In Bed with Jocasta (21 page)
Read In Bed with Jocasta Online
Authors: Richard Glover
No way was I going to let her get away with that. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t prepared for every contingency. I’d even packed two bottles of Hunter shiraz — long favoured as an aid to sleeping in the back of a station-wagon. But it’s those acts of thoughtfulness that never get a mention.
‘Actually, I think it’s good,’ says Jocasta. ‘Sleeping here might finally teach you a lesson: that things don’t always turn out right.’
The night darkens with a big-sky sunset glowing red on the horizon — everything quiet save for the boy’s rhythmic sobbing. Then I spot him — the publican walking briskly towards the car. It’s all I need. He probably wants his blanket back.
He addresses Jocasta: ‘Ah, I just can’t let you all sleep out here — it would be terrible with two young ones.’ His eighteen-year-old son can sleep on a spare bed in his sister’s room. We can have the boy’s bedroom.
Somehow, miraculously, things have turned out for the best. We wander inside, and all leap into the son’s huge water bed, laughing and giggling.
I know I’ll rot in hell, but I can’t resist it as I lean close, and whisper the sweet words. ‘Jocasta … I told you so.’
I am in bed with Jocasta, and things couldn’t be better.
R
ichard Glover is the author of five books, and three stage shows, including
Lone Star Lemon.
Richard’s weekly column has appeared in the
Sydney Morning Herald
since 1985. He presents the Drive show on ABC Radio in Sydney.
Grin and Bear It
The P-Plate Parent
(with Angela Webber)
Laughing Stock
(with Angela Webber)
The Joy of Blokes
(with Angela Webber)
Maps, Dreams, History:
Race and Representation in Australia
(with Noel Pearson, Patty O’Brien
and Lucy O’Connor)
T
he author would like to thank Debra Oswald, Amanda Higgs, Brian Curran, Linda Funnell and Belinda Yuille.
HarperCollins
Publishers
First published in Australia in 2000
This edition published in 2011
by HarperCollins
Publishers
Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Richard Glover 2000
The right of Richard Glover to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him under the
Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968
, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
HarperCollins
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Glover, Richard.
In bed with Jocasta.
ISBN 978-0-7322-6864-0 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-7304-9429-4 (ePub)
1. Australian wit and humor.
2. Australia — social life and customs — Humor.
I. Title.
A828.302
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