In almost every country in the world two things are for sure: death and taxes.

Not so in Bermuda, since there are no income taxes. Here, the two racing certainties are death and house guests.

The conventional wisdom is that fish and house guests stink after three days.

Very few visitors travel all the way to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean for as little as three days. European relatives, notably the parsimonious British, like to come for several weeks at a time. With housing so expensive, separate accommodations are usually out of the question, so the family or friends move right in on top of you for the duration.

They're mostly on holiday, and thus not wildly interested in sharing the household chores. When a cousin and his wife visited from Canada, I staggered home late one evening after a brutal day at the office and asked my guests, accomplished cooks both, what was for dinner.

"We though you might like to make dinner,'' I was told, "we're really tired from being at the beach.'' This was in the days before delivery pizza took the hard work, and the food values, out of cooking. My brother's visit from England went much better, in fact I'm still speaking to him, although his trip started on a series of low notes.

His flight from New York was turned back an hour out of JFK when an engine caught fire. Substitute equipment could not be found until late that night. He landed at three in the morning, unsure how long he's be staying, and without, therefore an onward ticket.

Not having thought to bring my cheque book to the Airport required a drive home to Devonshire, and another back to the Airport, to post his bail. It is possible that I exceeded the speed limit on both journeys.

There being as yet no little circular window by the interrogation desk through which to shout one's address, I was admitted into the Arrivals Hall to write the cheque.

By the time the business was done, and we walked through to Customs, it was very, very, late and we both thoroughly exhausted. A uniformed Officer asked if I had anything to declare.

"I've only come from Devonshire,'' I told him. "I don't think they sell duty-frees at the Harrington Hundreds.'' "Don't start getting clever with me,'' replied that not-so-civil servant. "I can keep you here for days if I feel like it.'' A sudden change of attitude and a certain amount of grovelling later, we finally escaped. As we dragged the luggage into the house, a violent downpour knocked out the electricity. " You thinking of staying in Bermuda much longer?'' my brother asked. He ended up staying six weeks.

The one thing you hope will never happen to a house guest is a serious accident. They almost all develop road rash, obviously, and someone in every group can be counted on to burn their leg on the exhaust pipe of the rental bike with varying degrees of damage, but there are relatively minor inconveniences.

A good friend fell off the kerb at the Airport and twisted his ankle within fifteen minutes of arriving, but that too was overcome by the Island's charms as his vacation progressed.

My Swiss girlfriend's brother went one better. He broke his back, Horseshoe Bay, jumping off the cliffs. He saw locals doing it, and being a man of action, took a shot himself. A saner individual would have studied the terrain, but Marius just went overboard in a rush of enthusiasm. He didn't think to calculate where the tide, which was in when he jumped, would be when he landed. It was, of course, out.

I'd booted Marius and his wife out of the house earlier in the day after weeks of close proximity had tried my patience to the limits. I had in fact been reasonably amiable about requesting some time alone, not even considering asking "Why don't you go jump off a cliff?'' The first I knew of the catastrophe was when my girlfriend came home six hours late, and told me to sit down.

There's not much that can be done for a broken back in the early days, except to let the patient rest and hope that the bones knit back together. Marius was parked in a rotating metal hammock and largely abandoned to his fate. His wife was graciously allowed to sleep on a chair in the same room.

After a day or three, language difficulties and the apparent medical inactivity spooked both Marius and his wife, who were accustomed to cold Swiss efficiency. As I was their sponsor (to use the Government's terminology), they unloaded their complaints on me. Vexed, I in turn unloaded on the consulting surgeon before he prescribed tran-quillisers for all of us. Next time you see your insurance salesman, ask if he offers Swiss medical coverage. For about $100 a month, they cover everything imaginable with no deductible. Marius was flown to New York stretched out across eight Eastern Airline seats, transferred at JFK by a doctor and two nurses in a ambulance, and given eight more seats to nonstop flight to Zurich. He fully recovered, which was more than I or the consulting surgeon ever did.

His insurance company insisted on paying all my phone bills, despite my initial guilt-driven refusal to submit them. When I did finally send copies, I received by return mail a cheque for all the long distance calls, related to the accident and otherwise, for the two months following the disaster.

If only I'd known more people in Australia.

RG MAGAZINE MARCH 1993