THE ORNAMENT
“That was a grand party,” said my Irish cousin Mary, the morning after.
“It was,” I said, because it had been: merriment had abounded and had been made the merrier by the sparkling wit and entertaining conversation of my dear visiting cousin. “And you,” I added affectionately, “were an ornament to it.”
Mary’s face fell.
“Oh,” she said.
“What?” I said.
“I asked you if you wanted help,” she said. “And you said you didn’t.”
“I didn’t want help,” I said, because I hadn’t. It hadn’t been what you’d call an elaborate party anyway, most of my hostessly duties having consisted of telling guests where the wine was and collecting orders for Mr. Los Angeles to pick up from the Malaysian restaurant down the street. Given so brazenly slacker-friendly a task list, we’d neither of us needed assistance from Mary or from anyone else: we’d just wanted her to have fun and all of us to enjoy the pleasure of her too rare company.
But Mary was still unhappy.
“Then why did you call me an ornament?” she said.
“Uhm … because I thought you were one?” I suggested.
“But you said you didn’t want help,” she said.
This went back and forth a few times before we identified the source of the confusion. It turns out that in England, to be called an ornament to an occasion is an unqualified compliment: it means that the person has materially improved the gathering he or she has attended, that they have added a dazzle to it, a glow, it suggests the glittering diamond ring that brings the hand to life, the spun gold bauble that elevates the Christmas tree from the pretty to the sublime. In England, to be called an ornament is a very pleasing thing.
However, in Ireland, it is apparently an altogether different creature: to be accused in Ireland of being an ornament – often prefaced by an irritated “don’t just sit there like” – means the person so described has been caught out doing nothing while everyone else is working hard around them, offering no help but to stand by on the sidelines and look (implicitly, most dubiously) decorative: it means they are superfluous, non-contributory, something that sparks the reverse of joy – not actually a hindrance, but an object of minimal obvious reason for existence, like the souvenir magnet that a friend will bring back from a trip to the Midwest when you’ve fed her cat and she didn’t know what else to give you, that you stick on your refrigerator door to show willing, but whose absence neither of you really notices when it gets jostled off and swept into the trash with yesterday’s breadcrumbs.
The Irish are renowned not to be big on the visuals: the rains of Connemara have produced few Da Vincis or Cézannes along the years, and the country for centuries had more on its mind than merely looking pretty; but they have been observed nevertheless to have a way with both words and dark wit; and there are, it transpires, many layers of put-down to be unpeeled in being addressed by an Irish person as an ornament.
The misunderstanding was cleared up; more coffee was poured, and a slice each of leftover lemon tart added to celebrate the educational experience; and Mary, at least, was pleased to know that she had been praised, not insulted.
I, on the other hand, am now left wondering, just a little uneasily, how many Irish people have called me an ornament in the past, and sniggered silently when I blushed prettily and thanked them.