Playing House
I spent two hours cleaning the cooker this morning. I have not done this before in my life. I wonder how much time other people spend cleaning their cooker. Do you wipe it clean after each time you?ve cooked? Do you do a weekly blitz on all the kitchen, including the cooker? Or do you simply wait for years until something inside you goes ?ping?? Answers on a postcard please.
Eamonn McCann, 01 Oct 1997
I spent two hours cleaning the cooker this morning. I have not done this before in my life. I wonder how much time other people spend cleaning their cooker. Do you wipe it clean after each time you?ve cooked? Do you do a weekly blitz on all the kitchen, including the cooker? Or do you simply wait for years until something inside you goes ?ping?? Answers on a postcard please.
I was cleaning the cooker because something inside me went ?ping?. I woke up early, went into the kitchen, and before I was fully conscious, out came the Brillo pads, and on went the Marigolds. A shabby, brown, greasy relic of the 1950s was scrubbed into something white and chrome and gleamy, with an obsessiveness that I?ve hitherto employed in altogether less genteel pursuits.
It was a big step for me. The cooker was the last obstacle to overcome in my struggle to embrace domesticity in London. I?ve a fab new flat, which helps, and a dazzling snow-white kitchen in which my old cooker begged to be put out of its misery. Resistance was futile.
Nevertheless, this is a red- letter day, for it seems that I?ve got over the great fear that I?ll end up a neurotic, houseproud old queen fussing around with the Jif and the Flash, with no-one to look after except the cats. Either that, or it?s just come true, and I don?t care.
Image-conscious as I am, I?ve avoided Marigolds all my life, unless dealing with manly things like paintstripper. As a teenager, I watched with grisly satisfaction as two layers of skin peeled off my hands, during a summer job dishwashing in Greece. Sometimes I surprise myself at how shallow I am.
But perhaps there?s more to yellow Marigold gloves than meets the eye. Are they not the defining symbol of the archetypal housewife? And is not the essential quality of a housewife to serve? Whether it be serving her husband or her family, the housewife of popular imagination exists only to be of service to others. And it?s a necessary service: cooking, cleaning, timekeeping, shopping, not to mention morale-boosting.
We all need to do these things in our lives, if we aren?t filthy rich; it?s so nice when someone else is happy to play that role for us. And many people are. But they are diminishing in number, with each generation.
To don the yellow gloves, then, is to play the supportive role in a relationship. But if no-one is around to support, then what?s the point of wearing them? You see, this is the way my mind works. Don?t scoff, I know I?m not the only one.
I bet Rupert Everett never wears Marigolds.
I have mixed feelings about his arrival in the Hollywood pantheon. His performance, in the blockbuster My Best Friend?s Wedding, is one of the most truthful portrayals of a gay man I?ve seen on film to date. But I?m not sure that I like the truth.
Certainly, he is funny, charming, loyal and generous in the movie. He turns out to be Julia Roberts? best friend in the end; and it is good to see a film which portrays friendship as a central, healing force in the main protagonists? lives, rather than peripheral, as in the ?romantic comedy? genre which so many mistake for real life.
Someone, I forget who, said charisma was not about having something extra, but about having something missing. They were talking about Diana and Marilyn at the time, and it certainly catches something of their relationship with the public, whom they courted to fill that curious void in their personalities.
Everett has a similar quality; except, of course, he didn?t die young. His presence on screen is magnetic; for his attraction is that he is missing something quite fundamental. Sadly, I think it?s warmth.
In his last speech in the film, when he lists his attractions (and the attractions of a generic gay man) as a woman?s best friend, I was in a trance. It was the sort of trance you would fall into if a snake was approaching you.
Reading Everett?s recent publicity, I am struck by how much things have changed in the life of the gay Hollywood star since Rock Hudson?s day. Everett has talked openly, not only about being gay, but about having been a rent-boy. He says he has never really fallen in love. Except, one is tempted to conclude, with himself; for he is, in camp parlance, a Muscle Mary, all lip-balm and pectorals.
He is the most public example of the classic Narcissistic Queen to grace the Hollywood screen to date. Now, don?t get me wrong; some of my best friends are Narcissistic Queens; and it is not unknown for me to do a bit of navel-gazing myself.
But now, at least, when I navel-gaze, I do it in a clean kitchen.
Trouble is, now I?ve got to the EGBDF stage, and I?m waiting for the pay-off. It?s the hope that if I do everything right that I will be rewarded with a fabulous man to drift into my life and really take notice of how clean everything is, and praise me for it in dulcet tones each night after a shag.
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour.
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