in that direc- tion, by the way, are a very pleasant way of going to either Kempton Park or Windsor evening racing. How odd to be able to go on boat trips and yet hardly be able to find a wheelchair-accessible restaurant in the whole of the West End.
Meanwhile, I am again becalmed while Vera takes another two or three days' well- eared rest. It is bad luck on them that I always compare her understudies with Vera, but I can't help it. Irritability mounts hand in hand with age, and impatience and intolerance increase. A nice and willing Australian girl bids me goodbye every morning by saying, 'don't do anything I wouldn't do,' and in answer to anything whatsoever that I say to her she replies, 'no problem'. Yesterday morning, she told me that at last she had plucked up sufficient courage to ask me how I had lost my right leg. I don't know why that should need courage because it is just about the first thing I would ask a grumpy old twit like me, but she was too nervous to ask. I gave her the abridged version and not the authorised one since I would hate to put off any young person from chain-smoking and gargling with alcohol. Anyway, the Australians are the last people on earth that I can imagine would be suited to political correctness.
I often think of going back to Australia and often thumb through travel guides to see if there is anywhere to escape to even in this country. Recently I have written away for hotel brochures to find out if there is anywhere worth going for a long weekend break. All the best and most comfortable places put me off immediately by proudly announcing that they have excellent facilities for conferences and management meetings. I can think of little more loathsome than weekending with a bunch of idiots half drowned in aftershave lotion and with their names stuck on to their lapels to remind them of who they are and give them an identity. The service in such places is equally horrid being smarmy and the servants themselves being such snobs. I suppose the day will come when I shall book into an hotel, sign the register and be told by the receptionist, 'don't do anything I wouldn't do.'
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