by Sue Townsend
I drove the car slowly through the crowd at five m.p.h., nudging people aside. There was another obstruction ahead. A ludicrous stretch limo stood at the kerb. A chauffeur, wearing a grey uniform and cap, walked around the grotesque silver-coloured vehicle and opened all six doors. Barry Kent, in a scarlet leather jacket and sunglasses, got out of the car. Edna, Kent’s mother, and his two lumpen brothers and three lumpen sisters emerged and stood awkwardly on the pavement. Edna pulled her dress free from the crack of her large bum.
Two grinning policemen escorted Kent and his entourage through the crowd. He saw me shouting through the windscreen and stopped. I wound the window down.
Kent poked his head inside my car. He smelled expensive. ‘Moley, ain’t you stayin’ to celebrate with your old squeeze?’ he said.
‘No, I’ve got a domestic crisis on,’ I said. ‘Ask him to move the car.’
Kent whistled with two fingers and shouted, ‘Hey, Alfonso, lose the wheels, sharpish!
Once free of the car park, I drove like a madman through the deserted streets. I crossed traffic lights on amber. A vein throbbed dangerously in my neck. A sponge had attached itself to the roof of my mouth. I cursed the day that one of my spermatozoa had forced itself on to and into one of Jo Jo’s eggs and made William. Why had no one told me that becoming a parent would expose me to such torment?
I blamed Neil Armstrong Comprehensive School. I received no parenting lessons whatsoever from that so-called educational establishment.
There were no emergency vehicles in Wisteria Avenue, and no flames licking the roof. In fact, the house was in darkness. I let myself in and called, ‘William! William!’ I heard faint noises coming from the living room. A Teletubbies video was running, and my father was asleep on the sofa. Somebody (it could only have been William) had scribbled in black felt-tip pen on his bald patch. I checked the house quickly. William was nowhere to be seen.
It was Rosie – arriving home disgracefully late from whatever debauch she’d been attending – who found my son. He was asleep, naked, in the dog’s basket under the sink. He looked like a fund-raising poster for the NSPCC. He’d obviously been eating Winalot: there were crumbs of it around his mouth, and he still clutched some in his baby fist. If Social Services ever got to hear about this, the kid could end up in a children’s home, and subsequently be nicknamed ‘Wolf Boy’ by the Sun.
As a punishment to my father I didn’t tell him about the scribble on his head.
After I’d put William to bed I switched on the television and watched the election results. Gratifying as it was to see the arrogant and pompous Tory pins knocked over by the balls of the electorate in the skittle alley of history, the highlight of the coverage had to be Pandora’s appearance on the balcony of Ashby-de-la-Zouch Town Hall.
Barry Kent stood next to her, leading the crowd in singing, ‘Oh, Pandora, we adore ya’, to the tune of Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’.
Her resemblance to Eva Perón was startling and, I am convinced, quite deliberate.
I remember the project on South American dictators she did in the fifth form at school, and how furious she was when she only received a Β minus instead of her usual A plus. Mr Fagg, her history teacher, had written, ‘A well-researched and, as usual, brilliantly expressed piece of work, but marred by the protracted and bafflingly irrelevant essay on Eva Perón’s fondness for Balenciaga.’
Rosie joined me for a moment as I watched members of the new Labour government at the victory celebrations at the Royal Festival Hall. As they waited for Tony ‘n’ Cherie to join them, they jiggled their hips and clicked their fingers to the tune of ‘Things Can Only Get Better’.
I squirmed with embarrassment. I was reminded of watching my father dancing at Auntie Susan’s wedding reception in the prison officers’ social club. As soon as the DJ (a convict on parole), put on the Rolling Stones’ ‘Brown Sugar’, my father leaped to his feet and began strutting around the hall, à la Mick Jagger.
Auntie Susan’s new ‘wife’, Amanda, stood next to me at the bar, supping a pint of Guinness. The only comment she made was ‘Poor, sad bastard,’ as my father wiggled past, one arm stabbing the air, the other perched provocatively on his sunken hip.
I felt much the same disgust at the sight of Robin Cook’s attempts to keep to a rhythm. I dread to think what he’s like at sexual intercourse, where rhythm is all. Though I expect he must have given sex up long ago. I read somewhere that it’s racing horses that inflames his passion.
As we watched the dancing politicians, Rosie put her fingers down her throat and made loud retching noises. I felt obliged to defend the new government, and their innocent pleasure in taking office.
I said, ‘Show some tolerance, Rosie.’
‘Tolerance!’ she sneered. ‘Tolerance is for, like, your saddo generation, not mine.’ She sneered on, ‘If I were a dictator I’d ban anyone over eighteen years old from f------ dancing.’
There was a shot of Peter Mandelson clapping his hands in a loose, American kind of way. She said, ‘Gross,’ and went to bed.
Friday May 2nd
At 6.14 a.m. I heard Ivan Braithwaite’s faulty exhaust pipe turn into Wisteria Walk and stop outside our house. (Together with the rest of his car, obviously. I mean, obviously!) I dragged myself off the sofa, peered through a chink in the curtains and saw my mother and Braithwaite in passionate conversation in the front seats of the car. My mother was drawing heavily on a cigarette. Braithwaite’s eyes were half closed against the smoke. Suddenly my mother yanked the car door open. Braithwaite leaned across the gear stick with an anguished look on his unshaven chops. My mother ran round the back of the car, then up the path without looking back. I heard her keys scraping around the keyhole in the front door. She has never, ever managed to unlock a door in under three minutes, so I put her out of her misery and opened it for her. She looked shocked to see me.
I said, ‘What was going on in that car?’
She took off her red jacket and hung it over the back of a kitchen chair. The tops of her arms looked pasty and saggy, as though they’d been injected with a lumpy white sauce. She said, ‘I’ve just had an argument with Ivan… about, er… which Dimbleby gave the best election coverage!’
It was an obvious lie. I said, ‘And which Dimbleby did you favour?’ with some sarcasm.
‘David!’ she answered, but she couldn’t look me in the eye. I heard the frame creak upstairs as she got into bed. Then there was silence.
I lay awake on the sofa and wondered if I should intervene before my mother brought yet another tragedy to our family. Trust her to spoil my enjoyment of Labour’s victory. What should have been a glorious new dawn of optimism and a celebration of the transcendence of all that is best in humankind had been tainted by the potential threat to the Moles’ and the Braithwaites’ family units. And all because two late-middle-aged people have restless genitals.
1 p.m.
The household slept late. It was Tania Braithwaite who woke us by phoning and asking if Ivan was at our house. Apparently he hadn’t been home and his mobile was switched off. My mother overheard my feigned concern and snatched the phone off me. While she cross-questioned Tania, I fed the New Dog and William, and took a cup of Nescafé up to my father. He was lying on his side, facing the wall. His bald patch was still decorated with black felt-tip scrawlings. As I put the mug down on the bedside table, he begged me to close the curtains against the sunlight, which was flooding into the room.
I said, ‘You ought to feel happy today, Dad. Tony could transform your life.’
He gave a harsh laugh as he sat up in bed and reached for his Rothman’s. ‘Listen, son,’ he said, ‘under Mrs Thatcher I was a three-times-a-week man, and if the sun was shining I was a bloody sex machine.’
I said, ‘I was referring to the socio-economic aspects of the new government.’
‘Yeah, well,’ he said, sucking on his cigarette, ‘all I’m saying is that when Maggie was in power I had lead in my pencil.’
> I left the room. As I saw it, there was no point in reasoning with a man who could see no further than the end of his pencil.
Before I left for London, I tried to get up the courage to talk to my mother about the disastrous consequences certain to ensue if she were to embark on an affair with her local MP’s father. MI5 would follow her around Asda. Her phone would be tapped and, more importantly, was she really prepared to put my father through a divorce for a second time?
I went to tackle her and found her in the living room, deliriously happy, watching a video loop of the expression on Michael Portillo’s face as the realization dawned that he had been kicked from office by his former constituents. She shouted at the screen, ‘Yes, you arrogant bastard, how does it feel to be on the scrap-heap, like George Mole?’ I didn’t want to prick her balloon of happiness. And, anyway, I couldn’t risk us having an argument that ended with her refusing to look after her grandson.
William had to be prised from my legs before I could get into the Montego. Eventually he was persuaded to let me go by the promise that he could watch a video of Jeremy Clarkson test-driving a Lamborghini. The kid waved until I turned the corner of the avenue. I was almost tempted to reverse and pick him up, take him back to London with me. But reason prevailed. What would I do with him all day when I was working?
It was a gloriously warm day, and I wound the window down and enjoyed the breeze on my face. Unfortunately just before I joined the motorway, an insect of some kind flew up my left nostril, causing my eyes to run all the way to London.
Saw eleven Eddie Stobart lorries. Only received nine salutes, though. Perhaps the other two drivers didn’t see my greetings. Otherwise the journey was without incident.
I arrived at the Brent Cross shopping centre car park, where I habitually parked the Montego at 1700 hours, arriving in Soho, via the bus, at 1800 hours. Why is Brent Cross the nearest free parking I can find to Soho? I’ve got my name down for a resident’s parking permit, but the waiting list is 2,000 names long. ‘Clever Clive’, a criminal acquaintance of mine, offered to supply me with an illegally obtained permit. ‘The geezer’s dead. He ain’t gonna need short-term parking. He’s in Long Stay, permanent.’ But I turned him down. I cannot profit from the dead, and anyway Clever Clive was asking £500.
I didn’t have to start work until seven-thirty so I bought a Guardian and sat outside the Bar Italia in Greek Street. I was hoping to read that Frank Bruno, Paul Daniels and Bruce Forsyth had been spotted at Heathrow, fleeing a Labour victory as promised, but there were no reported sightings of them. I suppose it is early days yet. They’ve got mock-Tudor mansions to sell, and financial advisers to consult.
My friend Justine, who lap-dances at Secrets, joined me for an espresso and said that business had been excellent last night. ‘You couldn’t have got another bloke in the place if you’d cut their dicks off,’ she said, causing me to wince at her graphic account of the crush. She went on, in her Gateshead accent, ‘And they was mostly Labour supporters.’ She told me that her boss, Large Alan, had been ‘worrying his bollocks off’ about a possible change of government. He had forecast massive redundancies for Soho’s sex-industry workers should Labour win. ‘It’s the Conservative MPs who kept the “discipline” side of the business going,’ Justine explained. ‘Large Alan always gives them a good discount – on production of a Commons pass.’
‘So, what special services do Labour MPs request?’ I asked.
‘Well,’ she said, bringing her sunbed-tanned face next to mine, ‘I’ve got one old Labour MP from Preston who has a list of things he likes me to shout out when I’m pretending to come.’
‘Such as what?’ I pressed, urgently.
‘Weird things,’ she said, as she adjusted her breasts inside her Wonderbra to show them to better advantage. ‘I have to shout, “October Revolution”, “Clause Four” and end up with “Betty Boothroyd”,’ she said.
She was obviously in complete ignorance of the history of the Labour Party. I, of course, understood the references, because I was founder and leader of a political organization called the Pink Brigade. We were a bunch of radical teenage hot-heads.
We demanded:
• Cycling lanes alongside motorways
• A moratorium on library fines for pensioners
• Zero-rated VAT on skateboards
• Cigarettes to cost at least £10 per pack
• Babysitting wages to be linked to the cost of living index
• peace not war.
Pandora was on the Pink Brigade’s executive committee, but resigned after three months after a bitter row about the party’s anti-smoking policy. At the age of sixteen she was already on fifteen Benson and Hedges a day, plus the occasional cigar after dinner.
Justine repeated, ‘October Revolution, Clause Four, Betty Boothroyd,’ as if trying to discover the erotic charge. ‘It’s the easiest money I’ve ever made,’ she said. ‘He’s come and gone in half an hour, and left me with me Tesco’s money for the week.’
After she’d hurried off to work I pondered on the nature of our Soho village conversation. I couldn’t imagine speaking of such worldly things in any of the villages in Leicestershire, apart from Frisby-on-the-Wreake where, if the rumours are true, paganism is practised on a large scale.
Saturday May 3rd – 2 a.m.
I have just finished work and, though the hour is late, I am far too overwrought to sleep. Savage behaved like a beast tonight. A beast with a drug, alcohol and personality-disorder problem. The nightmare began when I got to work and saw that he had Blu-Tacked a large notice in the window:
No socialists
No mobile phones
No silicone breasts
No sodomites
No face-lifts
No credit cards
No Welsh
No vegetarians
No non-smokers
No pensioners
No teetotallers
No Filofaxes
No Groucho members
No media workers
No working class
No comedians
No disabled
No lesbians
No blind dogs
No fat people
No Liverpudlians
No children
No yoghurt-eaters
No designer handbags
No Christians
No Belgians
No poncy wankers asking for risotto
No redheads
No ex-wives
An angry crowd had gathered outside the restaurant. A fat woman carrying a handbag with a bamboo handle was saying in a lilting Welsh accent, ‘I was born in Liverpool and my partner is a lesbian comedian. It’s disgraceful.’
Savage could be seen inside smoking a fag, toasting the crowd in champagne. I let myself in and passed through the restaurant on my way to the kitchen.
‘The provincial returns,’ he bellowed. ‘How is dear old Leicester?’
‘My family live in Ashby-de-la-Zouch now,’ I replied, coldly.
‘You’re such a f------ pedant,’ spat out Savage.
‘Better a pedant than a bigot,’ I replied. ‘That notice disqualifies most of your regular customers. You’ll be bankrupt in a month and we’ll all be on the street.’
‘That’s the idea,’ he slurred. ‘If I’m bankrupt, I can’t pay Kim her allowance, can I?’
I took advantage of his drunkenness to continue. ‘It’s your fault that Kim is financially dependent on you. You refused to let her work during your marriage, didn’t you?’
‘Work!’ shouted Savage. ‘You call arranging a few fucking twigs in a bucket work?’
‘She was a society florist,’ I reminded him, ‘with three shops and a contract with Conran.’
Savage laughed his horrible, almost silent laugh, as I went upstairs to the ‘flat’ above the restaurant. I use ironic quote marks around ‘flat’ because it is actually a storeroom. I share my quarters with catering packs of gravy mix and huge tins of veget
ables. Two gigantic freezers full of offal and cheap cuts of meat crowd my ‘living room’. However, there is just room for a small MFI desk ‘n’ chair set (in black ash) and a two-seater sofa covered in a sunflower-print throw. (I feel an affinity with Van Gogh: both of us were rejected in our lifetimes by the metropolitan élite.) I changed into my chef’s whites, fed my goldfish, then went down to the kitchen and began to prepare for the few customers who would pass Savage’s exacting entrance stipulations. Saturday’s menu is always:
Prawn cocktail
Ox liver, bacon, onions
Boiled potatoes
Ringed carrots
Peas – Birds Eye
Oxo gravy
Co-op jam roly-poly
Lumpy Bird’s custard (skin £10 extra,
due to weekend supplement)
Nescafé
After Eight Mint
I was annoyed to find that no one had remembered to defrost the ox liver, so I had to put the frozen lumps into the oven on a low heat. The vegetables had been prepared, so I made up five litres of gravy. While that was boiling, I mixed the Bird’s custard powder, milk and sugar together in a large bowl, being careful not to blend the mixture too carefully as this destroys the lumps when the hot milk is added.
Luigi came in and took off his coat, hat, shoes and socks. ‘I gotta wash my feet inna sink,’ he said, climbing on to the draining-board. ‘I gotta that bleddy whatchewmacallit?’ he said, placing his feet under the running cold tap. ‘Athlete’s feet!’ He plucked the phrase triumphantly from the air of the doctor’s surgery where he’d first heard it spoken. ‘It’s itching me like crazy,’ he said, scratching between his toes.
I glanced at the notice on the staff toilet door: ‘Please wash your hands,’ it said. There was no mention of feet. Savage lurched into the kitchen and staggered into the toilet. He didn’t bother closing the door and a sound like the Zambezi in spate was clearly heard.