Low life
No-knickers Joyces
Jeffrey Bernard
Just as I first watched Band of Gold because I fancied Geraldine James, I was fixated then by a French girl called Marie France who was almost as sensationally good-looking as Simone Signoret when she played a prostitute in Casque d'Or. Marie was reputed to give the occasional freebie to a naturally misshapen man who worked for Gaston in the pub. How I envied him, although I was lucky enough not to look like him.
Marie must be in her sixties now, which is quite a thought, although I don't know why. Come to think of it, most of them must be in their seventies or dead. But those French girls really looked after them- selves and were incredibly smart and well- 'Going somewhere nice for your holidays?' dressed, in a 1950s way that tarty women dressed, which was with ankle-strap shoes, gaberdine suits, lots of charm bracelets and bangles and thick lipstick which never smudged because, of course, they were never kissed.
The anatomy of a Soho house in those days was usually — starting in the base- ment — a spieler or gambling joint; on the ground floor, an ordinary shop probably connected with either the food or catering business; on the first floor, a film cutting room, and then anything above that would be rented by prostitutes and their maids (if they were successful enough to employ one). Innocent, green visitors to London up from the sticks, like your aunt from Haslemere, would see one of these women in, say, the York Minster and probably think of her as being an equivalent of today's liberated, independent career woman. They were chic but as hard as nails, and I sometimes wonder if the career women that I see in the Groucho Club aren't in the wrong business.
At the other end of the scale, there were — and still are — loads of young women like 'no-knickers' Joyce who was what you might call an amateur hooker, which is to say that you automatically got yourself an all-night ticket if you took her out for a meal. Not every man drives a Porsche, runs an advertising agency or looks like Robert Redford, so we must be careful not to sneer at or judge no-knickers Joyces who have comforted us in our more desolate times. I have a friend who says you can get anybody to bed if you ask them 'nicely enough'. He is being facetious, but it occurs to me that the more unhappy some- body is, probably the easier it is. The only trouble is, if that's right, then Celia John- son in Brief Encounter was a sitting duck. Incidentally, I don't know why I should think of it, but I have noticed that women who are heavy smokers tend to be slightly more promiscuous, It must have something to do with nerves, but what nerves?
And, speaking of nerves, I have had quite a lot of phantom pains in my missing leg recently, to say nothing of the headaches in my missing mind. And now, on top of that, I have an appointment next month to see a gastroenterologist at the Middlesex Hospital. Last week, when I had the unexpected pleasure of a visit from Peter O'Toole, I made two awful or signifi- cant Freudian slips about that place. I referred to it as the hotel and not the hos- pital, and, secondly, I asked Peter if he remembered the psychotherapist who looked after me when he used to visit me there. I meant physiotherapist.
What Peter remembered best was the porter who used to take me back and forth from the ward to the gymnasium for walk- ing lessons whose name was Jesus. I think Peter became rather fond of Jesus, but I hope I don't see him again. Peter has kind- ly agreed to write a foreword to a new col- lection of my Spectator meanderings, and now I feel a little guilty at having asked him to do such an incredibly boring task. I did it once for a friend, a mere 1,000 words, and it nearly killed me. Never again. And the same goes for yet more col- lections of this wretched low life which is also a phantom pain of sorts.
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