by Sue Townsend
I spend each break with Pandora. We usually talk about world events. Pandora only wears black clothes as she is in mourning for the world. This has led to her being called ‘Barmy Braithwaite’ by unthinking morons amongst the student body and also, I regret to report, some of the academic staff. We usually walk home together and on the way call in to see Bert Baxter who is now the oldest man on the electoral roll. Pandora takes Sabre the Alsatian for an angry prowl around the recreation ground, while I clean Bert up and listen to his incoherent ramblings about Lenin and the ‘needs of the Proletariat to rise up’. (Bert refuses to die until he sees the fall of Capitalism so it looks as though Bert will be with us for quite a while yet, unfortunately.) When Bert and Sabre have been pacified and fed and watered, Pandora and I walk home together. We part at the entrance to my cul-de-sac and she strolls off to her tree-lined avenue and her detached, book-lined house and I go to my previously described more horrible domestic living unit.
The warm scent of home baking does not greet me as I enter the kitchen. So I create my own smell by baking scones. Here is my recipe but remember before you rush for pencil and paper that the recipe is copyright and owned by me, Adrian Mole. So, should you wish to bake scones to this recipe then you will need to send money to me.
A. MOLE’S SCONES
Ingredients
4 oz flour or metric equivalent
2 oz butter or metric equivalent
2 oz sugar or metric equivalent
1 egg (eggs are still only eggs)
Method
Beat up all the ingredients. Make a tin greasy, throw it all in. Turn oven to number 5. Wait until scones are higher than they were. Should be 12 minutes, but keep opening oven door every 30 seconds.
So, crunching on my fresh-from-the-oven scones, I wind down from my day. At this time I may give Rosemary a few moments’ attention. Last night I built the GPO Tower from her Lego bricks, but while my back was turned Rosemary smashed it to pieces, and then had the nerve to laugh amongst the rubble. This is typical of her behaviour. I am sure she is going to grow up to be psychotic. She is already quite unmanageable. She empties drawers, switches the television knobs on and off, throws her soft toys down the lavatory pan and flies into a rage if she is restrained in any way. I have urged my parents to take her to the Child Guidance Clinic before it is too late, but my mother defends her saying, ‘Rosie is quite normal, Adrian, all toddlers behave like Attila the Hun. Why do you think so many mothers are on tranquillizers?’ In the early evening I make a point of watching a soap opera or two. I think it is very important for us intellectuals to keep in touch with popular culture. We cannot live in ivory towers, unless of course the ivory towers have a television aerial on the roof.
My parents are trying to save their marriage by playing badminton together on alternative Wednesdays. Otherwise, apart from this fortnightly outing, they clutter the house up in the evenings so I am forced to keep in my room or take to the streets. I honestly can’t understand how they can bear each other’s company. Their conversation consists of moaning about money and whining about wages – the wages they haven’t got.
I make few demands on them. All I require is a jar of multi-vitamins once a week plus clean linen and courtesy. However, I wouldn’t like you to switch off thinking that I’m not fond of my parents. In my own way I’m very close to them. It’s hard not to be. We live in a small house. They do have their good points. My father is quite a wit after a couple of glasses of vodka, and my mother is known for her compassion towards other married women. In fact she is in the middle of organizing a local group of them. I read somewhere that it is important for families to have bodily contact, so I make a point of patting my parents’ shoulders as I pass by. It costs nothing and seems to please them. However, at 8 o’clock, when the lounge is full of cigarette smoke, I make my excuses and leave for the outside world.
I sometimes meet up with Barry Kent and we chat about which of his friends is in court, and who’s in borstal. Occasionally we discuss Barry’s poetry; he was taught to read and write during his last period in a detention centre. It was a progressive place that had a poet in residence so instead of breaking rocks Barry was forced to split infinitives and then put them together again. Some of his stuff is quite good, primitive of course, but then Barry is practically a certified moron so it is only to be expected. Still, at least he’s making a living out of his poetry. In the guise of ‘Baz the Skinhead Poet’ he tours pubs and rock venues, and shouts poetry at the audience. Sometimes they shout back and then there’s a fight. Barry always wins.
On my way home I call in to see Pandora who is usually sitting under the anglepoise lamp bent over ‘A’ level homework. On the wall above her desk are two notices written in pink neon marker pen. One says ‘GET TO OXFORD OR DIE’, the other says ‘GO TO CAMBRIDGE AND LIVE’. There are five exclamation marks after each of them. We share a cup of cocoa or, if her parents are out, gin and tonic. Then we kiss passionately for about five minutes, longer if it’s a gin night, and I make my way home racked with latent sexuality. On such occasions I am pleased to find it’s raining. There’s nothing like a cold shower to ease sexual frustration.
By 11 o’clock I am in bed with the dog, reading, with a digestive biscuit and a cup of cocoa on my bedside table. It isn’t the lifestyle I would choose for myself. Given the choice I would opt for a mixture of Prince Andrew and Prince Edward’s social life, Ted Hughes’s working life and Wham! or Mick Jagger’s romantic life. But at least I’ve got a life. Some people haven’t. And I’m on the verge, the very kerb of the dual carriageway of Fate. Will I go one way towards London, celebrity and media attention? … Or will I go the other way, towards the provinces, and be forced to write letters to the local paper in order to see my name in print? A third possibility occurs to me. I could break down at a roundabout and remain, unsung, in limbo.
But I mustn’t burden you, kind listener, with my introspective musings. And anyway I shall have to finish now – it’s started raining and my jeans are on the line.
Mole’s Prizewinning Essay
January 1986
Monday
Oh joy! … Oh rapture! … At last I have made my mark on the world of literature. My essay entitled ‘A Day in the Life of an Air Stewardess’ has won second prize in the British Airways Creative Writing Competition.
My prizes are: A Concorde-shaped bookmark inscribed in gold leaf by Melvyn Bragg, a hostess apron which has been donated by ‘The Society for Distressed Air Stewardesses’, and £50.
Here, for posterity, is my prizewinning essay.
A Day in the Life of an Air Stewardess
By A. Mole
Jonquil Storme opened her languorous blue eyes and looked at the clock. ‘Oh drat and bother,’ she expectorated. The clock said seven o’clock and Jonquil was due at Heathrow Airport at seven fifteen, where she was in charge of Concorde.
Jonquil stretched out her lissome white hand and picked up the phone. Her other hand dialled the number: with her other hand she fondled an orchid that stood next to her bed in a jam jar.
‘Hi Brett!’ she said into the receiver … ‘Jonquil here, darling. I’m late, our night of passion wore me out and caused me to oversleep.’ Brett’s manly chuckle reverberated down the phone.
‘OK Jonquil,’ he guffawed, ‘I’ll tell the passengers that there is snow on the runway. Take your time my darling!’
Jonquil put the phone down and sank into the pillows that were still impregnated with Brett’s hair oil. She wondered if she would ever get to marry Brett, the Captain of Concorde, and whether the excuse about snow on the runway would be believed. After all it was July. Thus ruminating, Jonquil showered in the shower and dressed in the dressing room. Soon she was soignée and was climbing into her Maserati open-topped sports car to the gapes of ordinary dingy passers by.
Soon she was wriggling up the steps of Concorde in her high-heeled shoes. Brett met her at the door of the plane and gave her a French Kiss. The passengers didn’t
mind at all, in fact they applauded and cheered. A jolly American shouted ‘God bless you, Captain!’
Brett flashed his manly teeth and went to the front of the plane and switched the engine on. Jonquil went round smiling at the passengers and opening jars of caviar. Soon the champagne corks were popping and the passengers were lying about in stupors. The flight was smooth and without hazards and when Concorde reached New York Brett asked Jonquil to be his bride. So, after having blood tests for diseases, Brett and Jonquil were married in the elevator of the Empire State Building. Soon it was time to turn Concorde round and go home to London. Jonquil was dead proud of her new gold ring and Brett flew the plane better than he ever had before.
As Jonquil got into bed that night she said to herself, ‘What a lucky girl I am. To think I almost became a Domestic Science teacher.’ She looked at Brett’s matted black hair on the Laura Ashley pillow and smiled. It had been the most exciting day of her life.
THE END (Copyright World Wide owned by A. Mole)
The Sarah Ferguson Affair
July 1986
Thursday July 17th
I’m sick of reading about how handsome Prince Andrew is. To me he looks like the morons studying bricklaying and plastering at college; there is something about his neck that cries out for a hod of bricks. And those big white ruthless teeth! It makes me shudder to think of them nibbling at Fergie’s defenceless neck. So some women like tall, well-built men who can fly helicopters and have gobsmacking bank accounts and Coutts gold cards. But personally I think Fergie is throwing herself away on him.
Miss Sarah Ferguson was born to be the wife of Adrian Mole. I have written to tell her so, and to implore her to change her mind before 23rd July. As yet I have received no reply. She must be agonizing over her decision: ‘Riches, glamour and publicity with Prince Andrew, or poverty, introspection and listening to poetry with Adrian Mole’ – not an easy choice.
Sarah Ferguson, oh Sarah Ferguson,
Your name is on my lips constantly.
Don’t marry Andy, his legs are bandy.
Come to Leicester, come to Leicester, marry me!
Leave the palace, grab a taxi,
I’ll be waiting at the end of the M1.
We’ll go to my house, meet my parents,
I know the dog and you will get along.
Friday July 18th
No letter from Sarah Ferguson today.
I have rung Buckingham Palace but the (no doubt powdered and bewigged) flunkey refused to let me speak to her. He said, ‘Miss Ferguson is taking no calls from strangers.’ I said, ‘Listen, my man, I am no stranger to Miss Ferguson, she is my soul mate.’ I’m not sure but I could have sworn the flunkey muttered ‘Arsehole mate,’ before he slammed the phone down. There is nothing else to do but go to Buckingham Palace and tackle her face to face.
I have sent a Telemessage to my ginger-haired love:
SARAH, I AM COMING TO YOU. MEET ME AT THE PALACE GATE AT HIGH NOON.
YOURS WITH UNVANQUISHED LOVE,
ADRIAN MOLE (18¼)
PS. I WILL BE WEARING SUNGLASSES, AND CARRYING A MARKS & SPENCER’S CARRIER-BAG.
Saturday July 19th
Buckingham Palace, 1.30pm
She did not come. I asked a mounted policeman if Sarah was at home. He said, ‘Yes, she’s inside having waving lessons from the Queen Mother.’ I asked him if he would deliver a note to her from me, but he got distracted by a coach-load of excitable Japanese tourists who were measuring his horse and taking down its specifications. No doubt they are going to copy it and flood the world with cheap police horses. Will we English never learn?
I made my way home to the dreary provinces by train. An old fat woman kept up a non-stop monologue about her plans for the royal wedding day. I wanted to cry out, ‘You old fat fool, you will be watching an empty screen on the 23rd because there will be no royal wedding. So cancel your order for two dozen crusty cobs and a crate of assorted bottles of pop.’ I wanted to cry these words out but, of course, I didn’t; people would have thought I was a teenage lunatic obsessed with Sarah Ferguson, whereas of course I am anything but.
Sunday July 20th
Sarah has not replied to my letter yet.
Perhaps she has run out of stamps.
Monday July 21st
I asked the postman if there was anything for me from Buckingham Palace. He replied, ‘Ho, has Ted Hughes croaked it? H’are you the next Poet Laureate? H’if you hare, may I h’offer my h’utmost congratulations?’
No wonder England’s going to the dogs with public servants of his calibre.
7pm. Pandora Braithwaite rang from Leningrad tonight.
I asked her how she was getting on with her Russian lessons. She said, ‘Oh, amazingly well. I joined in a most stimulating debate in the turnip queue this morning. Workers and intellectuals discussed the underlying symbolism of The Cherry Orchard. I ventured the opinion, in Russian of course, that the cherries represented the patriarchal balls of Mother Russia, thus proving that Chekhov was AC/DC.’
I asked how the assembled geniuses in the turnip queue had reacted to her analysis. Pandora said, ‘Oh, they failed to understand it, bloody peasants!’ The line started to go faint, so Pandora shouted, ‘Adrian, video-tape the royal wedding for me, darling.’ Then the phone went dead and Pandora was lost to me.
Tuesday July 22nd
My Sarah was on the front page of the paper this morning, wearing a most indecent low-cut dress. That oaf Andrew was quite openly leering at her cleavage. When Sarah is my wife I shall insist that she wears cardigans buttoned up to the neck.
I’m with the Moslems on this one.
No letter. No hope left, the wedding is tomorrow, I shall not watch it. I shall walk the streets clutching my despair. Oh God! Oh Sarah!
Wednesday July 23rd
My Sarah’s Wedding Day
Sarah! Sarah! Sarah!
I sobbed into my pillow for so long this morning that the feathers stuck together and formed lumps like bits of dead chickens. Eventually I rose, dressed in black, and made a simple yet nutritious breakfast. My mother came down and through cigarette smoke said, ‘What’s up with your face?’
I replied quietly, yet with immense dignity, ‘I am in the deepest despair, Mother.’
‘Why, are your piles playing you up again?’ She coughed.
I left the kitchen, shaking my head from side to side in a pitying fashion, whilst at the same time saying, sotto voce, ‘Lord, have mercy on the philistines I am forced to live with, for they know not what they say.’
My father overheard and said, ‘Oh, got bleedin’ religion now, has he?’
I passed Grandma on her way to our house. She was carrying a tea-tray piled high with little fancy cakes, iced with the entwined initials ‘FA’. Grandma was in her best clothes; her hat swayed with exotic and long extinct birds’ feathers, she was wearing net gloves and a fox’s claw brooch. She was ecstatically happy. She cried out, ‘Hello, Adrian, my little love, have you got a kiss for your Grandma?’ I kissed her rouged cheek and walked on before she saw the tears in my eyes. She croaked, ‘Happy royal wedding day, Adrian.’
I passed the Co-op where the Union Jack hung upside down, and the Sikh temple where it was hung correctly. I bought a commemorative Andy and Fergie mug and blacked Prince Andrew’s big-jawed face out with a black marker pen, then I sat on the side of the canal, put some flowers in the mug and wrote a last letter to Sarah:
Dear Princess Sarah,
You will soon tire of the loon you married (he looks like the sort to hog the bedclothes to me). As soon as you grow even a little weary of him, remember I am waiting for you here in Leicester. I cannot promise you riches (although I have £139.37 in the Market Harborough Building Society) but I can offer intellectual chit-chat and my body, which is almost unsullied and is years younger than your husband’s.
Well, Sarah, I won’t keep you as I expect your husband is shouting oafishly for your attention.
I remain, Madam,
Your most humble and obedient servant,
Adrian Mole
The Mole/Kent Letters
To:
Barry Kent
ITK SR
Unit 2
Ridley Young Offenders Centre
Ridley-Upon-The-Dour
LINCOLNSHIRE
Leicester
April 21987
Dear Baz,
It was good to see you on Tuesday. The prison uniform suits you. You should wear more blue when you get out. Also Baz, non-smoking seems to agree with you, your breath was not as repellent as usual, why not give up for good? I’m sorry I have to be the bearer of bad news but somebody has to tell you that your fiancée Cindy is living with Gary Fullbright, the body builder, remember him? He won the ‘Mr Muscle’ competition in 1985. Cindy is expecting his baby in four months’ time. I expect you have just reeled back with the shock, so I’ll give you time in which to recover.
Baz, Cindy isn’t worthy of your love, don’t for God’s sake grieve over her. Her fingernails were never clean, and she had no dress sense at all. I will never forget that black rubber-outfit she wore (with scuffed stilletos and laddered fishnet tights) to your father’s funeral. Also, Baz, she had the intellectual capacity of a withered rubber band. I was chatting to her once about Middle Eastern politics and it became clear to me that she thought Mr Arafat was the Arab equivalent to Mr Kipling – a type of foreign biscuit.