Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years

by Sue Townsend

  Monday 7th April

  Princess Diana – the latest.

  The inquest jury returned with a majority verdict of nine to two. They found the Duke of Edinburgh not guilty of murdering Princess Diana. I was slightly disappointed, he looks fully capable of murder. Is it beyond the realms of imagination that the duke smuggled himself into France and, in disguise, hired a car – a Fiat Uno, perhaps – and forced Diana’s car off the road and into the wall of the tunnel, then made his escape back to England? Can he account for all his movements that night?

  Tuesday 8th April

  Treatment.

  Blood results back. Dr Rubik said my PSA levels had dropped, which indicates the chemo is working. She is worried about my weight, though.

  I told her that my appetite is poor.

  She said, ‘Get your wife to tempt you with small amounts of your favourite foods.’

  I told her that I was not living with my wife and that my principal carer was Bernard Hopkins.

  She raised her eyebrows but did not comment.

  I said, ‘Bernard and I are just good friends.’

  She said, ‘It’s nothing to do with me. You don’t have to explain your living arrangements, Adrian.’

  I said, ‘But I think you’ve misunderstood –’

  She interrupted, ‘I’m really not concerned. He’s obviously doing you good, and that’s all I care about.’

  The next time I see Doctor Rubik I’m taking Bernard with me. Perhaps then she will realise – the idea that he and I could be anything more than friends is laughable.

  Wednesday 9th April

  Bernard has been missing since breakfast. My mother came round with some chicken soup she had made herself. As I was eating, she told me there was a rumour in the village that he was ‘knocking off’ Mrs Lewis-Masters.

  I was outraged. I said, ‘Can’t the small minded busybodies accept that there is such a thing as friendship between a man and a woman?’

  My mother looked doubtful and said, ‘I’ve never managed it myself, I’ve always had a problem with boundaries.’

  I said, ‘But Bernard is ancient and so is she.’

  My mother said, ‘Des O’Connor fathered a child and he’s ancient.’

  I said, ‘But Mrs Lewis-Masters is a refined woman.’

  ‘She’s not that refined,’ said my mother. She picked up my empty soup bowl and washed it under the hot tap. There was something about the set of her shoulders that signalled she had more to tell. It was not long in coming. As she dried the bowl, she turned and said, ‘The refined Mrs Lewis-Masters has got an illegitimate son in Timbuktu. His father is a rich African – rich in camels, that is.’

  ‘And who told you?’ I asked.

  ‘Wendy Wellbeck,’ she mouthed, though there was nobody in earshot. ‘The son keeps writing to her saying he wants to join her in England; apparently, he’s got lovely handwriting.’

  I said, ‘Wendy Wellbeck could end up in prison for intercepting the Royal Mail.’

  I waited up for Bernard. When he came in, at 11.35 p.m., I asked him if he’d been with Mrs Lewis-Masters.

  He said, ‘Cocker, you’re looking at the happiest man in the world! I asked Dorothea to marry me tonight and she said yes!’ He smiled, showing his tobacco-stained teeth. ‘Of course, there are conditions. I’ve got to shave my moustache off. Shame, but there it is. I’m not allowed an alcoholic drink until lunchtime, and I mustn’t bother her for sex more than twice a week. Oh, and I’ve got to smarten myself up generally.’

  I said, ‘So when are you and Dorothea getting married?’

  Bernard said, ‘Oh, not for years. I’ll be moving in with the old girl, though. It should be a comfortable billet.’

  Diary, I should have been happy for him but I only felt jealousy. However, I said, ‘Congratulations, Bernard.’ He wanted me to stay up and drink to his happiness but I played the cancer card and went to bed. As I lay awake in the dark, I wondered if Bernard knew that he would be a step-father to a middle-aged man in Timbuktu.

  I reflected that nobody truly knows anybody else and that everybody’s life is mysterious.

  Thursday 10th April

  Therapy day.

  My mother gave me a lift to the surgery this morning. As we passed the school, we saw a group of stout middle-aged women demonstrating outside the school gate. Some were waving placards. One said: ‘GORDON BROWN HAS DONE US DOWN.’ Another: ‘TEN PENCE TAX SHOULD BE MAX.’

  My mother waved and sounded the hooter in support. She said, ‘Gordon must have gone mad. Why is he making the dinner ladies pay more tax?’

  I said, ‘I can’t talk politics with you. The chemotherapy has neutralised my political opinions, I can no longer see a difference between the main parties.’

  When we had parked outside the surgery, I asked her to pick me up in an hour.

  Before she drove off, she said, ‘When you talk to Martha about your depression, you won’t blame me, will you? Only I know her a bit from Wheelchair Mobility – her mother’s in the Latin American formation team.’

  Martha laughed when I told her what my mother had said, and after a few minutes I was completely relaxed in her company. My IKEA chair and matching footstool were incredibly comfortable. I liked the room’s seaside decorative theme. The scented candle on the little white mantelpiece burned in a lighthouse candlestick. Within my reach, on a distressed coffee table, was a jug of water, a glass and a box of pastel-coloured tissues. I recognised some of the framed photographs on the walls.

  ‘Martin Parr,’ I said. ‘We used to sell his books.’

  We stared at a photograph of an old couple sitting opposite each other in a seaside café. They were ill at ease and not speaking. It captured the desolation of growing old and of having nothing left to say. I felt my throat constrict and, to my horror, tears started to gather.

  At the end of the session the tissue box was almost empty and the waste bin was half full of damp tissues.

  Martha said, as we stood at the door, ‘You are depressed for very good reasons, Adrian. Perhaps next week we can actually talk.’

  I assured her that I would not be sobbing for the full fifty minutes next week and went out, closing the door quietly behind me.

  I like women like her. She hasn’t got the thin wrists and ankles I require but she has curly brown hair and an old-fashioned face. She was draped in different shades of grey layers so it was impossible to make a judgement on her figure.

  When I got into the car, I asked my mother what she knew about Martha.

  ‘She’s got grown-up children,’ she said, ‘and her husband was killed in an avalanche.’

  ‘Unfortunate,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, but it’s a classy way to die, isn’t it?’

  I said, ‘It depends which ski resort he was killed in. Some of them are simply a sub-zero Blackpool.’

  ‘You’re such a bloody snob,’ she muttered.

  ‘You’re the one who calls herbs “’erbs”. It’s not as if you’re French, is it?’

  We drove the rest of the way home in silence.

  Before I got out of the car, she said, ‘Aren’t you going to tell me what went on in your therapy session?’

  I said, ‘No.’

  She yelled, ‘Well, I hope you’re not blaming me. I might have rejected you for your first year, but I’ve tried to make up for it, haven’t I?’

  I got back in the car, ‘What do you mean “rejected me”?’ I asked.

  She said bleakly, ‘When the midwife gave you to me, I handed you back. I couldn’t look at you; I didn’t know what to do with you. I’d never held a newborn baby before. I had big plans for myself.’

  I said, ‘So who did look after me?’

  ‘Your dad,’ she said. ‘He took a year off work. A lot of men would have buggered off – other men called him a big jessie. Men didn’t have anything to do with babies in those days.’

  As I let myself into the house, I reflected that there would be a lot to tell Martha at our nex
t session.

  Friday 11th April

  The Bear has closed!

  Yes, Diary, our ancient pub, whose name and situation commemorate the time when Mangold Parva was the very epicentre of bear-baiting, has been closed down by the property company who own it. The Urquharts have already left and gone to Kirkby New Town to be relief managers at a pub that was featured in the TV series Britain’s Toughest Pubs.

  This sad news was passed on to us by Justine from the Equine Therapy Centre. She put the brakes on her horse and stopped in the lane. Ironically we were on our way to The Bear to have a drink with Bernard and Mrs Lewis-Masters.

  ‘Serves the Urquharts right,’ said my father. ‘The gradient of that ramp to the disabled toilet was so bleddy steep you needed oxygen to get to the bleddy summit.’

  My mother said, ‘It’s a tragedy for the village. There’s nowhere left now where you can get drunk in public and walk home.’

  Justine said, ‘I celebrated my engagement, marriage and divorce in there.’ Her big black horse started to shake his head from side to side and shuffle his fetlocks – or whatever horse’s feet are called. Justine shouted, ‘Behave yourself, Satan!’

  I asked, ‘Is he one of your clients?’

  Justine kicked the horse into submission and said, ‘My clients are stressed and unhappy people. The horses help them to recover their equilibrium.’

  I said, ‘I thought it was horses you nursed back to health.’

  She laughed and said, ‘We’re full of sad cases from the financial services industry at the moment.’

  I said, ‘So the masters of the universe are mucking out your stables?’

  ‘Yes!’ she laughed, ‘and they’re paying through the nose for it!’

  When she and Satan had trotted off, my father said bitterly, ‘Talk about money for old rope! Introduce a rich nutter to an ’orse, give him a shovel and let him get on with it.’

  When we got to The Bear, we found a small disconsolate group standing at the locked front door, Bernard and Mrs Lewis-Masters among them. I was quite touched to see that they were holding hands.

  Bernard said, ‘Poor old England is under attack again. The distinction being that this time the enemy is not the Luftwaffe, it’s our own government!’

  There was a rumble of agreement from the crowd. One of the ancient ex-regulars piped, ‘We should do summat about it!’ The crowd agreed loudly. However, after a few moments of unfocused grumbling we drifted away from each other and went our separate ways.

  When we got home, I told my mother I wanted some time alone with my father. She brought him round after his tea. She had already changed him into his pyjamas, cleaned his teeth and brushed what is left of his hair. He looked like a crumpled boy.

  He said. ‘What’s up? I’m missing my programmes.’

  I said, ‘I wanted to thank you for what you did when I was a baby. Mum told me that she couldn’t cope.’

  My father fumbled in his pyjama jacket for his cigarettes. He said, exhaling smoke, ‘Your mother was very highly strung, son.’ He frowned. ‘You’ve been to Norfolk, seen those horrible big skies, that land that goes on and on – imagine living there, in the middle of a potato field, without a telly.’ He shuddered, ‘Is it any wonder that your mother’s nerves were bad?’

  ‘Well, thank you, Dad,’ I said and patted his shoulder.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I took to you straight away, and I knew your mother would come round in the end.’

  Monday 14th April

  Had Gracie after school. Cooked her current favourite food – grilled sweetcorn, cubes of Red Leicester cheese and sweet pickled onions. I don’t mind indulging her now that she is no longer my full-time responsibility. I will let Daisy struggle to get vitamins and minerals into the kid.

  Fairfax-Lycett came to pick her up. Diary, did Gracie have to be quite so pleased to see him?

  Tuesday 15th April

  Worried about money. Sickness benefit does not cover my half of the mortgage, and Bernard will be gone soon, together with his pension.

  I was sitting writing at the living-room window when I saw Simon, the vicar, turn into our drive. It was raining and he was sheltering under a huge black umbrella. My heart sank. Simon is one of those people who make you yawn before he has opened his mouth.

  He made an annoying fuss about where he could put his dripping umbrella and wet overcoat. When all that was sorted, he said, ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while.’

  I invited him into the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove.

  He said, ‘You know the church roof is in a dangerous condition and needs completely replacing?’

  I said, ‘Before you go on, Simon, I’m a penniless atheist.’

  He said, ‘No, no, it isn’t money I want from you. It’s too late for that. The bishop has had three estimates and they are all exorbitant. So I’m afraid St Botolph’s is to be deconsecrated and put on to the open market.’

  ‘No!’ I said. ‘It can’t be a Grand Designs project! It’s so absolutely beautiful – the stained glass, the worn-down flagstones, the ancient smell!’

  Simon said sadly, ‘The tiny congregation, the frozen pipes in winter, the Harvest Festival produce consisting of old tins from the back of the pantry.’

  I blushed a bit at this, remembering that we had sent Gracie to the last Harvest Festival with a tin of stuffed vine leaves we’d bought at Athens Airport before she was born.

  He said, ‘I wanted to warn you because I know you’ve set your heart on being laid to rest at St Botolph’s…’

  I assured him that I would sort out another resting place when the time came and thanked him for his thoughtfulness in letting me know.

  When I told Bernard that St Botolph’s was closing, he said, ‘Shame. As you know, cocker, I’m a red-in-tooth-and-claw agnostic, but St Botolph’s was a grand place for a sit down and a quiet think.’ He lit a cigarette and said, ‘I sometimes have a word with that poor sod, Jesus, hanging there on that God-awful cross.’

  I asked, ‘What do you say to him?’

  Bernard said, ‘I usually say, “Cheer up, cocker.”’

  Wednesday 16th April

  Glorious sunshine and a baby-blue sky. I walked to the end of the drive and about twenty-five yards along Gibbet Lane. The hedgerows were heavy with the sight and scent of white and pink hawthorn. The birds were making a lot of noise and were busy doing something in the trees. Grasses by the verge were waving in the breeze together with unidentified wild flowers. I found a long stick, used it to help me walk back, then sat outside when I got home and really looked at the land surrounding the pigsties. There is a lot of it. Felt a primeval urge to cultivate the soil. This has never happened to me before. Some of my most angst-ridden teenage hours were spent in garden centres trudging behind my mother as she barged a clanking metal trolley into the innocent legs of passing customers.

  Thursday 17th April

  Walked around the perimeter of our land with Bernard. We sat by the little brook on the trunk of a fallen tree while Bernard smoked a cigarette. I have always regarded the brook as a nuisance before, something to cause flood anxiety, a hazard for Gracie and a burden on our house insurance. But as I watched the sparkling water rushing over the stony bed, I saw that it was the very opposite. My little waterway was a most delightful asset. I said as much to Bernard.

  He bent down and scooped some water between his cupped hands. ‘It’s nectar, cocker,’ he said, ‘it puts that poncey designer stuff in the shade.’ He scooped some up for me. It had a faint taste of nicotine.

  Friday 18th April

  Slept all night with my arms wrapped around Daisy’s old Puffa jacket. It smells of her – a mixture of perfume and stale cigarette smoke. Woke this morning to find the coat on the floor, smelled bacon frying, so knew Bernard was up. Went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror above the sink. My ghostly twin looked back at me. He had a gaunt pale face and a bald head. His eyes were dark smudges. I said aloud, ‘Dais
y, Daisy, Daisy.’

  When I went into the kitchen, Bernard was at the stove pushing bacon round the frying pan with a teaspoon. With the other hand he was reading a book, Out of the Woods: The Armchair Guide to Trees.

  ‘After breakfast, cocker, we’ll walk round the perimeter of the land and catalogue the trees,’ he said.

  Suddenly it became important that I knew how old Bernard was. I asked him.

  ‘Born the second of the ninth, nineteen forty-six,’ he said promptly. ‘Why do you want to know, old son?’

  I could hardly tell him the truth – that I was scared he would die soon – so I said, ‘You’re the same age as Joanna Lumley.’

  He said, ‘Champion.’

  P.M.

  Apart from the hideous leylandii, which I intend to cut down at some point in the future, we have thirty-nine mature deciduous trees.

  ‘All English natives, cocker,’ Bernard said proudly.

  Saturday 19th April

  Nigel and Lance’s Wedding

  Walked to Fairfax Hall with my mother, who was pushing my father in his wheelchair. He grumbled that if God had wanted two men to marry each other he would have married Jesus off to John the Baptist. My mother and I exchanged a worried glance. He is constantly making religious references lately. Is it a sign of senility? Will he soon be deluded into thinking it is 1953 and demand to have tea in his Coronation mug?

  We had to stop several times to rest and were glad when Fairfax Hall was glimpsed through the trees. We were in time to see Nigel and Lance arrive in a chauffeur-driven limo. They looked quite good in their matching pale blue suits but I could tell that Nigel was in a bad mood. When I asked him why, he told me that at seven thirty this morning Lance had got cold feet and wanted to cancel the wedding.

  Lance said, shrilly, ‘Tell him why!’