Throughout my life, I was often a guest at the house of my mother’s youngest sister Lucy, who lived in Los Angeles. Even if I was being put up at a posh hotel, I would ultimately end up in my aunt’s guest quarters – a miniature, turreted version of her turn-of-the-century house in Hancock Park. These digs were a former carriage house, replete with a tiny, curved Art Nouveau bathtub, space for a horse and a manual carriage turner – a round wooden device with a pulley – useful should I ever chance upon a horseman, or if my cab didn’t show up.
If Lucy was away, in return for such magnificent board, I looked after her rescue dogs Sam and Sherman, who were lovely, and her parrot and pig, Oliver and Francis Bacon, who were less so. Both bird and swine were sharp, territorial and free range, the impact of which had differing physical consequences. The pair were also huge fans of fruit. I learned this the hard way.
Oliver liked to hide in the kitchen and then charge by foot, squawking at full volume and aiming his beak at the most vulnerable stretch of my Achilles tendon, before flapping up onto the kitchen table, wingspan aggressively stretched, condor warrior style. Safely ensconced, he would swipe my berries or toast.
Francis, a vast pink tank, made a less stealthy entrance, one hot with aggrieved squeals and froth at the mouth. Her greeting was a head-butt to the thigh, then a toothy launch at her victim’s red-painted toes, which in early-morning, myopic-pig world read as ripe strawberries.
A few days into this morning ritual, I learned to wear boots to breakfast, waving as bait a gigantic fruit plate that would have made Claridge’s proud. Oliver and Francis had moulded me into their perfect guest.
- H&G ShopsH&G Shops: Art
January is so often tough and unrelenting and, to meet its challenges, I believe we need around us conviviality and people. An extension of Christmas, without the expectation or expense. Being a good visitor seems inextricably linked with being a good host. For me, this hovers somewhere between a sort of spiritual generosity and practicality. Good hosts provide: first and fore-most welcome; ideally ample food and drink; and, as important for overnight guests, a clean, warm and inviting room, with equally clean sheets and a spotless bathroom.
Thoughtful hosts double check whether there’s loo paper and soap and that the light bulbs work. Even if you are on a sofa, there is somewhere to put clothes and to put water and flowers next to where you sleep. Good hosts have things to eat in the fridge. They don’t expect you stay up until four o’clock in the morning if you want to go to bed, or insist you go for a walk in Arctic winds at 7.30am on a Sunday morning. They are kind and they treat you as they would wish to be treated themselves, with thought and tendresse.
Great guests, meanwhile, ask what time you would like them to arrive and when you want them to leave. They don’t bring you into the ins and outs of the domestic arrangements that precede them coming. If you say they can’t bring their dog because your dog might eat it, they don’t hold it against you. They are clear about what they eat, but don’t provide a thesis. They’re on time for dinner. Hopefully they won’t bring you a bottle of wine you gave them. They won’t, as one guest at a wedding did, say that their girlfriend of two weeks must come and, in the face of a polite no, show up uninvited to the rehearsal dinner with said person to introduce her to the bride and groom: ‘See how great she is.’ Or then, sans uninvited date, cop off with a grieving family member on the wedding day.
The best guests contribute by making an effort. They chat to great aunts, help set the table and wash up if they’re old friends, distracting the person trying to talk to you as you’re wrestling something enormous and unwieldy out of the oven. They remember to bring a shy teenager into the conversation. And, at the end of it all, they say thank you because, as the American psychotherapist and writer Francis Weller says, ‘A grateful heart acknowledges and participates in the ongoing exchange with life.’
Decent hosts and guests participate in this ancient exchange and, in the process, they make life softer for each other. And lord, what is January if it is not about softness, and keeping each other warm?
