The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole

by Unknown

  Drunken youths covered in ‘crazy foam’ and factory girls wearing tinsel garlands paraded around the town singing carols. Jesus would have turned in his tomb.

  At 5.25 I had a panic attack and left the queue and rushed into Marks and Spencer’s to buy something.

  I was temporarily deranged. A voice inside my head kept saying: ‘Only five minutes before the shops shut. Buy! Buy! Buy!’

  The shop was full of sweating men buying women’s underwear. At 5.29 I came to my senses, and went back to bus stop. Just in time to see the bus leaving. I got home at 6.15 after buying a packet of fairy lights from Cherry’s shop which is just around the corner from our house.

  My mother has made the lounge look especially nice (she’d even dusted the skirting board) and when the new fairy lights were switched on, and the fruit arranged, and the holly stuck up etc, it looked like a room on a Christmas card. Me and my mother had a quick drink before Bert arrived in an Age Concern car, driven by a kind volunteer.

  We settled him in front of the telly with a beetroot sandwich and a bottle of brown ale, and we went into the kitchen to start the mincepies and trifles.

  1 a.m. Just got back from the Midnight Service. It was very moving (even for an atheist), though I think it was a mistake to have a live donkey in the church.

  2 a.m. Just remembered, forgot to buy nutcrackers.

  SATURDAY DECEMBER 25TH

  Christmas Day

  Got up at 7.30.

  Had a wash and a shave, cleaned teeth, squeezed spots then went downstairs and put kettle on. I don’t know what’s happened to Christmas Day lately, but something has. It’s just not the same as it used to be when I was a kid. My mother fed and cleaned Rosie, and I did the same to Bert. Then we went into the lounge and opened our presents. I was dead disappointed when I saw the shape of my present. I could tell at a glance that it didn’t contain a single microchip. OK a sheepskin coat is warm but there’s nothing you can do with it, except wear it.

  In fact after only two hours of wearing it, I got bored and took it off. However, my mother was ecstatic about her egg-timer; she said, ‘Wow, another one for my collection.’ Rosie ignored the chocolate Santa I bought her. That’s 79 pence wasted! This is what I got:

  3/4 length sheepskin coat (out of Littlewoods catalogue) Beano annual (a sad disappointment, this year’s is very childish)

  Slippers (like Michael Caine wears, although not many people know that)

  Swiss army knife (my father is hoping I’ll go out into the fresh air and use it)

  Tin of humbugs (supposedly from the dog)

  Knitted balaclava helmet (from Grandma Mole. Yuk! Yuk!)

  Boys’ Book of Sport (from Grandma Sugden:

  Stanley Matthews on cover)

  I was glad when Auntie Susan and her friend Gloria turned up; at 11 o’clock. Their talk is very metropolitan and daring; and Gloria is dead glamorous and sexy. She wears frilly dresses, and lacy tights, and high heels. And she’s got an itsy-bitsy voice that makes my stomach go soft. Why she’s friends with Auntie Susan, who is a prison warder, smokes Panama cigars and has got hairy fingers, I’ll never know.

  The turkey was OK. But would have been better if the giblets and the plastic bag had been removed before cooking. Bert made chauvinist remarks during the carving. He leered at Gloria’s cleavage and said, ‘Give me a nice piece of breast.’ Gloria wasn’t a bit shocked, but I went dead red, and pretended that I’d dropped my cracker under the table.

  When my mother asked me which part of the turkey I wanted, I said, ‘A wing please!’ I really wanted breast, leg or thigh. But wing was the only part of the bird without sexual connotations. Rosie had a few spoons of mashed potato and gravy. Her table manners are disgusting, even worse than Bert’s.

  I was given a glass of Bull’s Blood wine and felt dead sensual. I talked brilliantly and with consummate wit for an hour, but then my mother told me to leave the table, saying, ‘One sniff of the barmaid’s apron and his mouth runs away with him.’

  The Queen didn’t look very happy when she was giving her speech. Perhaps she got lousy Christmas presents this year, like me. Bert and Auntie Susan had a disagreement about the Royal Family. Bert said he would ‘move the whole lot of ’em into council houses in Liverpool’.

  Gloria said, ‘Oh Bert, that’s a bit drastic. Milton Keynes would be more suitable. They’re not used to roughing it, you know.’

  In the evening I went round to see Grandma and my father. Grandma forced me to eat four mincepies, and asked me why I wasn’t wearing my new balaclava helmet. My father didn’t say anything; he was dead drunk in an armchair.

  SUNDAY DECEMBER 26TH

  First after Christmas

  Pandora and I exchanged presents in a candlelit ceremony in my bedroom. I put the solid gold chain round her neck, and she put a 70% wool, 10% cashmere, 20% acrylic scarf round my neck.

  A cashmere scarf at fifteen!

  I’ll make sure the label can be seen by the public at all times.

  Pandora went barmy about the solid gold chain. She kept looking at herself in the mirror, she said, ‘Thank you, darling, but how on earth can you afford solid gold? It must have cost you at least a hundred pounds!’

  I didn’t tell her that Woolworth’s were selling them cheap at two pounds a go.

  MONDAY DECEMBER 27TH

  Boxing Day, Holiday (UK except Scotland).

  Holiday (Canada). Bank Holiday (Scotland).

  Holiday (Rep. of Ireland)

  Just had a note handed to me from a kid riding a new BMX.

  Dear heart,

  I’m awfully sorry but I will have to cancel our trip to the cinema to see ET.

  I woke up this morning with an ugly disfiguring rash around my neck.

  Yours sincerely,

  Pandora

  P.S. I am allergic to non-precious metal.

  TUESDAY DECEMBER 28TH

  Walked up and down the High Street in my sheepskin coat and cashmere scarf. Saw Nigel in his new leather trousers posing at the traffic lights. He suggested we go to his house to ‘talk’. I agreed. On the way he told me that he was trying to decide which sort of sexuality to opt for: homo, bi or hetero. I asked him which he felt more comfortable with. He said, ‘All three, Moley.’ Nigel could never make up his mind.

  He showed me his presents. He had: a multi gym, Adidas football boots, a Mary Quant make-up hamper and a unisex jogging suit.

  WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 29TH

  Danny Thompson has turned into a Rasta. I met him when I was walking up and down the High Street this morning. He asked me if I could play a musical instrument. I said, ‘No.’

  He said, ‘Too bad, man, I needs a bass player real quick.’

  I said I was surprised that a reggae band should need a double bass.

  He did fancy hand-clapping and laughed and said, ‘Bass guitar, what give out de rhythm.’

  I said that my only contribution to the band could be as a lyricist.

  He suggested I try writing a few songs and submitting them to the brothers. Then he gave me a complicated handshake and went off down the street with a springy step and with his blond plaits bobbing up and down.

  THURSDAY DECEMBER 30TH

  Full Moon

  Me, Mum, Rosie, Auntie Susan and Gloria went to Bridgegate Park today. Bert doesn’t like fresh air so he stayed at home with the dogs and leftover Christmas food. We walked four boring miles. I walked behind Gloria so that I could watch her bum and legs properly. Auntie Susan and Gloria are going back to Holloway prison tonight. They will be sadly missed, they are so gay and vital. Bert is going back to his council bungalow. He will not be missed. He watches I TV all day and won’t let anybody else hold Rosie.

  FRIDAY DECEMBER 31ST

  Bert has asked if he can stay on until New Year’s Day. He said he can’t face seeing the New Year in with only a Voluntary Social Worker’s company. My mother agreed but she took me into the kitchen and whispered, ‘Look, Bert’s not living here for ever, Adrian.
I can’t look after a small baby and a geriatric at the same time!’

  At eleven o’clock my father rang up to wish us all a Happy New Year. My mother’s face went a bit blotchy and soft, and she invited him round for a drink.

  At 11.15 rat fink Lucas rang from Sheffield, whining on about the fact that he was alone with a bottle of ‘Johnnie Walker’. My mother said, ‘How appalling! You should have bought a decent brand - after all, it is New Year’s Eve.’

  She looks dead nice again now that her figure is nearly back to normal. In fact after the phone calls she looked her old cocky self. My father crossed our doorstep at one minute to twelve, with a packet of ‘Zip’ firelighters (the nearest he could get to coal). Then, when the Scottish people on the telly went berserk at midnight, we all stood around Bert’s wheelchair, holding hands and singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Then we talked about Queenie and Stick Insect and said things like, ‘Well I wonder what 1983 will bring us?’

  Personally, nothing would surprise me any more. If my father announced that he was really a Russian agent or my mother ran away with a circus knife thrower, I wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.

  Pandora rang at 1 a.m. to say ‘Happy New Year’. The Braithwaites’ party sounded good. I wished I’d gone instead of being kind and staying at home. Went to bed rigid with fear. 1983 is my O level year.

  winter

  SATURDAY JANUARY 1ST 1983

  New Year’s Day

  These are my New Year’s resolutions:

  1. I will revise for my 0 levels at least two hours a night.

  2 I will stop using my mother’s Buff-Puff to clean the bath.

  3. I will buy a suede brush for my coat.

  4. I will stop thinking erotic thoughts during school hours.

  5. I will oil my bike once a week.

  6. I will try to like Bert Baxter again.

  7. I will pay my library fines (88 pence) and rejoin the library.

  8. I will get my mother and father together again.

  9. I will cancel the Beano.

  SUNDAY JANUARY 2ND

  Took stock of my appearance today. I have only grown a couple of inches in the last year, so I must reconcile myself to the fact that I will be one of those people who never get a good view in the cinema.

  My skin is completely disfigured, my ears stick out and my hair has got three partings and won’t look fashionable whichever way I comb it.

  MONDAY JANUARY 3RD

  Negotiations are going on between my parents for a return to their married state. My mother said, ‘But how can it ever work, Adrian? There is so much to forget.’ I suggested hypnosis.

  TUESDAY JANUARY 4TH

  More negotiations behind closed doors. As he left, I asked my father for a report on the meeting. He said, ‘No com-ment!’ and got in his car.

  WEDNESDAY JANUARY 5TH

  Negotiations have broken down.

  I heard the sugar bowl crashing to the kitchen floor then raised voices. Then the door slamming.

  THURSDAY JANUARY 6TH

  A message was passed to an intermediary (me) that fresh negotiations would be welcomed. The message was passed on and the response was favourable, so it was left to me to arrange time, venue and baby-sitting details.

  FRIDAY JANUARY 7TH

  The meeting took place in a Chinese restaurant at 8 p.m. Negotiations went on throughout the evening and were only adjourned when one party returned home to feed the baby.

  SATURDAY JANUARY 8TH

  Both parties have issued the following bulletin:

  It is agreed that Pauline Monica Mole and George Alfred Mole will attempt to live in mutual harmony for a trial period of one month. If during that time Pauline Monica Mole, hereafter known as P.M.M., and George Alfred Mole, hereafter known as G.A.M., break the following agreement, then the agreement shall be declared null and void, and divorce proceedings will automatically follow.

  The Agreement

  G.A.M. SHALL CHEERFULLY AND WITHOUT NAGGING OR REMINDING DO HIS RIGHTFUL SHARE OF HOUSEHOLD TASKS.

  P.M.M. SHALL KEEP HER SIDE OF THE BEDROOM IN A HYGIENIC AND PRESENTABLE CONDITION.

  BOTH PARTIES TO GO TO THE PUB AT SUNDAY LUNCHTIMES.

  THE CHILDREN OF THE MARRIAGE, ADRIAN AND ROSIE MOLE, TO BE GIVEN FAIR AND EQUAL ATTENTION FROM BOTH PARENTS.

  FINANCIAL MATTERS TO BE DISCUSSED EACH FRIDAY NIGHT AT 7 P.M.

  A SEPARATE BANK ACCOUNT TO BE OPENED FOR P.M.M.

  NEITHER PARTY TO INDULGE IN FLIRTATION, SEDUCTION OR ADULTERY WITH THE OPPOSITE SEX WITHOUT THE FULL KNOWLEDGE, OR CONSENT, OF THE OTHER PARTY.

  P.M.M. TO REPLACE CAP ON TOOTHPASTE AFTER USE.

  G.A.M. TO WASH OWN HANDKERCHIEFS.

  BOTH PARTIES TO HAVE UNLIMITED FREEDOM FOR THE PURSUIT OF HOBBIES, POLITICAL INTERESTS, DEMONSTRATIONS, AND SOCIAL INTERCOURSE OUTSIDE THE HOME.

  G.A.M. TO THROW BOTH PAIRS OF CAVALRY TWILL TROUSERS AWAY.

  P.M.M. WILL NOT CONSTANTLY HARP ON DOREEN SLATER EPISODE. G.A.M. WILL NOT DO THE SAME RE: LUCAS EPISODE.

  Signed on this day the 8th January 1983

  Pauline Mole

  George Mole

  A. Mole, 1st Witness

  Rosie Mole, 2nd Witness. Her mark. X

  SUNDAY JANUARY 9TH

  My father burnt his cavalry twills in the back garden today. As he poked the gobs of burning doth he said, ‘Well, it’s the straight and narrow for me from now on.’ I don’t know whether he meant his life or his trousers.

  MONDAY JANUARY 10TH

  Lousy stinking school started today. Everybody was flashing their new calculators around. My sheepskin caused a bit of a stir wherever it went - and it went everywhere. It is far too valuable to leave in the cloakroom. Pandora and I held hands in assembly. But were spotted by Mr Scruton. He said, ‘Keep your silly adolescent courtship rituals to outside school hours.’ Pandora was still upset at break, but I comforted her in the Boys’ toilets, by explaining that Mr Scruton was probably impotent, and it enraged him to see young lovers who were brimming with Eastern promise.

  TUESDAY JANUARY 11TH

  Saw Roy Hattersley on the television tonight. He is putting weight on. He ought to go on a diet in case there’s a General Election. The viewers don’t like fat politicians. Look what happened to Churchill after the war. He was slung out because he got too fat. I know all this because we had a film of the Second World War in History today. I might be a historian if my memory improves.

  WEDNESDAY JANUARY 12TH

  Nigel has formed a Gay Club at school. He is the only member so far, but it will be interesting to see who else joins. I noticed Brain Box Henderson hovering around the poster looking worried.

  THURSDAY JANUARY 13TH

  Mr Scruton has ordered the closure of the Gay Club, saying that he and the school governors couldn’t sanction the use of the school gym for ‘immoral pur-poses’. Nigel pretended to be innocent. He said, ‘But, sir, the Gay Club is for pupils who want to be frisky, frolicsome, lively, playful, sportive, vivacious or game-some during the dinner break. What is immoral about gaiety?’

  Mr Scruton said, ‘Nigel, the word “Gay” has changed its meaning over the past years. It now means something quite different.’

  Nigel said, ‘What does it mean, sir?’

  Scruton started sweating and messing about with his pipe, and not answering, so Nigel let him off the hook by saying: ‘Sorry, sir, I can see that I will have to get an up-to-date dictionary!’

  FRIDAY JANUARY 14TH

  Must go and see how Bert is getting on. God! I wish I’d never got involved with him; he is like an Ancient Mariner around my neck.

  SATURDAY JANUARY 15TH

  There is a new joke craze sweeping the school. In my opinion these so-called jokes are puerile. I watch in amazement as my fellow pupils roll helplessly in the corridors with tears of laughter coursing down their cheeks after relating them to each other.

  Q. What do you call a man with a seagull on his head?

  A. Cliff.

  Q. What do you call
a man with a shovel in his head?

  A. Doug.

  Q. What do you call a man without a shovel in his head?

  A. Douglas.

  Q. What do you call an Irishman who’s been buried for fifty years?

  A. Pete.

  Q. What do you call a man with fifty rabbits up his bum?

  A. Warren.

  Come back, Oscar Wilde. Your country needs you.

  SUNDAY JANUARY 16TH

  6 p.m. My father put on his new straight-legged jeans today. He looks dead stupid in them. Talk about mutton dressed as lamb. He looks like stewing steak dressed as ‘Flash Fry’.

  I had to look after Rosie while my parents swanned down to the pub. I was also in charge of the pork and roast potatoes, and switching on the greens. I fed Rosie OK but it took ages to get her wind up. I patted her back for ages but it wasn’t until I turned her upside down that she burped. I pretended not to notice that her nappy needed changing and acted surprised when my mother pointed out that there was a yukky smell in the room.

  10 p.m. Now I come to a difficult entry. How exactly do I feel about my father’s return home? It’s been a week now and I’ve had plenty of time to think about it, but they’ve had these reconciliations before and they’ve ended in tragedy. So, I think I’ll reserve my judgement until the slopping has stopped and they are back to normal.

  1215 a.m. Why didn’t I go and see Bert? Why are you such a rat fink, Mole?

  MONDAY JANUARY 17TH

  Breakfast telly started today. I got up at 5.45 a.m. so I wouldn’t miss history in the making. I made breakfast for me and the dog, and took it into the lounge. Normally cornflakes are banned from the lounge, on account of the odd one falling out of the bowl and sticking to the carpet, but I felt sure my mother wouldn’t mind on this special occasion.

  The dog fouled things up a bit by trampling into its bowl and scattering Pedigree Chum and Winalot into the shag pile. But I scraped the worst of the mess up with an empty fag packet, and we settled down to wait for 6.30. At 6.25 I woke my parents up by shouting loudly up the stairs that Breakfast Television was starting. My father shouted loudly down the stairs that he didn’t want to see bloody Frank Bough at 6.30 a.m. in the morning, and that he’d break my neck if I didn’t turn the volume down.