Low life
Fall guy
Jeffrey Bernard
Ihad a fall last week that you wouldn't ask a stunt man to perform. I was moving a load of things which was far too heavy for me into my new abode and fell backwards down the steepest staircase I have come across. In fact it is more like a ladder with carpeted rungs. Luckily there was someone in the house who carried me up to my bed. My knee felt as though it had been torn to shreds.
In the morning, repressing screams, I found that I was alone and so had to bump myself down two floors on my bum to phone for help. She arrived with food and drink and a smile of sympathy which also said, 'You can't go on like this.' (Wanna bet?) Then she went off to the Ritz for lunch. I have an electric kettle by the bed and I drank about 15 cups of tea while moaning — I am addicted to the stuff when struck down by whatever — while she ate pheasant overlooking Green Park. Yes, there is justice in the world.
After a while I switched reluctantly, yes, reluctantly, to vodka in the hope it would anaesthetise the leg which was now hurting from hip to toe. It didn't work. I have a high pain threshold but it was sulking. Then a contingent of Samaritans from the Coach and Horses turned up. Bump, bump, bump down three floors to let them in. It is a terrible reflection on one's habits that friends should think you are dead if you fail to appear in the saloon bar for three days.
Anyway, someone phoned Norman to tell him what had happened and apparently he turned round to the pub and screamed, 'He's not dead. He's not dead.' Very embarrassing. Then he turned up swearing about the climb to my garret and bearing various things I can't tell you about for fear of spoiling his reputation for being a shit. He cherishes that. But whenever he thinks the grim reaper is knocking on my door he appears and makes me feel as though I am newly arrived in a manger. If I was in bed with my bride on honeymoon — God forbid — he would interrupt the proceed- ings by turning up with a bowl of fruit.
But what a mess I am in after four days in bed. The duvet is covered in cake crumbs, tissues, newspapers, an old tea bag I can't quite reach and the crust of an ex-bacon sandwich. By the side of the bed is a carrier bag into which I have been emptying the ash-tray. It is nearly full. Oddly enough it's rather cosy. It would be a nice wallow but for the pain. And that's receding, although I nearly had a heart attack this morning. What should come through the post from Kenya but a bill from the Muthaiga Country Club. It is for 3,631. I was ice cold for a second. Surely no one could go mad in a club. Of course, it was not pounds but Kenyan shillings. What a nasty turn, though, and it can so often happen to someone with amnesia.
And thereby hangs a tale. The painter Robert McBryde had a grandfather years ago who was boringly and obnoxiously drunk all day and every day. The family got fed up with it and decided on desperate measures. One night, after he had passed out and been put to bed, they pulled back the blankets and poured the entire con- tents of an Elsan bucket over him, replaced the blankets and left him there. When he came to in the morning they were all standing around his bed shaking their heads sadly and muttering, 'You see, that's what happens to you when you drink.' He never touched another drop and if the story is true, which I doubt, he must have been a very gullible old fool. If I had been in his shoes, perish the thought, I would have gone on drinking and thrown the Elsan away.
Yes, I felt like him for a second or two when the bill from the Muthaiga arrived. They sent the chits I signed as well and 3 and 4 December must have been quite something. I wish I could remember. I also got a chit which says 'Swimming' and I can't swim, but there was a bar by the pool. But how's this chit for laundry: three shirts, five pants, four socks and one pair of jeans for fractionally less than £1. McBryde's grandfather's laundry would have been a little more, probably.
Previous page
