Turn-offs
Jeffrey Bernard
It was during a not very interesting fire in a block of flats that I was staying in recently that the conversation in the stair-well between several rather frightened residents• inexplicably turned to turn-ons and turnoffs. Aphrodisiacs and anaphrodisiacs if you prefer. My dear wife pinned me to the wall with a savage look and announced, 'Your coughing in bed, first thing, when ,you've just lit a cigarette, makes me feel 'quite sick as a matter of fact.' In self defence I had to reply, 'If this fire gets any worse, I suppose spend the rest of the day listening to you scraping toast again.' Fire engine bells and sirens sounded in the background and a woman from the fourth floor said, 'What turns me off is men wearing medallions on chains with their shirts open almost to their waists. Also Brut after-shave, brightly coloured and patterned briefs from Marks, French briefs with names like "Homme" and "Stud" and halves of bitter.' Another woman chipped in, rather boldly it seemed to me since we'd never even met before. 'What about those men,' she said staring at my toast scraper, 'who ask you if this is alright or do you like this when they're actually doing it to you.'
It struck me that it was now my turn. I racked my damaged brains to think of what it is about women that turns me off. Very little it seemed at that moment and as the caretaker began to scream from the basement. 'Well, what about women who wear tights and who back 66-1 winners because they only like the name. And,' I said, warming to the task as a fireman quite unnecessarily put an axe through the front door, 'women who read or write articles for the Guardian pages or who make films about standing next to ironing boards?' The first woman sneered at me and said, 'Can any of that be as awful as any conversation about any sport, cars, deprived childhoods, or suspender fetishisms?' I caught my wife's eye at that point and she was looking at me seemingly regretting the past two severe years. A fireman yelled up, 'It's alright. It's in the lift shaft.' None of us budged and my wife said, 'I can't bear men who look in the mirror too much.' I assumed this to be a jibe . 'I'm only checking to see if I really do exist,' I said, 'I'm not merely admiring the view.' And you squeeze toothpaste tubes from the middle and leave caps off things,' she continued. 'Well, at least I wouldn't spend an entire weekend reading rubbish like Joan Collins's autobiography,' I countered. 'Worse than the Sporting Life, would you say?
A fireman, reeking of BO and smoke, had joined us by now and he was staring at us as though we were quite mad. I can't think why, but he at once sprang in on the side of the ladies. 'Excuse me,' he said, a trifle nervously, 'but what about men who are always messing about with packet calculators and. ."who wear digital watches,' said the first woman suddenly.
I stared at the fireman and it occurred to me that — really — me and my wife get along like a house on fire. 'Who started all this nonsense anyway?' I asked. 'Someone overloaded the lift,' the fireman said. `No, I mean this conversation,' I said. No-one answered. We walked slowly back to our respective flats. Before the door beneath us closed I heard the first woman's voice die away in the distance. 'And another thing,' she was saying, can't bear men with their wretched little culinary specialities they think they can do better than anyone else and which need every utensil in the place.' I looked at my wife and suddenly decided she was worth giving up smoking in bed for. It might even stop that coughing too.
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