by Sue Townsend
‘As what?’ I asked.
‘As a cook,’ he said. ‘You could do some of your offal specialities.’
I explained that I was something of an intellectual, and didn’t watch or own a television. He said that he would send one round and have it installed free of charge so that I could watch the cookery programmes that Pie Crust Productions made!
I found it hard to sleep, partly because of a loud brawl downstairs involving Savage and Kim, but mainly due to the terror I felt at the thought of appearing on TV as a chef. The truth is, I can’t cook.
Saturday May 10th
The television arrived today. Also a video.
Savage is in St Thomas’s Hospital having his broken jaw wired together. His ex-wife has been arrested for GBH. It’s Savage’s fault. He confessed (boasted) to her that during their marriage he had faked most of his orgasms.
Sunday May 11th
Sunday after Ascension Day
Zippo rang me at 8.30 a.m. and asked me to watch one of Pie Crust’s programmes, The Fry-Up, which was on at 9 p.m. He is certainly enthusiastic. I have made up my mind not to appear on TV. However, I did manage to video The Fry-Up, after phoning Dixons for instructions.
I phoned home and spoke to my father; only he and William were in. Rosie hadn’t come home from the night before, and my mother has started taking the New Dog for long walks early every morning. ‘The dog’s knackered by the time it gets back,’ said my father.
I was immediately suspicious and asked him about the average duration and exact route of these ‘walks’. As I suspected, she usually goes down the bridlepath that runs at the back of the Braithwaites’ house, and then into the woods. I happen to know that there is a gate in the wall that connects the Braithwaites’ garden to the bridlepath. I also happen to know that Mrs Braithwaite leaves the house at 8.30 a.m. to go to her job, teaching Women’s Studies at De Montfort University. I also happen to know another fact: Ivan Braithwaite works from home – in the garden, in a centrally heated wooden chalet with a Tyrolean-style sun-deck. I have been inside this chalet. It is well equipped; there is a desk, a modem, a swivel chair, mains drainage, a kettle, a cafetière, and a chaise longue. I, sadly, rest my case.
I must get hold of Pandora’s phone numbers and warn her of the calamitous situation that has united the House of Mole and the House of Braithwaite.
Monday May 12th
Savage is out of hospital. He can’t eat solid food yet, but he seems happy enough sucking his rum and black through a drinking straw. Lunch today was:
Fried eggs (two)*
Fat chips – cooked in lard
Marrowfat peas
Two slices of sliced white buttered bread
HP sauce or Heinz ketchup
Kit-Kat or Wagon Wheel
Nescafé
After Eight Mint
I got a delivery of videos of The Fry-Up. They were presented by a man with side-whiskers and a Cockney accent. It was a farrago from start to finish. The bewhiskered Cockney is, he tells us, in his tiresome rhyming slang, the owner of a Sylvia Plath (a workman’s caff!). This Cockney person’s name is Alfie Caine. I watched all six of his half-hour shows.
• Sausages: Thick or Thin?
• Eggs: The Membrane Factor
• Bacon: How to Reduce Pan Curl
• Tomatoes: Fresh or Tinned?
• Fried Bread: Guaranteed Success
• Beans, Mushrooms, Black Pudding: Do They Belong?
I transcribed a few sentences of this man’s hideous patter from the Fried Bread show: ‘So, you good steeple out there, wanna snow how to book dyed head, do you? Smell, whatcha gotta November is to keep your hat snot in the man.’
I have met many Cockneys since I moved to London eight years ago, including a man who was born in the very nave of Bow Bells, and none of them have ever used ‘snot’ for not, or ‘November’ for remember. Alfie Caine is a total fraud.
When Zippo rang I gave him my honest opinion of The Fry Up, and said that I couldn’t be associated with such a tawdry enterprise. Zippo laughed and said that The Fry Up was a heavily ironic post-modernist deconstruction of the cookery show as naff entertainment. ‘Didn’t you get the Sylvia Plath clue?’ he asked.
‘So, it was meant to be funny?’ I said.
‘Of course,’ he said.
‘But it didn’t make me laugh,’ I said.
Zippo sighed. ‘Laughter is kind of not where it’s at with Pie Crust Productions. Our target audience are students who have failed to do any revision or any essays, and expect to fail their exams. It’s a show for losers.’
I was dumbfounded and asked how many viewers watched the Pie Crust shows. ‘Seven hundred and fifty-three thousand people tuned in to Tomatoes: Fresh or Tinned?,’ said Zippo. ‘We’re getting a lot of interest from the advertisers.’
‘Which products do failed students buy?’ I asked.
‘Catfood mainly,’ he said, ‘followed by Cadbury’s Creme Eggs, Strongbow Cider and Pot Noodles.’
‘So how much does Alfie Caine get paid per show?’ I asked.
‘Alfie’s got an agent, so that bumps it up a bit,’ he said.
‘So how much does he get?’ I pressed.
‘I couldn’t possibly divulge that, it would be terribly unprofessional of me, but let’s say it’s in the region of the price of a package holiday to Tenerife.’
‘High or low season?’ I asked.
‘Oh, high,’ he said. ‘We’re talking August here.’
‘A one- or two-week holiday?’ I asked.
‘Two,’ he said, ‘half-board, balcony with a sea view.’
I didn’t like the way he was assuming I would know the price of a package holiday to Tenerife in August, but I let it pass. ‘And this Tenerife package, that’s per show, is it?’ I checked.
‘Of course it’s per show,’ he said.
I said I would ring him back in half an hour. I rang Thomas Cook on Regent Street, then rang Zippo back and said I would do it.
4 a.m. Can’t sleep, can’t cook.
5 a.m. Read the Leicester Mercury, which my mother posts to me because it isn’t available in London.
I was shocked to see that my old school, Neil Armstrong Comprehensive, has been deemed one of the 297 failing schools. A hit squad is due to stage a coup within days. In my time, when it was ruled by the headmaster ‘Pop-Eye’ Scruton, it had a good reputation. Its football team did well, and it regularly won the Midlands Inter-County Schools Chess Club Trophy. It also had a renowned school magazine, The Voice of Youth, edited by me. Then Roger Patience took over as headmaster. I expect he’s sorry now that he asked the pupils to call him Roger, and told them to throw away their school uniforms.
Tuesday May 13th
I wrote a letter to Delia Smith.
Dear Ms Smith,
Forgive me for addressing you as ‘Ms’ if you are in fact a married woman. I am writing to you in the strictest confidence. I am absolutely certain that you will respect my wishes in this matter as I have read somewhere that you are a Christian woman. I, too, live by the tenets of the Christian philosophy. Though I have not been blessed, as you have, in that God has not visited me yet and assured me that He, or indeed She, exists. However, this letter is not about our respective positions on whether God exists or not. It is about cooking.
Perhaps you have heard of me. I am currently the Head Chef of Hoi Polloi.
My problem, Ms Smith, is that my position at Hoi Polloi does not require that I have any culinary skills. I simply defrost, boil, fry or warm up pre-cooked food. I literally cannot, satisfactorily, boil an egg.
I have searched the bookshops in vain for an absolutely basic cookery book. But in vain. Please help me. I have been asked to go on Cable TV’s Millennium Channel to demonstrate my art, but there is no art. Please save me from utter humiliation.
I remain, Madam, your most humble and obedient servant.
A. A. Mole
Wednesday May 14th
I rang Pandora
at the House of Commons this morning. A polite man on the switchboard said, ‘Ah, Dr Braithwaite, the member for Ashby-de-la-Zouch. She hasn’t been allocated an office yet, sir, but if you’d like to leave a message, I’ll make sure her secretary gets back to you.’
I asked for the name of her ‘secretary’ and was mildly amused to be told that it was Edna Kent – the same name as Barry Kent’s mother! A strange coincidence.
I have been reading Bridget Jones’s diary in the Independent The woman is obsessed with herself! She writes as though she were the only person in the world to have problems. I’m sure that it is quite brave to share your sad life with perfect strangers, even if they are Independent readers, and therefore composed largely of caring professionals.
I drafted a letter to Ms Jones.
Dear Bridget Jones,
I have been reading your entries in the Independent, and we also have another tenuous connection. I am Peter Savage’s Head Chef at Hoi Polloi.
I will cut to the chase: I have kept a diary since I was 13 or thereabouts, and believe it may be of interest to the general reader, and also to Sociologists and future Historians.
How did you get your Diaries published?
I would be grateful if you would write back to me – or alternatively ring me at the Hoi Polloi and we can arrange to meet somewhere over a coffee (or a glass of white wine!).
Yours, A. A. Mole
PS. I am a non-smoker.
I’ve decided to record my own personal daily fluctuations.
Opal Fruits – 2 pkts
Alcohol – nil
Cigarettes – nil
Weight – 10 stone, 8 pounds
Bowels – sluggish
Potential bald spot – stable
Pains – throbbing in big toe (left foot)
Spots – one, on chin
Penis function – 3/10
Drugs – Prozac, Nurofen
Thursday May 15th
Zippo lunched on braised brains at Hoi Polloi today. He wants me to make a ‘pilot’ on this coming Sunday afternoon. The working title is to be Offally Good!. He thinks that offal is the coming thing in food fashion. ‘Offal is the new black,’ he said.
I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I nodded politely. I haven’t told anybody (apart from Delia Smith) about the making of the pilot.
I promised to go to Leicester this Sunday to see William, but I’ll have to find an excuse. My mother must not find out. I could not bear her disappointment if Pie Crust Productions decide not to go ahead with a series. Also, she will only tell Tout Le Monde of Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Listened to a discussion about the Queen’s Speech in the kitchen. Malcolm was happy about the proposed Minimum Wage Bill, though Savage said if it becomes law he will sack us all and employ illegal immigrants from Somalia.
Friday May 16th
Opal Fruits – 3 pkts
Alcohol – six double vodkas, 2 tonics
Cigarettes – nil
Drugs – 4 Nurofen, 1 Jazz Fag (shared with Malcolm)
Bowels – no movement
Weight – 10 stone 7 pounds
Thinning patch – stable
Spots – 1 on chin (growing)
Penis function – listless
Edna Kent rang me at lunchtime today. Savage is still answering the telephone, though his jaw is wired together (no wonder bookings are down), so there was an initial confusion about who she was, and to whom she wanted to speak. It took a couple of minutes before I could fully take in the astonishing fact that Edna Kent, council tenant, widow of a milkman, eleven-plus failure, secondary-school drop-out, aged fifty-five, is indeed working in the House of Commons as the secretary of the cleverest woman in Britain.
I asked how she had made the dramatic change from lavatory cleaner to her present prestigious position. She laughed. ‘Education, education, education,’ she said, sounding like Malcolm. ‘I used to clean lavvies at the university, and to be quite honest with you, Aidy, I’ve never heard such bleddy rubbish what them professors and lecturers talked in there. So I enrolled on one of them Access courses.’ (I longed to interrupt her and say, ‘Not them Access courses, Edna, it’s those Access courses,’ but, of course, I couldn’t, I couldn’t. I was talking to a graduate for Christ’s sake. A double graduate.)
‘My first degree’s in Family Law,’ she said. She had a head start on this one: the amount of times her children have been up before the courts. ‘And my second is in Business Studies. Our Barry reckoned I ought to be up to date with the new technology, e-mail, and the web and suchlike.’
I could hardly speak. I felt a paroxysm of jealous rage. I managed to croak out, ‘Well, congratulations, Mrs Kent. I had no idea you’d changed careers.’
‘I kept it quiet,’ she said. ‘You know how jealous folk get round our way if you try to better yourself. Our Barry found that out when he had all that success.’
‘Well-deserved success,’ I said, hypocritically.
I think Barry Kent is a talentless fraud who has forged a career out of pandering to his fellow yobs. It kills me. Kills me to know that his Dork’s Diary has been described as a modern classic, and that eight years on it is still to be found in a prominent position in most good bookshops. Whenever I see its gaudy cover (a cat wearing a football shirt and football boots), I take great delight in hiding all copies behind the books of Charles Dickens, who is at least a competent writer of the English language.
Mrs Kent said, ‘Anyroad up, Aidy, what was it you wanted? Only I’ve got a lot to do. Pan’s working on her maiden speech and I’m trying to get to grips with me new laptop.’
Through gritted teeth I said, ‘It’s a personal matter, Mrs Kent. Ask her to phone me on my mobile, will you?’
I gave her the number and she said, ‘You must come and see us at the House, Aidy. We can have tea on the terrace.’
After I’d put the phone down I thought of the last time I’d had tea with Mrs Kent. We’d been surrounded by the unruly Kent children, the teapot was cracked, the kitchen stank because of an overflowing cat-litter tray, and Mrs Kent was dressed in a wraparound pinafore, her lank hair tied back in an elastic band. At no time did she ever display the intelligence needed to study for two degrees. Whereas I, with my knowledge of world literature and extensive vocabulary, struggled mightily to get two A levels (each on the third attempt). Why? Why? Why?
Saturday May 17th
I rang my mother this morning and told her the lie that I had gone down with gastroenteritis, was dehydrated, never off the toilet, etc. While on the phone I asked her why she hadn’t told me about Edna Kent’s educational achievements. She went very quiet for a long time, and then said, ‘Because I didn’t know.’
Sunday May 18th
Pentecost
A truly terrible day. I arrived at the Brent Cross shopping-centre car park, to find that my car had been towed away five days ago and was in a police compound. A £25 cab ride took me to somewhere in Archway, whereupon I found that I was required to stump up £239. I did not have enough cash on me, and I had left my credit cards in my second-best jacket. I took another cab ride back to Dean Street (£8.50), where I found my mother, father and William ensconced in my flat/storeroom. Savage had let them in, having managed to convey, through wired jaws, that I had lied to them about the gastroenteritis.
I found my Access card and persuaded my father to drive me to Purley, whereupon I managed to retrieve my car. Though it probably took a year off my life, so enraged was I. In fact, I could feel a stroke coming on as I signed the receipt and the credit slip. It didn’t help when William decided to have one of his Vesuvius-like tantrums because I wouldn’t stop the car and buy him a kid’s meal at McDonald’s. My mother insisted on coming to Pie Crust’s production offices in Shoreditch, saying, ‘This is something I have to see.’ Her face fell when she saw that she would have to climb up six flights of fire escape.
Zippo and the others in the production team were very laid back about the fact that I had brought my family alon
g, but I could tell that they were ‘terribly amused’.
Zippo kissed my mother’s hand, and complimented her on the shirt she was wearing. ‘Is it Vivienne Westwood?’ he murmured.
‘No,’ she murmured back. ‘It’s Bhs.’
‘You clever thing,’ he crooned.
He charmed my father by telling him an obscene joke about Prince Edward, and won William over by telling him that he drove a Ferrari in town, and a Cadillac pick-up truck in the country.
Because we were late there was no proper rehearsal time. After I’d changed into my chef’s whites, a plump, middle-aged production assistant called Cath showed me quickly around the sink and stove. She opened the fridge and nodded towards a tray of assorted offal and several bowls of chopped-up vegetables. She pointed to the stock cubes, tapped on the saucepans, indicated the knife rack and pushed a jug full of wooden spoons towards me, all without speaking a word.
‘Cath, who’s the salt of the earth, will be helping out in the background,’ said Zippo. ‘Don’t speak to her in front of the camera, whatever you do.’
‘Is she a deaf mute?’ I inquired.
‘No,’ said Zippo. ‘We have to pay her Equity rates if she speaks.’
Somebody powdered my face and dabbed something on my lips. My mother spat on her forefinger and smoothed my eyebrows flat. The lights came on. Somebody else clipped a tiny microphone to my jacket.
Zippo shouted, ‘OΚ, let’s do it, people.’ He pointed what he called a Steadicam towards me, the autocue started to roll, then his mobile went and he answered it, saying, ‘Harvey, you old bugger! Yeah, it’s called Young Love. We’ve got Goldie and Burt on board. It’s 80 per cent financed. You will! You will! That’s magnifique! Listen, Harvey, I’m in the middle of something très, très ordinaire, but can I call you back? Where are you? New York. Great! Great! Great! Great! Absolutely!’