Home life
Little woman
Alice Thomas Ellis
Peking my way through the people lying comatose in the market the other evening I finally emerged in the ethnic supermarket and ordered the customary bottle of Bell's and 20 Silk Cut. Standing to my right was a person who either just had been lying down or was just about to somewhere or other, so I didn't engage in eye contact with him until he turned to me and said: `Your diction is impeccable.' I really hadn't expected to hear him say that. I told him I greatly admired his turn of phrase; he said that came naturally to him for he was Irish, and we parted in a spirit of mutual approv- al, not all that usual between the inhabi- tants of Camden Town.
This moment recurred to me at the Spectator party when I found myself in conversation with. another delightful gent- leman. He said he had no quarrel with my prose style but that he longed to read a description of a family member doing something indescribable with the Belgian au pair girl high on the rooftop. I said, rather feebly, that we hadn't got a Belgian au pair girl. We did have one once but I got her through the good offices of the parish priest and she truly wasn't the type. Her name was Godelieve and she looked like a Belgian headmistress more than anything else. A very nice girl and a very good cook but not the sort for rooftop revelry. Then, as my heels slipped further down the grating (I don't know why I always get stuck in the grating but I do) I wondered whether I had inadvertently given my companion an erroneous view of the domestic situation. Did he perhaps confuse us with the Waltons? Or was he more accustomed to reading works such as Ambition, and did he regard the behaviour described therein as the norm? Did he imagine I was concealing something? Now I have never, never lied to you, but I must confess that I have been the tiniest bit, shall we say, thrifty (as befits a good housewife) with the truth. There are the laws of libel for one thing and, I believe, there are certain happenings people would prefer not to hear about. Who, for inst- ance, would want to know about the time I sat on the chest of a guest under the castor oil plant, with my fingers sunk in his hair in order to prevent him breaking the china? Well, maybe that was quite interesting but when people sober up they have their susceptibilities and it doesn't seem fair. Besides I don't myself remember with total clarity some of the more enthralling mo- ments. I do remember the time I returned from Sunday lunch to find the SAS had been summoned to the house but I may have guardedly mentioned that before. No one wants to know what the cat did to the salmon or what the Dutchman did to the rug. The Greeks, sensible in their way, had these things happen off-stage.
It is unfortunate if I give the impression that we live in the manner of Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy, but I cannot reveal all the details because — for a start — I don't think you'd believe me.
'Are you looking at me?'
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