In Bed with Jocasta

by Richard Glover

  Chinese Take-Away Reheat

  A robust dish in which one can travel all the regions of China within a single mouthful. simply consolidate all last-night’s left-overs into one microwavable dish, stirring to ensure the sweet and sour pork is well distributed through the prawn soup. (Internationalists may also like to include the slice of pizza left over from Wednesday.)

  Step 1: Cook quickly.

  Step 2: Eat rapidly.

  Step 3: Regret at leisure.

  Cling-Wrap Combination

  If it’s in the fridge, sealed with either cling-wrap or a clothes peg, it should be on this delightfully eclectic platter. Wedges of cheese, slightly suspect salami, a single piece of soccerball ham with dried-up edges, three tomatoes with the bad bits cut off, and five broken Saos. And to think the Italians claim to have invented antipasto! Mi scusi, Mario: we’ve had it for years.

  Mick’s Fry-Up

  My friend Mick believes that if it’s food, then you should be able to fry it. Especially after a big night out, when the human body craves the soothing balm that is cholesterol. Chops, eggs, bacon, kippers, chicken kebabs, tomatoes, mushrooms and bread — according to Mick — all yearn to be flung into a pan with a large quantity of butter. Yet, like many of Jamie Oliver’s recipes, this one takes some preparation.

  Step 1: Go to pub the night before, and marinate own brain in alcohol, being careful to top up levels should any drying-out occur.

  Step 2: Awake with shocking hangover.

  Step 3: Remove entire contents of fridge and fry in butter.

  Step 4: Eat until consciousness returns.

  Step 5: Serve single glass of orange juice, thus rendering healthy all your behaviour of the last twelve hours.

  Fridge-Light Dessert

  A delightfully simple recipe, this is the way dessert is served in most households, on most nights. Each diner should approach the fridge during a separate TV ad break and, standing in the illumination of the opened door, root around until they find something worth eating. A square of cooking chocolate, an abandoned Easter egg, the crusty dregs from a carton of readymade custard. If questioned by other diners, you should rapidly swallow, and deny you were up to anything.

  As tasty as Jamie’s Lemon and Lime Cream Tart? Perhaps not, but truly wicked.

  2

  Then she sighs. It’s a long, bleak sigh,

  slipping from her lips with a mixture of

  exhaustion and self-pity. As best I can decode

  it, it contains within it the narrative of how,

  twenty years ago, an intelligent young woman

  with options in life made a series of decisions

  which led her, in middle-age, to be driving at

  30 kilometres an hour over the Anzac Bridge

  with a moron.

  Vice Squad

  In the building trade, everything has some bizarre, slightly Yorkshire-sounding name, designed to cause humiliation once you arrive at the hardware store.

  ‘Hey George,’ the main bloke will yell out, shouting down to his wizened offsider at the back. ‘Guess what this bloke wants to do? He’s going to use a crumpin pin to fix his nondles.’ At which point, thirty tradesman in overalls will turn to face the counter, in their excitement sending flying to the floor countless packets of scrogin bolts, grommet flanges and grogan pipes.

  ‘He’s got his nondles mixed up with his scrogins,’ they chorus as one, laughing merrily, and lurch into a little dance, all the while casting admiring glances at each other’s spondles.

  Sometimes, watching them, I’d like to insert a grogan into each of their blurgin pipes. Except, of course, for the ever-increasing price of grogans.

  I’m only here, in the hardware store, because large cracks have just appeared in our new bathroom floor — the bathroom floor I’ve only just finished installing. Plus the toilet creaks every time you come near it.

  It seems I stuffed-up the level of the joists when I rebuilt the floor. Which means that each time you approach the toilet you’re greeted by a loud and apprehensive moan.

  Jocasta calls it the ‘talking toilet’ and says we should have hired a tradesman. she’s right. The joists are stuffed, but so are the bearers, the soffets, the tindrills, the blagdorms, the rafters and the reefers.

  Mind you, it was Jocasta who encouraged this current spate of DIY — or Destroy-It-Yourself, as we now call it. she’s the one who bought me the portable workbench, designed to clamp wood or piping at various angles, and costing a fortune. A fortune so great that, finally, in mid-life, I realised I’d become a man with expensive vices.

  The portable bench has some sort of fancy marketing name, like the Bloke-O-Matic or the Handi Guy. It’s solitary. It’s portable. It’s a vice. And yet it’s still approved by the Vatican.

  The only catch is that the Bloke-O-Matic is supplied in bits in a flat-pack box, and it emerges that you need a Bloke-O-Matic and about $500 worth of tools in order to put it together. But, still, some people have been lucky enough to somehow manoeuvre Bolt E into Hole C and end up with something featuring four intertwined legs and two vices (remember: still Vatican approved).

  And it’s only natural that these people believe they can do anything. Even build a bathroom.

  Which is how I found myself digging trenches for the sewerage pipe and considering the need for some new building regulations, specifically designed for the nation’s Do-It-Yourselfers. such as:

  Regulation 1: By all means, blame your tools

  I’m sorry, it’s not just that we are bad tradesmen: our tools are stuffed. I couldn’t help what happened with the joists. I do not own a proper carpenter’s plane. They cost $65. Which is why I tried to plane the joists using a chainsaw. (This, I swear, is true.) It’s a measure of my skill that the levels are not out by more.

  Regulation 2: Mistakes multiply

  When you look at our work, sure, you think we’re idiots; that no-one could do a job this bad. Just remember: mistakes multiply. The bathroom’s a disaster because the ridge beam is two degrees out. Which is why the tin didn’t fit. Which is why the guttering looked odd. Which is why the walls weren’t straight. If I had better tools …

  Regulation 3: It’s not the roof of the Sistine Chapel

  Or the walls. Or the floor. In other words, ‘after a while you won’t care’. The welcoming groan of the talking toilet is like the song of a bird, signalling the start of the day. The wonderfully madcap tiling is a delight. The gaps in the skirting boards are a chance to experience the sweet breezes of early spring.

  Regulation 4: There’s a brand-name product for every task

  And, given men’s fear of reading instructions, the manufacturers usually bury a guide-to-using-it right there in the title. Brand names such as Sticks Real Fast. Or spray on Quick. Or, my personal favourite, Selley’s No More Cracks — a pair of elastic-waisted work pants, guaranteed never to ride down, even when you’re crouching to get under the sink.

  Regulation 5: Measure twice, cut once

  Well, that’s the old rule but, for reasons of space, they never printed the full DIY version: ‘Measure twice, cut once, try to install, find it still doesn’t fit, throw board to the ground, shout at partner, buy new bit at hardware store, endure sarcasm because you hadn’t realised you really need a blondgit bolt, cut again, and install.’

  Perhaps you don’t believe anybody can be this stupid? Why not come over to my place and see the big stack of treated pine, all of it cut to 1.2 metres in length (for a pergola designed to be 1.4 metres).

  Back at the hardware store, the men have removed their leather aprons, and are dancing around a large display of metric grogans, their spondles aquiver. I’d love to join them, yet my solitary vice calls me home.

  Travel Sickness

  Batboy has discovered that his mum’s new computer is fitted with a DVD player. Sitting on her floor, with the speakers just right, it’s like the ultimate cinema experience. He’s also discovered that you can watch the film with German subtitl
es — thus qualifying as language homework.

  Alas, we’ve only got one DVD film — a copy of The Birdcage, the Robin Williams comedy about a gay couple whose son marries into the Moral Majority. I fear the lad is developing a somewhat specialised vocabulary — Schwulen im Militär (gays in the military); Abtreibungsarzt (abortion doctor) and Transvestitenklub (transvestites’ club).

  My question is: are these terms which will come up on the Year 7 exams?

  Maybe I should buy a different sort of movie — one with lots of talk about putting your pen on the desk of your teacher before opening the window (or Fenster). Going on the evidence of his German lesson-book, in Deutschland they talk of little else.

  It is important, during this difficult week, that Batboy ‘self-motivates’ during his homework. Jocasta is away working in Melbourne yet again, and I’ve got to cut a few corners.

  True, being a momentary single parent has one advantage: it allows you to drink what you like at night. As early as Monday night, however, a small gem of wisdom begins to form: this is not always particularly helpful.

  Worse, Jocasta has left me a list. It’s a highly offensive document which implies I know nothing about the running of the house. She has stuck it on the fridge, with bold capitals listing each day of the week. It seeks to guide my every waking moment, from ‘make sandwiches’ at 6.45 a.m., right up to ‘put soccer boots in back of car for tomorrow’ at 11.15 p.m.

  My eyes feverishly search for some more upbeat tasks: ‘8.30 p.m. Sprawl on couch, drunk, watching movie’; or ‘10.15 p.m. Slip out and have hot affair’. Remarkably, these things are not listed.

  Besides which, as I tell Jocasta before she goes, the list is unnecessary and I won’t look at it once. I tell her: ‘If I ever go away for a week, then we’ll need a list. A list of all the things I do.’

  Says Jocasta: ‘What will you use for paper, Cinderella? A Post-it note?’

  By day two, we’re running so late that Batboy has missed the bus to school, and I have to drive him. We get there half an hour late. Batboy is unimpressed.

  ‘What are you trying to do, Dad?’ he says, getting out of the car. ‘Turn me into a nervöses Wrack?’

  I make a mental note: get that boy a new film.

  Wednesday, and Jocasta rings up. The Space Cadet gets to the phone and launches into a long account of how he didn’t have his recorder in his bag for music because ‘Dad forgot it’.

  I make a mental note: explain to The Space Cadet that no-one likes a dobber.

  I get onto the phone. Jocasta says: ‘You know the recorder was on the list. Are you following the list?’ Something about the way she says it, makes me realise it should be rendered in capital letters. It’s now become THE LIST.

  Thursday, and it appears we have run out of soccer shorts, tops and socks. I surreptitiously consult THE LIST and notice a small annotation on Tuesday, ordering their post-practice washing.

  It’s just before ‘buy more bread’, and just after ‘buy present for Briony’s birthday’. I wonder if Briony would be happy with ten bucks in an envelope. I’ve got plenty of money, especially considering all the savings I’ve made on bread.

  I remove the wet and stinking soccer clothes from the laundry basket and suggest to Batboy he slips them on anyway. ‘They’ll be all right, mate,’ I say. ‘The other team won’t want to come near you while you’re wearing these.’ I attempt a matey laugh.

  He shoots me a disbelieving stare, and mumbles: ‘Also das ist die Hölle.’ (‘And so this is hell’ — The Birdcage, Scene 8, line 5.)

  Friday, and THE LIST says Jocasta will be home at 9.00 p.m. So how come she rings from the airport and says she’s got an early flight and will be home in twenty minutes?

  I just knew THE LIST was a worthless tissue of lies. Hysterically — hysterisch — all three of us start cleaning and organising. There’s no way we will be finished on time.

  ‘Are you coping, Dad?’ asks Batboy kindly, as he watches me pound the pizza boxes down into the garbage.

  ‘No, son’, I say. ‘I feel like I’m riding on a psychotic horse toward a burning barn.’

  Batboy nods his head in agreement: ‘Ah, yes, Scene 20, line 8: “Ein psychotisches Pfred zu einem brennenden Stall reiten will”.’

  Which leaves me with the question: how come the language of a hysterical farce seems so useful in this particular house?

  Examine This

  Just the mention of the Year 12 final exams — exams like the HSC or the VCE — is enough to make beads of sweat break out on the foreheads of most of us. Lucky for those about to enter the exam room, I’m in a position to offer some advice.

  1. Don’t believe any of your friends when they say they are not studying. They are merely trying to guarantee they won’t be last in the class, by inviting you into just that role.

  2. No-Doze tablets are a mistake. Past students have swallowed them with all the abandon of a Hume Highway truckie. In the resulting delirium, they have tended to answer every question in the Maths in Society paper with the phrase ‘Yass to Gundagai’.

  3. The Lemon Ruski, while in itself a fine beverage, cannot be considered a crucial study aid in either Russian Language or Soviet History.

  4. On various occasions you may find yourself stark naked and sweating in the exam room. This is either (a) a pre-exam nightmare or (b) a rather game attempt to finally win the attention of the invigilator and get another writing pad. Both events prove the law: seventeen cups of coffee is too many.

  5. Feel free to use other students as aides-mémoire. Looking up mid-exam, the mountainous acne on the face of your friend Shazza might remind you of the devious role played by the Swiss in World War II. The horrific dandruff-storm enveloping Tony’s head might, by contrast, bring to mind the importance of the winter snow in the siege of Stalingrad. And the very sight of your Maths teacher, Mr Greystains, might remind you of the dangers of wearing the same pair of pants for twenty years without dry-cleaning. (This last is not actually an exam tip, but remains a vital life lesson.)

  6. Remember that many great human beings, including Sir Winston Churchill, did not do well at school. Then again, Sir Winston wasn’t pinning his hopes on getting into Vet Science at Sydney Uni. Remember: positions as War Time Leader of the British tend to be thin on the ground when you’ve grown up in North Ryde.

  7. While tattooing and body piercing have become popular of late, it is unlikely the invigilator will accept that you just happen to have Hamlet’s second soliloquy branded onto your inner thigh.

  8. During the exam period your parents will be uncharacteristically willing to wait on you hand and foot. By all means, be imperious. Enjoy it. Exploit it. Don’t just ask Dad to make you a cup of coffee; get the old boy slaving over pancakes and fresh juice, with the claim ‘it’s great brain food’. Torment other siblings. Demand silence elsewhere in the house. Bung on tantrums with impunity. Scatter books and coffee cups everywhere. Be a complete bastard. Remember, the HSC is an important coming-of-age ritual: it’s when your parents decide that, yes, next year they will help you with the bond for a flat of your own.

  9. It is a mistake to completely sacrifice personal hygiene to the needs of study. In my own Physics exam, five students succumbed to the stench of their own BO, and were later found unconscious. Only by chance did the imprint of their filthy foreheads mean that all achieved high distinctions in the multiple choice.

  10. Why didn’t you study earlier? Why did you waste all of Year 11, and most of Year 12? Why were you such a fool? All these thoughts may be now occurring to you. Stay calm. Exams favour those who know a few simple facts:

  All literature is about the struggle between man and nature, with a side-order of the anguish of human existence. Phrases which can be safely used at random to describe any book include: ‘a tortured account of la condition humaine’; ‘the author’s vivid use of language’; and ‘a compelling, but original, sense of place’. And even if you’ve never heard of the novel or play in the literature test
, you can always employ the all-purpose essay-ending: ‘And so, despite a harsh view of human nature, the author believes humanity has the ability to rise to finer things — which is both its hope and its tragedy.’

  All history, meanwhile, is a result of the social and economic forces of the time — ‘a time when the world was entering a period of rapid economic and social dislocation’. This phrase can be safely used even if you don’t know what century the examiners are talking about, as the world has always been entering a period of rapid social and economic dislocation.

  11. Read the paper through before you start. Only claim ‘it’s all Greek to me’ if sitting Modern Greek. And take it from the rest of us: nothing you’ll face in the rest of your life will be as horrible as this.

  Home Coming

  Melbourne is flat, with the roads laid out in a grid. No wonder Melburnians have fewer relationship problems than the rest of the population. In Sydney, you can get anywhere by about fifteen different routes.

  It’s a city laid out by people paid in rum and wearing leg irons. Look from the air, and it’s been designed using a SpiroGraph. And so you have the arguments. Comenarra Parkway vs the Pacific Highway. Oxford Street vs William. Mona Vale Road vs Pittwater.

  Jocasta and I may have to stop attending the Broadway cinema, so intense is our argument about which way to turn when we leave the car park. To the right and up Parramatta Road? To the left and across Anzac Bridge? Before you express a preference, let me admit it: I’m passionately in favour of the Parramatta Road option.

  Jocasta sits next to me, fuming. ‘I can’t believe you’re going this way again. It’s madness.’

  Mostly I ignore Jocasta’s comments, but today I snap. I chuck a U-turn. Right there in the middle of the road. ‘OK, you win. You direct.’

  Jocasta tells me to stop being so childish, and says she was merely expressing an opinion.