Leon did not understand, however. ‘I’m ever so sorry, Stefan,’ he said, with a gulp. ‘I tried to stop her. But the truth is, I think your wife’s dead.’
Jago lost patience. ‘For God’s sake,’ he yelled, leaping up to seize Leon by the throat. ‘Which one?’
‘What?’ Leon fought him off, confused.
‘Which. Fucking. Wife?’
‘Oh. Sorry,’ said Leon. ‘Ingrid.’
At which Birgit opened the door to reveal the lifeless Ingrid on the carpet. She was wearing Stefan’s moose-hat and – strange to relate – she was smiling.
Ingrid. Ingrid was dead. Stefan sank to the floor and, for the first time in his five-year ordeal, started to cry. How strange to see her there. No longer unhappy! And in fact, if there is any justice in the spiritual cosmos, already reunited in the vivisectionist quarter of paradise with her own dear Stefan, to experiment on unwilling living tissue for the rest of all eternity.
‘How did it happen?’ asked Stefan. ‘She didn’t kill herself?’ Belinda and Linda had now arrived at the scene, and between them held him tightly.
Birgit pulled a face of horror. ‘I did it. I had to do it. She tried to kill this nice man who helped her in Malmö!’ she said. ‘Yust because his nasty brother hit her on face!’ She put down the knife that she’d wrested from her friend. To her credit, she seemed pretty glum about committing murder. ‘You told me she was mad, but I did not believe. Everyone tells me. But she was mad, ja. I had to do it. She was mad, this Ingrid, after all.’
In the ensuing month, many of the Johanssons’ problems sorted themselves out pretty neatly. For a start, Ingrid was cremated at Belinda’s funeral, to everyone’s immense relief. Both Linda and Belinda watched from the attic as the cars drew up at the house, took the coffin and left. It was quite thrilling, in a macabre sort of way. It was also rather a privilege. Between the two of them, Belinda and Linda calculated they added up to nobody, yet all sorts of famous people came to bid them a joint farewell.
It was true that Belinda no longer wanted to work on literary doubles. She’d had more than enough of all that. But while the funeral was in progress, Belinda read aloud Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Shadow’, and both Belindas enjoyed it while agreeing it was a bit simplistic. At the end of ‘The Shadow’, the poor scholar doesn’t hear the sound of the shadow’s wedding, because by then the shadow has ‘taken his life’ – a nicely ambiguous phrase. Belinda said the story might have turned out better if the shadow and the scholar had become friends and enjoyed their own faux funeral together, laughing and making cups of tea. Linda said it might lack dramatic force that way. Belinda just said, ‘Mm.’
Linda, of course, could not appear at the funeral tea. So she prepared it beautifully and then retired upstairs so that Belinda could serve it, in the guise of the new cleaning lady. She took the name ‘Mrs Golyadkin’ for the occasion, and pretended to be Russian, on the grounds that if you can’t have a laugh at your own funeral, when can you have a laugh? Eavesdropping at your own funeral offers certain emotional risks, of course, but as she mingled with plates of finger food, Belinda mostly had a marvellous time, hearing herself described in glowing posthumous terms. She gave extra bits of cake to people who said nice things, and was particularly overwhelmed to meet a couple from EastEnders, who appeared to have gatecrashed.
Meanwhile Stefan carried off the whole event extremely well, and looked fabulous in black. He told the Archbishop of Canterbury (another fan of ‘Up the Duff’) that he would never grieve in a morbid way for Belinda, because in a very real sense she was still with him; he assured his guests in general that, much as they might have admired Belinda, she was in fact twice the person they knew. And then, when everyone had gone home, they sat together, all three, on the sofa and watched The Return of Martin Guerre, laughing hysterically.
Stefan never mentioned Malmö again. He made a little bonfire of his moose-hat and his books of English idiom, then took Belinda and Linda on a tour of Kent in the Ferrari, revisiting the scenes of his childhood. Birgit offered to nurse the baby when it was born, but the Johanssons declined. Somehow it did not seem entirely fitting to have her back in the house, despite the good deed she had done them. Anyone who could misjudge Ingrid so badly, or call herself Anni-Frid for the purpose of disguise when she looked like a Smurf, might be more trouble than she was worth. Besides, it was time for the Johanssons to cope alone with their domestic affairs, without outside help. Surely three jobless, officially dead people ought to be able to manage with one little baby? Especially three jobless, officially dead people whose lives could now never be extricated from one another’s, as long as they all still lived.
Their friends were relatively content, too. Viv ditched the ghastly Dermot, but not before getting him to find Jago a better job. Maggie decided Stefan was a bit too weird for her tastes, removed his picture from her fairy-light frame, and settled at last for the wholehearted devotions of Leon. Her experience with Noel had taught her many things, but mainly it taught her to marvel at what a nice chap Leon was. Sometimes their divergence of interests caused a problem, as when they argued whether Zola was better known as a footballer or a novelist, and Leon got confused thinking that he did both. Or as when Maggie bought him a modern classic American novel called The Sportswriter and Leon chucked it away in disgust because it was so unclear how the protagonist filed his copy. ‘Does he have a laptop or what?’ he asked, quite reasonably. Six months into their relationship, however, Leon discovered independently that Rembrandt was a rather good painter as well as a toothpaste, which brought him closer to his beloved, in a small but important way.
Professionally, things were pretty straightforward. Tanner did not prosper long at the Effort but was picked up, of course, by the Telegraph. Jago, in his new job as deputy editor of the Effort, re-employed Leon to ‘ghost’ Jericho Jones’s weekly column, which led to a commission to ghost his autobiography too. Maggie’s success in Three Sisters was marred only by the subsequent approach from the Royal Shakespeare Company – the offer of a role in The Comedy of Errors, which she was obliged to refuse on emotional grounds, because of all the twins.
Meanwhile Viv started making curtains as a business, and Mrs Holdsworth (what a dark horse) wrote books. She sent a copy of the first one – I Am a Vacuum Cleaner – to her ex-employers, who were very impressed. Mrs Holdsworth turned out to have a robust style of writing and a gritty carpet’s-eye view of the world, which elicited comparisons universally with Irvine Welsh.
Linda found it hard to put her feet up, so the others allowed her to do the majority of stuff around the house. As Stefan explained from his rudimentary genetic knowledge, Linda was predisposed to housework while he and Belinda were predisposed to admiring it and enjoying its benefits. Belinda finally admitted that she loathed fish, which caused less consternation than she had feared. In fact, the Burial of the Fish Kettle was a stupendous moment, which they decided to mark annually with songs and a maypole. It turned out that Stefan didn’t like fish much either. In Sweden, fish had been the bane of his life for twenty years.
Against this background of domestic harmony, Belinda and Linda sometimes discussed doubles literature and professed themselves amazed by the amounts of contention and murder to be found there – so much mutual turfing of rivals out of the nest. So much winner-takes-it-all; so much uncomplicated ‘him or me’.
‘Written by men,’ Linda surmised, controversially. ‘They are so insecure, aren’t they? I mean, the life-or-death tussle on the loft-ladder – who needs it?’
As for Belinda, she continued to dream about the washing-machine for a while, but it was like the last few revolves of the drum after the spin has finished. Finally there was the faintest of clicks and the cycle was over, the door lock was released. Every day, she woke up in a house with Stefan and Linda – and she loved it. Her days as a Super Trouper were over. She had finally discovered the answer to the problem of work and life, which was to give up the former and share the latte
r with as many people as possible.
Neville was back, of course, but this was a good thing. Because turning her attention fully to her furry friend, she discovered that she had in fact been pregnant since Christmas. Los Rodentos had been a cunning biological disguise for foetal gestation! Within three months of the death of Ingrid, the household welcomed identical twin boys, whom they named Benny and Björn without a moment’s hesitation.
No one was more surprised than Belinda. She was astonished. All that time she’d been imagining spotlights and spangles and adoring crowds, and it was not acrobatic rats at all.
It was Abba.
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 & Leaves and champion of correct punctuation, returns to fight for the cause of politeness. A joyous rant against the everyday rudeness we’ve all become accustomed to, Talk to the Hand brilliantly dissects the incivilities of modern life. Why are other people so crass, selfish and inconsiderate? Whatever happened to ‘please’ and ‘thank you’? 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’ journalism – recording the life of a metropolitan refugee from coupledom.
For seven years Lynne Truss, in columns for The Listener, The Times and Woman’s Journal, tried to make her cat laugh. Along the way, ‘Margins’, ‘Single Life’ and ‘One Woman’s Journal’ collected a band of devoted fans, yet the cat remained unimpressed. But, under headings such as ‘The Single Woman Considers Going Out but Doesn’t Fancy the Hassle’ and ‘The Single Woman Stays at Home and Goes Quietly Mad’, we discover a writer not only obsessed with cats, but prone to over-reacting generally – to news stories, shopping, passive smoking, Christmas, coupledom, boyfriends, snails, sheds, Andre Agassi, cooking instructions, requests of ‘How’s the novel going?’ and personal remarks of any kind.
‘A small masterpiece of comedy … A continual hoot’
The Times
‘Trenchant writing, invigorating valour, and a shrewdly observant wit’
Scotland on Sunday
LYNNE TRUSS
With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed
Osborne Lonsdale, a mysteriously attractive, down-at-heel journalist, writes a regular celebrity interview for Come Into the Garden, an ailing horticultural weekly magazine. This week his ‘Me and My Shed’ column will be based on the charming garden outhouse owned by TV sitcom star Angela Farmer. But unbeknown to Osborne, driving down to Devon to interview Angela, the sleepy magazine has been taken over by new management and his research trip will be interrupted by a trainload of anxious hacks from London – Lillian the fluffy blonde secretary, Michelle the sub-editor who has a secret crush on Osborne, and Trent Carmichael, crime novelist and bestselling author of S is for … Secateurs!
‘A perfect comic novel … a witty, ingenious romp’
Daily Telegraph
‘Hilarious … as witty as a knot garden … I loved it’
The Times
‘A perennial comic delight … this Truss must never be stopped’
SUE LIMB
LYNNE TRUSS
Tennyson’s Gift
It is July 1864 and the Isle of Wight is buzzing with eccentric creative types. A morose Alfred Tennyson, is reciting Maud to empty sofas, whilst photographer Julia Margaret Cameron whitewashes roses and tries to capture Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) in heroic poses. Into this cauldron of unrequited love and egotism step an acclaimed painter, his sixteen-year-old wife and a father-and-daughter team of phrenologists.
Unexpectedly moving and written with a mischievous sense of humour, Tennyson’s Gift is a triumphantly funny foray into love, literature, eccentricity and beards.
‘Enormously entertaining, a delicious confection’
Sunday Telegraph
‘A rollicking read. It is mischievous, light-hearted and fun’
Literary Review
‘Terrific … witty, surprising … and hugely assured’
Sunday Times
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 favorite HarperCollins authors.
From the reviews of Going Loco :
‘A classic comic novel, unashamed, exuberant, fiendishly clever and a joy to read. The novel is suggestively satirical, too; the fun Truss pokes at journalists is reminiscent of Scoop. Going Loco is ingeniously constructed and packed with genuinely funny moments proving without doubt that there is an art to writing a first-class comic novel’
Daily Telegraph
‘Sings with glittering prose. Delicious’
Time Out
‘A complex plot, chock-full of “characters”, slapstick and mystery … achieves laughs through real inventiveness’
The Times
‘Subtle and imaginative. Excellent … her comic timing is finely tuned’
Sunday Express
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!
Copyright
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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Hammersmith
London W6 8JB
Visit our authors’ blog at www.fifthestate.co.uk
Love this book? www.bookarmy.com
This Fourth Estate paperback edition published 2010
1
Published in paperback by Profile Books, 2004
First published in Great Britain by Headline Book Publishing in 1999
Copyright © Lynne Truss 1999, 2004
Lynne Truss asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-00-735526-6
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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