In Bed with Jocasta (7 page)

I agree to refrain from employing, at the end of arguments, any of the popular variants of ‘sorry’ — the barely audible sorry, the screamed sorry, or, worst of all, the conditional sorry (‘I’m sorry if
you
took it that way’).

I agree male housework extends further than ‘jobs involving a ladder’.

I agree to stand adoringly in the background when she’s in the limelight, and to enjoy it.

I agree never, even in the heat of argument, to employ the remark: ‘You’re growing more like your mother every day.’

I make the above agreement subject to her eschewing the observation: ‘Geez, you’re like your father.’

I agree to respond to each and every one of her haircuts, over the next sixty years, as if it’s a revelation, a triumph, and a sensation.

And, finally and crucially, I agree to find her gorgeous and sexy even when she’s dressed in Ugh boots and trackie daks.

F
ilm and TV critics are always calling for more subtlety and complexity on film and television. Not me. I’m already having enough trouble understanding what’s going on. Plots in which people dress up as someone else. Plots involving a double-double
-double
cross. Whodunits filmed in such gloomy light that I’m still trying to work out who was murdered.

Jocasta is a patient woman. At the end of each scene, she pauses the video and explains what has happened. Usually I’ve got a question, something like: ‘Why did her husband murder her, anyway — they seemed to be getting on so well?’

At this point, Jocasta usually lets loose a groan. But she gives me an answer: ‘Well, that bloke with the black hair and the gun, he wasn’t her husband, he was just a robber. The husband is this guy here.’

Then she’ll start the video again and point out what appears to me to be an identical guy. Both are good-looking, tall, dark-haired. How am I meant to pick the difference?

What I need is a movie producer who’ll help out the audience a little — who’ll cast someone with black hair as the husband and a short blond bloke as the murderer. or better, put one in a kilt and the other in a beard.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m watching videos I never bother with the characters’ names. I just form a mental picture. I think: ‘Hey, there’s Kilt Guy. And — oh! — he’s getting out a gun. Oh no! He’s murdering Beard Man.’

Of course, I know the problem with this. Take it to its furthest extent and you end up with the
Pokémon Movie,
with each character dressed head to toe in his or her own distinctive colour.

Which is exactly what I’d like to see more often in mainstream films. Just imagine
Being John Malkovich
with John Cusack in the full purple body stocking, and Cameron Diaz in the all-over Pikachu-yellow. Even I might have been able to understand what was going on.

It’s even tougher when we go out to the movies, because Jocasta won’t stand for any talking. All questions have to be saved until the end, so I usually just sit there, letting the movie wash over me. Years ago we went to
The French Lieutenant’s Woman
which, you may remember, featured a 19th-century romance alongside a modern love story between the actors. This, naturally, was far too much for me. And for the middle-aged couple behind us.

Throughout the movie came the couple’s furtive whispering: ‘Why does he have a moustache? He didn’t have a moustache in the last scene. Why is she wearing a miniskirt? And what is that car doing there?’

And then with a dismissive snort: ‘They didn’t even have cars in those days.’

Finally Jocasta had enough, swivelled in her seat and gave it to them: ‘Look, there are two time scales here. One bit’s 1867, the other’s now, and we’re cutting from one to another. Geddit?’

Naturally I sympathised with her annoyance (while being quietly grateful for the tip-off about the plot).

The Australian Opera a few years ago introduced a form of sub-titles, flashed on a screen above the stage, for those baffled by the foreign words. They are called sur-titles. Which gave me the idea of introducing some der-titles. With der-titles, a simple message would flash on the cinema screen for all those of us who are experiencing trouble. Just like a friendly word of advice from a caring, more intelligent friend.

Imagine one of those confusing wedding scenes; the der-title would flash up at just the right moment: ‘She’s not marrying her brother, they just both happen to have black hair.’

Or during the climactic shoot-out: ‘The guy who just shot him, he’s the police officer you saw before.’

I’ve even started compiling some of the great der-titles of the modern cinema, to be flashed up at that crucial, confusing moment. Der-titles such as:

‘Yes, she’s actually a man!’ —
The Crying Game.

‘The time scale is flipping backwards and forwards’ —
Pulp Fiction.

‘The wife did it’ —
Presumed Innocent.

‘Faye Dunaway is the girl’s sister as well as the girl’s mother’ —
Chinatown.

‘He’s repeating the same day over and over’ —
Groundhog Day.

‘He’s just dressing up as his mother, she’s already dead’ —
Psycho.

‘Rosebud was his sled when he was a kid’ —
Citizen Kane.

Meanwhile, back at home, Jocasta still sits, a look of resignation on her face, hitting the pause button and stoically explaining the finer points to The Space Cadet. ‘What you’ve got to understand,’ she says, ‘is that Clark Kent
is
Superman.’

And then a worried glance at me. ‘You shouldn’t feel too bad if you didn’t understand either,’ she says, searching for a phrase to put me at my ease. ‘It fooled Lois.’

Bring on the der-titles now and give one man back his dignity.

T
here’s a magic about The Space Cadet’s shoelaces. However many times you tie them up, when you next look down they are loose. What is the force that drives them apart? Why do they yearn to be free? At the start of the soccer game, I tie the laces once, then thread them beneath the boot, and tie them again on top. Just to be sure, I throw in a few more grannys and a couple of bows.

It’s like Houdini in the underwater packing case. Short of a length of chain and a padlock, I can do no more.

The Space Cadet runs onto the field, kicks a single ball, and the ref blows his whistle. The game is halted. His white laces flip and flop across the ground like a pair of dying seagulls.

If being seven years old was a job, with job descriptions and performance targets, The Space Cadet would meet all criteria. He is
extremely
seven.

What are the warning signs that a seven-year-old is in your presence? Here are just some of them.

1. Band-Aids represent the pinnacle of medical science. They can cure anything, especially if applied with the right amount of drama, concern, and spotlit focus on the injured party. Best of all, they combine, in one neat package, both a medicinal device and a badge of courage — simultaneously keeping out germs while alerting the wider world to the enormous pain you’ve suffered. On the evidence of seven-year-olds, the medical world should already be trialing the Band-Aid for use in the battle against typhoid, Alzheimer’s and leprosy.
   

2. Shoes belonging to a seven-year-old are always impossible to find. Removed at a whim, they then burrow into hiding — beneath the couch, behind the washing machine, underneath the grandmother. Many are never found, presumably having made a break for freedom. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to come across three dozen pairs of them, all hiding-out in the roof cavity, dreaming of escape, having sly-grog parties, and building themselves a hang-glider.
   

3. Brushing teeth, according to a seven-year-old boy, involves waving a toothbrush towards your mouth, and inhaling the faint smell of spearmint. Similarly, washing hands involves throwing a wary glance towards the soap-dish before making a dash for the backyard. Just as having a wee involves walking into a bathroom, and spotting the existence of a toilet in the vague direction that you’re aiming. ‘The toilet and I were in the same room at the same time. What more do you expect?’
   

4. Just as the shoelaces seem to spring apart, so does the seven-year-old head repel all head-gear. A hat, placed firmly on the head as you leave the house, will have vanished by the time you’ve reached the car. Hence my campaign to reinstate the bonnet, complete with a hearty chin-strap. Psychological damage for a whole generation of seven-year-old boys? Sure. But at least it’s sun-safe.
   

5. The list of acceptable sandwich fillings declines every day by one ingredient. Until there’s nothing left but peanut butter.
   

6. Discussing and debating the rules of a game always takes longer than actually playing it. It’s like watching the middle management of a very inefficient firm. No-one ever actually does anything, but there’s much
   appearance
   of activity.
   

7. What’s with the whole stick thing? The Space Cadet collects them wherever he goes. He walks around with them stuffed in his pockets or slid into his belt. Some are imagined swords and guns, but many are just sticks. ‘You haven’t dropped my stick?’ he’ll ask, eyes awash with panic. And so we march back into the bush, stepping over three million sticks, in order to find The Stick.
   

8. The pain of an injury depends on the circumstances of its occurrence. The average seven-year-old, while showing off on the trampoline for his glamorous sixteen-year-old baby-sitter, can plunge headfirst into a metal post and come up smiling. ‘It was nothing’, he’ll say, brushing the trickle of blood away from his eyes, and staggering slightly. But try brushing his hair …
   

9. In his own bed he’ll sleep curled up in the corner, looking angelic. Allow him into yours, and he’ll sprawl on an exact diagonal, arms and legs thrown out in a frozen star-jump. How can somebody who’s just over a metre tall, and thin as a post, entirely fill a queen-size bed? These are the mysteries of being seven.
   

10. At birthday and Christmas times he will open the most obscure gift — a three-metre blow-up duck; a matchstick model of the National Gallery; a complete kit for the preparation of a Japanese banquet — and say, instantly and sincerely: ‘This is
    exactly
    what I needed.’
    

11. There are as many excuses for getting out of bed as there are minutes between Bedtime at 9.00 p.m. and Final Unconsciousness at 10.00 p.m. Need for water, ghosts, need for more water, noises outside, blanket too hot, need for third glass of water, blanket too cold, pillow too lumpy, and — yes — the need to go to the toilet five times, due to over-consumption of water.
    

12. With every day, a new enthusiasm, and never the same two days running. A paddle-pop-stick castle, a clay pot, a garden that’s his very own, a Lego-and-dead-grass tableau, and a cubby for a pet frog should he ever get one. If only some of the enthusiasms lasted two days, the house might not be so full of just-started castles, pots, gardens, tableaux and cubbies. But, by then, his laces will stay tied. And he won’t be seven.