Low life
The perfect farewell
Jeffrey Bernard
It was sad enough to go to Michael Andrews's funeral to say goodbye to such a good and such a gifted old friend, but a couple of drinks with some of the people there afterwards turned a near-celebration into a kind of hangover from a past life that some of us there had shared.
A few people stood around by the river's edge while an old friend who lives on a barge there dispensed drinks. It was a very pleasant setting outside a lovely church, St Mary's, Battersea, in which William Blake was married and in which Turner sketched the river scene from the tower. A fitting departure point for Michael, if there could be such a thing. But, as I say, the odd soul there that morning did somehow put me in mind of a small group shuffling, getting in a haphazard line to form a queue to pass on into their own oblivion.
There was one woman there, a friend from years ago, and once a great beauty, who now has a little of the righteousness of the average member of AA — a poacher turned gamekeeper — and laying it on thick in a way that actually reminded me of Lady Bracknell. AA is practically sacro- sanct and yet I squirm at the insistence with which the halt and the lame can glamorise or romanticise a sickness of sorts. It is thought by some to be a social cachet and might well be the last refuge of the non- achiever. Owning up is no more deserving of a medal than performing a party trick. At one point, Lady Bracknell was recount- ing some episode at an AA meeting of the Chelsea Branch, famous for the fame of its anonymous members, and she said, 'We were standing around one day and . . . ' — searching for some simple word like 'dis- cussing' or 'talking', when I interrupted by saying, 'self-indulgent'. That is exactly what they should be owning up to since therapy is a subjective and, in fact, indulgent way of wiping slates clean. Priests must become bored rigid listening to confessions.
Anyway, it seems I said the wrong thing and I think the restaurateur, Charlie Campbell, might have said the wrong thing to me. It was some time since we last met and by way of saying hello he said, 'I read your column this morning.' Oh really?' He said, 'yes. Quite dreadful.' I think he was referring to the column and not The Spec- tator, but why tell me and not the editor? Come to that, why bother to read Low Life at all?
I saw another friend from the past as well, John Moynihan. Not long ago, he told my biographer, Graham Lord, that I used to steal things from his mother and father, Elinor and Rodrigo Moynihan, when I stayed with them for a while 35 years ago. The strain of being an only child has always told on him and suddenly becoming an orphan nearing his 60th birthday must have worsened his paranoia. Yet. another very important man, a real smoothie, was there and oddly I had heard just the day before, that he has owed a racing friend of mine, a trainer, his training bill since Christmas.
Thank God there were no more people 'We appear, Mrs Jones, to have delivered you a pizza.' there from Soho or Chelsea who represent- ed the underbelly of the fringe of that world. As I left in a taxi, they looked like an old sepia group photograph, still posing but somehow long gone. I waved from my taxi and said, 'Goodbye, girls. This is where I came in.'
Death where is thy sting? Right there in the congregation. I pray that June Andrews will not forget how to laugh again in her own inimitable way. Perhaps by far the best thing is not to have a public funeral but just to leave enough money for a party and enough money for a separate tea party for all those oh-so-brave members of AA.
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