two dinner parties

We live in the municipality with one of the highest (if not the highest) average incomes in Australia.

And co-parent has a small business in which many of her clients are well off if not wealthy. We benefit from this in various ways - we've had weekends away in her clients' second homes, which are more lavish than our only home; we've spent weekends in their luxurious harbour-view apartments; we enjoy many expensive presents at Christmas time, and so on.

The other night we went to dinner with a couple of her clients I'd not met before. They live in a vast apartment, a place so spacious it was like being in a Cary Grant movie. It's the second marriage for both and between them they have seven adult children who all live in Europe. Charles, a Scot in his 70s, goes to Europe twice a year - to ski in the northern winter and to visit offspring in the northern summer. Liz, in her late 50s (think Jackie Kennedy for an idea of her) is an interior designer.

We drank the smoothest champagne I have ever tasted. Charles gave me a copy of his daughter's third novel. We discussed the split we all experience between Australia and Europe. Liz, an ambassador's daughter, showed us a photo of her father with a European monarch. We examined some 200 year old family heirloom pottery. They talked about their 100 acre country property and offered it to us any time we want to go for a weekend. Late in the evening a slightly befuddled Charles said to co-parent, "Olle looks exactly like you", at which point Liz tried to suppress a look of embarrassment and to reassure her I said, "I'm his biological mother but he does have a strong resemblance to co-p", after which we rushed with relief into a conversation about dogs. They asked where Olle would go to secondary school - I was hesitating, feeling that to name the local state high school would be to drop a small bomb, when Charles said, "Just don't send him to the KS"... (No, it wasn't on our list.)

Liz told us her daughter intends to send her children to private primary school as the state schools in London just aren't acceptable, so her ex-husband is starting an education fund for them. Deep internal sigh time for me...

I liked both of these people very much, yet I still find this kind of social occasion a bit of a shock - maybe it's that they live only a kilometre or two from us and yet we move in different stratospheres. Though quite how different we might be as people is far from clear to me...

Last night was Passover and as usual we went for seder to the home of our friends Daniel and Cherry. They're in their 60s - we met them through walking our dogs in the park a decade ago and although they also live in a much larger and more sophisticated house than ours, we share basic leftwing politics, theirs born in apartheid South Africa, which they left 30 years ago with their two small children, one of whom grew up to be a lesbian. (I think that's why they drew us into conversation in the first place.)

Their friends are a motley crew but usually very 'eastern suburbs' and usually older than us. Last night as usual their close friend Terese was there, with two women we had never met before - Peggy, an 80 year old whose husband had been Jewish, so she was keen to revisit Jewish culture, and Eleanor, a 70 year old visiting from London.

Almost immediately Eleanor drew me into conversation. I found out that she had lived here in the 80s,  actually has an Australian passport and is toying with the idea of moving back to Australia. "But", she said, "I have a great circle of friends there; I get completely free travel on public transport; I get my pension and if I moved here that would never go up". "So why would you move here?" I asked, expecting her to say something about the superior weather. Instead, she said England isn't what it used to be - it's been "taken over" by Muslims and eastern Europeans. To my surprise, she proceeded to spout a lot of tabloid rubbish, about multiple families of Lithuanians falsely registering babies as their own so they can claim child benefit; of easterners cheating social security and sending "her" tax money back to their children in Poland. She has a friend who works for the police and hears stories which "make her mad".

"But none of this has an impact on your daily life," I said somewhat lamely (you can't exactly start an argument about race politics with a stranger at a Passover dinner). Oh, but it's there in the back of her mind and she feels so angry that her taxes are going to.... blah blah blah.

It's amazing how people like this can so confidently assume that other white people share their point of view. I was struck by how her racism had to seek others to be part of the "us" against "them". I guess that's how all racism operates, but something about the way she immediately sought to blab all this to me seemed especially neurotic. Or maybe just stupid. Some of the 'stories' she told me were just stupid items straight out of The Sun.

We moved to the dinner table and I found I'd been seated next to her.  No matter. I just about completely ignored her all through dinner. She managed to make a couple more stupid comments (about people who can't speak English) and I wondered whether our host Daniel was aware that her outlook so completely contradicted his - at his seder we always take it in turns to read aloud the UN Declaration of Human Rights andf this year we were able to raise a toast to the new government - I wondered what Eleanor thought of that.

When I compared notes with co-parent afterwards, she said she'd been unaware of any of this but had wondered why Terese was friends with Eleanor as they seemed such different people. And she told me about an argument which broke out between them late in the evening - I must have been in the bathroom as I missed that. It was nothing political, just a disagreement about whether to stay for coffee, but co-p said there was some naked friction on display. She thought Eleanor was a twit. Me too.

Comments

[Bernice]

Had a similiar moment with the female half of the local takeaway business a couple of weeks ago. While waiting for order, she chatted away & somehow began to inform me that there was too much of it about. I had no idea what she talking about - she explained she meant those men who live with men & those women who live with women. Too much of it now.
I pointed out that it had always been the case, just that people didn't need to hide it anymore. People still might be prejudiced but you were unlikely to be stoned, or burnt at the stake.
She looked appalled I suspect because she couldn't bear the fact that SHE may not have been able to tell.
People & their petty little prejudices....

[Mikhela]

I had a very nice reverse experience, accosted by an elderly woman in the park (as one is when pushing babies). Turned out she was a radical feminist, we had a very interesting conversation. Quite mad though. It's about assumptions, isn't it - you think you are talking to one type of person, then they completely surprise you.

[elissa]

That story reminds me of one of my favourite songs: Your Racist Friend by They Might be Giants http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHxEnQZi3Ow&feature=related whenever I have one of those uncomfortable conversations I remember that song and realise I'm can't stand around and listen to it.

[suszoz]

Thanks for that link Elissa.

Yes, it's about assumptions - I've had many many good surprises too.