WEEKEND COLUMNISTS I am not a literature buff. My reading largely consists of The Economist and historical biography, and I rarely pick up a novel other than when I’m on holiday. I differ in this regard from many of The Girlfriends. Most Glamorous Girlfriend, for example, read English Literature at Bristol university and can quote Jane Austen – and more obscure authors – at length.
My Teaching Girlfriend, whose specialist subject is English, is also a great lover of literature though she has difficulty with cookery books. Unlike MGG, who can turn things out exactly as they appear in the photographs, TG struggles to move from concept to actuality with her dinner party offerings. Personally, I believe it is utter madness for any wife and mother who works full time to be be throwing mid-week dinner parties one has cooked oneself. If it were me, and even if I were on a teacher’s salary, I would buy in from M&S or even ask the guests to show up with a course each.
But TG is the right side of 40 and still has that naive, youthful approach to life that involves trying to be the perfect hostess. So as well as being able to recite T.S. Eliot, she is also raising two children and is deputy headmistress of a girls’ school. She recently held a mid-week dinner party to introduce me and two others to her guest of honour, a woman the wrong side of 40 who has achieved much in her career. Nigella Express was duly consulted and great effort went into the dinner. Guest of Honour arrived on time, but the rest of us were late (mid-week dinner parties? In deepest Berkshire? What do you expect?). As a result, GoH was several glasses of wine to the good before we arrived.
As we moved to the dining table TG appeared with her lovingly prepared lamb casserole, single vegetable (a tasty concoction of cabbage and bacon) and rice. It was at this point that GoH revealed that she was vegetarian. The blood drained from TG’s face. Nigella and fridge were hastily consulted and a piece of salmon was magicked from goodness knows where and shoved into the microwave. Poor GoH put on a brave face and managed a forkful or two before pushing it to one side.
Fuelled only by rice and wine, GoH proved very entertaining, even fessing up to having taken a lover more than 15 years younger than her. She has been seeing him once a month for a year and a half now. Even in the face of another Nigella special (some pear effort with Roquefort) at this point we forgot about the food and demanded all manner of detail. We were duly obliged, but I shall spare your blushes.
Food and sex are a fine combination, though, and both vital to a happy life. But what about books? I recently made an honourable exception and read a novel while not on holiday – but then it was by my Newest Girlfriend, Jeanette Winterson. Reading The Stone Gods was to prepare for visiting NG in east London at her shop, a perfectly preserved bit of Georgian England opposite a flash new office block. NG has delegated the shop to the charming Harvey. Harvey chooses all the food on sale and runs a thriving business selling bespoke sandwiches to lawyers and bankers, while NG confines herself to writing books and (at the moment) a children’s television series.
The Stone Gods, I noticed, was on sale in NG’s shop alongside the chocolate and preserves. As the next customer arrived to collect his sandwich, I stopped him and asked if he had read it. No, he said. When I asked if lesbian robots were perhaps not his thing, he scrutinised the front cover rather more keenly.
The lesbian robot in the book could technically also be described as disabled, since she ends up with only a head.
She doesn’t need food, although she does seem to manage sex. Sexually active disabled lesbian robots make for more challenging reading than Nigella Express, though I’m afraid both are a little more than I can manage mid-week. I have told NG that I am going to return to The Economist, at least until the next Moneypenny family holiday, and will engage Harvey to cook my next dinner party.
