She said, ‘Derek, your Open University thing is starting in ten minutes.’
I asked the Rev. Silver what he was studying. He said, ‘Microbiology. You know where you are with microbes.’
I said goodbye and wished him luck in his change of career. He told me not to despair, and showed me out into the mad, bad, world. It was cold and dark and some yobs were throwing chips about in the street. I went home feeling worse than ever.
SATURDAY DECEMBER 4TH
I am having a nervous breakdown. Nobody has noticed yet.
SUNDAY DECEMBER 5TH
Went to see Bert; he is my last hope. (Pandora failed me. She blamed my mental state on my being a meat eater.) I said, ‘Bert, I am having a breakdown!’ Bert said that he had had a breakdown in the First World War. He said his was caused by seeing thousands of dead men and being constantly afraid for his life. He asked what mine was caused by.
I said, ‘The lack of morals in society.’
Bert said, ‘You daft bugger, what you need is a good stint of hard work. You can start on the washing up.’
When I’d finished Queenie made me a cup of tea, and a pile of crab paste sandwiches. While I ate I watched Songs of Praise on the television. The church was full of happy-looking people all singing their hearts out.
How come they’ve got faith and I’ve not? Just my luck!
MONDAY DECEMBER 6TH
I was woken up at 1 a.m., 230 a.m. and 4 a.m. by Rosie screaming.
I got up at 6 a.m. and listened to a farming programme on Radio Four. Some old rustic gasbag was drivelling on about geese farming in Essex. At 8.30 I went into my mother’s room, to ask for-my dinner money, and found Rosie fast asleep in my mother’s bed. This is strictly for-bidden by the baby books.
I checked that Rosie could breathe properly, then, after taking three pounds out of my mother’s purse, I went to school and tried to behave normally.
TUESDAY DECEMBER 7TH
Queenie died at 3 o’clock this morning. She had a stroke in her sleep. Bert said that it was a good way to go, and I am inclined to agree with him. It was strange to go into Bert’s house and see Queenie’s things all over the place. I still can’t believe she is dead and that her body is in the Co-op Funeral Parlour.
I didn’t cry when my mother told me the news, in fact I felt like laughing. It wasn’t until I saw Queenie’s pot of rouge standing on the dressing table that tears leaked out. I didn’t let Bert see me crying, and he didn’t let me see him crying. But I know he has been. There are no clean hankies left in his drawer.
Bert doesn’t know what to do about death certificates and funeral arrangements etc. So Pandora’s father came round to do all the death paperwork.
WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 8TH
Bert has asked me to write a poem to put in the Deaths column of the local paper.
10 p.m. I am terrified. In fact I have got writer’s block.
11.30 p.m. Unblocked. Finished poem.
THURSDAY DECEMBER 9TH
The following announcements appeared in the paper tonight:
BAXTER, Maud Lilian (Queenie): Passed away peacefully at home on 7th December 1982 To the best girl that ever was. Bert, Sabre and Adrian.
White face, red cheeks.
Eyes like crocus buds.
Hands deft and sure, yet worked to gnarled roots.
A practical comfortable body, dressed in young colours.
Feet twisted, but planted firmly on the ground.
A sure soft voice, with a crackly sudden laugh. Her body is lifeless and cold,
But the memory of her is joyful and as warm as a rockpool in August.
Funeral service and cremation, Monday 13th December at 1.30 p.m. at Gilmore’s crematorium. Floral tributes to Co-operative funeral service.
Written with love, from Adrian, on the instructions of Mr Bertram Baxter.
BAXTER, Queenie:Sadly missed, Pauline and Rosie Mole.
BAXTER, Maud Lilian:
The parting was so sudden.
We sit and wonder why.
The saddest thing of all,
Is that we never said goodbye.
From your grieving son, Nathan, and your daughter-in-law, Maria, and Jodie and Jason, grandchildren.
BAXTER, Queenie:Adieu Queenie, Mr and Mrs Braitjiwaite and Pandora.
BAXTER, Queenie:
Always a smile and a kindly word.
She’d never pass on the things she heard.
She bore her troubles with never a moan.
To every stray dog she would give a bone.
God Bless Queenie. From your friends at the ‘Evergreens’.
BAXTER, Queenie:Life is a struggle in search of a vision. You have found your vision we hope. From your friends, the Singh Family.
BAXTER, Queenie:Words can’t express how much I will miss my old pal. Your neighbour, Doris.
BAXTER, Queenie:Deepest sympathy, from John the milk-man.
BAXTER, Queenie:We have lost a dear old friend. Julian and Sandy, at the ‘Jolie Madame’ Hair Salon.
BAXTER, Queenie:A sad loss. May and Ceorge Mole.
BAXTER, Queenie:I’ll miss you, Queenie. Betty in the sweet shop and her husband, Cyril, and children Carol and Pat.
My tribute to Queenie has caused a stir. People have said it’s in bad taste, and have complained that it doesn’t rhyme. Must I live amongst uneducated peasants - for the rest of my life? I long for the day when I buy my first studio flat in Hampstead. I will have a notice on my door:
‘NO HAWKERS TRADERS OR PHILISTINES.’
FRIDAY DECEMBER 10TH
Mr Braithwaite is very worried about Queenie’s funeral. The cheapest he can arrange will cost £350. (Plain coffin, one hearse, one mourners’ car.) But Queenie’s funeral insurance is only worth £30. She took it out in 1931 when £30 would buy you: a fancy coffin, two teams of black horses with plumes, a funeral tea and a gang of top-hatted attendants. The death grant the government gives you is no help. It doesn’t buy a brass coffin nail.
The only solution is for Bert to take out hire-purchase and have Queenie’s funeral on the never-never.
SATURDAY DECEMBER 11TH
The finance company have turned down Bert’s request for a loan. They say he is too old at nearly ninety, so it looks like Queenie will have to be buried by Social Security (grey van, plywood coffin, ashes put in a jam jar).
Bert is dead upset. He said, ‘I wanted my girl to go out properly!’ I spent all night phoning around to everyone who knew Queenie, getting them to donate money. I was called a saint several times.
SUNDAY DECEMBER 12TH
My mother has gone out with Mrs Singh, Mrs O’Leary and her women’s group to have a picnic on Greenham Common. She has taken Rosie, so the house is dead peaceful.
I played my ‘Toyah’ records at full volume and had a bath with the door open.
10.02p.m. I have just seen the Greenham women on the telly! They were tying babies’ bootees on to the wire surrounding the missile base. Then they held hands with each other. The newscaster said that 30,000 women were there. The dog was sulking because my mother had gone out for the day. It didn’t understand that she was miles away safeguarding its future.
They got back safely. The women’s group came back to our house. They talked about female solidarity, while I served them coffee and tuna sandwiches. I felt excluded from the conversation so I went to bed.
200 a.m. Just woken up by Mr Singh and Mr O’Leary banging on our door demanding entrance. I got up and explained to them that there were about twenty women in our living room. Mr O’Leary said, Tell Caitlin to hurry up; I can’t find my pyjamas.’ Mr Singh said, ‘Ask Sita to tell me how to work our electric kettle.’
I advised them to go home for their own safety.
MONDAY DECEMBER 13TH
Queenie’s funeral
We dropped Rosie off at Mrs Singh’s and walked round to Bert’s bungalow. All the curtains in the street were shut out of respect for Queenie. The neighbours were out looking at th
e floral tributes, which were lined up alongside the little path to the front door. Bert was sitting in his wheelchair wearing his wedding suit. Sabre was sitting by his side. My mother gave Bert a kiss.
Bert said, ‘I don’t like to think about her lying in an unheated coffin, she never did like the cold.’
My mother acted as hostess because none of Queenie’s relations came. (Queenie quarrelled with them because they disapproved when she married Bert.)
The mourners’ cars arrived so me and the Co-op men carried Bert out to the leading car, then me and my mother and Doris from next door, and Mr and Mrs Braithwaite and Pandora sat in the leading car. The second car filled up with less important mourners and we set off very slowly to Gilmore’s Crematorium. As we passed the cemetery gates, an old man took his hat off and bowed his head. Bert said that the old man was a stranger. I was very touched by this gesture of respect.
My mother and father sat together in the chapel, briefly united. Me and Pandora sat either side of Bert. He said he wanted to have ‘young ‘uns’ around him.’
The service was short; we sang Queenie’s favourite carol, ‘Away in a Manger’, and her favourite song, ‘If I Ruled the World’.
Then, while the organ played sad music, the coffin started sliding towards purple curtains around the altar. When the coffin reached the curtains Pandora whispered, ‘God, how perfectly barbaric.’
I watched with horror as the coffin disappeared. Bert said, ‘Tara, old girl,’ and then Queenie was burnt in the oven.
I was so shocked, I could hardly walk up the aisle. Pandora and I both looked up when we got outside. Smoke was pouring out of the chimney, and was carried away by the wind. Queenie always said she wanted to fly.
I suppose there is a sort of logic to life and death. Rosie was born and so Queenie had to make way for her. The funeral tea was held at Pandora’s house; it was a very jolly affair. Bert held up well, and even cracked a few jokes. But I noticed that whenever I mentioned Queenie’s name, people looked away, and pretended not to hear. So Bert is on his own again, and will need more looking after than ever!
How will I cope? I’ve got my O levels in June.
TUESDAY DECEMBER 14TH
It was on Radio Four that the government is spending a billion pounds on buying war equipment. Yet one of our science laboratories at school is closing down after Christmas, because our school can’t afford to pay a new teacher. Poor old Mr Hill is retiring after thirty years of sweating over the Bunsen burners. He will be sadly missed. He was dead strict but dead fair with it. He was never sarcastic and seemed to listen to what you were saying. Also he gave out mini Mars bars for good work.
WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 15TH
We put the Christmas tree up tonight. It had gone a bit rusty, but I tied tinsel round the worst bits. My mother insisted on hanging up the decorations I made when I was a little kid. She said they had sentimental value for her. It looked OK when all the flashy balls and bad-taste angels were bunged on it.
I picked Rosie up and showed her the finished tree, but I can’t say she was overjoyed. In fact she just yawned. The dog, on the other hand, had one of its mad fits, and had to be restrained with a rolled-up Guardian.
THURSDAY DECEMBER 16TH
Bought a pack of cheap Christmas cards from Cherry’s, but didn’t write in them. I will wait and see who sends me one first.
FRIDAY DECEMBER I7TH
The school’s internal Christmas post service is as bad as the GPO’s. I posted Pandora a card before assembly but she still hadn’t had it by the end of the last lesson.
I will find out which first-years were on Elf duty today, and severely rebuke them.
SATURDAY DECEMBER 18TH
Courtney has made £150 in tips from his post round. He is spending it on a weekend in Venice. He says that Christmas in Venice is an experience that everyone should have at least once in their lives. I wish I could have that experience. Courtney said that English canals are not a patch on Venetian ones.
SUNDAY DECEMBER 19TH
Today Rosie Germaine Mole smiled for the first time. The recipient of the smile was the dog.
My father rang to ask what we are doing for Christmas. My mother said, ‘The usual seasonal things. George: eating turkey, getting drunk, buying replacement bulbs for the fairy lights.’
My father said, ‘Mother and me will be having a quiet time, on our own, alone. Just the two of us. Away from our nearest and dearest.’
My mother said, ‘It sounds divine. Well I must dash. A crowd of pre-Christmas revellers have just turned up with the champagne.’
This was a complete and utter lie. It was only me coming into the room with a cup of cocoa.
MONDAY DECEMBER 20TH
We break up tomorrow. So the school has gone a bit wild. The girls are doing no work at all, they just sit around the classrooms counting how many Christmas cards they’ve received from each other, and writing out hundreds more. The Elf postal service is being swamped.
I haven’t sent any cards at all yet, except Pandora’s. I’m still waiting to see if anybody sends me one.
Tomorrow is the day of the school concert. It will be the first year I have had nothing to do. My mother is glad because it means she won’t have to go.
TUESDAY DECEMBER 21ST
Last day of school
Thank God! I got seven Christmas cards. Three tasteful. Four in putrid taste and printed on flimsy rubbish paper that won’t stand up. On receipt I quickly wrote out seven cards and gave them to a passing elf. Mr Golightly, director of the Christmas play, The Importance of Being Earnest Christmas Show, was very irritable today when I wished him good luck for tonight. He said, ‘Thanks to your abdication, Adrian, I have got a midget playing Ernest.’ (Peter Brown, whose mother smoked throughout her pregnancy!)
I’m glad I did abdicate from my role, because the play was a complete fiasco. Lady Bracknell forgot to say, ‘A handbag?’ And Peter Brown stood behind a chair so that the audience only saw the top of his head. Simone Bates, as Gwendoline, was quite good but what a shame her costume didn’t hide her tattoos! The other parts are just not worth writing about.
The best thing in the show was the scenery. I congratulated Mr Animba, the woodwork teacher, on his dedication. He said, ‘Do you think anybody noticed that it was adapted from the Peter Pan scenery of three years ago?’ I assured him that nobody had complained that the view from the French windows was of a palm-fringed island.
Mr Golightly was nowhere to be seen at the end of the play. Somebody told me that he had run from the wings shortly before the end, saying he had to visit his mother in hospital.
The best thing about the evening was the inter-val when Pandora played her viola in the refreshment room.
WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 22ND
Drew £15 out of my Building Society today.
I know it’s a lot but I’ve got an extra person to buy for: Rosie.
9.30 p.m. Forgot that Queenie isn’t here any more. I needn’t have been so extravagant. My memory!
THURSDAY DECEMBER 23RD
Made a list and went to Woolworth’s, as they have got a good selection of festive gifts.
Dog False bone (£1.25)
Pandora Solid gold chain (£200)
Mother Egg-timer (About £1.59)
Rosie Chocolate Santa (79p)
Bert 20 Woodbines (£1.09)
Nigel He gets nothing this His best friend is
year now Clive Barnes
Father Festive tin of anti-
freeze (£1.39)
Grandma Gift pack of dusters (£1.29)
Auntie Susan Hankie Set (99p)
Sabre Dog Comb (£1.29)
Woolworth’s was swarming with last-minute shoppers, so I had to queue for half an hour at the checkout till. Why do people wait to do their shopping until there are only two days left before Christmas?
I couldn’t get on a bus home because of the stupid lemmings. Went to the ‘Off the Streets’ youth club party with Pandora. Nigel caus
ed a scandal by dancing with Clive Barnes who was wearing lipstick and mascara!
Everyone was saying that Nigel is gay, so I made sure that everyone knew that he is no longer my best friend. Barry Kent smuggled two cans of ‘Tartan’ bitter through the fire doors. His gang of six shared them, and got leglessly drunk. At the end of the party Rick Lemon put ‘White Christmas’ by some old crumblie on the record deck and all the couples danced romantically together. I told Pandora how much I adored her and she said, ‘Aidy, my pet, how long will our happiness last?’
Trust Pandora to put a damp cloth on everything. Saw her home. Kissed her twice. Went home. Fed dog. Checked Rosie’s pulse. Went to bed.
FRIDAY DECEMBER 24TH
Christmas Eva
My mother is being kept a prisoner by Rosie; so I have had to do all the Christmas preparations. I was up at 7.30 queuing in the butcher’s for a fresh turkey, pork joint and sausage meat.
By 9 a.m. I was in the queue at the greengrocer’s: 3lbs sprouts, 24 tangerines, 2lbs mixed nuts, 2 bunches of holly (make sure they have berries), salad (don’t forget green pepper), 2 boxes of dates (get those with camel on lid), 3lbs of apples (if no Cox’s get G. Smith), 6lbs potatoes (check each one for signs of sprouting).
By 11.15 1 was in the launderette washing and drying the loose covers off the three-piece suite.
2 p.m. saw me at the grocer’s with a long list, and Rosie’s pram outside to cart everything home. £250’s worth of Stilton (make sure good blue colour, firm texture), 2 boxes sponge fingers, red and yellow jelly… tin of fruit salad… It went on for ever.
At 4.10 p.m. I was struggling into Woolworth’s front doors, and trying to fight my way to the fairy-light counter.
At 4.201 got to the counter only to find empty shelves and other desperate people swapping rumours: ‘Curry’s have got some lantern style’, ‘Rumbelow’s have got two packets of the “star type”’, ‘Habitat have got the High Tech styles but they’re pricey!’
I went to all the above shops and more, but at 5 p.m. I admitted defeat and joined the long queue at the bus stop.