by Sue Townsend
I asked him if he was up to running the shop on his own with part-time help from Hitesh.
He said, ‘Piece of cake. Are you providing accommodation, young sir?’
I said that he could sleep in the back room.
He said, ‘Ah, to sleep in the arms of Morpheus surrounded by books, what man could wish for more? I’ll drive over as soon as the jalopy is back from the garage.’
I warned him that there were absolutely no free parking spaces in the whole of Leicester.
He said, ‘In that case I’ll jump on an omnibus and toddle over to you.’
As soon as I had put the phone down, I regretted my impetuous nature. Bernard Hopkins is the bookseller from hell. If he applies for a job at Waterstones his name triggers an alarm on their computer network. At one time Borders had his photograph up in their staff rooms with a notice saying: ‘Do not employ this man’. But there is nobody to touch him when it comes to antiquarian books. He handles them with reverence and will not sell them to a careless owner – a bit like those women at Cats Protection who require you to have a degree in cat care before they will allow you to take one home.
Saturday 3rd November
Woke at 3 a.m. in a sweat. Lay awake, semi-paralysed by fear, thinking about death. What happens? Do we know we’re dead? Do I want to be buried or cremated? Will anybody remember me after a few years of grieving? Should I make a will? How will Daisy and Gracie manage without me? Will any of my novels be published posthumously?
By 9 a.m. I was in the post office. Tony and Wendy Wellbeck were behind the counter drinking tea and eating toast, which I thought was most unprofessional.
When I asked for a do-it-yourself will form, Wendy Wellbeck said, ‘Yes, I heard about your trouble down below.’
Tony Wellbeck said, ‘Your mother came in yesterday. She was very upset. Wendy had to go round the counter and give her a cuddle.’
I said, ‘I was not aware that my medical condition was the subject of village gossip.’
Wendy Wellbeck said, ‘Don’t be too hard on her. We mothers suffer when our children are poorly, Mr Mole.’
Tony Wellbeck asked, ‘Does this mean the community play is cancelled?’
‘It might be postponed,’ I said.
‘Only the Young Farmers are keen to do a traditional Cinderella.’
Wendy Wellbeck said, proudly, ‘They’ve asked if they can varnish one of Tony’s giant pumpkins.’
After I had paid for my do-it-yourself will form, Tony Wellbeck said, ‘We’ve known half a dozen people suffering from your kind of trouble, haven’t we, Wendy?’
Wendy Wellbeck smiled and said, ‘Yes, and two of them are alive and well today, aren’t they, Tony?’
When I reached work, Bernard Hopkins was sitting on the doorstep of the shop. He was wearing a navy overcoat on top of a green sports jacket, shirt and tie. His corduroy trousers were splotched with what looked like blackcurrant jam. His shoes looked like a cartoon tramp’s. His shirt collar was frayed and filthy.
When he saw me, he threw his cigarette into the gutter and staggered to his feet, saying, ‘Good morn, young sire. Fare thee well?’
I didn’t want to tell him about my prostate trouble whilst we stood on the doorstep so I said, ‘I’ve been better, thank you.’
Once inside the shop he started to prowl along the shelves, grunting and purring as he caught sight of familiar books. He pulled out a copy of Boswell’s Life of Johnson and opened it at random. He handled it as other people might handle an exquisite treasure. He snorted with laughter at something he read, then replaced the book on the shelf and said, ‘Your telephone call was very timely. Another couple of hours and I might have popped my own clogs.’
I said, ‘Please don’t talk about killing yourself. Your life is very precious.’
To my alarm his eyes welled with tears and he said, choking, ‘Nobody has ever said that to me before. I’ve always felt that I was a bit of a nuisance. My mother and father gave the impression that I was a drain on their finances, and my wives seemed to turn on me as soon as they had the bloody ring on their fingers. It doesn’t do much for a fellow’s self-confidence.’
I went through the practical details with him of running the shop. I showed him the cash box, reminded him that the electric kettle sometimes boils over if the ‘on’ switch is not pressed down far enough, told him that our insurance company will not allow alcohol on the premises (a lie, but he will never know), warned him not to call Hitesh Gunga Din, reminded him that it is against the law to smoke in a public building and asked him to do a hard sell on Antony Worrall Thompson’s new book (I had ordered a cartonful by mistake).
At 1 p.m. I suddenly felt ravenously hungry and went out in search of a plain cheese sandwich. After trawling round several sandwich shops in a fruitless search – all the sandwiches in Leicester seem to have been polluted by filthy mayonnaise – I went to Marks & Spencer and bought a crusty loaf, a pack of butter and a block of red Leicester, then returned to the bookshop to make my own.
When I arrived, Bernard was asleep on the sofa in full view of the window, Antony Worrall Thompson’s book open on his lap. Hitesh told me that he had been asleep for over half an hour. Once again I regretted my mad impulse to ask Bernard to help out.
Hitesh said, ‘Only two customers have been in. One was asking for a book suitable for a person who loves cats, and a crazy guy came in and bought a copy of Philip Larkin’s High Windows.’
Bernard woke up at 2 p.m. and asked for a sub of £10 from the till, then went out to look for a café that served ‘proper English grub’. I went online and found a prostate survivors website where, to my alarm, I read that ‘Karl in Dumfries’ had suffered a loss of libido after he had finished his course of radiotherapy and ‘Arthur in High Wycombe’ had been unable to resume marital relations since his treatment. I posted an anonymous blog, calling myself Steve Hardwick, asking if impotence was inevitable after treatment with external-beam radiotherapy, adding, ‘I am a young man, not yet forty.’
I busied myself in the shop for half an hour and then went back to the computer. A bloke called Clive had written:
Welcome to our blog, Steve. No, impotence is not inevitable. With the help and encouragement of my wife, Cath, we have devised ways to have a satisfactory sex life. So don’t despair, keep your pecker up!
I replied:
Many thanks, Clive. You are certainly lucky in having such an understanding and loving wife. My own is impatient and has a quick temper (she is half Mexican).
Clive replied almost straight away:
Steve, she sounds fabulous. Perhaps Cath and myself can join you for a foursome. What do you think? Obviously we would wait until your treatment was complete. Have you got any pics of your lovely señora? It won’t bother me if she is half or even fully naked. Me and Cath are open-minded OAPs. Hope to hear from you soon. We live in Frisby-on-the-Wreak, Leicestershire, but with our free bus passes distance is no problem. Yours, Clive.
I heard Bernard’s voice in the shop and shut down the computer. I could smell the beer on him from three yards away. I took a tube of Polos out of my pocket and gave him one, saying, ‘Freshen your breath, Bernard.’
He shuddered at the sight of it and said, ‘No fear, young sire. Got my tongue trapped in the bloody hole once. Never again.’
There was hardly any trade in the afternoon. Bernard fell asleep again and Hitesh gave himself what looked like a professional manicure with an emery board, an orange stick and a bottle of cuticle remover that he took out of what he calls his ‘manbag’. He offered to sort my nails out but I demurred.
At four thirty I left the shop to visit Mr Carlton-Hayes. He told me excitedly that there was a programme on the television called Loose Women. He said, ‘There are five ladies who have strong opinions on a variety of topics. They are daringly frank and delightfully uninhibited.’
I told him that I had made a great mistake in inviting Bernard to help us out in the shop.
Mr Carlton
-Hayes said, ‘You mustn’t blame yourself, my dear. We must look on the bright side – think how happy Bernard will feel knowing that he is needed somewhere.’
Mr Carlton-Hayes is having an operation on his discs on Monday. They are either taking two out or putting two in. I forget which.
I told him that I was having external-beam radiotherapy.
He said, ‘My dear, if I could have the wretched treatment for you, I would. I think it is terribly unfair that the gods have given you what should be an old man’s complaint.’
We watched Sally Jessy Raphael on his suspended television. A gigantic fat black man was boasting that he had fathered seventeen children with seventeen different mothers.
Sally Jessy, an elderly red-haired woman in Eric Morecambe glasses, was chiding the man and telling him that he should be using a condom.
The man said, ‘Ain’t no point in sucking on candy with the wrapper on!’
Mr Carlton-Hayes said, ‘I do so like this programme. It’s deliciously awful.’
I reminded him that BBC Four had a fine reputation for broadcasting respected cultural programmes, starting at 7 p.m.
He said, ‘You are quite right to admonish me, Adrian. I am in thrall to reality TV. I must wean myself off it before I leave hospital.’
I told him that my mother was also a captive of such shows.
As I rode home, I decided that I would use my illness to manipulate my mother into not appearing on The Jeremy Kyle Show. At the traffic lights on the Narborough Road a car papped its hooter behind me. I turned round but couldn’t see who it was in the dark, then Dr Pearce wound down the window and motioned for me to turn left and pull in. As she overtook me, I saw that the whole of her back seat was covered in Sainsbury’s bags full of groceries. She shifted, with some difficulty, to the passenger seat and opened the door. Then, as I leaned in, she pulled my head down and kissed me on the lips. After I had broken away, she said, ‘Please put your bike in the boot. I have to talk to you.’
It took for ever to take my bike apart. It was an unpleasant and difficult job, made worse by the commotion of the heavy goods vehicles as they roared through the rain towards the motorway. However, it went in the boot eventually. I reluctantly got into the car and Dr Pearce drove us to The Boat House in Barrow-upon-Soar.
We sat in the car park facing the dark river for a while and she told me that when her husband had arrived back from Norway last week, he had been very cold towards her. After a few days of near silence he had confessed that he had shared his hotel room in Trondheim with a geographer called Celia. She said, ‘I was very surprised because he hasn’t shown much interest in sex since Imogen was born. I feel such a fool.’
I told her about the treatment I had embarked on. I was very conscious of the fact that I was thirty miles away from home and an hour late, but in the face of her obvious distress I switched my phone off and we went into the pub and ordered beef burgers, salad and fat chips.
Dr Pearce chose a bottle of Rioja and said, ‘This place is lovely in the summer. We must come here, sit by the river and have a picnic, Adrian.’
I was very alarmed by this. Was she under the impression that our relationship would continue into 2008?
She dropped me off at the end of our drive and sped away to feed her children. To my dismay Daisy and Gracie were walking up the lane from the village and caught me putting my bike back together.
Gracie said, ‘Why is your bike broken, Dad?’
I said, ‘It suddenly fell apart.’
Even to my ears this sounded like a feeble excuse, and when Daisy said, ‘You’ve been drinking,’ I lied yet again and said that I’d called in for a glass of wine at a pub in town.
She said, ‘Nobody calls in for a glass of wine, Adrian, they call in for a swift half.’
I found it impossible to reassemble my bike in the pitch black of the Mangold Parva night, so I took the frame and one wheel, Daisy took the other wheel and Gracie carried the pedals back to the pigsty. I didn’t know who I felt more angry with – Dr Pearce, for manipulating me into a secret tryst, or myself, for my cowardice in going along with it.
Sunday 4th November
Spent a depressing morning making my will at the kitchen table. It was disheartening to realize that in thirty-nine years I had accumulated nothing of any value. Apart from my books and manuscripts, a few clothes and pairs of shoes and my Sabatier knives I have little of any worth. My bank account is overdrawn and even my bicycle is in pieces. And according to an estate agent my mother recently inveigled into giving her a valuation, both pigsties are already in negative equity. I did have an insurance policy but Brett persuaded me to cash it in and put £23,000 into a high-interest Icelandic bank account that I will not be able to touch for at least seven years.
Brett said, ‘It’s as safe as houses, Adrian. Local authorities and councils have been taking advantage of the ridiculously high interest rates.’ It is great to have a half-brother who is also a financial expert.
I remembered that the funeral plan that my parents had paid into since I was born was kept in my Important Documents box, which is hidden behind the suitcases on the top of the wardrobe in my bedroom. I went out to the shed and had to move months of accumulated rubbish before I could reach the stepladder. I then had to knock a large spider from its web – no doubt it was looking forward to spending the rest of the winter there. After dragging the stepladder through the garden, it had picked up mud and leaves so I then had to unroll the hose. However, no water came out.
I asked Daisy where the stopcock was.
She said, ‘Are you trying to be funny?’
I went next door to ask my mother.
She, loving a drama, however small, got herself involved and infuriated me by jiggling the hose about and saying, ‘It was working last time I used it.’
In the end, Daisy fetched a damp cloth and simply wiped the mud and leaves away.
After carefully scrutinizing the funeral plan, I discovered that it was worth the risible sum of approximately £160.37. I lifted a bundle of marriage, birth and decree nisi certificates out and saw in the corner of the box a rusty key. I was immediately transported back to the day when Bert Baxter, the pensioner I used to visit when I was 13¾, pressed it into my hand. Where was Bert’s trunk now? Did Pandora still have it? I put the key back into the box and put the box back on top of the wardrobe. I sat on the chair in front of the dressing table and tried to envisage the young Adrian. Some of the happiest moments of my life happened when Pandora, Bert and I were together. She was the only person, apart from me, who Bert trusted to cut his toenails.
When I joined Daisy and Gracie in the kitchen, Daisy said, ‘I’ve been reading your will. Why have you left your Sabatier chef’s knives to your father? You know I love those knives.’
She had the ingredients for lasagne on the table, perilously near to my will form. I was about to move it out of danger when Gracie reached across for her jar of felt tips and knocked a full bottle of passata over.
We all screamed when the tomato goo splashed over my morning’s work.
I shouted, ‘Why does this always happen? You can’t be trusted near any form of liquid whatsoever!’
Gracie burst into tears. This made Daisy shout at me. I shouted back at her and made her cry. I then stormed out of the kitchen and sat on the side of the bed and made myself cry. I am dreading the days ahead.
Monday 5th November
Guy Fawkes Night
All the financial experts, including Robert Peston of the BBC, are predicting that we are in for a recession. Mortgage interest rates are due to rise.
Daisy said, ‘I told your mother that we should have taken out a fixed-rate mortgage, but she wouldn’t listen. She believed everything that smarmy mortgage broker told her. They’re snake-oil salesmen, Adrian.’
I said, ‘You were happy enough to move in here at the time.’
She said, ‘I was pregnant with Gracie. It was move into a pigsty with a cesspit in the garden
and your parents sharing a party wall, or be rehoused by the Council on a sink estate where even the babies have tattoos.’
I said sarcastically, ‘I’m sorry that you are so unhappy with your lot.’
She replied, ‘So am I.’
*
We did not speak to each other as we walked into the village. It was bitterly cold. Gracie complained that she couldn’t move because of the layers of clothes we had insisted she wear, so we took it in turns to carry her to the roped-off bonfire on the little green opposite The Bear, where my parents and Rosie were shivering and waiting for the bonfire to be lit. Hugo Fairfax-Lycett and his oafish cricket team were in charge. While Fairfax-Lycett dispensed sparklers to the children, one member of the cricket club barked orders through a megaphone, warning us of the dangers of falling into the bonfire or being hit by a rocket, while another was attending to a whole pig on a spit.
I said to Daisy, ‘They could at least have removed its head. Keep Gracie away from it or we’ll be up all night.’
Daisy gave me that ‘I’m not speaking to you’ look and turned to talk to my mother, asking her where Banshee was.
My mother’s face lit up in the way it does before she is about to pass on a piece of gossip. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘all I said to him was, I don’t see why you can’t be a follower of your goth God and wash your hair. He gave me a funny look. And when he found out I’d put his black jeans on an extra heavy soil wash he went berserk – which doesn’t look good when a man’s in his Y-fronts – and called me a petty bourgeois housewife with an anal fixation. Your father shouted, “If only she was a housewife!” and Rosie said, “Don’t call my mum an arse!” Well, they went into the spare bedroom and had a row and the next thing I knew he’d stormed into the kitchen, dragged his jeans out of the washer, put them on – sopping wet – said, “I can’t live in this suburban hell,” and left.’