Adrian Mole and The Weapons of Mass Destruction (21 page)

Brain-box Henderson unfroze the plasma screen and Marlon Brando’s bum began to gyrate and Mia Fox left.

Brain-box showed me how to use the remote several times, but I couldn’t concentrate properly. I was too aware of Mia Fox’s hypersensitive nerves.

I asked Brain-box if he could modulate the sound in any way.

He looked at me as though I was mad and said, ‘You can’t have quiet sound nowadays, Moley. THX is here to stay.’

He offered to drive Nigel home, which saved me a job. I was glad to see the back of them.

I got undressed and lay on my futon and tried to stifle a cough. I was conscious that Mia Fox was lying above me and that a coughing fit could keep her awake and thus cause a mid-air collision.

On re-reading this entry I realize that I should have written ‘Brando butter’ rather than ‘brandy butter’.

I have been very ill for the past five days. At one point (Friday 17th at 3 p.m.) it was touch and go whether I would be admitted to hospital with a severe upper respiratory infection.

Dr Ng’s receptionist said Dr Ng could not come out to me because I had moved out of his practice area. She said, ‘You should find yourself another primary healthcare centre.’

I asked her what a primary healthcare centre was.

She said, ‘It’s a doctor’s surgery.’

I was in no condition to drag myself around the primary healthcare centres of Leicester and ask to be taken on to their books.

I rang NHS Direct and the nurse on the end of the line said, ‘You could send for an ambulance, but why don’t you have a Lemsip and tuck yourself up in bed and see what happens, dear?’

I chose the Lemsip option, but, as I said, it was touch and go.

Eventually Mr Carlton-Hayes came to my rescue by asking his next-door neighbour, Dr Sparrow, to visit me on a private basis. Sparrow was very kind, but his prescription, which was also written on a private basis, cost me £30 at the BUPA pharmacy. I asked if they accepted credit cards, and the pharmacist said, ‘Yes, but we add a 5 per cent surcharge for admin costs.’

Nigel and Brain-box Henderson have both been laid low by the virus, which is suspected to have originated
in Indonesia from intensive prawn breeding. Globalization is a double-edged sword.

In my absence, Leslie has been helping out at the shop. I hope he/she is only a temporary helper. Why can’t I frankly and fearlessly hit the nail on the head, seize the pig by its tail and simply ask Mr Carlton-Hayes if Leslie is a man or a woman?

I was thrilled to receive a text from Daisy today:

Dear Mr Kipling, Hear through the Leicester grapevine that you have been tossing and turning in your bed. Sounds like fun. Love French Fancy.

Dear French Fancy, Wish your buns were in my oven. Mr Kipling.

I managed to crawl into the shower today. Daisy texted:

Dear Kipling, My muffin is moist. French Fancy.

After hours of racking my brains, I rang my father, who is an expert on Mr Kipling’s cakes. He gave me a comprehensive list of Kipling products. Throughout my childhood, there were at least three boxes of miniature cakes a week in our cupboard.

He said, ‘Right, let me light a fag.’ I heard him sucking on one of his filthy cigarettes, then he said, ‘Have you got pen and paper?’

I told him I had.

‘Right,’ he said again, ‘you’ve got your Mini Batten-bergs, French Fancies, Iced Fancies, Coconut Classics, Butterfly Cakes, Toffee and Pecan Muffins, Apple and Custard Pie. Then there’s your mother’s favourite, Apple and Blackcurrant Pie. Then you’ve got Jam Tarts, Strawberry Sundaes, Cherry Bakewells, Almond Slices, Country Slices, Bakewell Slices, Angel Slices.’

I heard my mother shouting from the field, ‘Caramel Shortcakes, Viennese Fingers, Flapjacks and Chocolate Slices.’

My father shouted back, ‘The boy rang me, Pauline. Why do you always have to muscle in?’

My mother shouted defiantly, ‘Blueberry Muffins and Apple Pies.’

I know how my father feels. My ex-wife Jo Jo always finished my sentences for me.

Dear French Fancy, I would like to batten your berg. Kipling.

Another text from Daisy:

Dear Mr Kipling, I’m a bit of a Bakewell tart. Do you want to eat the cherry on my muffin? Love French Fancy.

Dear FF. Yes. K.

An invitation arrived this morning. It said:

Please join us on Sunday February 2nd 2003
from 4 p.m. at the Hoxton Gallery, London N1,
to preview a new exhibition of faecal paintings
by Catherine Leidensteiner.

Somebody had scribbled in the bottom left-hand corner in thick black ink ‘PTO’. I turned the card over and read, ‘Please come. It should be a hoot!!! French Fancy.’

Surely faecal paintings was a misprint and it should have read foetal paintings?

I RSVPed by ringing the number given and leaving a message of acceptance with a robot.

I almost won £5,000 today! My newsagent had run out of the quality Sundays so I was forced to read the scandal rags. The sex in them stuck in my throat, but in a moment
of boredom I opened an envelope that had been inserted inside the colour supplement. It said, ‘If you tear open this fortune bag, will you find a platinum ticket inside worth £10,000 cash?’ I opened the envelope. It said, ‘CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE FOUND A GOLDEN TICKET!’

I was slightly disappointed, as gold is less valuable than platinum.

With this ticket you have been awarded one of the gifts listed!

£5,000 cash

32” Sony TV/DVD/video player

Your mortgage paid for one year

Holiday to Cyprus

£250 B&Q gift vouchers

Credit card paid up to £2,500

£450 of British hotel weekend break accommodation

vouchers

£125 worth of Woolworths vouchers

£300 cash payment

A Lake Windermere cruise

Six months’ supply of Supreme Kutz Kat Food

Game code 29801.

To claim your gift, call the hotline and you’ll be informed which gift you’ve won from those listed. Your game code refers to which of the gifts you can claim. At the end of the call you’ll be given a personal claim number. This is very important! Write this number below and complete the rest of the details and send it to the address shown.

If you haven’t got a phone, you can apply for a claim number and then play by post (see below).

To claim your gift you must include:

1. This ticket

2. Claim number

3. A 20p coin or first-class stamp

Without these items we cannot send your gift or notification.

I will cut to the chase. After a telephone call lasting six and a half minutes, during which an overexcited man repeated what I had already read, he informed me that I had won six months’ supply of cat food. However, he cautioned me to remember that I might be sharing my prize with other lucky winners. I decided not to post a claims form, mainly because I haven’t got a cat and never intend to get one.

I saw a scruffy man on the towpath this morning. He was wearing a dark jacket on which was pinned a post office badge. He was carrying a bundle of letters in his hand. Assuming he was a postman, I told him my name and address and asked him if he had any post for me.

Unfortunately he spoke very little English. I asked him where he came from.

‘I am Albania man, David Beckham good, Manchester United good,’ he said enthusiastically, sticking up his thumbs.

I stuck my thumbs up in return and carried on walking to work.

Gielgud barred my way on the towpath this morning. He wouldn’t let me pass. I was forced to climb the chain link fence to the MFI car park and walk to work the long way.

The authorities should be informed. He is a clear and present danger.

Mr Carlton-Hayes and I spent most of the afternoon moving furniture around, so as to accommodate the readers’ club, which holds its first meeting tonight. Four people had put their name down – a modest number, but these are early days.

Lorraine Harris turned up first. She is stunningly beautiful, black and owns her own hair salon. While I was making the coffee I told her that my ex-wife, Jo Jo, was Nigerian. Lorraine looked at me and said, ‘So?’ I hope she’s not going to be difficult.

Melanie Oates’s first words to me were, ‘I’m only a housewife.’ She said she had joined the group because she wanted to help her children with their ‘prospects’.

Darren Birdsall had put on a suit, shirt and tie for the occasion. I was very touched. He reminded me that the
last time I saw him was on Christmas Eve, when he’d been drunk and wearing his plasterer’s clothes.

‘So you were half plastered,’ I said.

He smiled politely.

Mohammed Udeen works for the Alliance and Leicester. He said that reading was his main love after his wife and children.

We were settled in a comfortable semicircle around the fire with cups of coffee or glasses of juice when Marigold tapped on the shop door. I went to the door and told her that I was about to begin a very important meeting and couldn’t talk.

She said, ‘But I’ve come to join the readers’ club. Let me in.’

I didn’t want to have a scene on the doorstep, so I let her in and she went and sat down in my vacant chair.

I fetched another chair out of the back room, but it was the one with the wobbly leg and I was slightly uncomfortable for the rest of the evening.

Mr Carlton-Hayes led the discussion by talking about the nature of totalitarian governments. According to him,
Animal Farm
is about the old Soviet Union and Stalinism. When Mr Carlton-Hayes said that the carthorse, Boxer, represented the Trades Union Congress, Darren said, ‘I thought Boxer was just an ’orse.’

Mr Carlton-Hayes patiently explained to Darren what a metaphor was.

Darren quickly grasped the idea and surprised us all by saying, ‘So when I’ve plastered a wall and I’m, like, looking at it, and it’s all lovely and smooth, and I think
that the wall is like a deep still lake without a ripple on it, that’s a metaphor, is it?’

Mr Carlton-Hayes said, ‘Not exactly. That’s a simile. But if you’d said that a freshly plastered wall was a newborn baby waiting to be clothed, you’d be using a metaphor.’

The ‘housewife’, Melanie Oates, wanted to know if
Animal Farm
was a good or a bad book.

Mr Carlton-Hayes said that books could not be judged by moral standards, and that it was up to the individual reader to make that judgement.

Lorraine said that she thought the pigs, Napoleon and Snowball, were nightmares who sold out the other animals while feathering their own nests.

Darren asked, ‘Is feathering a nest a metaphor?’

And when Mohammed confirmed that it was, there was a ripple of applause from the group.

Marigold listened in silence mostly and then, after Darren said the sheep in the book were like
Sun
readers, she burst into a passionate defence of Mr Jones, the cruel, drunken farmer.

I didn’t know where to put my face.

She continued, ‘Farmer Jones is obviously heading for a nervous breakdown and has probably suffered from a stress-related illness for many years. And remember Mrs Jones. She deserted him at the beginning of the book. No wonder he took to drink. And I don’t see why Farmer Jones shouldn’t have made a profit out of the animals. I mean, they are only animals.’

There was a silence of the sort that is often described by lesser writers as stunned.

Eventually Darren said, ‘I reckon it’s like what’s happened to the Labour Party. Four legs good, two legs better – Socialism good, New Labour better.’

Mohammed asked, ‘If the sheep are Labour MPs, which animal in the book is Gordon Brown?’

At the end of the session, Mr Carlton-Hayes said, ‘You didn’t have much to say, Adrian.’

I said, ‘I didn’t want to dominate the proceedings.’

But the truth was, diary, that I remembered
Animal Farm
as being simply a book about animals on a farm.

After the meeting Darren stayed behind, talking to Mr Carlton-Hayes about other Orwell books, and I was forced to drive Marigold home because the last bus to Beeby on the Wold had left hours before.

I asked why she had come down on the side of the oppressor rather than the oppressed.

She said, ‘Farmer Jones and Daddy have a lot in common.’

I said, ‘I thought your father was a man of the left.’

She said, ‘Not any more. In the shop today he said anyone who is a socialist over the age of thirty is a damn fool.’

When I let her out of the car I warned her that she mustn’t in future rely on me for a lift home. I said, ‘We’re finished, Marigold. That means we don’t meet socially.’

She covered her ears with her hands and said, ‘I’m not hearing you.’

Michael Flowers appeared at the front door in his bedtime-kaftan, and I drove off.

Went round to the granny annexe to read
Private Eye
to Nigel.

He said, ‘You don’t understand half of what you’re reading, do you, Moley?’

I had to admit that I didn’t.

He said, ‘Pick a novel that you think you’d enjoy reading and bring it next time you come.’

When we were sharing a bottle of Japanese beer he asked me if I knew that Iain Duncan Smith’s great-grandmother was Japanese.

I said, ‘No, but I always thought there was something of the Orient about him.’

Nigel said, ‘I wonder if he is genetically predisposed to liking sushi or is any good at origami.’

I told Nigel that he shouldn’t fall into the racial-stereotype trap.

Nigel said, ‘Oh, shut your gob, you repressed English wanker.’

The next readers’ club book is
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë.

Glenn rang to say that he is still in Cyprus but his unit has been confined to barracks because of the fighting
between soldiers and the local Cypriot youth. He said he can now receive parcels from home.