I made the acquaintance of Adrian Mole on May 1st when he was kind enough to give me a lift to the polling station. The two journeys were quite short, yet we covered a great deal of conversational ground and found despite the disparity of our ages that we had some interests in common.
He was gracious enough to compliment me on my cat, Andrew, of whom I am very fond. I am a difficult man, I have never had the gift of friendship and I have spent most of my life engaged in the cause of revolutionary politics – where so often friendship has to be sacrificed to principle.
Contact with my family was terminated at the time of the Suez Crisis when I led a pro-Nasser rally through the streets of Downham Market, where my wife and I were living at the time.
I have little to leave, apart from the house and a small insurance policy, which will cover funeral expenses. After careful consideration I have decided to leave my house, 33 Rampart Terrace, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and its contents to Adrian Mole, of 45 Wisteria Walk, with the proviso that he resides in the house and cares for Andrew, my cat, until such time as Andrew dies. Mr Mole will then be free to do as he wishes with the property.
I leave my silver cigarette case to Rajit c/o the BP garage, Kedlestone Road, with thanks for his many small kindnesses to me.
To William Mole, of Wisteria Walk, I leave my folding binoculars.
To Glenn Mole, I leave the signed photograph of Sir Stanley Matthews, which he recently admired.
If Adrian Mole does not wish to reside at Rampart Terrace under the above conditions then the house is to be sold by my solicitor, Mr Holden, and the proceeds to be donated to the Socialist Labour Party of Great Britain.
Archie Tait
I looked up when I’d finished reading and said, ‘How old is the cat, Mr Holden?’
He smiled and said, ‘I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting the creature, Mr Mole.’
I get the keys on the 27th. My mother burst into tears of joy at the news. We drove to Rampart Terrace but it was too dark to see very much.
Saturday January 24th
Liam helped me to get Andrew into his travelling basket. The cat certainly put up a fight. I had white and ginger hair all over my navy chinos. I took him to morning surgery at the Pet Centre where the New Dog is registered. The vet examined the struggling, spitting animal.
‘How long will he live?’ I asked.
‘Don’t worry, Mr Mole,’ said the vet jocularly. ‘He’ll live to a good old age.’
Andrew is lying on my bed as I write. He’s been banned from downstairs since he jumped on Ivan’s back and drew blood.
Sunday January 25th
I took the family to see the outside of Archie’s house this morning. My mother peered through the letterbox and said it needed a lot doing to it. Rosie pointed out that there was no sign of central heating.
Ivan crossed the road, looked up at the roof and said that there were ‘a quantity of tiles missing’ and that, in his opinion, the chimney-stack ‘looked unstable’, and that the guttering could ‘go at any time’. William said he liked the colour of the front door (red). His was the only positive statement.
Later I took Glenn and William. Glenn disappeared down the side passage and climbed over the gate, which he then unbolted. We went into the back yard and found a paved patio and trees growing in tubs, a tiny lawn and a picnic bench with a cup and saucer on it. There was a bird table near the kitchen window. Glenn said, ‘It’s all right, in’t it, Dad?’
There was a shed at the bottom of the yard. Glenn pushed the door open and said, ‘’Ere, William, this’d make a great den.’ They played inside the shed until it grew too cold. Later, I dropped Glenn off at Geoffrey Howe Road. ‘Mam will have me dinner ready,’ he said.
I’ve only just realized that Glenn can’t read properly. Inside the shed was a bag that clearly said ‘John Innes Potting Compost’. When William asked Glenn what was inside the bag, Glenn was at a loss.
‘I can’t read words like that,’ he said.
I didn’t say anything to him at the time, but I will take the matter up with Miss Trellis on Monday. The boy is intelligent and has received compulsory schooling for seven years. In the car he asked me if I thought he should get an earring. I said, ‘No, I absolutely forbid it.’ He looked quite pleased.
I wish sometimes I wasn’t a parent, even when I am alone I carry him and William with me, across my shoulders and inside my heart.
Monday January 26th
Miss Trellis is a mousy little creature in a beige cardigan. She lacks many things: personality, humour, style, charm. I informed her of my recent entry into Glenn’s life and told her I would be keeping a close eye on his future behaviour.
On the way out I made an appointment to see Roger Patience, the headmaster.
Glenn was waiting outside in the school car park.
‘How’d you get on, Dad?’ he said.
I said, ‘All right.’ I advised him to practise farting quietly. I assured him that it was possible.
He said that he would ‘give it a go, Dad’.
On the way home I took him into the library where I used to work and enrolled him as a member. He was amazed to learn that the library service was free. He said, ‘How do they know you’re not gonna nick the books, Dad?’ He took four out. All picture books about football.
Tuesday January 27th
I was given the key to Archie’s house today. It doesn’t seem right somehow. Archie was present in every room. His bed unmade, a pair of socks on the floor. A sinkful of washing-up. A plate, a bowl, a cup, a saucer. A knife, a fork, a dessertspoon, a teaspoon, an eggcup. I opened all the windows, then examined the bookshelves. What treasure! What joys ahead of me! Somebody called Eric Blair had inscribed Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia: ‘To Archie, Best wishes, Eric Blair’. I didn’t tell anyone else that I have the key.
Wednesday January 28th
Roger Patience is a deeply neurotic person. He is under the delusion that Chris Woodhead, the Chief Inspector of Schools, is out to get him.
Patience is more obsessed with tables than a Premier League football manager. I asked him why his school is near the bottom of the league. He blamed ‘the catchment area, the riff-raff from the estates’. He blamed the teachers. ‘They won’t stay.’ He blamed the caretaker. ‘He undermines my authority.’ He blamed ‘Glenn Bott’, whom he said was a ‘borderline remedial’.
Apparently the last time the school was inspected Glenn was selected at random by an inspector to name three successful British manufacturing industries.
He couldn’t name one.
I asked Roger Patience to arrange for Glenn to have extra help with his reading and writing. ‘I believe it’s called teaching,’ I said, sarcastically.
While I was there the school secretary rang through and said, ‘Roger, Ofsted on the line.’
Patience took a bottle of Prozac out of his desk drawer, opened it with difficulty (a childproof cap) and slipped a capsule under his tongue before saying, ‘Patience here.’ After he had completed a grovelling phone call he called through and instructed his secretary to ask if ‘Ms Flood is free’.
While we waited for Ms Flood, we spent five awkward minutes of conversation about my sister Rosie and her foul mouth. ‘I think she has undiagnosed Tourette’s syndrome,’ I said.
There was a knock at the door and Eleanor Flood was ushered in. She is pale and thin, with thick black hair. She was dressed in a black polo-neck sweater and a black trouser-suit. She carried a large black-leather shoulder-bag. Her eyes are grey. The sight of her fragile wrists almost brought tears to my eyes.
When she spoke her voice was soft. ‘I’m very sorry, Mr Patience, but my remedial reading class is already full to overflowing,’ she said, after Patience had asked her if she could ‘squeeze Bott in’. ‘And, anyway,’ she said, turning her eyes on me, ‘Glenn needs one-to-one tuition for at least a couple of hours a week.’
Patience snorted at the impossibility of providing this service in school.
> ‘I do give private tuition, in the evening,’ she said.
Patience said, ‘Ms Flood, I can’t have you importuning Mr Mole during school-time.’
I explained to Ms Flood that I did not agree with private education. However, given the parlous state of Glenn’s reading skills, perhaps I ought to take a more pragmatic view. She charges £9 per hour. She is going to ring me to tell me when she can start. I thought about her wrists all the way home.
Thursday January 29th
President Clinton has denied in the strongest possible terms that he ever had sex with a White House intern called Monica Lewinsky. Looking into the camera and stabbing his finger for emphasis, he said, with burning honesty, ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman.’ He then added, with his charming Southern manners, ‘Miss Lewinsky’. I, for one, believe him totally.
My mother and Ivan seem to know all about the Lewinsky affair. When I said that I had never heard of the young woman before today, they looked at me incredulously. Ivan said, ‘I once had a secretary at the dairy who’d never heard of Van Gogh. She thought Van Morrison had painted Sunflowers.’
My mother said, ‘You seem to filter out anything remotely detrimental to President Clinton.’
I said I admired the man.
She said, ‘He’s a sex addict.’
I pointed out that his wife, Hillary, was an attractive woman. Why would he need to look elsewhere for sexual gratification?
They looked at each other; ‘I think we’ve got a Mary Archer “fragrant” situation here,’ said Ivan.
My mother said, ‘Adrian, you’ll be thirty-one in a couple of months. I know you’ve had sex at least twice, but you don’t seem to know the first thing about lust.’
I went upstairs to watch Newsnight on my portable. Pandora’s on now quite often.
Friday January 30th
I have watched President Clinton’s ‘Lewinsky statement’ endless times. The man is not lying. The truth cries out from his eyes, his nostrils and his lips.
Saturday January 31st
Troubled by dreams about Monica Lewinsky in which she lives in Eleanor Flood’s house, and we begin a lustful relationship after a game of Cluedo.
Penis function – 10/10
Drugs – 2 Nurofen
Monday February 2nd
After reading some fan mail that came in from Pie Crust today, I’m convinced that the big Victorian mental hospitals should be reopened. A woman from Dorset is collecting the ‘toenail clippings of the famous’ for a charity auction. She enclosed a tiny self-seal plastic bag with Adrian Mole written on it, and asked me to post it back to her in the SAE she’d also enclosed. Rosie clipped the New Dog’s claws and put them into the little bag. The New Dog looked happy for a change after its pedicure, so some good came of it.
I am moving out of this house next Sunday. Nigel is providing his van. He has forgiven me for outing him since he found out that one of his uncles had a sex change in 1979 – information that his family had kept from him.
Wednesday February 4th
I am not moving out a minute too soon! I came perilously close to a row with my mother today. She is very cool towards Glenn. When I said, ‘You’ve hardly spoken to Glenn since Christmas Day when you told him to take his elbows off the table,’ she shouted, ‘One of his elbows was in the Brussels sprouts dish, for Chrissake!’
Ivan, of course, defended my mother and in a sudden rush of rage I accused him of being a cuckoo in the nest of Wisteria Walk.
‘It’s you who’s the cuckoo,’ yelled my mother. ‘Sunday can’t come too soon for me!’
I said she hadn’t given Glenn a chance. She screamed, ‘I’ve never known a boy to fart so often. It’s like being on the edge of a sulphurous volcano!’ I explained about the beans, but she didn’t want to know.
Sunday can’t come too soon for me either.
Saturday February 7th
Glenn told me he wished I would marry his mother. We were putting empty Walker’s crisps boxes into the back of Nigel’s van at the time. I almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of the idea, then I looked at his face and was glad that I hadn’t. I said that Sharon and I would never marry.
‘Why not, Dad?’ he said.
Out of the thousand and one reasons I could have given the lad, I chose one that I knew he would understand. ‘I’m in lurve with somebody else, son,’ I said, trying to sound like Grant Mitchell from East-Enders (his hero).
‘Right, Dad,’ said Glenn, and we spoke no more of it.
Rampart Terrace, Leicestershire
Sunday February 8th
It only took one van journey to move my possessions to Archie’s house. When the last box had been lugged out of the van and dumped on the front-room floor, Nigel said, ‘The rolling stone gathers no moss, eh, Moley?’
It was freezing in the house. I had to keep going outside to get warm. I found some firelighters and some chopped-up sticks in the kitchen and I lit a fire in the little grate. Nigel drove round to the BP garage, bought some compressed sawdust logs and a bag of smokeless fuel, and the fire (and the heat) were soon roaring up the chimney.
Archie had not been a meticulous housekeeper. The floors are covered in Andrew’s hair. Nigel advised me to buy a Dyson vacuum cleaner and a cat comb. We went upstairs to examine what was to be my bedroom. Nigel shuddered at the sight of Archie’s unmade bed with its grey sheets and light green candlewick bedspread. ‘Did he die in bed?’ he asked, pulling on a pair of rubber gloves. I admitted I didn’t know. Nigel said, ‘I won’t let you sleep in that bed tonight, Moley. It’s like something out of Les Misérables.’
We went to Bed City, where we took off our shoes and lay side by side on every king-sized bed in the shop.
‘Have you tested the Queen’s, sir?’ asked a smarmy salesman of Nigel, who was wearing a diamond stud in one ear.
We chose a four-drawer divan that had the approval of the British Bed Council. I also treated myself to four new foam-filled pillows and a 15-tog duvet.
When we got home Andrew was hogging the fire. He watched with his usual indifference as we lugged the old bed out and the new bed in. He has shown absolutely no signs of grief. William is still at Wisteria Walk: my mother is refusing to let her first grandchild go until I’ve done something about the damp and cold at Rampart Terrace. So I will spend my first night here alone.
My address is now 33 Rampart Terrace, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire.
Ms Flood rang on the mobile and said that she had ‘a window in her schedule’ and could start Glenn’s tutorials on Friday 13th at 7.30.
Monday February 9th
I still can’t decide between having an upstairs study in the spare bedroom or making it into a room for Glenn. My indecision is creating a bottleneck of unpacked boxes in the living room, hall and kitchen. The kid has never had a room of his own – he shares with his two younger brothers, Kent and Bradford. On the other hand, I long to sit at a desk under an Anglepoise and write and think. Wasn’t it Leonard Woolf who said, ‘Every man should have £100 a year and a room of his own?’ I’ve been neglecting my intellectual life lately. I haven’t seen Titanic yet, for instance.
Tuesday February 10th
Sharon Bott has gone into hospital because her blood pressure is sky high. I thought she was just fat, but I find, in fact, she is eight months pregnant. Glenn told me that her bloke, Douggie, ‘has done a runner, Dad’.
Her younger kids have been farmed out and Glenn has opted to come here. He could have gone to his Bott grandmother, but he said, ‘She’s mean with the spuds, Dad.’ Sharon phoned me from her hospital bed to say how grateful she was. I asked her how long she was likely to be in hospital. She said, ‘Until the baby’s born. It could be a month if I go full term.’ She sounded hopeful.
This clashes with the publication and promotion of Offally Good! – The Book! I asked her if Douggie was likely to come back. She broke down and said, ‘No, he’s took all me money out the tea caddy and moved to Cardiff wi
th the girl from the video shop.’
THIS IS NOT HOW I EXPECTED MY LIFE TO PAN OUT! I AM TOO YOUNG TO BE BRINGING UP TWO BOYS! AND ANYWAY I ONLY EVER WANTED ONE CHILD, A DAUGHTER. SHE WAS TO BE CALLED LIBERTY AND PANDORA BRAITHWAITE WAS TO HAVE BEEN HER MOTHER!
GOODBYE, UPSTAIRS STUDY! GOODBYE, WRITING! GOODBYE, THINKING! GOODBYE, FREEDOM! HELLO, WASHING-MACHINE! HELLO, DYSON! HELLO, STOVE! HOW CAN I POSSIBLY BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE UPKEEP OF TWO CHILDREN! I CAN’T DO IT! I HAVEN’T BEEN TAUGHT! I DON’T KNOW HOW TO BE A FATHER! I CAN’T PLAY FOOTBALL! I’VE NEVER READ A TERRY PRATCHETT DISCWORLD BOOK! I CAN’T CONTROL A BLACK AND DECKER DRILL!
What I want is to live with Pandora, to work in the day at something interesting (novel-writing preferably) and then to have cocktails in the bath with her at seven before we go out to eat at eight. This is what I want! Why can’t I have it?
Wednesday February 11th
Calmer today. Called a helpline – Single Fathers. The bloke on the end of the line said my reaction was quite common. ‘We’re still cavemen,’ he said. ‘We want to be out there, killing things. We don’t want to be in the cave, tidying up and looking after the kids.’
Thursday February 12th
My money and I are slowly but surely parting company. Accepted an estimate of £1,405 to install central heating. Another of £795 to mend roof and supply new guttering. Went to Bed City and bought another bed, for Glenn. William still fits his plywood racing-car bed, thank God.