Adrian Mole and The Weapons of Mass Destruction (41 page)

Nobody was hurt, nobody was killed,

There was only collateral damage.

I said he needed to improve the punctuation and pointed out that he had used the word ‘torn’ twice. I also suggested he finish the poem with a few lines of explanation. But Ken said the reader would work it out.

We worked on the poem together, the raddled old men occasionally shouting comments across the pub floor. The sight of pens and paper seemed to excite them.

One shouted in a reedy voice, ‘What’s that you’re writing, Ken, your will?’

Ken said, ‘No, it’s a poem, Jack.’

Jack laughed and piped, ‘Eh up, watch out, lads. Watch your arses: we’ve gorra Oscar Wilde ’ere.’

Ken’s face darkened. He said, ‘Ask my missus if I’m a puff, an’ if you don’t believe her, ask my girlfriend.’

Everyone laughed, but I wondered how long it would be before somebody told Ken’s wife, Glenda, that Ken had been in the Navigation bragging about his girlfriend. Leicester is a one-street village when it comes to gossip.

Nobody Hurt by Ken Blunt

A bomb was dropped on a house in Iraq.

A family were sleeping.

But, thank Christ, no civilians were hurt or killed.

Or burned alive, or torn apart by the bomblets from the mother bomb.

Nobody’s legs were blown from their sockets,

Nobody was blinded,

Nobody’s child bled to death,

Nobody’s husband suffocated in the rubble.

Nobody’s baby choked on its own vomit,

Nobody’s wife died in a huddle in the corner of a room.

Nobody’s old mother screamed in terror and pain.

It was not a bomb, it was ordnance.

It was not a war, it was a conflict.

Nobody was hurt, nobody was killed,

There was only collateral damage.

For the rest of the evening we talked about women. Ken told me that the woman in Nottingham was not just a ‘fancy woman’. He said that he had been in love with her for four years. He said, ‘I’ve got a bad heart. What if I drop down dead at work, who would tell her? She wouldn’t come to my funeral, would she?’

I offered to be the intermediary between Ken and the woman in Nottingham and if necessary accompany her to Ken’s funeral.

Ken cheered up and said, ‘If there’s anything I can do for you in the same line, let me know.’

I told him that my troubles were financial and spiritual, but I thanked him anyway.

I decided to write to the Keeper of the Swans.

To the Keeper of the Swans

Unit 4

Windsor Castle

The Old Battery Factory

Windsor
SL
4

Rat Wharf

Grand Union Canal

Leicester
LE
1

July 15th 2003

Dear Keeper of the Swans

I am writing to you regarding a gang of swans that habitually congregate on the towpath below my loft apartment. I know that the collective noun for swans is FLOCK, however, their conduct and behaviour is delinquent and to describe them as a gang seems more appropriate. This gang of swans, led by a large cob I call Gielgud, constantly intimidate passers-by and visitors to my apartment.

I am as fond of wildlife as the next man, indeed I once worked for the Department of the Environment as a Senior Newt Development Officer, but I’m of the opinion that when it comes to the crunch, human beings must take precedence.

I am therefore making a formal request that the swans be moved to another site, although in Gielgud’s case I think culling may be a more suitable option, as he is quite clearly a psychopath.

I fear that Gielgud will never understand that since Mr Prescott’s liberalization of the brownfield sites, many more
canalside developments will be built and that swans and humans must learn to coexist peacefully.

I welcome an early reply to my letter. The situation is desperate, and I am here under siege. I’m sure you know that a swan can break a man’s arm.

Yours faithfully

A. A. Mole

PS I’m sure you will agree with me that should a human fatality occur, Her Majesty the Queen could end up in court. She is, after all, the owner of all the swans in England, and as such bears a heavy responsibility for their conduct.

The stag party boarded the plane to Dublin at 5 p.m. Brain-box quickly got drunk on two glasses of complimentary Pomagne. He took a pair of gargantuan plastic breasts out of his overnight bag and walked up and down the aisle displaying them to the other, mostly irritated, passengers. The stewardess asked him several times to sit down, and when he refused she threatened to ask the Captain to turn the plane round and return to East Midlands Airport.

As the best man, I had to take charge of the situation, and led Brain-box back to his own seat.

Michael Flowers said to me, ‘Bruce is such fun. He and Marigold share a sense of humour.’

I said, ‘I can’t see what is funny about a grown man sporting plastic breasts.’

Flowers said, ‘It’s a lusty English tradition.’

*

Michael Flowers led the party around Dublin. Craig Thomas and I took it in turns to guide Nigel, Brain-box was supported by his other friends from the Lawnmower Racing Club that he belongs to.

The club secretary, a fat bloke called Brian, said, ‘People call us Grass-Heads.’

Nigel muttered under his breath, ‘And some people call you dickheads.’

It is surprising what you find out about people on such occasions. I didn’t know that Brain-box raced lawn-mowers for a hobby.

The Shelbourne Hotel wouldn’t let us in, but Nigel threatened to call Radio Eire and report that they were refusing to serve a drink to a blind man, so they let him in and he stayed there for the rest of the evening. I was glad to be rid of him.

Had I been on my own, I would have enjoyed following in the footsteps of James Joyce, but as it was, I followed behind Brain-box, who was now wearing a large plastic arse and telling indifferent Dubliners that he was marrying the most beautiful girl in the world on Saturday.

We ended up in the bar of the Bridge Hotel overlooking the Liffey. Michael Flowers got into a row with the barman when he tried to buy a round of drinks using punts he has had since 1989.

Fergal, the barman, said reasonably enough, ‘We only take euros at this bar, sir.’

Flowers started to denounce the European Union, shouting that the Irish had sacrificed their glorious past
and were now on their knees, genuflecting not to the Pope but to the bureaucrats in Brussels.

Fergal said, ‘I wouldn’t know about that, sir.’

Fortunately, at that moment, Brain-box collapsed on the table, spilling Guinness and scattering salted peanuts on his way. With Craig Thomas’s help, I carried him up to his room, undressed him and put him to bed. I was interested to see that he was wearing red silk boxer shorts on which was embroidered ‘Caution: Contains Weapon of Mass Destruction’.

Craig Thomas said, ‘Brain-box is hung like a donkey. Don’t you remember him in the showers at school?’

I said that fortunately time had eroded the memory.

Nigel, whom I was supposed to be sharing a room with, stumbled in at breakfast after I had spent a virtually sleepless night waiting for him to return. He said, ‘I met a delicious beast called John Harvey.’

I said, ‘What does he look like?’

‘I d’no,’ said Nigel, ‘but he felt good.’

Brain-box and the lawnmower racers were very quiet on the plane home, and Michael Flowers was nursing a spectacular black eye.

I was back at work by eleven. Mr Carlton-Hayes said that the imam from the mosque in Pandora’s constituency had been in and bought ten copies of
Out of the Box
as a gesture of solidarity.

*

Went to Parvez’s house straight after work.

Parvez said, ‘I’ve spoken to the Inland Revenue this morning, Moley, and it ain’t good news, man.’

I felt an artery constrict in my neck as I waited for what he was going to say next.

‘When you was cheffing for Peter Savage at Hoi Polloi, how much tax did you pay?’

I told him that my wages were paid somewhat erratically. Peter Savage, a habitual drunk and cocaine sniffer, used to snatch a fistful of banknotes from the till at the end of the week and hand them over to me, often without counting them.

‘And you didn’t pay no tax?’ checked Parvez.

‘No,’ I admitted.

‘And Savage didn’t pay no tax on your behalf?’ Parvez asked.

‘Savage was incapable of speech most of the time,’ I said.

‘’Cos they ain’t got records, the Inland Revenue estimated your earnings at £1,000 a week,’ Parvez said.

‘Never!’ I shouted, ‘I earned a pittance. I lived above the restaurant. I had a deep-freeze cabinet as a bedside table.’

Parvez said, ‘Yeah, but Hoi Polloi was a celebrity hangout and you was a top London chef, Moley.’

‘I defrosted offal!’ I protested.

‘Well, you’re under investigation by the Special Tax Squad, so you’d better find some sort of records,’ Parvez said. ‘Ain’t you got a diary for them years?’

I explained to Parvez that my diary had been destroyed when the house burned down in 1998.

Fatima came in with two cups of coffee and told Parvez
she had been reading through the Koran and couldn’t find the bit that said that women couldn’t work part-time as school dinner ladies.

I drank my coffee and quickly left before Fatima started canvassing my opinion.

When I was driving home I realized that I hadn’t faced the full horror of my tax situation. I rang Parvez on my mobile and asked how much I owed.

But Parvez said, ‘I can’t talk now, I’m in the middle of a domestic. Come and see me tomorrow night.’

Some of the things Ken said on Monday night are bothering me, diary.

Mr Bush proclaims that America is fighting for democracy and the rule of law, yet 608 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are there without trial. The false claim that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium from Niger. The fact that Hans Blix, the weapons inspector, is certain that Weapons of Mass Destruction do not exist. And what Glenn tells me about the anarchy on the streets of Basra.

I am low physically and mentally. Parvez is to blame, though it is not his fault. I have brought disaster on my own head. I can hardly bear to hold the pen and write these words down, but I must face the unpalatable truth. Apart from my mortgage, I
repeat
, apart from my mortgage, I owe
£119,791
!

I knew something was wrong when Fatima opened the
door to me. She could not look me in the eye. She led me up the stairs to Parvez’s office in silence. Parvez stood up behind his desk when I came into the room and shook my hand. It was not his usual informal greeting of a cuff on the shoulder.

I sat down and Parvez said, ‘Moley, you’re up shit street without a paddle. The tax man says you owe £72,800 for unpaid tax between the years 1996 and 1999.’ He let this sink in and then added, ‘Plus interest.’

Eventually, when I could control my voice, I asked Parvez what would happen to me if I could not pay the Inland Revenue.

He said, ‘You have to pay them, Moley. As Shakespeare said, “There is only two certainties in this life, death and taxes.”’

I got up and looked out of the window at Fatima’s pretty, gauzy clothes blowing on the washing line. ‘I’ll have to kill myself,’ I said.

‘You can’t afford to kill yourself,’ Parvez said. ‘And, anyway, you owe me three hundred quid for professional services.’

I told him that I still had some credit available on my AA card.

But Parvez said, ‘Moley, you’re digging yourself deeper into the shit.’

I asked him what I should do.

He said, ‘You could start by living in the world me and Fatima live in. I don’t earn much so we live in a small house, and we ain’t got a talking fridge. Ours just sits under the worktop and keeps its gob shut. You can’t afford a lifestyle, Moley, only a life.’

He called downstairs and asked Fatima to make some coffee. After she had placed the tray on Parvez’s desk, she put her arms around me and said that she was very sorry. It was like she was talking to somebody who had been recently bereaved.

As I was leaving, Parvez said, ‘You’ll have to sell Rat Wharf, Moley.’

Fatima said, ‘My uncle is on the council, and he is gutted because the planning committee voted to give permission for a casino to be built just down the towpath from Rat Wharf.’

Parvez said, ‘And there’s loads of lap-dancing clubs opening round there. One of my clients is making the poles. He can’t get ’em out fast enough. It’s going to be Leicester’s vice quarter, innit?’

When I got back to Rat Wharf, I crept out on to the balcony, trying to avoid disturbing the swans. But as soon as I sat down, Gielgud noticed me and literally flew on to the balcony and forced me back inside.

I watched from behind the window as the sun went down behind the dye works. Someone is gutting the building and turning it into thirty-six studio flats. They have taken out the lovely arched windows and thrown them into a skip.

Parvez pulled a few strings and made me an emergency appointment for me to see a debt counsellor called Eunice
Hall at the Citizens’ Advice Bureau after work. I have jumped a very long queue. I had to take as much financial paperwork with me as possible – bills, unpaid invoices, bank statements, direct debits, receipts, wage slips. I also took my credit, store and debit cards.

Eunice Hall wears grey shoes that match her hair. I trusted her immediately and confessed everything. It was a relief to speak to a stranger – somebody who had no preconceptions about me.

She let me go on about my worries for about twenty minutes. She looked at her watch several times, but I couldn’t stop talking.

Eventually, she said, rather brusquely, ‘Mr Mole, I am not qualified to give you an opinion on whether or not Mr Blair misled us about the Weapons of Mass Destruction. I’m a debt counsellor.’ Then she asked for my financial records and read them in silence.

I handed her a note, written by Parvez, in which he explained my tax situation.