Thursday May 1st 1997

To keep myself awake as William chewed each individual Coco Pop individually twenty times (the kid is a genius – how many almost-three-year-olds can count to twenty?), I read Pandora’s election pamphlet, which was fastened to the fridge with a Postman Pat magnet. It was a tawdry document. She’d been far too profligate with her exclamation marks.

Dear Voter (it started)

• Are you sick of hearing the same tired excuses from the nearly morally corrupt Tory Candidate for Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Sir Arnold Tufton? Yes! So am I!
  
• Do you think that his record on civil liberties (petitioning Ashby-de-la-Zouch council to deter vandals by installing close-circuit TV in the cubicles of public lavatories) is disgraceful? Yes! I do!
  
• Do you agree with Sir Arnold Tufton that TV license dodgers should be jailed for a minimum of fifteeen years? No! Nor do I!
  
• Do you demand an explanation as to why Sir Arnold Tufton was photographed in Marbella in the company of the notorious criminal Len Fox? Would you like to know what was inside the Jiffy-bag that passed from Len Fox to Sir Arnold Tufton in the Bar Espanol? Yes! So would I!
  
• If I voted for me on May 1st, I pledge that I, Dr Pandora Braithwaite, Oxford Don, Linguist of Leicestershire Stock, will work conscientiously, honestly and fearlessly to represent the wishes of the people of Ashby-de-la-Zouch. In this cradle of democracy! The mother of parliaments! Send me to the House of Commons!
  
• IT CLEARLY MAKES SENSE!

At nine o’clock I took a cup of Nescafé up to my father. He lay where we had left him, his face to the wall, his hands clasped together as if in anguished prayer. He said he could hear Tony Blair’s voice whispering from the corner of the room. For a split second I thought madness had set in and that he would leave the house in a straitjacket, but then I realised that the clock radio had turned itself on and Radio Four was transmitting Tony Blair’s soundbites. I crossed the room, turned it off and my father seemed to relax a little. But I couldn’t persuade him to leave his bed and come with me and my mother to vote.

I went to his side of the wardrobe and riffled through his pathetic collection of trousers, a hymn to man-made fibres and Elvis-in-Las-Vegas styling, and discarded them all. However, in a drawer in his side of the chest of drawers I found a pair of 501s that he’d never worn, a Christmas present from my mother in 1989 apparently. As I tried them on and looked in the wardrobe mirror, a shaft of sunlight touched the top of my head, and I saw with horror that my hair had thinned so much that light was able to penetrate to the very follicles. I went into the bathroom and examined my scalp in the devastating light of the magnifying mirror on the window-ledge. The evidence was unmistakable: I was losing my hair.

Even as I watched, a hair detached itself, floated from my head, and landed in the bottom of the washbasin. With great difficulty I picked it up, and put it into my shirt pocket with the Ralph Lauren logo. Don’t ask me why I did this.

I took William and the New Dog for a walk around the block. The street was a riot of cherry blossom. Is it compulsory to have a cherry tree in your front garden in Ashby-de-la-Zouch? Did the council pass a by-law? There were drifts of fallen blossom on the pavements. William ran through it, grabbed handfuls and covered the New Dog. It looked like a grizzle-faced bride.

I’ve tried hard but I can’t get used to the New Dog: it’s got a miserable kind of face – the Old Dog was always smiling. Also, the New Dog displays no curiosity: it never tugs on its lead or gets excited. However, when a white van trailed blue balloons, blasting ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ from a crackling public-address system, went by, the New Dog turned its shaggy head and bared its teeth. So I warmed to it, very slightly.

While William was on the swings I phoned Nigel in his van and cancelled my order for the chinos. He was very short with me, said he’d been to the warehouse in person, and had been to enormous trouble, etc., etc. He said he was on his way to deliver them as we spoke. I explained about the 501s but he didn’t want to know. I hate ending a conversation on an unpleasant note, so I asked him if he was going to vote for Pandora. He said he had already voted for the Green candidate, Lillian Dale, who had canvassed on a mountain bike until it was stolen. Nigel is a keen cyclist now, apparently. I pointed out to him that too much pressure from the saddle could affect sperm count (according to an American report). He said, sarcastically I thought, ‘Oh dear, and I’d planned to have at least four children, with that nice girl my mother is always going on about.’

I asked him where we were going to meet up and have that drink, but he said he hadn’t got his electronic organizer with him, so we said goodbye. I dragged William off the swings and we went home.

My mother and I left William in the care of his depressed grandad and his foul-mouthed aunt and walked the quarter of a mile to vote.

There was a gaggle of voters outside the Scout hut polling station. Some enterprising senior Scouts had set up a stall and were selling chilli-flavoured Doritos and little pots of salsa. There was a choice of Coke or Diet Coke to drink. ‘Whatever happened to tea and home-made scones?’ asked my mother of a Scout-master-type person, who appeared to be in charge.

‘We’ve had to move with the times,’ he said politely. ‘This is what the public want.’

‘Baden-Powell would turn in his grave,’ she said. The man blushed and turned away, and began fiddling with the salsa dip as though embarrassed. ‘What did I say?’ she asked of me, as we went into the smelly hut.

‘Baden-Powell has been discredited by World in Action. He got a bit too fond of the boys,’ I said.

‘There are no heroes left anymore,’ she said. ‘Apart from Tony Blair…’

A woman in urgent need of orthodontic treatment smiled and handed us our ballot papers. It gave me a thrill to see Pandora’s name – I had forgotten that she had two middle names: Louise Elizabeth. I wondered if she ever used her initials. I went into the voting booth and took up the pencil on the string and paused, savouring the moment. I, Adrian Mole, was about to exercise my democratic right and vote for a government of my choice. My reverie was broken when a scrutinizer inquired, ‘Are you alright in there, sir?’ I drew a thick, pencilled cross next to Pandora Louise Elizabeth Braithwaite’s name, and withdrew from the cubicle.

As I stood before the ballot box, folding my voting paper into a small square, I tried to fully realize the awesome significance of the moment.

Tuesday December 2nd, 1997

Jesus Christ almighty! God save me from this biblical-like curse which has fallen on me! A letter from Sharon Bott, with whom I once had a frenzied sexual relationship.

Dear Aidy,

This must come as a bit of a downer.  I belong in the past, I know, but it weren’t me who wanted to send this letter.  It is my son Glenn.  He is a big lad of 12 now and he wants to know who his father is.  And the thing is, Aidy, I don’t know.  As you found out I was having relations with you and Barry Kent at the same time.  I have written to Barry the same as you.  Glenn says that you and Barry should take a DNA test to find out who is his dad.  He is a good lad at home, never no trouble.  I don’t know why the teachers are against him at school.  I’m sorry to bother you with this only I had to do it for Glenn.

Can you give me a ring?  I work shifts at Parker’s Poultry, but I’m home at ten.  Me and Glenn have seen you on Cable.  You were quite good.  Did you see that Barry has won a prize for writing a book about a blind man? It was in the Mercury last night.

Yours faithfully,

Sharon L. Bott

No way! No way! No way is she forcing me to accept Glenn ‘The Teachers Are Against Him’ Bott as my son.  I’ve got one son.  Another is surplus to requirements.

I showed the letter to Rosie, who said, ‘I know Glenn Bott. He’s a psycho, but he has got your nose.  He helps out on a stall at Leicester market on Fridays after school.  The one opposite Walker’s, the pork butcher’s.’

I phoned the Bott house.  A little kid told me that ‘Mam’s gone to work.’

Saturday, November 27th, 1999
Wisteria Walk, Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire

My mother married for the fourth time today.  She is on the way to being the Elizabeth Taylor of Ashby de la Zouch.  Unfortunately, her bridegroom, Ivan Braithwaite, had been encouraged by his night-school creative-writing teach to write a ‘millennium marriage service’.  I had to look away when he turned to my mother and vowed, ‘Pauline, my soon-to-be wife, I swear to love you emotionally, spiritually and physically, forever, plus one more day.’

When my mother replied, ‘Ivan, my soon-to-be husband, I swear to be supportive of your life choices, aware of your hidden vulnerability, and fully cognizant of your sexual needs,’ I almost ran from the registrar’s office.  My mother didn’t actually say ‘I do’, because she got a rogue hat-feather stuck down her throat and had a choking fit.  Does this make the marriage invalid? I hope so.