by Sue Townsend
My mother tried to stir my father from his early-morning torpor by discussing this with him.
My father said, ‘1441, wasn’t that the name of the perfume my mum used to wear?’
My mother sighed and looked sad. She said, ‘No, George, that was 4711.’
When he had gone out of the kitchen, she said, ‘I wish I was married to somebody like Roy Hattersley, somebody who was interested in politics.’
She lit her first cigarette of the day and we watched the news on the kitchen television. Mr Blair was very impressive. He looked sternly into the camera and said directly to Saddam Hussein, ‘Disarm or face force.’ His voice trembled with emotion.
My mother said, ‘He looks as though he’s about to burst into tears.’ She shouted at the screen, ‘Butch up, Tony.’
4 p.m.
Marigold came in to the shop this morning. She couldn’t stay long because she was on her way to the Karma Health Centre to have an Indian head massage. She has suffered from migraines all her life. I was astonished to hear that having her head rubbed for half an hour was going to cost £25. I advised her to buy a packet of Nurofen Extra instead and told her that they always work for me. Migraines are the only thing we have in common.
She asked me if I would like to accompany her to a concert the Madrigal Society is giving in Leicester Cathedral. She said her father was singing a solo. He is a counter-tenor.
5.30 p.m.
Mr Carlton-Hayes has gone home. I am sitting here waiting for Marigold. I don’t know where this relationship is going. I can’t think of a more horrible way to spend a Friday night than sitting in a cold cathedral listening to Michael Flowers singing in a woman’s voice.
Midnight
Marigold and I walked to the cathedral arm in arm. She was wearing a red beret and a khaki trouser suit. I didn’t say anything, but she looked like a paratrooper on leave. Perhaps she is subconsciously preparing herself for war.
You would have thought that Michael Flowers would have changed his clothes for the occasion, but, oh no, he has worn the tree sweater for twenty consecutive days to my knowledge. When I mentioned this to Marigold, she said that detergents are a major pollutant of our rivers and waterways.
Michael Flowers started the concert by giving what he said would be a short address about the history of the madrigal, but he droned on for twenty-five minutes, seemingly oblivious to the fidgeting and boredom of his audience. Eventually the terrible singing started.
Netta Flowers loomed over the other choristers. She was also vocally dominant. Her deep contralto seemed to make the pew Marigold and I were sitting in reverberate.
Afterwards, when we were mingling in the vestry, convention forced me to congratulate Mr and Mrs Flowers on their performances.
Mr Flowers said, ‘Are you two young people going to a rock and roll club later?’
I almost laughed out loud. He smells of damp wool.
*
Later, in Wong’s, I asked Marigold if she had ever considered leaving home. She pushed a clump of bean sprouts around her bowl with a chopstick and said that she had expected to be married by now.
Saturday November 9th
Marigold rang early this morning to say that her parents had told her that I was an admirable young man. She sounded very happy. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I had been awake half the night wondering how I could end the relationship.
Sunday November 10th
Watched the old blokes and old women marching past the Cenotaph. Some of them looked like they were on their last legs; others didn’t have legs and were pushed past in wheelchairs. My father asked me why I was sniffing. I said I was allergic to poppies.
He said, ‘Your grandad Arthur was in the Second World War.’
I asked him where my grandad had fought.
My father said, ‘He wouldn’t talk about the war, but if he saw it on telly or heard “Lili Marleen”, he’d cry like a baby. Your grandma Mole would send him out to the backyard with a clean handkerchief, until he’d recovered himself. She was a hard woman.’
*
My mother has made some change of address cards on her Apple Mac. Their new address is going to be The Piggeries, The Bottom Field, Lower Lane, Mangold Parva, Leicestershire.
I said, ‘Aren’t you being a little premature?’
She said, ‘No, we bought the pigsties at an auction yesterday afternoon.’
Nobody ever tells me anything in this house. I’ll be glad to see the back of it.
I rang Nigel at his parents’ house. He has been living in their granny annexe since putting his London flat up for sale. His sight has deteriorated even more. I asked him if he wanted to go and see The Lord of the Rings with me.
He said, ‘No, it all takes place in Middle Earth in half-darkness, and anyway elves and gnomes are seriously naff.’
I asked Nigel if his hearing had improved since he had gone blind.
He said, ‘Yes, I can now hear a page being turned in Hay-on-fucking-Wye, aren’t I a lucky boy?’
Monday November 11th
Moon’s Last Quarter
Mr Carlton-Hayes and I seemed to be the only people in the High Street who observed the one-minute silence at 11 o’clock, apart from a few pensioners and a black bus driver who got out of his cab and stood with his head bowed.
*
Rang Barwell. Angela said the papers were ready for signing. To make conversation, I asked her what floor covering Mr Barwell would be having on his office floor next.
She said that Barwell had an appointment at 4 p.m. to talk to his allergy consultant.
I asked Mr Carlton-Hayes if I could nip out for an hour. He told me to take as long as I needed.
It should have been a happy occasion, but as I signed the documents which committed me to paying £723.48 a month, I could not help remembering Parvez’s warning, ‘Citizens’ Advice Bureau, debt counselling, bankruptcy, homelessness and misery’.
Barwell was wheezing and coughing throughout the little paperwork ceremony. I suggested that the air in his office was rather stale and offered to open the window.
He wheezed, ‘The window doesn’t open. I have to keep the pollen out.’
I pointed out to him that his windows were made of ultraviolet polyvinyl chloride and advised him to replace them with a traditional wooden frame. I told him in detail about the Radio Four documentary I had heard the night before about Sick Building Syndrome. He appeared interested at first, but then seemed to lose concentration and kept looking at his watch.
I pick the keys up for Rat Wharf on Friday.
Tuesday November 12th
Last night at the Leicestershire and Rutland Creative Writing Group meeting, Ken Blunt asked me if I had fixed a speaker for our Christmas dinner on December 23rd and if I had found a suitable venue. I told him that neither Mrs Blair nor Ruth Rendell had replied as yet.
Gary Milksop said that he had applied for the position of Creative Writing for Disadvantaged Adults Facilitator at the Life-Long Learning Centre.
I said, ‘But, Gary, you are not qualified to teach creative writing.’
He said that he had a BA in Education and had almost finished writing his novel.
He said it was a part-time position and was worth £10,000 a year. He showed me the advertisement. It said at the bottom, ‘Preference will be given to a published writer.’
I pointed out to Milksop as kindly as I could that he had not yet earned a single penny from his writing and reminded him that he had decorated the chimney breast of his bed-sitting room with publishers’ rejection letters.
Gladys read us her latest cat poem:
‘Poor Blackie’s up in heaven,
God took her life away,
He said, you’ll go to Devon,
And have a holiday.
Once there, you’ll find your pussy friends,
Their ghosts do walk the prom,
Here are Ginger, Ming and Fluff,
Marmalade and Tom.’
She told us that Blackie had been run over by a lorry last Thursday.
Ken Blunt said that Gladys’s poem was a failure because it was not truthful. He said that she had obviously chosen Devon because it rhymed with heaven, and that the idea that dead cats prowled the promenades of Devon was totally absurd.
‘This poem is untruthful
This poem is absurd,
This poem is a contrivance
To rhyme with Douglas Hurd.’
I pointed out to Ken Blunt that ‘a contrivance’ didn’t scan properly.
Gary Milksop said that Gladys should collect her cat poems together and send them to a publisher.
Ken Blunt said, ‘What for, cat litter?’
Gladys said that we were mocking Blackie’s death and that we should leave. I was glad to get out of there. I was covered from head to toe in cat hair.
Ken Blunt asked me and Gary if we fancied a drink. We went to the Red Cow near the university. It was full of students singing along to Rolf Harris songs. Gary Milksop told me that Rolf Harris is a cult figure in student circles. How come I didn’t know this?
We discussed the future of the Leicestershire and Rutland Creative Writing Group and came to the reluctant conclusion that Gladys was holding us back. Her cat poems now dominate the meetings. Ken said expulsion is the only answer.
I was deputed to tell Gladys Fordingbridge that she is no longer a member of the Leicestershire and Rutland Creative Writing Group.
I asked Ken what he was working on at the moment; he said, ‘Nowt.’
Marigold rang and left a message on my mobile to say that she was ‘…concerned that you haven’t been in touch. Are you poorly?’ I didn’t want to speak to her so I scribbled a note:
Dear Marigold
Forgive me for my silence. You have been on my mind constantly. My breathing still quickens when I think about your delicate wrists and the way your glasses slip down your nose.
If you had had a mobile I would have been in regular text contact. This is a v. busy week for me. I move into Rat Wharf on Friday and I will no doubt be engaged in settling in for some time afterwards. But I will contact you when I have some free time.
Yours, with very best wishes,
Adrian
PS I expect your father is annoyed with Geoff Hoon for agreeing to let President Bush install Star Wars missiles on England’s fair and pleasant land. Myself, I think it is a price we have to pay for freedom.
Wednesday November 13th
I reminded my parents that the fire fighters go on strike at 6 p.m. today. I begged them not to smoke in bed and also not to leave cigarettes smouldering in ashtrays while they cut their toenails etc. It would be a disaster if this house burnt down before I move to Rat Wharf and they move to what they now call the Piggeries.
Thursday November 14th
Mr Carlton-Hayes has given me three days off to move. I cannot bear to drag the old cheap pine bed I have been sleeping in since childhood to my new cutting-edge loft apartment. It would be like putting an antimacassar on a Terence Conran sofa. I need to buy a futon, new bed linen, simple but stylish kitchen equipment, a table and two chairs for my balcony, bookcases, a television and curtains for my glass lavatory. The problem is I have no money at all.
When I explained my predicament to my mother, she looked up from her book, The Beginners’ Guide to Renovating Property, and said, ‘Nobody uses money any more. Money as such doesn’t exist. Everybody I know lives on credit. Get yourself a store card.’
*
I have found a small firm to help me with my move tomorrow, Two Gals ’n’ a Van.
I spent a confusing and demoralizing afternoon on the phone, listening to Vivaldi and various robots. It appears that the gas at Rat Wharf is supplied by Severn Trent Water, the electricity by the gas board, my water by a French company with a name I can’t pronounce. The cable company ntl is in charge of my phone. They are connecting me to over 200 television channels tomorrow at 2 o’clock.
The two girls of Two Gals ’n’ a Van are not girls. They are strong-looking middle-aged women called Sian and Helen. They came round to assess how many journeys the van would have to make between Ashby de la Zouch and Leicester tomorrow.
The answer was one.
They gave me some cardboard boxes and left me upstairs, packing my books. My mother had invited them downstairs to have a cup of tea.
Soon afterwards my father came up to join me. I could hear female laughter coming from the kitchen. I asked my father what the women downstairs were talking about.
He said, ‘Just women’s silly slobber – the price of cabbage, was Princess Diana murdered, will Hans Blix find any Weapons of Mass Destruction, cats, the change of bloody life, Sex and the City, and how men are not needed any more.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Helen is trying to get pregnant. Sian has been doing the business with a turkey baster and a bottle of sperm that’s been donated by their gay-boy friend.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Where did we go wrong, Adrian? We let them go to work, we let them be bloody vicars, they drive cars, there’s one who’s a captain in the navy, we bought them machines to make it easier to do their housework, but they still hate us, and they’d rather have sex with a kitchen tool than with a man.’
My father kicked at my boxes and said, ‘You’ve not got much to show for thirty-four years of life, have you?’
When he’d gone, I lay down on my childhood bed and wept for about one minute and thirty seconds.
Friday November 15th
Sian and Helen moved me into Rat Wharf this morning. My address is now a prestigious one: Unit 4, The Old Battery Factory, Rat Wharf, Grand Union Canal, Leicester. It is entirely to my taste – very spare, very masculine and very hard-textured.
While the ‘gals’ carried the heavy boxes of books upstairs, I opened my sliding door and stood on the mesh balcony, gripping the steel rail which overlooks the canal. A gang of swans immediately swam up and began hissing aggressively. The biggest one, who for some reason reminded me of Sir John Gielgud, the great classical actor, was particularly vicious. An old-fashioned tramp, with string round his trousers, was staggering past the dye works on the opposite bank, swigging from a can of Kestrel.
From my vantage point above the water I could clearly see several supermarket trolleys, milk crates and what must have been hundreds of Kestrel lager cans lying on the bed of the canal. The water had a curious phosphorous-looking mien to it, and a noxious smell that was certainly not there when I viewed the property in October. I would have liked to have stood on the balcony longer, but quite honestly, diary, the malevolent stare of Gielgud, the biggest swan, drove me inside.
I asked Sian what she thought of my loft apartment.
She said, ‘It’ll be nice when you’ve got some colour on the walls and a few bits and pieces to make it cosy.’
I said that I didn’t do cosy and explained that I intended to live an uncluttered life, a bit like Mahatma Gandhi.
Helen pointed to a box that contained my clothes and said, ‘So what’s in there, loincloths?’
I pointed out that it was Tarzan who wore a loincloth, Gandhi had worn a dhoti, which was quite a different thing.
Before they left, Helen told me that when they were taking the boxes out of the van in the car park, they had seen a ‘stroppy flock of swans’. She warned me to take care, adding, ‘A swan can break a man’s arm, you know.’
I paid them £80, money I could ill afford. I was glad to see them go. I wanted to walk around my beautiful space and listen to my footsteps on my genuine wooden floor.
I unpacked my books and stacked them on the floor in alphabetical order while I waited for ntl to call. The swans kept up a constant racket outside. Occasionally Gielgud would fly past my balcony window. I had forgotten that swans could fly. I had the eerie feeling that he was spying on me and mocking me because I had so few possessions.
At 4 o’clock I telephoned ntl to ask why their engineer had failed to turn up as promised. A woman said she would ring me o
n my mobile when she had made contact with their ‘field operative’.
Marigold rang to ask how I was enjoying my first afternoon in my new apartment. I told her about the swans and she said, ‘Be careful, Adrian. A swan can break a man’s arm, you know.’
I, rather irritably perhaps, informed her that I had known this fact since I was four years old.
She thanked me for my letter and said with a little laugh, ‘There’s a certain ambiguity about it. Read one way it sounds like you’re giving me the brush-off, read another way it sounds the same.’ She gave another little laugh. ‘You’re not giving me the brush-off, are you, Adrian?’
Why didn’t I tell her the truth, diary? Why didn’t I tell her that after spending time with her the world seems a darker place, one devoid of joy and hope? She is coming round tomorrow after work.
At 5.30 my telephone rang and an ntl person informed me that the field operative had attempted to call but had been beaten back by swans in the car park, then added, ‘A swan can break a man’s arm, you know.’
I have arranged to be in the car park to escort the ntl engineer to my apartment at 10 o’clock in the morning.
Having no bed yet, I made a platform of books, which I lay on in a sleeping bag. But it was an uncomfortable night: Frankenstein dug into my breastbone and kept me awake.
Saturday November 16th
I am still without ntl. The engineer refused to get out of his van because Gielgud and the other swans were walking around the car park, looking as though they owned the place. Before he drove away he said, ‘A swan can break a man’s arm, y’know.’
I met the owner of Unit 2 on the stairs. He is a professor of golf course management at De Montfort University. His name is Frank Green. He said the swans were a bloody nuisance and that he was thinking of selling his apartment and moving to a land-locked location.