Making the Cat Laugh Read online

  ‘Yeah, sort of.’

  ‘Well, in that case the answer’s no.’

  There was an awkward pause.

  ‘Did you say no?’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said briskly. ‘Not in a million years. Let’s meet at Leicester Square for a pizza or something instead. Then we can eat and talk just the same, but afterwards I can come home feeling quite all right and not mysteriously depressed because your home life is so lovely. All right?’

  If he was surprised by this outburst, so was I. I had no idea I felt so strongly. All I knew was that sometimes, after a delightful evening spent with perfect hosts in a full, groaning family house, a single person spends the next few days dumb with misery, hating everybody, and bursting into unexpected tears during heart-warming re-runs of Flipper. I confessed my ‘Not in a million years’ speech to a friend, who said she understood, and who mentioned that at least I had been assertive without being aggressive. Which made me bloody annoyed. ‘What’s the point of that?’ I yelled. Damn. Next time, I shall shout ‘Sod your fancy house with its bloody patio and its baby room, you make me sick, you people.’ Because there are times when a sub-text simply won’t do.

  The alternative strategies to an outright No Thanks – though possibly better etiquette in the strict sense – are too wearisome to contemplate. For example, you can accept the invitation, and then half an hour before arrival phone up with a fabricated story about a last-minute mercy-dash (‘I’m so sorry, but if I don’t deliver this jar of rollmop herrings to the Foreign Office in the next hour, we could find ourselves at war with Finland!’). But is this less rude than explaining your true feelings? I think not. Worst of all, surely, is to agree to come, turn up punctually, make perfect-guest ‘Ooh lovely’ noises at the wallpaper, and then sever your wrist quietly in their nice big kitchen while pretending to help with the puddings.

  Don’t get me wrong. Things get better for single people every day. Oh yes. How cheerful to reflect, for example, that Sainsburys now sells ‘Single Bananas’ in a special bag. But we are not the norm, despite our bananas. We are seen as something akin to the rogue animals in wildlife films, the ones that are tolerated by the herd but don’t fit in, and are photographed sulking hundreds of yards off, snuffling in long white grass. When lone dolphins turn up in British harbours (clearly enjoying a walloping good time eating fresh salmon and frolicking with the boats), the British public invariably feels sorry for them, and worries about finding them a suitable mate. It is the same benevolent but mistaken instinct that makes married people invite you to their new house.

  What nobody appreciates, of course, is that the poor old dolphin fields invitations all day, through his ultrasonic mind-waves. ‘Come to dinner, we haven’t seen you in ages,’ he hears from a happy nuclear dolphin family five miles out to sea. ‘Bugger,’ thinks the dolphin, wishing he had remembered to switch on his answering machine. How can he say he moved five miles (and risked having to swim with New Age poets in wet-suits) just to escape all this? Treading water for a minute, he programs his super-brain to run through the available strategies, and instantly feels doubly depressed. Pizzas in Leicester Square is not a viable option for a dolphin; and the rollmop herrings routine cuts no ice whatever in a marine context.

  He is caught all ways actually, because he can’t be assertive or aggressive, since neither is in his nature. And he always finds Flipper depressing. What a bind. So in the end, he agrees to visit, swims miles, has a marvellous time, adores the kids, applauds the bold choice of murky green throughout, gets home late, and flops out exhausted with a smile on his face. And then, for about a week later, he mopes miserably in the water, and everyone says it must be because he misses the company of other dolphins.

  Perhaps it is a phase you go through, this ugly envy stuff. I hope so, certainly. I know one woman who is perfectly all right most of the time, but who bursts into tears every time she gets a wedding invitation, so that we have to rush out and have a pizza at Leicester Square, where we talk bravely about single bananas. Edna Ferber said that single life, like drowning, is a delightful sensation once you cease to struggle – but is this comforting, or isn’t it? The analogy isn’t bad, certainly: your whole life unfolds before your eyes, and you entertain strange dreamy consoling thoughts such as ‘I shall never have to wash my hair again, anyway.’ Meanwhile, however, you can’t help wishing that those nice married people on the bank would stop chucking you lifebelts, so that you can just get on with it.

  I went to see Batman Returns last week. A man-friend had dropped the offhand remark that the Michelle Pfeiffer character had reminded him of me, so naturally I couldn’t wait to find out what he meant. After all, Michelle Pfeiffer and I are seldom mentioned in the same breath; and on the evidence of the publicity shots of Catwoman – the sexy patent leather catsuit, the high heels, whip, and hood with little black ears – I have to admit I was chuffed and flattered.

  As I stood in the ticket queue at Leicester Square I preened myself by licking the back of my hand and rubbing my forehead with it. I flexed my painted claws. Meeeeow, I thought. How perceptive of this male acquaintance to realize that while I portray myself in this column as a frowzy, spinsterish stay-at-home, in reality I am a lithe, crazy, dangerous feline-type animal who prowls the moonlit rooftops after dark, purring to the sounds of the night-time city.

  But alas, no sooner was I embarked on my second vat of popcorn than I noticed that the Michelle Pfeiffer character in Batman Returns is a frowzy, spinsterish stay-at-home, instantly recognizable as Single Life material at its most abject and pitiable. Damn. Her name is Selina. Each evening she bursts into her apartment with a ritualistic shout of ‘Honey, I’m home!’ followed by ‘Oh I forgot, I’m not married.’ She kicks off her shoes, listens to the answering machine, pours milk for the cat, talks aimlessly to herself. Evidently it was Selina, not Catwoman, that my friend had been talking about. I put my head in my popcorn tub for a moment, and screamed with the minimum disruption.

  No wonder Selina escapes this paltry existence by assuming the identity of Catwoman (‘I am Catwoman, hear me roar’). It is a sensible decision. The only problem is that, before it can happen, she must suffer a brutal death from defenestration – which gives pause to all the would-be Catwomen in the audience who are fed up with shouting ‘Honey, I’m home’ to an empty flat. I mean, is it worth chucking yourself off the Shell building on the remote chance it might turn you into Catwoman? Well, it’s tricky. I am still weighing it up.

  But if it boils down to clothes, I am sunk. You see, in order to become Catwoman it is important that you can rummage in your wardrobe for an old patent leather coat; you then rip its seams and magically re-fashion it into the appropriate figure-hugging costume. Imagine your disappointment, then, if having flung yourself from a high roof (and become a glassy-eyed un-dead) you opened your closet, snapping your expectant pinking shears, to find only a brown calf-length fun-fur, with no patent leather in sight. You would have to become Teddywoman instead, and it would not be the same.

  ‘I am Teddywoman, hear me not make any aggressive noise,’ you would say lamely, as you sat with your arms out in front of you, unable to bend your elbows. It would be dreadful. While chaos overtook your city, you would just sit there looking stiff and fluffy and hoping that your eyeballs didn’t fall out. There would be no opportunity for Batman to fall in love with you during exciting bouts of single combat, either. At best, he might pick you up by the ear and trail you on the ground behind him. And admit it, this would make you feel quite stupid.

  I don’t suppose Batman’s creators needed to think very hard about the animal identity of his female counterpart. Dogwoman would not draw much male interest. Spiderwoman has been done before. Elephantwoman would look like a rip-off. And Ferretwoman is too suggestive. So Catwoman was the obvious answer. However, lots of potential kitty-joke plot-devices were disappointingly left untapped by Batman Returns. For example, just as Batman is summoned across Gotham City by a special Bat-design sear
chlight shone on to solid cloud, couldn’t Catwoman have been summoned from miles distant by the shaking of a little box of Miaow-mix?

  I liked Batman Returns. The one thing that really worried me, though, was the role of the Gotham City populace, who are required repeatedly to turn up in grey hats and coats for Yuletide speeches outside the City Hall. Each time they do this, a dastardly attack is launched against them, entailing multiple explosions, car chases, punch-ups and deaths. At one point, this passive crowd is sprayed with machine-gun fire from a trick umbrella. So why on earth do they keep turning out, these people? Imagine, if you lived in Gotham City, and somebody said ‘Are you coming to hear the new mayor address us this evening?’, wouldn’t you pause momentarily before limping off to another apocalyptic pasting? A twinge of pain from your latest shrapnel wounds would surely nudge your decision one way or the other.

  I suppose one should not be surprised. Only a city of fools relies on a man in a bat-costume to protect it from evil. But perhaps the Gothamites deliberately expose themselves to extreme danger in the hope that they will be transformed, like Michelle Pfeiffer, into a new superhuman chimera. In which case, you have to admire their pluck. The only trouble is, you can’t imagine a movie called Lemmingman, can you?

  The bit that always stops me dead is where it says ‘Photo appreciated’. Up to then I am fine, almost excited. I can even entertain the pathetic notion that I am being singled out personally.

  ‘Intellectual Andre Agassi look alike with steady job’ (it says) ‘seeks lonely cat-fixated Teddywoman for evenings of mutual squeaks. Extensive knowledge of EastEnders an advantage. My dream lady has clean TV licence, an interest in the fashion potential of household fluff, and a Jeff Bridges video collection. Please write to Box 213. Oh, and I nearly forgot. Photo appreciated.’

  ‘Damn,’ I yell, and head-butt the bath-taps. Bleeding from the brow, I stab wildly at the Lonely Hearts column, speechless with frustration. There he is! Mister Dreamboat himself! But he wants a photo! And now we can never meet because I don’t have any pictures. What a personal disaster. ‘Perhaps you could send your Single Life picture?’ ventures a passing cat, sort-of telepathically. ‘Hah!’ I shout. ‘How can I send a newspaper clipping, you fur-faced poltroon! Besides, this picture gives most people the impression I am 93!’

  I clamber from the bath, press a towel to my head, and go through the usual frantic motions of searching the flat for a suitable picture. But while I rifle my home with all the gusto of the professional burglar, I know there is no chance whatever of success. In the end, in desperation, I grab my passport and some pinking shears and tussle with the temptation to cut out the picture forthwith. But luckily I remember in the nick of time that a) it was taken seven years ago; and b) some of the proffered squeaking might take place abroad.

  Sinking on the debris, I sob quietly. If I say I always look lousy in photographs, there is one large, obvious inference which I would naturally rather not contemplate. But there is another reason, honestly, for my despondence. It is that I find it really hard to pose. In front of a camera I just smile in a ‘this is it, there’s no more’ kind of way, and trust that ‘being myself’ will do the job. This is utterly wrong-headed, of course, because for a successful photo you must seize the moment, choose your statement, and go for it. Whereas I invariably look as though the statement I have chosen is ‘I am simple-minded. Please don’t mind me. Children are safe.’

  For this reason, book jackets depress me. I am amazed by the intensely serious faces adopted by authors on the backs of books. It is as though they have been subjected to some weird voodoo practice, where all the personality and humour has been pulled out in strings through their nostrils. Look at the pictures of the Booker shortlist people (the men, anyway) and you will see they seem to have memorized a list of permitted authorial qualities – a list that is unfortunately rather short. It goes: Brainy, Moody, Mad, Sincere, Sensitive, Anxious, Supercilious, Dangerous, Grumpy. On this list, you will observe, Harmless is notable by its absence.

  Evidently authors may choose three (not more) of these qualities and put them together in subtle combinations. Thus, taking a random selection from the bookshelves, one finds that the Ian McEwan of Black Dogs, say, has opted for brainy, anxious and mad; that Martin Amis, formerly brainy, supercilious and dangerous (London Fields), has now daringly regrouped as brainy, sincere and anxious (Time’s Arrow). And Nigel Williams (They Came from sw19) has achieved an amazing triple – of brainily sensitive, sincerely sensitive and sensitively grumpy.

  For women the range is smaller and doesn’t include Brainy. That’s just the way it is. Traditionally women could choose from Clever, Nice, Shiny, Well Made-up and Pet-owning, but usually said to hell with it and took the lot. To this list a few new elements have been added recently. For example, Jeanette Winterson (famously self-effacing author of Written on the Body) has added Challenging, Bloody-Minded and Eyes that Follow You Around the Room. Pictures of women authors sometimes have a verge-of-tears quality, reminiscent of Julia Margaret Cameron’s famous picture Despair, which was achieved by locking the juvenile sitter in a cupboard for a couple of hours beforehand. Jeanette Winterson does not look like someone recently emerged from a cupboard. She does, however, resemble a person who has just locked someone else in a cupboard, and put the key down the lav.

  Meanwhile, what do I do about the Andre Agassi man? If I don’t send a picture, he will smell a rat. Perhaps I should get a heap of coins and take residence in a Photo-Me booth for the afternoon, trying out statements. Think moody. Think mad. Think grumpy. But what I don’t understand is this. Given that the mad, brainy, sincere look is only a pretence, why not go for something a bit more dramatic? Such as Livid, Amnesiac, Paranoid, or Escaping from Wolves? Unfortunately I shall have to settle for Concussed by Bathroom Appliance. Which probably means that my photo won’t be appreciated very much, after all.

  A man friend who lives in California recently phoned me at great expense from a Santa Barbara call-box and asked me what clothes I had on. Not having read any fashionable American novels about sex-by-phone, I found this rather unsettling. It came out of the blue. I mean, we observed the usual preliminary greetings, such as ‘What time is it where you are?’ and ‘Have you seen The Player yet, isn’t it great?’ But we had barely touched on the elections and the earthquake forecasts before he posed this extraordinary question about my attire, leaving me all perplexed and wrong-footed.

  Was this a dirty phone-call, I thought, or was he simply concerned to conjure up an innocent mental picture of his faraway pal? Should I give him the benefit of the doubt? Playing for time (and angling for clues) I asked what he was wearing, but his answer didn’t help. Evidently his outfit consisted of a T-shirt and trousers, some trainers and a beany hat. ‘Sounds very nice,’ I said non-committally, wondering whether the beany hat was a code for something. Either way, I was still completely in the dark about whether to confess to the old grey army socks and the jumbo dungarees.

  Fran Lebowitz once said that the telephone is a good way to talk to people without having to offer them a drink. Personally, I see it as a good way of talking to people without having to dress up in a high-cut Kim Basinger costume, or apologize for your paltry wardrobe of seductive gear. In the end, I decided to ignore the overtones, and acted dumb. I said that actually my clothes were so thickly matted with cat-hair and household fluff that I could no longer identify them with any confidence. A smart evasion, which seemed to do the trick, because the subject turned to the Richter scale forthwith.

  I was more disturbed by this conversation than it really merited, perhaps. But I hold the telephone in reverence as an instrument of pure verbal communication, and I don’t like to see it messed about. Surely this is the only form of talk in which you can convince yourself that the other person is really engaged in a flow of words entirely undistracted by the extraneous. Which is precisely why it always comes as a shock to discover that for the past ten minutes the other person has been keeping a
n eye on Northern Exposure, or marking exams, fitting a new flea-collar on a resistant pet, or reading a funny bit from Tristram Shandy.

  Saying ‘Have I caught you at a bad time?’ does not eliminate this problem, I find.

  YOU: Have I caught you at a bad time?

  THEM: No, not at all. How are things? (Tap, tap, tap.)

  YOU: Are you sure you’re not busy?

  THEM: (Tap, tap, tap.) What?

  YOU: Listen, I’ll phone another time.

  THEM: No, really. This is lovely. (Tap, tap, tap.)

  YOU: Look, are you typing, or something?

  THEM: Just the radio play. (Tap, tap, tap.) The one about existential despair. (Tap, tap, tap.) I’m doing this big speech about the black void of silence and the sensation (tap, tap, tap) that nobody is listening, anywhere in the universe (tap, tap, tap) to anyone else. I don’t mind if you want to talk, though. (Tap, tap, tap.) It doesn’t bother me.

  YOU: I’m surprised you can write and talk at the same time.

  THEM: Perhaps you’re right. I’ll stop for a while. (Clank, clatter, tinkle.)

  YOU: What’s that?

  THEM: Nothing much. I thought I’d start dinner.

  The worst thing is when they don’t mention they have guests. You chatter away for twenty minutes or so, and then hear them whisper, ‘Go ahead without me. I think she just needed someone to talk to. Sorry.’ That’s the other illusion of the telephone, of course: that the other person is on their own, just as you are. There is a woman I know who answers the phone in your presence and signals at you to wait; and then she talks animatedly for thirty minutes without giving a single indication to the person on the other end that there is any reason not to. Meanwhile she pulls faces at you, mimes ‘nearly finished’ repeatedly, and makes exaggerated comic pleading gestures when you make embarrassed efforts to leave. Imagine how awkward one feels phoning her up, after witnessing all that.