by Sue Townsend
Pandora was silent for a long time, then said, ‘Was that an owl I heard?’
I said yes and she disconnected the call.
Monday 10th September
Neither Daisy nor Gracie spoke to me this morning. It’s a bit much when your own child gives you the cold shoulder.
I was halfway through serving a young man who had terrible teeth with The Oxford Companion to English Literature by Margaret Drabble when I excused myself and went to the toilet. Mr Carlton-Hayes took over the sale.
When the terrible teeth man had gone, Mr Carlton-Hayes said, ‘Adrian, dear, I could not help but notice that your visits to the lavatory are becoming more frequent. Are you physically ill, my dear, or is it a nervous affliction?’
I felt myself blushing and was saved from answering when a woman in a salmon-pink smock and olive-green pedal pushers barged in and asked for a copy of What Not to Wear.
Mr Carlton-Hayes and I would usually have a cup of tea or coffee on the go all day, but for the rest of the day I cut down dramatically. Even so, I still had to make several urgent dashes into the back. The last time, when I had emerged and was washing my hands, Mr Carlton-Hayes came to me, put a hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Adrian, please go and see somebody about your urinary problem. Do you have any other symptoms?’
I would rather have crawled over broken glass than tell Mr Carlton-Hayes about the occasional pain whilst urinating, but I agreed to go and see a doctor.
I rang Daisy at five thirty and told her that I was going to the Out Of Hours Clinic at the Royal Hospital.
She said, ‘About time.’
The Out Of Hours Clinic was a bit Third World. The waiting area consisted of a dimly lit rectangular room with patients sitting around the edge on plastic chairs. Some were bloodied, some were bowed, most were obviously poor and at least three had the flattened noses and beaten-up faces of the alcoholic homeless. There were frightened young parents with crying babies, a toddler with a nosebleed and an old lady with a hacking cough. It was nine thirty before I was seen. The doctor was a young man with ginger hair. He yawned several times during my description of my symptoms. Then he said, ‘Haven’t you got a GP?’
I explained about my difficulty getting an appointment. He said, nodding towards the waiting room, ‘Yeah, that’s why we’re open twenty-four seven. Has your GP changed his car recently?’
I said, ‘As a matter of fact, he has. He used to drive an old Volvo Estate but he swapped it a few months ago for a new Mercedes four-by-four.’
The doctor, whose ID said he was Tim Coogan, laughed triumphantly and said, ‘Yeah, GPs are the new rich, the jammy bastards are working half the hours for twice the money.’
He seemed to have forgotten me and my symptoms so I asked, ‘Is my frequent urination something to worry about?’
He said, ‘I dunno. Let’s have a look at you.’ He snapped on a pair of blue gloves and said, ‘Climb on the examination table. Take your pants and trousers down and pull your knees up to your chest. I’m gonna give you a DRE.’
I regretted wearing boxer shorts that had gone pink in the wash as I watched Dr Coogan stick his index finger into a jar which said ‘lubricant’.
‘DRE?’ I asked.
‘Digital Rectal Examination,’ he said, sticking his index finger into my rectum and wiggling it about. ‘You’ve presented with the classic signs of prostate trouble.’
‘No, it won’t be my prostate,’ I said, trying to smile. ‘I know I look old beyond my years, but I’m only thirty-nine and a half.’
Diary, I feel that a man more at ease with himself and his body could well make light of Dr Coogan’s examination. Could laugh it off, or use crude rugby-player-like terms. However, I am not that man.
‘Try to relax,’ he said.
God knows I tried, Diary. I tried to remember a relaxation exercise I had been taught by one of my therapists years ago. It consisted of swimming in a dark blue sea, past a small desert island.
Dr Coogan said, with an attempt at humour, ‘If you don’t relax, Mr Mole, you could trap my finger up your bum for ever.’
I made a conscious effort to relax my rectal muscles and he finally retrieved his finger.
‘Wow,’ he said, ‘I’ve rarely come across such powerful muscles.’
I pulled my pants and trousers up and said, ‘Yes, I have been described as being an anal retentive before.’
He threw his blue gloves into a waste bin and washed his hands at a little basin. ‘I’ll write a note to your GP asking him to take some blood.’ He scribbled a note and put it in a brown envelope.
I read it on the way to the car park. It said:
Dear Dr Wolfowicz
I saw your patient, Mr Adrian Mole, at clinic this evening.
I gave him a DRE and request that you take bloods to include PSA. This man has tried and failed to book an appointment to see you and had to resort to attending this Emergency Clinic. Please ask a member of your staff to ring Mr Mole with an appointment as soon as possible.
Yours,
T. Coogan
Registrar
I was greeted with icy politeness when I got home. I ate alone. Daisy had made a bolognese sauce but, as usual, she had been heavy-handed with the oregano. When she came in and found me scraping most of it into the bin under the sink, she said nothing but the look she gave me was worthy of Lot’s wife.
Watched a documentary about 9/11 for a few minutes, but I had to turn it off. Daisy did not ask me what happened at the hospital. We slept apart for the second night running.
Tuesday 11th September
I left the house in pouring rain, wearing my wet weather gear.
Daisy looked me up and down and said, ‘You look like that old bloke they used to have on tins of John West’s pilchards. It’s not a good look.’
I was nearly mown down on the dual carriageway by a petrol tanker. I dismounted my bike and walked the rest of the way to work. When I arrived, Mr Carlton-Hayes asked me how my hospital consultation had gone. My eyes filled with tears and I had to turn away before I trusted myself to speak.
Thursday 13th September
Mrs Leech rang this morning at 7.45 and told me that she had made an appointment for 8.20. Dr Wolfowicz lives in an Edwardian house just outside the village. He has converted the old stable block into a surgery. While I waited I read a peeling copy of Sainsbury’s Magazine.Jamie Oliver had written an article about bolognese sauce. He gave several recipes but at no point did he mention oregano. I carefully tore the page out and put it in my pocket.
Mrs Leech was permanently on the phone telling people that there were no appointments. When it was time for me to go in, she handed me my medical records and said, ‘You’ll need the old-fashioned handwritten notes. Dr Wolfowicz is technically challenged and doesn’t know a mouse from a modem.’
Dr Wolfowicz looked as though he had just finished a shift at a steelworks in Gdansk. His huge face could have been carved out of rock. Isn’t it time he bought himself a decent suit? After all, he has been in this country for at least three years. I must admit, though, his English has improved.
He muttered, ‘I will just try to get you up on the system.’ He turned to the computer on his desk and pressed a few keys. After typing in my name and asking me if I now lived in Belfast, to which I answered, ‘No, I live at Number Two, the Piggeries,’ he sighed and took my medical records from me. He read the last few pages, including the letter from Dr Coogan, then said, ‘So you’ve had a DRE?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘so I don’t need another. All you need to do is take some blood.’
Dr Wolfowicz frowned and said, ‘Please, Mr Mole, do not tell me how to do my job. I will need to examine you myself. Now you are getting on the couch?’
He put on a pair of gloves and I pulled my trousers down and got into the foetal position for the second time in two days. It wasn’t quite as bad as the last time. When I had dressed myself again, he said, ‘Your prostate is not what I would like. I will take some bloods and then we
will wait…’
I said, ‘But I can’t have prostate trouble. I’m too young.’
He said, ‘Do you have penis pain?’
‘Occasionally,’ I said.
‘And is there any erectile disfunction?’
I said, ‘I haven’t tried for a while, my wife and I are having a few difficulties…’
Dr Wolfowicz smiled sympathetically and said, ‘My wife, she is in Warsaw, also…’ He put a tourniquet around my arm and said, ‘A little prick.’ Then he took three vials of blood and said, ‘I will send these off today. Maybe we know the results next week…’
As I was leaving, Mrs Leech said, ‘In future, Mr Mole, please desist from destroying our magazines. You are depriving other patients of reading matter.’
I pointed out to her that the magazine from which I had torn Jamie’s recipe was first published in 2003.
She snapped, ‘Please don’t speak to me in that tone of voice, Mr Mole. I am simply trying to do my job.’
Why didn’t I leave it there, Diary? Why did I have to further antagonize her in front of a waiting room full of villagers?
Our argument continued until Dr Wolfowicz came out of his room and in a calm voice, like somebody training a dog, said, ‘Mrs Leech, am I waiting for the next patient for ever?’
Mrs Leech shouted, ‘Mrs Goodfellow!’ and an old lady hobbled towards the doctor’s room.
As I cycled to work, I looked down and saw that my fingers were crossed on the handlebars.
When I reached the shop, my heart sank. Dr Pearce was standing outside waiting for it to open. She said she had time to kill before her next tutorial, so I brewed some coffee and we made small talk about children. She said the children and the house were getting on top of her recently because her husband, Robin, was in Norway measuring glaciers. I talked about the Norwegian leather industry and I think she was surprised at my knowledge. She is a fan of Norwegian mythology and compared Odin’s wife to Boudicca. I was relieved when a regular customer came in, and Dr Pearce said, ‘I must fly.’
After she had gone, I had a reverie. I was standing on the prow of a ship next to Pandora, her heavy flaxen hair was streaming in the wind as we entered a fjord.
Friday 14th September
Worked on Plague! this evening. Until I finish it I don’t know how many acting parts there are and how many animals are needed. The Mangold Parva Players have not performed together since they fell out over a production of Fame when the choreographer, Marcia from the Saturday morning dance class in the church hall, accused Garry Fortune, who was playing Angelo, of sabotaging the finale by making lewd gestures to his girlfriend who was sitting in the audience.
Daisy was quite civil to me this evening, until I remembered and gave her the Jamie Oliver recipe for bolognese.
Saturday 15th September
I thought that my mother had forgotten about The Jeremy Kyle Show, but no such luck. She was on the phone to Rosie when I went round after work to borrow my father’s nose hair clippers, and I heard her say, ‘I don’t know which would look better on television, my lilac trouser suit or my fuchsia dress ’n’ jacket.’
When she came off the phone, I said, ‘If you are so desperate to go on television, why don’t you audition for The X Factor, and then you could meet your hero, Simon Cowell.’
She said, ‘I used to sing with a rock band in Norwich – Pauline and the Potato Heads. I could have been famous if your dad hadn’t held me back.’
Sunday 16th September
A miserable day. The air was damp. Took Gracie for a short walk to the woods. Leaves coming off trees but no crackle underfoot yet. Heard gunfire coming from grounds of Fairfax Hall so turned and went back home. Had crumpets and cocoa. Watched Antiques Roadshow.
Daisy and I slept in same bed but apart.
Monday 17th September
Brett phoned the bookshop at lunchtime to tell me that he had ‘made a killing’ from derivatives (whatever they are) by ten o’clock this morning. He asked me if I wanted to invest any spare money I had in a new hedge fund he had set up. I said I didn’t have enough money to buy a modest privet hedge let alone pay out for my mortgage, food, gas and electricity bills. I mentioned that I had been tested for prostate trouble and told him that I was anxious about the results.
He said, ‘You’re absolutely right to be worried, I’ve known two good blokes die from prostate cancer within the last six months. One of them was going to be the best man at my wedding.’
Although I was annoyed that the focus of the conversation had veered away from me yet again, I asked, ‘So when are you getting married?’
He said, ‘I don’t know. I haven’t found the right girl yet. I’m looking for a stunningly beautiful, rich and independent woman, who isn’t a feminist.’
I said, ‘I think you’ll find that they are thin on the ground.’
He said, quite nastily, ‘Do you think I don’t know that? It’s the reason I’m not planning my wedding in the immediate future.’
Nigel was only marginally more sympathetic, when I called round after work.
He said, ‘I had a prostate scare a couple of years ago. It turned out that I had a bladder infection. It cleared up with antibiotics, so don’t go around wittering that your time is up, Moley.’ Then he turned the conversation to his household worker dog. He said, ‘We don’t know what to call him. He’s not a patch on Graham. He’s a lazy sod, he wouldn’t get up to answer the door to Parcelforce this morning, so that means I’ve got to schlep down to the depot to pick the bloody thing up. Unless you could go, Moley?’
After groping along the kitchen table, he found the ‘sorry you were not at home’ card and gave it to me. I had no choice but to go and collect his parcel. When I asked him what was in it, he said, ‘It’s a set of matching bed linen and curtains from QVC.’
I put the card in my pocket and left. The housework dog saw me to the front door. I can foresee trouble with this cur. The dog looks sulky to me and has quite a martyred air about him.
*
As soon as I arrived home, Daisy rushed to tell me that my parents had gone to town and were queuing outside the Northern Rock branch in Horsefair Street intending to withdraw their savings first thing in the morning.
I said, ‘They can’t possibly queue all night. They’ll freeze to death.’
She said, ‘They’ve got sleeping bags and Thermos flasks, and I said that you would top their flasks up sometime in the night.’
I said, ‘Why are they so desperate? Can’t they wait until the weekend?’
Daisy said, ‘You haven’t seen the news, have you? Northern Rock has gone bust.’
I said, ‘Impossible. That bank is as solid as a, well, rock.’
We switched on the news and saw long queues of mostly pensioners waiting outside a Northern Rock branch in the City of London. The camping stool and Thermos flask quotient was high. One elderly woman with a frazzled grey perm told a BBC reporter, ‘I’ve worked hard all my life. I’m not leaving here until I get my life savings out of that bank.’
The reporter asked, ‘And where will you put it?’
‘Under my mattress,’ she said, defiantly.
At 11 p.m. I drove into town, stopping for fish and chips on the way. My parents were huddled in their sleeping bags outside Northern Rock. They were the only people in the queue. They fell on the fish and chips like savages.
My father said, ‘There’s nothing like fresh air to give you an appetite.’
I tried to persuade them to come home, but my mother said, ‘Not until I’ve got that money in my handbag. What if your father has to go into a nursing home? How will we afford the fees?’
My father pulled the sleeping bag over his head. ‘And how are we meant to pay our half of the mortgage if the bank goes bust?’
When they had finished their fish and chips, I handed them each a wet wipe and replenished their flasks. I asked, ‘Where will you put your money if you don’t trust the financial institutions?’
&
nbsp; They discussed where to put their money.
My mother said, ‘You can get hollow tins that look like Heinz beans, nowadays.’
My father shook his head in wonder at this latest evidence of hi-tech Britain.
‘They’re burglar proof,’ she said.
‘Unless the burglar fancies beans on toast,’ I said. ‘According to police statistics, four per cent of burglars make themselves a snack before leaving with their swag.’
After trying and failing to persuade them to come home, I gave up and went to my own bed.
Tuesday 18th September
When I got home last night, Daisy had prepared my favourite three-course dinner: a prawn cocktail, without the yucky pink stuff, rack of lamb, mashed potatoes and green beans, gravy and mint sauce. The pudding was peach cobbler made with fresh peaches and served with thick Bird’s custard. With it we drank a bottle of rosé wine that Daisy had picked up at the post office. It was predictably vile, but I didn’t care.
I moved the custard jug aside and squeezed her hand, she squeezed back so perhaps our marriage is back on track. We didn’t get to bed until 2 a.m. There was no sexual contact, but we went to sleep in the spoon position.
Wednesday 19th September
I told Mr Carlton-Hayes about my prostate trouble today.
He wrinkled his brow and said, ‘I’m so sorry, my dear. If you need some time off, I’ll ask Leslie to cover for you.’
To my great alarm I felt tears well in my eyes again.
Mr Carlton-Hayes said, ‘You are a young man. The probability is that you will not be diagnosed as having cancer.’ (Which he pronounced ‘kenser’.)
It was the first time anybody had uttered the ‘C’ word out loud, although I have hardly thought of anything else since my first medical examination.
I said, ‘But what if it is cancer? I can’t die yet. I’ve got responsibilities and a family and I have to look after my parents, they’re completely irresponsible and couldn’t survive without my help. And there are so many places I haven’t visited: the Taj Mahal, the Grand Canyon, the new John Lewis department store they’re building in Leicester.’