A Certain Age. Lynne Truss

to say something to Mark.”

      [Laugh] “Is it a horse wanting to say hello?” I said.

      Mister Lister laughed, and Juliet looked so confused that I snatched another shot of her. It was a classic, actually. I’m going to blow it up and use it as a screensaver. Evidently not only was this assignment foisted on her, you see, but it turns out, if she hadn’t been here, she could have been at the Hyatt Regency in Portman Square gazing into the eyes of Jude Law over a cup of steaming Lapsang.

      But back with this message. “It’s a very practical message,” Mister Lister said. “Your dad is unusually straightforward, isn’t he?”

      [Cheerful, affectionate memory] “Yes, he is. I mean, he was.”

      “Well. He says, Marky, Marky, you’ve got a head like a sieve.”

      I shrugged and laughed. It was true. Good old Dad.

      “He says you forgot your dry-cleaning ticket for those combats of yours, didn’t you?”

      I rolled my eyes at Juliet. Tsk!

      “Well, he says luckily your mum will remember it in about ten minutes’ time, just before the shop closes, so you’ll still have your outfit for tonight.”

      They both looked at me for my reaction.

      “Ha!” I said.

      “So that message does mean something to you?” said Mister Lister. He seemed anxious, I don’t know why.

      [Not overwhelmed at all; as if it’s quite normal] “Oh yeah. Totally. Good old Dad.”

      Juliet seemed to think this wasn’t an adequate reaction. “Mark, are you saying that sounded like a message from your father WHO IS DEAD?”

      [A shrug; what of it?] “Yeah?”

      She looked completely astonished. She also had the rather worrying look of someone whose brain mechanism is suddenly whirring very, very quickly.

      “Any message for your father in return?” said Mister Lister.

      “Oh. Oh OK. Could you say thanks a bunch, Dad? Blimey, I’d be lost without those combats.”

       Scene Two: at home, at his computer, which hums. He’s looking at the pics

      What a brilliant tool Photoshop is. [Keypad and mouse noises] That’s a nice one. Hello, Mister Lister! Ooh, that’s a very nice mauve cardigan shot, if I say so myself. I’ll have that. [Tap. Mouse] And enlarge. [Tap. Mouse] Lovely. Of course, this is the point in the movie when the guy says, “Hold it! What’s this strange shining mark to the right of Mister Lister’s head? Jeepers, I’d better call an archbishop!” Whereas in fact there IS a spooky light area, obviously, in every single one of these shots, but if I just – [mouse clicks and scrolls] airbrush it – [more clicks] like this – [more clicks] and that – [more clicks] Hey presto. The telltale spooky shining mark has gone!

      I went to see Kippo straight after the job yesterday. Went back to the office and asked him to take me off the mediums. I mean, it’s not that I’m not interested. It was really nice hearing from my dad like that. I told Mum about it, and she said, well, if you get him again, could you please ask him what he did with the key to the coal-shed because we’ll have to break the door down sooner or later. No, the problem was working with Jules. She called me up when I was driving back and said, all urgently, “Look, Mark, we have to talk—” And the trouble was, I know her well enough to know where that was leading. I mean, nothing romantic, nothing like that. When our little thing finished a year or two ago, we agreed – well, we agreed we’d been lucky to get away with it, so leave it at that. It wasn’t as if our paths would ever cross professionally, what with me lurking round the Old Bailey with the other snappers doing my impersonation of a salmon leaping upstream, and her in hotel lobbies hypocritically sucking up to film idols. I don’t think either of us minded very much about splitting. We did quite suit each other, though. I mean, you know. For a woman, she’s not exactly deep.

      How we managed to keep it totally quiet I don’t know, but we did. Amazing. I mean, it was obvious yesterday that Kippo had no idea, for a start, and Kippo is the biggest gosser on the staff; it was him that first sussed the two-jacket ploy that old sports editor invented twenty years ago: leaving the spare jacket on the back of the chair mid-morning as if he’d just popped to the canteen for a packet of fruit gums, and then legging it to the Waldorf to meet that woman from the Football Association. Anyway, the point is, I couldn’t tell Kippo the real reason I didn’t want to do the job, could I? So I told him about my dad’s message and how it had turned out to be uncannily completely accurate.

      “You see?” I said. “I didn’t sign up to be a press photographer so that I could have supernatural experiences, Kippo. I did it for the cash and the chicks and the Saab and for the incredibly long lenses, and for a nickname ending in ‘o’.”

      Kippo thought about it. He didn’t look convinced. “Well, if your dead father is going to send you messages, Marko, it would be great for the piece.”

      [Groan] I’d been really hoping he wouldn’t say that. It was exactly what Jules had said when she phoned me up. People who work on newspapers always just want the STORY; it’s a bit depressing, if you ask me. “We can USE your dad, if he’s going to come through like this!” she said. “I could interview him from beyond the grave!” I could see her thinking, Broadsheet Stuck-up Feature Writer of the Year 2005, here I come.

      “Kippo!” I said.

      “I think you should do the two on Wednesday—”

      “TWO?” I said.

      “Do the two on Wednesday and see what happens, Marko. That dry-cleaning ticket thing was obviously just a way of convincing you that it was really him.”

      I didn’t say anything. It had never occurred to me that it wasn’t really Dad. Why on earth would Mister Lister pretend he had a message from my dad?

      “You got on well with your dad, didn’t you, Marko?”

      “Well, my dad got on with everybody. He was a nice bloke.”

      “You think everyone’s a nice bloke.”

      His phone rang.

      “Juliet Frampton isn’t,” I muttered, darkly.

      And he laughed and said, “Yeah, but that didn’t stop you banging her for two years twice a week at that flat in Broadwick Street, did it? No such thing as a secret, Marko. Hello, picture desk.”

       Scene Three: in the car again, but stationary with the windscreen wipers going