Low life
Taken short
Jeffrey Bernard
The art dealer, Guy Hart, told me two remarkable, true stories last week. One concerns the ski slopes of Switzerland and the other a train journey to Sevenoaks.
It seems that earlier this year a group of English people went on a ski-ing holiday somewhere in Switzerland. One day they were at the top of a long run preparing to descend when their instructor warned them to go to the lavatory first, as it was going to be quite a trip down and back to the hotel. Those who wanted to did so. One young woman decided not to bother and then, as the group set off downhill, she changed her mind, detached herself from the others and went behind a tree for a pee. As she squat- ted down to do the business, her skis began slowly to move, as she was on a slope. In no time at all she had gathered momentum and was soon careering down the hill, her ski-pants around her ankles and peeing all the while. The next day she returned to England, and in the back of the aeroplane where she sat the crew had accommodated a man on a stretcher. Both his legs were in plaster and he had a bandage around his head. They started talking and she asked him how he had had such an appalling acci- dent. He said, 'Well, it is quite ridiculous, really, and you probably won't believe it. I was out ski-ing yesterday morning when to my utter amazement a woman came whizzing past me with her pants around her ankles and peeing the while. I was mes- merised and tears of laughter were running down my face, and I crashed straight into a tree.' End of story. Or is it? When I reflect on it, I like to think that they are now hap- pily married and settled down and will be on the slopes together this coming season.
Telling me that story must have jerked Guy's memory because he then told me an even more bizarre tale concerning a young man, the son of an affluent bookmaker 'So what's our position on dolphin crap?' who had offices near Simpson's in Piccadil- ly. His father gave an office party one day and the son duly attended. He was green and inexperienced, ignorant of drink and its attendant dangers. For an hour he mixed champagne with whisky — disas- trous. He lost control and inadvertently how can I put it politely? — evacuated his bowels. With a mixture of panic and embarrassment he staggered into Simp- son's and asked an assistant for a pair of trousers. 'What sort of trousers?' he was asked. 'Any,' he said, 'Any at all. The first pair that comes to hand.' He left the shop with his purchase and hailed a taxi to take him to Charing Cross to get the train home. Once the train was moving, he went to the lavatory to clean himself up as best he could. Having done that, and as the train was speeding through the suburbs, he threw his dirty pants and trousers out of the window. And then, with what one can only imagine to have been a long sigh of relief, he put his hand in the Simpson's car- rier bag to pull out his new trousers. The only thing in the bag was a V-neck pullover. He had been given the wrong bag. That is all we know.
Since I was told that story I have lain awake at night trying to picture the scene. I presume he put his legs through the sleeves of the jersey, but what I want to know is where did he put the exposed V of the jersey. To the front or his rear? I won- der, too, what the ticket collector thought, let alone the other passengers alighting at Sevenoaks. He is probably a broken man now and gets out of the train either at the stop before Sevenoaks or the stop after in order to go home by taxi. He is now almost certainly a teetotaller. There are holes in this story but Guy insists that it is true. I am afraid I rather hope so. Poor man.
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