by Sue Townsend
There is nobody I can talk to about my problems, apart from Nigel. After checking my bank balance online (£349.31 overdrawn), I rang and asked if I could call in and see him on my way home from work tomorrow. He grudgingly agreed.
Gracie was in her bedroom playing at social workers with her dolls. Barbie and Ken were each married to one of the Bratz dolls and Sindy (dressed in a business suit and carrying a briefcase) was threatening to take Barbie’s child (Baby Annabelle) into care. The fact that Baby Annabelle dwarfs spindly Barbie does not seem to bother Gracie. Where does my little daughter get her knowledge of social work practice? I intuit the influence of my mother, who is fond of relating lurid anecdotes about the unfortunates who live in the council houses in the village. I stayed and watched Gracie’s game until Baby Annabelle had been taken to live with Paddington Bear and his wife (a purple My Little Pony) in their Wendy house/orphanage. Whilst playing the part of best man at Postman Pat and Tinky Winky’s wedding, I told Gracie that most mummies and daddies love each other and their children. I asked her why she didn’t play happy families, but she didn’t answer and busied herself by fiddling with Postman Pat’s bridal veil.
2 a.m.
Made my usual moves on Daisy tonight, i.e. stroked outer thigh, kneaded shoulder, but she did not respond. After a while I gave up and turned my back on her.
Saturday 1st September
We were busy in the bookshop today. Only half of the customers were mad. When one such madman came in asking for a book on UFOs, and on the way to the shelf told me that he had seen seven-foot extraterrestrials walking around a field outside Market Harborough, I handed him over to Hitesh, who believes that the American CIA exploded the Twin Towers.
Nigel and Lance Lovett were watching Hollyoaks in the dark when I arrived. I know it’s unreasonable, but it annoys me that they do not switch any of their lights on. When I remarked that it was strange to see two blind men ‘watching’ television, Nigel said, ‘We can still hear the sound effects and dialogue, Moley, and we only have to pay half the licence fee.’
God knows what they get out of listening to Hollyoaks. The sound consists of slamming doors, sobbing, fighting, love making and revelations about the paternity of children. When the adverts came on, Nigel turned the sound down and gave me his full attention. I had wanted to talk to him alone, but Lance made no attempt to leave us and I could hardly ask a blind man to go somewhere and sit in the dark, so I told them both about my many and various problems, starting with The Jeremy Kyle Show and finishing with Daisy’s obvious unhappiness. Nigel said (using, to my mind, an excessive amount of metaphor), ‘You’ve taken a rare orchid and shut her away in a dark outhouse. You haven’t nourished her or paid her enough attention. Is it any wonder that her roots are struggling to survive? Daisy is a trapped bird whose wings have been broken, she is a Fabergé egg that you have boiled for four minutes and eaten for your breakfast.’
I stopped him just as he was embarking on a new metaphor to do with Daisy being a submerged volcano.
Lance said, ‘I had a long conversation on the phone with Daisy this morning. She said that your love life is like the Kalahari Desert. She said that you struggle through shifting sands to the summit of a dune but rarely reach it together.’
Nigel and Lance found this amusing.
I said, ‘I am shocked and feel betrayed to hear that my wife has been blabbing out the most intimate details of our love life.’
Nigel said, airily, ‘Don’t get your boxers in a tangle, women always tell gay men their most intimate secrets.’
‘We are the keepers of the knowledge,’ Lance said, ‘and he’s not talking about interior design.’
They laughed again.
I looked around their living room. Somehow, although unable to see, they have managed to coordinate the carpet, curtains and cushions.
Do gay men have an extra, soft-furnishing gene?
When I got home, my mother was there talking to Daisy about the Lucas/Jeremy Kyle problem. I was alarmed that they seemed to be considering the benefits of, as my mother said, ‘getting it all out in the open and finally having closure’. I spoke passionately and, I think, eloquently about the benefits of keeping family secrets hidden and unresolved, but they looked at me with what I can only describe as incredulous pity and resumed their discussion. Gracie was next door with my father, watching a DVD of The Wizard of Oz for the 79th time (my father keeps count) so I went into the kitchen and resumed work on Plague!. I wrote a monologue for a plague victim.
SCENE VI
Village Green, Mangold Parva. It is market day. A pack of dogs cross from stage left and exit stage right. A chicken comes to centre stage and lays an egg, then exits stage right. Villagers are selling and buying produce. It begins to snow. A plague victim staggers from stage left and addresses the audience. The villagers draw back in fear.
PLAGUE VICTIM (addressing audience): Ay, see thee draw yon selves away from my poor diseased body. No man nor woman will touch my putrid flesh, nor will they give me comfort and kindly words. Death waits around the corner for me, for no man can survive once the plague hath touched him. I do not want to leave this world. There are many delights I have not seen. I have heard that to the east there be a sea where ships do sail to foreign lands, to the south a pile of holy rocks they do call Stonehenge and to the west there lieth the great city of Leicester where there are many glittering buildings of such magnificence that humble folk do rub their eyes in wonder thinking that what they see is but a dream.
A peasant woman approaches the plague victim.
PEASANT WOMAN: Be gone, ye diabolical plague victim! Take thy filthy personage to a hole and die! Thou art not fit to be in a public place!
GODFRIED pushes through the crowd to centre stage.
GODFRIED: Have mercy on this poor wretch. Hath he not flesh like yours? Hath he not a heart and soul and loins that God hath made?
GODFRIED holds his arms out and approaches the plague victim.
GODFRIED: Come to me, scurrilous one. I will embrace your common humanity.
GODFRIED embraces the plague victim. There is a gasp from the crowd. The pack of dogs enter stage left and surround GODFRIED and the plague victim. The dogs act in unison, and dip their heads as if in prayer.
I’m quite pleased with this. It may be difficult to get the dogs to lower their heads simultaneously, but there is plenty of time to train them. The chicken may be more problematical.
Monday 3rd September
Daisy rang me at work to say that she had rung the surgery at 8 a.m. for an appointment re my bladder but that the line was constantly engaged.
When she finally got through, Mrs Leech, the receptionist, said, ‘It’s eight thirty-five. You must ring before eight thirty to book an appointment.’ When Daisy pointed out that she had been trying since eight o’clock, Mrs Leech said, ‘If I don’t keep to the rules, it will be anarchy here.’ When Daisy asked if she would make an appointment for tomorrow morning, Mrs Leech said, ‘No, you must ring tomorrow between eight and eight thirty.’
Daisy admitted to me that she had muttered a swear word and that Mrs Leech had said, ‘I heard that, Mrs Mole. Perhaps you ought to know that our conversation is being recorded for the purpose of staff training.’
Daisy said that, as she had not given her permission for her voice to be recorded, she would be making a formal complaint to the BMA.
In my opinion, it is always a mistake to antagonize a doctor’s receptionist.
Tuesday 4th September
Started ringing the surgery at 7.59 a.m. Mrs Leech answered immediately and told me that I must ring again at 8 a.m.
Rang at 8 a.m. The line was engaged. Rang again at 8.15 whilst cycling to work. Got through at 8.25 but couldn’t make myself heard to Mrs Leech because at that very moment a fire engine passed me with its siren blaring. Rose on to the pavement and dismounted but Mrs Leech had disconnected the call. Tried again but line busy. It’s a good job I am not suffering a serious illness that r
equires immediate treatment.
*
Got through at 8.31, to be told by Mrs Leech that it was too late to make an appointment.
10.15 p.m.
Dr Pearce has just rung me on my mobile to ask if the shop has a copy of Yes, I Would Like to Have Sex With You. I was very surprised to hear from her, especially as it was such a late hour for a phone call from a mere acquaintance.
Unfortunately, Daisy overheard me say ‘yes, I would like to have sex with you’ as I was writing it down. When I put the phone down, after I had told Dr Pearce that I would ‘deal with your request tomorrow’, Daisy burst into the kitchen and accused me of having an affair. I protested my innocence but she screamed, ‘I heard you with my own ears, you cheating bastard!’
I informed her that Yes, I Would Like to Have Sex With You was subtitled A Teenager’s Guide to The First Sexual Encounter, but she was too angry to listen.
The last time I sneaked a look at Daisy’s diary she was writing admiringly about Hugo Fairfax-Lycett’s commanding air as he took charge of bailing out the flood-water from old Will Frost’s semi-submerged cottage in Hollow Lane last month.
Diary, it is a well-known fact that adulterous partners often suspect their spouses of infidelity. Is it coincidence that Fairfax-Lycett always turns up at The Bear within minutes of our arrival?
Wednesday 5th September
A police forensics expert from Michigan has been sacked for using lab facilities to test her husband’s underpants for DNA. Ann Chamberlain, aged thirty-three, admitted during divorce proceedings that she had run forensic tests on her husband’s underwear at the State Police laboratory because she suspected he was cheating on her. When asked what the results showed, she replied, ‘Another woman. It wasn’t me.’
I showed this news item to Daisy and offered her all the underpants I have worn since Sunday. She replied, coldly, that it was too late, she had done a ‘white wash’ at sixty degrees.
Thursday 6th September
Faxed the surgery at 8.01 a.m. requesting an appointment. Received fax back immediately from Mrs Leech stating that ‘appointments can only be given over the telephone’.
Friday 7th September
Emailed Mrs Leech asking her to be prepared to take my telephone call at precisely 8 a.m. Received an email at 8.02 to say that ‘at this moment in time’ there was a queue of thirty people on hold.
*
When I got to work, I went into the back room and rang NHS Direct. I spoke to a kind woman and explained my symptoms (frequent urination, pain whilst passing urine, dribbling whilst passing urine and occasional pain in organ). I heard her clicking on a keyboard and then she said, ‘You should go and see your GP immediately.’
I explained my difficulties in getting an appointment. She said that I must go to the Out Of Hours Clinic at my local hospital. She stressed that I must not delay. I thanked her and put the phone down. All day I had a terrible feeling of apprehension. I went to the medical shelves and found Symptoms and Diagnosis. After doing a self-diagnosis, I concluded that I have a severe bladder infection. The book also diagnosed prostate cancer but, thank God, I am too young for that. Prostate cancer, as any fool knows, only affects very old men and I am not forty until April next year.
Saturday 8th September
I looked for Yes, I Would Like to Have Sex With You and found it in the teen fiction section. When I pointed out to Hitesh that it was a non-fiction book and should have been placed in the medical section, Hitesh said, with the arrogance of youth, ‘I’m sorry, Mr Mole, but I thought sex was mostly a teenage interest.’
Hitesh has just started going out with an English girl called Chelsie Hoare, who had a breast augmentation for her 18th birthday. He has to meet her secretly, his parents would kill him if they found out.
I felt I had to explain to him that people of my age also have an interest in sex.
He pulled a face.
The kid has a lot to learn. He keeps putting books about the Labour Party in the history section.
Just as I was locking up, Dr Pearce dashed in with two Mothercare bags and asked if she could pick up the copy of Yes, I Would Like to Have Sex With You. Her hair needed washing and her stomach was straining against a too-tight skirt. I went into the back room and was startled to find that she’d followed me.
She said, ‘Goodness me, what a lot of books. There’s hardly room to move in here.’
It was with relief I heard the shop bell ring, but when I went out I was alarmed to see that it was Daisy and Gracie.
Gracie said, ‘Why are you standing in the dark?’
Before I could answer Dr Pearce reappeared and said, ‘Thank you for your personal service. It will be a sad day when we lose our independent bookshops.’
When Dr Pearce had picked up her Mothercare bags and left, I asked Daisy what she was doing in town. She said that she regretted her accusations of the other night and thought that it would be nice to have an early dinner at Wayne Wong’s. Unfortunately, as we were walking towards the Chinese restaurant, Dr Pearce drove past, stopped the car and said, ‘I forgot to ask you, Adrian, could you order me the sequel to Yes, I Would Like to Have Sex With You? I think it’s called Sorry, I no Longer Want to Have Sex With You.’
I knew then that I would not be manipulating the chopsticks that night or for many nights to come. Daisy let go of Gracie’s hand, turned round and clattered down the high street in her high heels.
Diary, nobody could have judged me if I had carried on to Wayne Wong’s. After all, I had only eaten a Twix since lunchtime, and I was looking forward to deep-fried wontons and beef with ginger and crispy noodles, but I turned round and followed my wife.
When Gracie said, ‘Why is Mummy running away from us?’ I told her that Mummy was jogging in preparation for running a half marathon.
Sunday 9th September
The Pearce row went on all day and well into the night. I am exhausted and distraught. Daisy said some cruel and heartless things about me, my personality, my looks, my clothes, my parents, my friends, the way I eat, sleep, drink, walk, laugh, snore, tap my teeth, crack my fingers, belch, fart, wipe my glasses, dance, wear my jeans up around my armpits, put HP sauce on my toast, refuse to watch The X Factor and Big Brother, drive… The litany went on and on and was interspersed with tears and sobs. I tried to take her in my arms and comfort her but she pushed me away, saying, ‘Why don’t you put your arms around Dr Pearce? You know you want to!’
I protested that frequent childbearing had taken an obvious toll on Dr Pearce’s sexual allure and that she had let herself go.
Daisy said, ‘Your mother warned me that Mole men will not tolerate their Mole women going over nine and a half stone! I have tried to lose weight, Adrian, but you will insist on having chocolate digestives in the house!’
At midnight, when Daisy was finally sleeping, I left the house. The moon was bright and an east wind was buffeting the tops of the leylandii as I stumbled down the potholed drive to phone Pandora. I expected to leave a message – she almost never picks up the phone herself – but to my surprise she answered immediately, saying, ‘Oh my God, what’s happened? Is somebody in Leicester dead?’
I apologised for ringing her at such a late hour and said that I needed to talk to her urgently.
She said, impatiently, ‘Look, you’ve interrupted me in working on a policy document for Gordon Brown’s office. It has to be on his desk at eight in the morning.’
To be polite I asked her what sort of policy demanded Mr Brown’s urgent attention.
She said, somewhat reluctantly I thought, ‘Newts – do they deserve protected species status?’
I said, ‘Perhaps I can help you there. Do you remember when I was working at the Department of the Environment?’
‘I certainly do,’ she said.
‘Well, my expertise was in newt population.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘and you made a terrible balls-up by estimating that there were 120,000 newts in Newport Pagnell, when in
fact there were only 1,200, and consequently held up the new bypass for ten years.’
‘How could you possibly know that?’ I asked.
‘From the net,’ she said. ‘Your report is on a website called www.planningblunders.com.’
‘Why is Mr Brown so interested in newts?’ I asked.
‘The government is trying to streamline the planning laws,’ she said, ‘and bloody newts and rare orchids are preventing hard-working stakeholder families from living in decent housing in our proposed eco-towns.’
‘Hasn’t Mr Brown got more important things to address?’ I asked. ‘Such as Iraq, the Labour Party’s twenty-million-pound debt and the fact that National Health Service hospitals are full of rampant life-threatening infections.’
Pandora said, ‘He’s an obsessive micro-manager. He’s down to three hours of sleep a night. I heard a rumour that he’s started using Elizabeth Arden’s concealer on his eye bags.’
Pandora enjoys giving me these titbits of gossip. She was halfway through telling me about Geoff Hoon’s use of Garnier’s Grey Coverage, when I interrupted and told her that my wife appeared to hate me.
Pandora laughed and said, ‘You should be used to it by now. Aren’t all your relationships with women disastrous? Didn’t you have one girlfriend who burned down your house?’
‘She was clinically insane,’ I protested.
‘Yes, but you chose her,’ said Pandora.
An owl hooted in the sycamore tree opposite, reminding me that unless I went home and got some sleep I would be good for nothing the next day. I said goodnight to Pandora and added, ‘I will always love you.’