A Certain Age Read Online Free PDF

won’tbe able to talk to him about Mr and Mrs Bryan offering me the job of manageress; I’ll just have to go in to work tomorrow and say we talked about it, and Steve was all in favour but in the end I decided against it. [
Rehearsal
] We talked about it, Steve was all in favour. Oh come on, Steve! Come on. [
Opens tin
] I think I need a biscuit.
    Scene Two; petting zoo noises
    Well, it was a bit strange Steve not coming home at all last night, but I have to say, after the first three or four hours of worrying whether he’d been knocked down by a bus, or had forgotten his own name after a freak blow to the head, or the mice in the lab had finally ganged up on him and torn the living flesh from his bones with their sharp little teeth, I thought – possibly for the first time ever in my life – “There’s a logical explanation for all this” and switched on the TV. It was very odd. Mad with worry for a few hours, ringing the hospitals, chewing my nails, and then, well, curled up with
Changing Rooms.
Where did Jude the goose get to? [
Goose honk
] He always looks depressed, this goose. [
Honk
] There he is! [
She imitates the goose noise
] Hello, Quackers! [
Honk, honk
] I know, it’s terrible, poor you, eh? [
Honk
] Yes, yes. Poor Jude. Yes.
    I even got out the reviled tapestry last night. I had a drink. I thought, “You’re in shock, Henny. Go mad.” I fell asleep on the sofa eating crisps watching something called
Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
The thing is, I don’t know how I knew, but I did. I knew. He’s not coming back. When I finally rang the police this morning, they said, “About twelve hours? Just overnight, madam? Give it another twenty-four,” and instead of pleading with them to takeme seriously, I said something really peculiar, what did I say? Hang on. They said, wait another twenty-four hours, madam … [
Remembers
] And I said, [
cheerful
] “Right-oh.”
    Leaving the house was the most difficult thing about today. Every morning Steve and I leave the house together, you see, doing our checking in the kitchen: testing each appliance: taps off, cooker off, fridge shut, kettle unplugged; then door shut, light off, alarm set 1-9-7-6 (year we got married), double-lock the front door. Then we go in again. Taps off, cooker off, fridge shut, kettle unplugged; door shut, light off, alarm set 1-9-7-6, double-lock the front door. In again. Off, off, shut, unplugged; shut, off, 1-9-7-6, lock. Off, off, shut, unplugged, shut, off, 1-9-7-6, lock. We allow lots of time for this, because Steve’s a stickler, and if he gets outside and can’t remember whether the kettle was unplugged, we have to go back in and turn the alarm off and do it again, because he says he knows what I’m like, he doesn’t want me fretting about it all day, imagining the house burning down.
    So this morning, I didn’t know what to do, with Steve not here. I looked round the kitchen and everything was –well, it was off. I mean, it was obvious everything was off. You can tell from looking whether things are off! So I set the alarm and shut the front door and locked it, and got in the car. And then I heard Steve in my head say, was the fridge shut? I pictured it; it was definitely shut. I mean, I hadn’t tested it, pushed it, and said the word “Shut”. But I still knew it wasn’t open. So I started the car, and drove to work, and really didn’t think about it until I’d just got past that exhaust centre place called Life’s Little Ironies, and then I got this picture in my head [
fearful imaginings
] of Steve getting back from wherever he’s gone, recovered his memory after a second blow to the head, patchedthe living flesh back on his cheeks after vanquishing the mice, and he goes in the kitchen expecting everything to be safe and orderly – and the door to the fridge is open. [
The horror!
] In fact it’s swinging open and the food inside is all rotten and there’s a pool of water on the floor. “Henny, how could you let