Low life
Me and my teddy bear
Jeffrey Bernard
Iwas just getting used to Vera's holiday stand-in, the shy Irish girl I called County Claire, when she was struck down with flu. Her replacement is a Bajan woman called Juanita and if that isn't the most inapPro" priate name for a home help then tell Me what is. You might think as I do that a Juanita should be passionate and tempes" tuous, but this one compliments me about my china as she washes it up and then we reminisce about Barbados, our favourite place in the sun. I was nursing a vodka and orange juice yesterday morning and for a moment thought I was sipping a rum punch In the Fisherman's Bar in Speightstown surrounded by exuberant dominoes players, but then it was suddenly Soho, Stolichnaya and Juanita mopping the kitchen floor. The sweet dreams never last long. I must go back to Barbados and make sure it is still there when all this is over.
But, apart from the hip, there are two parties for Graham Lord's book, Just the One, to contend with and a few faces from the past to look upon. Yesterday I read the first review of the book, which appears in this month's Literary Review and which was written — rather kindly, I thought — by J.W.M. Thompson. I doubt that female reviewers will tread so softly over the story I am now pretty sick of remembering. But what a strange feeling it was to read some- one's opinion of a life I know. Mr Thomp- son quotes one of the women Graham Lord interviewed who said that I wasn't a particularly good lover but that she found Me irresistible because I was a shit. I am faintly surprised that my irritation at that did not register on the Richter scale and now I merely shrug the shoulder I didn't break two years ago at the thought of her gin-provoked conclusions. Through the
clouds of chronic amnesia I can remember her coming back time and again for what- ever it was I had.
Thompson's review was headed 'A Mis- erable Life'. I really must do something about selling my idea for a television show, This is Your Wife, to Channel 4. And I believe that two of my ex-wives will appear at the book launch party in the pub. They will probably reflect that I should always have been on crutches. And now I must hobble out on them again, for being stuck in this flat is beginning to unhinge this mind. A walk is like an assault course and crossing Wardour Street is as daunting as facing Becher's Brook. How odd it is that only women drivers haven't the time to let me cross, or is it that the only drivers I notice are women?
In any event I expect the death of me to come about at the hands of a woman, whether it be a nurse putting me on the wrong drip or an acerbic book review from the pen of the likes of Val Hennessy. Gra- ham Lord can take it. He is made of stern- er stuff, but I and my teddy bear, Byron, are easily discouraged. The Observer insist- ed on taking a photograph of Byron when they interviewed me the other day and I shall be interested to see just how they interpret my having such a companion. In fact my niece bought him for me and now that I am almost immobile perhaps it is time again for toys.
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