Going Loco by Lynne Truss Page B

Stanislavsky would have wept with joy. She suddenly remembered how huge Leon was – the man now perched awkwardly on her sofa was, like Leon himself, constructed on far too big a physical scale for her flat. His legs were twin telegraph poles. His shoulders under his leather jacket were like beach balls. She expected her furniture to crumple under his weight, like a child’s chair under a gorilla. She eyed a bowl of fruit on the coffee table, and prayed he wouldn’t peel himself a miniature banana.
    ‘Look, I know I wasn’t great,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve come to make it up to you. The truth is, I’ve been thinking about you all week long at Oshbosh, I couldn’t get you out of my mind.’
    Maggie pursed her lips. Yes, it was a good act. He looked like Leon and sounded like Leon, and even dressed like Leon. There was just one problem: this speech of devotion wasn’t remotely reminiscent of Leon’s personality.
    ‘Why don’t you say something?’ he asked. He grabbed the duty-free bag and produced a bottle of Cognac. ‘For you,’ he said.
    Maggie frowned as she took the bottle. When did shetell Noel about the Cognac? Leon had finished it off without asking, and said, ‘I’ll buy you another one.’ But she hadn’t remembered it until now.
    ‘Tell you what,’ she said at last, hardly able to look at him, ‘how about you go away and leave me alone?’
    He looked wounded. ‘Oh, come on, Maggie. I said I was sorry.’ He crossed his enormous legs and hugged his arms across his enormous chest. Was he wearing padding?
    ‘Hey, I can’t have been that bad.’
    ‘I mean you,’ she said firmly.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Just go,’ she said. Her histrionic gesture towards the door was somewhat undermined by the big red fluffy racing car she clutched to her chest, but she still meant it. ‘I’m flattered you should go to all this bother. But honestly, just go.’
    He gathered his things sullenly, hunching his shoulders protectively, like a bear who’d been smacked on the nose. He had to stay true to character, she supposed. She felt quite sorry for him.
    ‘Look, I’m off for a month of stuff,’ he said, as he gathered his things. ‘Boxing in Las Vegas, tennis in Germany, basketball in Sweden. Can I call you sometime? Or when I’m back? I’d really like to.’
    ‘I can’t stop you,’ said Maggie. Noel was a very cruel person, she was realizing. When you know how needy for affection a person is, you shouldn’t tease them this way.
    ‘Look, I really like you,’ he blurted. ‘I think I love you.’ He touched her arm.
    ‘Don’t.’
    He cupped his hand and moved it to her shoulder. Then he stroked her face. ‘You’re lovely,’ he said. ‘I never met anyone like you.’
    ‘Don’t,’ she whimpered.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because you don’t mean it.’
    ‘You’re very hard, Maggie. Come to Malmö in March.’
    ‘Oh please, stop it. How can they play basketball in Malmö in March? They’d slip over on the ice.’
    ‘Basketball is indoors, Maggie.’
    ‘Is it?’
    ‘Yes.’
    He left at last, and she watched him hail a taxi. ‘Wandsworth, the Arndale Centre,’ he told the driver, even though she knew Noel and Julia lived in the opposite direction, in Kennington. She admired his thoroughness, but was so pleased to see the back of him that when she returned indoors she fell straight asleep.
    ‘You’re putting on weight,’ observed Mother, that Sunday afternoon. ‘That’s no way to keep a husband, if you don’t mind me saying so. Don’t you want to watch
The Clothes Show
with us?’
    ‘No thanks,’ said Belinda. She’d been lying on her new couch reading a biography of Hans Christian Andersen and eating a Mars bar. A bag of mini Twixes was at her side. From outside, she could feel the reassuring tremble of the commuter trains as they thundered through the cutting at the end of the road. Her blanket was warm, and she was horizontal in the middle of the afternoon. She had never been happier in