by Sue Townsend
Professor Green and I dragged the sodden postbag to the basement of the Old Battery Factory to await collection by the authorities. Although I am increasingly of the mind that there are no authorities who want to take responsibility for anything whatsoever these days.
I was late for work. Mr Carlton-Hayes was very understanding about my mailbag problem. He has been writing weekly to a double murderer in Dartmoor Prison for years, but the murderer phoned recently to complain that he hasn’t received any letters for the past month. Apparently the murderer is being released on licence soon. If I was in charge of the Dartmoor and District sorting office, I would be sleeping uneasily in my bed.
At lunchtime I went to the Flower Corner and asked if they would send £50 worth of English garden flowers, via Interflora, to Daisy’s office.
The florist said, ‘There are no English garden flowers in February, sir. Not unless you want £50 worth of snowdrops sending.’
I asked her to suggest something appropriate.
She said, ‘Are the flowers to mark a special occasion, sir?’
I found myself blushing – something I hadn’t done for years. I wanted to tell this friendly stranger all about Daisy. How beautiful she was, how exciting life seemed when I was with her.
The florist took charge of me and said, ‘I think £50 worth of cut hyacinths would look and smell wonderful.’
I wrote on the card:
French Fancy, Can’t stop thinking about your muffin. Mr Kipling.
At 5 o’clock Daisy texted:
Kipling, Wow! Love and thanks. Am away now until 14th. Come to London on 15th. Please. French Fancy.
Tuesday February 4th
I was harassed by Gielgud on the towpath this morning. He had murder in his eyes. I took my red scarf off and flapped it in front of him, but he stood his ground. A bloke on a bike came to my rescue. I cannot stand this constant intimidation. Something will have to be done.
I was staggered when Brain-box Henderson dropped an invoice into the shop today. The ridiculous boffin is charging me £150 for ‘Professional Services’ while he was at my drinks party the other night!
He said, ‘I’ve given you a 50 per cent discount because we’re friends. And I’ve only charged you for one hour.’
I pointed out the unfairness of him charging me at all, adding that I was unable to use the home entertainment centre due to Mia Fox’s extraordinary audio and neuro-hypersensitivity.
I have decided to be proactive and put my faith in English law.
Dear Mr Barwell
I am currently being harassed by swans. Is it possible to take an injunction out against them?
I would value your advice. I have tried to ring you many times, but your secretary tells me that you are hardly ever in your office.
I hope you will not charge me for this short letter. It is only an enquiry.
As you cannot fail to see, I have enclosed a stamped-addressed envelope.
Yours,
A. A. Mole
Thursday February 6th
My ex-wife, Jo Jo, phoned today. She was barely polite to me and said, ‘I’m only ringing you to prove to William you are not dead.’ She put the boy on the phone.
He monologued about his young life and times. The boy hardly drew breath. I don’t know where he gets his verbosity from. Jo Jo and I were not given to talking much. After we were married, we hardly exchanged a word. Perhaps William has inherited the gift of the gab from my mother. He asked me when I was coming to Nigeria to see him and I said, ‘Soon.’
Friday February 7th
I visited my parents after work. They were crouched over a small bonfire, cooking something in a pot which was hanging from a metal tripod. They were both swathed in layers of ragged clothes. Their faces were blackened by the smoke from the fire. It was like a scene from Antony Beevor’s Stalingrad.
My father got up and brought a canvas fold-up stool from the tent, and I sat down and tried to warm my hands on the fire. The new puppy was cavorting in the mud with what looked like the thigh bone of a large animal in its mouth. They had made no discernible progress in knocking down the pigsties. I asked why.
‘Your father can’t lift the sledgehammer,’ said my mother with barely concealed contempt.
My father got up and stirred the brown stuff in the cooking pot. I noticed how frail and gaunt he looks these days. I felt a pang of pity for him. At this stage of his baby-boomer life he should have been sitting in his slippers by a mock gas fire in a room with four walls, watching the Antiques Roadshow, instead of giving in to my mother’s unreasonable desire to live in a converted pigsty.
I told them that I would ask Darren, a plasterer of my acquaintance, if he knew of a sledgehammer operative who would be willing to knock down two pigsties for a pittance.
My mother offered me a bowl of the brown stuff from the pot. I lied and said I wasn’t hungry.
I stopped for a bag of chips at the Millennium Fish Bar on the way home. I asked for extra salt and vinegar and the woman behind the counter said, ‘You should go easy on the salt and vinegar at your age.’
I left the shop without responding, but when I got into the car I looked at my face in the rear-view mirror. Did I look so old/ill that a chip shop assistant felt obligated to give me healthcare advice?
Saturday February 8th
Letter from Glenn today.
Dear Dad
Thanks for the parcel. You could not have sent nothing better. Me and Robbie had all the Marmite on the first day. We bought a big sliced loaf from the NAAFI and made toast. We had the Creme Eggs for our pudding. They was a bit squashed but we picked the bits of silver paper out and they was OK.
Robbie is reading All Quiet on the Western Front. He says it’s good. He’s looking forward to reading the other books you sent as well. He says he’s going to read Catch-22 next and after that Poetry of the First World War.
Getting by in Greek is not much help here, Dad. I tried speaking a bit of Greek, but everybody here talks better English than what I do.
There is a rumour that we are moving to Kuwait soon. I am learning to be a communications technician. It is quite interesting. I have wrote to William and told him that I will save up and check him out in Nigeria next year.
Mum has wrote to tell me that she cries about me every night as she is worried I will be sent to Iraq. Will you go and see her for me, Dad? Also she has got a parcel to send, but her post office on the estate has been closed down because the old people have had their pension books took off them. She says she can’t queue up in the big post office in Leicester because of her veins.
Robbie and me are playing a darts doubles match against the SAS tomorrow night. Wish us luck, Dad. They are hard bastards. If we win they will beat us up, and if we lose they will still beat us up.
Love from your son, Glenn
I sat for a few moments despairing that such a bad grammarian could have sprung from my loins. I fought against the impulse to correct his letter in red ink and return it to him.
When I got to the shop I took down The Times Atlas of the World and found Kuwait. The sight of tiny Kuwait squashed between the huge expanses of Saudi Arabia and Iraq filled me with a horrible foreboding.
I rang Sharon and arranged to see her at a time when Ryan is out.
Sunday February 9th
Sharon met me at her front door with the moon-faced, hairless baby on her substantial hip. She told me that the child is ‘called after Donna Karan’. I forced a sickly smile on my face and said, ‘So it’s a girl. Hello, Donna.’
‘No, ’e’s a boy. ’E’s called Karan. Ka-ran,’ she repeated, as though she was teaching English as a second language.
She invited me into her living room. Had the room been a person, it would have slashed its wrists. A thick layer of depression covered it. Sharon had ignored William Morris’s dictum that everything in a house should be either beautiful or functional. Everything Sharon had seemed to be ugly, unnecessary or broken.
She
put Karan in a car seat in front of the television to watch British soldiers in Kuwait changing into chemical-warfare suits. When they put the masks on, Karan began to cry.
She took a letter out of her handbag and gave it to me to read:
Dear Mum
I was wondering if you had thought any more about you and Dad getting back together. I know Dad comes across bad sometimes and that he is always moaning about things he can’t do nothing about, but he is all right deep down.
I know you think he is a snob, but it’s just that he likes things tidy and clean. Don’t worry about Pandora. Dad will never get her. She is out of his league. Me and Robbie are both in love with Britney Spears, but we know we will never go out with her either.
I know you and Dad slept together after my passing-out parade. I nearly passed out again when Ryan told me. It shows there is a chance, Mum. Why don’t you ask Dad to come round and cook him a dinner or something?
I know Dad is lonely because of all those books he reads. It’s worth a try, Mum. Give all the kids a kiss and tell them I will send them all a real Cyprus sponge each.
Love from your son, Glenn
PS It’s Robbie’s birthday on February 27th. Can you send him a card? He has not got a family because he was sent into care due to his mum knocking about with Chinese sailors and his dad knocking her about when he found out.
I folded the letter and gave it back to her, unable to speak. I managed to croak a few words of farewell at the door and I think I managed to hide my emotions quite successfully, though later Sharon rang me and asked me if I felt ‘OK now’.
She reminded me that I had left Glenn’s parcel behind and Robbie’s birthday card.
Monday February 10th
Posted two birthday cards to Robbie and Sharon’s parcel to Glenn.
Darren came into the shop after his work to plaster around the fireplace. He gave me the mobile number of a bloke called Animal. ‘He can’t do a four-piece jigsaw,’ he said, ‘but he picks up a sledgehammer like it’s a bag of feathers.’
The L&R writers’ group met at Rat Wharf. In attendance were Gary Milksop, the two serious girls, Ken and Glenda Blunt and myself. There were complaints because I charged them fifty pence each for a cup of coffee. I pointed out that Blue Danube cost £3.20 a bag.
Milksop has written a poem about blindness. He wants me to pass it on to Nigel.
‘Hello darkness my old friend
I am happy to see nothing
I am saved from the banality of seeing
I have an inner eye
I see into men’s souls.’
One of the serious girls said, ‘It’s absolutely brilliant, Gary. It’s incredibly profound.’
Ken Blunt said, ‘You’ve copied the first line from a song by Simon and Garfunkel.’
Glenda said, ‘Dustin Hoffman sang it in that lovely film The Graduate.’
She went on to talk about Dustin Hoffman’s film career. I tried to control the discussion and bring it back to poetry. I talked about my own attempts at writing an opus entitled The Restless Tadpole, but Glenda constantly interrupted as she remembered various Hoffman performances.
The meeting eventually lost focus and broke up in confusion, with several people talking at once.
Ken said, when Glenda was in the bathroom, ‘Don’t worry, Adrian, I shan’t be bringing the wife again.’
I read Milksop’s poem down the phone to Nigel. He laughed for quite a long time before saying, ‘Yeah, I keep forgetting that I can “see” more than sighted people. Aren’t I a lucky boy?’
Tuesday February 11th
I was just locking the shop door and asking Mr Carlton-Hayes if I could take Saturday off, when Michael Flowers rang on my mobile.
I mimed to Mr Carlton-Hayes that it was his nemesis on the phone, and he pulled a face and mouthed, ‘Oh dear.’
Flowers barked, ‘I need to speak to you tonight. I’ll expect you at Beeby at 7.’
I said, ‘What do you need to speak to me about?’
Flowers said, ‘It’s a matter of great importance. I do not wish to talk about it on the telephone.’
This phrase has always puzzled me. What else is the telephone for? I told Flowers that I would be there at 7, though I resented this change of plan. I had been looking forward to a quiet night in, preparing my clothes for the weekend in London.
Poppy answered the door to me.
I said, ‘What’s up?’
She said, ‘I don’t know.’
I asked Poppy where Daisy was.
‘She’s touring European capitals with Jamie Oliver, promoting his new book,’ she said.
I felt a sharp stab of jealousy. I had always been jealous of Oliver’s success. Not only is he good-looking, but he can cook and has a beautiful wife.
I said, ‘If he lays a finger on Daisy, I will rip his head off.’
Poppy looked astonished and said, ‘His wife is with him, and why should you care anyway?’ She led me into the sitting room.
Marigold was lying in a foetal position on the sofa. Netta was massaging her feet. Michael Flowers stood in front of the fireplace with his legs apart, tugging at his beard. Nobody invited me to sit down.
Flowers said to Marigold, ‘Do you want to tell him, darling, or shall I?’
Netta said to Michael, ‘You can see the state the poor child’s in. You must tell him, Michael.’
I looked at Poppy, who shrugged and continued chewing her hair.
Flowers said, ‘A hundred years ago I would have had you horsewhipped.’
I asked him why.
He said slowly and menacingly, while advancing on me, ‘Because you promised to marry my daughter, you seduced her, you impregnated her and now I learn tonight that you have deserted her.’
Retreating slightly, because he was bearing down on me, I said to Marigold, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
She said, in a martyred voice, ‘You no longer love me. Why should you care?’
Before I could say anything else, Flowers roared, ‘How could you not love this adorable girl and her unborn child?’
Netta said, ‘Marigold is emotionally fragile. She takes rejection very badly.’
Poppy said, ‘The last time she was chucked she went off her head.’
I said that I would appreciate some time alone with Marigold. When they had left the room, I asked her how far gone she was.
‘How far gone?’ she repeated, as though the expression was foreign to her.
‘You know what I mean, Marigold,’ I said. ‘How far gone is a natural question to ask in the context of an announcement that you are pregnant.’
‘Oh, context,’ she said dismissively.
‘How pregnant are you?’ I said, taking another tack.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’m no good at maths. I must have conceived on New Year’s Day.’
I did a quick calculation in my head. September. I smelt the decay of autumn. I saw the mist and the phrase ‘mellow fruitfulness’ came into my head. I saw myself pushing a baby buggy down a path covered in dead leaves.
I asked, ‘Have you had a pregnancy test?’
She shouted, ‘Yes! And it was positive! And don’t ask me to get rid of it.’ She started to get hysterical and screamed, ‘I will not have an abortion.’
Michael and Netta Flowers burst in. Marigold threw herself into Netta’s arms and Netta said, ‘Tell us what you want to happen, darling. What would make you happy?’
Marigold sobbed, ‘I want to keep my little baby. I want to marry Adrian and I want to live happily ever after.’
Five minutes later I left the house, having promised to marry Marigold on the first Saturday in May. Stepping over the threshold of Chez Flowers was like being beamed up into the Starship Enterprise. I entered as Adrian Mole, but emerged as a spineless manifestation of Michael Flowers’s will.
On the way home I switched on Classic FM. An opera called Nixon in China was playing. The atonal wailing and caterwauling perfectly matched my mood
.
Why, diary, am I, a sentient being, leaving the earth and everything I love to embark on an unknown journey to cold outer space with a woman I do not love, have never found sexually attractive and who sucks the oxygen out of my body, leaving me gasping with boredom?
Wednesday February 12th
I was woken to the sound of The Nutcracker Suite vibrating through my floorboards. It sounds like Professor Green has updated his stereo. I lay on my futon, reluctant to face the world. For a few brief minutes I gave myself up to the music. If Marigold had a daughter, would the child go to ballet lessons? I imagined a little girl with Marigold’s slightly protuberant teeth and my glasses in a tutu, dancing on pointed toes.
I’ve always liked the name Grace. Grace Pauline sounds OK. Grace Pauline Mole.
The law has let me down.
Dear Mr Mole
Thank you for your letter of February 4th where you enquired as to the possibility of serving an injunction on a flock of swans whom you assert are causing you distress.
I have asked my legal partner, Phoebe Wetherfield, to pursue the matter on your behalf. Ms Wetherfield specializes in civil law. I have taken the liberty of arranging an appointment with her (for you) so you can discuss your problem in more depth.
Please note, Mr Mole, I do not give free advice. I charge a fee commensurate with the time taken as set by my professional body and approved by the Law Society.
I attach my invoice with the work outlined up to today’s date.
Reading instruction
£50
Consulting Ms Wetherfield
£90
Writing letter
£50
£190 for a casual enquiry! I shall report him to the Law Society. He has taken advantage of me when the balance of my mind was out of kilter.
In a rage I went out on to the balcony, ripped up Barwell’s letter and threw it into the canal.
