(G)host story

Did you have a Hostess trolley? Did your mother? Or pardon my sexism, your father?

My mother did. It sulked in the corner of our dining room, on unrollable wheels, boxy steel trays with fake mahogany handles: sogged out the roasters, congealed the cauliflower cheese. Beside it, Edinburgh crystal wine glasses sloshed White Nun, on an heirloom linen tablecloth, red paper napkins in fan shapes, folded by my 8 year old fingers, origami for eejits.

The dining room, scene of Delia dinners and trolley, off camera

When I think of the dinner parties of my youth I feel happily whipped up like egg whites in the Kenwood chef, Delia open on the counter top, even though my mother’s meringues were never as chewy as neighbour Una’s. Pavlova envy. Bone china envy. Electric dishwasher envy – those formed the triad of impairments of the seventies hostess. Nowadays it’s late-diagnosis ADHD, gluten intolerance and menopause.

Gender normative conditioning aside, I loved those dinner parties.

Philoxenia baby.

Burns Night, my flat, Glasgow, circa 1991

I’ve been trying to replicate those hospitality feelings ever since. I love having people over. To dine, to stay, to exchange conversation. To debate, to create, plan, laugh, connect. I still feel the flush of anger or embarrassment when the politics at the table aren’t mine, but mostly they are.

Last week we hosted old friends and new friends and rampant staphylococcus bacteria caused by a rusty nail to the foot. We found a lot of common ground: twentieth century literature, theology, the rise and crash of the American empire and how to negotiate the NHS out of hours with success.

If the battery-operated doorbell had rung, and Netanyahu had pointed at his broken down Chrysler Sunbeam and asked to use the phone to get the AA, we’d have invited him in, made him a Horlicks and chatted about the weather, wouldn’t we? Tried to get him to see the genocidal irony.

Our Brokenness

You’re clutching 
with both hands

to this myth 
of “you” and “I”

our whole brokenness
is because of this.

by Rumi

Would we? It seems liberal Americans are as entrenched in their either-or mentality as their political opponents. That’s cautionary for all of us, important to examine.

Host

Hospitality

Hospital

Hospitable

Hostess Trolley

Hotel

Feel free to look up the suffix – hospes/hostis – it seems the need to host is in our DNA. Every culture and religion sets out its version of welcoming the stranger, sharing food and ideas: Sikh Leader Mata Khivi (1506-1582) taught followers to ‘see no stranger, feel no stranger’ by inviting people to sit in an unbroken line, next to those they had been conditioned to see as the other. “I was a stranger and you welcomed me,” said Jesus (Matthew 25). In Ancient Greece it was a status symbol for the traveller to stay with friends, or friends of friends, rather than booking in to the Premier Inn, Mount Olympus.

Healthy humans like to share spaces with other healthy humans, edgy humans prefer their own caves and hard-drives. And then there are the increasing number of humans on cardboard at the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid, sans cave, sans bed, sans dignity, sans everything.

While others have so much. Some of it unwanted: one of our house guests left a very special gift. A die-hard Uncanny fan, he and I have often traded favourite chills, shivering at the there-but-for-the grace-of-God of it, going toe-to-toe in personal stories of the invisible realm.

“Have you seen the guy with the white face, and really dark hair,” he asked me, in the twilight, just before he drove home. “White shirt, old-fashioned worker’s waistcoat. Staring at the house.”

“Wait — you mean a ghost?”

“Yes I’ve seen him a couple of times. Stands over by the shed just staring in, but I think he’s getting closer. He’s bad news. Anyway, I told him to fuck off. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you…?”

I wouldn’t mind so much but right now I’ve no one to host but the hens and the ominous dread of the white face looming at the window. Scooby doo floorboards creak, doors groan open, my happy house of happy souls feels as if some unwelcome guest wants in. How am I supposed to deal with that?

I’m trying to reframe. To say, this spirit means me no harm – maybe he just wants me to tell his story? Was he some love-lorn labourer pining after the farmer’s daughter/son/sheepdog? Should I befriend him, name him? What if I give him the wrong name and enrage him.

Maybe he’s wondering who the hell I am in his kitchen? A reminder to me that this isn’t really my house, my garden, my country. At most we are custodians, taking care and passing on. “We are mere pilgrims and nomads on this earth” (Hebrews 11:13). Just like migratory geese and French immigrants like Willian the Conqueror and his pals who carved up chunks of this island; and my Irish grandparents who came to Scotland, hang on – the Sweeney Clan (mercenaries and party animals) were originally from Scotland, then went to Ireland, and wait, before that they lived in Scandinavia. And, didn’t my DNA test reveal Iberian Peninsula, and one percent Jew.

Sweeney Family 80th Birthday Party

Maybe now’s the time to invite Mitochondrial Eve for lunch, ask her if she believes in ghosts.

Red Brocade

The Arabs used to say, 
when a stranger appears at your door, 
feed him for three days
before asking who he is, 
where he’s come from, 
where he’s headed.
That way, he’ll have the strength
enough to answer.
Or, by then you’ll be
such good friends
you don’t care.

Let’s go back to that.
Rice? Pine nuts?
Here, take the red brocade pillow.
My child will serve water
to your horse.

No, I was not busy when you came!
I was not preparing to be busy.
That’s the armor everyone put on
to pretend they had a purpose in the world.

I refuse to be claimed.
Your plate is waiting.
We will snip fresh mint
into your tea.

By Naomi Shihab Nye 

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