Low life
Egyptian daddy
Jeffrey Bernard Ikeep thinking of the nutty reader who wrote to me and said, 'What a wonderful life you must lead.' Well I suppose it is by a tramp's standards but I am beginning to wonder just when I shall run out of friends willing to put me up while the search for a flat goes on and on and on. Finding the source of the Nile was a doddle compared to this game. And I am beginning to get up very late in the morning which is a bad sign but what is there to get up for? Other signs of giving way are dirty fingernails, wearing a shirt for two consecutive days and not bothering to shave. I tell you it's midway through Waterloo and I can't for the life of
me see Blucher on the horizon.
But having said all that I must say that Islington grows on me. The architecture I mentioned a couple of weeks ago plus the trees and the gardens are very comforting. I wish I had been old enough to appreciate Holland Park while I was growing up there during the war. My mother could have bought our lovely house for peanuts then but peanuts were never the strong suit of this family.
But here's an odd thing. The gloom and monotony of low life was broken this week by an extraordinary telephone call I re- ceived in the pub. A woman aged 38 called to inform me that I am her father. She came into the pub five years ago to give me the same story but I then thought I would never hear from her again. Now she has cropped up again. I did in fact lose my virginity — why lose? I gave it away gladly — to her mother when I was 15 years old in 1947, so I could theoretically be her father, but I am damned sure I am not. She said that someone has just lent her a copy of my book and that she can tell from the photograph taken of me when I was young that I am definitely dad. She said that at the same age our eyebrows were exactly the same. Dark brown and hairy. I can't see that standing up in court, not that she wants anything from me, but eyebrows? I ask you.
What she probably wants — she was adopted — is a father and I can guess just how she feels. I would like a father too. I am up to here with mothers and I wouldn't hazard a guess at how many of them I have had over the past 30 years. But I suspect that she just wants to belong. Well, she's welcome for what it's worth. She then went on to say that having read Low Life she thinks I am very sensitive. Now that was nice. Up till now I thought I was simply soft in the head. But it is a little odd at the age of 38 to still crave a father, or is it?
I would like my daughter, I know, but I don't see much of her. But next month I hope to take her on a cruise up the Nile. At least that will be something she will never forget. Who knows, I might even find an unfurnished flat in Luxor. Anyway, she is thrilled by the idea, but what does a 17-year-old girl do while her father is stretched out pissed in a deckchair getting sunstroke and throwing ice-cubes at the crocodiles? Her mother says there will be lots of people for her to talk to. Lots of people? What sort? I can't imagine anyone less wonderful than Graham Greene and Eric Ambler characters on a Nile steamer but I know in my heart that they will in reality be a dull bunch of tourists. Aren't we all?
I don't think I am exactly dull but I do dread the glazed-eyed boredom that comes over the faces of barmen and waiters in foreign lands when I approach. But then, of course, most people dislike each other. Until they get to know each other and then it can be loathing. But talking of the daughter, Isabel, I was extremely shocked — and I mean it — to hear the other day that her mother found an empty bottle of Chablis in her room. Homework? A half- bottle yes. An empty whole bottle, no. I hope it was a good one though and not the sort of crap they sell in Wheeler's. I thought these people had pop music and discos to stop them from thinking, but it would seem not.
What next? Yes, of course. An affair with an Egyptian cabin boy. I think I might creep quietly into a pyramid and lay me down to die. I am mummified already anyway. And now, daddified.
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