In Bed with Jocasta

by Richard Glover

Balls which become stuck in trees are deemed caught. By Joel Garner if the tree is tall.

  In games with limited fieldsmen, and a single, difficult-to-defeat batter, one may institute the system of ‘electric wickets’, meaning they can be run-out by hitting either wicket, and not just the one towards which they are running.

  Any on-field mistake shall be greeted with the dismissive chorus from all players: ‘Can’t bowl, can’t field.’ Players who are incompetent, and miss every ball, should insist they are in the pay of Salim Malik and are intentionally ‘throwing the game’.

  It’s acknowledged that backyard cricket is an excellent guide to a person’s basic character. Will the sixteen-year-old give the ball a sweet nudge towards the great-grandparent fielding at silly point? Or go the full lobotomy shot in the hope of an early inheritance? Only backyard cricket will tell.

  Suspect bowling actions will be frowned upon, in particular those made without a can of beer in one hand. As Shoaib Akhtar might put it: ‘There’s plenty of scope for chucking later in the night.’

  Runs will be subtracted for hitting the ball into the wood pile (due to fear of snakes); or into Uncle Terry’s new car (due to fear of Uncle Terry).

  The dog will be considered an act of God — his actions bringing a much-needed measure of pure luck to a game too long mired in skill.

  The intelligent son-in-law will unaccountably ‘miss’ the bails several times during Pa’s innings. He shall remember that Christmas is close, and that Pa’s traditional gift of red wine may be selected from the Over $15 section, or from the Under $5.

  After the sixteen-year-old has achieved twenty-five runs, he may be openly mocked and derided, and forced to hit a dolly towards Nanna, which she will catch with a long, dramatic, but ultimately bone-cracking dive towards silly leg.

  Backyard cricket again reveals the family secret: those idiotically competitive genes came from someplace.

  Stark Staring

  It was Batboy who had the insight. The grand moment of vision. We’d gone to the Art Gallery, attracted by the new gallery of traditional painting. But first, we thought, we should head downstairs and introduce Batboy to some contemporary art. In particular those rocks they’ve got on the ground floor, all hanging in a circle from the ceiling.

  Whenever you look at contemporary art, there’s always someone in the background mumbling that ‘a child could do better’, so this was the perfect opportunity to see whether an actual young person agreed.

  Batboy, as it happens, adjudged himself quite unable to do any better and was very admiring of the circle of hanging rocks — especially its capacity to be used as a weapon. But the interesting moment happened when we clambered towards the traditional paintings, and Batboy made his announcement: compared with that sensible modern stuff downstairs, this lot was, well, kind of weird.

  Jocasta and I examined the paintings, and you could see his point. The joint is full of the odder outpourings of the pre-modern mind: unicorns, nymphs, crucifixes, men with animal bodies, severed heads on trays, and a veritable plague of stags and lutes. Traditional painters are very big on lutes.

  There’s all this moaning about the weirdness of modern art, but when you finally open your eyes, you find a striking and beautiful circle of stones. Not weird at all.

  Meanwhile, upstairs, is your typical traditional painting, and it will feature a bloke with goat legs, suckling a devil with his engorged breast (oh, didn’t I mention the breasts?) while somebody in the background has his head hacked off with a sword. Batboy is right. It’s sicko stuff. Enter it in the Biennale and they’d be denouncing you as a typical sybaritic modernist.

  And then I notice this other thing about the galleries of traditional art. All the women are in the nude. You’ll have these groups of people, doing something quite ordinary, like cooking a meal or hacking the festering head off a succubus, and all the men will be in full ceremonial dress while the women, whoops, they’ve somehow forgotten to put on their shirts.

  Oddest of all, they don’t even bother explaining why the women are naked. They just are. On principle.

  At least today’s film-makers contrive a storyline to get their female stars naked (‘Scene Five: Sharon decides her turtle-neck sweater is so hot she’d best remove it.’) But not these people. They can be painting a woman welding the back axle of her oxcart, and they’ll think: ‘Just as easy to make her starkers.’

  It’s like the famous painting by Manet, Le Dejeuner sur l’Herbe. Here’s a group of friends; they’ve decided to have a picnic; they’ve spread out the rug; the blokes are dressed to kill, and everybody’s getting stuck right into the King Island brie and the Rosemount chardonnay.

  And what does the woman in the picture decide to do? Naturally, she elects to strip off and plonk herself starkers right there among the plastic plates, happy as Larry.

  We blokes have seen the painting at school. We have studied the poster on kitchen walls. And we’ve gone on about 4 000 picnics ever since, always with that vague sense of hope.

  Our conclusion? Manet must have been running with a crowd of sheilas somewhat different to the ones who attend our picnics.

  Or take another example — the famous Sid Long painting of the pink flamingos. It’s got two women and they are watching a glorious flock of pink flamingos, and so what do they do to increase their viewing pleasure? Off come the duds. Stark naked is the only way to get a good viewing of a flamingo, and why don’t all the zoo’s female patrons realise it?

  Surely, the good news is the popularity of artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe, in whose work it is almost always the men who are walking around naked. Men oiling up their bodies and flexing with pride. Men removing their clothes at the slightest provocation. Men staring at themselves in the mirror and going: ‘Um, not bad.’

  It’s taken centuries to get here. But at least some art seems to be recording the day-to-day realities of your typical Australian suburban home.

  The Scapie

  Occasionally, while cooking, I’m forced to ask the odd question. For instance: ‘Who the bloody hell has hidden the garlic crusher, since it’s supposed to be right here in the second drawer?’ In response, Jocasta usually points out there are only two people who use the garlic crusher. Her. And me. Which means my question is not a question at all. But rather a thinly veiled accusation.

  Jocasta reckons men are always asking these sort of ‘questions’ — questions like ‘Who’s lost my keys?’, ‘Who’s moved my bag?’ and ‘Who’s broken the washing machine?’ Questions to which the men clearly feel they already have the answer. We might believe we are launching a speculative inquiry, but all Jocasta sees is a nation of Emile Zolas, shouting ‘J’accuse’ over the kitchen bench.

  Take last week, when we were finishing off the new bathroom. I’d climbed down the ladder, tripped over my open tool box and was busy being catapulted head-first towards the still-talking toilet. Naturally, as I came to rest on the ground, I put the question. ‘Who,’ I said, ‘put my bloody tool box right at the foot of the bloody ladder?’

  It was just a general non-specific, open-ended question. But since Jocasta and I were the only ones in the room, it may have had just a hint of ‘J’accuse’.

  Jocasta, slowly, carefully, began to answer. And I was shocked. For the first time in our years together, she was giving the answer for which my question clearly yearned.

  ‘I did it,’ said Jocasta. ‘It was my fault. You weren’t to know I’d moved it. And into such an idiotic place. And now, of course, I feel so stupid. And the thought that you, darling, may have been hurt … ‘

  It was great hearing those words — those tender, blame-accepting words — but it didn’t take long for me to hear a cautionary voice in the back of my head. A voice that said: ‘Mate, beware, for I think she may very well be taking the piss.’

  And thus, verily, did it come to pass.

  Jocasta, surrounded by sheets of tongue-in-groove panelling, had now taken to waving a sharp chisel in my direction
. ‘Suddenly it’s become clear,’ she said, ‘the importance of my role. I’m the scapegoat. The person who takes the blame off the others. I mean, look at the team of tradesmen on your typical building site — you’ve got the brickie, the chippie and the sparkie. And then the scapie. The scapegoat.

  ‘And, let’s face it, the scapie may well be the most important role of all. The chippie may stop the ceiling collapsing. But the scapie stops the chippie collapsing — we buttress his ego, we are the massive bearers who take the strain of his mistakes.’

  I decided to retaliate: ‘Look, I merely asked … ‘

  ‘No’, said Jocasta, ‘I’m not upset, I merely want recognition for the role — for all we scapies, both male and female, at home and in business. I want recognition for the service we provide. Like the salesman in the small company, the bloke who gets blamed by the boss and everyone else for the turndown in the business; every time things get tense, every time they consider sacking everyone and reorganising the firm, the cry will go up, “But it’s all Gordon’s fault”.’

  Jocasta explained: ‘Gordon’s the scapie, and if you think about it, he’s the one bloke holding that place together. And then there’s your domestic scapies, heroically taking the blame. The bloke burns the casserole? Ah, says the scapie, I should have alerted you to the proper cooking temperature.

  ‘Or the bloke who backs the Falcon up the driveway, drunk, and knocks in the fence? My fault for not moving the fence a little to the left.’

  I decided to sit down on my tool box and take a lower profile.

  ‘Mate,’ continued Jocasta, letting loose her tool belt, ‘I’d just like to see some recognition. Like today. Without a good scapie like me, you’d lose your confidence. You wouldn’t be able to continue in the delusion that you’re a good builder, tragically saddled with an incompetent helper.’

  Jocasta smiled one of her fabulous smiles, and I decided it was best to get on with things — measuring a fresh bit of panelling, and sawing it off according to my template.

  I went to hammer it in, and Jocasta and I both instantly spotted the problem. ‘No way,’ she said rapidly, ‘could you have been so stupid as to saw that angle the wrong way round, totally wasting the piece of wood. I mean, only a total idiot would do that. Nah, it must have been my fault. The way I completely distracted you with all that talk.’

  I looked up at my life-partner, and met her blue eyes, which were alive with a twinkle I have long learnt to fear. ‘You see,’ she said, in a secretive whisper, ‘I really am the world’s best scapie.’

  Rules of Life

  There are many scientific rules that affect ordinary life, so isn’t it time we collected the most significant dozen?

  Rule 1: The uglier the couch, the more comfort it provides

  One of the great, overriding laws of the universe, right up there with E = mc2. Sink into a truly ugly couch, and instantly you feel the difference: the comforting orange velour covering; the low-slung sprawl of its cushions; the groaning springs which bow to your superior weight. The truly fashionable, meanwhile, find themselves perched aboard something sleek and Italian, the upholstery so taut it could repel bullets.

  Even in city restaurants, this law works its magic. Hence the sub-law: the more expensive the restaurant, the less comfortable the chairs. Oh, for a top-notch eatery fitted out with vinyl-upholstered booths.

  Rule 2: The more hideous the sock, the more likely it is to last forever

  I spend half my life buying pairs of stylish cotton business socks. Within weeks, only one of them is left, the other is missing in action or full of holes. But here is a curious fact: ugly, nylon socks never leave you. Make a rash purchasing error in 1977 — something nylon, something tartan, something perhaps with writing on it — and there it will be twenty years on, winking at you from your sock drawer, demanding to be worn to work every Friday, when all other contenders are gone.

  Rule 3: A spoon, placed at random on a kitchen sink, will automatically position itself under the tap

  Who knows why, but turn on the tap at full blast and every spoon within 50 metres will have positioned itself beneath the torrent. The effect: a wide-arching spray of scalding water all over the washer-up.

  Rule 4: With processed food, hope springs eternal

  The frozen lasagne. The microwavable pizza. The dried pasta product: ‘Just add water and you’ve got Spaghetti Carbonara that a restaurant would serve.’ So many products, so many promises — and so many bitter disappointments.

  Yet how quickly we forget. My hand pauses at the supermarket freezer, hovering over the frozen Meat Pie and Vegetables Family Dinner. How bad can it be? Two hours later we eat, and discover the answer: very bad indeed. But, somehow, the next week Jocasta and I are back, behind the trolley, lingering at the freezers. We’re like Adam and Eve — before that first bite of Frozen Apple Pie Surprise, innocent in the face of experience: ‘I mean, how bad … ‘

  Rule 5: Men are genetically incapable of reading a recipe to the end before they start cooking

  This explains why, when waiting at the dining table for a gentleman host to serve his meal, guests will often hear a scream of rage at about 8.00 p.m. It marks the moment he has turned over the cookbook’s page and seen for the first time: ‘Step 4, simmer gently for six hours.’

  Rule 6: The comfort and contentment of any baby is in inverse proportion to that of the adult holding it

  Only when you are standing on one leg, leaning to the left and rocking backwards will a baby consider stopping crying.

  Rule 7: Toilets are all designed so the lid will not stay upright of its own accord, but instead hovers precariously before slamming shut at the worst possible moment

  This is the primary cause of nervous illness among the male population. And of wet toilet seats.

  Rule 8: The phone only ever rings when you are sitting down to dinner

  This is completely unlike the doorbell, which only ever rings when you are in the shower. People who crave human contact should instantly retire to the shower with their dinner.

  Rule 9: The more sport your children play, the more unhealthy you’ll become

  All children’s sport in Australia has the same fundraising method: the sausage sizzle. They play; you eat. Thus the strange outcome: the fitter they get, the fatter you’ll get.

  Rule 10: Photocopy machines never work

  This shows how technology has gone downhill since the days of the reliable Roneo machine. (Thus giving rise to the common office cry: ‘Wherefore art thou, Roneo?’)

  Rule 11: Radio news bulletins of great personal interest are only ever broadcast when your car is about to enter a tunnel

  The broadcast is always cut off one and a half seconds after entering the tunnel and will resume on the last word as you leave it.

  Rule 12: The more times you hear the phrase ‘your call is important to us’, the less important it actually is

  I could go on. For instance: ‘The more inaccessible the light bulb, the more often it will need to be changed.’ Or, ‘The nicer the shirt, the more likely the pen will leak in the top pocket.’ Or, ‘The chance of a baby throwing up on its parent’s shoulder rises with the cost of the garment being worn.’

  But, as scientists would know, this can only ever be a partial list. We’ll call you for more suggestions next time you’re sitting down to dinner.

  5

  Jocasta, cleaning out the laundry, discovers

  we don’t actually have three ironing baskets.

  We have four. And this one has been sitting

  around for months. It’s the Ironing Basket of

  Death. It’s the Too-Hard Basket.

  Interior Monologue

  I‘m kneeling on the bathroom floor, a virtual human sacrifice, armed only with a rolled-up copy of Home Style Today magazine. In front of me, an outstretched arm away, is our washing machine — 60 kilos of hulking rust, water and malevolence — about to enter a spin cycle of quite frightening abandon.

  As it
picks up speed, it starts to shake and shudder and thud, almost jitterbugging toward the door. It’s a big fat square of white and chrome, busy shaking itself to death — sort of like Elvis in 1977.

  Right now I’m trying to stuff the copy of Home Style Today under Elvis’s front left leg. My aim is to achieve some sort of stability, despite a bathroom floor which is full of sudden depressions. Much like its owners.

  The washing machine, it seems clear, has a different aim: to crush me into a bloodied pulp and leave me dead against the bathroom wall. I heave upwards and start pushing the Home Style Today under Elvis’s leg; the magazine ripping a little so that I can see a few flashes of its contents. Azure pools. Sunday brunches. Found objects.

  ‘Back, damn you,’ I mutter as I shove, my cheek pressed up against Elvis’s shuddering side, my frontal lobes getting a most attention-grabbing work-over. ‘A Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On’.

  The way I’ve folded the magazine, a typical Home Style Today article faces upwards as I push it into place: ‘It’s easy’, it says, ‘to achieve a sophisticated but relaxed lifestyle’.

  I don’t quite know why Jocasta and I buy these magazines. In theory it’s to get home-making tips. But the main ‘tip’, it always turns out, is to have about five million dollars and a team of decorators and tradesmen. Certainly that’s what everyone featured in the magazine has done.

  Take this particular article, on top of which Elvis’s leg is currently shuddering. Brett and Veronica, of Darling Point, have recently decided to build a waterfront home of first-class design, with stables, pool and en suite granny mansion. Interestingly, it appears that Brett is heir to the SaltyBitz snack-food empire, while Veronica’s a freelance design consultant who’s done groundbreaking work in the area of bathroom vanities, and is closely related to the Queen of Sheba.