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CHAPTER 1
Dean Street, Soho
Wednesday April 30th 1997
I take up my pen once again to record a momentous time in the affairs of men (and, thank God, because this is intended to be a secret diary, I am not required to add 'and women').
The day after tomorrow on May 2nd, as dawn breaks, I predict that the Labour Party will just scrape in, and will form the next government. Talk of a landslide victory is hysterical rubbish whipped up by the media.
My own prediction is based on 'insider' knowledge. The insider is an actor called Fred Gipton who was in An Inspector Calls with Tony Booth, the father-in-law of our future Prime Minister. Gipton spilled the beans in Hoi Polloi, the restaurant where I work, after two bottles of Jacob's Creek, a Pernod and a vodka sorbet. After begging me to keep 'shtum' he told me that he had heard, via a tortuous grapevine, that Mr Blair expected to win with a tiny majority. Three was mentioned. He also told me that Mr Blair wears a wig, but I have freeze-framed a News At Ten video of him alighting from a helicopter on to a school playing-field and I am satisfied that no wig could stand up to the air turbulence caused by the chopper blades. Tony wears his own hair, it is certainement.
So, every vote counts, which is why I will drive up to Ashby-de-la-Zouch tonight after I finish my shift in the restaurant. When I told Savage that I would need to take a day off in order to vote, he went into a tirade about the foolishness of giving 'hoi polloi' the vote. 'If I ruled the f------ country,' he said (I cannot bring myself to write f-------), 'I'd restrict the vote to men over forty-five years of age, and I'd narrow it down to those who earned over seventy K a year.'
'You wouldn't allow women to vote?' I checked.
'No, I f------ well wouldn't,' he raged. 'They're all f-----mad. If they've not got PMT they've got HRT or VPL.'
I pointed out to him that VPL stands for visible panty line, but he was, as usual, beyond reason. When he began to recount the crimes and misdemeanours of his estranged wife, Kim, I went into the kitchen and made onion gravy for the toad-in-the-hole.
After he calmed down a bit I approached him again. 'Mr Savage,' I said, 'I have not had a day off for six weeks.'
'How do you intend to vote?' he asked, challengingly.
I resented him asking, but I replied, 'Labour.'
'Then no f------ way, Jose,' he shouted, pushing a highball glass under the rum optic, and keeping it there until the glass was half full (or half empty, depending on your personality type). He drank deeply from it, as though the contents were Ribena.
'Why should I lose a valuable member of staff on one of the busiest days of the year and help that shirtlifter Blair get elected?' He coughed, lighting one of his filthy French cigarettes. I pointed out to him that Mr Blair is far from being a poofter, and has, in fact, fathered a trio of children. Savage gave a horrible phlegmy laugh, during which he crossed his legs (he suffers from stress incontinence). He took me to the front door of the restaurant, pointed at the Hot Rods shop opposite. Rod himself was in the shop window, arranging some studded leather underpants on a collection of tiered display plinths. 'Now that's a shop for poofters, am I right, Mole?' he said, breathing rum fumes in my face.
'The shop specializes in clothes and equipment for gay men,' I conceded.
'And are none of Rod's customers happily married?' he asked, dropping his voice theatrically.
I said, with heavy irony, 'So, Mr Blair's marriage is a sham and his children are nothing but ciphers conceived in the bed of cynicism, so that one day he will deceive the British people into voting for him, thinking him to be a heterosexual socialist, whereas ...'
'Mark my words, Mole, Blair is a "friend of Rod's" if ever I f------ saw one, and he's no f------ socialist either.'
I began to cook the cabbages for dinner. Savage liked them to boil for at least half an hour. My work as a chef has been a doddle since Savage instituted his Traditional English, No Choice menu. Tonight's repast is:
Heinz tomato soup (with white bread floaters)
Grey lamb chops Boiled cabbage avec Dan Quayle potatoes Dark brown onion gravy
Spotted Dick à la Clinton Bird's custard (skin £6.00 extra)
Cheddar Cheese, Cream Crackers Nescafé After Eight Mint
There are two types of wine – white £46, red £46
Service charge not included. You are expected to smoke between courses. Pipes and cigars are particularly welcome.
The restaurant is fully booked six weeks ahead. Savage turned Princess Michael of Kent away from the door last night. She was distraught.
The restaurant critic A. A. Gill said in his review in the Sunday Times that Hoi Polloi served execrable nursery food. 'The sausage on my plate could have been a turd: it looked like a turd, it tasted like a turd, it smelled like a turd, it had the texture of a turd. In fact, thinking about it, it probably was a turd.'
Savage has had Gill's review blown up at the Copy Shop and stuck it up in the window, where it draws admiring crowds.
Around about midnight I asked my fellow workers, those who could understand English, if they intended to vote today. Luigi, the maître d', is a Communist in Italy, but he will be voting Liberal Democrat in Croydon, where he lives. Malcolm, the washer-upper, said he was thinking of voting Conservative, 'because they help the self-employed'. I pointed out to Malcolm that he was only self-employed because Savage refused to pay for a National Insurance stamp and tax, but Malcolm then went on to say that he liked John Major because he (Malcolm) had been fostered by a couple who lived in Huntingdon, Major's constituency. As Malcolm grappled with the Spotted Dick tin in the sink, I asked him about the Conservatives' election pledges.
'They've said they won't put the taxes up,' he said, in his reedy voice.
I said, 'Malcolm, you don't pay tax, remember? You get paid cash in hand. You're off the books, which enables you to draw benefits from the DSS. You get free teeth, free travel to hospital, free everything.'
Malcolm said, 'On the other hand, I might vote Labour.'
Thursday May 1st
Dean Street, Soho, London, to Wisteria Walk, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, in three hours. Not bad considering I kept under the speed limit all the way. On the way down I heard the Labour Party candidate for Ashby, Dr Pandora Braithwaite, talking about the importance of family values on Talk Radio. I was so outraged I almost choked on an Opal Fruit and steered into the fast lane. Talk about hypocrisy!
Pandora has shown open contempt for family life. Her first husband, Julian, was openly, in fact boastfully, gay. And her live-in lover, Jack Cavendish, has been married three times and has ten acknowledged children, three of whom have been in drug rehabilitation units up and down the country. The eldest is still languishing in jail in Turkey. Most of the others seem to be attracted to strange religious sects. Tom, the youngest, is a vicar in Hull.
How Pandora ever got past a Labour Party selection committee is a mystery to me. She smokes at least forty cigarettes a day. The radio interviewer asked her about her partner.
'He's a professor of languages at Oxford,' she replied, in her husky voice. 'And he's enormously supportive. But then,' she added, 'I support him too.'
'How very true,' I shouted at the car radio. 'He needs your support because he's a chronic alcoholic and can't stand up unaided after eight o'clock at night.'
At junction eighteen I ran out of Opal Fruits, so I pulled into the services and bought three packets. Are the manufacturers putting something extra in them? Something addictive? I seem to have been getting through rather a lot of them lately. The other night I woke at 3 a.m. and was distraught to discover that there wasn't a single Opal Fruit in the flat. I tramped the streets of Soho looking for them. Within two minutes of leaving home I was offered lesbian sex, heroin and a Rolex watch, but an innocent packet of Opal Fruits took over half an hour to track down. What does it tell us about the world we live in?
A Labour government will change all that. Mr Blair is a committed Christian, and I forecast that a religious revival will sweep the land. I long for the day that I wake up in the morning and realize that, Hallelujah! I too believe in God!
As I was tearing open the Opal Fruits on the way back to the car, a tall man in a lorry-driver's overalls approached me. I could tell that he was annoyed about something by the manner in which he barred my way with his thick arm.
'Are you the dick'ead in the Montego?' he said. 'The one who's been hogging the middle lane at sixty-five miles an hour?' I didn't like his aggressive tone. I pointed out to him that the motorway was quite damp, and that in my opinion sixty-five miles per hour was quite fast enough.
'You've had a bleeding truck behind you since Watford,' he said. 'Didn't you see me flashing my bleeding lights?' I replied, 'Yes, I thought you were being friendly.'
'Why would I wanna be friendly to a dick'ead like you?' he said.
I sat in the car and watched him jump into the cab of his lorry. I was relieved to see that he wasn't driving for Eddie Stobart, whose drivers wear a shirt and tie under their overalls, and whose lorries are kept in immaculate condition. This oaf was driving a truck full of mineral water from Cornwall to Derbyshire. Why? Derbyshire consists of mineral water. You can't move without falling into a beck, tarn or raging river.
I sat in the car park for a few minutes to allow the lorry-rager to put a few miles between us, then I rejoined the motorway and, mindful of my recent contretemps, put my foot down and got up to sixty-nine m.p.h.
Immediately after I had turned off the motorway I was confronted by Pandora's lovely face staring down at me from an election poster nailed to the trunk of a chestnut tree at the side of the road. I stopped the car and got out to take a closer look. It was a glamour shot, reminiscent of 1940s Hollywood. Pandora's highlighted dark blonde hair fell to her shoulders in rippling waves. Her glossy lips were open, showing Harpicwhite teeth. Her eyes said bedroom! She was wearing a dark jacket thing; there was a hint of white lace underneath, and beneath that more than a hint of voluptuous cleavage. I knew that every man in Ashby-de-la-Zouch would walk on his knees to vote for her.
And to think that I, Adrian Mole, was the first to kiss those divine lips, and the first to insert my hand (left) beneath her white cotton training bra. Also, on June 10th, 1981, Pandora declared her love for me.
The fact that she has been married once is of no consequence. I know that I am her only true love, and that she is mine. We are Arthur and Guinevere, Romeo and Juliet, Charles and Camilla.
When I married Jo Jo, Pandora came to my wedding and I saw her wipe the tears from her eyes before saying to my new wife, 'Commiserations.' She quickly apologized for her faux pas and said, 'I meant, of course, congratulations.' But I knew that her slip of the tongue betrayed her deep hurt that it was not she who was Mrs Adrian Albert Mole.
I said, 'I love you, my darling,' to the Pandora on the tree, then I got back into my car and continued my journey into Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Pandora's face smiled down at me from windows and signposts along the route. VOTE BRAITHWAITE – LABOUR, the poster said.
Occasionally, the grotesque porcine features of her Conservative rival, Sir Arnold Tufton, were to be seen on posters in the windows of the larger houses. Were he to enter for the Best Pig Class in the Leicester Agricultural Show he would stand a good chance of winning a rosette. Against the youth and radiance and intellectual brilliance of Dr Pandora Braithwaite he stands no chance at all – besides, Tufton has been embroiled in a row about his close friendship with Len Fox, the mobile-phone magnate (something about a Jiffybag in Marbella), decreasing his chances even further.
The people of Ashby-de-la-Zouch are not known for their tempestuous natures, so it was difficult to tell whether or not they were in the mood for revolution. Even the dogs and cats looked quiescent in the early-morning sunshine.
There was a Labour Party poster in the living room of my parents' house on Wisteria Walk, and a Spice Girls poster in my sister Rosie's window. Behind all the posters the curtains were closed. It took five minutes of banging on the door before it was opened. My mother stood before me in a grubby white towelling bathrobe and a pair of men's grey wool socks. A Silk Cut Ultra Low burned between her fingers. Her purple nail varnish was chipped. Last night's mascara was smudged around her eyes. Somebody, possibly in a hairdressing salon, had done something terrible to her hair. Two pairs of spectacles were slung around her neck on gold chains. She lifted one pair and put them on. 'Oh, it's you,' she said. 'I was hoping it was the postman. I've ordered a red trouser-suit from Next and it was supposed to come today.' She took off the first pair of spectacles and replaced them with the second. She peered up and down the avenue, sighed, then kissed me and led the way down the hall and into the kitchen.
My son, William, was sitting at the kitchen table eating Coco Pops with a serving spoon. When he saw me he jumped from his chair and hurled himself towards my genitals. I saved myself from considerable pain by snatching him up and throwing him into the air.
It's been three weeks since I last saw my son, but his verbal dexterity has improved considerably (I must stop using the word considerably – it's John Major's fault). He is only two and three-quarters, but is already, to my considerable alarm, besotted with that television motoring oaf, Jeremy Clarkson. My mother indulges the child horribly by videoing Clarkson's testosterone-driven programmes and allowing William to watch them continuously. I don't know where he gets this obsessive interest in cars from. Not from our side of the family, that's for sure. His Nigerian grandmother was once the managing director of a lorry-tyre importer in Ibadan. It may be a tenuous connection, but genes are funny things. Nobody has ever been able to explain where I get my talent for creative writing and cookery from. My mother's family (Norfolk) were practically illiterate, and seemed to live on boiled potatoes with HP sauce, and my father's family (Leicester) viewed books with deep suspicion, unless they had pictures which 'broke up the pages'. My paternal grandmother, May Mole, was a plain cook, who regarded eating as a gross indulgence. Thank God she died before I became a professional chef. It was her proud boast that she had never eaten in a proper restaurant in her life. She spoke of restaurants as others speak of crack dens.
I must record that my son is a handsome boy. His skin is clear, and the colour of dark cappuccino. His eyes are the exact shade of 'dark oak' in the Cuprinol wood-stain range. Physically, his Nigerian blood predominates, but I think I can see a certain English something about him. He is very clumsy, for instance, and when he is watching Clarkson (for example) on the TV, his mouth falls open and he looks a tiny bit gormless.
'Have you heard from Jo Jo?' asked my mother, as she kicked out at the New Dog to stop it licking its prominent testicles.
'No,' I said. 'Have you?'
She opened a drawer and took out an airmail letter, which was plastered with Nigerian stamps.
'Read it while I take him upstairs and get him ready,' she said.
It gave me a jolt when I saw Jo Jo's extraordinarily beautiful handwriting. The slopes and curves of the black letters reminded me of her body, and her voice. My penis stirred slightly as if expressing interest in what my wife had to say.
My dearest Pauline,
I am sorry to have to tell you that Adrian and I are getting a divorce.
I know that you won't be surprised by this news, especially after my last visit when he lost the way to Alton Towers, blamed me and tore the map in half.
I was sorry that you and George (and especially William) had to witness such a scene.
The truth is, Pauline, that there have been many such unhappy incidents, and I feel that it is better to end our marriage now. I am sick with longing when I think of William. Does he speak of me? Please send an up-to-date photograph of him.
I thank you, Pauline, for caring for William in the absence of his parents. One day, when the political situation here has improved, I will send for him.
Love to you and the family, from Jo Jo.
'You should've told me you were getting a divorce,' said my mother. 'Why didn't you?'
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years"
by .
Copyright © 1999 Sue Townsend.
Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
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