by Sue Townsend
Marigold said, ‘It’s good to know that someone of the New Age is married to the most powerful person in Britain.’
Saturday December 7th
We are getting through four bags of logs a day at a cost of £3 a bag.
I was slightly nervous all day while I was at work. I had given my parents a spare key to my apartment and ntl were calling at 11.30 to connect me to over 200 television channels, at a cost of £66 a month. I will find the money somehow. A man of my intellect cannot afford to ignore global culture.
I got home from work to find my mother on the balcony, feeding the swans with croissants she had taken from my freezer. When I objected that (a) I do not want to encourage the long-necked bullies to congregate below my balcony, and (b) the frozen croissants were for my personal consumption – I eat two every morning before going to work – she said swans are strange creatures with special powers, you have to be nice to them or they’ll turn against you and make your life a misery.
I could see that the ntl engineer had turned up as promised. My father was watching Formula One racing live from Adelaide. I asked him to turn the volume down. He dithered over the five remote controls that are needed to operate the home entertainment centre, but only succeeded in turning the volume up to a torturous level that made my heart beat faster and my ears vibrate. It sounded as though Michael Schumacher was in my living room, revving his engine.
I tried to turn the television off at the front of the set, but there was no obvious button or switch. The noise became intolerable.
My mother screamed, ‘Where’s the operating manual?’
Before I could find the relevant page, there was an angry banging on my door. I opened it to find a tall, gaunt-looking young woman with long blonde hair parted in the middle. She looked like the type of woman my mother would have described as ‘living on her nerves’.
She shouted, ‘Turn it down.’ Her voice sounded tight in her larynx. Her hands were clenched. I could imagine that under the white tracksuit she was wearing, her buttocks were also clenched.
I shouted above the screaming of the Formula One cars that I couldn’t work the remotes. The young woman pushed in, picked up one of the five remote controls and pressed a button. Silence fell.
She said, ‘Sorry, but I cannot bear noise. I live above you.’
I introduced myself and my parents. She shook our hands and said that she was Mia Fox. I apologized for disturbing her and said that I was normally a considerate neighbour. She said that she would have to go back upstairs because she had left something on the stove.
My father asked me if he could watch the Miss World Competition. He said, ‘We’ve only got terrestrial and the BBC are refusing to show it.’
I have watched the Miss World Competition with my father since I was a small boy. In those halcyon days I knew no better. My father would spend an hour before the competition started on drawing up two identical charts, one for him and one for me.
My father taught me to give points for face, bust, legs, bum and niceness. We would enter the marks for each contestant. It was one of the few activities that I ever shared with him. I was a great disappointment to him when I was a boy. I did not like football, cricket or fishing, but he was proud of my skill in predicting who would wear the crown and sash and weep tears of joy on being pronounced Miss World.
I heard from the radio next to my futon on the BBC World Service that Miss Turkey won. Apparently they are going mad in Istanbul.
Iraq has presented the United Nations with 12,000 pages of documentation about their weapons programmes. So it looks as though war has been averted, thank God.
Sunday December 8th
Marigold rang me at 8.30 this morning and begged me to come to Beeby on the Wold for lunch. She said something terrible had happened.
I said, ‘Why can’t you tell me over the phone?’
She said that she couldn’t possibly talk about it over the phone and started to cry.
I wanted to shout, ‘I don’t care what catastrophe has happened to you. I would sooner eat my own arm than drive fifteen miles and spend five or six hours with your gruesome family, being patronized and used as a domestic drudge.’
But I didn’t. I agreed to be there on time for the humanist prayer that Michael Flowers intoned at the head of the table instead of saying grace.
I stopped at an off-licence and bought a bottle of French rosé as I had read in the Sunday Times that it was newly fashionable if served chilled.
Marigold ran out of the house to greet me as I parked. She didn’t look like a woman who’d had a recent terrible experience. However, she did look terrible. She was wearing harem pants, a plaid shirt and the tartan headband. Her hair needed washing and her spectacles were smeared.
I could not resist taking them off and cleaning them with my handkerchief.
She said, ‘So you do love me?’
I made a noncommittal grunting noise and said, ‘So what has happened?’
She said, ‘Mummy and Daddy might be getting a divorce. They’ve called the family together to talk about it. Daisy has come up from London and Poppy is here.’ She was pulling me towards the front door.
I said, ‘But the family won’t want me there. I’ll leave you all in peace to talk it over among yourselves.’
Marigold said, ‘Please don’t go. I need your support. But please don’t be offended by anything Daisy might say. She’s half Mexican, you know.’
The front door opened and Michael Flowers bellowed, ‘Come in, come in, my boy. The food is on the table!’
Daisy Flowers sat next to me in the dining room. Her perfume was overpowering. She looked as though she had stepped out of the pages of TV Quick. Her black hair was piled on top of her head and skewered together by what looked like a thin bone. She had dark olive skin and her breasts wobbled like the jellies my grandma used to serve up for Sunday tea. I didn’t know where to put my eyes. Her legs were hidden under the table. She was almost, but not quite, as beautiful as Pandora Braithwaite.
She said, ‘Hello, Adrian. I know everything there is to know about you. Marigold is never off the phone to me.’
Her voice was deep. I asked her if she had a cold. She laughed and threw her head back, exposing her lovely throat. I wanted to sink my teeth into her neck.
Poppy sat opposite. She had tamed her hair into two immensely long, fat plaits. She looked disturbingly like a middle-aged Heidi. She said disapprovingly, ‘Daisy has been smoking since she was thirteen years old, that’s why she sounds like a mating walrus.’
Netta Flowers came in with a gravyboat full of what I presumed to be vegetarian gravy and set it down. My rosé wine was the most colourful thing on the table.
Michael Flowers got to his feet, paused dramatically and then announced, ‘This could be the last meal we eat together as a complete family unit. Netta and I are no longer sexually compatible. My darling wife informed me last night that she is about to embark on a sexual adventure with Roger Middleton.’
Netta looked around at her daughters for their reaction. Poppy and Marigold looked down at the tablecloth.
Daisy reached for the rosé, took a corkscrew from out of her bag and said, ‘Roger Middleton? The seriously weird lavender supplier with the nose?’ She pulled the cork and slopped the rosé into my glass before filling her own.
Poppy said, ‘Roger Middleton is half your age, Mummy.’
Netta smiled and adjusted the ruched neckline of her gypsy blouse.
Flowers said, ‘For what we are about to receive, may Mother Nature make us truly grateful.’
Bowls of food were passed around and various brown baked things were put on to plates.
I thought about the magnificent roast dinners that my grandmother used to make for me, of how she would cut the fat off the beef and hand it to me as a special treat.
When everyone had food on their plates, Michael Flowers said, ‘I would like to open the debate. The question is, should Mummy and I have an open marriage during
which Mummy and Roger Middleton have it off and I cast myself into the uncertainties of the singles circuit? Or should we divorce, sell the house and shop, and go our separate ways?’
When nobody said anything, he said, looking at me, ‘C’mon, family, what do you think, eh?’
I grew more alarmed with every minute that passed. For some inexplicable reason, he was treating me as though I were a member of his family.
Marigold half sobbed and said, ‘But, Daddy, I want you and Mummy to live in this house for ever.’
Netta said, ‘Oh, Mazzie darling, you’re being a teensy-weensy bit selfish. You’ll be getting married yourself and leaving us one day, won’t you? Perhaps one day soon?’
The Flowers family looked at me en masse. I felt a bit like sobbing myself.
Marigold said, ‘Nobody will ever marry me, will they? I’m far too plain and dull.’
She waited for a response.
Netta said, ‘Remember what your therapist told you, Mazzie. You must learn to love yourself first.’
Poppy said, ‘She should have spent the money on having her hair done.’
Daisy added, ‘Or buying a few decent clothes.’
Marigold buried her head in my shoulder. I felt obliged to put my arm around her.
Daisy said to me, sotto voce, ‘If I were you, I’d run while there’s still time.’
Michael and Netta Flowers both got to their feet and said, ‘Hug time,’ and enveloped Marigold in their parental embrace.
Daisy turned her head away and put her index finger down her throat.
I don’t know how I got through the rest of the meal. Netta and Michael Flowers talked openly and frankly about their psycho-sexual problem in toe-curling detail. At one point we were forced to listen as Netta recounted how she had pleasured Michael during a Bob Dylan concert on the Isle of Wight.
Eventually Poppy stood up and said to her parents, ‘I can’t listen to any more of this filth. You have both put me off sex for life. I hated the way you both walked around the house naked and wouldn’t allow us to have locks on any door.’
The meal ended in tears and recriminations. Michael Flowers said over the heads of the sobbing women, ‘It’s so good that a family can talk openly and frankly about these things, isn’t it, Adrian?’
I said, ‘But nothing has been decided. Is Netta going to sleep with Roger Middleton or not?’
Netta said, ‘I will decide by visiting a rowan tree at midnight. If an owl hoots after I have sung my rowan song, I will sleep with Roger in an open marriage. If the owl is silent I will divorce Daddy and take him to court, for half the value of this house and half the value of the shop.’
Then, to my horror, she sang the rowan song:
‘O rowan tree, O rowan tree,
Hey nonny no, how sad I be,
There is a man that I do love,
He be my dear, my turtle dove,
If I do lie with him abed
And he do kiss my bonny head,
Will he stay or will he go?
Hey nonny, nonny, nonny, no.’
When she had finished singing, Daisy, quite cruelly I thought, gave an owl impression.
I started to clear the table, but Michael Flowers said, ‘No, let the women take care of the washing-up. I’d like to see you in my study.’
I would sooner have climbed into the bear pit at Whipsnade Zoo naked and covered in honey than gone into Flowers’s study, but I went anyway, because anything, anything, was better than staying in a room with three weeping women.
Flowers sat behind his desk and put a hand over his eyes. I didn’t know whether to remain standing or sit down on the battered leather and mahogany chair in front of the desk.
He said, ‘Adrian, I think I am a good man. I have certainly tried to better the lives of humankind. I walked in a wet duffel coat to Aldermaston every Easter weekend for ten years. I donated and erected tents for the women at Greenham Common. I sent a fruit basket to Nelson Mandela at Robben Island. I delivered 100 vegetarian samosas to the picket line at a Nottingham coal field and I attempted to bring a little culture to the working men’s clubs by singing Schubert, but bingo put paid to that. I’m bitterly disappointed with the English working classes, Adrian. They’ve chosen consumerism over art, materialism over culture and celebrity-worship over robust spirituality.
‘I have asked for so very little for myself. My needs are few: sufficient daily quantities of vegetables and fruit, good bread, a jug of home-brewed ale, books of course. But most of all, Adrian, most of all I have had the love of my family. I have been blessed with two extraordinary wives and three daughters, two of them loving.’
He raised his head and banged his fist on his desk, causing the ink bottles and nibbed pens he uses to jump. ‘I have only one regret.’ He looked me in the face and locked on to my eyes. I was unable to tear my gaze away from his. ‘I desperately wanted a son. And, Adrian, I think I’ve found him. You and I have so much in common. I too despise sport and low culture. And I, like you, adore Marigold. I honestly feel, Adrian, that you are the son I never had. Please say that I can lean on you in the dark days to come.’
He held his hand out. What could I do, diary, but take it? My audience in his study lasted fourteen minutes, yet I did not speak one word.
Monday December 9th
A scandal has broken out concerning Mrs Blair, the prime minister’s barrister wife. She has allowed a convicted fraudster called Peter Foster to negotiate on her behalf to buy two riverside apartments in Bristol, costing in total over half a million pounds.
Foster is wanted by the Australian police for selling false slimming pills. On September 1st he was told by immigration officials at Luton Airport that he would be deported within two days on the grounds that he was ‘not conducive to the public good’. Mr Foster is the lover of Cherie Blair’s guru and aromatherapist, Carole Caplin.
I wonder why she didn’t use an estate agent. I know that in opinion polls they are less respected than politicians and journalists, but surely even an estate agent is more trustworthy than a convicted fraudster.
The Leicestershire and Rutland Creative Writing Group met in the snug at the Red Cow. Only Ken Blunt turned up. Gary Milksop left a message on my mobile to say that he was stuck on the M6, where a lorry had shed its load of frozen turkeys, but he said, ‘I’ll see you on the 23rd. I’ll be bringing my partner and a couple of friends. Please text details of venue, time and dress code.’
Ken read to me a vicious piece of polemic called ‘Bush’s Poodle’.
‘Bitch America is on heat
She straddles the globe
Defecating hamburgers, apple pie and Coke
Tony, the toy poodle, minces at the rear
Sniffing the bitch’s arse and trying to mount.’
A couple of old blokes who were sitting in the snug looked up in alarm. Ken has got a loud voice.
After I’d read him a few pages of my Celebrity and Madness book, Ken said, ‘I’m not surprised you’ve not found a publisher. It’s bloody crap. Who wants to read about a load of fake-tanned tosspots?’ He then said, ‘And this dinner on the 23rd, have you booked a venue?’
I told him that I had.
He then said, ‘So who’s the guest speaker?’
I told him that it would be a pleasant surprise.
He said almost menacingly, ‘I hope so. My wife is a keen autograph hunter.’
As soon as I got home to Rat Wharf I sent a text message to Pandora:
Keep the evening of 23 12 2002 free. U R guest speaker at VIP dinner in Leicester.
Tuesday December 10th
According to Asif, the garage log bloke, the photocopiers at the United Nations cannot cope with copying the 12,000-page document listing Iraq’s weapons programme.
Syria wants to know why America, Britain, France, Russia and China will see the document first.
Asif said, ‘America needs time to use the Tippex and blank out all the bad bits, what it’s done in the past, like selling w
eapons to Saddam, innit?’
I said, ‘As if, Asif.’
Mr Carlton-Hayes arranged for two armchairs to be delivered today. They are Edwardian and are covered in worn brown velvet.
I sat by the fire in one and checked his stock list. I was asleep within minutes.
When I woke, Marigold was sitting in the opposite chair. She said that she would be at mumming rehearsals each night this week. She asked me if I would join the group and play Joseph opposite her Mary.
I told Marigold that I was an official agnostic and couldn’t possibly take part in any religious enactment whatsoever.
Marigold said, ‘Mummery simply means mime. It isn’t necessarily religious. It has its roots in paganism. Mummy and Daddy were founder members of the New Secular Society.’
I threw another log on the fire and said, ‘I cannot tolerate mime, Marigold.’
Marigold said, ‘You are a very intolerant person.’
I told her that a combination of mime and madrigals was my idea of hell.
Marigold said, ‘My idea of hell is a life without you.’ Then she said, ‘You should wear gloves when you’re handling logs. A splinter could lead to septicaemia.’ Then she left the shop.
Before her parting remark I had handled logs with a nonchalance bordering on recklessness. But for the rest of the day I handled them as if they were sticks of dynamite.
Wednesday December 11th
Moon’s First Quarter
A hundred Hollywood stars signed a petition against a pre-emptive strike on Iraq. I have never heard of any of them apart from Gillian Anderson, the X-Files woman.
Pandora rang me at work to say that she won’t be in Leicester until the 24th, when she is attending a constituency drinks party. I begged her to change her plans.
She said, ‘Gordon and Sarah Brown have invited me for champagne and mince pies at Downing Street. He wants to talk to me about my political future. Is your “VIP” dinner more important than that?’