In Bed with Jocasta (4 page)

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.

B
atboy 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 subtitles — 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?

J
ust 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.

M
elbourne 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.

I say: ‘Well, we’re now
following
your opinion. So it’s your job to tell me where to go.’

Jocasta indicates she’d like to do exactly that.

In this sort of argument, it’s best to be the driver. Jocasta is directing me towards the Anzac Bridge, and so my aim is to prove this is the slowest, most foolish route imaginable.

My eyes scan the road ahead, searching out opportunities. Slow vehicles which, by clever driving, I can get stuck behind. Buses which might stop to let off passengers. Turning lanes in which I can get myself marooned. And traffic lights which, by the imperceptible slowing of our car, I can inspire to turn red.

Jocasta says: ‘You’re deliberately going slow.’

I deny it. ‘It’s just such a
very
difficult road.’

With a sense of triumph I spot a broken-down taxi in the kerbside lane, and allow myself a victorious glance towards Jocasta. I hope the glance will convey the message: ‘This sort of breakdown happens all the time on the Anzac Bridge, but never on Parramatta Road. Further proof that I am right once again.’

I realise this seems a lot of information to convey in a single glance, but you should have been there to see how I narrowed my eyes, glowered towards her, then sighed.

Yes! Sighed! (Although, a thought did bubble up: ‘How come we hope sighs will convey a message so obnoxious we’d never say it out loud?’)

Ahead the lights are red. This time I let loose an almost imperceptible snort. So imperceptible I may be able to deny its existence should Jocasta call me on it; but perceptible enough so she’ll be sure to hear it.

Perfect.

I’ve reached the stage in the argument where I’m in pretty deep. Either I find a way of escalating this thing, or I might be forced to admit I’m being a petulant pillock. I decide to escalate it.

‘It’s like your thing about King Street,’ I say. ‘You drive all over Sydney just to avoid it. What’s your problem?’

Jocasta tells me not to even
talk
to her about King Street, and says that my use of King Street to go west, when if you look at a map it actually goes south, is further proof of my galloping insanity. She then starts using the windscreen to draw various maps of Sydney, pointing out where we live (‘Here,’ she says, stabbing the windscreen), and how all my preferred ways home (‘There, there and there’) lead in virtually the opposite direction.

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.

I realise this seems a lot of information to convey in a single sigh, but you should have been there to hear its length and gurgling depth.

I permit myself a secretive smile. She’s now behaving as badly as me. I think that’s some sort of victory.

Despite all my efforts, we get home in record time. She says nothing. But she does smile.

I turn to her. ‘That smile,’ I say, decoding its message, ‘that’s an I-told-you-so smile, isn’t it?’

‘No,’ she says archly, ‘just happy to be home.’

We’re in the driveway. But still, I think, some way short of being home, in any full sense of the word. Next time, I need some better directions.