Adrian Mole and The Weapons of Mass Destruction (10 page)

I said, ‘You’ve met Wayne Wong.’

She said, ‘That’s only because you like Chinese food and he gives you a 10 per cent discount.’ She went on, ‘When am I going to meet your parents?’

I said, ‘It wouldn’t be good for you, Marigold. They both chain-smoke.’

She said, ‘I could have a puff of my inhaler before being introduced.’

I was careful not to make a definite arrangement to see her again.

I was woken this morning by the sound of scaffolding poles being thrown into a lorry. The building next door
is due to open soon. As I walked past on my way to work, a sign was being erected above the door on what looked like a restaurant on the ground floor, the Casablanca.

I asked one of the scaffolders when it was due to open.

He said, ‘Two months ago.’

I find the cynicism of the British workman utterly depressing.

I sent a text to Brain-box Henderson, who is arranging the Neil Armstrong reunion, saying that I would be coming on Saturday night, and confirming that I would be prepared to pay £10 towards the buffet and the retirement gift for Miss Fossington-Gore.

Glenn rang to say that he had been posted to a secret location and was due to start his desert training.

When I asked him if he was in England, he said, ‘Yes. But I can’t say no more.’

He told me that Ryan was still threatening to beat me up.

I said sarcastically, ‘Thanks for telling me, Glenn.’

He replied, ‘That’s OK, Dad. I thought you ought to know.’ He put the phone down after saying, ‘Goodnight, God bless.’

For curiosity I dialled 1471 and a robot gave me a number, which I dialled. After a few rings a voice said, ‘Aldershot Barracks.’ So much for security!

*

It was a busy day in the shop. Some people have already started their Christmas shopping. I sold a copy of
A Christmas Carol
for £25 and Mr Carlton-Hayes bought a copy of
Scoop
for £30 from an old man who was selling his Waugh collection to pay his gas bill.

I asked Mr Carlton-Hayes about Michael Flowers’s aversion to Mexico. He laughed his gentle laugh and said that Flowers’s first wife, Conchita, had been Mexican, but she had failed to settle in Leicestershire and had eventually run back to Mexico City with a pork butcher from Melton Mowbray.

I didn’t know what to wear to the reunion. I rang Nigel for advice. He said, ‘Wear what you feel comfortable in, Moley.’

It wasn’t the moment to tell him that I never feel comfortable in any of my clothes. It isn’t a question of fit or texture; it is a question of style. Who am I? And what do I want to say about myself?

I asked Nigel what he was wearing and he said, ‘Paul Smith.’

I think Nigel is on to something. I ought to find a designer who matches my personality and stick to the one brand.

After a lot of dithering, I wore my Next navy suit, a white shirt and a red silk tie. I cut my fringe with the nail scissors and splashed myself liberally with Boss aftershave.

*

I picked Nigel up on the way. There was a frustrating wait while he stumbled around the granny annexe, ‘looking’ for his keys, coat and the white stick he has taken to using since he almost fell, Mr Magoo-like, into a workman’s trench. I made no attempt to help him, as I have often heard blind people on the radio going on about how much they resent other people doing things for them.

After long minutes of fruitless searching, Nigel said, ‘For Christ’s sake, Moley, give me a hand.’

In the car I told Nigel that it was time he got himself organized and that he must learn to put things in the same place so that he knows where to find them each time. I asked him how he was coping financially now that he apparently had no income.

He said that he was living on disability allowance. To cheer him up, I made a joke. I said, ‘So, it’s goodbye to Paul Smith of Covent Garden and hello to George at Asda, is it?’

Nigel didn’t even smile. He seems to have lost his sense of humour along with his sight.

I got him out of the car and escorted him across the car park and up to the school assembly hall. He kept dragging his feet and falling over his stick, and once he snapped, ‘For Christ’s sake, slow down. You’re dragging me along as if I’m a bag of rubbish.’

We were greeted at the door of the assembly hall by an old bald bloke wearing nerd glasses and a Norman Wisdom-type suit. It was Brain-box Henderson, who is an old fogey at thirty-five.

We paid our £10 and Henderson gave us raffle tickets in return. The first prize was a tour of the House of Commons and tea on the terrace with Pandora. Second prize was a first edition signed copy of
Aden Vole
by Barry Kent. Third prize was a giant teddy bear donated by Elizabeth Sally Stafford (née Broadway), who was now running her own interior design company.

Some of my former school mates had changed out of all recognition. Claire Neilson, who once had tangled blonde curls and luscious lips, was now a tense, twitchy woman who kept looking at her watch and wondering aloud if the children were in bed.

Craig Thomas waved from behind the double decks of his mobile disco, Funk Down Sounds. He was wearing a baseball cap, back to front. He was the only one dancing to Michael Jackson’s ‘Billy Jean’.

Barbara Bowyer and Victoria Louise Thomson were standing at the makeshift bar, slagging off the absent Pandora, saying that she had done nothing for women since she’d been in office.

When they saw me and Nigel, they screamed, ‘Aidy! Nige!’ And ran to embrace us. I asked Victoria Louise what she did for a living and she said, ‘I marry increasingly older men, darling.’

She is currently divorcing number three and planning to marry number four. Later on that night I heard her saying, ‘I can’t remember the last time I peeled a vegetable. I think it must have been 1995.’

Barbara Bowyer was easily the most beautiful woman in the room. She used to be the ward sister in the Coronary
Care Unit at the Royal Hospital, but she’s now training to be a heating engineer.

She said, ‘It’s still pipes, pumps and valves, but double the money.’

I said jokingly, ‘You can drain my pipe any time you like,’ but I don’t think she could have heard me, because she turned away and speared a chipolata with a toothpick.

A group of elderly people were sitting at a corner table. Claire said, ‘Just look at that lot. How come that collection of clapped-out geriatrics used to put the fear of God in us?’

The old people were our teachers: Miss Fossington-Gore (Geography), Mr Jones (PE), Miss Elf (Drama), Mr Dock (English). Sitting with them was the current headmaster, Roger Patience, who once predicted that Glenn ‘would never make anything of himself’.

Mr Dock was looking longingly towards the bar, so I beckoned him over and bought him half a pint. He was delighted to learn that I was working for Mr Carlton-Hayes.

‘I remember you, Mole,’ he said. ‘You were the only lad I ever taught who cried when Lenny murdered the girl in
Of Mice and Men
.’

Nigel said waspishly, ‘Moley cries at the drop of a hat. I caught him blubbering over a dead hamster in
Animal Hospital
one afternoon.’

When Mr Dock returned to his table, I joined him and talked to the teachers.

Mr Jones said that he did not remember me. I told
him that I was nearly always ill on PE days. He said, ‘But there were so many.’

I said, ‘It was my dog that ran off with the football in the last five minutes of the final of the inter-counties schools match between Leicestershire and Bedfordshire.’

‘Ah, yes, I do remember you now,’ said Jones. ‘You once brought a note to me purporting to be from your mother, “Adrian has got diarrhoea through holes in his shoes.”’

Oh, how the table of old educators laughed.

Mr Dock said, ‘Did he spell diarrhoea correctly?’

Jones said, ‘How would I know? I taught PE.’

By 9.30 the room had filled up a bit, the sandwiches on the buffet table had started to curl slightly at the sides and a few people were dancing to Boy George singing ‘Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?’

Nigel seemed to be the centre of attention. He was surrounded by sympathetic women offering to come to his annexe to clean and do his washing and ironing.

There was a hooting from the car park and Brain-box Henderson shouted over the music, ‘Come and see the new minibus.’

Kent was behind the wheel of a white minibus with his shaved head and leather jacket, from which hung heavy silver chains. A seven-foot-tall minder wearing a dark overcoat got out of the passenger seat and said to the small crowd, ‘Keep away from Mr Kent, please. He don’t like being touched. And no photos. He don’t want no publicity.’

Roger Patience was summoned and an awkward little
ceremony took place, during which Barry Kent handed over the keys and logbook.

The two men made startlingly hypocritical speeches.

Kent said that his days at Neil Armstrong Comprehensive had been the happiest of his life.

Patience said that Barry Kent had ‘by all accounts been a challenging but brilliant young man who had brought honour to the school’. Then he got behind the wheel of the minibus and started the engine.

Brain-box Henderson put his large head through the driver’s open window and said, ‘Mr Patience, have you passed the local authority minibus driving test?’

Patience admitted that he had not and took his foot off the accelerator.

Pandora rang me on my mobile to tell me that she was just coming up to Junction 21 and would be with us soon. She said, ‘Is there any food left? I’m fucking famished.’

I told her that the buffet had curled up and died and offered to take her out for a meal after she had performed her duties. She made a noncommittal sound and rang off.

I joined Wayne Wong, Parvez and Victoria Louise, who were smoking by the bike sheds in the playground. We had a good laugh about Brain-box Henderson’s shrunken suit, Miss Fossington-Gore’s beard and moustache, and Craig Thomas’s pathetic disco.

Pandora’s silver Saab turned into the car park, scattering gravel. I hurried over to open the driver’s door. She sat
in the car for a while, brushing her hair and applying lipstick.

I told her that she looked tired.

She said, ‘Gee, thanks.’

She joined the smokers by the bike sheds, saying, ‘I need a fag before I go inside and face the grizzly Fossington-Gore.’

Brain-box Henderson hurried over and advised Pandora to keep her tribute to Miss Fossington-Gore short as they were running late and the caretaker wanted to have the hall cleared by 11.

Pandora said, ‘No probs.’ She stubbed her Benson’s out on a bike rack and we went inside.

‘Sexual Healing’ had drawn people on to the dance floor. There was an excited murmur when Pandora made her entrance, and Roger Patience broke off from fawning over Barry Kent to go forward and greet Pandora, and to formally welcome her back to the school.

Brain-box Henderson hurried to the mobile disco and asked Craig Thomas to turn Marvin Gaye off. He then tapped on the side of a wine glass with a fork and silence fell.

Brain-box then led Pandora, Roger Patience and Miss Fossington-Gore on to the stage, where there was a Formica table on which stood a large gift-wrapped box.

There was a lot of clapping and whistling, and Barry Kent made a yee-haw sound, like a cowboy riding a bucking bronco at a rodeo.

Roger Patience went on about Pandora, telling the audience that she spoke five languages fluently, including
Russian and Mandarin (as if we didn’t know!), that she got a double first at Oxford, that she was the Labour member for Ashby de la Zouch and that she was a junior minister in the Department of the Environment. He said these were all great achievements, but he was sure that Pandora’s greatest triumphs were yet to come – that the
Daily Telegraph
had hinted recently that Pandora could well be Britain’s first woman Labour prime minister – ‘So, Gordon Brown watch out!’

There was polite laughter. Then Pandora, looking magnificent in a tailored Lauren Bacall jacket and what looked like men’s trousers, addressed us. She started, ‘Let me make it absolutely clear that without the guidance and inspirational teaching of Miss Fossington-Gore I would not be here today – at least, not in my capacity as Member of Parliament and Junior Minister. It was Miss Fossington-Gore who said, on hearing of my ambition to be a catwalk model for the House of Balenciaga, “Oh, I’m sure we can do a little better than that, dear.”’

Miss Fossington-Gore bowed her head modestly.

Pandora blabbed on mostly about herself and her achievements for another five minutes. Then she handed the gift-wrapped box to Miss Fossington-Gore and said, ‘I’m sure this will look lovely on your mantelpiece. May the hours and minutes it records of your retirement be precious.’

Miss Fossington-Gore took a small handkerchief from under the cuff of her cardigan suit and said, ‘The class of ’83 was quite remarkable. Not only did it have Pandora Braithwaite, it also had Barry Kent. And let us not forget Adrian Mole, whose TV series,
Offally Good!
, I quite
enjoyed. I would, before I open my present, like to say a few words about Nigel.’ She gestured towards Nigel, who was sitting down with his white stick held in front of him like those old blokes in Greek cafés. ‘Nigel has been terrifically brave since suffering severe sight impairment.’

I looked across at Nigel and saw him swearing under his breath. There was a huge round of applause and stamping and cheering for Nigel’s bravery.

Then Miss Fossington-Gore, who is a vegan and who lives alone in a one-bedroom flat, painstakingly opened her present and found a George Foreman family-size grill. However, good breeding and a lifetime of repressing her true feelings saved the day, and she gave a gracious little speech thanking the assembled company for their kindness and generosity.

When told what the present was, Nigel gave a bitter laugh and said, ‘Will it fit her mantelpiece?’

Barry Kent was invited on to the stage to draw the raffle. He turned a simple task into something akin to lighting the Olympic flame. Claire Neilson, who had gone home to check on her children, won the giant teddy bear. By a cruel irony, the second prize was won by Nigel, and the first prize was won, to Pandora’s considerable disgust, by Brain-box Henderson.