The Trials and Tribulations of an Almost-40-Year-Old

Date: 12/16/2025

All the cats in the neighbourhood have broken in. Not wandered. Not casually drifted in. Broken in. This is organised crime. A coordinated feline siege. My living room is thick with fur and movement, bodies sliding along skirting boards, eyes glowing from corners. I swear they’re multiplying. One minute there are five, the next eight, then twelve, then one appears where I just looked, and I feel personally gaslit. I grab my trusty broom — because when your reality collapses, you reach for tradition — and charge. “Right,” I shout, voice already fraying. “Out. All of you. Shoo.” They scatter, dive, melt into shadows, then re-emerge calmly, defiantly, like I’m the one who’s overstayed. One cat watches me with the weary disappointment of someone who’s seen me try and fail before. “These bastard cats,” I mutter. Under the table, Monkey is quivering so violently the cutlery is rattling. He is the embodiment of his nickname: scaredy cat, capital letters, underlined. I scoop him up, whispering soothing nonsense, and nearly drop him. This isn’t my Monkey. This… is a catastrophe in fur.” The ginger tom in my arms is mangy. Fur clumped and matted like he’s been through a mangle, spat out, then blamed for it. His eyes are ancient. Accusing. “Who the hell are you?” I whisper. He blinks slowly, like he knows exactly who I am. I stagger to the door, attempting a mass eviction. Door wide open. Armful of cats. Authority voice on. “Outside. Now. Go on. Fuck off.” They stare back. One sits. Another licks itself. No one moves. Inside, the cupboards gape. Empty. Not a scrap of food left. Not even a rogue breadcrumb. Adulthood, it seems, has scurried spinelessly under the sofa, trailing fur and shame. Then — WHOOSH. Monkey rockets past me in a washing basket, powered — evidently — by the tumble dryer hose. Wind flattening his ears, joy etched all over his stupid little face, the hose rattles behind him like a deranged umbilical cord. The cats cheer him on, yowling and clapping their paws as he skids past, a blur of colour and plastic. “Okay” I sigh, folding instantly. “You can stay… but only until teatime.” The scene collapses. I’m walking hand in hand with Leonardo DiCaprio. That Leonardo DiCaprio. Hollywood Leo. Patron Saint of women who still get ID’d. He smiles deviously and steers me towards an alley. I’m flattered. Of course I am. I’m not dead. But something catches. “But…” I say. “I’m almost forty.” I watch it happen. The recalculation. The flicker of panic behind his eyes; almost forty. He pauses. Inhales deeply. “Ah fuck it,” he says. “I’ll make an exception.” We don’t even pretend to be subtle. We slam into a metal dustbin, which clangs beneath us in a steady, incriminating rhythm. It echoes down the alley. Cats scatter in all directions. One stops to look back, silently judging me. It’s thrilling. It’s humiliating. It’s loud. I think, briefly, well, this proves I’ve still got it. The next day proves otherwise. The headline screams: LEO DICAPRIO CAUGHT SHAGGING 40-YEAR-OLD WOMAN IN ALLEY There are photos. Too many. Octopus limbs. Trousers round ankles. My face frozen mid-orgasm. “I’m NOT forty,” I gasp in horror. “I’m thirty-nine.” The newspaper folds itself shut, as if embarrassed to know me. I’m sitting at a long table. Grandpa Mike has died. Not properly. Dream-dead. In real life he’s still alive and probably watching Bargain Hunt. But here, he’s gone, and there’s a box of heirlooms to distribute. Proper ones. Expensive ones. Things bought with enthusiasm and a frightening lack of foresight. Items are handed out. Gratitude murmured. Then it’s Mat’s turn. He’s given a box. Inside: a pair of snakeskin shoes. Mat lifts one. The sound is immediate. A dry, brittle rattle — crack, snap, hiss — like bones breaking under frost. The scales flake off in sheets, then in shards, then in dust, pattering and clattering across the floor like a tiny, despairing death orchestra. Dead sequins, tiny failures, each one landing with a sharp, final tap. They keep falling. And falling. His face collapses. Not dramatically. Just… deflation. The subtle sag of a man realising this is what he gets. This is the inheritance. This is the sum total. Regret flickers across his eyes — regret for wanting more, regret for expecting anything at all. “Eww,” I say, reflexively. Every head turns. “They’re lovely,” I backpedal. “Honestly. Very… breathable. I think they will really suit you.” I’m back at school-but-not-school. Natalie Cull sulks nearby. “They told me off for my bra,” she mutters. “I knew I should’ve worn a T-shirt.” She escapes through the window with impressive speed, abandoning me with Jamie Campbell — Campbell’s Meatballs — his greasy hands already on me, his breath carrying the unmistakable tang of gone off cat food. The kind you open once and then never quite recover from. “I need air,” I gag, wrenching myself free. Outside, Alex is crying. My Alex. Hunched, broken. “What’s wrong?” I ask, kneeling. “You lied,” he sobs. A newspaper flaps at his feet. I panic, thinking of Leo, of alleyways and disgrace. But it’s worse. There’s a missing dog splashed across the front page, its fluffy face unmistakable — Kylo, my friend Laura’s lovable toy poodle. And Alex’s accusing eyes make it horrifyingly clear: he thinks I’m responsible. “I would never,” I shout, genuinely horrified. “I would never do something like that. I love animals. I would never.” The words barely land before it happens. He turns into a baby. His face smooths, his limbs shrink, and suddenly he’s a baby, chocolate smeared around his mouth. I cling to him, savoring it. Small enough to love completely, I bury my nose in his neck, inhale that sweet, unrepeatable baby smell, and want to stay there forever. Time can wait. Then Kylo bounds up, alive, ecstatic. Relief crashes through me. Suddenly my arms feel impossibly light. Alex is gone. Gone. Panic punches my chest. I dart across the street, peering under cars, behind bins, through hedges, calling his name. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I grab a couple walking past. “Have you seen a baby?” I ask. “Chocolate around his face?” They look at me. Slowly. Coldly. Disapproving. The woman’s mouth tightens. The man avoids my eyes. No words are needed. What kind of mother loses a baby? Shame floods me. Thick and choking. Then I see it. A box. On a doorstep. Innocent, waiting. I open it. Alex is in there. Curled up, like a cat, fully grown. He unfurls himself and points at my feet. “Those shoes are hideous.” he laughs. I look down and see that I’m wearing the snakeskin shoes. All the scales, fully intact, sparkling in the light. And for the first time, I realise that maybe, just maybe, I’ve held onto more of myself than I thought — and, annoyingly, these shoes too.