by Sue Townsend
Somebody has hung a piece of tinsel over the radiotherapy machine. I feel sure that this must infringe NHS guidelines in some way.
Sally told me that Anthony is going to buy her a dog for Christmas.
I asked Sally if she liked dogs.
She said, ‘No, but Anthony does.’
I asked her what kind of dog Anthony liked.
She said, ‘Big ones. He’d really like a wolf.’
I said, ‘From what you’ve told me about Anthony, he’s hardly leader of the pack material.’
Sally said, ‘Anthony can be very forceful. He made his parents vote Conservative at the last election.’
I begged her to put her foot down and tell Anthony the truth, that she would prefer a ‘nice watch’.
Went upstairs to see Mr Carlton-Hayes on the ward. A nurse was packing his little suitcase. He is going home today. He told me that Leslie has organised ramps at home and widened the doors downstairs in order to accommodate his wheelchair.
I asked him when the shop would be closing.
He said, very quietly, ‘In a matter of weeks, my dear.’
I went to the shop. Bernard was there telling a tall stooped man that all of the Booker Prize winners had won because they had slept with the judges.
The tall man said, ‘Surely not Anita Brookner?’
‘How else to explain it,’ said Bernard. He steered the man over to the prize-winning books section and said, ‘Have a shufti through this little lot. Then tell me they won their prizes on merit, because I don’t think so.’
I went into the back and started to look through the books that Bernard had bought in a house sale, but after only ten minutes I had to sit down. I couldn’t face hanging around for the bus so I called a taxi. When I got home, I went straight to bed. I phoned my mother and asked her to pick Gracie up from school.
At 3.10 p.m. I had to leap from my bed and run to the toilet. Urination painful, stinging. I rang the radiotherapy department and spoke to Sally.
She said, ‘These are almost certainly side effects of your treatment. You’ve been lucky so far.’
Saturday 24th November
Daisy went out early this morning with Fairfax-Lycett. They are on a reconnaissance visit to a rival establishment, Belvoir Castle, where they hope to pick up ideas on how to attract the public. When I said goodbye to Daisy, adding, ‘Have fun,’ she said defensively, ‘I won’t be having fun, Adrian, I’m working.’
I didn’t have the energy to argue with her.
I took Gracie round to my parents, then tried to cycle to my treatment. Halfway down the lane I had to return and ring for a taxi. Can’t afford taxis twice a day. How will I get to the hospital in future?
The taxi back from treatment cost me £14.50. When I protested that I had paid £10.80 for exactly the same journey this morning, the taxi driver said, ‘My cab uses more fuel in the afternoon.’
I let it go but ever since have been wondering if this is a scientific fact. I went round to collect Gracie and then changed into my pyjamas and dressing gown, although it was still daylight. I feel like an invalid today – even ate a tin of rice pudding.
When Gracie took all the cushions off the sofa and built a playhouse with the clean sheets from the airing cupboard, I was too weak to protest.
I was still in my dressing gown and pyjamas when Daisy returned. She went crazy when she saw the state of the living room and even crazier when she found Gracie inside the playhouse wearing her vintage Vivienne Westwood cocktail frock. I wanted to help her tidy up, Diary, but I did not have the energy. Is this the start of my decline?
Gracie was sent to her room, but this is hardly a punishment. She has got more toys in there than Hamleys.
Sunday 25th November
Taxi to treatment. Taxi back. Changed into pyjamas. Went to bed. Only got up for painful urination.
Gracie came into the bedroom and told me that she had just watched Titanic with Mummy. She said, ‘Mummy cried at the end.’
I said, ‘Well, it’s a very sad film, Gracie. I’m surprised that Mummy let you watch it.’
Gracie said, ‘She’s still crying.’
I got up reluctantly and went to find Daisy. She was in the bathroom sobbing into a bath towel. I said, ‘Don’t cry, Daisy, it’s only a film.’
Daisy threw the towel into the bath and shouted, ‘Do you think I’m crying over a stupid film? I’ve been crying on and off for three weeks!’
I said, ‘If it’s me you’re worried about…’
She said, ‘Not everything’s about you, Adrian. I do have a life, you know!’
I noticed that she wasn’t wearing her wedding ring.
When I asked about it, she said, ‘You may not have noticed, but I’ve lost a lot of weight. It keeps falling off.’
Monday 26th November
After treatment I was met by my mother. She was parked illegally outside the oncology unit in a Mazda that had been sprayed a shade of green that was new to nature’s pallet. As she was negotiating the speed bumps on the roads within the hospital grounds, she told me that she had decided to empty the old-fashioned sweet jar of the mixed coins she has been collecting for the last three years and take them to the bank.
She said, ‘As long as I’ve got enough to bury him, I don’t care.’ She went on, ‘I can’t bear to see you struggling to get to your treatment. So from now on I will take you there and pick you up.’
I – genuinely – protested, saying, ‘No, Mum, I can’t possibly impose on you.’
She said, ‘I’m your mother, Adrian, and you are a very sick boy. I’d walk over hot coals for you, I’d swim across a shark infested sea, I’d wrestle with a polar bear…’
The thought of being trapped inside a car with my mother twice a day fills me with dread. After a few minutes she switched on Radio Two and James Blunt’s ‘You’re Beautiful’ blasted out from the four stereo speakers inside the car.
While I was in the car Pandora rang me on my mobile to tell me that I must sell any stocks and shares I have.
She said, ‘The whole financial market is going to crash.’
I told her that my mother had predicted the very same thing months ago.
Pandora said admiringly, ‘How prescient! I always said that your mother was a witch.’
My mother took my mobile from me and said, steering with one hand, ‘Pan! How are you? Are you seeing anybody?’
Whatever Pandora replied made her laugh.
She said into the mobile, ‘There are worse things than a man having a little willy. You shouldn’t let that put you off, especially if he’s loaded.’
We stopped at a red light and a policeman knocked on the driver’s side window. Due to my mother’s unfamiliarity with the car it took her for ever to wind it down. The policeman was mouthing something, James Blunt was wailing that his lover was beautiful and Pandora was now on speakerphone telling my mother something salacious about Peter Mandelson.
The policeman said, ‘Are you the owner of this car, madam?’
‘I am,’ said my mother. ‘I picked it up this morning.’
‘Can I see your driver’s licence?’
My mum dragged her handbag on to her lap and handed my phone back. It slipped from my grasp and fell between the gear column and my seat. I scrabbled to find it but only succeeded in knocking it further underneath. Pandora’s voice, louder than ever, could be heard complaining about the head of the Metropolitan Police. It took my mother a horribly long time to find her driver’s licence. The policeman stared at her photograph, then stared at my mother.
Meanwhile Pandora was shouting, ‘We’re almost living in a police state, Pauline.’
Eventually the policeman said, ‘Do you know why I’ve stopped you, madam?’
My mother said that she didn’t.
The policeman said, ‘You were driving erratically and speaking into a mobile phone.’
My mother said, ‘My son here is suffering from cancer, Constable. I was trying to get an urgent appo
intment…’
The policeman said, ‘An urgent appointment with the female person who is slagging off a fine public servant!’
From her position below the passenger seat Pandora was telling the three of us that Harriet Harman was a sanctimonious ball breaker who had had a humour bypass.
By now I was crouched upside down in the foot well and trying to get a grip of my phone.
My mother said to the policeman, ‘I’d completely forgotten about the mobile phone law. I’m in the final stages of the menopause. My hormones are all over the place.’
I shouted under the seat, ‘Pandora! Get off the phone! My mother is being interviewed by a policeman.’
Pandora shouted back, ‘Good luck with the filth, Pauline!’ Then, mercifully, she disconnected the call.
My mother was given a fixed penalty notice. She had to pay a fine of £80 on the spot. This is literally highway robbery. The modern policeman is as much a highwayman as Dick Turpin.
Tuesday 27th November
Had to drag myself out of bed this morning. My mother drove me to treatment. She insisted on coming into the radiotherapy room. Said she wanted to meet Sally.
I don’t know why people like my mother so much. Sally ended up giving my mother her telephone number and email address. During their short conversation my mother advised Sally to leave Anthony, told her where to go for a great haircut and that she was B6 deficient.
She also informed Sally that the hospital tunic she wore did nothing for her. ‘Wear it with a belt,’ she said. ‘Cinch that waist in!’
When my mother had gone to sit in the waiting room, Sally said, ‘Your mother is fantastic. I’d give anything to have a mother like her. My own mother hardly speaks to me and she has nearly bankrupted my father. She’s spent a fortune on Cliff Richard memorabilia. She squandered a month’s salary last week on an early 45 rpm copy of “Living Doll”.’
After the hospital we went to the bookshop. My mother parked illegally on double yellow lines. To deter traffic wardens she put a scribbled note behind a windscreen wiper.
Bernard Hopkins took my mother into his arms, shouting, ‘Pauline, you’re a proper bobby-dazzler.’
She said, ‘Bernard! Adrian told me that you’d tried to top yourself.’
Bernard laughed and said, ‘I was down in the dumps because I’d run out of fags. Let’s find a pub with tables outside so that we can smoke and I’ll tell you all about it.’
So off they went, arm in arm, leaving me to look after the shop. An hour later a traffic warden came into the shop and asked me if I knew a Pauline Mole. When I replied that my mother had been called away on an urgent errand, the traffic warden said, ‘Would you be the son who can’t walk a few yards?’
I admitted I was. Unfortunately I was at the top of a ladder at the time sorting through the highest shelf of the poetry section. He gave me ten minutes to move the car. When he’d gone, I immediately phoned my mother. She said that she and Bernard were sitting outside the Rose and Crown and had just ordered their second round of drinks. When, after ten minutes, she still hadn’t returned, I phoned her again.
She said, ‘We’re halfway through our ploughman’s lunch,’ and told me to move the car myself. When I pointed out that I was not insured to drive her car, she said, ‘You’re such a pedant!’
There was a strange crunching sound on the line.
I said, ‘What’s that noise?’
She said, ‘I’m eating a pickled onion.’
A few minutes later I saw the traffic warden taping a fixed penalty notice to the Mazda’s windscreen. This will cost her £60 she can ill afford.
She can’t carry on at this rate.
Wednesday 28th November
To hospital in the Mazda. My mother suggested that we visit Melton Mowbray after my treatment. She wants to buy some chickens from the cattle market. She says she has got a feeling in her gut that civilization, as we know it, is due to collapse. I have just realised that my mother’s offer to drive me to and from the hospital was not entirely selfless. I am an excuse for her to get out of the house and escape from the tedium of looking after my father. When she saw the parking ticket, she threw it into the gutter, saying, ‘I shall go to court and fight them every inch of the way.’ She didn’t buy any chickens – she said they weren’t attractive enough. Instead she spent £7.50 on a giant pork pie.
Daisy didn’t get back from work until eight thirty. When she was in the bath I looked through her handbag. Something made me check her phone texts. There were over thirty messages from Hugo Fairfax-Lycett. How dare he badger my wife when she is at home with her family!
I went to bed and reread Just William. At 3 a.m. I woke and crept out of the bedroom, leaving Daisy asleep. I went through her bag more thoroughly this time and found a receipt for a bottle of champagne, a book of matches from Bon Ami (a restaurant in Loughborough I have never heard of ), a taxi receipt for £19.50 and a new bottle of mouth spray. Now I know how Othello felt.
I went back to bed and watched my Desdemona while she slept. She looked beautiful with the moonlight on her face.
Thursday 29th November
Pandora rang at 7.30 a.m. to ask me if I would agree to be filmed with her on Saturday as part of the government’s new Cancer Reform Strategy.
I asked her where she was.
She said, ‘In London, in my office. The early worm catches the promotion.’
After we had disconnected the call, Daisy said, ‘What did that bitch want – apart from my husband?’
I was quite pleased at this sign of jealousy.
Another tantrum from Gracie regarding her school uniform. Thankfully my mother papped the hooter of the Mazda outside so I grabbed my coat and left Daisy to deal with our daughter.
On the journey to the hospital I asked my mother if she thought Gracie needed to see a child psychologist.
My mother said, ‘No, all she wants is her arse smacking.’
I said that I didn’t agree with hitting small children.
She said, ‘It didn’t do you any harm.’
I said, ‘On the contrary, I am a mass of neuroses.’
My mother now strolls in and out of the radiotherapy department as if she owns the place. When I told her this, she said, ‘I do own the place, the government keeps telling me that I’m a stakeholder.’
Phoned Mr Carlton-Hayes this afternoon and asked him about the closure of the bookshop. Did he have a particular date in mind?
There was a very long silence, then he said, ‘I think perhaps it ought to be a Saturday.’
I asked which Saturday.
There was another very long silence. ‘The first Saturday after Christmas would be sensible,’ he said.
There were many questions that I wanted to ask him, such as how would we dispose of the books? Did we need to notify the Council? Should we arrange for electricity, gas and water to be turned off? I also wanted to know if I would qualify for redundancy pay. Should I give notice to Bernard and Hitesh? And what should I do for the rest of my life?
However, I asked none of these questions.
Gracie brought a letter home from school.
Dear Principal Carer
As you are probably aware, Britain is under threat from terrorism. As part of the government’s war on terror Mangold Parva Infant School proposes to construct several concrete bollards in the playground to stop a possible suicide bomber driving a vehicle into school premises.
Construction is due to begin next week. I ask for your cooperation. However, should you have any concerns about the measures we are taking to protect your child/children please do not hesitate to contact me at the above address.
Please note any parent or child walking within one metre of the building work must wear a hard hat and a fluorescent vest.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs Bull (Head of School)
Friday 30th November
In the bath this morning I noticed a sore patch on the site of my radiotherapy tattoo.
On the way to the hospital my mother kept stopping the car to forage for holly and ivy. She could not reach the mistletoe growing on the very top branches of the large poplar tree, but tomorrow she is proposing to bring some tent poles, which she will screw together until she achieves enough length to reach the white berries. According to her they are selling for a ridiculous price this year. I pointed out to her that the mistletoe trees are on the Fairfax Hall estate, but she said that she didn’t ‘believe in the private ownership of trees’. I reminded her that she had sung to a different hymn sheet when Mangold Parva Parish Council asked her to cut down the leylandii she had planted on the border of our land. Then she had threatened to chain herself to those thirty-foot monsters if the council workmen came anywhere near them with their chainsaws. She said leylandii don’t count as trees.
*
When we were queuing to get into the hospital car park, Pandora rang and told me to meet her on Saturday afternoon in Town Hall Square at 2 p.m. for a photo opportunity with the Leicester Prostate Awareness Group. It was not a request. It was an order. She knows I cannot say no to her.
Daisy came home at 10 p.m. claiming she had ‘forgotten the time’. One of the buttons of her shirt was missing.
Saturday 1st December
Worked on the first draft of my Christmas round robin.
Dear Family and Friends
What a start to 2007! The pipes at the Piggeries froze! The call-out charge that most plumbers asked for was prohibitive so it was three days before we had running water and flushing toilets. Eventually my mother rang a friend of a friend, Noah Clapham. He wasn’t a plumber but he had once worked at Homebase and had an impressive tool box. He charged £25 an hour and was with us for five days. My father claimed he caught Clapham asleep on the bathroom floor but Clapham denied it, saying he was ‘visualizing the problem’.
In February I surprised Daisy on Valentine’s Day by presenting her with tickets for a coach tour of Wales – stopping overnight at bed and breakfast establishments. Unfortunately, it rained every day and it was impossible to see outside the coach windows. Daisy had a panic attack when she had to crawl along a tunnel to the coalface during a Mining Experience day at the Coal Board Heritage Centre. However, she managed to climb to the top of Snowdon – the first woman to do it in high heels, apparently!