by Sue Townsend
The airport was ill-lit and a bit chaotic, especially when it came to collecting luggage. Nearly everybody had brought Marks & Spencer’s luggage so quite a few arguments ensued and suitcases had to be opened on the floor, and underwear examined before the rightful owners managed to sort out the ‘Y’ fronts from the silk culottes.
A big blonde woman stood in a gloomy corner of the arrival lounge, holding a placard saying ‘Intourist’. Five hundred people milled around her asking her questions.
Mr Braithwaite was bleating, ‘I’m here to study milk distribution; my name is Ivan Braithwaite; am I in the right place?’ The big blonde woman threw her placard down, clapped her hands and yelled, ‘All you foreigners are to be quiet. I am thinking I am in Moscow Zoo. Now you are to sit on your suitcases and wait.’
We waited and waited, more light bulbs went out and then in the gathering gloom four people arrived holding placards. One said, ‘Siberia’, one said ‘Moscow’. Another one said ‘Milk’. Mr Braithwaite and I stood by the ‘Milk’ placard and were eventually joined by two’ German dairy farmers, three retired English milkmen and a dyslexic American family who thought the sign said ‘Minsk’. We were invited aboard a coach and our guide gave us a commentary on the Moscow suburbs we were passing through. The dyslexic American daughter peered out of the window and said, ‘Gross … where’s the shops for chrissake?’ Her mother said, ‘Honey we’re in the suburbs, the shops are downtown.’ No shops could be seen, although one of the English ex-milkmen spotted a dairy and applauded, which made our guide smile for the first time.
The hotel we stopped in was monolithic and swarming with every nationality on earth. Our guide screamed above the babble of languages, ‘Be patient please while I am wrestling with your room keys. If I am lost for ever you must ask for Rosa. It is not my name but it will do. My name in Russian is too difficult for your clumsy tongues.’ I fell asleep on the marble floor and woke hours later to the sound of a heavy metal key jangling in my ear.
Having checked the room for hidden microphones, I got into bed in my underwear because my grandma had warned me that secret television cameras were behind every mirror and I did not like the thought of my English genitals being mocked by unseen viewers. Mr Braithwaite fell instantly asleep in the bed next to me but I lay awake for hours listening to the trams outside the hotel and composing a poem in my head:
Oh Moscow Trams
Are your wheels revolutionary?
Are your carriages forged from the steel of conflict?
Are there bloodstains on the uncut moquette of your seats?
Do your passengers keep to the tracks of sacrifice and denial?
I, Adrian Mole will soon know
For in the morning I will be a fellow traveller.
In the morning Mr Braithwaite was nowhere to be seen. My first thought was of abduction, but then I found a note on the toilet seat. It said, ‘Enjoy your day, see you late tonight.’ So, I was alone in Moscow. I put a towel over the bathroom mirror before attending to my toilette. Then, dressed in my best, I went down in the lift to breakfast. The dining room was like an aircraft hangar and was full of Communists eating black bread and drinking coffee. I sat next to a very dark man in robes who was in Moscow to buy gear-levers for his tractor factory in Africa. We chatted for a while but we had little in common, so I turned to my neighbour who turned out to be a Norwegian … what a stroke of luck! I spoke at great length about the Norwegian leather industry but instead of being interested he got up and left abruptly, leaving his breakfast half eaten. What a strange moody race are the Scandinavians!
Rosa stomped into the dining room and ordered her party to get on a coach. The American family, the three milkmen, the two German farmers and me were taken to see the sights. We had ten minutes at the Kremlin during which the American girl sold her camera, boots and umbrella to a disaffected whining youth who complained about his country, until Rosa hit him round the head and said, ‘No other country would let you in anyway. You are a disgraceful pretty crook.’ I think she must have meant petty crook because the youth was very unattractive. Then we got back into the coach and went to see the Bolshoi Theatre and the Olympic Stadium and the residence of the British Ambassador and museums galore until it was time for lunch.
The milkmen, Arthur, Arnold and Harry, reeled across the foyer and complained that they hadn’t visited any dairies. They had been drinking and it wasn’t milk. Vodka I suspect. Rosa was involved in a bitter argument with the American family who wanted to know when they would be leaving for Minsk, so she didn’t listen to the milkmen’s wild ramblings.
For lunch I joined a table of old aristocratic Englishwomen who were moaning that, for some inexplicable reason, they had spent the day touring Milk Distribution Centres. A deputation of them approached Rosa pleading to be taken to the Ballet.
The afternoon was free so I went for a walk in Gorky Park and looked for bodies. Loads of Russians were there walking about like English people do. Some were licking ice-creams, some were talking and laughing, and some were sunbathing in their underwear with rouble notes on their noses to prevent sunburn. Indeed such was the heat that I was forced to go back to the hotel and take off my balaclava, mother’s fur hat, mittens, big overcoat, four sweaters, shirt and two T-shirts.
In the evening we were coached off to the Opera where I and most of the Russians in the audience fell asleep, and the American girl sold her Sony headset. Mr Braithwaite came back very late and very drunk. Vodka doesn’t smell but I knew. He got into bed without a word and snored very loudly. By now I was convinced he was a spy. The pattern continued throughout our three days in Moscow. I would wake up, find a note from Mr Braithwaite and so would be forced to throw myself on the mercy of ‘Intourist’. By this time I was boggle-eyed with culture and longed for a bit of English apathy and gross materialism.
So, on my last afternoon in Moscow I did a brave thing. I went down into the bowels of the chandeliered metro in an attempt to find Moscow’s shopping centre. I put a five kopek coin in a machine, got my ticket and descended into splendours of marble and gilt. Trains arrived every three minutes and took me and crowds of Russian people speeding along towards the shops. I attracted a few curious glances (spotty complexions are rare in Russia); but most people were reading heavy intellectual books with funny writing on them or learning piano concertos by Tchaikovsky.
I got out OK, found the shops and four hours later was returning to the hotel with a giant Russian doll which contained thirty other shrinking dolls inside it. Just like Tinker, Tailor on TV. Pandora will get the biggest doll, and my father will get the smallest. As I entered the hotel lobby I saw Mr Braithwaite sitting on a sofa with a voluptuous Russian woman wearing a lime-green trouser suit and platform shoes. She was toying erotically with the flares of Mr Braithwaite’s trousers, and I saw him catch her hand and lick the palm. God! It was a revolting sight! I felt like shouting, ‘Mr Braithwaite, pull yourself together, you’re an Englishman.’ When they saw me coming they sprang apart. She was introduced as Lara, an expert on the diseases of cow’s udders.
I smiled coldly, then left them together, unable to witness the naked lust in their middle-aged eyes. Three roubles were burning a hole in my sock, so I removed my shoe, took the money out and summoned a taxi. ‘Take me to Dostoevsky’s grave,’ I cried. The taxi driver said: ‘How much money do you have?’ ‘Three roubles,’ I replied. ‘It ain’t enough, sunshine,’ he said. ‘Dostoevsky’s grave is in Leningrad.’ I complimented him on his English and slunk back into the hotel, did my packing and prepared to fly back.
Lara was at the airport. She gave Mr Braithwaite a single carnation. There was a lot of palm licking and sighing and talking about their ‘souls’. Mr Braithwaite gave Lara a copy of The Dairy Farmer’s Weekly, two pairs of Marks & Spencer’s socks, a toilet roll and a packet of ‘Bic’ razors. She wept pitifully.
Mrs Braithwaite and Pandora were waiting beyond the barrier at Gatwick. As we walked towards them Mr Braithwaite sighed in a
deep Russian Chekhovian way and said, ‘Adrian, Mrs Braithwaite may not understand about Lara.’ I said, ‘Mr Braithwaite, I do not understand about Lara myself. How anyone could have an affair with a woman wearing a lime-green trouser suit and platform shoes is beyond me.’ This speech took me through the barrier and into the arms of Pandora and England. Oh, Leicester! Leicester! Leicester!
Mole on Lifestyle
October 1985
I often look back on my callow youth, and when I do a smile flits across my now mature but pitted face. I hardly recognize the naïve boy I once was. To think that I once believed that Evelyn Waugh was a woman! Of course now, with a couple of ‘O’ levels under my belt, I am far more sophisticated and I know that Evelyn Waugh, should he be alive today, would be very, indeed, dead proud of his daughter, Auberon; because of course Evelyn is the father of Auberon and not, as I once thought, the mother.
I occasionally glance through my early diaries and mourn for my lost innocence, for at the age of thirteen and three quarters, I thought it was sufficient to just have a life. I honestly didn’t know then that you can’t just have a life. You have to have a lifestyle. So my talk today is about ‘Lifestyle’, with particular reference to my own.
I will take you through a typical day. I will introduce you to my friends and family. I will refer fleetingly to my diet, toilet habits and my style of dress. My tastes in Art and Literature will be dwelt upon. At the end of my talk perhaps you will have an overview of my lifestyle. Incidentally, and by the way, ‘overview’ is just one of the thousands of words in my vocabulary, and with a bit of luck I will introduce other uncommon words to you, the listening masses. For I am solely aware of my duty via Radio Four to educate and entertain the great British public. For how else are they to rise up and take power if they don’t understand the words of power? Or the power of words?
I have been told by my contemporaries that I am quite a trendsetter, although Pandora, the love of my life, maintains that trendsetter is a word only used by crumblies and people with one foot in the crematorium.
For instance my style of dress is idiosyncratic. Indeed it is personal to myself. Since radio is not television I will describe what I am wearing at the moment. I will start at the head and work down, to save any confusion. On my head I am wearing a balaclava helmet knitted by my ancient yet nimble-fingered grandma. I am wearing the balaclava because my father refuses to switch the central heating on until November 1st every year. He cares not that English summer does not exist anymore. As usual he is being selfish and thinking about paying the boring gas bill.
We move down. Around my neck is a silken cravat which was formerly owned by my dead grandfather. It is a lucky cravat. My grandfather wore it at Epsom and won half-a-crown on a horse (whatever half-a-crown is). My shirt is proudly, indeed unashamedly, from a CND rummage sale. It once belonged to a Canadian lumberjack who had a sweat or, more politely, a perspiration problem, at least so my mother maintains. The smell doesn’t bother me as I am used to it, although other people have complained. Under the shirt I wear an ‘I love Cliff Richard’ T-shirt. A reminder of when I was young and stupid. I never unbutton the Canadian shirt. My legs are clad in a pair of executive striped trousers bought at the closing down sale at Woolworths. On my feet are designer training shoes given to me by my best friend Nigel. Poor Nigel suffers from an obsession; he compulsively buys training shoes. The reasons are manifold:
He has to be the first in our small town to have the latest style.
Because of his inner rage Nigel is always yanking on laces too hard so that they break. He then passes the shoes on to me, claiming he can’t be bothered to rethread the new laces.
My own improverished family benefit from Nigel’s impetuousness. We are all walking around in Nigel’s new old shoes. Even Grandma is wearing a pair. They are too big for her but, with the wisdom of the old, she found a way of making them fit by stuffing the toes with toilet paper.
Under my training shoes I am wearing a pair of odd socks. One sock is white, one sock is black. No, think not that I am an absent-minded genius who doesn’t notice what he puts on his feet. Perhaps I am a genius, but not an absent-minded one. No, my choice of hosiery is completely calculated. Indeed it is symbolic. The white sock stands for my inner purity and morality: for I am against violence and Polaris missiles and cruelty to battery hens. The black sock stands for the evil in my soul, such as wanting to go the whole hog with Pandora and fantasizing about blowing up tower blocks (minus suicidal tenants of course).
Thus I am a walking dichotomy. On my feet I carry the problems of the world. Naturally the hoi polloi do not recognize this salient fact. They cry out, ‘Eh … yer wearin’ odd socks!’ To these crude rejoinders I simply reply, in my modulated tones, ‘No, ’tis you who is wearing the odd socks, my friend.’ Some of them walk away marvelling, although some of them, to be quite honest, don’t.
As to personal adornments. I am wearing a gold-plated chain and locket. In the locket are the remains of a dried up autumn leaf. The leaf represents the frailty of the human condition. It was given to me by Pandora in a moment of autumnal ardour. Round my left wrist I wear a copper bangle which hopefully will guard against me contracting arthritis in old age. On my right wrist I wear a plastic waterproof watch which will allow me, should I feel the need, to dive to a depth of a hundred feet.
I have one other personal adornment that nobody knows about apart from me and one other person. It is a tiny tattoo secreted in a private part of my body. The tattoo says ‘Mum and Dad’ and dates from a time of their marital instability. I now regret my impetuosity because this tattoo will prevent me from partaking in nude sunbathing in the years to come. So, when I am a poet millionaire and I am lying on my personal Greek island I will be the only person amongst my guests to be wearing trunks.
However, the Greek island home is for the future. My present domestic abode is a semi-detached house in a suburban cul-de-sac in the Midlands. Yes, like many of my fellow Britons, I live with a party wall between me and another family’s intimate secrets. I will never understand why it is called a ‘party’ wall because when our next door neighbours throw a party every celebratory sound is heard. Tonic bottles unscrewed, cherries dropping into cocktails, women making brittle conversation, men being sick. So, if the purpose of a party wall is to prevent party noise from spilling into the house adjoining then I have this to say to the builders of Britain, ‘You have failed, Sirs.’ Now I will take you through one of my typical days.
The dog usually wakes me up at 7 o’clock or thereabouts. It is dead old now and has a weak bladder. I get out of bed, and in my underpants and vest I open the back door and let it out to cock its leg on our next door neighbour’s lawn. I make myself a cup of coffee and take it back to bed with me while I read an edifying work of literature. At the moment I am reading Wittgenstein Primer written by T. Lowes MA. Trin. Dub. Sometimes for amusement I may turn to something less intellectually straining; Wings On My Suitcase: personal adventures of an air hostess, introduced and edited by Gerald Tikell, is a good example. Then again, even reminiscences of air hostesses may prove to be too demanding at such an early hour. So for even lighter relief I will turn to my old Beano annuals.
I have a baby sister now and she usually climbs out of her cot at 7.30 dragging her wet nappy with her. She barges into my room and gabbles some childish gibberish to which I respond curtly, ‘Go and wake Mummy and Daddy up, Rosemary.’ I refuse to bastardize her name and call her ‘Rosie’. She staggers out on her wobbly legs and beats her tiny fists on my parents’ door. Muffled curses tell me that my parents are awake, so I quickly get out of bed and run into the bathroom before anyone else. I lie in my bath and ignore rattlings on the door and demands for entry. I insist on a period of quiet before I start my day. Anyway it’s not my fault that the only lavatory is placed in the bathroom, is it? I’ve lost track of the times I’ve told my father to install a downstairs lavatory. After completing a meticulous toilette, topped off with liberal la
shings of my father’s after-shave mixed with my mother’s Yardley water, I emerge from the bathroom, have á row with my parents, who are standing cross-legged outside the door, and go down to breakfast. I warm myself a frozen croissant and make a cup of Earl Grey tea sans milk and sit down to study the world news. We take the Guardian and the Sun so I am quite an expert on the latest developments concerning ‘whale conservation’ and also the mammary development of Miss Samantha Fox. My parents are victims of Thatcherism so neither of them is working, which means they are able to hang about and linger over their breakfasts. Rosemary is a disgusting eater. I always leave the table before she starts on her porridge.
I go to my room, collect my books and study aids and go to college. I ignore most of my fellow students, who are usually thronging the corridors laughing about the previous night’s drunken debauch. Instead I make my way to a classroom and quietly study before the lessons begin. For, while I am an intellectual (indeed almost a genius), at the same time I am not very clever and so need to study harder than anyone else.
