Adrian Mole and The Weapons of Mass Destruction (43 page)

Today is the first anniversary of Robbie’s death. My mother brought a letter round to us this morning, dated yesterday.

Adrian Mole

1 The Old Pigsty

The Piggeries

Bottom Field

Lower Lane

Mangold Parva

Leicestershire

Dear Mr Mole

As you must have read recently in the press or surmised from the Butler report, Mr Tony Blair has conceded that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction within reach of Cyprus that could be deployed within forty-five minutes.

I hope that you will now desist from writing to me and asking for the return of your deposit of £57.10.

You may be interested to note that, at the time of writing, sixty British and over a thousand American troops have been killed during the war. It is estimated that between ten and
twenty thousand Iraqi people have died. Nobody knows for sure, because no official body has kept count.

Yours sincerely

Johnny Bond

Latesun Travel Ltd

Daisy said, ‘Write to Johnny Bond and admit that he was right.’

At four o’clock this afternoon, Daisy and I pushed Gracie into Mangold Parva to buy a
Leicester Mercury
. I hardly miss the car, but Daisy complains that it is hard going walking down country lanes in high-heeled shoes.

On the way back to the Piggeries, we passed my mother and Animal, who were foraging in the hedgerows and feeding the occasional ripe berry to my father in his wheelchair.

My poor father is now Sir Clifford Chatterley to my mother’s Connie and Animal’s Mellors. But this ménage à trois seems to suit the baby boomers well enough.

My mother picked Gracie out of her pram and said to the fat little baby, ‘Oo, I could eat you alive.’

Animal broke off a piece of cow parsley and Gracie took it in her fat little fist.

When we got home we opened the
Mercury
at the ‘In memoriam’ page and read the notices about Robbie. There were only two: one from me and one dictated by Glenn from Bosnia.

Stainforth, Private Robert Patrick
, died on July 21st 2003, in Iraq, while serving on active duty. He was sent
there because vainglorious, arrogant men wanted war and he died a terrible death. He was eighteen years old.

To Private Robbie Stainforth

The old men safe behind their desks,

Who dropped the bombs on you

Will suffer in the dead of night

For in their hearts, they knew

They sent the young to fight and die on Iraqi soil

To feed the cuckoo in the West

With what it most needs:

Oil.

A. A. Mole

Stainforth, Robert (Robbie)
Robbie, you were the best mate ever. This is the poem you learned off by heart.

Glenn Bott-Mole

Survivors

No doubt they’ll soon get well; the shock and strain

Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk

Of course they’re ‘longing to go out again,’ –

These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk.

They’ll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed

Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died, –

Their dreams that drip with murder, and they’ll be proud

Of glorious war that shatter’d all their pride...

Men who went out to battle, grim and glad;

Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.

Siegfried Sassoon, October 1917

‘Happy people don’t keep a diary.’ I said this to Daisy this morning in bed.

She said, a little alarmed, ‘So why are you starting one again?’

I said, ‘I’m thinking of writing an autobiography.’

She said, ‘Kipling, I think you’re fantastically interesting, but I’m not sure other people will. I mean, you live in a pigsty with your wife and baby, bike to work, bike back, play with Gracie, work on the garden, go to bed, read, make love and sleep. What’s to write about?’