Lunch at Valeries

I arranged to go out to Valeries with two friends this weekend. It's a lovely patisserie in central London run by a pack of neurotic pseudo-french people who make a point of punctuating your meal every 10 minutes with a new receipt featuring a running total of what you've ordered so far, and to ask in unnervingly predatory manner if "you ah enjowying you'are meel?"

We arranged to meet at twelve in Leciester Square Station, which meant I had to set off at ten AM and spend an hour on the tube. The carriage I chose at the last moment before the train left, turned out to be monopolized by a group of twenty middle-aged northern women who refused to use the supports provided in the carriage and consequently fell over squealing the giggling every time the train moved. As I watched them harassing Margaret - the most prolific faller-over - each time she collapsed on the tube floor, I wondered if I was witnessing a very slow process of natural selection.

Despite this I managed to survive my ordeal with the northern women and emerged from Leceister Square Station healthy and unmothered. Simon was waiting for me. Despite being ten minutes late there seemed to be no sign of my other friend Phil. We waited. Having not seen Simon for the entirety of summer we had a lot to discuss, he'd travelled to Tibet and had recently got a new girlfriend who was the main subject of our discussion.

"what was she like?"

"what is she interested in?"

"Is she evil and psychotic?"

The usual questions.

I always feel a little uncharacteristically sentimental and needy when I ask people unendingly about their relationships, like a sort of impoverished child standing outside the cake shop looking hungrily in.

After having exhausted all the boring questions on Simon's girlfriend (i.e. those not pertaining to their sex lives). I had got him into a state where he could talk about her perpetually without any prompting. Phil still hadn't appeared. Simon took a break from giving me a categorical narration of his relationship history to give Phil a call. After a rather ambiguous series of yes's and no's he informed me that Phil had misjudged the timings and was only just getting on a train. We elected to go to Valeries and wait for him there.

Upon arrival we were seated at the back of café (presumably so we were out of sight of more eligible customers) by a rather haughty waiter who handed us the list of overpriced confectionary trying to pass for being a proper menu. He instantly asked us "ah you reedy to ourdeer?" We reluctantly ordered. In the moment of silence as the waiter left Simon jumped in continuing his previous anecdote about his girlfriend - somewhere in the middle of a sam-ey story I had completely forgotten about by that point. He continued while our food arrived and after five minutes of intermittent tea, cake and narration finished. There was another moment of silence which he thankfully decided not to fill with the beginning of another anecdote.

I decided to ask what I like to think of as a "cutting," question.

I looked him in the eye.

"Are you happy together?" I asked.

To be honest this is more of a selfish question which comes from being single. I always hope that the person will burst into tears and grab my shoulder, in need of consoling as they admit they have never really been happy. That their life has been a lie!

To my slight annoyance Simon smiled and said "yes. I'm really happy."

Silence.

"It's strange though, obviously it's a lot of fun spending time with her but I think the best bits are when we are doing chores together, like cooking..." He takes a bite of his donut.

I wonder momentarily if Simon has a food fetish and take a second to tactfully move my scones a little further away from him.

"... or even, you know, cleaning together, making beds that sort of thing. I can imagine a family."

For a second I am struck with an image of Simon and his girlfriend buying a house together (somewhere quiet so that their fetish won't easily be discovered). They seem quite happy. Each morning they wash their sheets (which have been dirtied with some sort of cream, chocolate or fruit) and remake their beds (in anticipation of the evening). Years go by. They marry. Both get each other rings themed around food or menial household chores.

Finally kids arrive. Somehow they survive the rather unhealthy edible environment that spawned them, and none of them are born with celery or bred rolls as limbs. Both Simon and his wife have to be careful about not letting the kids find out about their strange tastes. Washing up and bed making is done in the dead of night and they are now confined to quiet foods like bread and Tahini.

This puts pressure on their relationship as they are unable to enjoy the more extravagant side of their unique tastes. Simon loves chocolate, his wife cream, both enjoy jam. Despite this trouble and pressure they are not completely loveless. They mainly stay together for the sake of their children. For Alfie's fourteenth birthday they buy him a video camera. He is happy and promises to make fantastic little films. Several weeks later Alfie goes to a friend's for a sleep over and Simon's other kids are away at summer camp. Both he and his wife have the house to themselves. They decide to roll out the chocolate and cream, the jam and nutella. In the middle of their food fuelled debauchery their bedroom door opens and Alfie pokes his head round with his camera. He is followed by his friend and his friend's parents. It is Simon's birthday and his son wanted to surprise him with a present, a cake, and a film of the whole lovely affair. What is instead revealed to the surprisers is a hellish scene of food and sex.

The children are taken away.

Both Simon and his wife are admitted to separate mental institutes.

Three weeks go by.

Another week.

The head psychiatrists at both institutes meet.

They declare the couple incurable.

A month later both Simon and his wife are lobotomized.

All of this goes by in a second, probably stemming from that selfish question that asked whether he was "happy" in the first place.

I realize Simon has stopped because I am staring at him glassily.

There is an awkward moment in which I wonder frantically if other people can hear what I think.

At this point Phil arrives in the Café, headphones and gamer-chic in tow to interrupt the awkwardness.

The waiter returns commenting tightly that he "weel breeng anouther menuu."

Phil looks at it for a moment.

"I think I'll have the chocolate cake filled with cream and jam."

"Yeah I thought that looked particularly good." Says Simon.

I glance between them and quietly wonder.

Dog Parents

I recently attended a family dinner in celebration of my step-brother's sixteenth birthday. It's worth noting that it didn't seem to be party for him but more a self-serving event for his mother and her sister to make dinner and invite some friends over. The final "guest list," consisted of me, my father, my step-mother, her sister Laura, my step-mother's father and her two friends Tim and Gillian.

Tim is a part time gardener and professional drop out who lodged with my step-mother when he was younger and looked after my step-brother.

Gillian is a loud South African woman who drinks insatiably and is the mother of some of my step-bother's friends. But, through some bizarre universal mistake has managed to ingratiate herself with some core family members and now feels licensed to invite herself to practically every family event including Christmas and Easter.

My step-mother's dinners are always a little weird. She encourages people to make forced speeches about "how happy," they are to be together with the family and how lucky we are to all have each other. She of course makes her own speeches in kind. Her sister and son also like to make these rather awkward speeches as well, and so I was unsurprised when upon reaching desert people started tapping glasses (quite unnecessarily as there were only seven of us) and standing up to make stilted discourses to the table at large.

First came my step-mother's sister who's only speech subject is her dead mother. I would of course normally have no problem with this, but she likes to introduce these eulogies by saying things like "And now let us remember a person who can't be here today... a very special person who we all love very much... a person who is a person who is not with us as a person anymore but as a person in heaven... we all know this person... or knew this person in life... (etc. etc. etc.)"

Then came my step-bother who just sort of looks at his feet and then to his mother and then back again while stumbling over his words. Feet --> Mother --> Feet --> Mother as if the combination of the two might hold the key to half decent public speaking.

Finally came his mother. And this is where things got a lot weirder than I am used to.

She said something along the lines of this:

"Now my son, you've reached a very important age... and I feel that you've never had anyone but me to truly guide you... we've never been a religious family so you didn't end up having God parents... I've come to regret this and so [and here she looks fixedly at Tim and Gillian] I would like to nominate a new sort of God parent... Dog Parents!"

At this point she produces two pieces of paper which have been drawn up with a picture of a dog on them and gold lettering across the top reading "CONTRACT OF DOG PARENTSHIP."

She continued:

"I didn't think we'd change to being religious! So I came up with Dog Parents, because it's like God backwards... HA HA HA... The duties are essentially the same though... Gillian. Tim. You need to guide my son into adulthood from this important age... But first all three of you need to sign the contracts so you can become his Dog Parents and he, your Dog son."

There was a short pause at which point I gave my father a quizzical look, but he seemed to have taken a sudden and fixed interest in the corner of the table cloth and so did not return my gaze or try and reassure me that his wife had not lost her mind completely.

Then things started to get even stranger than I could have guessed.

Gillian piped up "Why don't we sign them in blood!?"

Finally my father felt compelled to say something "Gillian I don't think that's really a good idea or at all appro-"

Step-mother interrupts: "That's fantastic Gillian, that will seal a bond."

Tim: "Yeah, yeah, defo! Do you have a pin?"

My step-bother looks a bit scared which I point out and ask "You don't really want to do this do you?"

He agrees: "No."

Tim responds by saying "Don't be a pussy mate. It's only a tiny prick on the finger, I've had dog bites that are a lot worse than that, this is an important occasion and we need to do this properly."

"Yes!" Responds my step-mother ecstatically. She leaves to get a pin. I glance around the table to see my step-mother's father has fallen asleep while my father has gone back to his intense study of the table cloth corner. Laura is looking expectantly at her nephew. Gillian is swigging as much wine as she can get away with while her host is out of the room and Tim is relating to my step-brother his latest dog bite story with my step-brother staring at him mutely.

When my step-mother returns Gillian and Tim prick their fingers and try to sign the contracts in blood. It doesn't really produce enough blood for them to sign two pieces of paper properly and so Tim has the bright idea to take a knife to his finger at which point he cuts himself too deeply and starts spewing blood everywhere. Instead of stopping at this point he tries to make sure the blood goes on his plate so he can dip his other finger into it and sign the contract anyway.

It is then that my step-mother's sister decides that she can't take the sight of blood and vomits across both the contracts and into the lap of my step-bother, the birthday boy. While everyone is screaming and running around trying to mop up blood and sick to, as my step-mother shouts manically, "save the contracts! save the contracts!" I ask my father if he will walk me back to my house a couple of streets away. He nods quickly and we leave. I don't think anyone notices.

We don't say anything on the way back and when we reach my house I give him a look saying "What the fuck have you married into?!"

He nods and apologizes: "I'll talk to her."