Free Going Loco by Lynne Truss Page B

dizzy.
    ‘You must come to dinner tomorrow night, mustn’t she, Mr Johansson? I happen to know Belinda’s aiming to finish her chapter on Dostoevsky this week, and she’ll be so relieved to know she needn’t do anything.’
    ‘Poncy?’ Mother repeated. ‘
Così
isn’t poncy.’
    Linda waved it away. ‘May I call you Mother?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Well, this is very exciting. Do I need to change first, do you think? Or shall I come as I am?’
    Back in her flat, Maggie stroked Ariel and Miranda in the dark, and tried to imagine how she would tell Belinda what had happened. Belinda ought to be informed about a real-life case of doubles, surely? But, on the other hand, the vocabulary was so difficult. ‘I met a double’ would sound like she’d met her own double; ‘I met two doubles’ sounded like she’d met four people, possibly dressed in tennis whites, which was in no way a reflection of what had happened.
    If only she had a contact number for Leon! If only she had listened more carefully when he told her the details of his next indie-car yawnfest assignment in Oshbosh, Oklahoma. ‘Off to Oshbosh,’ said his note. ‘You were lovely. I want to see you again. Yours anally, L.’ She couldn’t possibly ask Jago about him: it was imperative that her friends never find out the calibre of person she allowed herself to sleep with. But, there again, Leon’s presence was desperately required, simply to prove to her bloody therapist that she hadn’t made him up.
    Olivia in
Twelfth Night,
she reflected, had had such an easy time of it by comparison. ‘Honestly, you look
exactly
like him,’ she had lamely told Noel, Julia’s husband, in the café, when he’d revived her. But he only nodded solemnly and exchanged professional tut-tut glances with Julia. He was a therapist too, naturally. Neither of them believed her. It was a nightmare. They wanted to know why she’d identified herself as Penelope Pitstop, but since neither of them had a sense of humour or had watched children’s television, it had been necessary to abandon the explanation.
    ‘Margaret won’t mind me telling you,’ Julia was informing Noel now. ‘We’ve been working for several months on a specific complex, relating to her feelings of invisibility. Her greatest fear – I think this is true, Margaret? – is of being publicly ignored and rejected by people who’ve been intimate with her. I think we agreed that of all humiliations this one utterly annihilates you, doesn’t it, Margaret?’
    Maggie nodded reluctantly, horrified that Julia should discuss this with somebody else. Julia lowered her voice. ‘We think it’s probably to do with her father.’
    Noel looked impressed by this discovery. ‘The father is so often the cause,’ he agreed. ‘And today that fear was projected on to me? Tch, I’m so sorry I hurt you that way, Margaret.’
    ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ insisted Maggie. ‘And it wasn’t anything to do with projecting. It’s just that you look
exactly
like the man I slept with last night. It was a case of mistaken identity, that’s all.’
    ‘I know,’ said Noel.
    ‘I know,’ echoed Julia, and automatically offered Maggie a packet of tissues from her bag. Likewise automatically, Maggie took one. She shoved it up the sleeve of her jumper.
    ‘You do,’ she insisted, and waggled her hands.
    ‘Yes, yes,’ said Noel, thoughtfully. ‘I’ll tell you what, Margaret. Can I call you Margaret?’
    ‘You already have.’
    ‘Well, Margaret.’ Noel rested his chin in his hands. ‘I’m struck by an idea here. It’s pretty revolutionary, I warn you. But why don’t we all work together on this? I happen to be an expert on therapeutic role-playing. For therapeutic purposes, and under the strictest ethical controls, I could take the role of this man, this – Leon?’
    ‘Yes, Leon.’
    ‘And – well, I’m just feeling my way here, of course – but I could be Leon and, um, well, recognize you. Why not takeadvantage of