Pete thinks. He thinks for quite a long time. His breathing catches a bit. Oh God! He’s crying. I have a massive stab of love for him—crying for me, his dead wife, in the dark.
“Is it upsetting you?” I ask, squeezing his hand.
“Blarrrr. Fell asleep again,” he says. “Did I start snoring? So tired.”
“I’m DEAD,” I say. “DEAD at thirty-six. Fucking tell me what the worst bits are! Now! Do it now! Now!”
“Okay,” Pete says, totally awake now, sitting up in bed. “I would miss you when I wake up. I would miss you when I go to sleep. I’d miss you when I’m scared, and you say ‘Everyone can screw themselves,’ and it seems to make things better. I’d miss you every time our kids laughed, or cried. I’d miss you every time I looked at that tree at the end of the garden that you love, or smelled your perfume on a woman walking by, or saw someone laughing so much they made piggy snorting noises and lay on the floor, crying. I’d miss you all. The. Time.”
It’s a beautiful list. So full of love, and memory, and pride. I am a lucky woman.
“What about my bread and butter pudding?” I say. “No one else’s bread and butter pudding is as good as my bread and butter pudding.”
“Yes,” Pete says, still emotional. “I would be sad to eat someone else’s bread and butter pudding.”
“. . . and punning,” I say. “Your second wife would never be as good at puns as I am.”
“That is, also, true,” Pete says, slightly brisker.
“And I think one of my real strong points has always been my ability to absorb a large amount of information, then render it down to the essential parts in a really easy-to-understand way. . . .”
“Just so you know,” Pete says, turning over to sleep, “this is definitely another memory that will make me cry. A lot.”
Acknowledgments
This book would have nothing in it were it not for the fact that, over eighteen years at The Times, I have had a series of parodically clever and lovely editors, who made being a columnist for them a dream job, which I would willingly have done for free. Thank you, a million times, to Sarah Vine, Alex O’Connell, Emma Tucker, Shaun Philips, Mike Mulvihill, and particularly the properly demented and brilliant Nicola Jeal, for making my job something where I might, on occasion, find myself at 4 PM in February at Cliveden, in a massive wedding dress, wearing a Kate Middleton wig, and pretending to kiss a Prince William lookalike. And James Harding—you are the Gentleman Editor of Fleet Street, and I am proud to work for your paper. I know how lucky I am to deal with you all. Thank you.
At Ebury, I cannot spade enough appreciation onto the head dude, Jake Lingwood, who dreams BIG and then makes it all come true, and Liz Marvin, for being wholly indomitable. And there’s a reason why Ebury’s PR, Ed Griffiths, wins awards—he’s scientifically and provably the best. I love you, Mr. Jeff Pigeon.
At my American publishers, Jennifer Barth insanely believed that How to Be a Woman—a book written by someone from Wolverhampton who once, while watching television with her family, sneezed a mouthful of sardines on the screen, then scraped it off and ate it again—could sell in the States, and got it in the New York Times Top Ten. This is an event which frankly I’m still lying on the floor about, having cold gin flicked at my face, trying to process.
And Gregory Henry, the US publicist for the book, wrangled an astonishing campaign—despite having to work around the massive disability of working with an author who says “lift” instead of elevator, and doesn’t know who Diane Sawyer is. Or who those nice ladies we met on the Today show are. Who were they? They smelled of wine. I liked it. Thanks too to Jonathan Burnham, Erica Barmash, Amy Baker, David Watson, Dori Carlson, Lelia Mander, and all the other lovely people at HarperCollins.
Georgia Garrett—if you ever stop being my agent, I will end myself. You’ve got a mind for business, a body for sin, and the heart for long lunches.
To all the people who let me come and hang out with them for features—thank you. I hope I was reasonably accurate. It was a proper thrill to meet you all. Gareth Dorrian—thank you for replying to my panicked, anxious Tweet of “I AM THREE WEEKS OVER DEADLINE AND WILL GIVE CHAMPAGNE TO SOMEONE WHO CAN THINK OF A TITLE FOR MY BOOK” with the perfect, elegant, pun-ny and Beatle-ish “Moranthology.” Enjoy your champagne. I’ve never been happier to put three first class stamps on a bottle of blanc de blanc.
As with the last book, I must thank all the people I hang around with all day on Twitter, in the saloon bar of my virtual “Cheers”: @salihughes, @gracedent, @Martin_Carr, @DavidGArnold, @heawood, @Hemmo, @pgofton, @laurenlaverne, @traceythorn, @alexispetridis, @Dorianlynskey, @porksmith, @mydadisloaded, @mattpark, @nivenj1, @indiaknight, @victoriapeckham, @jennycolgan, @mrchrisaddison, @laurakirsop, @evawiseman, @emmafreud, @scouserachel, @julianstockton, @zoesqwilliams, @EosChater, @sophwilkinson and @stevefurst. Thank you for being my friends in my laptop.
To my daughters—Mummy lied. “The Man” has not, in fact, closed down Disney World, all the rides didn’t get melted down to make more useful things, like school chairs—and YES! We can go there, now mummy’s finished all the typing! The Guys—Caz, Weena, Eddie, Col, Henri, Gezmo, Jimmy and Jofish—BOOM!
And, finally, to my husband, Pete: thanks for letting me make up all those ridiculous conversations with you, over the years; just to fill up column space. We know I’d never really stay stuff like that—and your current silence on this issue is a legal acceptance that I really am not like that, and I am finishing the book now so you can’t argue back yes yes thank you byeeeee.
About the Author
Caitlin Moran was named Columnist of the Year by the British Press Awards in 2010, and Critic and Interviewer of the Year in 2011 for her work at the Times of London. Her debut book, How to Be a Woman, won the 2011 Galaxy Book of the Year Award and was an instant New York Times and IndieNext bestseller in the United States. You can follow Caitlin on Twitter @caitlinmoran.
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Also by Caitlin Moran
How to Be a Woman
Credits
Cover design by Two Associates
Cover photographs © Gareth Iwan Jones
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing, A Random House Group Company.
MORANTHOLOGY. Copyright © 2012 by Casa Bevron, Ltd. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
First U.S. edition
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
Epub Edition © November 2012 ISBN 978-0-06-225852-6
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