Lynne Truss - Making the Cat Laugh

Reports of Mr Bobbitt’s operation tell us it was only partially successful. In other words, it is not the willy that it used to be . Enough said, I think. Much attention Stateside has focused on the advisability of women taking the law into their own hands, and on the disturbing idea that here, in the Bobbitt emasculation, is the most terrifying of all female revenges. But of course it isn’t, not by a long measure. A proper job would involve detailed pre-planning, and in particular the planting of a look-alike willy on a main road (a stand-in!), possibly next to a large sign with ‘I think this is what you’re looking for, officer’ written in large letters upon it. In the sweetest of all possible revenges, Mr Bobbitt would therefore emerge from his anaesthetic and say, ‘Funny, doesn’t look like mine,’ but cast such doubt immediately from his thoughts, as impossibly far-fetched.

Tattooed serial numbers would seem to be the answer, if any man is worried. But I doubt Mrs Bobbitt with her kitchen knife has started a trend, or anything. Most women are rightly repulsed by the idea of mutilation; if there is a nasty cackle of joy among certain feminists at the Bobbitt news, it’s just that there is something irresistibly hilarious at the idea of standing between a man and his willy, for however brief a span. I just hope the Hollywood Bobbitt films have thought of the Orlac angle. It would be a shame not to grab it up, rush it to the studios, and stitch it on sharpish. After all, it wouldn’t even matter if it didn’t quite fit.

‘Bob Dylan has been spotted looking at property in Crouch End …’ Scene: The well-furnished drawing-room of a large house in Crouch End, north London, one afternoon in August. Birds twitter in the garden beyond; a doorbell rings; a dog barks. From the hallway, a small shriek of surprise is followed by low murmurings of welcome. The door to the drawing-room opens briefly and an estate agent is heard to say, ‘Upstairs first, I think,’ before a woman, evidently distraught, rushes in, slams the door and grabs the telephone. She dials and waits, screwing up her face and tap-dancing on the parquet in anguish and impatience. Finally her call is answered by a man with a German accent.

WOMAN: Doctor Fiegelman? Thank God you’re there. It’s happening again.

DR FIEGELMAN ( on phone): Go on.

WOMAN (with strangled cry ): It’s Bob Dylan, doctor. He wants to buy the house.

DR F: Mein Gott, this is serious. Are you sitting down?

WOMAN: No.

DR F: I think you should sit down.

The woman miserably slides down the wall until she is sitting on the floor.

WOMAN ( whispering ): Done it.

DR F: Good. Now, taking your time, what exactly is it that makes you think Bob Dylan wants to buy your house in Crouch End?

WOMAN: The fact that he is currently upstairs with an estate agent investigating the airing cupboard!

DR F: I see. And when did this start?

WOMAN: The minute I opened the door.

DR F: Mm.

WOMAN: You’ve got to help me, doctor.

DR F: And I shall. But I thought we finished with all this after Al Pacino bought that old cooker-hood you advertised in Loot?

WOMAN ( faintly ): So did I.

DR F: I mean, Elizabeth Taylor never turned up for the hairdrier, did she?

WOMAN: No. Not after we worked on it for two months, five days a week, at £75 a go.

DR F: And you realized, in the end, that it wasn’t Warren Beatty who bought the pram?

WOMAN: It was – um, David Essex?

DR F: That’s right. Not Warren Beatty, but David Essex. That’s very good. You’ve been doing the breathing exercises?

WOMAN: Every day.

DR F: And how big is this Bob Dylan?

WOMAN: Quite small.

DR F: Thank God for that, at any rate.

Suddenly the door opens, and BOB DYLAN enters the room, carrying a tape-measure and wearing a puzzled expression. The WOMAN whispers hoarsely into the phone, ‘I’ll call you back,’ and hangs up. She scrambles to her feet, looking guilty .

WOMAN ( nervously ): Ha ha.

DYLAN smiles politely, strolls to the french window, looks at the view, shrugs, mumbles something appreciative, and exits. The WOMAN points wordlessly at his departing back, and then faints on the hearth-rug. Black-out, curtain.

Scene: The same, an hour later. MAN with briefcase, evidently returning from work, enters to find wife lying insensate on the best Persian. Thinking quickly, he hurls his briefcase at her recumbent form, and it bounces off her head.

MAN: Darling, speak to me!

WOMAN ( rubbing her bonce, indicating the briefcase ): Why did you do that?

MAN: I didn’t have a glass of water.

WOMAN: I see.

MAN: Why are you on the carpet? Not another of your delusions, poppet?

The WOMAN nods, reluctantly.

MAN ( sympathetically ): Not Michael Jackson offering to spay the cat again?

WOMAN: No. Bob Dylan, wanting to buy the house, for £310,000.

The MAN whistles through his teeth.

MAN: £310,000? Well that’s something. Good heavens, £310,000, it might almost cover the therapy. I mean, what did we get for the cooker-hood?

WOMAN: Five pounds. But –

MAN: I think we should go for it.

The doorbell rings. The MAN prepares to answer it. He re-enters, dumbfounded, with ELIZABETH TAYLOR at his side.

MISS TAYLOR ( for it is she): Sorry I’m late, I’ve come to collect the hairdrier.

As the curtain falls, the WOMAN collapses into her husband’s arms, and ROBERT DE NIRO enters whistling with a bucket and ladder, asking to use the tap. End.

The front-page headline of last Thursday’s East London Advertiser was rather alarming, especially for the sort of neurotic pet-owner who periodically grabs her cat by the shoulders and searches its furry, inscrutable face, saying with a choked voice, ‘You’ve got to tell me something. If I died, would you eat me?’

‘DEAD MAN “EATEN” IN GRUESOME CAT HORROR’ screamed the headline, thereby putting an end to all speculation. Of course I hoped it was a sensational joke – along the lines of the Weekly World News: ‘Bat With Human Face Found (He’s Smart As A Whip, Says Expert)’ – but I knew in my heart it was serious. Evidently, this poor chap in Shadwell died of a heart attack, and in the ensuing week his thirty cats – starving hungry, but with no money for Whiskas, and anyway congenitally hopeless with a tin-opener – perpetrated the gruesome cat horror which involved him being ‘eaten’. It doesn’t bear thinking about. Apparently he loved those cats. He thought they loved him back. So far as I could see, the only positive aspect to the story was that he was ‘eaten’ only in inverted commas.

I don’t usually see the East London Advertiser, but a kind friend sent me the cutting, thinking I ought to know. Possibly she recalled that my latest effort to tighten the bond with my own cats entails entertaining them each morning with spirited impersonations of the animals they are about to eat, which suddenly smacks of insane recklessness, given the Shadwell experience. ‘Now, what have we got here?’ I say excitedly, examining the tin. They give me a weary ironical look that says, ‘Go on, surprise us.’ ‘Rabbit!’ I raise the tin-opener, and their ears prick up, so I put it down again and they scan the ceiling for flies. ‘A rabbit goes like this,’ I say, assuming the goofy-teeth thing, and waggling my hands on top of my head, in semblance of floppy ears. They look at each other in despair. ‘How’s she going to do liver, that’s what I’d like to know?’