by Sue Townsend
I said that I had been too busy to go to Ken at Quick Snip.
She said she had been talking in the salon about Madame Bovary, and that several of the women had asked if they could get it on DVD.
The discussion about Madame Bovary got quite heated at times.
Lorraine Harris said that Emma reminded her of her best friend in Jamaica who had married a quantity surveyor who was so boring that people called him Lockjaw.
Mohammed said, ‘I was very disturbed by this book. It condones adultery and the accumulation of debt. I was also concerned about the child of the marriage. Mrs Bovary was a very neglectful mother.’
Melanie ‘I’m only a housewife’ Oates said hesitantly, ‘I think Madame Bovary is a very good book. I couldn’t put it down. I wanted her to run off with her soldier lover and I couldn’t bear it when he let her down.’ She looked around angrily at the men in the room. Her voice rose. ‘There’s not one man you can trust, not one. You’re all the same.’
Mr Carlton-Hayes fiddled nervously with his pipe.
Lorraine Harris said, ‘I thought Flaubert was out of order making Emma kill herself, just because she’d gone over her credit limit and bought a few bonnets and ribbons and stuff.’
Darren said, picking at the plaster on his jeans, ‘Sorry, I didn’t have time to change. I came straight from work. I think it’s the best book I’ve ever read. That bit where Doctor Bovary does surgery on the village idiot’s club foot was so real, I had to get up and take two extra-strong Nurofen. I really felt the pain.’
Mr Carlton-Hayes said that Flaubert was a marvellous writer and his sentences were so beautifully constructed, he used to beat out the rhythm on his writing table. Mr Carlton-Hayes demonstrated by reading a sentence aloud and beating on the side of the armchair he was sitting in.
Before Darren left I gave him a copy of Jude the Obscure and said, ‘I think you’ll like this.’
Mr Carlton-Hayes has chosen William, the Outlaw by Richmal Crompton for the next book. When they were buying their copies, Lorraine said, ‘I ain’t really into kids’ books no more.’
Mr Carlton-Hayes explained that William Brown was an English comic hero and that his adventures were essential reading.
Thursday March 27th
At midday Geoff Hoon announced that British forces have evidence that Iraq is ready to use chemical weapons against Allied forces.
I have sent a text message to Johnny Bond at Latesun Ltd:
Weapons of Mass Destruction have been found. Please refund my deposit and apologize. An ex-customer.
A. A. Mole
Friday March 28th
My father seems to have recovered quite well and is alert enough to be keeping notes of everything that goes wrong with his treatment. He showed me his notebook. The last entry read, ‘At four o’clock a porter came to take me down to theatre for a hysterectomy.’ He had misspelled ‘hysterectomy’, but I let it pass. He has been fixed up to Patient Line, a new service which provides each patient with their own television, radio and telephone line at a cost of £2.50 a day. He is able to watch the war in Iraq 24/7.
Saturday March 29th
At 7 o’clock this morning the BBC reported that last night British troops raided Basra to destroy two statues of Saddam Hussein. They then withdrew to their fortified camp on the outskirts of the town.
I have no doubt the citizens of Basra will be rejoicing in the streets when they wake up and see Saddam’s effigies have been toppled in the night.
At 6 o’clock this evening the Pentagon admitted that seven US Tomahawk missiles had missed their targets.
At 6.30 my mother rang from my father’s bedside to say that it had just been reported that a Tomahawk missile had landed near Kuwait City. She said, ‘Have you heard if our Glenn is safe?’
I said that the Commander of British Forces in the Gulf, General Mike Jackson, did not have my mobile number.
She said, ‘There’s no need to be sarcastic, Adrian. I’m worried sick about the boy.’
I heard my father say, in a masterful voice, ‘Give me the phone, Pauline.’ To me, he said, ‘This is bad news for fans of hi-tech weapons. Tomahawk missiles are meant to be capable of finding a target 690 miles from the launch site, weaving in and around buildings, navigating their way in the dark and hitting something the size of a post-office letter box more accurately than the bleeding post office. And the bloody things cost $600,000 each. I’m gutted, Adrian, the technology has let us down. David only had a bleedin’ sling but he managed to hit Goliath smack between the eyes.’
I asked him how long he had been a fan of hi-tech weaponry.
He said he had always liked guns, tanks and other weapons but it was only lately that he had dared to admit his interest. He added, almost whispering, ‘Your mother’s never known the real George Mole.’
I asked to speak to my mother again, and said, ‘Is it tonight we have to change the clocks?’
She said that it was.
I asked if it was forwards or backwards; I can never remember which.
She said, ‘It’s easy: spring forward, fall back.’
I said, ‘But do the clocks go backwards or forwards?’
She said again, ‘Spring forward, fall back.’
I broke off the call, saying I had left something in the oven. I can’t talk to her when she is in one of her moods.
Sunday March 30th
Mothering Sunday. British Summer Time begins
The Americans are on their way to liberate Baghdad.
Marigold rang in tears to ask why I had not sent her a Mother’s Day card.
Sharon rang in tears to say that she had received a Mother’s Day card from Glenn. ‘There was sand inside the envelope,’ she wept.
My mother rang in tears to ask me why I had not sent her a Mother’s Day card.
I went to the Piggeries this afternoon and took a card bought in the BP garage which showed a mutton-dressed-as-lamb type of mother sipping champagne in a nightclub. I also bought her two bags of logs and a packet of firelighters. There is no point in buying her flowers; there is no ledge in the camper van on which to put a vase.
However, one of the pigsties now has four walls and will soon have a roof. When the sun came out, briefly, my mother took her plaid shirt off and sunbathed for a while in her T-shirt and dungarees. I noticed that she has developed very impressive muscles in her upper arms.
When I went into the camper van, I saw that Animal had also given my mother a card. I felt a twinge of jealousy. For how long will the brute be sleeping in their tent?
Monday March 31st
Gordon Brown has now set aside £3 billion, and said, ‘The armed forces need to be properly equipped.’ Surprising, since I have studied his body language on television and he doesn’t seem too keen on the war.
Tuesday April 1st
April Fool’s Day
Glenn rang me on my mobile to wish me a happy birthday for tomorrow.
I asked him where he was and he said, ‘Outside your front door, I’m on my mobile.’
I ran to the door and yanked it open. But there was nobody there. The idiot boy said, ‘And Happy April Fool’s Day, Dad!’
I failed to see the joke and again asked him where he was.
He said, ‘I can’t tell you exactly where, that’s classified information. But I’m still in that country that begins with K and there’s still a lot of sand about.’
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him how much I loved him and worried about him, but I couldn’t quite manage to get the words out. I asked him what it was like out there.
He said, ‘It ain’t ’alf ’ot, Dad,’ without any sense of irony.
I ran home at lunchtime to meet the rat-catcher. He filled a small sack with dead rats from under the kitchen units. He said, ‘There is forensic evidence pointing to new nest-building behind the bath. I’m surprised you haven’t heard them moving about.’
I said, ‘Well, they’re not assembling scaffolding or using a concrete mixer, are they?�
�
He said, ‘Why are you being so defensive, Mr Mole? There is no shame sharing your house with rats. Perhaps you are hard of hearing.’
I told him that I was not yet thirty-five and that the reason I had not heard nest-building activity was that I automatically switched on Radio Four as soon as I entered the bathroom.
We talked about The Archers and agreed that political correctness was in danger of crowding out the agricultural storylines.
I said, ‘The next character they introduce will be a native American woman called Running Deer, who pitches her tepee in the car park of the Bull.’
He laughed so hard he almost dropped his bag of rats.
He remembered our last conversation about women and asked about the Marigold situation. I said, ‘I still have dealings with her, because I am the father of her unborn child. So I’ll never be entirely free of her, will I?’
He said that he had fathered two children, a boy and a girl, but was prevented from seeing them by a court order.
I asked him why. He said, shiftily, ‘I’ve got a bit of a temper.’
Watched Midlands Today.
The first item was about a pensioner from Nottingham who had beaten off a mugger with a cucumber.
The second item was about the rescue of a dog called Butch, who had been stuck down a drain for three days in a village called Humberstone. His rescue involved the police, the fire service, an RSPCA emergency vehicle and a WRVS mobile canteen. Personally, I would have left the dog down the drain to starve until it had lost enough weight to enable it to climb out by itself.
The third item showed Pandora Braithwaite standing on Westminster Green, opposite the Houses of Parliament, announcing that she has resigned from her job as a junior minister in the Department of the Environment. She looked sad and angry and beautiful. She said that she would ‘continue to work tirelessly for my constituents in Ashby de la Zouch, but I cannot support the invasion of Iraq’.
Wednesday April 2nd
My birthday.
I am thirty-five today. I am officially middle-aged. It is all downhill from now. A pathetic slide towards gum disease, wheelchair ramps and death.
I do not feel able to celebrate, not with Glenn at war.
After work, I drove to the Piggeries to take my mother to the hospital. Animal has made amazing progress. The roof timbers are in place, and he’s completed digging the trench that will eventually bring fresh water.
I opened the present that Marigold had sent round to the shop at my father’s bedside. It was a birthday cake that would not have been out of place on a bird table.
Call me old school, but I think it should be compulsory for a birthday cake to have jam, icing and candles. People who make birthday cakes with wholegrain flour and decorate them with sunflower seeds should be given a community service order and be compelled to go to punitive cake-making classes. I’m serious about this, diary. Am I becoming more right wing now that I’m middle-aged?
My father had sent one of the nurses out to buy me more golf guff! A diamond-patterned jumper and a golf-ball warmer. When I asked him why, he said, ‘You’re being stubborn. You haven’t given it a chance. You’re thirty-five now, son, and you’ve never played a round of golf.’
He made it sound as if I had never tried to tie my own shoelaces. Anyway, I don’t see why he is so supportive of golf, he was thrown out of the Fair Green Golf Club for wearing cut-off jeans on the green during a heat wave in 1993.
My mother gave me a lump of wood with a depression in the middle. I asked her what it was and she said, ‘It’s a receptacle. Animal carved it out of an old timber from the original pigsty.’
I said, ‘What’s it for?’
She said, ‘It’s for putting things in: apples, cufflinks, car keys, whatever.’
After I had taken my mother home, I called round to see Nigel. Nigel’s mother was in the granny annexe pressing his shirts. The poor woman could hardly reach the ironing board, even though it was on its lowest setting. She was only four foot ten when I was a teenager, and she has shrunk over the years. Apparently, she has to sit on three cushions to reach the steering wheel in the car.
Nigel had bought me a new polyphonic ring-tone for my mobile phone. He made me audition the various sounds. There was Eskimo Nose-Singing, a dog barking, a lion roaring, a sheep bleating, a whale singing, a baby crying, the brakes of a London bus, a thrush singing, Bach’s suites, ‘Hungarian Rhapsody’, Carmen, Jesus Christ Superstar, ‘Jerusalem’, a Zulu chant and a Dalek shouting, ‘Ring! Ring!’
After long deliberation I chose the Zulu chant.
Got home and switched on my television, listening on the headphones because Mia Fox was at home. The Allied bombers are making one thousand sorties a day. Shock and Awe does not appear to have worked so far. The people of Baghdad have not taken to the streets. Not even to flee them.
I want Daisy so badly my toes curl whenever I think of her.
Thursday April 3rd
Gielgud and his wife, whom from now on I will call Margot, after Margot Fonteyn, the ballet dancer, are building a monolithic nest directly opposite my balcony. They are using a mixture of natural and manmade materials. Reeds, twigs, grass, bits of old rope, a pair of nylon knickers left on the towpath and what appears to be a torn up copy of the Spectator, all held together with mud.
When I got home from work both my credit card bills had arrived. I was shocked: my MasterCard is £200 over the agreed limit of £10,000. They are demanding the £200 immediately and a further £190 within twenty-eight days. Barclaycard wrote to ask if I wanted to join their wine club, and asked for a minimum payment of £222, also to be paid within twenty-eight days. I ticked the box to order a selection of twelve bottles of New World wines.
Friday April 4th
A letter from Robbie, written in a good clear hand.
Dear Mr Mole
Thank you very much for the birthday card and also the books. I would be very grateful if you could see your way to sending some more. I have enclosed a cheque to cover the cost of the books and postage. Glenn got me a cake, made by the lads in the field kitchen. I don’t know how they managed it, because things are a bit tricky here.
At the time of writing I am trying to open a tin of pineapple with Jerome K. Jerome. I have read bits to Glenn, but he only laughs at the stuff about the dog, Montmorency.
Yours sincerely
Robbie
Saturday April 5th
I pointed out to Mr Carlton-Hayes today that we are not maximizing the rooms behind and above the shop.
He said, ‘But I have no desire to expand the business that dramatically. Think of the extra staff that we would have to employ, and the commensurate paperwork. I’m too old to burden myself with such worries.’
I reminded him that he was paying thousands in business rates for what was almost empty space.
I watched from the balcony tonight as Gielgud and Margot put the finishing touches to their nest. They don’t know how lucky they are. It costs them nothing and they don’t have to go to IKEA.
Sunday April 6th
I replied to Robbie’s letter today.
Dear Robbie
I’m so pleased you are enjoying Three Men in a Boat. It is one of my own favourites.
I would be happy to send you some more books.
Do you trust me to choose them for you, or do you have favourite authors?
Give Glenn my love and tell him to wear his helmet at all times, and please do the same yourself.
Best wishes, keep safe.
Mr Mole
Monday April 7th
Today we closed the shop and went to do a valuation at a large Victorian villa in Leicester’s red-light district. I was reluctant to take my car, so we took a taxi. As we lurched over the speed bumps and negotiated the chicanes of the mean streets, I pointed out the sights: the crack delivery boys in their hooded tops speeding along the pavements on their BMXs, the teenage prostitutes shivering in their cropped tops and hot pants, the
ir arms clasped around their bodies.
Mr Carlton-Hayes said, ‘Poor creatures.’ He could have been an etymologist reluctantly pinning specimens to a board.
We were met on the doorstep of number eleven, Crimea Road, by Lawrence Mortimer, son and executor of Mrs Emily Mortimer, who had died in the house some five weeks previously. Mortimer threw the cigarette he had been smoking on to the pavement and said brusquely, ‘It’s a mess in there. My mother stopped doing any housework years ago.’
We followed him into the large hallway. Every visible wall was lined with bookshelves. Books were stacked on the floor, on furniture, on chairs, on the kitchen table and next to the draining board. The stairs were a rat run of books. They were in the bath and filled every bedroom.
Lawrence Mortimer said, ‘As you can tell, my mother went doolally years ago. Me and my wife tried to get her certified in 1999, but her doctor said collecting books wasn’t a reason for having her put away.’
‘Indeed not,’ said Mr Carlton-Hayes, ‘or I should have been confined to a padded cell many years ago.’
I could hardly breathe for excitement; one of the bedrooms I wandered into was filled entirely with children’s books in plastic covers. I prayed that Mr Carlton-Hayes would not display his own excitement.
‘I need ’em moving quick,’ said Mortimer. ‘There’s some good furniture and carpets under these bleedin’ books.’
We climbed up into the attic rooms: they were chock-a-block with crime-fiction paperbacks. Lawrence Mortimer kicked at a pile of Ed McBains and said, ‘I’ve got plans for this house. I reckon I can get at least four asylum-seekers to a room.’
To my astonishment, Mr Carlton-Hayes said, ‘Oh, I’m sure you could squeeze at least six to a room, Mr Mortimer. These asylum-seeker chappies are usually on the thin side.’
