by Sue Townsend
Thursday April 25th
Rang Palmer from the office and told him that I would be moving in tonight. Rang Pandora; asked if Cavendish would help me to move.
‘Moving?’ she said. ‘Again?’ Then, ‘You make more moves than a tiddlywink.’
Rang Mrs Hedge, asked her to take my Y-fronts out of the washer and hang them on my bedroom radiator to dry. Mentioned that I would be moving on.
She said, ‘Everybody does, eventually.’
*
Rang my mother and gave her my new address in case of a family tragedy. She yakked on for half an hour about President Gorbachev’s threat to resign and predicted that the USSR was in danger of collapse. I cut in eventually and said, ‘I no longer take an interest in world events. There is nothing I can do to influence them, so why bother?’
Rang Grandma, in Leicester. Had a long chat about Princess Diana. Grandma doesn’t think she’s been looking happy lately. I voiced my own concern. Diana is too thin.
Rang Market Harborough Building Society to notify change of address.
Rang Waterstone’s. Pretended to be irate reader; threatened to sue them for selling pornography, i.e. Dork’s Diary.
Rang Megan. Pretended to be Brown. Said, ‘God, I love you, Megan,’ in his horrible squeaky voice.
Eventually, Brown burst in and demanded that I get off the phone. I sincerely hope he hasn’t been listening outside the door.
I had a compulsion to visit Leonora again. She agreed to see me immediately. She was wearing a white dress. She looked like a sacrificial virgin. I wanted to deflower her, but I found myself talking about Bianca. Leonora leant forward in her chair, displaying her dark cleavage. I found myself saying that I was quite interested in Bianca, although I found her lack of cleavage disappointing.
Leonora said, ‘But could you love Bianca?’
I said, ‘The idea is ridiculous. The thought of her doesn’t keep me awake at night, but the thought of you does.’
Leonora sighed and said, ‘I suggest you cultivate this friendship with Bianca. I am a married woman, Adrian. Your obsession with me is typical of a therapist/client relationship. It is called transference. You must face the truth about your feelings.’
I said, ‘The truth about my feelings is that I don’t love you. I just want to go to bed with you.’
Leonora said, ‘Thirty pounds please.’
I felt like a client paying a whore.
Friday April 26th
Moving Day
Cavendish and Palmer are old friends. When they saw each other, they did that arms-clasped-on-each-other’s-shoulders, then grin-and-shake, which so many men in Oxford seem to go in for these days. As I removed my possessions from the back of the Volvo and tried to stop Tamsin, Griffith and Alpha from interfering, I heard Cavendish and Palmer laughing like madmen in the living-room. I’m not sure, but I think I heard the word ‘blazer’ mentioned. The children spoke Oombagoomba all night until their father returned at 11.30 p.m. They flatly refused to go to bed, or to converse with me in English. Instead, they lay under the massive pine table on a pile of cushions and jabbered away in that made-up lingo. It was like being abroad; if you closed your eyes.
Saturday April 27th
Bought The White Hotel by D. M. Thomas this morning. If it is even half as good as The Great Babylon Hotel by Arnold Bennett I will be more than satisfied. When Christian saw me take it out of the carrier bag, he raised his eyebrows and said, ‘Don’t leave it lying around. Alpha’s got a reading age of thirteen.’
I said, ‘You should encourage your child to read.’
Christian snapped,’ The White Hotel is a bit heavy for a kid who still believes that fairies live at the bottom of the garden.’
I must say this surprised me. I went down to the bottom of the garden yesterday. It is covered in rusting toys and stinking garden rubbish. It is hardly Fairyland.
At 11.30 p.m., I opened The White Hotel, read for ten minutes, then got out of bed and bolted the door. It must never fall into Alpha’s hands.
Monday April 29th
Babysat. Christian is at the semi-final of a darts competition with his dictaphone and clipboard. Do the big-bellied darts players realize that they are taking part in a research project? I doubt it. They all seem to have tunnel vision, which I suppose is an advantage if you play darts for a living.
Christian told me today that Bianca was enquiring about me, asking if I’d settled in. He told her that the kids like me. I wish he’d told me. Christian asked me why I don’t ask Bianca for a date. I answered nonchalantly that I was too busy. But, dear journal, the truth is that I’m afraid she might refuse. My ego is but a frail and fragile thing and furthermore am I sure I want to commit myself to a person who works in a newsagent’s shop?
Notes on Bianca:
Negative
1. She is pleasant-looking but certainly not a head-turner, unlike Leonora, who is capable of stopping the traffic.
2. When I mentioned that my walk to work was ‘pleasantly Chekhovian’, largely due to the blossoming cherry trees, she looked at me blankly and asked me what ‘Chekhovian’ meant.
3. Her hips do not look capable of bearing a child.
4. She wears Doc Marten boots.
5. She is a Guns ‘n’ Roses fan.
Positive
1. She is kind, especially to the children who linger over the sweets section in the newsagent’s.
2. I seem to be able to make her laugh.
3. Her skin looks like white silk. I have a strange desire to stroke her face whenever I am close to her.
Tuesday April 30th
I’m glad April is over. It is a bitter-sweet month. The blossom is out, but the wind still swells around and flaps the bottoms of your trousers unless you tuck them into your socks.
Beard bushy now. Food gets caught in it. Brown pointed out a piece of egg white at 9.30 a.m. I ate my boiled egg at 7.39 this morning. Since that time, I have spoken to, or been seen by, at least thirty people. Why did no one else point out that I had egg white in my beard? It is not as if it was a small piece. As egg white goes, it was quite a large piece, and as such, impossible to overlook. I will have to buy a small hand mirror and check my beard regularly after meals. I cannot risk such social embarrassment happening again.
Wednesday May 1st
Babysat. Griffith asked me to help him with his model of a Scud missile, which he is making out of a toilet roll tube and cut-up bits of washing-up liquid bottle. I pointed out to him that I am a pacifist.
Griffith (six) said, ‘If your sister was being threatened by a gang of vicious thugs, would you stand by and do nothing?’
I said, ‘Yes.’ Griffith doesn’t know my sister Rosie. She is quite capable of seeing off a gang of vicious thugs.
Christian was back from his karaoke evening by 11 p.m. Apparently, he’d been forced to sing ‘Love is a Many Splendoured Thing’ in order to keep his cover. So his research project is an undercover operation. That explains why Christian changes out of his ragged denims and into his Sta-Pressed polyesters before joining his unsuspecting fellow low-culture vultures.
Thursday May 2nd
Read through the whole of Lo! The Flat Hills of My Homeland manuscript so far. It is crap from start to finish.
Friday May 3rd
Perhaps I was too harsh last night. Lo! has passages of sheer brilliance. About five.
Saturday May 4th
Left Lo! on kitchen table overnight. No comment from Christian this morning, though Alpha said, ‘You’ve spelt “success” wrong on page four. It’s got two c’s and two s’s.’ Christian didn’t even look up from his Sun.
If there’s one thing I can’t bear, it’s a precocious child. It’s completely unnatural. I was tempted to tell Alpha that any fairy living in the Hell Hole at the bottom of her garden should have a tetanus jab, but I didn’t.
I received the new Plumbs catalogue this morning, offering me four tapestry-look cushions with frilled edges at the bargain price o
f £27.99. How did they track me down? The envelope came direct from Plumbs to the Banbury Road. Are they watching me?
Sunday May 5th
Put blazer on and went for my customary Sunday walk around the Outer Ring Road at 2 p.m. Some old git in a Morris Minor stopped and asked me for directions to the Oxford Bowling Club. As if I’d know! Returned to find house full of Christian’s friends having what he described as a ‘fondue party’. They were dipping raw vegetables into a stinking pot of what looked like yellow emulsion paint. I declined to join them.
Monday May 6th
Bianca was passing as I left for work this morning, so we walked part of the way together. As we crossed at the lights, her hand brushed mine. An electric shock passed through me. I apologized and put my hand in my raincoat pocket to prevent another such occurrence. She took off her Sony headset and invited me to listen to her Guns ‘n’ Roses tape. After five minutes I handed it back to her. I couldn’t stand the din.
Tuesday May 7th
Bianca was there again outside the house this morning. I don’t know why she keeps coming down this road. It’s not on her route to work.
Babysat. The kids went to bed at 9.30 p.m., after I’d read them the first three chapters of Lo! For once, they seemed quite tired, yawning, etc.
Wednesday May 8th
Bianca there yet again, tying the laces on her Docs. She told me that she gets bored in the evenings – she hasn’t got that many friends in Oxford. She misses the cinema especially, but she is fed up with going on her own. She went on and on about Al Pacino. She has seen Sea of Love eleven times. I haven’t seen it once. Personally, I can’t stand the man. I told her that I too haven’t seen a film in ages. When she left me and went into the newsagent’s, she looked irritable. Premenstrual, probably.
Thursday May 9th
Babysat. At 7.30 p.m. I offered to read more of Lo! to the kids, but they said, as one, that they were very tired and wanted to go to bed! I had a peaceful night washing my working wardrobe and shampooing my beard. Christian got back at 1 a.m. after observing a fight in an Indian restaurant. I advised him to put his trousers in cold water to soak overnight. Turmeric is one of the most stubborn stains known to man. It is a pig to shift once it has gained a hold.
Monday May 13th
A terrible scandal at lunchtime today! Megan Harris and Bill Blane were caught in the act of photocopying their private parts! They would have got away with it, had the machine not jammed. They have both been suspended on full pay, pending an internal enquiry. I am quite pleased. It has saved me from having to photocopy two hundred pages of Newport Pagnell newt drivel.
Tuesday May 14th
It is totally unfair. Because of Bill’s suspension, I have been given responsibility for the entire Badger Department. Brown threw the badger case histories on my desk and said, ‘You’re a friend of Bill’s. Sort this out.’
Just because Brown was the one to force the photocopy room door open yesterday, there’s no need to take it out on me. He may have lost a mistress and a secretary, but he must remember what he learned on his managerial training course and keep his head.
Wednesday May 15th
Up at dawn to catch taxi to badger set. I must learn to drive. On the return journey, the taxi driver kept complaining about the smell. I had the fresh badger droppings in a sealed DOE jar, so how the aroma came in contact with the taxi driver’s nose is a mystery to me. Personally, I found the fresh air ‘pine tree’ hanging from the roof of his taxi to be much more olfactorily offensive.
Friday May 17th
I am already up to my ears in newts and badgers, and now Brown is hinting that I may also be given responsibility for natterjack toads! He is obviously trying to force me into resigning or having a nervous breakdown due to overwork.
Photocopies of Megan’s and Bill’s private parts are being passed around the office. I think this is absolutely disgusting – a total invasion of their private lives, not to mention their private parts. Anyway the copies are so blurred that it is impossible to tell which is Bill’s and which is Megan’s. That photocopier never did work properly.
Bianca came round with Palmer’s newspaper bill tonight. I answered the door and would have invited her in, but I didn’t want her to think that sexual intercourse was on my mind – though, of course, it was. It’s never off my mind. She had obviously gone to some trouble with her clothes, for a change. She was wearing tight denim jeans, high-heeled ankle boots and a white shirt which was tucked into a brown leather belt. She had recently washed her hair. I could smell Wash ‘n’ Go – the shampoo I use myself. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask her if she would come in for coffee, but something held me back.
She didn’t seem to want to move off the doorstep – she kept talking about how fed up she was with having nothing to do in the evening. I was forced to stand in a cold wind, wearing only a shirt and trousers. This could result in a severe chill. I must check my temperature over the next few days.
Sunday May 19th
As predicted, I woke up yesterday feeling feverish, so I had three tablespoons of Night Nurse (though it was only 8.30 in the morning) and went back to sleep. Today, Christian knocked on my door at 12.30 p.m. and asked if I could watch the kids for three hours while he attended a ‘Stag Strip’ at a Working Men’s Club. I reluctantly agreed and dragged myself out of bed.
I myself, personally, have never watched a strip show. I wouldn’t know how to arrange my facial features. Would I watch with studied indifference like TV detectives when they are forced to interview scumbag low-life in strip joints? Would I smile and laugh as though amused by the sight of a young woman taking her clothes off? Or would I swallow frequently, pant and goggle my eyes and reveal to onlookers that I am sexually excited? I fear the latter.
When Christian returned, he went upstairs. The shower was running for at least three quarters of an hour. I suspect he was symbolically cleansing himself.
Today was an Oombagoomba day, so I didn’t – indeed, couldn’t – talk to the kids.
The Chancellor, Norman Lamont, is going to sue a sex therapist for damages. But how did she damage you, Lamont? The British people should be told.
A letter from Reader’s Digest arrived on Saturday, informing me that my name has been shortlisted out of many hundreds of thousands to receive a huge cash prize! All I have to do is agree to subscribe to the Reader’s Digest magazine! It is easy to sneer at Reader’s Digest, but it has to be said that they are an extremely handy way for busy bibliophiles to keep abreast of matters literary.
Plumbs have also written to me, offering to supply a lace circular tablecloth, plus a plywood circular table, should I not already have one. I must say I was quite tempted by both.
Thursday May 23rd
Christian held a drinks party last night and Cavendish and Pandora came round. I tried to engage Pan in conversation, but every time I did, I could see her eyes looking past me over my shoulder. Am I such boring company?
At 8 o’clock, Bianca turned up in a shiny, tight black dress. I introduced her to Pandora. Pandora said to her, ‘That’s a great dress, Bianca. God, don’t you love lycra? What did we do without it?’ They then yakked on about lycra for half an hour. In my opinion, Pandora’s expensive education has been entirely wasted.
There must have been at least fifty people in the living-room/kitchen/study at one point. The majority of them were graduates, but you would never have known it from their conversation. The main topics were, in order:
1) The Archers
2) Football (Gazza)
3) Lycra
4) University cuts
5) Princess Diana
6) Alcoholism
7) The Oxford murder
8) Oats
9) Rajiv Gandhi being burnt
10) The Gossard Wonderbra
Call themselves intellectuals! My efforts to talk about my book, Lo! The Flat Hills of My Homeland, were met with cool indifference. Yes! The so-called ‘best brains’ in the land lis
tened to me for a few minutes, then made feeble excuses to leave my company. At one point, just as I was telling him about my hero’s apprenticeship to a cobbler in Chapter Eleven, a man called Professor Goodchild moved away, saying: ‘Please spare me the sodding details.’
Yet only minutes later, I overheard him talking about his fish tank and how best to clean it.
Bianca left at 11.30 in the company of a dubious-looking type in a black leather jacket. He is something big in astrophysics, apparently, though in my opinion he looked like the type of moron who wouldn’t know which end of a telescope to put his eye to.
As we were cleaning up after the party, Christian said, Adrian, take a tip from me, throw that bloody blazer away. Buy yourself some fashionable, young man’s clothes!’
I replied (quite wittily, I thought), ‘Lycra doesn’t suit me.’ He looked puzzled for a moment, then continued to wash the glasses.
Pandora also commented unfavourably, saying, ‘That fucking awful blazer: give it to Oxfam, for Christ’s sake.’