Winter 1982 3 страница

Sunday December 27^th

First after Christmas

The Sugdens have gone back to Norfolk, thank God! The house is back to its usual mess. My parentstook a bottle of vodka and two glasses to bed with them last night. I haven’t seen them since.

Went to Melton Mowbray on my bike, did it in five hours.

Monday December 28^th

I am in trouble for leaving my bike outside last night. My parents are not speaking to me. I don’t care, I have just had a shave and I feel magic.

Tuesday December 29^th

My father is in a bad mood because there is only a bottle of V. P. sherry left to drink. He has gone round Pandora’s house to borrow a bottle of spirits.

The dog has pulled the Christmas tree down and made all the pine needles stick in the shag-pile.

I have finished all my Christmas books and the library is still shut. I am reduced to reading my father’s Reader’s Digests and testing my word power.

Wednesday December 30^th

All the balloons have shrivelled up. They look like old women’s breasts shown on television documentaries about the Third World.

Thursday December 31^st

The last day of the year! A lot has happened. I have fallen in love. Been a one-parent child. Gone Intellectual. And had two letters from the BBC. Not bad going for a 143/4-year-old!

My mother and father have been to a New Year’s Eve dance at the Grand Hotel. My mother actually wore a dress! It is over a year since she showed her legs in public.

Pandora and I saw the New Year in together, we had a dead passionate session accompanied by Andy Stewart and a bagpiper.

My father came crashing through the front door at 1 AM carrying a lump of coal in his hand. Drunk as usual.

My mother started going on about what a wonderful son I was and how much she loved me. It’s a pity she never says anything like that when she is sober.

Winter 1982

Friday January 1^st

Bank Holiday in UK, Rep. of Ireland, USA and Canada

These are my New Year’s resolutions:

1. I will be true to Pandora.

2. I will bring my bike in at night.

3. I will not read unworthy books.

4. I will study hard for my O levels, and get Grade ‘A’s.

5. I will try to be more kind to the dog.

6. I will try to find it in my heart to forgive Barry Kent his multiple sins.

7. I will clean the bath after use.

8. I will stop worrying about the size of my thing.

9. I will do my back-stretching exercises every nightwithout fail.

10. I will learn a new word and use it every day.

Saturday January 2^nd

Bank Holiday in Scotland (a day may be given in lieu )

How interesting it is that Aabec should be an Australian bark used for making sweat.

Sunday January 3^rd

Second after Christmas. Moon’s First Quarter

I wouldn’t mind going to Africa and hunting an Aardvark.

Monday January 4^th

Whilst in Africa I would go south and look out for an Aardwolf.

Tuesday January 5^th

And I would avoid tangling with an Aasvogel.

Wednesday January 6^th

Epiphany

I keep having nightmares about the bomb. I hope it isn’t dropped before I get my GCE results in August 1983. 1 wouldn’t like to die an unqualified virgin.

Thursday January 7^th

Nigel came round to look at my racing bike. He said that it was mass produced, unlike his bike that was ‘made by a craftsman in Nottingham’. I have gone off Nigel, and I have also gone off my bike a bit.

Friday January 8^th

Got a wedding invitation from Bert and Queenie, they are getting married on January 16th at Pocklington Street Register Office.

In my opinion it is a waste of time. Bert is nearly ninety and Queenie is nearly eighty. I will leave it until the last minute before I buy a wedding present.

It has started snowing again. I asked my mother to buy me some green Wellingtons like the Queen’s but she came back with dead common black ones. I only need them to walk Pandora to our gate. I am staying in until the snow melts. Unlike most youths of my age, I dislike frolicking in the snow.

Saturday January 9^th

Full Moon

Nigel said the end of the world is coming tonight. He said the moon is having a total collapse. (Nigel should read Reader’s Digest and increase his word power. ) True enough it did go dark, I held my breath and feared the worst but then the moon recovered and life went on as usual, except in York where fate has flooded the town centre.

Sunday January 10^th

First after Epiphany

I can’t understand why my father looks so old at forty-one compared to President Reagan at seventy. My father has got no work or worries yet he looks dead haggard. Poor President Reagan has to carry the world’s safety on his shoulders yet he is always smiling and looking cheerful. It doesn’t make sense.

Monday January 11^th

I’ve been looking through last year’s diary and have been reminded that Malcolm Muggeridge never did reply to my letter about what to do if you are an intellectual. That is a first-class stamp wasted! I should have written to the British Museum, that’s where all the intellectuals hang out.

Tuesday January 12^th

Pandora and I went to the youth club tonight. It was quite good. Rick Lemon led a discussion on sex. Nobody said anything, but he showed some interesting slides of wombs cut in half.

Wednesday January 13^th

Pandora’s parents have had a massive row. They are sleeping in separate bedrooms. Pandora’s mother has joined the SDP and Pandora’s father is staying loyal to the Labour Party.

Pandora is a Liberal, so she gets on all right with them both.

Thursday January 14^th

Pandora’s father has come out of the closet and admitted that he is a Bennite. Pandora is staying loyal to him, but if the Co-op Dairy find out he will be finished.

Friday January 15^th

Thank God the snow is melting! At last I can walk the streets in safety, secure in the knowledge that no one is going to ram a snowball down the back of my anorak.

Saturday January 16^th

Moon’s Last Quarter

Bert got married today.

The Alderman Cooper Sunshine Home hired a coach and took the old ladies to form a guard of honour with their walking-frames.

Bert looked dead good. He cashed his life insurance in and spent the money on a new suit. Queenie was wearing a hat made of flowers and fruit. She had a lot of orange make-up on her face to try and cover the wrinkles. Even Sabre had a red bow round his neck. I think it was kind of the RSPCA to let Sabre out for his master’s wedding. My father and Pandora’s father carried Bert’s wheelchair up the steps with Bert a single man and then down again with Bert a married man. The old ladies threw rice and confetti and my mother and Pandora’s mother gave Queenie a kiss and a lucky horseshoe.

A newspaper reporter and photographer made everyone pose for photographs. I was asked my name, but I said I didn’t want publicity for my acts of charity to Bert.

The reception took place back at the home. Matron made a cake with ‘B’ and ‘Q’ written in Jellytots.

Bert and Queenie are moving into a bungalow on Monday, after they have had their honeymoon in the home.

Honeymoon! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Sunday January 17^th

Second after Epiphany

Last night I dreamed about a boy like me collecting pebbles in the rain. It was a dead strange dream.

I am reading The Black Prince, by Iris Murdoch. I can only understand one word in ten. It is now my ambition to actually enjoy one of her books. Then I will know I am above the common herd.

Monday January 18^th

School. First day of term. Loads of GCE homework. I will never cope. I am an intellectual but at the same time I am not very clever.

Tuesday January 19^th

Brought four hundred and eighty-three copies of The Voice of Youth home in my satchel and Adidas bag. Mr Jones needs the games cupboard.

Wednesday January 20^th

Two-and-a-half hours of homework! I will crack under the strain.

Thursday January 21^st

My brain is hurting. I have just had two pages of Macbeth to translate into English.

Friday January 22^nd

I am destined to become a manual worker. I can’t keep working under this pressure. Miss Elf said my work is perfectly satisfactory, but that isn’t good enough when Pandora keeps getting ‘Excellent’ in red pen on everything she does.

Saturday January 23^rd

Stayed in bed until five-thirty to make sure I missed Salisbury’s. Listened to Radio Four play about domestic unhappiness. Phoned Pandora. Did Geography homework. Teased dog. Went to sleep. Woke up. Worried for ten minutes. Got up. Made cocoa. I am a nervous wreck.

Sunday January 24^th

Third after Epiphany

My mother blames my bad nerves on Iris Murdoch.

She says painful adolescence shouldn’t be read about when one is studying for O levels.

Monday January 25^th

New Moon

Couldn’t do my Maths homework. Phoned the Samaritans. The nice man on the end of the phone told me the answer was nine-eighths. He was dead kind to someone in despair.

Tuesday January 26^th

The stupid Samaritan got the answer wrong! It’s only seven-fifths. I only got six out of twenty. Pandora got them all right. In fact she got a hundred per cent.

Wednesday January 27^th

My mother is holding her women’s rights meetings in our lounge. I can’t concentrate on my homework properly with women laughing and shouting and stamping up the stairs. They are not a bit ladylike.

Thursday January 28^th

Got fifteen out of twenty for History. Pandora got twenty-one out of twenty. She got an extra mark for knowing Hitler’s father’s name.

Friday January 29^th

Came home from school early with a severe migraine (missed the Comparative Religion test). Found my father watching Play School and pretending to be an acorn growing into an oak. Went to bed too shocked to speak.

Saturday January 30^th

Migraine. Too ill to write.

Sunday January 31^st

Fourth after Epiphany

Pandora came round. I copied her homework. Feel better.

Monday February 1^st

Moon’s First Quarter

My mother has given my father an ultimatum: either he finds a job, or starts doing housework, or leaves. He is looking for a job.

Tuesday February 2^nd

Candlemas (Scottish Quarter-Day )

Grandma Mole came to tell me that the end of the world was announced at her Spiritualist church last week. She said it should have all ended yesterday.

She would have come round sooner only she was washing her curtains.

Wednesday February 3^rd

My father has had his credit cards taken off him! Barclays, Nat West and American Express have got fed up with his reckless spending. Time is running out for us. He has only got a few quid’s redundancy money left in his sock drawer.

My mother is looking for a job.

I have got a sense of deja vu.

Thursday February 4^th

Went round to see Bert and Queenie. Their bungalow is so full of knick-knacks that there is hardly room for a person to move. Sabre knocks at least ten things over every time he wags his tail. They both seem happy enough, though their sex life can’t be up to much.

Friday February 5^th

I’ve got to write an essay on the causes of the Second World War. What a waste of time! Everyone knows the causes. You can’t go anywhere without seeing Hitler’s photo.

Saturday February 6^th

Finished essay; copied it out of Pear’s Encyclopedia.

My mother has gone to a women’s workshop on self-defence. So if my father moans at her for burning the toast she will be able to karate-chop him in the windpipe.

Sunday February 7^th

Septuagesima

Bored stiff all day. My parents never do anything on Sundays but read the Sunday papers. Other families go out to safari parks, etc. But we never do.

When I am a parent I will fill my children with stimulation at weekends.

Monday February 8^th

Full Moon

My mother has found a job. She collects money from Space Invader machines. She started today in response to an urgent phone call from the job agency that she is registered with.

She said that the fullest machines are those in unre-spectable cafes and university common rooms.

I think my mother is betraying her principles. She is pandering to an obsession of weak minds.

Tuesday February 9^th

My mother has given up her job. She said she is sexually harassed during her work and she is also allergic to ten-pence pieces.

Wednesday February 10^th

My father is going to start his own business making spice-racks. He has spent the last of his redundancy money on buying pine and glue. Our spare bedroom has been turned into a workshop. Sawdust is all over the house.

I am very proud of my father. He is now a company director, and I am a company director’s son!

Thursday February 11^th

Delivered Mrs Singh’s massive spice-rack after school. It took two of us to carry it round and install it on her kitchen wall. We had a cup of sickly Indian tea and Mrs Singh paid my father and then started to fill up her shelves with exotic Indian spices. They looked a lot more interesting than my mother’s boring parsley and thyme.

My father bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate his first sale! He has got no respect for capital investment.

Friday February 12^th

Pandora has gone to London with her father to hear Tony Benn speak. Pandora’s mother has gone to a SDP rally in Loughborough. It is a sad day when families are split by politics.

I’m not sure how I will vote. Sometimes I think Mrs Thatcher is a nice kind sort of woman. Then the next day I see her on television and she frightens me rigid. She has got eyes like a psychotic killer, but a voice like a gentle person. It is a bit confusing.

Saturday February 13^th

Pandora has got a crush on Tony Benn, just like the one she had on Adam Ant. She says that older men are exciting.

I am trying to grow my moustache. Valentine’s Day tomorrow. A big card came today, it had a Sheffield postmark.

Sunday February 14^th

Sexagesima. St Valentine’s Day

At last I have had a valentine from somebody who is not a blood relation! Pandora’s card was charming, she had written a simple message of love:

Adrian, it is you alone.

I gave Pandora a false Victorian card, inside I wrote:

My young love,

Treacle hair and knee-socks

Give my system deep shocks.

You’ve got a magic figure:

I’m Roy Rogers, you are Trigger.

It doesn’t scan very well, but I was in a hurry. Pandora didn’t get the literary reference to Roy Rogers, so I have lent her my father’s old Roy Rogers annuals.

My father threw the Sheffield card in the waste-bin. My mother took it out when my father had gone to the pub. Inside it said:

Pauline, I am in anguish.

My mother smiled and ripped it up.

Monday February 15^th

Washington’s Birthday, USA. Moon’s Last Quarter

Came home from school to hear my mother talking to creep Lucas on the phone. She was using a yukky voice and saying things like: ‘Don’t ask me to do it, Bimbo’, and ‘It’s all over between us now, darling. We must try to forget’.

I can’t stand much more emotional stress. I am up to my ears in it already what with studying hard and vying with Tony Benn for Pandora’s attention.

Tuesday February 16^th

Pandora’s mother came round last night to complain about her spice-rack. It fell off the wall and spilt rosemary and tumeric all over her cork tiles. My mother apologized on behalf of my father who was hiding in the coal shed.

I am seriously thinking of giving everything up and running away to be a tramp. I would quite enjoy the life, providing I could have a daily bath.

Wednesday February 17^th

Miss Elf told us about her boyfriend today. He is called Winston Johnson. He is a Master of Arts and can’t get a job! So what chance do I stand?

Miss Elf said that school-leavers are despairing all over the country. She said that Mr Scruton should be ashamed to have a portrait of Mrs Thatcher over his desk.

I think I am turning radical.

Thursday February 18^th

This morning the whole school was ordered to go to the assembly hall. Mr Scruton got up on the stage and acted like the films of Hitler. He said in all his long years of teaching he had never come across an act ofsuch serious vandalism. Everybody went dead quiet and wondered what had happened. Scruton said that somebody had entered his office and drawn a moustache on Margaret Thatcher and written ‘Three million unemployed’ in her cleavage.

He said that defiling the greatest leader this country has ever known was a crime against humanity. It was tantamount to treason and that when the culprit was found they would be immediately expelled. Scru-ton’s eyes bulged out so far that a few of the first-years started to cry. Miss Elf led them outside to safety.

The whole school has got to have handwriting tests.

Friday February 19^th

Miss Elf has resigned. I will miss her, she was responsible for my political development. I am a committed radical. I am against nearly everything.

Saturday February 20^th

Pandora, Nigel, Claire Neilson and myself have formed a radical group. We are the ‘Pink Brigade’. We discuss things like war (we are against it); peace (we are for it); and the ultimate destruction of capitalist society. Claire Neilson’s father is a capitalist; he owns a greengrocer’s shop. Claire is trying to get her father to give cheap food to the unwaged but he refuses. He waxes fat on their starvation!

Sunday February 21^st

Quinquagesima

Had an argument with my father over the Sunday Express. He can’t see that he is a willing tool of the reactionary right. He refuses to change to the Morning Star. My mother reads anything; she is prostituting her literacy.

Monday February 22^nd

Once again I am spotty. I am also extremely sexually frustrated. I’m sure a session of passionate lovemaking would improve my skin.

Pandora says she is not going to risk being a single parent just for the sake of a few spots. So I will have to fall back on self-indulgence.

Tuesday February 23^rd

Shrove Tuesday. New Moon

Ate nine pancakes at home, three at Pandora’s and four at Bert and Queenie’s. Grandma was very hurt when I refused her kind offer to whip me a batter, but I was full up.

It is disgusting when the Third World is living on a few grains of rice.

I feel dead guilty.

Wednesday February 24^th

Ash Wednesday

Our school dinner-ladies have got the sack! The dinners now come in hot boxes from a central kitchen. I would have staged a protest but I have got a Geography test tomorrow.

Mrs Leech was presented with a microwave oven for her thirty years of toil over the custard jug.

Thursday February 25^th

Got fifteen out of twenty for Geography. I lost points for saying that the Falkland Islands belonged to Argentina.

Friday February 26^th

My thing is now thirteen centimetres long when it is extended. When it is contracted it is hardly worth measuring. My general physique is improving. I think the back-stretching exercises are paying off. I used to be the sort of boy who had sand kicked in his face, now I’m the sort of boy who watches somebody else have it kicked in their face.

Saturday February 27^th

My father hasn’t made or sold a single spice-rack all week. We are now living on Social Security and dole money.

My mother has stopped smoking. The dog is down to half a tin of Chum a day.

Sunday February 28^th

Quadragesima (Firstin Lent )

Had egg and chips and peas for Sunday dinner! No pudding! Not even a proper serviette. My mother says we are the nouveau poor.

Monday March 1^st

St David’s Day(Wales )

My father has stopped smoking. He is going around with a white face finding fault with everything I do.

My mother and him had their first row since she came back. The dog caused it by eating the Spam for tea. It couldn’t help it, the poor thing was half crazed with hunger. It is back on a full tin of Chum a day.

Tuesday March 2^nd

Moon’s First Quarter

My parents are suffering severe nicotine withdrawal symptoms. It is quite amusing to a non-smoker like me.

Wednesday March 3^rd

I had to lend my father enough money for a gallon of petrol, he had an interview for a job. My mother cut his hair and gave him a shave and told him what to say and how to behave. It is pathetic to see how unemployment has reduced my father to childish dependence on others.

He is waiting to hear from Manpower Services.

He is still ill from not smoking. His temper has reached new peaks of explosion.

Thursday March 4^th

No news yet about the job. I spend as much time as I can out of the house. My parents are unbearable. I almost wish they would start smoking again.

Friday March 5^th

He got it!!!

He starts on Monday as a Canal Bank Renovation Supervisor. He is in charge of a gang of school-leavers. To celebrate he bought my mother sixty Benson and Hedges and himself sixty Players. I got a family pack of Mars bars.

Everybody is dead happy for once. Even the dog has cheered up a bit. Grandma is knitting my father a woolly hat for work.

Saturday March 6^th

Pandora and I went to see the bit of canal bank that my father is now in charge of. If he worked for a thousand years he will never get it cleaned of all the old bikes and prams and weeds and Coca-Cola tins! I told my father that he was in a no-win situation, but he said, ‘On the contrary, in one year’s time it will be a beauty spot’. Yes! And I am Nancy Reagan, Dad!

Sunday March 7^th

Second in Lent

My father went to see his canal bank this morning. He came home and shut himself in his bedroom. Heis still there, I can hear my mother saying encouraging words to him.

It is uncertain whether or not he will turn up for work tomorrow. On the whole I think not.

Monday March 8^th

He went to work.

After school I walked home along the canal bank. I found him bossing a gang of skinheads and punks about. They were looking surly and unco-operative. None of them wanted to get their clothes dirty. My father seemed to be the only one doing any work. He was covered in mud. I attempted to exchange a few civilities with the lads, but they spurned my overtures. I pointed out that the lads are alienated by a cruel, uncaring society, but my father said, ’ Bugger off home, Adrian. You’re talking a load of lefty crap’. He will have a mutiny on his hands soon if he’s not careful.

Tuesday March 9^th

Full Moon

My schoolwork is plummeting down to new depths. I only got five out of twenty for spelling. I think I might be anorexic.

Wednesday March 10^th

My father has asked me not to bring Pandora to the canal after school. He says he can’t do anything with the lads after she has gone. It’s true that she is stunningly beautiful, but the lads will just have to learn self-control. I have had to learn it. She has refused to consummate our relationship. Sometimes I wonder what she sees in me. I live in daily terror of our relationship ending.

Thursday March 11^th

Pandora and Pandora’s mother have joined my mother’s women’s group. No men or boys are allowed in our front room. My father had to be in charge of the creche in our dining room.

Rick Lemon’s baby daughter Herod was crawling under the table shouting: ‘Tit! Tit! ’ My father kept telling Herod to shut up until I explained that Tit was Herod’s mother’s name. Herod is a very radical baby who never eats sweets and stays up until 2 AM.

My father says that women ought to be at home cooking. He said it in a whisper so that he wouldn’t be karate-chopped to death.

Friday March 12^th

My father had a good day on the canal bank. He is almost through to the grass now. To celebrate he brought the skinheads and punks round to our house for a glass of home-made beer. Mrs Singh and my mother looked shocked when the lads trooped into our kitchen, but my father introduced Baz, Daz, Maz, Kev, Melv and Boz and my mother and Mrs Singh relaxed a bit.

Boz is going to help me fix the brakes on my bike, he is an expert bike-fixer. He has been stealing them since he was six.