Much Incident and Outrage in Normandy: A Father Put on Grinder «

Much Incident and Outrage in Normandy: A Father Put on Grinder

Tuesday 29th July 2014

On Saturday Laura Malcolm stepped in a tin of anchovies on the lawn of her Norman Fastness and the whole fabric of her home was threatened. What if she’d tramped anchovy throughout? What hope of recovery? Would even total razing and re-build get rid of the smell?

Otherwise she’s been ordering 70s garden loungers on eBay. That Laird and Lairdess we glimpsed briefly in March brought them out in their Toureg. There had been epic arrangements for delivery. At once they were ripped untimely from their wrapping and Laura flung herself straight on. What a marvel! The loungers are deeply flower-power and perfect.

O’Halloran O’Marsh and Charis Cameron broke down on the M25 of Rouen and would have drunk champagne on the roadside given half the chance. Later Charis was thankful to find the International Daily Mail on sale. Laura and I considered marmalade. In our 30s and 40s it was enough that it was home-made. But now not. Unless caught exactly on the cusp of jellification, it’s no good. Heat is the great agony of one’s 50s. There’s one slither of a second when a salmon or a chicken or marmalade are exactly right. But how to find it? Will it ever be found?

When the full party was finally assembled, we arranged ourselves in a row on the lawn to imitate an old people’s home. O’Halloran O’Marsh told of the extraordinary behavour of Rubella Wax at John Diamond’s funeral and also how Lord Rothemere just ordered another plane for the golf clubs. He throbs at the core of our Nation. Later Laura, accompanied by her husband, Matt Driver, took some dis-used lavvies to the re-cycling centre. But Matt saved the handle of one to put in his shed. Recently the Velux windows in the roof of the Norman Fastness have had to be altered because it has always annoyed Matt that they were different sizes. Later in the twilight facility on the lawn, Matt revealed a criminal past. As a youth, he carried out several ‘jobs’, with accomplices. This fearlessness was doubtless the foundation of his career as a world taste-shaper with a salary out-stripping Smallmeal’s.

On Saturday morning, the Laird appeared at his window stark naked by way of morning greeting. Quickly the Lairdess, from behind, rendered him decent. ‘With a postage stamp,’ she said later. But by evening she was giving an entirely different account of The Laird’s regions. The Laird tells jokes. It’s extraordinary how many he’s got in stock and none of them are repeatable in a family publication. Laura condemned one, about a small boy taking a bath with his mother, as deeply misogynist but the Laird was just seeing how far he could go and it was quite far. The Lairdess is infinitely patient and loving. He explained how to avoid sexism in the boardroom, with a mirror on a stick, which can be used to gain a good view from above or even below. Somehow the item was produced there and then, crudely sello-taped, and at once fell to bits.

The Laird shows another side in his love for Philip, a pheasant that visits him in Usk for particular hand-feeding. This is a relationship of peculiar intensity and the Laird goes mental if anyone dis-es Philip, who is indeed a cock bird.

Laura outlawed Ottolenghi this year and returned to traditional Norman cuisine. The visit, as always, rested on the menus. The Norman experience is essentially lunching and dining with brief interludes and filthy talk throughout. I helped Laura with a Salsa Verde, chopped by hand, for the poached salmon – which, yes, was caught at exactly that slither of a second. I’ve only just thought of it. That slither was found. Paradise can be known on Earth. Other dishes were Rabbit aux Prunes and Poulet au Pays de Aude, which I’ve tried again and again to reproduce in London without success. The Laird also contributed. In addition to barrier-dismantling, he is a home gourmet chef. At home, he’d marinaded olives in honey, cumin and chilli. The detail. He’d had them in a restaurant and spent months working out how they were done.

The final dinner was prepared by the Laird, assisted by the Lairdess – seafood, steak and tarte au pommes. We had visitors, an alternative family of good English provenance and complete freedom who are resident in Normandy. There was a son of sixteen and a daughter of twelve. A crackle of sex talk was heard as the dinner got underway and soon it was raging throughout. Finally the daughter of twelve rose from her seat, brandishing a mobile phone, to announce that she was putting her Daddy on Grinder.