by Sue Townsend
My mother said breathlessly, ‘But you’re talking five hundred quid, aren’t you, Daisy?’
Daisy said, ‘Oh, that’s all right. I’m getting a clothing allowance. Hugo said if I’m representing Fairfax Hall I ought to maximise my assets.’
Why does every event necessitate new clothes? Have none of them heard the Chinese proverb ‘Beware of any occasion that demands new clothes’?
She starts on Tuesday.
Monday 12th November
Daisy dropped me at the hospital this morning. She is taking the train to London and then a cab to Selfridges, shopping for clothes.
Sally was back. She said she had taken a day off sick to try and get over Anthony.
I said, trying to be cheerful, ‘Did you X-ray your broken heart?’
To my surprise she seemed to take offence and gave her instructions very brusquely. When she came back into the room, I apologised for appearing to make fun of her failed romance. She accepted my apology. I will be more careful with her in future. I didn’t think she looked like the sensitive type. She is small but sturdy.
Bernard Hopkins has hired a box van and driver to help him clear a house in Clarendon Park of its books. He assured me that ‘amongst the dross are shafts of pure gold’.
Tuesday 13th November
Diary, how could I have forgotten that Glenn was back from Afghanistan yesterday! After radiotherapy I went to see him at his mother Sharon’s house. I expected him to look tanned and fit but he was pale and haggard and said that he’d been sitting in a plane on a runway in Helmand Province for twelve hours due to ‘an army cock-up’. He hadn’t been able to sleep on the plane because of turbulence and the cramped seating.
When Sharon went into the kitchen to prepare his favourite meal, a full English breakfast, I asked him, ‘What’s it like out there, Glenn?’
His eyes shifted and he said, ‘I don’t want to talk about it, Dad.’ Then he asked me, ‘Why do you think we’re fighting the Taliban, Dad?’ It seemed as if he genuinely wanted to know.
I told him that the Taliban were religious fanatics who wanted to rule the country according to strict Islamic laws, which meant not allowing girls to be educated, forbidding music, haircuts and shaving.
He said, ‘Trouble is, Dad, the Taliban and the ordinary Afghans look exactly the same and none of ’em like us soldiers. It ain’t surprisin’ really, not when the Yanks are dropping bombs on their weddings and stuff.’
Sharon came out and said that she had burned the sausages, so Glenn’s breakfast would be delayed.
How could she have burned the sausages when she was hovering over the stove for a quarter of an hour holding the handle of the frying pan? I know this was the case because I could see her through the open kitchen door. Sharon has always been fat but now she is on the way to being super morbidly obese. In another two years she will require a team of firemen to get her out of the house. Looking at her I could not believe that I had engaged in sexual intercourse with the woman and that, at one time, my heart had quickened when I saw her approaching. I even composed poems for her and left them on her pillow. She is currently in the throes of yet another disastrous relationship, with a younger man, namely, Grant McNally who is on probation for stealing a leg of lamb from Aldi.
Sharon defended Grant by saying, with a sob in her voice, ‘He was only trying to feed his family. Nobody will give him a job.’
Glenn said, ‘I wun’t give him a job neither. He’s a tosser who can’t get his arse out of bed before three in the afternoon.’
As if on cue, sounds were heard overhead (Sharon has had laminate floors laid in every room) and Glenn’s latest ‘step-father’ came into the room scratching himself and blinking in the daylight. He was wearing a wrinkled vest and boxer shorts. I noticed he had four names tattooed on his upper biceps – Britney, Whitney, Calvin and Cain – the names of his estranged children, apparently.
Sharon said placatingly, ‘You’re up early, Grant. Was we making too much noise?’
McNally whined, ‘Yeah, I ’eard voices an’ I cudn’t get back to sleep. Is the kettle on?’
Sharon dashed into the kitchen (well, as much as a super morbidly obese woman can dash) and McNally sat down on the sofa, lit a cigarette and flourished the remote in front of the vast flat-screen television. He had still not addressed a single word to me or to Glenn.
I got up and, with exaggerated politeness, said, ‘How do you do? I’m Adrian Mole, Glenn’s father.’
McNally did not tear his eyes away from The Trisha Goddard Show where a thin man with a straggly grey ponytail was being berated by Trisha about his skunk dependency.
Glenn rose to his feet, went over to McNally and stood between him and the television screen. He hissed, ‘Are you dissing my dad?’
McNally whimpered, ‘I ain’t dissin’ nobody.’
‘Well, say ’ello, then. And when you’ve done that, get your arse upstairs and get some clothes on.’
Sharon came in with a mug of tea which said on the side ‘man of the house’. Her eyes darted from McNally to Glenn and back again. The tension was palpable.
McNally slurped on the tea and complained, ‘It’s too ’ot, you fat cow.’
Sharon said, ‘Sorry,’ and went back into the kitchen.
Glenn prised the mug from McNally’s fingers and said, ‘I’m the man of the house now, and I’ll ’ave that, thank you very much. You shun’t have called my mam a fat cow. Say you’re sorry!’
What followed was most unpleasant. In the ensuing scuffle the tea was spilt and McNally was forcibly removed from the room. Sharon tried to intervene between her son and her lover, but a few blows were exchanged.
Personally, I loathe violence and confrontation but I could not help but be pleased that my son had stuck up for his mother. McNally ran upstairs and barricaded himself in the bathroom.
Sharon started to cry and said, ‘You shouldn’t have done that, Glenn. I’ll pay for it later.’
Glenn said, ‘Does he knock you about, Mam?’ Sharon looked down at the floor and Glenn continued, ‘Mam, he don’t work, he lives off you, you’re scared of him and he’s an ugly bugger to boot. Why are you with him?’
Sharon sobbed, ‘I love him.’
In the taxi, on the way back to Mangold Parva, Glenn said, ‘I never thought my mam would choose a loser like ’im over me, her own son.’
I patted his shoulder and said, ‘Love turns us all into imbeciles, Glenn.’
If Daisy was annoyed that Glenn was spending his leave sleeping in Gracie’s room, she had the grace not to show it. When I went into our bedroom, I saw the suit of Daisy’s dreams hanging on a pink satin hanger. Underneath it was a pair of plain black court shoes with the highest heels I have ever seen. She will never be able to walk in them.
Wednesday 14th November
7.30 a.m.
Daisy back at just after 7 p.m, yesterday, very excited about her first day at Fairfax Hall. I was listening to The Archers but she turned it off and made me hear all about her working day, which seemed to consist of being driven around the estate with Fairfax-Lycett introducing her to the staff and tenants. Apparently, they had a pub lunch in a nearby village and then returned to the hall for a brainstorming session on how to make money out of the general public.
She strode around the kitchen in her high heels, black suit and white shirt ensemble, flicking ash into the sink each time she passed it. I thought she looked like she used to look, when we first fell in love over five years ago. I couldn’t believe my luck then – that such a beautiful woman had returned my love.
She said, ‘I feel like myself again, Aidy!’
I said, ‘Have you been struggling to walk in those court shoes?’ and she said, ‘No, Hugo bought me a pair of wellingtons.’
When I went into the hall, I saw the wellingtons standing by the front door. They were pink, with a floral pattern. My heart froze.
9.00 p.m.
Treatment as usual this morning. Sally distracted. She tre
ated me as though I was just another patient. Perhaps it’s her time of the month.
Went to the shop. Bernard has bought an old bloke’s entire library of books about polar exploration. I asked him to catalogue the collection and type it into the shop’s computer.
He said, ‘No can do, duckie. I’m a pen and paper chap.’
I asked Hitesh if he could computerise the polar books and he jumped at the chance, he will do anything to avoid serving customers. I can’t say I blame him. A large percentage of them seem to be suffering from a nervous disorder. It comes with the territory.
Thursday 15th November
Treatment.
Sally still quite distant. Does she regret telling me about her doomed relationship? Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that I had always thought that Anthony was obviously a complete bastard and that she was well rid of him.
Pandora rang and said, ‘It’s a real drag, but I promised to take Mummy to Hambledon Hall for her birthday dinner on Sunday, so can we meet up on Saturday to talk about my cancer initiative? We can do some blue-sky thinking. It would be good to hear from you about what it’s like to be at the cancer coalface.’ I suggested Wayne Wong’s and she said, ‘Yes, book our usual table next to the fish tank.’
Went to bed at eight thirty. Fell asleep after rereading a page of Rabbit, Run by John Updike. By nine o’clock at night I am good for nothing.
Friday 16th November
Cycled to treatment in the dark. It was heavy going against an icy wind. Sally is back with Anthony. I only know because one of her colleagues congratulated her on her engagement.
Went straight home after the hospital. Daisy was out shopping with Glenn, Gracie at school, so I had the house to myself for a change. Read a chapter of Rabbit, Run then went next door to tell my mother about Sally’s engagement, but she had taken my father to his Wheelchair Mobility class. I looked through a stack of letters on the kitchen table. I noticed that they had received a final demand from the TV Licensing Authority – my father begrudges paying it, because he mostly watches ITV – and there was a postcard from Rosie telling my parents that she was having a great time with her ‘dad’ in Burton-on-Trent. Underneath the letters was A Girl Called ‘Shit’. I flipped through it and read a bit of chapter five.
By the age of fourteen I was living a double life. In the week I was a normal-looking schoolgirl in my uniform, although my home-made shoes (made out of old lorry tyres and baling twine) set me apart from my peers. When I returned from school, and at weekends, I was forced to change out of my uniform and made to wear dresses fashioned from old potato sacks. My mother did her best with the sacks. She sometimes added a gingham collar or a piece of lace from one of her old blouses, but nobody was ever fooled. My dresses were stamped with the words ‘Maris Piper – Norfolk’. In the winter I had to wear a poncho-type garment made from an old horse blanket.
There were no books or magazines in the house but occasionally the seed potatoes would be wrapped in pages from the News of the World and I would read about the sex lives of the rich, the famous and the ordinary and dream that one day I would be written about in a similar fashion.
Me and my mother lived almost entirely on a diet of potatoes and mashed mangel-wurzels. My father would eat a twelve-ounce fillet steak every night, washed down with a home-made beer he forced my mother to brew for him. The smell of steak maddened me and was the cause of my eventual downfall. A lad called Eric Lummox lured me into a Wimpy Bar in Norwich. He knew I was destitute and said that if I had sex with him he would buy me a Wimpy Max.
The whole thing is a farrago of lies! Her mother and father are called Sugden and I know for a fact that they only ever grew King Edward potatoes!
When my parents came round this evening, I was tempted to challenge my mother about her false memoir but I did not want a family row in front of Finley-Rose, so kept quiet. She is a lovely girl, beautiful, articulate and with eight GCSEs. I ascertained that her mother and father were still together, went to the Algarve for their holidays and owned their own house on a Barratt estate in Enderby. She has read The Catcher in the Rye and Jane Eyre! Glenn looked a bit baffled by our literary discussion, but Finley-Rose was very gracious to him when he told her that he had read Tornado Down in his compound in Afghanistan. As he talked, her eyes never left his face. He is less like Wayne Rooney now, and is almost handsome. His body is tanned and well muscled. I felt quite puny sitting next to him.
As Finley-Rose daintily ate her Morrisons lemon meringue pie, she told Glenn that she had decided to leave her hair and beauty course at Leicester College to take her A-levels, because she wanted to go to university and study to be a forensic pathologist. Her favourite TV programme is Silent Witness. Glenn obviously did not know what a forensic pathologist did, but he nodded in approval anyway.
My mother said, ‘That’s a drastic change, isn’t it?’
Finley-Rose licked a crumb from her lower lip and said, ‘They’re both messing about with bodies. The only difference is that I won’t have to ask a corpse where it’s going for its holidays.’
Glenn said, ‘We brung a corpse back on the plane.’
Finley-Rose said, ‘You brought a corpse back, Glenn.’
She is certainly straight talking. I don’t know if Glenn will be able to keep up with her.
Saturday 17th November
Had treatment. Went to see Mr Carlton-Hayes. He was sitting in a wheelchair and told me that, although he was out of pain, the operation had not been a total success in that he now has difficulty walking.
I said that we would have to build some ramps so that he could access the bookshop.
He put his hand on mine and said, very gently, ‘My dear, I’m terribly sorry, but I fear the bookshop will have to close. We are not making any money from it. Leslie and I are struggling to make ends meet. We have used up all our savings and the bank has declined to make us a loan.’
I could not speak. Daisy and I have to find at least £600 a month to cover the mortgage, council tax, water, gas and electricity. But most shocking of all was the thought that I would not see Mr Carlton-Hayes on a daily basis.
Sunday 18th November
I haven’t told Daisy that the bookshop is to close as I can’t cope with another row about money.
I was reluctant to go home after treatment. Waited ten minutes for a bus, before deciding to walk into the almost deserted city centre. Many shops are boarded up and there is an air of melancholy about the place. On the way I went into the Newark Museum and had a look at Daniel Lambert’s clothes and chair. I remembered my father encouraging me to break the rules and sit on the chair, and the argument that ensued between him and an officious attendant. My father said, ‘He’s only six years old, he’s hardly going to break the bleedin’ chair, is he? Daniel Lambert was fifty-eight stone, eleven pound.’ On my way out I picked up a leaflet advertising the fact that Richard Attenborough, Leicester born and bred, had donated his collection of Picasso ceramics to the New Walk museum. Having time to kill before I met Pandora, I walked in the watery sunlight up New Walk to inspect the exhibits. Diary, I would love to have taken one of the bowls home. It would look magnificent on our sideboard with a bunch of bananas in it. As I was leaving, I spotted Dr Pearce trying to control three unruly children and shepherd them into the dinosaur room. Thankfully, she didn’t see me.
I had told Daisy that I was going to see Wayne, who is one of my oldest friends, this afternoon. However, I omitted to say that Pandora would be there. I couldn’t face the walk to Wayne’s restaurant, and as my bus came and parked at the curb with its engine throbbing, Pandora rang and said, ‘Shall I order your favourite – chicken in black bean sauce with crispy noodles?’
I informed her, over the noise of the engine, that since watching an horrific documentary about intensive chicken rearing I had given up eating the stuff.
She said, ‘For God’s sake, hurry up. I’m starving.’
*
When I got to Wayne’s, there was a buzz of
excitement at the far end of the room next to the large fish tank. I practically had to beat my way through the crowd of admirers and well-wishers. Pandora was having her photograph taken with a young man. He had spiky gelled hair, a ring in his nose and was wearing a Leicester City football shirt. His partner, a woman with multiple piercings, Leicester City football club tattoos on her arms and an unnatural tan, asked for Pan’s autograph on the back of what looked like a social security envelope. As she was doing so, I had the chance to take a proper look at my childhood sweetheart.
Although she is in the Foreign Office, she has resisted the temptation to cut her beautiful treacle-coloured hair. It fell on to the shoulders of her fitted light grey suit. She is the only woman I know who can get away with wearing dark red lipstick. Her eyelids were smudged with black stuff and she has had something expensive done to her teeth. The little frown mark that used to be in between her eyebrows has gone.
I love her.
Wayne Wong said that Pandora had already ordered for the two of us so I could relax. He handed me a glass of Chinese beer and I sat down and listened to Pandora telling the pierced couple that she would talk to Gordon Brown himself about their damp problem. Eventually, after having her photograph taken several more times with customers and signing her name on a napkin for one of the waiters, people drifted away and we were alone.
She pressed my hand and said, ‘Aidy, darling, you look incredible. One would never know that you had such a dreadful illness.’
The tiny mobile that was lying next to her chopsticks buzzed discreetly.
She picked it up and said, abruptly, ‘I said no calls, I’m working!’
I was hurt by this. I said, ‘So, this is work for you, is it?’
She looked away and studied one of Wayne’s koi carp. It came up to the glass and seemed as much in awe of her as the humans had been previously.
