With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed

by Lynne Truss

  Now we are working together on a project for a new monthly gardening magazine, which he will edit. Personally, I liked the idea of calling it Maud, since it’s the natural sequel to Come Into the Garden, but Tim assures me that ‘Maud’ is not a sexy name for a magazine. He says, imagine going into a newsagent and saying, ‘Maud out yet?’ I trust Tim’s judgement in these matters. He’s the ‘words’ man, after all.

  Sexually, we suit each other very well indeed. Before we met, we were both pretty hazy about our sexuality. I didn’t really ‘come out’, as such; more sort-of turned round one day and found I was out already. My Auntie Angela says my love of musicals was an early indicator that I was gay, but I must admit I didn’t suspect a thing. Tim is a lovely person. I’m going to buy him a cat for his birthday, but he doesn’t know that yet.

  TIMOTHY JOHNSON: I’m not sure about this. What did Gordon tell you? Are you trying to trick me into saying something that contradicts what Gordon said? Can I see a copy of what Gordon said? No, I’m sorry, I can’t do it, I think we ought to stop.

  On My Mantelpiece: Angela Farmer

  Oh God, look, I meant to tidy it before you came but oh, what the fuck, this is meant not to be serious, right? OK, so starting from the left, a crumpled bag of peanut brittle (not mine), some shed brochures (not mine either), empty Cognac bottle (that is mine), and Trent Carmichael’s new hardback, Never the Twine Shall Meet. (Have you read this? It’s the one where an old innocent put-upon guy gets his revenge on a young psychologist by hiring a bizarre trick cyclist homicidal hit-team, and ends up living with a libidinous ex-nun he meets by chance on a train. I don’t know how he thinks of them.)

  What? Oh yes, mantelpiece. Then we’ve got a couple of scripts for new TV sitcoms (crap, actually; forget those, I’ll chuck ’em out), the lease to the local garden centre (which I recently bought, when Chimneypot went bankrupt), bits of underwear, condoms. That’s it. What do you mean, why do I keep condoms on the mantelpiece? To keep them away from the rabbit, why do you think?

  Kitty Corner: Cat Rescue of the Month

  This week we spotlight in Kitty Corner a very lucky puss rescued by Mrs Abigail Lewis, after a mysterious fire rendered him completely homeless.

  ‘I don’t know how that fire started,’ says Mrs Abigail Lewis, cradling a limp, relaxed Lester in her arms like a baby, ‘but I simply had to save the cat. Now he lives with me and I am making up for the neglect he suffered previously, living with the sort of person who starts fires out of sheer carelessness. Lester is a very loving cat, very sensitive. He’s very fond of expensive food, unfortunately, which sometimes means I have to go without. But on the other hand, who needs adequate nutrition when they could have a wonderful little cat like Lester?

  ‘I think he wants to have a sleep now, so perhaps you could leave. I’ve got his bed made up with a hot-water bottle and a fleecy blanket, and I’ve drawn the curtains just the way he likes them. So I just have to kiss each of his paws – mwah! mwah! mwah! mwah! – and tickle his ears, and rest his catnip toy on his white linen pillow, and tiptoe out again. Bless him. Oh yes, sometimes I lie on the floor next to him, in case he wakes up and wants something.’

  My TV Dinner: Angela Farmer

  It depends who’s cooking, you see. If it’s me we might just have a big drink, a piece of cheese and a slice of fruitcake, but if my lover-baby is cooking (if that’s the right word – I mean ‘cooking’, not ‘lover-baby’) he’s a lot more inventive, especially with tinned stuff, which he mixes together, cold. No, it’s fine. Really. Don’t worry about me, I can take it.

  And it’s a real scream to watch, too. A subtle transformation occurs as he stirs it all together in a big bowl with a trowel. Tuna, baked beans, sweetcorn, rice pudding, peach slices. I’ve learned a lot. It’s amazing how many different ways food can resemble puke.

  A Life in the Day: Trent Carmichael

  I rise at nine on most days, listen to the radio for its edifying effect on my imagination, and depending on how exhausted I am from yesterday’s efforts (at writing, I mean) return to bed with a cup of delicately fragranced herb tea for another snooze. Writing is very hard work, people should realize, especially when one is forever inventing very complicated murder plots involving Spear & Jackson garden implements in new and breathtaking combinations! People tell me I’ve made a rod for my own back with all these secateurs and buckets, but I don’t see it that way, it’s what I’m famous for, and I’m grateful. I mean, did Will Shakespeare ever complain, ‘They keep demanding the same old blank verse, but I am an artist, I want to express myself in limerick and knock-knock jokes’? Personally, I ain’t convinced.

  My girlfriend, Michelle, is a great help to me, she’s one in a million, especially when she changes all my prose and rescues me from silly grammatical mistakes. She’s a whizz on my computer, evidently, although actually I’ve never shown her how to use it. In fact, quite the contrary – I keep changing the password. But even when I finish the day by putting my latest writing in a secret file, she still manages to find it! I might pop down to the shops for a new box of paper and when I get back and switch on the machine, my stuff has been rigorously rewritten, and the original discarded. What an amazing woman. Even when I write in longhand, and hide the sheets of paper in the shed in a special hole under the floorboards, I still find – when I retrieve it – that it’s covered in bright blue sub-editing marks, with comments such as ‘Cliché?’ added in the margins. I don’t know what I’d do without her. I’m thinking of including her in the next book, but I haven’t thought how to ‘do’ her yet, if you catch my drift.

  In the afternoons I sometimes go for walks, and think about my characters as though they were real people. Actually, this isn’t as clever as it sounds, since most of them are real people. But when I need a new twist in the plot, I like to go off by myself and stand on the horizon at Parliament Hill with my head thrown back in a thoughtful pose. You could take my picture doing that, if you like. The twin cyclists in my new book, for example, I know what you’re thinking, ‘Where on earth would an idea like that come from?’ Well, it was simply divine inspiration. All I can tell you is that I just needed those trick cyclists, and suddenly, with a sweet tring! tring! of bicycle bells, there they were.

  I quite often do readings in bookshops in the evenings. As you know, my books are extremely popular, so it’s a surprise when so few people turn up. But my publisher assures me that many of my most devoted fans are simply infirm – in wheelchairs, nursing homes, hospitals for the criminally insane – and can’t get down to the bookshops for the readings. Which sounds plausible. We sometimes laugh about it. I mean, as long as it doesn’t prevent them from buying the books, they can be as sick as they like, I don’t care.

  Dinner is usually at home. Just Michelle and me, or should that be ‘Michelle and I’? – either way, just the two of us. It’s lucky we enjoy one another’s company, because curiously we don’t have any friends. Michelle tried to make some once, in the West Country, but with predictably hilarious results (as they say in the Radio Times!). So we spend our evenings plotting murders and testing out certain new plot devices in the seclusion of our own home, behind drawn curtains, not hurting anybody, and sometimes recording it on video. Michelle is usually as ready as I am for a bit of excitement when evening comes, as she spends a lot of her day in the unrewarding job of returning letters to fans with all their mistakes helpfully crossed out and altered.

  And so to bed. When I lie awake at night I sometimes think up names for new books, as it helps me get to sleep. My good friend Angela Farmer sometimes jokes that it takes me less time to write my books than to think of the titles, which I think, in common with all jokes, has a tiny element of truth in it! But now I have Michelle to help, and she is very good at it, so I’ve already got a stockpile of fifteen decent titles to be going on with. The next six months are going to be tough!

  Where Did You Get That? – Angela Farmer

  Where did I get what? Don’t you people have a
nything better to do? Oh for the love of Mike. I’ve got to go now, I’ve got my leg caught in a man-trap.

  Dagenham Delights

  This week local woman Mrs Lillian Bugs tells us how she and her husband changed their name by deed poll to something less silly, under advice from a Harley Street psychotherapist specializing in regression in couples.

  ‘We’re much better now,’ says ex-Mister Bunny, in all seriousness, while waggling his ears and doing the goofy thing with his teeth.

  My Perfect Weekend – Angela Farmer

  Where would you go? Somewhere where nobody asked me celebrity questions all the time.

  How would you get there? By a miracle.

  Where would you stay? In bed.

  Who would be your perfect companion? My rabbit. I mean, no, my local shed-dealer. It’s a long story.

  What essential piece of clothing would you take? Bandanna.

  Which books would you read? ‘101 Uses of a Bandanna’.

  What three things would you most like to do? Have a quiet time with the rabbit. Have a quiet time with my shed-dealer. Have a quiet time with my bandanna.

  What would you like to find when you got home? That I was the only kid on my block who knew enough about bandannas to improvise a makeshift bunny-hammock for a tired rabbit.

  Old Flame of the Month: Henry Clarke

  Ten years after Henry Clarke left the fire service, he is now embarking on a whole new life, and asks his old cronies to ‘Come on Down!’ to a new garden centre in Honiton, where he is in charge of water gardens, ponds and fountains. ‘Can’t seem to stay away from water!’ he jokes.

  ‘But there is a lot more besides at the new Angela Farmer Garden Centre (formerly known as Chimneypot). Visit our amazing shed museum, in which sheds of the famous have been painstakingly reconstructed, using genuine tools, bags of manure, cat-litter, Christmas decorations and carrier-bags full of carpet off-cuts, to represent – in exact replica! – sheds belonging to Harold Wilson, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Jane Seymour and Frank Bough. The idea came from Osborne Lonsdale, who also gives a free guided tour of the exhibit, with anecdotes! No, it’s very interesting. Where are you going? Oh, give us a break.’

  What I’m Reading – Angela Farmer

  I can’t believe you guys, you never give up. Every time I answer the phone! Well, what I like best are self-help books because they’re hilarious. I’m reading one about improving your telephone technique at the moment, you know, concentration, courtesy, staying awake, not rambling, that sort of thing. Hang on, sorry – You! Rabbit! Stop eating those condoms immediately! Get down, for Pete’s sake! Sorry, what was I saying, I’ve forgotten. Oh yes, self-help books. And there’s another one I’ve got which helps you remember where you’ve seen someone before, and I find that very interesting because there’s someone I can’t place – all day I’m saying, ‘Where, oh where, oh where did I meet him?’ You know? – and it’s bugging me.

  Hang on, sorry – I told you before! Do that again and, cute as you are, you’ll end up as PIE! Got that? Sorry, just talking to the boyfriend, he’s making disgusting food again, and I just won’t stand for it any longer. Yeah, anyway, this book tells you to look at the mystery person kinda sideways, so I keep doing that, but all it does is make him nervous.

  How We Met: Angela Farmer and Osborne Lonsdale

  ANGELA FARMER: For God’s sake, I keep explaining, we can’t remember. Osborne thinks it might be something to do with the theatre, because he used to review plays in the sixties and early seventies, but I’m not so sure.

  OSBORNE LONSDALE (quietly): She keeps squinting at me. It’s scary.

  FARMER: The trouble is, it’s not bugging him, it’s only bugging me. He says we’ll probably just remember one day –

  LONSDALE: One day, yes –

  FARMER: But meanwhile I’ve gone nutsy cuckoo, you see, so that’s why I asked you to see us together, because it might concentrate his mind a bit and get the whole thing sorted out.

  LONSDALE: Or it might not.

  FARMER: Thanks. So, Mister ‘Independent on Sunday’, perhaps you could ask us some questions, to get the ball rolling?

  INTERVIEWER (hesitantly): Um, OK. Er, you might not believe this but actually I’m a clairvoyant with exceptional powers, and I can probably tell you how you met, if you really want to know.

  FARMER: What? Really? (To Lonsdale) Can you believe this?

  LONSDALE: No.

  FARMER (to interviewer): Sir, have you ever heard the theatrical expression deus ex machina?

  INTERVIEWER: I don’t think so.

  FARMER: Well, that’s a relief, because I don’t know what it means. OK, so tell us, how did we meet, then? Do you need any special records on, and the curtains closed, and that kind of thing?

  INTERVIEWER: No, but it would be nice to hold the rabbit.

  FARMER: OK. I don’t imagine you’re going to print this, are you?

  INTERVIEWER: I doubt it.

  FARMER: Then I’d just like to say this is the best interview, aside from Osborne’s, I’ve ever had.

  INTERVIEWER: Thanks. I’m drifting off, now. Would you like to hold hands? It doesn’t add anything from my point of view, but you do seem very fond of each other. Anyway, I see a garden shed. I hear muffled screams –

  LONSDALE (gasps): Not Makepeace?

  INTERVIEWER: I see a figure in a gypsy cloak unlocking the door. There is a name beginning with ‘B’.

  FARMER (with a shriek): It’s Barney’s. I let you out of Barney’s shed!

  LONSDALE: Did you?

  FARMER: That’s it! A kid had locked you in!

  LONSDALE: Oh, good. Right. Lovely. So that’s solved that, then. You can stop giving me those funny looks.

  INTERVIEWER (still in trance): It’s a ‘B’, but I can’t quite get the rest. Is it Benny? Bradley?

  FARMER: I just told you, it’s Barney.

  INTERVIEWER (unhearing, in a world of his own): Possibly Bailey, but I’m sticking my neck out.

  FARMER (ignoring him): Well, so: Barney’s shed. Phew, that’s a weight off my mind.

  LONSDALE: But I don’t understand what you were doing at Barney’s house when the kid locked me in the shed. Wasn’t it ages after the divorce?

  FARMER: Well, I was upset. And like any spurned first wife, naturally I was hanging around his new home and hoping to scatter bits of glass in the kiddies’ sand-pit under the guise of an old, gnarled gypsy woman selling hub-caps door to door.

  LONSDALE: Hub-caps?

  FARMER: Something, yeah. Actually I think it was hub-caps. But he saw through my disguise.

  INTERVIEWER (to himself): Brierley, was it? Baloney?

  LONSDALE: What do we do about the chap in the trance?

  FARMER: He didn’t say anything about waking him up, did he?

  LONSDALE: Better leave him, you think?

  INTERVIEWER: Battersby? Bombay?

  FARMER: Sure. He looks quite happy, with the rabbit.

  INTERVIEWER: Bali Hai? Broccoli? Bambi?

  My Childhood: Trent Carmichael

  My childhood was absolutely normal in every respect, and nothing horrible ever happened to me to make me become a crime novelist, if that’s what you’re angling after. I had a mother and father who loved me enough to call me Trent and give me a start in life. I did all the usual childish proto-writer things, such as reading indoors when everyone else was playing rough games, and learning poetry by rote so as to be teacher’s pet. That’s not too revealing, is it? I mean, that’s normal. We had holidays in Sussex, and I enjoyed Knickerbocker Glories, but I don’t think it warped me in any way at all. You can’t read anything into a Knickerbocker Glory. Thank you, I really enjoyed doing that. Smashing.

  The Questionnaire: Angela Farmer

  What is your idea of perfect happiness? Someone to love me, and not run out.

  What is your greatest fear? That he’ll run out.

  With which historical figure do you most identify? Cinderella, maybe. Snow White. All those pathetic in
nocents. Sleeping Beauty.

  Which living person do you most admire? The confident woman who lives inside my answering machine and who tells me the time the messages arrived. She harbours not a single doubt in the whole fibre of her being.

  What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? My inability to refuse interviews.

  What is the trait you most deplore in others? Their need to ask questions.

  What vehicles do you own? Why? Are you an out-of-work mechanic, or something? Who the hell wants to know what vehicles I own? I have a car.

  What is your greatest extravagance? Long-distance phone calls to London newspapers, to apologize for being snappy.

  What objects do you always carry with you? Castrol GTX, bit of rag, spanners, overalls, tyre levers, jump leads, battery recharger, spare wiper blades.

  What makes you most depressed? Running out of drink before 7 p.m. on a Sunday.

  What do you most dislike about your appearance? That I’ve got crow’s-feet. But on the other hand, it’s worse for the crow that’s got mine.

  What is your most unappealing habit? I dig stuff out of my ears and then eat it.

  Which words or phrases do you most overuse? ‘Ech! Earwax!’

  What or who is (was) the greatest love of your life? My last ex-husband, see below.

  Which living person do you most despise? My last ex-husband, see above.