Mia Fox’s voice shouted, ‘You disgusting litter lout, don’t you care about the environment?’
Gielgud came from behind the reeds, where he’s been skulking, and pecked at the scraps of soggy Conqueror. I hope they choke him.
Worries
Baby
Marriage
Daisy
Money
Glenn
William
Swans
Weapons of Mass Destruction
Thursday February 13th
Mia Fox came down today to complain about the noise my little portable radio makes! She said that she did not want to listen to The Archers when she was practising her meditation.
I said that I did not realize that the sound seepage was so severe, and pointed out that, out of courtesy to her, I no longer turned on my home entertainment centre when she was at home. She said that she could still hear my telephone conversations and knew when my washing machine was about to go into spin mode.
I said, ‘We have been duped, Ms Fox. These apartments are meant to have cutting-edge sound insulation.’
I haven’t told anybody about Grace Mole. I want to tell Daisy in person first.
Put suit in express cleaner’s. Told woman stain near crotch was Bisto paste when eggcup slipped. She obviously didn’t believe me.
Went to the Flower Corner and ordered one red rose to be sent to Daisy’s office. Woman said, ‘Do you think one rose romantic?’
I answered, ‘Yes.’
She said, ‘Wrong. Two dozen red roses, two dozen times more romantic.’
I said, ‘Go ahead and send two dozen.’
I was just about to go to bed when Netta rang to remind me that it was Valentine’s Day tomorrow. I lied and said that I had already ordered Marigold’s Valentine’s Day token.
Friday February 14th
Valentine’s Day
Went to the Flower Corner and asked woman to send one red rose to Marigold. Rose cost £5, delivery charge was £3.50. Wrote on card, ‘To Marigold from Adrian’.
The florist said, ‘No love, or best wishes, or fondly yours?’
I explained the situation to her. She was remarkably patient, considering it was one of her busiest days of the year. She suggested I write, ‘To Marigold from...?’
The woman is a born diplomat. She should be working at the United Nations.
Mr Carlton-Hayes asked me how many Valentine’s cards I got today. I told him I had received two – the usual one from my mother and one from Marigold.
I asked Mr Carlton-Hayes if he celebrated Valentine’s Day.
He said, ‘Of course. Leslie brought me a glass of pink champagne with my coffee this morning, and I gave Leslie a rather pretty antique wine stopper, and tonight we’re dining at Alberto’s in Market Bosworth.’
The shop was busy today. We sold out of our entire stock of love poetry and most of the Shakespeare sonnets.
Marigold rang as we were closing and asked me to meet her at Country Organics. When I got there she told me that she had booked a table at Healthy Options, the new restaurant in Chalk Street.
There was a candle burning on the table between us and the owner, an obese man called Warren, smarmed around, giving the ‘lovely ladies’ a single red rose in a cellophane sleeve.
Marigold said, quite ungraciously I thought, ‘That makes two roses I’ve had today.’
The Valentine’s Day menu stated that ‘all our food is cooked with tender loving care and is as fresh as a field of newly mown grass’.
However, when the kitchen door swung open I saw a youth in chef’s whites taking a bowl of steaming pasta out of a microwave. Shortly afterwards, a large lorry drew up in front of the restaurant and a delivery man brazenly trolleyed boxes of pre-prepared, chilled ready-meals through to the kitchen.
Marigold had chosen to wear a burgundy blouse printed with green leaves. ‘I found it in Marks & Spencer’s,’ she said. ‘They are rowan leaves, I think.’
I nodded and felt the urge for strong drink. I asked Marigold if she would join me in a bottle of Shiraz. She quickly covered her glass with one hand, as though I had asked her to share a bottle of Domestos, and said, ‘I can’t drink again until the baby is born.’
I told her that, according to family legend, my own mother drank three cans of Guinness a night and smoked thirty cigarettes a day when she was pregnant with me.
I ordered the steak and ale pie, with purée of leek and cranberries. Marigold nibbled at a disconsolate-looking Caesar salad.
Our conversation was stilted. I asked Marigold how many Valentine’s cards she had received. She brought two from out of her bag. One was mine from the Flower Corner. The other had a picture of a Victorian girl on a swing and inside, using words and letters cut from a newspaper ransom-note style, a verse read:
Marigold, please be my wife,
Say you’ll share my lonely life,
My sweet and lovely Marigold,
Stay with me until we’re old.
She said, ‘It’s a beautiful poem. Thank you, darling.’
I said, ‘I didn’t write it. You’ve obviously got a secret admirer.’
She said, ‘You’re jealous, Adrian.’
I said, ‘Not of the poem – it’s typical of “poetry” written by non-poets. It is what we call, in the trade, doggerel.’
She said, ‘At least I can understand it. Nobody can make head or tail of your poetry.’
I let it pass and urged her to hurry up and eat her salad. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. The restaurant was cold and smelt damp, and I was sick of Warren asking me every two minutes, ‘Everything all right, sir?’
Over heart-shaped strawberry tartlets, Marigold talked about the wedding arrangements. She said, ‘I’d like you to have your stag night at least a month before we get married. I don’t want you to be found naked and chained to a lamppost covered in tar and feathers on the morning of our wedding.’
I nodded meekly, all the while thinking, SAVE YOUR BREATH, MARIGOLD. THERE WILL BE NO WEDDING.
A pseudo-Gypsy violinist came into the restaurant at 9 o’clock and worked his sycophantic way around the tables. When he stopped at ours he played ‘La Vie en Rose’. He ordered me to take Marigold’s hand and I did, but all I could think about was Daisy.
I know I was expected to give the violinist a tip, but all I had in change was £1.53 and I thought that there was a real threat that he might curse me and throw it back in my face. So I gave him nothing.
I asked Warren to call for a taxi to take Marigold home and walked back along the towpath to Rat Wharf. Gielgud and his wife were gliding along the canal, side by side. Perhaps they had been out to a different canal for dinner.
When I got home I found a package containing a gift-gwrapped box of Mr Kipling’s French Fancies outside my door. There was no message and no card, but I knew who they were from.
Nigel rang to tell me that he, Parvez and Fatima are travelling down to London tomorrow in a coach organized by Parvez’s local mosque. They are going to demonstrate against the war in Iraq. He asked me if I wanted a seat on the coach.
I declined, saying, ‘Nigel, I trust Mr Blair. All the top-secret information passes over his desk. He said in the September dossier that we are in danger from Saddam and his Weapons of Mass Destruction. Why can’t you accept Tony’s word, do your patriotic duty and get behind our troops?’
Nigel said, ‘Don’t fucking lecture me on patriotism. It was me who stood for eighteen hours in a queue a mile long to file past the Queen Mother’s coffin.’
I said I hoped that he would enjoy his outing.
He said, ‘We’re meeting Pandora at the VIP enclosure in Hyde Park. Doesn’t that tempt you, Moley? You know you’re still mad for her!’
I said, ‘If Pandora speaks out publicly against the war it will be the end of her political career.’
Saturday February 15th
I had to stand all the way on the train. Anti-war protesters had hogged all the seats. To my surprise
, the vast majority of them looked like ordinary, respectable people.
Daisy met me off the train. To my alarm, she was wearing a red T-shirt which said, in large black letters, ‘Stop the War!’ I was anxious to get her back to Baldwin Street, but she said, ‘We couldn’t get to Baldwin Street if we tried. There are expected to be a million people on the streets, sweetheart.’
If I had known that Daisy wanted me to march before making love with her, I would have worn more comfortable shoes.
I kept quiet to her about my support for Mr Blair, but I could not bring myself to join in with the anti-war chanting and neither did I buy a whistle and blow it continuously.
When we joined the main march, Daisy shouted out many cruel and uncomplimentary slogans about Mr Blair and Mr Bush, and got the crowds excited. She certainly has a gift for rabble-rousing.
We couldn’t get near to the stage in Hyde Park due to the massive crowds, so I was spared the embarrassment of meeting up with Pandora and my friends, and having to explain why I was there with Daisy.
When Pandora took the microphone, Daisy listened to her with rapt attention. She cheered every time Pandora made a reference to the probability that Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction did not exist. I wanted to stick up for Glenn and Mr Blair, but I kept quiet. I was outnumbered by over a million to one.
Later, in bed, in the untidy room in Baldwin Street, I asked Daisy if she wanted to read the manuscript of my work in progress, Celebrity and Madness.
She said, ‘No, sweetheart. I know I may not be much of a reader, but I don’t want to find out that you can’t write. I don’t think I could love you if you were a terrible writer.’
With pretended nonchalance, I asked her if there was anything else that precluded her loving me.
She said, ‘I couldn’t love anybody who was a supporter of war with Iraq.’
I said, ‘Let’s take a hypothetical situation, Daisy. Could you love me if I had made a sister of yours pregnant and promised to marry her on the first Saturday in May?’
Daisy got out of bed and walked about the chaotic room, searching for her cigarettes and lighter. She looks less like Nigella Lawson when she is naked. She took several deep draws on her Marlboro and said, ‘Which of my sisters have you impregnated and promised to marry?’
I said, ‘Marigold.’
She didn’t come to the station to see me off. I stood all the way home on the train. At Kettering, Daisy sent me a text:
Fuck off for ever, you four-eyed git.
So, diary, I glimpsed paradise and then had it cruelly snatched away.
Sunday February 16th
I drove through the rain to Mangold Parva, parked my car in the lane and trekked across the fields towards the pigsties. The dog came to meet me, lolloping along on his spindly legs. He ran past me towards the lane. In the distance I could see my mother, up a ladder, bashing at something on the roof. My father was sitting in the doorway of the tent, sheltering from the rain. An excessively tall man with a mullet hairstyle came from behind the second pigsty, carrying a sledgehammer. I presumed it was Animal. It was one of those awkward social situations: I was too far away to speak to him, but neither could I ignore his presence. I raised my hand in greeting and he raised his in return.
When I got near enough to say, ‘Hello, Mum,’ my mother turned her head and then started screaming, ‘Ivan! Ivan! Come back! Come back!’
My heart froze. Had she finally cracked under the burden of guilt she must be carrying for causing Ivan Braithwaite’s death?
She screamed, ‘Bring him back, Adrian! Bring Ivan back!’
I ran to her and wrapped her in my arms and said, ‘Nothing can bring Ivan back, Mum.’
She pushed me away and said, ‘Run after him before he gets to the lane!’
Animal put his fingers in his mouth and executed a fantastically loud whistle. The dog turned around immediately and ran back towards us.
I said, ‘I think it is in extremely bad taste to call the new dog after a dead husband. Why have you broken with tradition? Mole dogs don’t have names.’
My mother said, ‘I’m sick of tradition. I’m reinventing myself. I’m bored with being Pauline Mole. I crave change and excitement.’
I noticed that Animal was looking down from his great height at my mother with an adoring expression on his big face. I waited to be formally introduced. My parents seemed to have forgotten their manners since they moved to a field, so I introduced myself. I asked what his real name was. He looked puzzled and said, ‘Animal.’
My father hung the kettle over the tripod, and we sat around the fire and waited for the water to boil. I did not want to tell my parents in front of Animal that Marigold was pregnant and that I had promised to marry her on the first Saturday in May, but he seemed to be a permanent fixture, so when we were finally sipping our tea, I said, ‘By the way, congratulations are in order. You’re going to be grandparents again in September.’
My mother put her tea down and reached to embrace me. She said, ‘It’s wonderful news. I heard from Nigel that Pandora spent the night at your place. You’ve made my dream come true.’
My father said, ‘Thank God you’re not marrying that mardy-arsed clown woman with the teeth and the glasses. I dread to think what any kid of hers and yours would look like.’
My father is a grand master of the faux pas. During his brief marriage to Tania Braithwaite, he sat next to a stranger at a dinner party and contributed to the conversation about childbirth by saying that, in his opinion, all male gynaecologists were sicko perverts who only chose gynaecology because they couldn’t get their rocks off in any other way. The table went quiet and Tania said icily, ‘George, I don’t think you were introduced to Barry. He’s a consultant gynaecologist.’
I said to my father, ‘When you hear what I’ve got to tell you, you’ll wish that you hadn’t made that cruel comment about Marigold.’
My mother went totally Mediterranean, shouting, ‘No! No! Not Marigold! Please God! Not Marigold!’ She reached up to the sky, as if to pull the storm clouds down on to her head, and shouted, ‘Why? Why? What have I done to deserve this?’
Animal rolled a cigarette with one huge hand and silently handed it to her.
I said, ‘If it’s a daughter she might be called Grace.’
But I think only Animal heard me. My parents had turned their backs on me. I heard my father say, ‘We’ll have to stick by him, Pauline. If he’s marrying the Quorn Queen, he’ll need all the help we can give.’ My mother quavered, ‘I know I’m a post-feminist feminist, but you could braid the hairs on Marigold’s legs.’
Monday February 17th
My financial situation is now desperate. The bank wrote to me today to inform me that my ‘credit zone’ had expired. As a consequence, I am overdrawn to the extent of £5,624.03. They have asked me to rectify this oversight and have charged me £25 for their letter.
I rang Parvez tonight and asked him to draft a letter on my behalf to the bank. He told me if I was a small business I would be declared bankrupt. He demanded a meeting with me before any decisions were taken. He ordered me to destroy all my credit and store cards before I left the house in the morning. He said, ‘You can’t be trusted, Moley.’
Tuesday February 18th
Salvation! My application to the Bank of Scotland for a MasterCard with a £10,000 limit was successful. Ergo, my credit and store cards are still intact. Parvez is such a drama queen.
I now have a MasterCard to put next to my Visa card. They look good together in my wallet. They have also sent me, by separate post, four cheques made out to Adrian Mole. Each cheque is worth £2,500. All I have to do is sign them and pay them into my bank and the money will be available immediately. At lunchtime I paid three into my bank to clear my overdraft. The fourth I folded and put into my wallet for emergencies.
Wednesday February 19th
Met Parvez at lunchtime in the wine bar opposite the shop. He asked me if I had cut up my credit and store cards.
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I said, ‘No, I couldn’t find the scissors.’
I told him not to bother writing to the bank, because sufficient funds had already been paid into my account. He lectured me about my lifestyle and warned me that I was heading for trouble if I continued spending at my current rate.
I told him that I was re-engaged to Marigold because she was expecting my baby in September.
Parvez said, ‘I’m glad you’re doing the right thing. A kid needs a father, innit?’
My mother rang and said that she and my father had been talking about my engagement to Marigold non-stop for the past three days. She said, ‘We need to talk to you urgently, Adrian. Can we call round to Rat Wharf some time soon?’
Thursday February 20th
I never want to speak to either of my parents again. How dare they tell me how to live my life, who to marry and who to impregnate? I am thirty-four years old.
A thousand British paratroopers flew to Kuwait today, joining the 17,000 already there. I expect that this is only sabre-rattling on Mr Blair’s part. If Saddam doesn’t back down soon, over a quarter of the British Army will be deployed in Iraq.
Sharon rang to ask me if I thought there was definitely going to be a war. I reassured her that Saddam Hussein was bound to back down and admit that he had a vast stock of nuclear and biological weapons.
She asked me if there were sandflies in Kuwait and told me that when Glenn was young he was badly bitten by them on Skegness beach. I lied and told Sharon that there were very few sandflies in Kuwait.
Friday February 21st
My mother left a message on my voicemail, saying that she was sorry about her behaviour yesterday. She said, ‘I shouldn’t have said that Marigold is a manipulative hysteric who has worse dress sense than Princess Anne. If you want to go ahead and ruin your life, that’s fine by me.’ She ended by saying, ‘None of your family and friends can understand it, Adrian. They all think you must have gone off your head.’