Low Life
Country Matters
Jeffrey Bernard
T went back to Suffolk last weekend after 1 ten years. I fled it with tears in my eyes and the return match on Sunday brought tears to my eyes for different reasons. God, what creeps! Of course my old cottage has been done up. You could play billiards on the lawn where I spent summer afternoons with my hand up someone's skirt and they've knocked down the garden shed in which I began the novel of the century the skirt distracted me after page one — but the twits have torn down the honeysuckle. Most of the village bores are still intact though and the next idiot who tells me to 'always plant your potatoes on Good Friday' is going to have his pint of bitter poured over him. As I explained, through gritted teeth, there are no potatoes in Great Portland Steet. Although the Peacock Inn has been done up too I felt as though I'd just popped out for a pee when I walked through the door. The same conversations were still in progress if you can call standing and thinking progress.
Sundays are the days when the middle classes dress down. The men wear old army jerseys full of moth holes, green gumboots, torn trousers — a barrister wears an old court room striped pair — and the stains of motor mower oil are displayed like Pistol's wounds collected on St Crispin's Day. For the ladies, husky coats are de rigeur. Conversation embraces the glory of the Falkland Islands, isn't she doing a good job, the price of property, jam making, jumble sales and was the vicar pissed this morning. The middle bar is two steps down the social ladder and is packed by the sort of people who indulge in roadside picnics, keep budgerigars and use metal teapots. They all share the same brain. The back bar is for the local working men. All of them can tickle trout, catch pheasants with their bare hands, sell you a car for £5, mend your washing machine for the price of a drink and tell you never to put in tulip bulbs on an odd day of the month when it's raining and the mistle thrush is silent. The likes of me are regarded as dangerous and eccen- tric. Twelve years ago, the local gentry struck me off the cocktail party circuit because I had a piss in the rectory flower bed — a little recycled Tio Pepe never killed a wallflower, but such things live in thei,r memories. My affair with the vicars daughter has now assumed Profumo-like proportions — mere dalliance in the orgy loft — and legend has it that I used to &it'd, all day in Sudbury with Maurice RieharA son on market days. I should bloody hope I did. Dear Maurice. But there were some new faces. Arly0(1y with a few bob these days puts it into a 0' tage. The men take up weekend lawn n1°1:: ing as though it's a career and the won1P' are drawn to crafts. If there's anYthlili more disgusting than art then it's craft!: Making corn dollies is not a suitab.r pastime for an attractive woman and, t°Y the way, the country is still beautifully LI I touched by feminism. Furthermore thank country women to clear out the clay from the pottery from under their 001 nails before they caress my magnificell„, body and I'll thank them too for not en°'; ing everything in sunflower seed oil, atua ting flies by nude sunbathing and brirtg1/:0 their peanut butter encrusted children In pubs. Yes, it's odd that. Middle dal children are addicted to peanut butter:ve suppose it's an easy way to keep them ell and far cheaper than an oxygen tent. his Sadly, my host was cruelly exposed by ed small son at the weekend. His friend 0,1( y him, 'What does your daddy do?' ilitr„„ told him, 'He goes to London every nth' goes into pubs, cashes cheques and gives to change to mummy.' There's no answer
that, nor should there be. Alout
Next week I want to talk to you girl I've just met. She works in the For';., Office and whistles Danny Boy when 5"hsr-v. drunk. Not all the nuts are in the cone
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