by Sue Townsend
Due to a venue mix-up my parents attended the Society of Electric Storage Heater Salesmen’s Christmas Dinner in March. My mother won a Christmas pudding in the raffle! We took Gracie to A&E after she swallowed what turned out to be a briefcase belonging to Business Barbie.
Health
Gracie has had a few colds and sniffles throughout the year and her temper tantrums continue to give us cause for concern. There was a particularly unpleasant episode in Pizza Hut earlier this year caused by Gracie making three unauthorised visits to the salad bar and monopolizing the pineapple chunks. However, Pizza Hut has agreed to lift their ban, providing Gracie is ‘kept under control’.
Poor Daisy had menstrual trouble this year and her PMT has worsened to such an extent that she stays in our bedroom alternately weeping and raging for at least three days a month, bless her! The good news is that she is working again. Hugo Fairfax-Lycett, whose family home is Fairfax Hall, has appointed her as his PA and events organiser. She is currently trying to source two giraffes for the proposed safari park. Yes, giraffes!
It is a relief for all of us that my mother is, at last, through the menopause. It’s three months since she had her last hot flush. She is worried by her increasing hairiness and has started on a course of laser exfoliation, so fingers crossed! The bunion on her left foot is playing her up but she is afraid of an operation.
A life of inaction and self-indulgence has caught up with my father. He is confined to a wheelchair and is dependent on medical equipment hired from the Red Cross. His bowels are still a bit sluggish – he only manages to pass a motion approximately every three days. No homespun remedies, please! We have tried everything legal and nothing works.
Daisy came in and read the letter over my shoulder. She said, ‘Have you gone completely mad? I absolutely forbid you to send it. Nobody wants to know about our gruesome ailments. And the safari park is top secret.’
I wore my best suit, shirt and tie for my treatment. Sally was not there. I showed my sore patch to Claire, who only works weekends when her husband is at home to look after their two-year-old triplets. She said I mustn’t worry about the sore patch on the site of my radiotherapy and told me that it was normal at this stage. She reminded me that I must not rub it or use soap in the bath, and told me to eat seaweed, an organic egg a day and lots of garlic.
She said, ‘Wash the infected area with water only, using a very low power shower. Use olive oil or the leaves of aloe vera on the skin but no creams – even herbal ones – as they could contain irritating preservatives.’ She added, ‘I’m surprised Sally didn’t tell you all this.’
I asked her if she was a believer in alternative medicine and mentioned that my father-in-law is Michael Flowers, who owns the health food shop in the market. She said, ‘Yes, I know him all right. I bought a flagon of his Orgobeet. It was me who alerted the Environmental Health Inspectorate.’
I went to the bookshop and me, Bernard and Hitesh decorated the shop window with Christmas books and some of the holly, ivy and mistletoe my mother had plundered on the journey in.
Bernard asked me what I was doing for Christmas. I told him that I would be spending it at home with the family.
He sighed and said, ‘Ah, the family! What a cracking institution that is. Bloody useful for high days and holidays.’
When I asked Bernard where he would spend Christmas, he said, ‘Drawn a blank there, lad. Inside a bottle, I suppose. I shall lie doggo until the festivities are over and normal life resumes.’
I couldn’t bring myself to tell Bernard and Hitesh that we will cease trading after Christmas.
I walked to the town hall and arrived as the town hall clock struck two. There was a display of large wooden stands concerning cancer, stalls with literature and a poster showing a diagram of the prostate. Pandora was already there, surrounded by middle-aged men. The Lady Mayor was very colourful in her sari, ceremonial robes and mayoral chain. She made a speech about how good Leicester hospitals were. The small crowd applauded politely.
Pandora took the microphone and gave a rabble-rousing speech about the NHS. She implied that the Conservatives would have us all dependent on BUPA and that they would, if elected, charge for admission to doctors’ surgeries. She then called on cancer sufferers to make themselves known and to join her at the microphone. A surprising number of quite healthy-looking people left the crowd and joined her, including myself. She asked for volunteers to talk about their experiences of the NHS. When nobody came forward, she asked me by name and pulled me in front of the microphone. I said a few halting words about my treatment at the Royal Hospital. At the end I was clapped disproportionately and some people in the crowd whooped like Americans. I commented on this later to Pandora when we were having a cup of tepid coffee in the mayor’s parlour.
Pandora said, ‘Your speech was crap, yes, but people were applauding your courage.’
I said, ‘But I’m not at all courageous, I often cry under the duvet and feel sorry for myself.’
She said, ‘Every cancer sufferer is courageous, every cancer sufferer is fighting the disease, every cancer sufferer has dignity. People don’t want to hear you’re snivelling under your duvet, Aidy.’
I would have liked to have spent more time with her, but she had an appointment with Keith Vaz MP to tour the new theatre, The Curve. I might send the theatre Plague!. I’m sure the management would welcome a new play from a local playwright.
Sunday 2nd December
Woke at 5.30 a.m. and made a mental list of my worries. Felt quite miserable until I thought that at least I don’t have to look after two-year-old triplets today.
At 7.30 a.m. I walked into the village with Gracie to buy the Sunday Times and Observer. As we were passing St Botolph’s, Gracie asked me what all those ‘grey things’ were. I told her that they were called headstones. She wanted to see one up close so we went through the lych-gate and walked up the path. She asked me what was written on ‘this stone’.
I read, ‘Here lies Arthur Goodchild, diligent servant of the Lord, died aged sixteen, 23rd December 1908.’ I said, ‘Sixteen, that’s so sad.’
She said, ‘Where is Arthur Goodchild?’
I said, albeit a little reluctantly, ‘He’s under the ground.’ She said, ‘Does his mummy miss him?’
I said, ‘Oh yes, a lot.’
Gracie said, ‘Well, she should have dug him up, then.’
Booked a telephone conversation with Dr Wolfowicz. I asked him if he could prescribe a stimulant to keep me awake so that I can finish Plague!.
He said, ‘I am not going to give you amphetamines, Mr Mole. Isn’t it traditional for English writers to use vodka, cigarettes and black coffee?’
Monday 3rd December
Treatment.
Sally was wearing reindeer horns on her head. It is the radiotherapy department’s Christmas party today. None of the patients are invited. I was quite hurt by this.
Later, in the bookshop, a man wearing a woman’s fur coat came in and asked if we sold electronic books.
I said, ‘No, and we don’t provide electronic coffee either.’
He said, ‘Why are booksellers so bloody rude?’ and went out, slamming the door.
Hitesh said, ‘Electronic books are the future. They’re selling them on Amazon.’
Bernard said, ‘Fuck that for a game of soldiers. You can’t smell an electronic book or read it when the soddin’ batteries have gone!’
A woman with a thousand carrier bags came in asking if we had a decent copy of Ulysses. She said, ‘Have you got a first edition signed by James Joyce?’
Bernard shouted, ‘The ignorance of the public never fails to amaze me. You’re talking seventy thousand quid, woman. However, I do have a signed Penguin edition.’
The woman sat on the sofa and arranged the carrier bags around her. Bernard went into the back for a few minutes and came out with the Penguin Ulysses. He opened it at the title page and showed the woman the author’s signature, which, to my eyes, look
ed remarkably like Bernard’s distinctive handwriting.
He said, ‘Abso bloody marvellous, isn’t it? To think that the master himself has touched this page with his pen.’
The woman said, ‘I don’t read books myself. It’s for my son. He’s a bit of a bookworm. His room is so full of musty old books that I can hardly get in to clean. I offered to buy him a cashmere jumper for Christmas but, oh no, he had to have Ulysses. According to him, it’s a masterpiece.’ She laughed indulgently.
I should have intervened, but instead I watched Bernard take £30 from the woman. As he was at the till, she said, ‘Does James Joyce ever do a reading at Waterstones?’
Bernard said, ‘He’d have a job, madam, as he’s been dead since 1941.’ Bernard sighed, ‘The thirteenth of January, a dark day indeed.’
When she had bustled out with her bags, Bernard watched her through the window and shook his head. He asked me if I had read Ulysses.
I said I hadn’t.
He said, ‘Nor me, couldn’t get past the third page.’
Hitesh said, ‘You should try again, Bernard. It’s a bit like assembling an IKEA wardrobe. At first it looks like a lot of bits of wood and screws and bolts and stuff, but if you persevere and study the diagram and you’ve got the right screwdriver…’
Bernard snarled, ‘For Christ’s sake! What’s bloody IKEA?’
He is the most unworldly man I have ever known.
Tuesday 4th December
My mother came round with a copy of the Leicester Mercury open at page three. There was a photograph of me standing between Pandora and the Lady Mayor and flanked by cancer sufferers. The headline said: ‘Brave Victims Tell Of Cancer Fight.’
I had my eyes shut, my mouth open and a limp left wrist. When Daisy saw it she laughed and said, ‘You look like Graham Norton halfway through a sneeze.’
Diary, I have never seen a single decent photograph of myself. The camera does not love my features. My mother looks like Scarlett Johansson in photographs, in real life she looks ninety-three.
Wednesday 5th December
To treatment in the Mazda.
Sally told me that Anthony has taken leave from his job and flown to Canada, where he plans to do voluntary work with a man who is petitioning the Canadian government to finance a wolf breeding programme in the hope that tens of thousands of wolves will be born and allowed to roam freely throughout the tundra.
I asked if their engagement was off.
She said, ‘I can’t trample on his dream, can I, Adrian?’
Personally I hope Anthony gets torn to pieces by a pack of resentful wolves. Harsh, I know, but everybody has to die and I’m sure Anthony would die happy amidst the slathering beasts.
Got a Christmas card from my mother and father in the post. Why waste a stamp? They only live next door.
Slept all afternoon, then had to run to school to pick Gracie up. She was in Mrs Bull’s office crying. Apparently, she had told Mrs Bull that she had not eaten for a week and that there was no food in our house. I denied it, of course, and invited Mrs Bull to come home with us and inspect our pantry and refrigerator. She declined, but I could tell she thought that we neglected Gracie in some way. On the way home I interrogated Gracie and asked her why she had told Mrs Bull such a black lie.
All she would say was, ‘I was hungry.’
I am dreading parents’ evening at the school tomorrow.
Thursday 6th December
Treatment.
Sally was very quiet. She asked me not to talk about Anthony or Canada.
*
Went to the bookshop. When I asked Bernard to move a carton of Nigella Lawson’s cookery books, which were blocking the entrance to the door, he said, ‘No can do, old cock. I’ve done my back in. You’ll have to wait for the whipper-snapper Hitesh to come in.’
At two thirty Hitesh texted to say that he had broken his ankle falling out of bed.
When I told Bernard, he said, ‘Where’s the lad been sleeping – on the top of a bleedin’ crane?’
So, due to my debilitating weakness and Bernard’s back, Ms Lawson’s books remained inside their carton. Unfortunately, whilst Bernard and I were in the back room sorting through the new stock, Nigel and Lance Lovett came in and fell over the box. I don’t know why Nigel went so mad. It wasn’t as though he physically hurt himself, and I thought it was an hysterical overreaction when he threatened his oldest and best friend with civil action for damages.
However, Lance was very gracious and accepted my apologies, saying, ‘I’m always falling on my arse. We blinkies are clumsy buggers.’
Under my instructions and guidance Lance picked the carton up and dropped it in the back room.
When Nigel kept going on about his tripping over the box, I told him that it was his own fault and in future he should not go out without his dog, his white stick or a sighted person to show him the way.
Nigel said, ‘We came here to buy our Christmas presents, but I’m now thinking I may give my money to Marks & Spencer instead.’
After he had sat down on the sofa and had a cup of coffee, he relented and, ironically, bought six copies of Nigella Express.
Daisy was not home in time for parents’ evening so I went on my own.
Miss Nutt said, ‘In many ways Gracie is a delightful little girl. Despite her… well, eccentricities, she makes friends easily and seems to enjoy her work.’ Then her brow furrowed and she said, ‘However, last week I asked each child to talk about their family and dictate a few sentences to go with the picture they had painted.’ She pointed to a large painting on the back wall, where a stick figure in spectacles was lying horizontal on what looked like grass next to another stick figure with a red mouth and high heels, holding a bottle. Miss Nutt had written (to Gracie’s dictation): ‘My mummy and daddy do drink a lot of vodka and they do lie down and shout at me.’
I glanced at the next picture, drawn by Abigail Stone. The caption said: ‘My family went to Alton Towers and we had a picnic. We did sing in the car.’
I said, ‘I can assure you, Miss Nutt, that neither my wife nor I drink vodka. I’m surprised that Gracie even knows the word.’
Miss Nutt said, ‘Well, she’s heard it from somewhere and she obviously knows the effect of drinking too much. She is the only child in the class who has painted her parents in a state of collapse.’ She went on, ‘Yesterday Gracie came to school in rags.’
There was an accusatory tone to her voice that I did not care for. I said, ‘That was her Cinderella dress, Miss Nutt. If you had turned it inside out you would have seen it transformed into a ball gown.’
Miss Nutt said, ‘In future, unless Gracie is wearing her uniform she will be suspended from school. We have been ridiculously indulgent with her so far, but it has to stop.’
I left with a heavy heart and battled through the wind to The Bear. I had intended to have a quick drink and then go, but Tony and Wendy Wellbeck called me over to their table and insisted I join them.
I said, ‘About the baubles…’
Tony said, ‘Never mind about the baubles. Let bygones be bygones. It’s Wendy’s birthday – what will you have?’
For some reason I blurted out, ‘Vodka.’
When he had gone to the bar, Wendy said, ‘I’m glad we ran into you. I wonder if you would mind reading something I’ve written. You’re almost a professional writer, aren’t you?’
To my dismay she pulled out a typewritten folder from her commodious bag and pushed it in front of me. It was titled Primroses and Puppies. I read the first few sentences.
I had a happy childhood. Laughter ran around the cottage where I was born. Father was gruff and tough but he had a heart of pure gold. Mother had a twinkly smile and soft hands that were always busy.
I closed the folder with an inward sigh. I knew that when I got to the bit about the primroses and the puppies, I would want to vomit.
Wendy said, ‘I’ve so enjoyed writing it. Would you read it for me and tell me what you think of i
t?’
I mumbled that I would.
‘But you must swear to tell me the truth,’ she said, wagging a finger in my face. ‘You must be brutally frank.’
Tony came back with what looked like a triple vodka in a Smirnoff glass. I was taking my first sip when Miss Nutt entered the pub with her fellow teachers. She walked past our table and gave me and the glass a piercing look.
When I got home, I found Daisy sitting in the dark listening to Leonard Cohen. I went into the kitchen and found a note on the table.
Friday 7th December
Dougie was annoyingly early. He sat outside with the engine running while I was showering, dressing and fighting with Gracie and her uniform.
*
On the way to the hospital Dougie said, ‘I’m going to drop you off then get home fast for the Kyle show. My missis has invited some of the neighbours round.’
Sally noticed my agitation and I told her that my parents, sister and my mother’s ex-lover were on The Jeremy Kyle Show this morning.
I had expected her to be shocked, but she said, ‘I do so admire your mother.’
Is there such a thing as privacy now? At one time people kept their problems to themselves.
When I lay on the high bed, having my nether regions zapped, I thought that I would like to stay there for ever. All my energy seemed to have seeped away. Sally had to help me down. She took me into the waiting room and made me sit on a chair. For once I was sorry that my mother was not there to take me home. After half an hour I felt slightly better and made my own way to the bookshop. As I walked past the Sony shop on the High Street, I saw my parents on a huge television screen. My mother looked extremely glamorous and my father looked utterly pathetic in his wheelchair. Lucas and Rosie were sitting next to each other holding hands. There was a close-up of my father’s face as a single tear rolled down from his left eye. Eventually the tear trickled into his moustache and disappeared.