Going Loco. Lynne Truss

       One

      Since being the heroine of her own life was never quite to be Belinda’s fate, we may as well begin with Neville. Belinda was a real person, while Neville was an imaginary rat with acrobatic skills; but since he inhabited the pit of her stomach, their destinies were inextricable. Since Christmas, at least, they had started each day together, and if either performed an action independently – well, neither knew nor cared. Belinda would wake, and at the first choke of anxiety concerning the day to come, Neville commenced preliminary tumbling. Belinda clutched her throat; Neville donned a body stocking and tested his trampoline. It was pretty alarming sometimes, a bit too vivid, especially for someone who had never been particularly drawn to the romance of the Big Top. But she had no control over it. By the time Belinda was dressed and committed to the beat-the-clock panic that seemed to have become her waking life, Neville was juggling flaming brands on a unicycle and calling authentic acrobat noises such as ‘Hup!’ and ‘Hip!’ and ‘Hi-yup!’

      Belinda did once mention Neville to Stefan, but since her husband’s own alimentary canal had never been domicile to a rat in spangles, he didn’t know how to react. Being a clever Swedish person, he was eager to learn new idioms, new English phrases, which was why Belinda sometimes gambled that he might understand something emotionally foreign to him as well. But when Belinda complained, ‘And now I’ve got a rat in my stomach,’ he had merely looked up from his book, sighed a bit, and turned down the volume on Abba: Gold.

      ‘A rat?’ he queried. ‘This is a turned-up book.’

      ‘Mm,’ she agreed.

      They listened to Abba for a bit. Stefan mouthed the words. Perhaps under the influence of the song, Belinda found herself staring at the ceiling, wishing she were somewhere else instead.

      His scientific mind slid into gear. ‘What sort of rat? Rattus norwegicus?’

      ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. No, the name Neville had no ring of Scandinavia. ‘He’s more of an acrobatic rat. In tights. With a high wire and parasol.’

      Stefan gave her one of his steady, serious smiles; she broke the gaze, as always, by pulling a silly face, because its intensity scared her.

      ‘You’re working too hard,’ he said, quietly. ‘Jack is a dull boy, I think.’

      ‘I know, I know. Of course I am. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.’

      ‘So why do you invent a rat? Why not say, “Stefan, my old Dutch, help. I’m working my trousers to the bone, but I just can’t beat the clock”?’

      Belinda pouted. ‘I don’t think I did invent him. I can feel him doing back-flips.’

      Abba started singing ‘The Name of the Game’. Stefan turned up the volume again.

      At which point Neville walked on his front paws through her intestinal tract, gripping a beach-ball between his back feet.

      ‘Ta-da!’ he cried.

      A couple of things need to be made clear about Belinda Johansson. First, she was not Swedish (obviously). Second, she was under the rather hilarious illusion that she had a hard life, when in fact she had an enviable existence as a freelance literary critic and creative writer in some demand, living in one of the better bits of South London. And third, if she saw an abandoned sock on the bathroom floor, she would glare at it defensively rather than pick it up and sling it into a laundry bag.

      This last tendency may not sound too bad, but as any slattern can attest, neglected balled-up socks have a talent for embodying reproach. ‘I’m still here,’ the sock will tell you, in an irritating sing-song tone, on your next five visits to the bathroom. ‘I’m going crusty now. And I believe I missed the wash on Sunday morning.’ Belinda’s healthy intelligence would not allow

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