Free With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed by Lynne Truss

to believe), or to other motorists (who thankfully could not respond). ‘Since when?’ was an evident favourite in Makepeace’s open-road repertoire (‘Basingstoke “four miles”? Oh yes?
Since when?’).
Osborne guessed rightly that this was a question that required no answer – or at least none that he was in any position to supply.
    So instead he turned his mind to the mystery of Angela Farmer, whose part in his downfall he was still agonizingly unable to place, despite the automatic writing he had seen on his notepad on Friday night. ‘Why didn’t you tell me who you were?’ it had said ominously, with a kind of low cello vibrato – reminding Osborne of something from a sensational nineteenth-century novel, along the lines of ‘Gone! And never called me mother,’ or, ‘But there is one thing no one has ever told you, my pretty; you are mad, quite mad.’ For a man who treasured the quietness and regularity of his life, and was convinced he had never paddled in the shallows of melodrama, this mystery was cause only for alarm. What a shame, he grimaced, that all the cup cakes had gone. Chocolate is always so helpful when a man wants to think.
    It was at this point, unfortunately, that Makepeace decided to get chatty. Thirty miles from Hyde Park Corner, he suddenly relaxed with an audible sigh. He leaned back in his seat, switched off the radio, lowered his speed and altered hisentire disposition. ‘So,’ he said, ‘tell me what you reckon to this Angela Farmer.’
    For a moment, Osborne was so surprised to find himself addressed that he glanced into the back of the van to find out who Makepeace was talking to, and received the full force of a handlebar just below his eye.
    ‘Ouch,’ he said. ‘Who, me?’
    ‘Mm. What angle are you going to take?’
    ‘I don’t know.’ Osborne hated being asked questions about his work; his answers always sounded so unconvincing. ‘I haven’t got one.’
    ‘Course you have.’ Makepeace apparently knew all about it. ‘You can’t do an interview without an
angle.’
    Osborne, a man who had never had an angle in his life, and wasn’t sure he would recognize one if it snuggled in beside him in the Fiesta, shrugged and consulted his notes, faintly hoping that a heading marked ‘Angle’ would appear miraculously at the top. It didn’t.
    ‘No. Really,’ he said. ‘I just thought I’d ask about the shed.’
    His friend laughed scornfully, as though he were pulling his leg.
    ‘You don’t mean that.’
    ‘I do.’
    Osborne felt he was being got at. Which of course he was.
    ‘All right, you do,’ conceded Makepeace. ‘But there must be some sort of idea of what you want her to say before you start, surely. I mean, what do you usually ask? Tell me how it goes.’
    Osborne sighed. He hated this.
    ‘Well, it varies from person to person,’ he said at last. ‘Sometimes they say do I want to see the shed on my own, and then talk about it indoors over a drink or something, which saves them the bother of coming out; and sometimes we go down together, which I prefer actually, because I find it leads to the best stories.’
    ‘Right.’ Makepeace noisily dropped a gear to overtake a dawdling 70 m.p.h. milk-tanker, his arm out of the window with a V-sign on the end, but nevertheless appeared still to be listening. Osborne continued.
    ‘And then we go and have a look at the shed. And I always double-check they haven’t reorganized it since the photographer came, because otherwise I might say in the piece that it’s a really neat and tidy shed and the picture shows it as a terrible mess, which makes me look stupid.’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘I mean, it’s bad enough when I describe them wearing gumboots, and the picture shows them in sandals.’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘I let them know that I’m familiar with their work, because that makes them relax.’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘And sometimes I take flowers, if it’s a woman.’
    ‘Right.’
    Makepeace was thoughtful. Osborne had