by Sue Townsend
As it happened, the birthing pool was a grave disappointment. The midwife put me in charge of catching Jo Jo’s afterbirth in a child’s fishing net. The last time I used such a net I was eight years old, and my catch was tadpoles, which I put into a jam jar. Tragically I missed the actual moment of my son’s birth because my mother chose that very same time to telephone the maternity unit and ask for a progress report. I will never forgive her for that.
Ivan Braithwaite invited my mother and me, and Nigel and Nigel’s boyfriend, Norbert, to the count at the Town Hall, and to the celebratory party afterwards, at the Red Lion Hotel. At no time was my father or Mrs Tania Braithwaite mentioned. They have already been airbrushed out of history, like Stalin or Anita Harris.
After a horrible meal cooked with haste and ill grace by my mother (lobster nuggets and Uncle Ben’s Oriental Rice), I went upstairs and tried to persuade my father to leave his bed. I told him that Pandora’s exit polls looked good.
‘I don’t care, Adrian,’ he said. ‘I don’t care about anything. My life has been a total waste, I’ve done nothing and been nowhere. Nobody knows my name outside my own family, and the storage-heating industry. I haven’t even had my fifteen minutes of fame as promised by Andy-bloody-Warhol.’
‘It was Marshall McLuhan,’ I corrected.
‘You see?’ he said, and turned his back to the wall.
I tried to rally him by reminding him that he had been famous – perhaps not for fifteen minutes but certainly for five. When we were on holiday at Wells-next-the-Sea, he had been blown out to sea on a lilo shaped like false teeth. He had drifted for two miles before being winched to safety by the RAF. It made the regional TV news – Midlands Today – and the front page of the Leicester Mercury. Even the Daily Telegraph picked it up.
MAN SAVED BY SKIN OF TEETH!
A Leicester man who was rescued drifting in the Wash on a lilo in the shape of a pair of false teeth was described by Captain Richard Brown of the RAF Helicopter Rescue Service as a ‘damned fool’.
‘There was a slow leak in a lower left molar,’ said Captain Brown, ‘he wouldn’t have lasted long.’
Captain Brown called for legislation which would ban civilians from using the sea. ‘The sea is not a toy,’ he said today.
This was a mistake. It brought it all back to him. ‘The waves were feet high,’ he said, with horror in his eyes. ‘And all I was wearing was a pair of Speedos. I was dying for a fag.’
I calmed him down by lighting and handing him a Rothman’s king size.
William cried and hung on to my legs when my mother and I were about to leave. Rosie, who was meant to be babysitting, was goggling at The Jerry Springer Show, where a hugely fat black woman was berating her husband for his transvestism. I carried the boy upstairs to my father’s bedroom and said, ‘Grandad is poorly. Do you want to play doctors?’ I went into the bathroom and got the first-aid box out of the bathroom cupboard. I removed the pathetic out-of-date pills and medicines (a tube of eye ointment bore the date February 1989) and gave the box to William. I said, ‘You are a doctor, William, make Grandad better, there’s a good boy.’
My father lay apathetically on his pillows as William began to wrap a bandage around his left arm. As I went back downstairs my father whined, ‘Not so bloody tight! You’re cutting my sodding circulation off!’
Just before I closed the front door I heard William shout, ‘Don’t say swear words, Grandad, or I’ll send you to prison.’ The boy is certainly right-wing when it comes to law and order.
As I turned on the car engine, Radio Four boomed out of the speakers – a panel of writers were talking about the implications for literature of a Labour victory. Some old female git blathered on in a strangulated voice about Harold Wilson, somebody called Jennie Lee and the Arts Council, and then Barry Kent, ex-skinhead and prize-winning poet and novelist, interrupted her and said in his exaggerated Leicester accent, ‘Yeah, but ‘oo gives a toss about all that bleeding Arts Council crap? A writer’s gotta be a revolutionary. His true function is to subvert the [bleeping] establishment, whether it’s the [bleeping] Tory scumbags, or the [bleeping] Labour toe-rags. And if a writer needs a [bleeping] pathetic grant before he can put a few poxy words down on paper…’ He laughed scornfully. ‘Let him spend a few days with me. I’ll open his [bleeping] eyes, I’ll show him poverty and degradation, I’ll take him to where people are on the [bleeping] line.’ Here Kent went into one of his ranting poems. The type of ludicrous thing that has won him six poetry prizes (three British, three French):
Kill the rich!
Burn their houses!
Be unpleasant to their spouses!
Etc., etc., etc.
When he received his honorary doctorate from De Montfort University he grabbed headlines throughout the English-speaking world by parting his academic robes, revealing that he was totally naked beneath them, and intoning ‘Yο! I’m a Man’, the poem famous for being chanted on football terraces all over the civilized world.
Yo! I’m a Man
Yo!
I’m a man!
Don’t!
Wash the pan.
Won’t change a nappy,
This makes me happy.
I’m at the match
This is my patch.
Yo!
I’m a man!
Beer’s in the can,
Fags in the packet,
Go on, boy, wack it!
Swear at the ref,
Threaten him with death!
Yo! I’m a man!
Yo! I’m a man!
Yo! I’m a man!
Yo!
The 500 students who had been sweating in an overheated marquee for three hours went berserk and gave Kent a standing ovation. Then Kent called his mother, Edna, up to the stage and said, ‘And this is Edna, my mum. She’s a toilet cleaner, and why should she be ashamed of it, eh?’
Mrs Kent, who had never to my knowledge shown any signs of shame in her job prior to this moment, fidgeted uncomfortably and looked as though, when she got Barry backstage, she would give him a good hiding for showing her up. I know all this because my mother told me about it as we drove towards the count.
There was strict security outside the Town Hall, courtesy of Citadel Security Ltd. We had to queue to have our names checked off against a list. My mother quickly grew impatient and began to complain in a loud voice. It was no surprise to me when she was pulled, supposedly at random, from out of the queue and taken away by a grim-faced, square-jawed female security guard called Sandra Leaf for a body search. When my mother returned she was muttering dark threats against Sandra Leaf and Citadel Security Ltd. She said she would ring Charlie Dovecote in the morning and see if she could ‘do them’ for sexual harassment.
As soon as we got inside the hall, Ivan Braithwaite rushed up to my mother and said, ‘Yes, Pauline, those shoes are perfect!’ What is it with the man? Is he a shoe fetishist? My mother pointed the toe of her vulgar red stiletto and Ivan practically ejaculated on the spot. I was relieved to see Mrs Tania Braithwaite approach and place herself between my mother and her husband.
I wondered how long Mrs Braithwaite had lingered in front of her open wardrobe before deciding on a suitable outfit for election night. Had she considered that she would be photographed and possibly filmed as the candidate’s mother? It was a warm night. Was a green mohair sweater covered in embroidered French poodles a good idea? Was a pleated skirt in Prince of Wales check the perfect accompaniment? Did navy-blue Clarks sandals bring the outfit together? No! No! No! What had happened to the woman I had always admired for her elegant, bohemian style?
I consulted my mother. Mrs Braithwaite had suffered a slight stroke in December; she had made a good recovery, apart from the total loss of her dress sense. It was an appalling tragedy. I had been twenty-six years old before realizing that there were, in fact, six senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste and dress.
Television crews were queuing up to interview Pandora. Between takes she use
d a small black compact, embossed with the Chanel logo, to powder her gorgeous face.
Sir Arnold Tufton stood in a corner surrounded by worried-looking men in pinstriped suits.
Meanwhile, on the trestle tables that lined the hall, there grew more and more bundles of Labour votes. The word ‘landslide’ was whispered around the hall. Pandora’s election agent, a former Cockney whelk-stall owner called Lennie Purbright, introduced himself to me, saying, ‘I’d like to shake your hand. I had the best meal in your restaurant the other night. In my opinion you ought to get a Michelin star.’ Naturally I was flattered and asked him what he had eaten at Hoi Polloi. ‘The tripe, fat chips and baked beans,’ he answered, smacking his lips at the memory. ‘Mind you,’ he said, ‘you kept us waiting.’
I explained to him that Savage would not allow a microwave in the kitchen, believing them to release ‘evil rays’ whenever the doors are opened, so thawing the frozen tripe is necessarily a slow process. He said, ‘Yeah, yeah, they was worth waiting for, I ain’t complainin’.’
I asked him about his unusual transition from whelk-stall owner to full-time political animal. He said he was driving back from Billingsgate early one morning, with a van full of whelks, and had heard Roy Hattersley on the Today programme on Radio Four, saying of John Major, ‘He couldn’t run a whelk stall’. Lennie Purbright was inspired by Lord Hattersley’s metaphor into changing the direction of his life. I told him that Lord Hattersley was a regular at Hoi Polloi. Bubble and squeak with Fray Bentos corned beef and HP sauce was a particular favourite of his. Buster, his dog, was given special dispensation and allowed into the restaurant, providing he sat at his master’s feet and didn’t harass the poultry or the other diners.
At 1.30 a.m. an announcement was made, asking the various candidates to gather on the stage in five minutes. I ran to the lavatories. My bladder tends to be overactive at times of excitement. The urinal was crowded, so I looked under the door of the first stall to see if it was occupied. It was – by a pair of red stilettos and two Birkenstock sandals. There are, of course, many explanations for this conjunction of shoes, but nothing came to mind apart from the obvious one: that my mother and Pandora’s father were so desperate for privacy that they were prepared to stand in a lavatory stall which reeked of uric acid to obtain it.
I fled from the men’s lavatories and went into the ladies’, where I found an empty cubicle. I was in mid-flow when I heard two women come in. They went into cubicles either side of me and they continued their conversation:
1st WOMAN: I dread it, I do. Nine days!
2nd WOMAN: My clots look like continents. I had a perfect Africa last month.
I fled without washing my hands.
The candidates were lined up on the stage. I noticed that Sir Arnold Tufton had a fly-button undone. A cheerful-looking woman with a shaved head was helped on to the stage, wearing a T-shirt with the acronym SLAG emblazoned across her chest. I asked my mother what it stood for.
‘Socialist Lesbians Against Globalization,’ she said. ‘She’s Christine Spicer-Woods, ex-RAF, all-round good egg.’
‘What makes a woman have a hairstyle like that?’ I said.
‘Chemotherapy,’ said my mother, with a withering look.
Ms Spicer-Woods was an arresting sight. But it was Pandora who drew all the eyes towards her. Nigel and his ‘friend’, Norbert, pushed their way to the front of the crowd where I was standing. Nigel said, ‘She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen since Leonardo DiCaprio.’ His friend, an over-muscular man wearing Gucci sunglasses, said, ‘Yeah, she’s a babe, Nigel – and that suit’s a nice bit of shmutter an’ all. It’s Chanel, ain’t it?’
Nigel explained that Norbert was in the rag trade, and could identify a designer label at a thousand paces.
The returning officer, a small man with a face like a beaver, glared towards us, and silence fell, apart from some feeble chanting of ‘Keith, Keith, Keith!’ from a group of Monster Raving Loony supporters at the back of the hall, in support of their candidate, a sad-looking man in a Groucho Marx mask, called Keith Mutton. Eventually, after intervention by Sandra Leaf and her Citadel colleagues, the Loonies fell silent, and the declaration began. I looked for my mother and Ivan Braithwaite, but they were nowhere to be seen. Just as the returning officer was saying, ‘Marcia Grimbold, Bring Back the Rates, 758 votes,’ there was a disturbance at the back of the hall, and I turned round to see Jack Cavendish, Pandora’s elderly lover, being held in an arm-lock by Sandra Leaf. A uniformed policeman was moving towards them through the crowd. Cavendish was heard to shout, ‘I’m Pandora Braithwaite’s partner! I should be on the stage next to her, you bloody Fascists!’ before he was bundled through the fire doors and out into the yard, to join the wheelie bins and broken office furniture.
I looked up at Pandora to see how she was reacting to her lover’s brutal ejection. Never once did the smile leave her lips. She is ruthless in her ambition. She turned her ravishing gaze towards the lens of the TV camera. The lens winked back. It was obvious that Pandora and the TV camera were on the brink of a passionate affair.
Sir Arnold Tufton’s wife – a marsupial-like woman in a silk two-piece, and what looked like Marks & Spencer’s wide-fitting shoes, pointed angrily towards her husband’s crotch. Tufton fumbled repeatedly at the empty buttonhole, giving the unfortunate impression that he was pleasuring himself. Dear Diary, I hold no brief for Tufton, I loathe his ‘greed is gorgeous’ philosophy, but I must admit that my heart went out to him on that stage, especially when the TV monitor showed his hugely magnified hand continuing to fumble with his hugely magnified and gaping fly.
Christine Spicer-Woods earned a huge cheer from her fellow SLAGS when she grinned and raised her arms at the news that she had earned 695 votes.
Sir Arnold and Lady Tufton examined the fluorescent light fittings above their heads as his results were read out: 18,902. It was time for Pandora’s result. ‘Pandora Louise Elizabeth Braithwaite…’ began the receiving officer. He got as far as saying, ‘Twenty-two thousand, four hundred and fifty-seven,’ before the room erupted in a sustained cheer, which brought down dust from the rafters.
Pandora licked her lips; whether it was at the prospect of her new enticing career or to add gloss to her television smile I couldn’t say. She stood with her eyes cast down, and her hands clasped together, as though praying.
She is a skilful actress. Few who were there will ever forget her harrowing performance as Mary in Manger!, the Neil Armstrong Comprehensive School nativity play. Miss Elf, the director, said at the end, ‘It was Pandora’s decision to give Jesus a forceps delivery.’
Pandora appeared to ‘recover’ herself, and strode up to the microphone. Her voice cracked with ‘emotion’ as she thanked the police, Citadel Security, the volunteers who manned and womanned the campaign headquarters. She pretended to break down and fight back the tears while making a passionate speech about justice and freedom. She ended with ‘Ashby-de-la-Zouch has thrown off its yoke of Tory rule. For the first time in over forty-five years, you, the people of Ashby, have a Labour MP. I hope I will prove worthy of the trust you have clearly placed in me.’
I took my mobile phone from its hip-holder, and phoned my father to tell him about Pandora’s triumph.
William answered the phone. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Who is it talkin’?’
‘Daddy,’ I said, alarmed. Why was he awake at 2 a.m.?
‘Where’s Grandad?’ I said, trying to keep the panic I felt out of my voice. There was no reply, but I could hear William breathing heavily down the phone and making the odd Teletubby-like sound. I raised my voice, hoping to cut through the boy’s introspective episode. ‘WILLIAM, WHERE IS GRANDAD?’ Terrifying images flashed across my mind:
• William fiddling with the gas taps next to the pseudo-log fire in the lounge.
• William finding the lighters and matches, which are kept in a Toby jug on the mantelpiece.
• William moving into the kitchen and messing abo
ut with the Sabatier knives I bought my mother last Christmas.
• William switching the electric kettle on and attempting to make tea.
• William easily unscrewing the childproof lid and throwing paracetamol down his throat.
• William letting himself out of the house and wandering the streets of Ashby-de-la-Zouch in his pyjamas.
• Police divers jumping into the municipal lake, watched by a regional TV news crew.
The signal on my phone started to fade. I screamed, ‘WILLIAM, WAKE GRANDAD UP!’ The signal went and I cursed whichever satellite had passed overhead without doing its bloody job.
After wasting a whole thirty seconds in futile button-pressing activities, I saw that the red ‘battery low’ warning light had come on. I looked around frantically for a phone. My mother ran up to me in a lather of excitement. Ivan Braithwaite was not far behind her. He said, ‘We’re going to La Zouch’s to celebrate, as soon as Pan’s addressed the crowd outside.’
I said to my mother, ‘You’ve got to go home, William’s roaming the house and Dad’s asleep or dead!’
‘He’s your kid, and it’s your father,’ said my mother, belligerently. ‘You go home. I’m staying for the celebrations.’
After ordering the pair of them to keep phoning the house, I ran from the hall and pushed my way through the crowds of excited Labour supporters who were gathering on the road and pavement outside. All eyes were turned towards the upstairs balcony, where Pandora was expected to show herself, Evita-like, to the peons of Ashby-de-la-Zouch.