Low life
Ice-cold in Soho
Jeffrey Bernard
Bill, who I was locked up with in the booze bin in 1972, came up to town all the way from Richmond today to give me a bottle of Stolichnaya for my birthday. It was noble, never mind kind. I am damned if I would go all the way to Richmond to give him a bottle of Perrier water on his birthday. It must have hurt him a bit too. In my two-and-a-half-year stint on the wagon after that awful hospital I really hated buying most people a drink. When I did I felt like a blind man taking other people to the cinema. Something like that, anyway.
Well, this week the woman who keeps crying in the pub said I still hate buying anybody a drink and she said I never put my hand in my pocket. If I don't then I would dearly like to know whose hand it is that dips my pocket for it is empty most mornings. She should have checked with Norman. It is the staff behind a bar who spot most quickly who is tight-fisted and who isn't. True friends too. They alone know. The verbal vomit brought forth in that pub after 7 p.m. is keeping me away from it most nights. It is the hour for people to air their bitternesses. Remark- ably few people in the Coach and Horses have got what they think they deserve. But maybe the same applies to the people who drink in the Ritz.
One of the most deserving cases I know, a wino who begs in Seven Dials, a toothless tragedian, got quite annoyed with me last week. I gave him the slip one day because of having to go to the pub via Shaftesbury Avenue. He was almost irate. Tom Baker has had similar experiences with his flock and we were just discussing the business. Any day now we expect a serious bollock- ing from a tramp who has missed the first drink of the day on the lines of, 'Where the hell were you yesterday? I waited for you all morning.' Sounds a bit like a girlfriend. And I had hoped to be rid of dependants, not that they ever had much hope.
So why give £1 to a wino? (It should be £1.50 what with the cost of a drink today.) Well, it doesn't hurt and it is good for him. His shakes are terrible to behold and, of course, I can easily put myself in his filthy shoes. I think I might give him a grey flannel suit I shall not wear again. It occurs to me, though, that it might be declined on the grounds that it would make him appear not to be in need of funds for refreshment. My second wife, in revenge for a tempor- ary absence of mine, gave all my cricket clothes to Oxfam years ago. After my initial irritation at that plunder, I enjoyed the pictures in my mind. The thought of a pygmy in my old school colours had me in silent convulsions. I don't know why. Cricket should not be denied to any man and my old sparring gloves could have been a boon to any Eskimo had I not needed them for that particular wife.
I must look around this eyrie to see what else I can unload on to him. I suppose a copy of Charles Benson's book, No Regard For Money, would be apposite. When that was published Sir William Piggott-Brown remarked, 'Don't you mean no regard for other people's money?' Quite. My wino could have written such a message and had it published in a bottle. I suppose I must go past Seven Dials now and give him an ice-cold lager in this marvellous weather. I shall have an iced Stolichnaya before I go. Thank you, Bill. Stay on the wagon. It's awful down here.
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