A Certain Age. Lynne Truss

to have missed his three-day deadline,” he said. And I said, [almost stunned; can’t believe her luck] “Yes, that’s my reward for going mad and buying a new biscuit tin.” Then I counted the cash, which was over three thousand pounds, and rang Mrs Bryan with the good news. She said I could start back tomorrow, and the job of manageress was still open if I wanted it. She also said the goats had missed me, which I think was her way of apologising for thinking I’d stabbed my husband to death.

      It said on the news, by the way, that the Danish woman hadn’t been kidnapped after all! The lovely Elsa had run off with her younger lover and hadn’t known how to mention it. The adulterous carefree pair were last seen, funnily enough, in Malaga.

       The Son

      MARK is a casual, laid-back and rather shallow character who takes everything in his stride. He has been a staff photographer on a newspaper for twenty years. He loves his car and is proud of all the equipment, but isn’t much bothered about his art.

       Scene One: driving. He’s humming while driving, and interrupts himself to comment on the traffic

      All right, mate, you go. No, YOU go. Right-o. [Hums. Reads sign] Bexleyheath, right. What’s the time? Oh. Cushti. Just me on this job today. No poncey lady feature writer saying, “Oh take no notice of Mark, he’s just the photographer.” No, this is more like it. Simple news desk job. [Happy sigh; contented with the normal routine of his life] Find house, ring doorbell, “Hello, Mr Watts, you’re some sort of news story I understand, no don’t bother telling me about it, I’m not remotely interested, yes, hello, Mrs Watts, well I wouldn’t say no, two sugars, can I move this lamp, is that a jaffa cake, ta very much, does that window open, can I use this socket, flash bang wallop, back in the car, laptop, mobile, bit of quick image manipulation, send, send, send, and back to me mum’s in Fulham in time for The Weakest Link.

      [Manoeuvring] Bexleyheath. [Remembering instructions] Left at the roundabout. [Manoeuvres] Straight on for three miles. [Sigh]

      So, not like yesterday, that’s what I’m saying. Yesterday was well weird. I said to Kip on the picture desk, “Kippo, mate, you know me, I’m not into the arty stuff. I didn’t sign up for that. I’m more of what you might call an all-rounder, only with a particular aptitude for prison vans. That’s right, I’m a legend outside the law courts. The only snapper who can ALWAYS get a shot through the window of a moving black maria. And that’s not fluke. David Beckham practises free kicks round the wall. I practise black maria technique. You’ve got to jump EXACTLY the right height, see, at EXACTLY the right moment, holding the camera above your head at EXACTLY the right angle.” Kippo looks at me. “Straight up?” he says. And I say, [confidential, as if giving away his secret] “Well, yeah, fairly straight up, but with a crucial last-minute kick in the direction of travel.”

      “Well, doing a few portraits won’t kill you,” he said. [Kippo doesn’t understand it himself] “Seven mediums,” he said. “It’s for the magazine. Juliet Frampton’s doing seven interviews, and they want a pic for each one. Hang on, I’ll ring the mag.” He reached for the phone while I just stood there, rolling my eyes and hoping he’d suddenly think of someone better suited to the job. “David?” he said. “Jimmy Kipling, picture desk. These seven mediums of Juliet’s. Yeah, I got your list of addresses. Yeah, got a great bloke here. Mark King, you know him? Good. You’ll have seen loads of his stuff, he’s been on the paper for, what?” [He’s asking Mark; Mark has to think about it; a bit astonished] “Twenty years,” I said. “Twenty-five years,” he said. “What? [Lying] Yeah, Marko’s VERY sensitive, yeah. Very. Very, what’s the word – [a prompt from the mag man] what? Oh yes, that’s right, intuitive, yes. And if you need any specialist jumping done at the same time, incidentally, he’s your man. Anyway, just one question. This word mediums. Shouldn’t that be media? Oh. Coz I’ve been trying to visualise. What’s a medium then? Oh. Oh, I see, I’ll call you back, then, cheers.” He turns to me. “Er, Marko, you’re going to do seven very sensitive and intuitive portrait photographs of psychics. In between your normal jobs, of course. And the first one’s this afternoon in Hackney.”

      I gave him one of my looks. Although I don’t know why I bothered because my looks have never had an effect on anyone. At home, when I was little, I’d do one of my looks and everyone else would laugh like drains. [A happy memory; he loved his dad] My dad used to fall off his chair, the bastard. “Jill’d be good for this, Kippo,” I said. “Or even the Giant Padster, if you can spare him from Cheltenham. I mean, seen one photo finish, you’ve seen ’em all.” Kippo looked at the list. “Tell you what, one of these is in Middlesbrough next Tuesday. You could catch the Lazio second-leg at the Riverside. Johnners could get you in. He might even get you an armband.” Well, that was a bit of a decider. “I’ll pack a warm jacket,” I said. “Good man,” said Kippo. “Good man.”

      [More driving required, slowing down] Hang on, left here. Sutherland Road. That’s it. Should be down on the right. [Reading house numbers] Sixty-eight. Ninety. Hundred and six. Hundred and ten. Hundred and twenty. [Stops the car] Here we are, then. Number one-four-four. And what’s the time? Twenty past? Great. [Switches off engine] Oof. I’ve even got a few minutes to spare.

      So anyway, off I went to Hackney yesterday afternoon, to meet Juliet and our first medium, who was this very unassuming old bloke in a nice cardigan, and I whispered to Juliet as we looked round, “Not a lot of cash in this psychic malarkey, then?”, which she ignored because she’s a bit stuck-up, being a) from Features, b) married to Brian Frampton, the deputy editor, and c) runner-up in 1997 for Broadsheet Stuck-up Feature Writer of the Year. Anyway, the bloke’s name was Lister. Mister Lister. He made us a cup of coffee and he was obviously quite nervous, coz his hands were shaking, but Juliet didn’t notice. What she did notice straight away, however, was that the poor old geezer couldn’t get the hang of who was in charge between us. He kept saying things like, “And would the, er, lady like sugar?” and all the while addressing me instead of her, even though I made a big show of deferring to Juliet. “Oh, Juliet’s the boss,” I kept saying. “She’s the words and I’m just the pictures.” In the end, she said, rather pointedly, “Would it be all right for Mark to scout for a good place for the photographs?” And Mister Lister looked confused but said all right.

      It was a sad old house, really. Old bloke on his own. It felt like he’d been on his own for about thirty years. Pictures of his wife on the walls, the last dating from around 1970. Framed drawings in pastel of Arabs and Chinese – it all felt quite normal to me, to be honest, coz there was quite a bit of spiritualism in my dad’s family; my granddad had a spirit guide called Abdul and my Auntie Madge had one called Mister Chin. In fact, Mister Lister had a framed cartoon at the top of the stairs that would have amused that lot. There was this medium gazing into a crystal ball and saying, [he’s amused by this] “Well, Mr So-and-so, I’m afraid I can’t contact your late aunt, but there’s a horse here who’d like to say hello.”

      [The thing is, Mark IS intuitive; he just doesn’t know it] This bloke Mister Lister could have been my granddad. His house had the same smell, you know, of old lino and hard cheese, and wet wool and calamine lotion. I took a dozen shots or so, and then [he shivers] I suddenly thought, “I hope this feature isn’t going to be one of Juliet Frampton’s famous chainsaw massacres, coz he doesn’t deserve that.” So I went back downstairs and knocked lightly on the open door to the living room and found Juliet and Mister Lister both looking a bit – well, uncomfortable. I sensed at once there had not been a meeting of minds.

      “So would you let me say it’s about being OPEN?” she said, with pen poised above notebook. He winced and shook his head. Evidently she was pressing Mister Lister to unlock the secret of his craft, and he wasn’t having any of it.

      I took a couple of discreet shots from the doorway, and Mister Lister looked up. [Relief] “Oh, but here’s our friend back at last! Young man, I’ve got a message for you!”

      [Beat]