by Sue Townsend
Spent all day with my love. Can’t write much, my hands are still trembling.
Friday June 12th
Had a message from the school to say that Bert Baxter wanted to see me urgently. Went round with Pandora (we are inseparable). Bert is ill. He looked awful, Pandora made his bed up with clean sheets (she didn’t seem to mind the smell) and I phoned the doctor. I described Bert’s symptoms. Funny breathing, white face, sweating.
We tried to clean the bedroom up a bit, Bert kept saying stupid things that didn’t make sense. Pandora said that he was delirious. She held his hand until the doctor came. Dr Patel was quite kind, he said that Bert needed oxygen. He gave me a number to ring for an ambulance, it seemed to take ages to come. I thought about how I had neglected Bert lately and I felt a real rat fink. The ambulancemen took Bert downstairs on a stretcher. They got stuck on the corner of the stairs and knocked a lot of empty beetroot jars over. Pandora and me cleared a path through the rubbish in the downstairs hall and they steered him through. He was wrapped in a big, fluffy red blanket before he went outside. Then they shut him up in the ambulance and he was sirened away. I had a big lump in mythroat and my eyes were watering. It must have been caused by the dust.
Bert’s house is very dusty.
Saturday June 13th
Bert is in intensive care, he can’t have visitors. I ring up every four hours to find out how he is. I pretend to be a relative. The nurses say things like ‘He is stable’.
Sabre is staying with us. Our dog is staying at grandma’s because it is scared of alsatians.
I hope Bert doesn’t die. Apart from liking him, I have got nothing to wear to a funeral.
Still madly in love with P.
Sunday June 14th
Trinity Sunday
Went to see Bert, he has got tubes all over him. I took him a jar of beetroot for when he is better. The nurse put it in his locker. I took some ‘get well’ cards, one from Pandora and me, one from my grandma, one from my father and one from Sabre. Bert was asleep so I didn’t stay long.
Monday June 15th
The Red Sock Committee has voted to give way to Scruton for the time being. We wear red socks underneath our black socks. This makes our shoes tight but we don’t mind because a principle is involved.
Bert has made a slight improvement. He is awake more. I’ll go round and see him tomorrow.
Tuesday June 16th
Bert has only got a few tubes left inside him now. He was awake when I went into his room. He didn’t recognize me at first because I was wearing a mask and gown. He thought I was a doctor. He said, ‘Get these bkedin’ tubes out of my private parts, I ain’t an underground system’. Then he saw it was me and asked how Sabre was. We had a long talk about Sabre’s behaviour problems, then the nurse came in and told me I had to go. Bert asked me to tell his daughters that he is on his death bed; he gave me half-a-crown for the phone calls! Two of them live in Australia! He said the numbers are written down in the back of his old army pay-book.
My father says that half-a-crown is roughly worth twelve and a half pence. I am keeping the half-a-crown. It has a nice chunky feel about it and it will no doubt be a collector’s item one day.
Wednesday June 17th
Full Moon
Pandora and me searched Bert’s house looking for his army pay-book. Pandora found a pile of brown and cream postcards that were very indecent. They were signed ‘ovec tout monamour cheri, Lola’. I felt a bit funny after looking through them, so did Pandora. We exchanged our first really passionate kiss. I felt like doing a French kiss but I don’t know how it’s done so I had to settle for an ordinary English one. No sign of the pay-book.
Thursday June 18th
Bert is now tubeless. He is being moved into an ordinary ward tomorrow. I told him about not finding the army pay-book, he said it doesn’t matter now he knows he’s not dying.
Pandora came with me tonight. She got on well with Bert; they talked about Blossom. Bert passed on a few tips about grooming ponies. Then Pandora went out to arrange the flowers she’d brought and Bert asked me if I’d had my ‘leg over’ yet. Sometimes he is just a dirty old man who doesn’t deserve visitors.
Friday June 19th
Bert is on a big ward full of men with broken legs and bandaged chests. He looks a lot better now that he has got his teeth in. Some of the men whistled at Pandora when she walked down the ward. I wish she wasn’t taller than me. Bert is in trouble with the ward sister for getting beetroot juice on the hospital sheets. He is supposed to be on a fluid diet.
Saturday June 20th
I hope Bert can come home soon. My father is fed up with Sabre and my grandma is sick to death of our dog.
Bert’s consultant has told him to give up smoking but Bert says at eighty-nine years old it is hardly worth it. He has asked me to buy him twenty Woodbines and a box of matches. What shall I do?
Sunday June 21st
First after Trinity. Father’s Day
Couldn’t sleep last night for worrying about the Woodbines. After much heart-searching decided not to grant Bert’s wish. Then went to the hospital to find that Bert had bought his stinking fags from the hospital trolley!
Just measured my thing. It has grown one centimetre. I might be needing it soon.
Monday June 22nd
Woke up with sore throat, couldn’t swallow, tried to shout downstairs but could only manage a croak. Tried to attract my father’s attention by banging on my bedroom floor with school shoe but my father shouted, ‘Stop that bloody banging’. Eventually I sent the dog downstairs with a message tucked inside its collar. I waited for ages, then I heard the dog barking in the street. It hadn’t delivered the message! I was close to despair. I had to get up to go to the toilet but how I got there I don’t know; it is all a hazy blur. I stood at the top of the stairs and croaked as loud as I could but my father had his Alma Cogan records on so I was forced to go downstairs and tell him I was ill. My father looked in my mouth and said, ‘Christ Almighty, Adrian, your tonsils look like Polaris missiles! What are you doing down here? Get back into bed at once, you fool’. He took my temperature: it was 112deg Fahrenheit. By rights I should be dead.
It is now five minutes to midnight, the doctor is coming in the morning. I just pray that I can last out until then. Should the worst happen, I hereby leave all my worldly goods to Pandora Braithwaite of 69 Elm Tree Avenue. I think I am of sound mind. It is very hard to tell when you’ve got a temperature of 112deg Fahrenheit.
Tuesday June 23rd
I have got tonsillitis. It is official. I am on antibiotics. Pandora sits by my bed reading aloud to me. I wish she wouldn’t, every word is like a rock dropping on my head.
Wednesday June 24th
A ‘get well’ card from my mother. Inside a five-pound note. I asked my father to spend it on five bottles of Lucozade.
Thursday June 25th
Moon’s Last Quarter
I have delirious dreams about Lady Diana Spencer; I hope I am better in time for the wedding. Temperature is still 112deg Fahrenheit.
My father can’t cope with Sabre, so Pandora has taken him home with her. (Sabre, not my father.)
Friday June 26th
Doctor said our thermometer is faulty. I feel slightly better.
Got up for twenty minutes today. Watched Play School; it was Carol Leader’s turn, she is my favourite presenter.
Pandora brought me a ‘get well’ card. She made it herself with felt-tip pens. She signed it: ‘Forever yours, Pan.’
I wanted to kiss her but my lips are still cracked.
Saturday June 27th
Why hasn’t my mother been to see me?
Sunday June 28th
Second after Trinity
My mother has just left to catch the train for Sheffield. I am worn out with all the emotion. I am having a relapse.
Monday June 29th
Pandora went to see Bert Baxter. She said the nurses are getting fed up with him because he won’t stay in be
d or do anything he is told to do. He is being discharged on Thursday.
I long for the peace and quiet of a hospital ward. I would be a perfect patient.
Pandora’s father has put Sabre into kennels, it iscosting him three pounds a day, but Pandora’s father says that it is worth every penny.
Tuesday June 30th
I am entering a period of convalescence. I will have to take things very easily if I am to regain my former vigour.
Summer 1981
Wednesday July 1st
Dominion Day, Canada. New Moon
The truant officer came round this afternoon; he caught me sitting in a deckchair in the front garden. He didn’t believe I was ill! He is reporting me to the school! The fact that I was sipping Lucozade whilst wearing pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers seemed to have escaped him. I offered to show him my yukky tonsils but he backed away and trod on the dog’s paw. The dog has got a low pain threshold so it went a bit berserk. My father came out and separated them but things could get nasty for us.
Thursday July 2nd
The doctor said I can go back to school tomorrow, depending on how I feel. You can depend that I won’t feel up to it.
Friday July 3rd
A brown-skinned family are moving into Mr Lucas’s old house! I sat in my deckchair and had a good view of their furniture being carried out of the removal van. The brown-skinned ladies kept taking massive cooking pots into the house so it looks as if they are a large family. My father said that it was ‘the beginning of the end of our street’. Pandora is in the Anti-Nazi League. She said she thinks that my father is a possible racist.
I am reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Saturday July 4th
Independence Day, USA
The street is full of brown-skinned people arriving or departing in cars, vans and mini-buses. They keep trooping in and out of Mr Lucas’s old house. My father says they have probably got three families to each room.
Pandora and I are going round to welcome them to our district. We are determined to show that not all white people are racist fanatics.
Bert Baxter is still in hospital.
Sunday July 5th
Third after Trinity
Stayed in bed until 6 PM. There was no point in getting up. Pandora has gone to a gymkhana.
Monday July 6th
Mrs O’Leary is trying to organize a street party for the Royal Wedding. The only people to put their names down so far are the Singh family.
Tuesday July 7th
Bert Baxter has escaped from hospital. He telephoned the National Council for Civil Liberties and they told him he could sign himself out, so he did. He is in our spare room. My father is going up the wall.
Pandora, Bert and I have put our names down for the street party. Bert is looking much better now that he can smoke as many Woodbines as he likes.
Pandora’s father has been round to talk to my father about what to do about Bert and Sabre. They both got drunk and started arguing about politics. Bert banged on the floor and asked them to keep their voices down.
Wednesday July 8th
My father is near to despair because of Bert’s snoring. It doesn’t bother me, I put Blu-tack in my ears.
Went to school today. I have decided to take Domestic Science, Art, Woodwork and English O levels. I am doing Geography, Maths and History for CSE.
Pandora is taking nine O levels. But she has had more advantages than me. She has been a member of the library since she was three.
Thursday July 9th
School breaks up for eight weeks tomorrow. Pandora is going to Tunisia soon. How I will survive without my love is anybody’s guess. We have tried French kissing but neither of us liked it, so we have gone back to the English.
My skin is dead good. I think it must be a combination of being in love and Lucozade.
Friday July 10th
It was magic at school today. All the teachers were in good moods. A rumour went round that pop-eyed Scruton was seen laughing but I didn’t believe it myself. Barry Kent climbed up the flagpole and flew a pair of his mother’s knickers in the breeze. Pandora said it was probably the first airing they had had for years.
Scan O’Leary is nineteen today. He has invited me to his birthday party. It is only over the road so I won’t have far to go.
I am writing up my diary now just in case I have one too many. People seem to get drunk just stepping over the O’Learys’ threshold.
Saturday July 11th
First proper hangover. Aged fourteen years, five months and nine days. Pandora put me to bed. She gave me a fireman’s lift up the stairs.
Sunday July 12th
Fourth after Trinity
My father took me, Pandora and Bert to the Wagtails boarding kennels this morning. Mrs Kane, the proprietor, has refused to keep Sabre any longer. It was very touching to see Bert and Sabre reunited. Mrs Kane is a hard woman, she got very nasty when my father refused to pay Sabre’s boarding fees, she kept smoothing her black moustache with her horny fingers and using unladylike language.
Bert said he won’t be parted from Sabre again. He said that Sabre is his only friend in the world! After all I have done for him!! If it wasn’t for me he wouldbe a corpse by now, and Sabre would be an orphan living with the RSPCA.
Monday July 13th
Bert has been talking to Mrs Singh! He speaks fluent Hindi! He says she has found some indecent magazines under the lino in the bathroom. An heirloom from that creep Lucas!
Mr Singh is outraged. He has written to the estate agents to complain that his house has been defiled.
Bert showed me one of the magazines. They are not indecent in my opinion, but then I am a man of the world. I have put it under my mattress with the Big and Bouncys. It is called Amateur Photographer.
Tuesday July 14th
Bert’s social worker came round tonight. She is called Katie Bell. She talked to Bert in a stupid way. She said that Bert had been offered a place in the Alderman Cooper Sunshine Home. Bert told her that he didn’t want to go. Katie Bell said that he has got to go. Even my father said that he felt sorry for Bert. But not sorry enough to invite Bert to live with us permanently I noticed!
Poor Bert, what will happen to him?
Wednesday July 15th
Bert has moved in with the Singhs. Mr Singh fetched Sabre’s kennel so it is official. Bert looks dead happy. His favourite food is curry.
Pandora has allowed me to touch her bust. I promised not to tell anyone, but there was nothing to tell really. I couldn’t tell where her bust began through all the layers of underclothes, dress, cardigan and anorak.
I am reading Sex, The Facts, by Dr A.P.G. Haig.
Thursday July 16th
11 AM. My father got his redundancy cheque today. He did cowboy whoops up and down the hall. He has asked Doreen Slater to go out with him to celebrate. Guess who Maxwell’s baby sitter is going to be? Yes, dear diary, you guessed right! It is I!
11 PM. Maxwell has only just gone to sleep, Pandora rang up at nine-thirty and asked how I was doing. I couldn’t hear her properly because Maxwell was screaming so loudly. Pandora said I should try putting vodka in some hot milk and forcing it down his vile throat. I have just done it. And it worked. He is not a bad kid when he is asleep.
Friday July 17th
Full Moon
My precious love leaves these shores tomorrow. I am going to the airport to see her off. I hope her plane won’t suffer from metal fatigue. I have just checked the world map to see where Tunisia is, and I am most relieved to see that Pandora won’t have to fly through the Bermuda triangle.
If anything happened to my love I would never smile again.
I have bought her a book to read during the flight. It is called Crash!, by a bloke called William Golden-stein, III. It is very good on what to do if the worst happens.
Saturday July 18th
Pandora read the Crash! book in the coach on the way to the airport. When her flight was called she had slight hyste
rics and her father had to carry her up the steps. I waved to the plane until it had retreated into a large cloud, then I sadly got on a coach and came back home. How I will get through the next fortnight I don’t know. Goodnight, my Tunisian beauty.
Sunday July 19th
Fifth after Trinity
Stayed in bed and looked at Tunisia on the map.
Monday July 20th
Not had a postcard from my love yet.
Tuesday July 21st
Bert came round this morning. He said that Tunisia is full of hazards.
Wednesday July 22nd
Why haven’t I had a postcard yet? What can have happened?
Thursday July 23rd
Asked our postman about communications between Tunisia and England. He said that they were ‘diabolical’; he said that the Tunisian GPO depends on camels.
Friday July 24th
Moon’s Last Quarter
Went to see Mr Singh. He said that Tunisia is very unhygienic. Everybody but me seems to be familiar with Tunisia!
Saturday July 25th
PANDORA! PANDORA! PANDORA!
Oh! my love,
My heart is yearning,
My mouth is dry,
My soul is burning.
You’re in Tunisia,
I am here.
Remember me and shed a tear.
Come back tanned and brown and healthy.
You’re lucky that your dad is wealthy.
She will be back in sixdays.
Sunday July 26th
Sixth after Trinity
Went for tea at grandma’s. I was sad and withdrawn because of Pandora’s sojourn in Tunisia. Grandmaasked if I was constipated. I nearly said something, but what’s the use of trying to explain love to a woman of seventy-six who thinks the word is obscene?
Monday July 27th
A camel postcard! It said:
Dearest,