Low life
Barbados bound
Jeffrey Bernard
On Monday I make my fourth trip to Barbados and this morning I have been reminiscing about the last three. The first time I went there was with my almost brand new wife 12 years ago. Subsequently I went there on two press freebies. On the first of those, a female hack on the Sun threatened to kill me at the end of our trip when I pointed out to her that she hadn't bought a single drink in an entire week and was therefore a mean old cow, and the third trip was something that might well make a television play, a grey comedy if not a black one.
The cast list was as follows, and I helped to choose it: Richard West, Professor Lau- rie Taylor and myself. The ladies: Anne Leslie, Sally Vincent and Irma Kurtz. I had my tongue in my cheek when I suggested them to the press officer and what I should have done was to bite it off. I remember an odd incident on that trip when I crept off to a very down-market bar I know in Speightstown used mostly by struggling local fishermen. I sat down at a table and the waiter came over and asked, 'The usual, sir?' I didn't know whether to be flattered or embarrassed. What a memory.
So on Monday night I shall hear two of my favourite noises. The barman is quite silent as he pads over the marble patio beside the pool. The waves lap gently on to the white sand beach and what heralds the barman's approach is the tinkling of ice in a tall glass. But the noise made by the tree frogs goes on and on until past dawn. This time I shall be alone and thank God for that.
Anyway, I have two friends out there, both ex-racehorse trainers, who I shall have a jar with. The trouble is that one of them has a wife, a typically awful one who thinks I lead her husband astray. How do you lead an old boozer of nearly 70 astray? He is still involved in racing but he now spends most of his days swimming and sitting in the sun drinking rum punches. Not a bad life, I suppose, if you happen to like rum. I don't.
After Barbados there is , Christmas and then there is the opening of the play in Perth on 7 January. Christmas is already causing considerable anxiety. I often think of running away to a country hotel for a few days in the hope that it might be vaguely Dickensian but the reality would be rooms full of yuppies wearing silly paper hats. It is pointless to try to ignore Christ- mas because it just won't go away. Neither will my wretched broken arm and elbow. They don't seem to get much better and the fall was ten weeks ago. Josie, my home help from Grenada, did it again this morn- ing. In the process of kindly cleaning my fridge she threw away tonight's supper and there is nothing to say for fear of being a cantankerous racist. She means well and I shall probably end up in the trash can.
And so to a farewell lunch with the blonde bombshell. We went to the Eagle in Farringdon Road, recently recommended in the Times by Jonathan Meades, who knows what he is eating as well as talking about. Excellent pub food, if you can bear the 'suits' and the journalists from the Guardian, plus the too loud music. There was fresh mullet and strange looks from hackettes who appear to be enemies, but no ex-lovers, thank God. It has to be spld the Guardian is a good racing paper, though — nothing else needs to be said.
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