Adrian Mole and The Weapons of Mass Destruction (33 page)

To lighten the conversation I told them about Maz.

Nigel said, ‘He should have looked before crossing the road.’

I said that this was undoubtedly true but that he could at least show some compassion.

Maz’s shrine has grown to a size that is surely disproportionate to the youth’s age and popularity.

According to the headline in this evening’s local paper:

Maz Died a Hero’s Death

Young hero dies on Gran mercy mission. Martin Forster (Maz) died while on a mercy mission to buy new batteries for his grandmother’s hearing aid, the grieving family revealed today.

The shrine is proving to be a bit of a nuisance. It is blocking the entrance to the bookshop and the books from the Mortimer estate are due to be delivered this morning.

I asked the policewoman who was on duty by the shrine if the flowers could be moved along the pavement a little. She accused me of having no respect for the dead.

When she went off duty I pushed the shrine a few feet along, nearer to Habitat’s window. I’m sure Maz won’t mind.

There was a new poem pinned to a ragged teddy bear.

God was short of an angel, so he took Maz from this earth.

God, he said, ‘I want a lad who has been good and kind since birth.’

So when you look at a starry sky

And think of Maz, and cry,

Weep not, but see that shooting star, it’s our angel going by.

Night, night, son

Love from Mam, Dad and your devoted pets, Rex, Whiskey and Soda

I wept over this grossly mawkish poem.

I have cancelled tonight’s writers’ group due to rat activity, Gary Milksop’s litigation against me and general despondency about life.

Ken Blunt said on the phone that he was sick of the way the writers’ group was being run and offered to take over the chairman’s role.

My life is very slowly falling apart. I have signed another of the Barclaycard loan cheques and paid it into my account. I think, but I’m not sure, that I am now hopelessly in debt.

Before leaving for work I rang the War Office and left a message on their voicemail, asking if Mr Hoon had received my letter regarding Private Glenn Bott-Mole.

CCTV footage of me moving the flower shrine was shown on
Midlands Today
, at 6 p.m., and the
Ashby Bugle
ran the headline, ‘Callous Shopkeeper Disturbs Shrine’.

The article stated:

Ex-celebrity chef, Adrian Mole, thirty-five, was accused by a grieving family today of being heartless and despicable. ‘We are gutted and devastated,’ they said. Nathan Silver, a professor of anthropology from Loughborough University, said, ‘Disturbing a sacred shrine that honours the dead is taboo in every culture worldwide.’

Marigold rang and shrieked, ‘Mummy said you’re on the front page of the paper for vandalizing a grave. Everyone hates you.’

I told her that it was page five, and that it was not a grave but a shrine, and I said I would entirely understand if she wanted nothing more to do with me.

She said, ‘No, you’re still the father of my child. It’s important that we keep in touch.’

Michael Flowers came on the phone and asked me to drive Marigold and Netta to Birmingham Airport. ‘Their flight leaves at 6.10 tomorrow morning. So you’ll need to be at Beeby on the Wold by 4 a.m., at the latest.’

I heard myself agreeing to this.

I rose at 3 a.m., showered, dressed, beat Gielgud away from the driver’s door of my car and drove to Beeby on the Wold.

There was a small mountain of luggage on the
doorstep, which I loaded into the boot. Then Marigold emerged from the house, helped by Michael Flowers, who was still in his plaid dressing-gown.

Marigold was wearing a smock-type thing, what looked like maternity trousers and the Birkenstocks. Netta was similarly attired. During the journey to Birmingham Airport, Netta and Marigold talked between themselves about how unfair it was that women have to carry a baby inside them for nine months. They then discussed what the baby would be called and decided between them that Rowan would suit both sexes. I was not consulted.

Netta had requested that a wheelchair be available to take Marigold to the aircraft. While this was being arranged, the check-in clerk asked me, for insurance purposes, what was wrong with Marigold. I answered, truthfully, that I didn’t know.

As I watched the plane hurtle down the runway and throw itself into the sky, I felt my spirits rise, and on the return journey my rear-view mirror told me that I looked ten years younger. For the first time in my life, I forgot to be frightened and drove at 70 miles an hour down the fast lane of the M6.

Later in the morning I was introduced to Bernard Hopkins. He is tall and stooped and has an egg-shaped head flanked by tufts of lifeless black hair. The capillaries carrying the blood around his face appeared to be making their way to the surface and some were in danger of bursting. He seemed exasperated by life. He appeared
to be slightly drunk and was smoking a cigarette. Mr Carlton-Hayes normally bans smoking in the front of the shop, but Hopkins seems to have carte blanche to do anything he likes. He is possibly the rudest man I have ever met. On being introduced to me he said, ‘You’ve got the look of a nancy boy about you. Are you a poof?’

Mr Carlton-Hayes, surely the most gentlemanly of gentlemen, watches Hopkins with obvious delight, as a besotted parent might watch a precocious toddler – whereas I long to take Hopkins’s baggy corduroy trousers down and give him a few hard smacks on the back of his legs.

Still, he knows his stuff and he loves books. He almost fainted with pleasure when he found a three-volume set of the Andrews & Blake 1807 first American edition of Boswell’s
Life of Samuel Johnson
. He showed them to me and said, ‘Take a gander at these, cocker. You don’t get many of these to the kilo.’ He drew his hands across the volumes muttering, ‘Original full-gilt-stamped diamond-patterned Moroccan, complete with portrait and folding facsimiles.’

It was like an incantation. I hope to be fluent in bookselling jargon one day. I asked him how much the set was worth.

He said, ‘A kosher punter might spring a monkey, cocker.’

I’ve no idea what Bernard is talking about half the time.

He asked me to join him for a drink at lunchtime, so we went to the Dog and Duck around the corner. He was horrified when I ordered a still Malvern water.

He said, ‘Why come into a pub, cocker? Why not stay at work and stick your head under the cold tap in the bog?’

I found myself telling Bernard about my spiralling debts.

He said that he had been pursued by creditors since he was a young man at Oxford.

Hopkins is supposed to be cataloguing the Mortimer collection, which is now stacked in the back room, but he keeps wandering into the front of the shop.

A pretty medical student came in today looking for a cheap copy of
Gray’s Anatomy
. I was showing her the three copies we had in stock when Bernard Hopkins shoved his nose in and started questioning the competency of women doctors.

‘It was a bint doctor killed my old mother,’ he said. ‘The bint was too bloody busy with her lipstick and sanitary towels to give my poor old mum the expert medical attention she deserved.’

The medical student was clearly taken aback by this assault on her sex and left the shop empty-handed.

When I remonstrated with Hopkins, he said in a choked-up voice, ‘My mother was a saint. I lived with her until she was ninety-six, and do you know, Adrian, she washed my handkerchiefs by hand, rinsed them in rosewater and ironed them so that they came to a point. Every morning she would take one from the drawer and
put it into the breast pocket of my jacket before I went to work.’

He took a scruffy tissue from his trouser pocket and wiped his eyes before continuing, ‘She was still beautiful at ninety-six. She didn’t have a single wrinkle on her lovely face, and her hair was jet black.
Jet black
at ninety-six.’

I said, ‘Bernard, you seem to have idealized your mother. It’s obvious that behind your back she dyed her hair.’

He flew into a rage, and when Mr Carlton-Hayes came out of the back office to find out what all the shouting was about, Bernard accused me of calling his mother a harlot.

I told Mr Carlton-Hayes that I had only suggested that Bernard’s mother dyed her hair.

Mr Carlton-Hayes said, ‘Oh, the famous black hair.’ He raised one eyebrow but said no more.

What is it with old men and handkerchiefs?

Good Friday (Bank Holiday UK, Canada and Australia)

Glenn is eighteen today. I hope to God that he is not sent to Iraq. My nerves won’t stand the daily agony of wondering where he is and what he’s doing.

So far the Iraqis have not thrown rose petals in front of the coalition forces’ tanks. On the contrary, there has been widespread looting, pillaging and armed resistance. Mr Blair’s liberation is their invasion.

Easter Saturday

The bad publicity about the shrine has affected trade in the shop. My mother thinks that I should associate myself with a charity. Ivan has recently been diagnosed with epilepsy. She suggested that I hold a charity auction in aid of Canine Epilepsy Research.

She said, ‘If you want to win the hearts and minds of the British people, you need to be photographed with a dog.’

I went round to see Nigel and asked him if I could be photographed with his blind dog, Graham.

Nigel snapped, ‘Graham is not a blind dog. A blind dog would be no fucking use to me, would it? Graham is a guide dog, and no, you’re not exploiting him for the sake of your poxy public image.’

I didn’t mind too much; Graham is not a very attractive dog. He’s the only Golden Labrador I’ve ever seen with a squint and stumpy legs.

Nigel said that Graham is the only creature he has ever truly loved.

Easter Sunday

My home entertainment centre blew up this morning, preventing me following the progress of the war. I am hungry for every scrap of information and every picture
of the war. Last night I thought I saw Glenn riding on an armoured vehicle, but I may have been mistaken. I phoned Brain-box Henderson and asked him if he gave advice over the telephone. He offered to call round. I said, ‘Brain-box, I can’t afford you. Just give me some cheap advice over the phone.’

He said, ‘I’m at a bit of a loose end, Moley. I’ll come round and do an onsite appraisal, FOC. Perhaps we can have a spot of lunch later? My golf club do a decent roast and four veg.’

The prospect of spending most of the day with Brain-box Henderson filled me with dread, but I had worked out what FOC meant, and if he could reconnect me to the outside world free of charge, I judged it to be a price worth paying.

Brain-box turned up at 11.30, dressed for the golf course in a sweater similar to the one my father had given me for my birthday. I made some fresh coffee and talked to him while he disentangled the cables and rewired the plugs. He said, ‘You’re running too many plugs from the one socket and it’s overheated.’

I laughed mirthlessly, and said, ‘You’ve just described my life, perfectly.’

Brain-box, ignoring my philosophizing, said, ‘All you need is a good multi-socket extension; I’ve got one in the car.’

When he had got everything working, we watched CNN for a while. I felt my chest constrict and my palms sweat when footage was shown of British soldiers patrolling the streets of Basra.

I asked Brain-box if he had any children. He automatically
made the usual male joke, and said, ‘None that I know of.’ Then his face twitched a bit and he said, ‘I’d love to have a kid, but the girl I wanted to have them with left me standing at the altar. I’m not like you, Moley; I’m not very good with women.’

I said, ‘Brain-box, I’m disastrous with women. My romantic life is a shambles.’

Brain-box said, ‘But you’re marrying one of the loveliest women I’ve ever met.’

I said, ‘Haven’t you heard? The wedding is off.’

He said, ‘I’d heard it was rocky, but I didn’t know it was officially off. Does that mean that Marigold’s free?’

I said, making a small joke, ‘She’s not free, Brain-box. She’s cost me a fortune.’

Brain-box said quietly, ‘Money’s no problem; I’ve got nobody to spend it on but myself.’

We called in at the Piggeries on the way to the Fair Green Golf Club to pick up my father’s clubs. My mother and Animal were in the tent with all the flaps down when we arrived. When she eventually stumbled outside, I asked her what she’d been doing.

She said, ‘Animal was helping me de-flea the dog. I’m glad to see you wearing your dad’s birthday present, but isn’t your hair a bit long for a golfing jumper?’

The roof is on the first pigsty. My mother is certainly getting her money’s worth out of Animal.

The Fair Green Golf Club is sandwiched between the heavy haulage distribution centre near junction 20 of the
M1 and the new, windowless business park. Brain-box was a little scornful about my father’s golf clubs – he said that they were almost museum pieces – but I dragged them around the eighteen-hole course and they served me well enough. I didn’t disgrace myself; I was only sixty over par, which is not bad for a total beginner.

As we sat down to a tepid and soggy very late lunch, Brain-box said, ‘It’s nice to have friendly company for a change. You’re the next best thing to a woman, Moley.’

I looked around the dining room in the club house and said, ‘I’ve just realized what’s wrong: there are no women in here.’

‘No,’ said Brain-box. ‘They’re not allowed in at the weekend.’

I told him that if he wanted to meet women he should hang around wine bars or the patisserie counter in Sainsbury’s.

He said, ‘I do all my shopping online. And anyway, I’ve met the girl I want to marry.’ He blushed, hacked at a piece of dried-up Yorkshire pudding and said, ‘It’s Marigold.’

‘My Marigold!’ I said.

‘She’s not your Marigold now, is she?’ he said.