Carol’s Column
So who needs a status symbol in their life? Me
THE phone shrilled as I pushed the onion, breadcrumb, mixed herb and sage stuffing into the scrawny-looking chicken (wholesale from America) and tied the undernourished-looking legs together. They would never have won first prize in a lucky legs competition.
In fact, the whole chicken looked distinctly sick. Mind you, it's amazing what garnishing can do. Covered in pineapple and peaches, it would probably look sensational.
It was Agnes Tuttle, my swinging, northern suburbs jetsetting friend.
An amazing woman — a trendsetter, always first with everything — she dyed her hair green when auburn was fashionable, she was into New Wave before New Wave, she had the latest running shoes, calculating watch that sang the Lord's prayer at 7am and a convertible with a see-through concertina roof that played "We shall overcome" as it ascended and descended.
"I've got it," her voice, breathless due to the new all-in-one-body-moulder corset she'd taken to wearing around the house, "darling, it's simply the latest status symbol in Johannesburg, take a guess what it is."
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A Rolls, a reversible mink and pony coat, a diamond-studded ashtray, a personal jet — she had them all.
She giggled: "Darling, I'll give you a clue. It's large and round and pinkish."
"Your mother-in-law."
"Wrong," she chirped.
"My mother-in-law."
"Wrong again!" My mind boggled.
"It's a bought, cooked roast beef . . . all R37,80 of it. And," she paused, "hold your breath, it is pierced with baby clovelets and garnished with imported Marichino cherries."
I was suitably impressed.
"At R9,45 a kilo, cooked roast beef is terribly exclusive."
After chatting irrelevantly for half an hour, we hung up and I returned to my stuffed chicken. Even with the pineapple and peach glaze, it looked pitifully inadequate I thought.
But, that night, my dinner party was a sparkling success. The chicken glittered. It looked particularly ravishing with its bold yellow-orange colour.
Compliments flew around the table.
"This looks almost good enough to eat," said the Swiss corporate head of a giant knitting needle concern.
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Even my husband, normally reticent in his praise, was vociferous.
"What on earth is this?" he asked, his spectacles misting up from the fragrant steams rising from the stuffed bird.
Yes, it was a success. But, a cooked roast would have been better. It would have been the ultimate.
That night, cuddled up on my side of the bed on the electric blanket as it was fearfully cold outside, I broached the subject to my spouse.
"Everyone has one," I murmured tactfully into his right eardrum.
"What, my precious little flower?" he grunted in between his yoga mantra and his deep breathing.
"The new status symbol."
"Ommmmmmwhad-ya-saymmmm."
"The new status symbol, I want it. If we had one, it would enhance and enrich us. We'd grow socially, and I want to grow, I need to grow." I appealed to his intellect.
"Ommmmget-on-eemmmm," he exhaled.
I scouted around Johannesburg to find a suitable status symbol and discovered one in a delicatessen beside a spare parts dealer.
He had superb cooked roast beef joints, which at R9,75 a kilo, made them even more exotic a status symbol than the one belonging to Agnes Tuttle.
While he wrapped the joint — carefully, in three layers of greaseproof paper to retain the succulent juices — it occurred to me that at that price I could sell myself for R536,25. A bargain considering I could speak unlike the roast beef.
I paid R39 and triumphantly carried my status symbol home.
I hadn't felt so adequate in years.
That evening I had eight guests for dinner — including Agnes Tuttle. The status symbol looked magnificent set beside the nasturtium and dried-driftwood centre piece.
"It looks superb," I whispered in my husband's ear as he stubbed his cigarette out in the olives by mistake. "Just you wait and see."
As we entered the diningroom, I couldn't resist a feeling of pride as I looked at table with the cooked roast beef, resplendent in the middle.
It wasn't there. I cased the table, but it was nowhere to be seen.
And then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Liquorice-the-labrador, gently asleep under the carver — a smile on her face.
She's always been a hound of impeccable taste.
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Editorial note
The clipping is trimmed above the flag and carries no masthead, no page number and no date. The date is the one the source catalogue gives, 22 March 1981, which was a Sunday and which falls in sequence between "Wine is good for chilblains" of 15 March and "Who invented the fork anyway?" of 29 March. The column is signed with a byline box, "By CAROL LAZAR" beside a photograph of her, and no drawing ran with it. The clipping was cut up before it was photographed. The first column is pasted as a long strip running well below the foot of the rest, and the remaining columns sit in a shorter block beside its top. The text runs on without a gap across the join. Two breaks of three small squares, set by the paper between sections, are kept here as they were printed.
Transcribed as printed. Doubtful readings:
- "I could sell myself for R536,25": the figure is faint and the third digit could be read as an 8. It is 6. The joint is R9,75 a kilo four paragraphs earlier, and 55 kilograms at that price comes to R536,25 exactly.
- "pierced with baby clovelets and garnished with imported Marichino cherries": both printed thus, in Agnes Tuttle's mouth. Left as set. The cherry is a maraschino, and a clovelet is not a word, which is rather the point of her.