Home Front

Alice Pitman

ONE of the frustrating things about Mr Home Front is his inability to notice or remember interesting aspects about the people he encounters in his job. For a journalist he has remarkably little eye for detail. ‘What was she wearing?’ I recently enquired about a mature female celebrity encountered at the TV company where he works. ‘I don’t know!’ came his irritable reply, as though I’d asked something weirdly obscure, like who her favourite Rolling Stone was, or whether she was on HRT.

‘Well, she must have worn something,’ I continued. ‘Was it a dress?’

‘Yes, I expect so … or trousers, or something. Why does it even matter?’

It doesn’t, of course, it’s just interesting.

At the back-end of last year, he had breakfast with Nigel Farage (for work purposes, you understand). It was at a posh central London hotel. Mr Home Front arrived first and noticed that when Trump’s new best friend breezed in twenty minutes late, presumably pulling his frog’s grin and giving the occasional burst of unsettling hearty laughter, the East European waitresses noticeably bristled. This was admittedly intriguing. Yet when I asked him what Farage was like in person, all Mr HF could say was, ‘As you would imagine’. Which wasn’t really giving me anything to cling on to.

‘What do you mean “as you would imagine”?’ ‘He was quite charming.’ ‘Oh, I see. So you’ve moved to the far Right have now, have you?’

He narrowed his eyes at me.

‘So what did you talk about then?’ I persisted. ‘This and that.’ Then daughter Betty got involved: ‘What did he have for breakfast?’ ‘Kippers, I think. Yes, kippers.’ ‘Is that because he’s a U-kipper?’ I jested. Betty thought my joke hilarious. Mr HF affected not to have heard it. ‘Anything else to report?’ Mr HF thought for a bit. ‘He said he had a hangover.’

Ah-ha, I thought, now we’re getting somewhere: kippers and a hangover – that’ll give me something to tell the Aged P for my next visit: it’s the sort of detail she relishes. Compared with my usual Lupin (the dog) related stories and other domestic news, this Farage stuff was conversational gold dust.

As anticipated, she was fascinated. Even more so when I mentioned that Farage had chosen kippers for breakfast. ‘How extraordinary!’ she said, her eyes agog. I murmured mild agreement, while secretly wondering why she considered kippers any more extraordinary than croissants or a full English.

The following week, the Aged P told me she had told all the carers about Mr HF’S breakfast with the former Ukip leader. ‘And as for the slippers – well, they were incredulous.’ ‘Slippers?’ ‘Yes,’ she said, rather challengingly. ‘You told me he was wearing slippers. Everyone was astonished, though I thought Precious [from Trinidad] seemed a little disgusted.’

I decided not to tell her she had misheard fish for footwear. After all, it had given her such pleasure. And what harm did it do for the carers to think Farage shuffled around London in a state of semi-undress?

Malapropisms aside, the Aged P is currently treated as something of a latterday Nostradamus at the care home. First, she predicted the country would vote to leave the EU. Then she foresaw the triumph of Trump. What with her beloved Judge Rinder, at the time of writing, riding high in Strictly, I don’t think I’ve seen her this invigorated since the Jeremy Thorpe trial. Now I come to think of it, she has correctly predicted quite a few noteworthy events over the decades. I remember her pulling on a Player’s No 6 on the way to my brother Johnny’s first marriage in 1976 and pronouncing, in a tone of foreboding Bette Davis would have envied: ‘I give it five years.’ Five years later, they were indeed divorced.

And when my father attended a Foyles literary lunch in John Lennon’s honour in 1964, my mother predicted the Beatle would fail to make a speech. ‘Nonsense, he has to make a speech,’ said my dad. He didn’t. According to The Beatles Diary, John had a terrible hangover and didn’t think he was expected to make one. He also couldn’t think of anything to say. Which is possibly what Mr HF feels whenever I ask him to give me the low-down on those public figures he meets. And what I feel when I am asked to pen a book review. ‘I quite liked it’ is all I can initally think to write. Maybe I’m a bit hard on Mr HF after all.