by Sue Townsend
My mother came down to join us but left after a few minutes saying that she couldn’t stand the midges. Within a quarter of an hour she was back. She sat on the tree trunk and lit a cigarette.
When I objected, she said, ‘I’m smoking for your sake, Adrian. I don’t want the midges biting your bald head.’ She slid a postcard out of a pocket in her denim jacket and said, ‘I’m glad I found this before your father saw it.’
There was a moody photograph of an old brewery in Burton-on-Trent on the front. On the back Rosie had written:
Gracie played happily with twigs and stones and bits of stuff she found at the side of the brook.
My mother said, ‘You could make a nice water feature out of the brook if you tidied it up and planted some colourful shrubs along the banks.’
I said, ‘It’s staying exactly as it is.’
Wednesday 30th April
Mrs Lewis-Masters came for tea today. I followed Delia Smith’s recipe and made both cheese and fruit scones.
She no longer uses a Zimmer frame. When I congratulated her on this, she said, ‘I have Bernard’s support.’
I said that I was also grateful for Bernard’s support.
She snapped, ‘I am not talking generally. Bernard literally supports me when I walk anywhere.’
I said I would be very sorry when Bernard left the pigsty.
Mrs Lewis-Masters said that she expected ‘a difficult period of adjustment’ when Bernard moved in with her.
Bernard said, ‘I’ve got some filthy habits, cocker, like turning my underpants inside out on alternate days.’
Mrs Lewis-Masters said, ‘I don’t give a fig about personal hygiene. I lived with the desert people, they only bathed twice a year, in sand.’
After tea we went for a walk so I could show her the land. When we stopped to rest at the brook, she said that she would lend me her gardener and her rotovator for a couple of days.
Before he left to take Mrs Lewis-Masters home, Bernard asked if I would be in tomorrow. I told him that apart from therapy, I was always in.
Pandora rang at 1 a.m. to wish me goodnight. I didn’t tell her I’d been in bed since half past nine.
She said, ‘I’ve been thinking about you a lot recently. Do you think about me?’
I told her that I had been thinking about her since I was 13¾. What I didn’t tell her was that my recent thoughts had been almost exclusively about my land and how best to cultivate it.
Thursday 1st May
A GREAT DAY!
Cancelled therapy.
Bernard has given me a present of four chickens, a coop and a fox-safe compound! It all arrived this morning together with two men who put it all together. They finished at noon.
My father has been sitting in his wheelchair, staring through the wire mesh and watching the chickens’ every move. According to him, the hens have distinct personalities. ‘That one’s shy, that’s a cocky bastard and the one standing in the drinking bowl is a gormless sod.’
Friday 2nd May
Fairfax-Lycett is out of hospital and is recuperating at Fairfax Hall. When she dropped Gracie off, I asked Daisy if he had sustained any brain damage.
‘How would I know?’ she laughed. ‘He was turned down by The Weakest Link.’
I said, ‘I don’t know how you can live with such a pea-brain.’
‘He is a bit thick,’ she said, ‘but I don’t mind that. You either had your head stuck in a book, or you were writing in that bloody diary. You weren’t there, Adrian!’
Saturday 3rd May
Woke with a feeling of happy anticipation. Put dressing gown on and went outside, found Bernard and my father smoking, drinking tea and watching the chickens. I gave them some clean water and food – the chickens obviously, not the old men.
I asked my father if my mother was OK.
He said, ‘She’s all right. She’s working on her shit book.’
I said, ‘I expect you know her book is a tissue of lies, don’t you, Dad?’
Bernard said, ‘Talking of lies, kiddo, I’ve been telling a few porky pies myself lately.’
I said, ‘Colonel Bernard Hopkins, retired?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s true, but what isn’t kosher is that I’m a single man. My wife is hale and hearty and living in Northamptonshire.’
I urged him to tell Mrs Lewis-Masters the truth, hoping that she would break off the engagement, thus causing Bernard to stay and help me with the land.
Sunday 4th May
Another present from Bernard! A pig and a sty! I saw the Land Rover and trailer arriving slowly up our drive and thought that perhaps it was the saplings I’d ordered on the internet.
When Bernard and I went outside, I heard a grunting from the trailer. When I looked inside, a small pig looked up at me. Diary, I am not a sentimentalist, and I have never particularly liked animals, but I am not ashamed to say that it was love at first sight. I loved everything about the pig: its cheerful expression, its piggy eyes, its pink skin, its corkscrew tail.
Bernard said, ‘It’s an inherently comical animal, old cock. I thought it would cheer you up.’
He was right, it has.
Monday 5th May
Bank Holiday
Woken by the rotovator. Looked out to see that quite a lot of earth had been turned over. The bloke pushing it was a giant with muscles like small Welsh hills. He calls himself ‘Cash in Hand’, or ‘Cash’ for short.
Later he helped me and Bernard construct a wheelchair-friendly path to the pigsty so that my father can feed the pig, who is called, after much deliberation – Rupert.
My mother is having a lot of trouble finishing her book. She said that Melancholy Books Ltd are disappointed that she didn’t beg on the streets or have a heroin addiction.
She said, as we were watching Rupert roll in the mud, ‘I got a bit dependent on Nurofen in the eighties, but I didn’t go into The Priory.’
I said sarcastically, ‘It’s a shame Dad didn’t knock you about and keep you chained to the kitchen sink.’
My mother sighed and said, ‘Not even a few slaps, he’s frightened of me.’ Then she looked up at me and said, ‘Aidy, your hair’s growing back! I can see it in the sun!’
Bernard shouted to say that Glenn was on the phone from Afghanistan. I hurried up to the house.
Glenn said, ‘Dad, something great ’as ’appened. Finley-Rose is ’aving a baby. You’ll be a granddad.’
Diary, my first thought was that I couldn’t possibly be a grandfather, I was only forty years old. My second thought was that I wanted to live long enough to see this child grow up. There was a lot I wanted to teach it.
I congratulated Glenn and handed the phone to my mother, who had been hovering near by. She was beside herself with joy at the prospect of being a great-grandmother. ‘And I’ve still got my legs,’ she said after putting the phone down.
I went to the brook and said a secular prayer for my son, asking whoever was in charge of the universe to keep Glenn safe from roadside bombs, snipers, missiles and friendly fire. I was still there, sitting under the swaying willow, when Pandora’s Audi sped up the drive, bouncing over the potholes, and drew to a halt outside the house.
I got up and started to walk towards her.
