Low life
Have a banana
Jeffrey Bernard
One of my nieces kindly came over the other day to read my mail for me since my eyes have yet to recover from what they have seen over the past 20 years. The Middlesex Hospital can call it what they like but being a long-time fan of Groddeck, the Sherlock Holmes of psychoanalysis, I believe the eyes have seen so much of the awful decline of the quality of life, especial- ly in Soho, that they have simply decided to shut up shop. Groddeck had a young woman patient who went blind and he dis- covered that it was because she had seen her mother being made love to by the lodger or the milkman or whoever. He also treated a man who was run over by a tram and had to have a leg amputated. Grod- deck asked him, 'What had your leg done to you that you decided to cut it off?' Anyway, my mail was quite interesting. There was a demand for £3,700 from the Inland Revenue — sheer guesswork on their part — and letters are still coming in from people who heard my effort on Desert Island Discs. Nearly all of them were very kind, but I refuse to reply to people who spell my name incorrectly, write on coloured paper or who write at great length. There are also quite a few lunatics beyond the walls of this flat. I had one let- ter from a woman who said her letter had been dictated to her by her dog, Peggy. I also had a letter from a woman saying she has fallen in love with me. I do not want the love of a woman. What I need is a Sancho Panza. There are, in fact, a few Sancho Panzas in the CoaCh and Horses and because of them Groddeck wouldn't be at all surprised if he were with us today to know that I had become deaf as well as blind.
But now I await the arrival of the district nurse, Carmen, and the thought of her cleaning up my head again is making my
'Darn it, Hank — fool's gold!'
scalp tingle. Such a jolly name Carmen, isn't it? A district nurse called Tosca would be a little unnerving. Apart from Carmen my other minders are Norman, who still brings me shopping through thick and thin from Marks & Spencer, the staff of the Groucho Club and an Irish barman who staggered me the other day by presenting me with a tin of caviar. That made for a great start to the day. The sort of day on which you could end up falling up the front doorsteps. I wouldn't say that it always ends in tears but given the chance I would hate to read the last page of a biography of me that Norman threatens to write.
My other standby is the • milk shakes I have become addicted to, which soothe and cool in the heat and dark of the night. The banana ones I drink keep reminding me of dear old Guy the gorilla in the London Zoo. If bananas can keep a gorilla going surely they should be able to support a gnome. I once had to host a chimpanzee's tea party for a daft magazine article and I met three gorillas the same day. They were in a glass cage and behaving very well and quietly. The zoo's owner had hit on the idea of saving them from boredom by installing a television set in their cage. That afternoon they were spellbound watching racing from Royal Ascot. They were eating bananas too, of course. The only thing missing on that occasion was a drinks trol- ley with a keeper mixing them banana daiquiris. And now I hear Carmen's car pulling up. Ouch.
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