A Certain Age (22 page)

Later, when he returned at 2.30 in the morning, having somehow eluded the South Croydon Glove Gangs, I heard him miaowing outside the house, rushed to the front door and opened it – and, I’ll never forget, looked out at eye level, confused why there was nobody apparently there. Then I looked down and saw Buster crouching on the doorstep, dirty and scared. Somehow in my mind’s eye I was expecting a full-grown Buster, as opposed to this little cat-sized one. Anyway, it took him days to get over it – lying in front of an electric fire while I hand-fed him Kitbits, the living proof that post traumatic stress disorder can be experienced by other species. A week later, while Jeff cleared all his stuff out, and some of mine as it happens, I hugged Buster in the bedroom. And then when he’d gone, Buster lightly hopped onto Jeff’s chair
and settled down, doing that marvellous cat equivalent of Les Dawson folding his arms and pursing his lips.

Now there was a bit of a hitch today when Linda rang. I’ve been getting a tad over-confident with the sound effects CD and thought I’d bluff it out whatever happened when I selected a track. I decided, at random, track 15. After all, if it were lovely melodious birdsong, I could say I was up a hill or something. If it was the sound of driving, I could say I’d hired a car. But I got this unfortunately – [
sound of stampeding cattle in thunderstorm with gun shots, over which she has to raise her voice
] which certainly stumped me for a moment, until I said I was at a rather unlikely, um, wild west experience theme park. “Hello? Linda? Yes! Well, it’s a wild west experience theme park, isn’t that amazing! Ha, ha! You’d never credit it, would you? You’d expect the South of France to be all pots of honey and lavender bags and Cézanne museums, wouldn’t you? Ha ha! [
Crack of thunder
] Aagh! Ha ha.” I wasn’t sure she believed me, so I cut it short again. “Must go! My turn with the lasso!”

At which point the stampeding cattle finished abruptly [
it does
] and in the unexpected silence, Buster walked in and let out the loudest and most unmistakeable miaow you’ve ever heard. And I said, “Buster! Shoosh!” And then I realised I hadn’t ended the call, and I looked at Buster and he looked at me and I looked at the mobile and laughed and laughed and laughed.

Scene Three: next day; cat purring

Day five in bed. Why doesn’t everyone do this for a holiday? Stay home and stare at the ceiling? Why don’t
they have programmes about it on the telly, with Carol Smilie just lazing about between the sheets, no makeup, toast crumbs, six old mugs jostling for space on the bedside table, cat sitting on her head? They could still get all those celebrities on – and the thing is, for once, you could really believe they were having a good time. I mean, what’s missing from normal everyday life? Is it sliding down water chutes? Is it cycling across northern Portugal? No, it’s this. [
Pause. Sigh
] Staring at the ceiling. [
Sigh
] Eyes closed. Nearby devoted cat purring on the bedspread, teaching by example how to stretch and doze, stretch and doze. [
Deep breathing, as if about to doze off
] Look how relaxed he is. Snoozing in a patch of warm sun. Little tummy rising and falling, rising and falling. Legs elegantly crossed. Utterly unconscious. I’ll tell you one thing. Staying at home for such an unprecedented lengthy period I can report that a fifteen-year-old cat is conscious, active and miaowing, in total, for no more than thirty-five minutes in the average day. Now isn’t that a lesson to us all?

When Linda rang today, I hesitated at the CD player and then let my phone take a message. What a coward. I knew she’d heard Buster and me. Our secret was out. I’d been thinking it through all morning – dreaming up lies, basically, to tell her there was a last-minute mix-up with the booking, or I’d had a freak burst lavatory emergency and missed the plane. But then, when the phone rang, I couldn’t do it. Although the CD would have given me this, [
sound effect of tennis match
] which ironically enough I could have handled. Oh well. The message she left was a slightly emotional, [
choked
] “I give up, Jo. I’ve tried my best. Don’t live each day to the full if you don’t want to. Be a cat lady, and I hope it makes you very happy.” And
that was it. I felt a twinge of guilt, a lurch of compassion and then a wave of relief. Linda has given up on me. Hurrah. Thank you for that miaow, Buster. This has to be the best thing that’s happened to me for years.

Just one thing got to me. The thing is, she keeps using this “cat lady” thing as if my flat had forty-seven cats in it and smelled of cat wee and was called Moggy Cottage or something. But I’m not crackers about cats. In fact I can’t stand gifts with cats on; brooches, bookmarks, figurines – if it’s got a cat on it, I say “Ech” and it goes straight down to Oxfam. I don’t love cats, I love Buster. Of course, if she means by cat lady, lady who is also a bit like a cat, whose behaviour is comparable to that of a cat, well, that is certainly what I’ve been trying to achieve, so I can’t deny it. Active, conscious and miaowing for just thirty-five minutes a day? Surely this is a great ideal. Loved and coddled, meals thrown in, endlessly amused by a catnip toy done up as a stick of dynamite? I volunteer for all of that. The only downsides I can see to being a cat are not being able to operate the remote when the snooker is on (which must be awful), and not having hands for a knife and fork at meal times. I really couldn’t fancy sticking my head in a bowl and having to manoeuvre the food with my teeth. Looking on the bright side, however, you can lick your own bits. In fact, from my five days of observation, I would estimate that licking your own bits takes up a good twenty minutes of your daily thirty-five.

I’ll get up again next week and go back to work. I’ll take Linda some flowers and explain I’m ever so grateful but just not worth the effort. Let
HER
live each day to the full if she wants to, but leave me out of it. I have reached a certain age, you see. They say, “A woman of a certain age” – and everyone nods as if they know what it means, but
I didn’t until I reached it, and now I understand that in my case, anyway, it means I’ve reached the age where I’m certain, sometimes unshakeably certain, about all sorts of things. And if it’s been a struggle to reach this stage, at least I’ve now achieved it. For example, I am certain if I went to the Côte d’Azur on my own I would feel lumpen, pale and hairy in my swimwear, and would suddenly comprehend too late why so many women submit to the horrors of bikini waxing. I am certain I would not float on my back in the swimming pool staring at the blue sky: I’d put on serious rubber goggles that bite too tightly into my face, apply a flesh-coloured noseclip, and plough through the water like a cross-Channel competitor, since that’s the only way I know how to swim. Instead of building and maintaining a beautiful golden colour, I am certain I would acquire on my first day red angry burns down the backs of my legs, making the bending of the knee or even the wearing of lightweight clothes an agony for the remainder of my stay. If I drank a fruity cocktail at lunchtime under a hot sun, I am certain I would vomit in the afternoon. And if I met a man who said his name was Ron Weasley, I am certain I would not go out with him. Instead I would exclaim, “But you’re a small boy in the
Harry Potter
books. There must be some mistake.”

Scene Four: cats yowling sound effect

I just found this on the sound effects CD. It’s a good job I didn’t light on this when Linda was phoning. Yes Linda, oh yes, er, Ron and I are spending the day at a cat circus, so French don’t you think? [
Big yowl
] There’s the one on the trapeze now. [
Crescendo of miaows
] Ron, look how the
pussycat pyramid tumbles in disarray! [
Hasty
] Hope everyone’s OK at the office. Bye.

I’d have had to confess on Monday morning anyway. No tan to show off. No photos to pass round. No romantic attachment driving me crazy – “Will he phone? Should I phone him? Was it just a holiday thing? Do you think it’s significant that he said he couldn’t remember anything about it?” So you could argue I’ve done everyone in Bought Ledger a pretty good turn by not leaving the flat. The times I’ve had to smile and nod over bad flashlit pictures of unknown sunburned half-naked people met on other people’s holidays, usually with raised beer bottles in their hands. “So he was the one from Colchester?” I say, attempting to sound remotely interested. “Sorry, of course, Swindon. Yes, I’ve got it now. So what does that tattoo say?” Hilarious tales are always told of these Swindon people who drank too much, really knocked it back, sank some. Tales in which a late hour, a swimming pool, a crazy dare, and some unexpected broken glass usually feature in a new and exciting combination.

Buster just came in and rubbed his face along my leg, marking me with a scent that luckily I can’t detect. People who don’t like cats are always quick to point out the realities of feline behaviour. Jeff did it all the time. “You see the way he’s rubbing against you – that isn’t affection, you know, Jo.” “I know.” “You see the way he’s jumped on your lap, that’s only because you’re a source of warmth.” “I know.” “Cats are incredibly selfish and they never really trust you, even if you love them and care for them all their lives.” “I know.” And then there’s the crowning argument from the anti-pet league. “You shouldn’t get so attached to an animal, you know Jo, because inevitably he’ll die and it will break your heart.”
At which I usually say, “Oh my God, that never occurred to me. Buster, why didn’t you warn me when we first got together that this dying thing was on the cards?”

[
Yawn
] My last day in bed. If I were still keeping up the pretence for Linda – I had it all worked out – I’d be playing this this evening [
very faint sound effect, “Cabbage White lifting off from the roof of Broadcasting House”
]. She’d be expecting a disco or a jazz band, but I found this earlier on track 21 [
repeat of effect
] and I find it incredibly beautiful. They say that on holiday your senses get heightened, and you get a new view of your life, and it’s certainly happened to me this week, lying here day after day with my eyes closed, with just Buster breathing next to me. I could feel the warmth of his little body. Hear him, feel him. I’ve never had so much space to listen. [
Repeat of effect
] It’s like a soul ascending. There are different ways of living each day to the full. That’s what I’ll tell Linda tomorrow. There are different ways of accepting who you are.

Available from BBC Audiobooks

LYNNE TRUSS
is one of Britain’s best-loved comic writers and is the author of the worldwide bestsellers
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
and
Talk to the Hand.
Her most recent book is
Get Her Off the Pitch!
She reviews for the
Sunday Times
and writes regularly for radio.

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With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed

Making the Cat Laugh: One Woman’s Journal of Single Life on the Margins

Tennyson’s Gift

Going Loco

Tennyson and His Circle

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of Everyday Life (or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door)

A Certain Age: Twelve Monologues from the Classic Radio Series

Get Her Off the Pitch!: How Sport Took Over My Life

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Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, Commas Really
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Twenty-Odd Ducks: Why, Every Punctuation Mark Counts!

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