Read In Bed with Jocasta Online
Authors: Richard Glover
In Bed with Jocasta (10 page)
W
hen you get back to work after holidays, you realise it’s all wrong. The whole set-up. Who thought up these rules? Who decided we had time for this ‘work’ thing? During holidays the body forgets about these indignities; the soul stretches its wings. Now the harness is back on. With every rut in the road, the cart pulls hard against the now-softened skin. You realise: this
hurts.
For instance:
6.30 a.m.
The alarm clock goes off. This cannot be right. I feel
terrible.
An army of pixies is stabbing tiny spears into my eyeballs. The roof of my mouth has been carpeted with a shag-pile off the walls of the local RSL.
Cleverly, I incorporate the alarm clock into my dreams. I’m in a burning building, with the fire alarm screaming. Flames begin to consume my body — my hair is on fire and my testicles explode. This is extremely painful, but still better than waking up.
6.40 a.m.
The back-up alarm goes off. I roll out of bed and try to focus. The day ahead involves no swimming, no tennis, and no sitting around reading novels. A few grains of sand, lying on the floor near my sandals, mock me with a rollicking laugh. Ha, ha, ha.
6.45 a.m.
Reluctantly, I begin to get dressed. I can’t understand who invented this gear. The dark pants and the white shirt, and then the tie — the personalised number-plate of the male worker. My body felt fine in the holiday gear — the XXL T-shirt and the board shorts. The belly swung free. The feet saluted the sun from the deck of my blue rubber thongs.
Now, I wrap the tie around my neck, and tighten it to the point where it’s only vaguely uncomfortable. Perfect. It’s hard not to notice how similar it is to a hangman’s noose — the free end hanging down just where the boss can easily grab it. A whole army of male commuters — each with our personalised noose. Thank God, we’re allowed to choose the colour, which is not the case in many other death-row situations. Mine’s a zany individualist yellow. How about yours?
6.55 a.m.
I eat breakfast while standing up at the sink. Between mouthfuls, enter room of older son and attempt to wake him via time-honoured method of screaming and slapping. I return to sink for further mouthful of soggy Weet-Bix, scream again at son, pack dishwasher, eat more Weet-Bix, scream at son, pack bag, then scream again at son. Two more hours of this, and at least one of us might be fully awake.
7.05 a.m.
I stand at sink, and shave. What’s the story? That the male must remove overt signs of his masculinity before entering the workplace? Glumly, I work the razor, convinced it’s all a metaphor for castration — the male worker proving himself compliant and cowered. Thus distracted, I cut myself in five places.
8.15 a.m.
I exit house, looking like Norman Gunston, and drive rapidly into nearest traffic jam. This morning it takes twenty minutes to travel one block, and another forty to reach the city.
9.15 a.m.
I rush to my desk. Following a month away, I have 176 e-mail messages, nearly all concerning an air-conditioning malfunction in the Adelaide branch office. As revenge, I e-mail all Adelaide with my views on the proper disposal of nose-hairs.
10.05 a.m.
My computer password has expired, and I can’t remember how to use the voicemail. Solving these problems takes forty minutes. I decide to leap to my death, but discover the windows are screwed into the frames. Which can only mean that someone has tried this before.
10.45 a.m.
There’s a meeting with management, with much discussion of our ‘mission statement’. The word ‘facilitate’ is also used. There must be at least one window in which the screws are loose.
1.05 p.m.
I queue interminably for a sandwich, and choose something dull and calorie-controlled because ‘I’m not on holidays now.’
1.30 p.m.
Go back downstairs and buy three chocolate bars to lift mood, since ‘I’m not on holidays now.’
2.00-6.00 p.m.
I actually do some work. Make decisions. And remember holidays in which main decision was whether to have a second beer after lunch. (The sensible answer to which, by the way, is always ‘No.’)
6.45 p.m.
I drive rapidly into traffic jam, and sit as time passes. Whole days go past getting through the inner west; governments are elected and deposed; the polar ice caps melt and refreeze.
7.30 p.m.
Fall asleep. Soon the shoulders will be hardened to the harness; the body will have forgotten there’s another way. My next holiday is only eleven months away.
‘Actually, I’m pretty sick myself,’ says Jocasta,
a day later, lying prone across the hallway,
and groaning. ‘It’s pretty close to child-birth;
I’d say eight-tenths of a child-birth. I may
need a little looking after myself.’
Y
ou’d hardly recognise Jocasta — sweeping into my room with a tray, on which was soup (the can opened by her own hand) and what she called ‘toast soldiers for my sick soldier’. There was even a flower, a rather sad-looking daisy, plonked into a Vegemite glass. It was all so utterly unlike Jocasta, I started to worry. Maybe I was sicker than I thought.
A request that Jocasta should prepare soup is normally greeted by a hollow laugh, and seconds later a well-aimed copy of
The Universal Cookbook
will come flying though the air. Already, the children know the drill: after shouting out any food request to either of us, they momentarily duck.
But here was Jocasta, fussing around my bed like a nurse from a
Carry On
movie, leaning over me with health-inspiring bosoms and a kindly smile. The disease may have rendered me asthmatic and thick-headed, but it has turned Jocasta meek and sweet. Now
that’s
a virus.
Truth is, most women are powerless against a pale and sickly man. It’s a remarkable effect to witness, which may be why so many men, over the years, have become skilled at milking it. Some even making use of the Bambi Eyes (wide open, beseeching, injured). It’s rotten that a person has to go this far to get a little sympathy. But, over time, I’ve found it’s necessary.
My mother, for example, has always been of the view that illness is a sign of moral decay and misbehaviour. It deserves no sympathy, and certainly no treatment.
Report to her that you went to the doctor and that he said your illness is serious, and suddenly she is concerned. ‘What? You went to a
doctor?’
(Incredulous pause on other end of phone.) ‘Well, no wonder you’re sick.’
She thinks most illness is caused by consuming over-rich food and indulging in disgusting, modern practices, such as the eating of garlic and going outdoors without germ-repelling white gloves.
In terms of parenting, she always believed her main duty was to remind me how generally lucky I was. As in the exchange:
‘Mum, Mum, it’s terrible, I’ve just fallen off my bike and gashed my leg, which is now bleeding horribly.’
‘Well, just think what a lucky boy you are to have a bike from which to fall.’
(You’ll notice: more effort placed in achieving the proper grammatical construction than in fetching a bandage to staunch the by now Amazon River-like bloodflow.)
Meanwhile, there is my doctor friend Simon — perfectly pleasant I’m sure to his own patients, but utterly unsympathetic to family and friends. One day I plan to decapitate myself in front of Simon, just to hear him look up from his newspaper and mumble: ‘Oh, Richard do pull yourself together.’
So no sympathy is on offer without a bit of theatrical effort — which luckily is not beyond me. Perhaps these same performances have been spotted in your house?
The John Wayne
I’m in bed, and Jocasta has come in with some aspirin. My aim: to subtly indicate the Massive Extent of My Illness, without revealing that I’m a whinger and malingerer. I take John Wayne as my model. For instance: the moment when he gets a tomahawk through his skull, and just does one of those tight, brave smiles. The Courageous Little Smile That Masks Indescribable Pain. I flash one at Jocasta — letting it wobble a bit on my face, just to show the depth of the pain — and suddenly her brain explodes in a hormone storm. With a squawk of pity, she runs off to make more soup.
The Lord Byron
Day Two, and the Duke’s losing his power. As her footsteps approach, I fall wanly backwards — and reveal ‘The Lord Byron’. Pale and interesting, head lolling loosely, the eyes focused on the middle distance. Death from consumption may be rare in the inner west, but it’s clearly what I’ve got. Jocasta runs off to starch my collars.
The Camille
Day Three, and the illness gets really bad. So bad I find myself unable to face alcohol of any sort. ‘Bugger,’ I think, ‘I didn’t know I was
that
sick.’ Shaken, I return to my bed, and commence enacting the death scene from
Camille.
‘It was terrible,’ I report to Jocasta. ‘I looked into the fridge, and I felt … I felt nothing. I wasn’t
interested.’
DIARY NOTE: ‘The Camille’ does not work. Expected sympathy does not eventuate. Patient greeted instead with torrent of abuse. DO NOT ATTEMPT AGAIN.
The Brando
Day Four, and I unveil ‘The Brando’. Lying around unshaven in my white singlet, I yell up the hallway: ‘Stella!’ Finally, Jocasta responds and I give her the works: self-pity, morose introspection, shambling gait, and a complete inability to articulate simple thoughts. ‘Ah,’ she says brightly, ‘you seem to be almost completely back to normal.’
DIARY NOTE: strategies no longer working. Jocasta has hormones back under control. Last soup came from kitchen days ago! Toast soldiers all gone! What can be done?
The Last Gasp
Notice Jocasta referring to my illness as ‘the flu’. Frankly, it’s an insult. I’d be better off seeing Simon. Or even my mother. What I’ve got is some sort of unusual virus. Probably a medical first. Doesn’t she realise men never get anything as commonplace as ‘the flu’? That’s for women. For instance: Jocasta.
Actually, just as I’m getting better, Jocasta is coming down with something pretty similar. Only not as bad. For instance, she’s not moaning or whingeing much, and is sitting quite pluckily in bed. Remarkable, isn’t it, how the strain of a virus can weaken so sharply in the space of a few days.
Part of the problem, I think, is the lack of an objective pain rating that could separate the malingerers (i.e. women) from those Struggling On Despite Enormous Odds (i.e. men).
I’d like a pain thermometer: pop it under the arm, and be able to announce that I’m suffering an ‘8’. After all, women have this. As in the phrase: ‘It was worse than childbirth.’ Notice how they choose the one scale of measurement in which we can’t compete — leaving themselves luxuriating on the illness highground.
‘Actually, I’m pretty sick myself,’ says Jocasta, a day later, lying prone across the hallway, and groaning. ‘It’s pretty close to childbirth; I’d say eight-tenths of a childbirth. I may need a little looking after myself.’
She looks up with beseeching Bambi Eyes, and suddenly there seems nothing for it but to pull myself together, pop her in bed, and make soup.
Luckily, that’s when my mother rings.
‘Can you talk to Jocasta, Mum. I think she’s been eating restaurant food again and going outside without her gloves.’
T
here’s now good evidence that someone is trying to poison me. For instance, every night after dinner I experience blurred vision and swelling. And all I’ve done is drink a bottle of red wine and eat twenty-three sausages.
Perhaps this is why Jocasta has instituted a weekday program of strictly-limited alcohol and low-fat food; a program which has done nothing except focus my mind firmly on the kitchen cupboard.
As I stand there, quietly whimpering, I consider the strange rules of food and drink. Isn’t it time someone catalogued their eternal laws?
Food, if eaten straight from the cupboard, with the cupboard door still open, and no attempt to sit down, doesn’t count in any calorie-control program.
Beer tastes worse with every additional glass, while red wine tastes better.
Broken biscuits, found in the bottom of the Tupperware, contain no calories.
Encouraging others to eat heartily is not only good manners. Over time, you’ll start to look thin in comparison.
There is no point to the Brussels sprout.
There is never any room in the fridge, but nothing worth eating in there either.
If oysters weren’t so expensive, people would realise they look like snot.
Every food cupboard has one obscure cooking ingredient in massive oversupply. You ran out of it once, and now buy a fresh packet on every supermarket visit. In our house, it’s slivered almonds. We now have six small packs, enough to last, on current use, the next fifteen years.
UHT stands for Ultra Horrible Taste.
The favourite recipe of the serious cook always demands ‘¼ glass of good-quality white wine’, thus forcing the opening of a bottle well before the arrival of the guests.
A watched bottle of white wine, slung in the freezer, never cools.
Eating healthy vegetables provides negative calories, allowing you to eat extra junk.
With every kilometre you drive further from Sydney’s trendiest suburbs, the definition shifts of ‘rare’, ‘medium rare’ and ‘well done’. Ask for ‘rare’ in Balmain, and they’ll wipe its arse and plate it. Ask for ‘rare’ in Broken Hill and the cook will come out of the kitchen and give you a long hard stare.
When cooking for friends, put the most effort into the starter. They’ll be too drunk to notice the dessert.
Left-overs of Chinese take-away should never be thrown out on the night. They should be put in the fridge for three weeks, and thrown out once they start growing.
The dessert stomach is a separate stomach. The main stomach may well be full after a huge main course, but the dessert stomach will still be empty, and demanding food. Indeed, some Sydney gourmands are equipped, cow-like, with at least four separate stomachs. The entrée stomach, the main meal stomach, the dessert stomach, and (hence the term) the petit-four stomach.
Hard-cover recipe books with titles like
Recipes from a Tuscan Garden,
equipped with gorgeous photos and exquisite prose, are never used. All your actual recipes come from a magazine-style compendium called
Bog in Quick.Milk tastes best when drunk straight from the carton at two in the morning.
Yuppie ‘premium lager’ beer such as Cascade and James Boag should
not
be consumed while watching Rugby League. Remember the rule of etiquette: ‘It is offensive to drink from a bottle with a longer neck than the footballer you are cheering.’No-one wants to eat the last stale handful of cornflakes in the box, yet no-one is allowed to throw them out either. Most families ban the opening of a new box until the old is finished — forcing all family members to sullenly eat toast for four weeks until Mum relents.
Up the back of every kitchen cupboard is a sad stack of Indian spices from four years back when you bought an Indian cookbook. Throw them out now! Go on! Do it!
Recipe books always give a cooking time that is far too short. They also claim a given recipe will feed ten, when you would be lucky to get a meal for two wafer-thin monks. Either all recipe writers are extremely thin people with faulty ovens, or the rest of us are fat greedy pigs with faulty ovens. The oven manufactures must investigate.
Squares of chocolate, broken off the bar, are rounded down to include only the full squares.
In the search for that final bottle of beer, late at night, it is common to get up from the couch and search the fridge at least five times — in the hope that, in the two minutes since you last lifted up the bag of carrots, some sort of miracle may have taken place. This has never been known to happen.
And, finally but crucially: whiskey is always a mistake.
