A Certain Age: Twelve Monologues From the Classic Radio Series
Anyway, the point is, Cancer Tiger or whatever he is, I don’t seem to be able to judge Buster. I just love him. unconditionally. Forgive him anything. Pat him on the bonce whatever he’s done and say, “Who’s my darling boy, then?” No wonder it drove Jeff bananas. As he often pointed out, if BUSTER had made me a tape of Van Morrison I’d be – well, surprised, obviously, but also thrilled to the core. Meanwhile, I am also incredibly entertained by Buster. Say I get a man in to service the boiler. Buster strolls in, sighs, shoots me an accusing glare and then climbs on the man’s toolbox, and won’t get off. And it cracks me up. That’s my boy. When new friends innocently say, “Is he a friendly cat?”, Buster takes one look at them and goes to his litter box and starts making unmistakeably hostile pawing-through-gravel noises inside it, and what do I do? I shrug with an indulgent smile. I say, [lightly] “He always does this!” I must seem like one of those terrible mothers of infant delinquents who say, “Well, you shouldn’t leave it lying about, should you?” and offer to duff up the teachers at the school.
Rather touchingly, Jeff started off pretending to be fond of Buster. I remember they watched snooker together at the start, and that Jeff found it quite amusing when Buster stood up on his hind legs in front of the telly and tried to pat the balls as they travelled across the screen. Then the male bonding started to come slightly unglued, then peeled apart as fondness cooled and there was a period of each tolerating the other when Jeff didn’t watch the snooker any more, and even on one memorable occasion (rather childishly, I thought) mocked Buster’s efforts to operate the remote. In the end, of course, it descended to naked aggression, and when one day Jeff left the front door open “accidentally”, and Buster ran across our busy main road and got lost for a day and I roamed the neighbourhood shaking a packet of Kitbits and snivelling and weeping, I said Jeff had better go now and take his fridge with him, along with the storage jars and all the other stuff I may have mentioned including my Shania Twain and hopes of future connubial happiness. Losing Buster had been extremely traumatic. I went along the street checking in bins; I was convinced I would find him dead; I asked old ladies if they’d seen him and they said, “I hope you find him quickly, dear, there’s a gang working round here that rounds up lost cats and turns them into gloves.”
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 mea
ns, 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.
Cast
The Brother Simon Russell Beale
The Wife Janine Duvitski
The Son Robert Glenister
The Mother Siobhan Redmond
The Father Douglas Hodge
The Daughter Rebecca Front
The Married Man Stuart Milligan
The Sister Lindsey Coulson
The Husband Peter Capaldi
The Other Woman Lesley Manville
The Pedant Stephen Tompkinson
The Cat Lover Dawn French
Available from BBC Audiobooks
About the Author
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.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favourite HarperCollins authors.
From the reviews of A Certain Age:
‘Sensationally well written – funny, poignant and beautifully observed’
The Times
‘Dazzling … sad, funny and, of course, exquisitely written’
Daily Mail
‘Beautifully observed … Truss is simply a huge talent’
Guardian
‘Good grief, she’s funny … A total delight’
KATE SAUNDERS, The Times
‘Top-quality writing’
Sunday Times
‘She has an impeccable ear for dialogue and the entangled poignancy and farce of the human condition’
Glasgow Herald
By the same author:
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
FOR CHILDREN
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, Commas Really Do Make a Difference!
The Girl’s Like Spaghetti: Why, You Can’t Manage Without Apostrophes!
Twenty-Odd Ducks: Why, Every Punctuation Mark Counts!
LYNNE TRUSS
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
Over 3 million copies sold worldwide
Anxious about the apostrophe? Confused by the comma? Or just plain stumped by the semi-colon?
Join Lynne Truss, self-confessed punctuation stickler, in this impassioned and hilarious tour through the rules of punctuation. A runaway bestseller, it is both a brilliantly clear guide for the punctuation challenged and enthralling entertainment for the grammar devotee.
‘A punctuation repair kit. Passionate and witty … fresh and funny’
Independent
‘Truss deserves to be piled high with honours’
JOHN HUMPHRYS, Sunday Times
LYNNE TRUSS
Talk to the Hand
The Utter Bloody Rudeness of Everyday Life
(or six good reasons to stay home and bolt the door)
This is not a book about manners, nor a book about etiquette. It is a book about rudeness.
Lynne Truss, bestselling author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves and champion of correct punctuation, returns to fight for the cause of politeness. A joyous rant against the everyday institutionalised rudeness we’ve all become accustomed to, Talk to the Hand brilliantly dissects the incivilities of modern lif
e. Why are other people so crass, selfish and inconsiderate? Why do we have to put up with so much swearing? And whatever happened to public-spiritedness?
‘A lively and witty broadside against the modern “eff off” society’
Sunday Express
‘Trademark Truss … (very) readable, (very) funny, (very) engaging’
Observer
LYNNE TRUSS
Get Her Off the Pitch!
How Sport Took Over My Life
Get Her Off the Pitch! is the story of one woman’s foray into the very masculine and rather baffling world of sport. Lynne Truss spent four years as an unlikely sports writer for The Times. It was a job that took her around the world (via the most difficult journeys and least glamorous hotels) and introduced her to some of the greatest living sportsmen (and many argumentative men with clipboards).
It is a hilarious, perceptive and at times moving account of those four strange years. It is perfect for those for whom sport is a matter of life and death, for those who have no idea what all the fuss is about – and for everyone in between.
‘Who will want to read this book? Just people like me who are largely indifferent to sport but enjoy literate, amusing, properly punctuated writing about anything’
Daily Mail
‘She can write comedy for Britain’
The Times
LYNNE TRUSS
Making the Cat Laugh
One Woman’s Journal of Single Life on the Margins
A brilliant collection of Lynne Truss’s journalism – recording the life of a metropolitan refugee from coupledom.