Loose Living

by Frank Moorhouse

  Life does not necessarily have to ‘go on’. However, I had been invited to join the Montaigne Clinic by Dr Bri colage to specialise in disorders of Interlocution, Dining and Congeniality (I pointed out to them that I am unqualified to practise in Cohabitation).

  Dr Bricolage unspecialises in bits and pieces, notions, stray thoughts and icons, and had convinced the convocation to invite me after having heard from the Duc of my thoughts concerning the Rules of Bread and other Disorders of contemporary life.

  The Clinic concerns itself with the curing of faulty restaurant conduct, conversational disorders, lost decorum, bad manners, and other minor plagues which reduce the quality of amicability.

  During my interview with the convocation I pointed out that in some parts of the Anglo world the toasted bread slice was buttered and then cut into four slices which were latticed, slice by slice. In some families these slices were called ‘soldiers’. The crust-free, butter-soaked, inner slices were prized.

  However, my first treatise at the Montaigne Clinic was to talk about the gastronomic tyranny of ‘too’, as in ‘too much butter’, when applied by adults to children’s eating tastes.

  I had failed to see just how ideological ‘too’ is in both the French and English languages. What a rotten little word it really is. It is not only a gastronomic tyranny, it implies that the person who uses the word ‘too’ knows the secret quantities which are ‘correct’ and that the person they are addressing does not. That they are privy to the wishes of the Gods or to a profound puritanical wisdom.

  We find it in the arts as well, as in ‘F—— M—— has too much acclaim for his work’ or ‘F—— M—— wins too many prizes’.

  As if anyone in the arts could ever have too much patronage or too much attention. As if anyone in the arts could have too much reward.

  It implies there are immutable rules of restriction not only about these matters but about all things in life, which are set by an unquestionable authority.

  It is the beginning of a puritanical degradation of life and indoctrination for a life of constraint. It was directly challenged by Oscar Wilde in his epigram that ‘nothing succeeds like excess’ and William Blake, who said the road of excess leads to the Palace of Wisdom (and of course our beloved master, Montaigne, himself once said, ‘And there is no way of life so foolish as one that is carried out by rule and discipline. If he [a young person] takes my advice, he will often plunge even in to excesses … ’).

  But more than that. It leads to ideas of inauthentic or transgressional states of existence, as in ‘too late’ or ‘too early’ or ‘too loud’.

  These are seen as disrupted states; if you find yourself in them, you are made to feel out of harmony with existence.

  It is an attempt by our self-appointed masters to crush our appetite for the abundant and supple life. To crush the Oliver Twist in us.

  I remember some time ago, as newly elected President of the Society of Authors, a reporter rang for an interview and Sophia Turkiewicz, with whom I was living, answered the telephone.

  In my absence, the reporter asked her if she could tell him what my policies were as the new president. She said she believed that, firstly, I intended to free the slaves.

  She could have added that my policy in the politics of the art world has always been simple. It is ‘more’.

  This is not original. When the US Senate investigation of the American trade union movement asked John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers of America what his union policies were, he too replied, ‘More.’

  Dr Prodigalement and his staff here at the Clinic are working on the Wilde and Blake epigrams and researching their scientific basis. I drew their attention to the statement of John L. Lewis and they have included this in their research program. I hope to be able to join them in some of their experiments.

  As Gregarious Fellow at the Montaigne Clinic I am required to be a restaurant habitué and, in the same way as a priest, never to become part of a household. I must renounce ‘home’ and all its comforts.

  In many ways the Rules of my life are very similar to the vows of a priest, yet in other ways nothing could be further from the life of a priest.

  Paradoxically, I am most ‘at home’ in a restaurant. No, this is wrong—more precisely, I like being in a restaurant because it is where I feel deliciously not-in-any-way-shape-or-form ‘at-home’.

  I most enjoy eating in those restaurants where I am likely to see people I know, or vaguely know, and thus ingratiate myself and so advance my interests in the Ghana gold float or whatever. Restaurant eating also allows for very limited social contact and gives that sense of social accomplishment which one gets when, having been obliged to telephone someone with whom you do not wish to speak, you find to your relief that you have reached their answering machine.

  You can thereby discharge your social duties without any contact at all.

  Having few genuine friends in life (for obvious reasons), I also like talking with restaurant staff about food, wine, gossip, news and life, because they must listen courteously.

  I recently realised that I also like being in restaurants because it frees me from the Rule of Eating which says you should eat everything on your plate.

  In childhood it was to teach the sinfulness of waste—and in the conventions of home dinner parties, in most cultures, not to eat substantially of the food put before you is seen as an insult to the household and its hospitality.

  I have long admired those nonchalant types who can, without guilt or explanation, leave food on their plates.

  As a young man on a Very Important Date, I remember being speechless with admiration when I was dining with Maryanne Grimes, who was one year older than I, and she ordered a dozen oysters and ate only eight.

  When questioned by the waiter as to whether there was anything wrong with the oysters, she replied that she felt like eating only eight oysters, however because the restaurant insisted on serving oysters by the dozen or half dozen she was forced to leave four.

  Because of her efforts, it is now possible in the best restaurants to buy oysters singly.

  Part of my work at the Clinic is with people with public eating anxiety. I have always been saddened when I see people with restaurant anxiety. Intriguingly, restaurant anxiety is not cured by eating frequently in restaurants. I have observed it in those who go often to restaurants.

  One of the anxieties which we have examined at the Clinic is the They Have Forgotten Us anxiety.

  This is a dreadful foreboding that the serving staff have forgotten entirely that you are in the restaurant. The terror of having become invisible. The terror that you may be dead.

  It is closely related to the They Are Deliberately Ignoring Us anxiety.

  It can express itself also as That Table Over There Came in After Us and is Being Served Before Us.

  Our studies show that these anxieties are found in those people whose mothers indulged them with on-demand breastfeeding.

  It is true that some restaurant staff do develop the unseeing gaze. When the head waiter at the Algonquin dining room died, George Kaufman’s comment was, ‘How did God catch his eye?’

  This paranoia can be connected to ideas of unworthiness—that we don’t deserve to eat in such a fine place, that we and our companions are not worthy of the restaurant and consequently are being justly punished by being ignored.

  This particular anxiety is expressed in the insecurity of the complaint, ‘This restaurant is Up Itself ’.

  Because of my privileged upbringing and the prerogative of being able to pursue one of the leisurely avocations, I myself am sometimes accused of Being Up Myself.

  It is a curious Australian practice to be always on the hunt for people who are Up Themselves. I have mentioned this to the Clinic and much clinical interest in it is being taken at one of our labs.

  This Doesn’t Look Like What I Ordered: in cases of this anxiety the Clinic recommends pliability. The problem arises in an unfamiliar restaurant because
it is difficult to pre-visualise the appearance of the meal.

  The This Doesn’t Look Like What I Ordered anxiety is related to the recent discussion of recovered memory in childhood abuse cases. The discussion is about whether something really happened to us in childhood or whether we have fantasised some experiences stimulated by the probing of psychologists or social workers.

  There are idealised or fantasised dishes which we believe we have eaten in the past or wish we had eaten in the past, and some of the restaurant eating experience is related to a search for the Dishes of Fantasy and Desire.

  Again, you may have ordered the dish at some other time in some other restaurant or even in the same restaurant although from a different chef, but rarely will it ever come looking as you remember it. Even fish and chips can look different. (And what, by the way, is ‘a serve of chips’? How many chips are in a ‘correct’ size serving?)

  It is even true of so-called regional dishes. These can be prepared differently in different parts of the same region.

  The other contributing factor is that palate and visual memory are faulty. We sometimes have an imaginary dish in our heads.

  The wish to have our palate expectations met is understandable and perhaps the trend to international standardisation of food outlet, menu and portion is an attempt to overcome this anxiety. Yet standardisation con tributes to this anxiety by creating uniform expectations (although it is a little known fact that, to the discerning, Big Macs, Kentucky Fried Chicken and other such mass-produced ‘international’ foods do vary from outlet to outlet, and from country to country).

  Why Have They Given Us This Table? This is a feeling that, because you are unknown at the restaurant, the maître d’hôtel has placed your party at the worst table in the restaurant, near the lavatory or the swinging door to the kitchen, and that they keep their best tables for their regulars.

  They do. Our advice is to become an habitual customer. This is a fine status to have in life. It could very well be the purpose of life.

  I Should Have Ordered What You’re Having (or How in God’s Name Did I End Up With This and What Is It?). This is a feeling of inadequacy when faced with a menu and a sense of inferiority before the knowingness of your companion(s).

  It comes from the childhood anxiety that the Other Child or the Parents got more, or got a better part of whatever food is being served. This was, without exception, true of my family.

  However, misordering can be a mirror of the self, a manifestation of a wider derangement of self from which we all, from time to time, I suspect, suffer.

  When we misorder it could be that we are ordering dishes for another self who happens not to be present at the table.

  This un-present self may be in hiding or may be in fear of its life. It could be that we are scared of or disgusted by the company we are keeping. Or, on the other hand, this un-present self may well be ‘trying to get out’.

  Worse, the present self may not be the real you, or may not be the you you wish to have eating for you. Or, for that matter, living for you.

  If this condition recurs we urge you to seek attention from the Montaigne Clinic without delay.

  I Could Have Done As Well Myself At Home. If you are beset by this feeling it means that you are a homebody and not a social butterfly and should stay at home.

  The I Think They Want Us to Leave anxiety is plainly a feeling of being unwanted in life. You may very well be unwanted in life. Examine your conduct. However, there are worse things than being unwanted in life.

  I Won’t Order That Because it Requires Too Much Work (lobsters, crabs and so on). This is an anxiety about making a mess of it. Of not being able to cope and being revealed as unsophisticated. Of going beyond your known skills of control.

  We urge that you practise going beyond your known skills of social control on all occasions in life.

  That Table Over There is Having Something That Wasn’t on the Menu. This anxiety is common in restaurants serving food other than that of your own culture.

  They Get the Best Food Because They are Chinese, Chechens, etc. It could well be that they own the restaurant. You will never know.

  The Fear that Life is a Cheat. This shows up as a feeling that the food is overpriced, or that the serve is too small, or that the fish is shark, or that the chicken is cat, or that the wine is inferior wine placed in quality-labelled bottles.

  This is not so easily cured but can be, over time, with practice and the expenditure of large sums of money. Life is Sometimes a Cheat, but Life is Not Always a Cheat. To know when it is or is not a cheat is the art of life.

  It requires much practice and takes a lifetime.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  On the

  DISORDER

  of Servant Love

  I envy those who know how to be familiar with the meanest of their retinue, and to start a conversation among their own domestics. And Plato’s advice does not please me, that one should always use the language of a master to one’s servants, both males and females, without jests or familiarity. For … it is inhuman and unjust to lay so much stress on this chance prerogative of fortune; and those societies in which there is least disparity between servants and masters seem to me the most equitable.

  MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE, 1533–1592,

  ON CANNIBALS, BOOK THREE, CHAPTER THREE

  IT HAS to be said that I do not warm to Dr Bricolage, although he was my sponsor here at the Montaigne Clinic.

  He appears to have good table style and can certainly carve well. Montaigne, by the way, was a notoriously poor carver, something about which many scholarly jests are made.

  Dr Bricolage is a powerful figure but there is a sternness in him towards human frailty which I do not share or like.

  Having previously become accustomed to the life of the château and the Duc’s bountiful, if eccentric, care, with those endless days of meandering talk and intricate renaissance games on the lawn, it is strange now to have to attend what are known as ‘staff meetings’.

  Staff meetings here do resemble life at the château in that they take the form of seven-hour banquets where people quote Montaigne or that wretchedly silly Jean-Anthelme Brilliat-Savarin.

  I suppose these occasions are very little different from those mysterious ‘staff meetings’ we hear rumours about in departments at Australian universities.

  On our staff at the Clinic we have a Dr Avion, a scholar in Airline Travelling Disorders. One of his hypotheses is that airline travel has taught millions of people how to remain civilised in cramped conditions with hundreds of strangers undertaking the perilous enterprise of a long voyage which causes considerable disorientation, in a narrow steel capsule.

  Airlines have taught people how to eat and sleep side by side with strangers in a civilised way, how to share a toilet with hundreds and keep it clean.

  Dr Avion argues that air travel is training for the urban living barracks of the future in what he sees as a grossly overpopulated global village.

  He believes that one day most of us will eat, sleep and live in aircraft-type structures—similar to the communal life of the long houses found in some cultures in Borneo and the South Pacific.

  Airlines have taught many people about the entrée, the appetiser, the cheese, the dessert. Admittedly, it is a western pattern of meal.

  I was once seated beside an Indian student who had never been on an airline before or in the west. We had sat for a time in silence when I felt a tug at my elbow and heard him say, ‘Sir, would you mind, could you explain kindly, what are these?’

  He held up the knife, fork and spoon in their sealed plastic wrapping. I said that in most families the knife, fork and spoon would not come in sealed plastic wrapping.

  I then tried to explain how to use each of these utensils, although I could not explain why food is carried to the mouth on the back of the fork and not by the concave side, which would be easier.

  The Indian asked me to explain how he should eat in Australia.

&
nbsp; I took to the task with enthusiasm. But my enthusiasm soon died when I realised how much there is to teach about how we eat if we start from a zero knowledge situation.

  For instance, he did not know what a bread roll was. He didn’t know what butter was. He wanted to butter the roll on the outside. I said that it was not customary. He then began to cut the roll with his knife and I had to say that the convention was to ‘break’ a roll with the fingers, not to cut it.

  No, I said, I could not explain why this was so.

  I had to explain that the little rectangular packets contained butter and that butter was made from milk, etc. I had to tell him where to put the butter wrappers (he wanted to put them on the floor or in his pocket). In fact, I don’t know where to put those wrappers. I work by the rule that nothing should be on the dining table other than those things relating to the meal and enhancing the meal (table decoration, for instance). Garbage has no place on a dining table.

  In German hotels they have garbage pails on the table for the wrappers from the tiny packets of food (butter, jam, mustard and so on). An abomination worse than the wrappers themselves.

  I had to tell my fellow Indian traveller that in an Australian home all the courses would not come on a tray at the same time, as they do on an airline. To make the point I took away his tray and his main course and his dessert and cheese and biscuits, leaving him only the entrée (which, I commented, was not always found in the Australian home).

  He remonstrated with me about this action. But I told him that it was part of the lesson. He continued to look at me suspiciously. I told him to imagine himself seated at a table. What is a table? He said that in his part of India they sat on the floor. My food was now getting cold and I had lost interest in the exercise. I dumped all his courses back on his airline ‘table’ and made that little half turn which indicates that the conversation between two airline travellers is over.

  I then began to drink the fifty tiny bottles of wine and spirits which I had ordered as part of a lesson for him in alcohol and its variations and customs. I recall nothing more of this flight or the Indian’s struggle with airline dining.