Free Going Loco by Lynne Truss

happened in Sweden. And don’t get obsessed with the clone thing. Do you think Belinda knows she might be married to a clone?’
    ‘No.’
    Dermot looked up at Viv, who was suddenly standing next to him. If she had overheard, there was nothing he could do about it.
    ‘Don’t tell her.’
    ‘You’re right. I mean, for one thing I don’t want to alarm my oldest friend unnecessarily. And on top of that—’
    Dermot was there already. ‘She might get in first with a book deal?’
    ‘Exactly.’
    Mrs Holdsworth finished Hoovering her little patch of hall and tottered to the kitchen for her coat. She pocketed the money Belinda had left her with an aggressive swipe, as if she would just as happily trample it underfoot. It had been an unsettling afternoon. Three times she had tried Belinda with conversational gambits of such outstanding ingenuity that she’d had to have a sit-down afterwards. But even ‘Do you think Richard Branson is really the Antichrist?’ and ‘Whatever made anyone invent the scone?’ failed to find their mark. And then, to top it all, this woman in the light mac had unplugged her Hoover.
    In cleaning-lady terms, this was a direct challenge that cannot be overstated. It is the equivalent of the glove smacked across your face from right to left, and then from left to right.
    From her ground-floor office, Belinda listened as Mrs Holdsworth left. She felt half guilty and half excited by the idea of hurting her feelings. She loved the sense of danger. What if Mrs Holdsworth told her off?
    ‘I’ll be off, then, Belinda,’ the old woman called. ‘We’re out of Jif.’
    ‘Right. Many thanks.’
    ‘Back next week.’
    ‘Mm.’
    ‘Did you know the other woman took a key?’
    ‘That’s OK.’
    She heard the front door opened; felt the draught; heard traffic noise. Mrs H was evidently taking her time, deciding whether to pursue it. Then, with a muttered ‘Fuck it,’ the door was slammed, and Mrs H could faintly be heard coughing (‘God Almighty, Jesus wept’) at the garden gate.
    Stefan was not expecting to meet his mother-in-law Virginia lurking behind a denuded London plane tree as he walked from the bus along Armadale Road. It was six thirty and dark, which didn’t help. And since she no longer looked remotely like the woman he knew as Mother, he walked straight past her, consulting a little book and talking to himself. ‘Make it snappy or make tracks,’ she heard him saying. ‘You have made a hole in my pocket but I won’t make a song and dance. How do you make that out exactly? Ha! That makes you sit up, for sure.’
    ‘Stefan!’ she called. She had always liked Stefan, because he was big and handsome; and he had always liked her, too. Thereason they saw Mother so infrequently was only that Belinda was discouraged by criticism, and Mother, unfortunately, had no other mode of communication.
    He turned. ‘Let’s make a night of it, baby,’ he said. ‘Oh, hello, Virginia. Didn’t recognize you. Something up?’
    Mother’s permanently fixed expression of wide-eyed alarm often gave rise to this question. But on this occasion at least the context made it the right thing to say.
    ‘I had to see you,’ she said. ‘Who’s Linda? What’s going on?’
    Stefan’s eyes swivelled. ‘I don’t understand. Why are you out here in the street? Has there been dirty work at the crossroads?’
    Mother pursed her lips. Or, more accurately, she attempted to purse her lips but gave up.
    ‘Yes, I rather think there has,’ she said at last. ‘I wanted to invite Belinda to the opera tonight. This Linda refused to let me.’
    ‘Really? She sent you away from the door, like a dog in the night?’
    ‘I phoned. They wouldn’t let me in, Stefan.’ She pouted. ‘I’ve been out here in the cold. It was someone called Linda and she was very rude. Typical of Belinda to hire somebody who’d be rude to her mother.’
    At which point, as they approached the front door, Linda opened it and smiled at