Low life
Vaguely sinister
Jeffrey Bernard
For the past three days I have been sharing a breakfast table with no less than seven women. Extraordinary things women. I find them quite fascinating. They haven't had a conversation in three hours. Oh, they talk all right, but it is all fragmented trivia, from what time we went to bed last night to I think I'll pour myself another cup of tea. Pour the bloody tea, madam, and don't feel obliged to announce your intention of doing so. And they sit very precisely, yet within three minutes a plate of two eggs, bacon, sausage and tomatoes plus a rack of toast has vanished. There's something vaguely sinis- ter about that. The ones that paint talk about money and the ones who don't need to do anything talk about 'art'. They are very wary of me — my miser- able face I suppose — and their 'Good mornings' are hushed. It is terrible to be unintentionally forbidding. I want them to pour out their little thumping hearts to me. Bless them.
It was even worse in Soho on Bank Holiday Monday. I had to go there to cash a cheque. I only stayed an hour, but it was painful. Communication is via anecdote in the British pub. Apparently Jim got drunk on Sunday, Conan was in on Saturday evening, Michael was over the moon be- cause Arsenal won 6-0 and Jill had an Indian take-away on Friday — no, I tell a lie, was it the Thursday? Yes, it was Thursday. Oh, and Tino got mugged in the Elephant and Castle on the way home on the Saturday, or was it the Friday? No, it was the Sunday, because Susie and Paul were in here.
It was bliss to get back to the garden where I am staying, although one man had to tell me that it is a funny old life. I spend quite a lot of time being fed bits of information like that, which is just as well when you consider that an idle mind is the Playground of the devil. Now, apart from the reluctance, inability or disinterest of so many people when it conies to discussing the human condition, I notice that many people are becoming deranged with visual forms of comunica- tion. As I write to you, at this very minute an American woman is snapping her camera at the man who is mowing the lawn. But what American tourists really go in for is filming static objects with cine cameras. Things like the Admiralty Arch or St Paul's Cathedral. (St Paul's is sliding down the hill, I am told, at a rate of one eighth of an inch a year). Yesterday I watched a Japanese man filming his wife getting out of a taxi, He needed three takes for satisfaction. I really don't see the need to record that one little thread of the vast tapestry of his wife's life.
I don't have a photograph of my first wife, but I do of the next three and no taxis are involved, One of them left me in my car, one of them left me in a pub and another in a huff. You would be surprised how long a huff can last. It is not to be confused with a puff. But I aimed the camera at all three of them while they were still smiling and before the dawn of their dreadful realisations of their mistake. It is strange to see how growing disappointment can change a woman's face. No, it isn't strange: it is bloody awful, The American lady is now photo- graphing a brick wall. It could be 'art'. I knew a man who spent a lot of his time photographing rocks.
Another art form is the cooking of my friend Graham Mason's common law wife. He was sipping some consommé that she had made for him on the Bank Holiday Monday and two of his front teeth fell out. Is this taking al dente cooking too far? He can no longer smile without embarrass- ment. On the other hand, he has not got much to smile about.
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