by Sue Townsend
She said, ‘Have you been to America?’
I had to admit that I had, in fact, never been to America.
Gracie said, ‘Well, I have. I went with Mummy one day while you were at the bookshop.’
I let it go. She is a formidable opponent.
I am now regretting having volunteered to be the writer/ director and producer of the Mangold Parva Players. Rehearsals are not going well, I break into a sweat when I realise we have only got eleven months before the opening night.
1 The Old Pigsty
The Piggeries
Bottom Field
Lower Lane
Mangold Parva
Leicestershire
Dear Sir Trevor Nunn
Your name has been passed to me by Angela Hacker, the author and playwright, who is a neighbour of mine. I have written a play, Plague!, set in the medieval countryside. It is an elegiac piece and features sixty human actors and quite a few animals, mostly domestic.
Angela thought you might be able to give me a few tips on handling such a large cast.
As you cannot fail to see, I have enclosed Plague! for your perusal. If you would like to get involved, please let me know as soon as possible.
I remain, sir,
A. A. Mole
SCENE I
A storm. A group of monks enter, wearing habits and sandals. A more distinguished monk is carrying a casket. This is ABBOT GODFRIED, a holy monk aged about fifty. [Note to stage management: A vacuum cleaner with the pipe in the blowhole set at the side of the stage can create the wind of the ‘storm’.]
ABBOT GODFRIED: Hark, Brother! The wind doth blow very hard, methinks we must take shelter in this cursed place.
A yokel appears. He is called John and is going home for his dinner of maize dumplings in pig’s ear broth.
ABBOT GODFRIED: Halt, yokel! Where is’t thou goeth with such haste?
YOKEL JOHN: I be going home to my dinner, holy one.
ABBOT GODFRIED: What be this foul place called?
YOKEL JOHN: ‘Tain’t got no name, ’tis just an ’ill an’ a few fields and an ’ovel or two.
ABBOT GODFRIED: In a storm a hovel is as meritorious as a palace, yokel.
They have reached the Village Square, where thirty-five assorted men and women are standing around. A pack of dogs enter from stage left and cross. Chickens peck between the villagers’ feet. ABBOT GODFRIED holds the casket aloft. He is followed by a fat monk, BROTHER DUNCAN, who enjoys birdwatching, and a thin monk, BROTHER ANDREW, who suffers from panic attacks.
YOKEL JOHN: What have you, in the box?
ABBOT GODFRIED: I have the entrails and anus of King John.
The villagers and animals fall to their knees.
ABBOT GODFRIED: His heart was buried at York. And this benighted place, methinks, will serve the King’s anus well.
The villagers cheer and the dogs bark.
END OF SCENE I
Monday 18th June
I have just seen a photograph in an old copy of the Leicester Mercury of a bloke called Harry Plant who was celebrating his one hundred and ninth birthday. One hundred and nine! He fought at the Battle of Passchendaele in the Great War when he was nineteen.
Mr Plant had a full head of hair, in fact he could have done with a haircut. I wonder what his secret is?
1 The Old Pigsty
The Piggeries
Bottom Field
Lower Lane
Mangold Parva
Leicestershire
The Willows Nursing Home
Bevan Road
Dewsbury
Leeds
Dear Mr Plant
Congratulations on reaching the grand age of 109. I wonder if you would mind letting me in on the secret of your longevity? I am particularly interested in how you managed to retain your hair.
Advice on diet, habits etc. would be most gratefully accepted.
I remain, sir,
Your most humble and obedient servant,
A. A. Mole
A letter (in quivery writing).
1 The Old Pigsty
The Piggeries
Bottom Field
Lower Lane
Mangold Parva
Leicestershire
The Willows Nursing Home
Bevan Road
Dewsbury
Leeds
Dear Mr Plant
Thank you very much for your reply to my letter of Monday.
I wonder if you would indulge me further by advising me on the type of onion you use?
I look forward to your reply.
Yours,
A. A. Mole
Tuesday 19th June
Today I asked Daisy if she would consider playing Eliza Hepplethwaite, the village whore, in Plague!. I told her that she would have to wear red stockings and a matted hair wig, stick on warts and have her teeth blackened. I said, ‘Remember, Plague! is set in pre-Colgate days.’
Daisy said, ‘Would it surprise you if I said no? Ask Marlene Webb from the boarding kennels, her teeth are positively medieval.’
I said, ‘I confess myself bitterly disappointed, Daisy. I had hoped that you would support my theatrical activities. Don’t tell me that Plague! is no good. It’s the best thing I’ve ever written. I gave a copy to the vicar and he wrote to congratulate me.’ I took the note out of my wallet and showed it to Daisy.
Wednesday 20th June
Tony Blair is flying around the world on his farewell tour. My mother says she half expects him to break into ‘My Way’ at the top of the aeroplane steps.
Watched a Channel Five documentary about an American woman, The Fattest Woman in the World, with Daisy. The woman, named Cindy-Lou, cannot move from her reinforced bed. She is so gargantuan that her nightgown is made up of two king-sized sheets stitched together.
Daisy said, ‘I could land up like Cindy-Lou if I’m not careful.’
Sunday 24th June
Rain, torrential. When will it stop?
Woken by church bells at 7 a.m. As usual, felt guilty for not going to church even though I am 20 per cent agnostic and 80 per cent atheist. Went back to sleep; woken again by phone.
It was Glenn in Afghanistan, using up some of his free family contact time. He asked me to give ‘a girl what I met in Dude’s Night Club my BFPO address. I can’t get her out of my head, Dad. I think she might be the one.’ When I asked him for the girl’s name and address, he said, ‘I cou’n’t ’ear, Dad, the music was too loud. But if you ’appen to come across Tiny Curtis, the head bouncer at Dude’s on Saturday night, can you pass this message on? Have you got a pen or pencil, Dad?’
I scrabbled in the bedside drawer, but could not find a single writing implement that worked. Conscious that precious seconds were ticking away, I reached for Daisy’s black eyeliner pencil, which is never far from her side, even when asleep, and took down the following message.
You would think the boy had grown up in Harlem rather than a post-war council estate in Leicester. I protested to Glenn that I was never likely to ‘come across’ Tiny outside Dude’s on a Saturday night since I never went into the city centre after dark if I could help it.
Glenn said, ‘Please, Dad, it could be the last thing you ever do for me. The Taliban is closing in.’
I could hardly refuse.
Walked under dripping trees into Mangold Parva to the Bear Inn for lunch.
My mother said, ‘If the sun doesn’t shine soon, the whole of England will have a nervous breakdown.’
Gracie refused to walk through the puddles in the lane, even though she was wearing her red boots for the first time, and demanded to sit on my father’s lap in his wheelchair.
My mother said, ‘That child will never walk anywhere if you keep giving in to her, Adrian. And anyway, she won’t be comfortable. There’s not an ounce of fat on your father’s legs now.’
Daisy said, ‘Leave her be, Pauline, she’ll only kick off. I want to eat my lunch in peace.’
My mother stomped off ahead, mu
ttering, ‘You’re making a rod for your own bleeding backs,’ as she attempted to light a cigarette in the stiff June gale.
I was surprised to hear a cheer as we entered the pub. Surprised, because the Mole family is not particularly popular around here since the incident with the wheelie bins. However, the cheer was for the news that Tony Blair has finally resigned as leader of the Labour Party and will be standing down on Wednesday as prime minister. I should have been joining in the cheers, instead I felt tears prick my eyes. Mr Blair squandered my affection and respect for him on a war that killed my son’s friend.
I was transported back to that glorious May Day when cherry blossom floated in the spring sunshine – as if the trees were throwing confetti to celebrate New Labour’s victory. I was young then and full of hope and believed that Mr Blair – with his mantra of ‘Education, education, education’ – would transform England into a land where people at bus stops spoke to each other of Tolstoy and post-structuralism, but it was not to be, my own father thinks that Tate Modern is a new type of sugar cube.
As we took our places in the ‘Carvery’ queue, my mother rhapsodised about Gordon Brown, saying he was dark and craggy and solid. Daisy broke off from comparing the relative succulence of the beef, pork, lamb and turkey joints and said, ‘The north face of the Eiger is craggy and solid. The difference is, the north face has more emotional intelligence.’
Daisy claims that when she was a PR girl in London, rumour had it that Gordon Brown had a syndrome of some kind. My mother said that Gordon Brown still had all the qualities she looked for in a man – he was introverted with an air of menace about him, just like Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre. My mother is getting quite literary lately. She is reading four novels a week in preparation for writing her autobiography. Ha! Ha! Ha!
Lunch at the Carvery was adequate, but I still miss my grandmother’s Sunday dinners. No carvery can replicate her crisp Yorkshire pudding and her rustling roast potatoes. As we were hacking at our meat (we had all gone for the beef apart from Gracie, who had the ‘Pirate’s Special’ – fish fingers and an eye patch), my father said, ‘I’ve been working it all out in my head. It’s just cost us as good as six pounds each for this bloody muck, and Gracie’s was near on four pounds. That’s twenty-eight quid! How much is a decent joint of beef?’ He looked at my mother and Daisy, they stared back at him blankly. Neither of them appeared to know. ‘A bit of beef, a few vegetables… !’ my father said. ‘He’s making a profit out of us!’ He resumed scraping the last vestiges of gravy from his plate.
I said, ‘But that’s capitalism. I thought you approved of the capitalist system, or have you had a change of heart?’ Was this failure to grasp the basic rules of business an early sign of Alzheimer’s?
Tom Urquhart, the landlord, strolled over. For some reason, he has never liked our family. I haven’t had a proper conversation with him since the day I asked him if he would install a disabled toilet for my father. His pathetic excuse was, ‘A disabled toilet would spoil the character of the pub – The Bear has been ’ere since before the monasteries were dissolved.’
When I pointed out to him that Cromwell’s army had a high incidence of disability (it was rife with amputees) he turned his back on me and started fiddling with the optics behind the bar.
We had run out of gravy, but I didn’t want to ask Urquhart. Instead I went to the kitchen door with the empty jug and was shocked at the sight of Kath Urquhart, the landlady, having the back of her neck kissed by Jamie Briton, the trainee chef. I quickly moved away from the door but I think they may have seen me.
I returned to our table with the empty jug, much to my mother’s disgust.
My father whined, ‘I’d go myself but I don’t know if my wheelchair will fit through the gaps between the tables.’
My mother grabbed the empty jug and almost ran towards the kitchen, disappeared through the door, then reappeared only half a moment later. I searched for a sign that she had witnessed more of Mrs Urquhart’s scandalous behaviour, but her face was its usual mask of Max Factor foundation and disappointment with life.
Monday 25th June
Rained all day. The brook at the end of our field is babbling. My mother asked me if I thought our field would flood. I reassured her that according to Tony Wellbeck in the post office our field had only flooded a few times in the last ten years.
A letter from Mr Plant.
Tuesday 26th June
Today is Mr Blair’s last day as Prime Minister of Great Britain. I expect he will have a full day trying to repair his reputation.
Perhaps he will visit a hospital and see some of the badly injured soldiers who served in Iraq.
On his last day in office Mr Blair entertained Arnold Schwarzenegger.
When I look at Mr Blair now I see a weak man who took us into a war because of his own personal vanity. Everything he did for the country seems to be unravelling. I am an atheist but, should it turn out there is a God, I might think that He had arranged for biblical rain to fall on Blair’s legacy of sin – casinos, television pornography, binge drinking, knife crime and instant credit. I have great hopes for Mr Brown, a man of substance, gravitas and numeracy. I think he is a secret socialist who will go into Number Ten much as Clark Kent went into a phone box. I am convinced that Mr Brown will emerge as Superman.
My mother is obsessed with misery memoirs, she is currently reading A Child Called ‘It’. She said tonight, ‘I could write a book.’
I expect she thinks it will validate her life.
Wednesday 27th June
The country is on flood alert. The people of Hull are already experiencing the worst.
Went round to see my parents and pay them our share of the mortgage. The television news was on. I studied the new incumbents as they stood outside Number Ten on Mr Brown’s first day of office. He looked as if he had had a mouth transplant and was trying his smile out for the first time, and his wave is pathetic.
My mother said, of Mrs Brown, ‘Poor Sarah, two little kids to look after, a workaholic husband and all those canapés to arrange and dignitaries to meet.’
I said, ‘Why are you calling her Sarah? You don’t know her.’
My mother said, ‘All women are sisters to me. That’s something you’ll never understand, Adrian.’
My father said, ‘She looks like a decent sort of woman, and at least she’s got a normal-sized mouth on her.’
So Gordon Brown is now the captain at the helm of the country’s ship. Let us hope he will steer Great Britain away from the rocks so that we may voyage on calm and prosperous seas and towards the light at the end of the tunnel. I expect Mr Brown to denounce Tony Blair’s decision to invade Iraq any day now.
Still raining. River Sense – high. It has broken its banks in places. I have had to micturate twelve times today.
9 p.m.
1 The Old Pigsty
The Piggeries
Bottom Field
Lower Lane
Mangold Parva
Leicestershire
Wednesday 27th June 2007
The Right Honourable Gordon Brown
Prime Minister & First Lord of the Treasury
10 Downing Street
London SW1A 2AA
Dear Prime Minister
A quick note to ask if you have had a chance to glance at the papers concerning my tax affairs?
Yours,
A concerned citizen,
A. A. Mole
Thursday 28th June
Daisy has joined Weight Watchers at the village hall, I had to give her a lift on the back of my bike because she will not wear wellingtons and the lane is flooded due to the non-stop rain.
It wasn’t worth going home again – she was only going to be an hour – so I arranged to meet her in The Bear after she’d been weighed and done whatever else it is that Weight Watchers do.
Daisy came in and slumped down next to me, saying, ‘I’m thirteen stone twelve ounces.’ She lit a cigarette.
‘Thirteen
stone twelve ounces, is that good or bad?’ I asked.
‘It would be great if I were a light-heavyweight boxer,’ she said. ‘But as I’m only five foot three and small boned, yes, it is a bad thing, a very bad thing.’
She picked up my beer glass and drained the contents, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and said, ‘I was nine stone one pound on my wedding day.’
I could see that she was descending into one of her depressions, so I said, ‘There’s more of you to cuddle now.’
That obviously didn’t help.
I went to the bar to get her a double vodka and tonic (drinking straw but no ice, no lemon).
A group of hefty women in tracksuits bulged into the pub and crowded round a small table where they all lit cigarettes. The bar soon resembled the last scene of Casablanca with fog on the runway.
‘Are they your fellow Weight Watchers?’ I asked.
‘No,’ said Daisy, who knew everything that was happening in the village. ‘They’re training for a sponsored run to raise money to save the post office.’
‘Save it from what?’ I asked.
‘Closing,’ said Daisy, lighting yet another cigarette.
I said, ‘You’ve just put one out, and that was only half smoked.’
She replied, quite savagely considering we were in public, ‘Listen, Mr Clean Lungs. On Sunday it will be against the fucking law to smoke a fag in a pub. I’m getting as many in as I can before then.’
To divert her I brought us back to our conversation about the post office. ‘It can’t close,’ I said. ‘I use it at least three times a week. And what about Dad? It’s his only regular outing, he loves pension day.’
Daisy slammed her glass down and shouted to Tom Urquhart behind the bar, ‘You could feed a newborn baby on this Stolichnaya. You’re not supposed to water it down, it’s not Rose’s effing lime juice!’
I sometimes wish that Daisy had not been brought up to be a free spirit, and had learnt to be inhibited in public. She didn’t care that Urquhart was muttering about her, or that everyone in the pub was looking at her.