by Sue Townsend
Perhaps I will.
I lay awake for hours imagining Bianca and the astrophysicist gazing at the stars together. Would he trust her with his telescope?
Friday May 24th
A household on my route to work has acquired an American pit bull terrier. On the surface, it seems to be a friendly beast. All it does is stand and grin through the fence. But in future I will take a different route to work. This is a considerable inconvenience to me, but I cannot risk facial disfigurement. I would like the photograph on the back of the jacket of my book to show my face as it is today, not hideously scarred. I know that plastic surgeons can work miracles, but from now on I am taking no chances.
Brown was in a foul mood today. He has had a letter from Megan’s solicitor. She is threatening to sue him for defamation of character, unless she is reinstated immediately. I hope Brown caves in. Megan’s replacement, Ms Julia Stone, is one of those superior types who never lose their money in chocolate machines in railway stations.
Saturday May 25th
Oxford is full of sightseers riding on the top deck of the tourist buses and walking along the streets gazing upwards. It is extremely annoying to us residents to be asked the way by foreigners every five minutes. Perhaps it is petty of me, but I quite enjoy sending them in the wrong direction.
I have just remembered! When I gave my blazer to the Oxfam shop yesterday, my condom was in the top pocket. This means that, should a sexual opportunity arise today, I will be unprepared. It also means that I can no longer go into the Oxfam shop – at least, not until Mrs Whitlow, the volunteer helper I gave it to, dies or retires. Mrs Whitlow has often congratulated me on being a ‘decent, clean-living young man’, though I have given her absolutely no grounds for thinking so.
Monday May 27th
Why do the banks have to close just because it is a Bank Holiday? It is a day when people want to spend money, isn’t it? Borrowed £5 from Christian for Durex and bananas.
Tuesday May 28th
I have just finished Chapter Twelve of Lo! The Flat Hills of My Homeland, ‘The Dog It Had To Die’:
He closed the front door of his mother’s house with a sigh. He had left her slumped on the kitchen table surrounded by brimming ashtrays and empty Pilsner cans. Upstairs, his father was injecting heroin into his collapsed veins. The family pet, an American pit bull terrier, looked out from the front window of the squalid terraced house and growled, showing its fearsome jaws. He walked down the street and tossed off greetings to the stunted neighbours. A couple fornicated in an alley, their eyes dead, their motions automatic. He wept internally. Anguish gripped his soul. He rued the day he had been born. Then, suddenly, a shaft of sunlight fell across his path. He stood, mesmerized. Was it a sign, a portent, that his life would improve from now?
He turned and went back to the house. He opened the front door. The dog, Butcher, growled at him, so he strangled it until the dog lay dead at his feet. He felt Evil, but at the same time strangely Good. The dog had been nothing but a nuisance and nobody ever took it for a walk. His conscience was clear.
Wow! Powerful writing, or what? I believe Dostoevsky would be proud of me. Canine murder is surely a first in English fiction. I expect I’ll get a few letters from English dog lovers when Lo! The Flat Hills of My Homeland is published, but I shall write back and point out that I am an artist and must go where my pen takes me.
Wednesday May 29th
Julia Stone and I had a brief conversation at the Autovent machine today, while my oxtail soup was pouring into my plastic cup. She asked me not to use the ladies’ lavatory again. I pointed out to her that the men’s lavatory had run out of toilet paper, but she said if I continued to ‘invade female space’, she would report me for sexual harassment. She also said that she had checked the post book and that I used more postage stamps than any other member of staff.
I told her in cold tones – though not as cold as my oxtail soup – that I wrote more letters, therefore I needed more stamps. But I fear I have made an enemy.
Ms Julia Stone is a daunting woman. My throat constricts whenever I have to talk to her. Lipstick might help. Her, not me.
Christian returned from the Golden Gate nightclub with a black eye. His crime was to look at a yob. Yes, the yob accused Christian of ‘looking’ at him. This is a frightening example of the disintegration of British society. Yobs used to enjoy people looking at them. From now on, I shall avert my eyes whenever I see a yobbish person approaching me.
After Christian had stopped fussing with his eye and gone to bed, I sat at the kitchen table and tried to get some sex into Lo! The Flat Hills of My Homeland.
Chapter Thirteen: Deflowering
He lay in bed in his Parisian bedroom. Fifi began to remove her lycra dress. His breathing rate increased. She stood revealed before him, her chest strained beneath her Gossard Wonderbra, her knickers were clean and nicely ironed. He reached out for her, but she said to him in her French accent, ‘No, no, mon amour, I am thinking you must wait.’
His ardour increased as he noticed that her bottom was smooth and had no pimples. He groaned and…
It’s no good. I can’t write about sex. Not even French sex in Paris.
Saturday June 1st
Two letters, one from Plumbs, offering me a set of matching towels with my personal monogram embroidered on the hems; the other from Sharon Bott.
Dear Adrian,
I hope you are well long time no see I saw your mum in town and we had a talk she said how much Glenn looked like you I said yes and she said is he our Adrians Sharon I must know she just came out with it like that I din’t know what to say I have got to confess I was seeing someone else at the time as I was seeing you I din’t want to double time you Adrian but you was sometimes moody and I wanted some laffs I was only young. Glenn is going to school now and is a big boy. My mum says you should pay some money but I said no mum it would not be fair cause I dont no if Glenn is Adrians or not Your mum gave me this address to write to you I hope they’re is not to many spelling mistakes and that but I never write anything now since I left school their is no need I saw Baz on the telly did you He has done alright for himself I have not got a bloke now sinse Daryl run off with the video and £35 I had saved for the gas I have put a bit of wait on but I am going to go to Waitwatchers and get it off You mum said she would babysit she is so good to me.
Cheers,
Sharon
Sunday June 2nd
I spoke to my mother this morning and ordered her to keep her nose out of my affairs. She said, ‘Glenn is the result of one of your affairs,’ and put the phone down. From then on, I got the engaged signal.
I was enraged by my mother’s interference. How dare she pontificate about anybody’s morals? I know for a fact that she was not a virgin on her wedding night. Grandma told me.
And anyway, my mother should not have spoken in the plural. I have not had affairs. I have had an affair. In the singular. With Sharon Bott, a simpleton who cannot differentiate between ‘they’re’, ‘there’ and ‘their’ and is a virtual stranger to the comma and full stop. She probably thinks that a semi-colon is a partial removal of the intestines.
Memo to self: Is the kid mine? Blood test? Letter of denial?
2 a.m. Wrote to Sharon.
3 a.m. Destroyed the letter. (My reply to her must be carefully crafted. I need time to read up on the law relating to paternity.)
Tuesday June 4th
Thank God, Prince William has made a full recovery after being bashed on the head by a golf club. When I think how close we came to losing our future King, my heart stands still. Well, not literally still, it doesn’t stop, but I’m glad the kid is better. I phoned Grandma in Leicester. She wanted to know why Prince Charles didn’t pick his son up from the hospital. She said, ‘Doesn’t he know that it is traditional in our English culture?’ She thinks that the monarchy is losing touch with the common herd and she complained bitterly that the Royal Yacht Britannia costs thirty-five thousand pounds a
week to run.
5.00 p.m. The Oxford Mail has just informed me that the emir of Kuwait has yet to announce the date for democratic elections to be held in his country. Puzzling, considering all the trouble and expense the allies went to only recently. Get a move on, emir! I’m also informed by the Oxford Mail that the Royal Yacht Britannia costs thirty-five thousand pounds a day! A day! I phoned Grandma immediately and put her right. She was disgusted.
Query: Why does the emir of Kuwait spell his name with a small ‘e’?
Friday June 7th
I spent the morning writing a report on a projection of newt births and the early afternoon on a report on the distribution of badgers. But I fear some of the paperwork has got mixed up. As I was photocopying the reports, I noticed that I had muddled a few facts. However, Brown was shouting down the corridor for the reports, so what could I do? His management meeting was due to start at 4 p.m., so I had no choice but to hand him the papers.
Saturday June 8th
Wrote to Sharon:
Dear Sharon,
How very nice to hear from you after all this time.
I’m afraid that there is no chance at all that I can be the father of your child, Glenn.
I have recently had my sperm counted and I was informed by the Consultant Spermatologist that my sperms are too weak to transform themselves into a child. This is a personal tragedy to me, as I had planned on having at least six children.
You mention in your letter that you were double-timing me. I was most upset to read this – our relationship was not ideal, I know; we came from different backgrounds: me: upper working/lower middle; you: lower working/underclass. And, of course, our educational attainments are worlds apart, not to mention our cultural interests. But despite these differences, I had thought that we rubbed along quite well sexually. I see absolutely no reason why you should have betrayed me and sought out another sexual partner. I confess that I am devastated by your revelation. I feel cheap and used. I would be most obliged to you if you would stop seeing my mother. She is addicted to human dramas of any kind. She thinks of herself as a character in a soap opera. I suggest that you should go to Weight-watchers (not Waitwatchers, by the way), and hire yourself a competent child-minder. My mother is not to be trusted with young children: she dropped me on my head at the age of six months, whilst taking a boiled egg out of a saucepan.
Anyway, Sharon, it was very nice to hear from you.
Regards,
Adrian
PS. Who were you double-timing me with? Not that it matters, of course. I have had a constant stream of lovers since our relationship ended. It is simple curiosity on my part. But I would like to know the youth’s name, though it is not in the least important. Don’t feel obliged to let me know. I just think it may help you to get it off your chest. Guilt can eat away at you, can’t it? So would you please write to me and let me know the youth’s name? I think you would feel better about yourself.
Sunday June 9th
I spent the day quietly, working on Chapter Fourteen of my novel.
He looked at the young boy, who was poking a stick at a natterjack toad. ‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘It is one of an endangered species. You must be kind to it.’ The young child stopped poking at the toad and came to hold his hand.
‘Who are you?’ lisped the child. He longed to shout, ‘I am your father, boy!’ but it was impossible. He looked at Sharon Slagg, the boy’s mother, who weighed twenty-one stone and had numerous split ends. How could he have once enjoyed sexual congress with her?
He let go of the boy’s hand and said, ‘I am nobody, boy. I am a stranger to you. I am simply a person who loves the planet we live on – including the dumb creatures that we share our planet with.’
With that, he walked away from his son. The boy exclaimed, ‘Please, stranger, don’t go.’ But he knew he must, before Sharon Slagg looked up from Damage, the book she was reading on the park bench. The boy said, ‘I wish you were my father, stranger, then I too would have a daddy to come to parents’ evenings.’
He thought his heart would break. Sobbingly, he walked away across the grass until the boy was the size of an ant in the distance.
I don’t mind admitting that this piece of writing had me wiping my eyes. God, I’m clever. I can tug at the heart strings like no other writer I know. I do feel that my book is now vastly improved by these additions. It still lacks narrative thrust (or does it?), but nobody can say that it doesn’t engage the reader’s emotions.
Thursday June 20th
Bianca came round tonight to borrow a cup of Basmati rice. She has stopped going out with the Stargazer: she said his breath smelled constantly of kiwi fruit.
She is a nicely spoken girl, with quite an extensive vocabulary. I asked her why she was serving in a newsagent’s. She said, ‘There are no jobs for qualified engineers.’
I was totally gobsmacked to learn that Bianca has an upper second degree in Hydraulic Engineering – from Edinburgh University. Before she left with the rice, I asked her to mend the leaking shower in my room. She said she would be pleased to come round tomorrow night and see to it for me. She asked if she should bring a bottle of wine with her. I said there was no need. She looked disappointed. I sincerely hope she is not an alcoholic or a heavy drinker who needs a ‘nip’ before she can do a job of work.
I am making good progress on the novel. I took out my epic poem The Restless Tadpole tonight. It is amazingly good, but I can’t spare the time to finish it. The novel has to come first. There is no money in poetry. Our Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes, has been wearing the same jacket in his photograph for the past twenty years.
Friday June 21st
Bianca came round avec tool box, but sans wine. She hung about after she’d fixed the shower and talked about how lonely she is and how she longs to have a regular boy friend. She asked me if I have a regular girl friend. I replied in the negative. I sat in the armchair under the window and she lay on my bed in what an old-fashioned kind of man could have interpreted as a provocative pose.
I wanted to join her on the bed, but I wasn’t sure how she would react. Would she welcome me with open arms and legs? Or would she run downstairs screaming and ask Christian to call the police? Women are a complete mystery to me. One minute they are flapping their eyelashes, the next they are calling you a sexist pig.
While I tried to work it out, a silence fell between us, so I started to talk about the revisions I am making to my book. After about twenty minutes, she fell into a deep sleep. It was a most awkward situation to be in.
Eventually, I went downstairs and asked Christian to come and wake her up. He sneered and said, ‘You’re unbelievably stupid at times.’ What did he mean? Was he referring to my inability to fix my own shower head, or to my timidity regarding sex?
When Bianca woke up she looked like a sad child. I wanted to put my arms round her but before I could she had grabbed her tool box and run down the stairs without saying goodnight.
Saturday June 22nd
Had a most satisfactory shower this morning. The force of the water has improved considerably.
2.00 p.m. Worked on Chapter Fifteen. I have sent him to China.
11.30 p.m. I have brought him back from China. Can’t be bothered to do all that tedious research. I just got him walking along the Great Wall, then flying back to East Midlands Airport. I went down to the kitchen to make myself a cup of hot chocolate and told Christian about my hero’s trip to China. Christian said, ‘But you told me that he is a pauper. Where would he get the money for his air ticket?’ God, how I hate pedants!
1.00 a.m. Insert for Chapter Fifteen:
What was this on the mat? He bent down and picked up a letter from the Reader’s Digest. On the front of the expensively papered envelope was written ‘OPEN AT ONCE’. He obeyed. Inside was a letter and a cheque for one million pounds! He was fabulously rich! ‘How shall I spend it all?’ he asked the cat. The female cat looked back at him inscrutably. ‘China?’ he said. ‘I’ll have a day
trip to China!’
I hope this satisfies my pedantic landlord and my most critical of readers.
Sunday June 23rd
At breakfast, I told Christian how my hero got the money to go to China. He now wants to know what my hero does with the remaining money. There is no pleasing him.
12 noon
Chapter Sixteen: A Gratuitous Act
The beggar outside Leicester bus station stared in disbelief as £999,000 showered down onto his head. He walked away, a pauper once again.
5.00 p.m. Saw Bianca walking towards me as I was returning from my perambulations around the Outer Ring Road this afternoon. She was wearing shorts and a T-shirt: her legs, apart from the ankles, looked superb, long and slim. I hurried towards her. To my astpnishment, she crossed over the road and ignored me. So much for Christian telling me that she fancies me! It’s certainly a good job I didn’t join her on the bed the other night. I could be in prison now, on a sexual assault charge.
The next time I go to the library I will try to find a book that explains to the intelligent layman how women’s brains work.