True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole (11 page)

Sunday May 22
^nd

Arnold Grimbold committed suicide tonight. He left a note: “I can’t face Wednesday.” This is thought to be a reference to the day his stumps were due to be dressed. What a weakling; Grantham is better off without him. I have asked for the grapes I gave him on Saturday to be returned to the shop.

Monday May 23
^rd

Got up at 5am and helped father to water down the vinegar. Screwed the caps back on bottles then had a lovely cold bath.

Walking to school I was almost knocked down by a horrid working-class man on a bicycle. I castigated him severely. He feebly explained that he had momentarily lost concentration due to tiredness after cycling 60 miles looking for work. I pointed out that he had absolutely no excuse for not keeping to the straight and narrow path and took his name. He claimed it was Tebbit, but I have my doubts. He looked awfully shifty, quite peculiar eyes. His sort ought to be forbidden to breed.

After a most enjoyable maths lesson I felt it was my duty as a monitoress to lecture the first years on the importance of having spotless finger nails. One or two started to snivel, so I kept them behind and gave them a jolly good talking to about keeping one’s emotion in check.

School dinner (sorry,
lunch
. Will I never get it right?) was unnecessarily extravagant. I counted two sultanas per square inch in the spotted dick. I complained to the school cook but she rudely told me to ‘move along’ claiming that I was holding up the second helpings queue.

Had to endure a double period of English Literature in the afternoon. I will be pleased when we have finished
Hard Times
by that obvious communist Charles Dickens. I offered to balance the lesson by reading aloud from Queen Victoria’s letters but Miss Marmaduke refused and asked me to sit down. (A word in the head’s ear would not come amiss: Miss M. is recently back from a cycling tour of Russia.)

As I walked home (alone as usual) I saw the man claiming to be Tebbit messing about on a grass verge and pretending to mend a puncture. He was in the vicinity of Snooty’s sumptuous stable, so I felt it was my duty to report the matter to our Bobby on the beat. It is a well-known fact that the unemployed are horse stealers. Police Constable Perkins thanked me in his broad Lincolnshire dialect and I continued home.

After a scrumptious home-baked tea I settled down to four hours of even more delicious chemistry homework.

After the shop closed I helped father with the accounts. I was horrified to discover that Mrs Arkwright of Railway Buildings owes sixpence for groceries. I made father promise that he would never extend credit again. He said, “Margaret, the woman is a widow with five children to feed.” I said that by granting her credit he would not be helping Mrs Arkwright to mend her reckless ways. I offered to call on Mrs Arkwright and ask her for the sixpence, but father reminded me that it was nearly midnight and that we still had not chopped and bundled the firewood for the shop. (We are taking advantage of a late BBC weather forecast predicting a cold snap.)

Finally got to bed at 2am, recited ‘How now brown cow’ one hundred times and will now lay my pencil down and go to sleep.

Tuesday May 24
^th

Had a lie in until 6am. Then got out of bed and had a brisk rub down with the pumice stone.

I opened the curtains and saw that the sun was shining brightly. (A suspicion is growing in my mind that the BBC is not to be trusted.)

Father and I hastily split the firewood into toffee apple sticks and Mother was sent into the kitchen to make three hundred toffee apples. Dear diary, I’m rather worried about Mother. She looks more timid and nervous every day. I simply can’t think why: she has her baking, her duties in the shop and a full social life with the church, so I don’t understand why, whenever I address a remark to her, she twitches and stutters and backs away from me. She has also taken to wearing a large crucifix.

Wednesday May 25
^th

Went to see Mrs Arkwright and managed to get three-pence farthing out of her. I spent some time on her ill-scrubbed doorstep explaining how she should cut down on household expenses. I told her that one could make excellent substitute tea by boiling dried nettle leaves, for example. Mrs Arkwright said it was a bad day for England when a person couldn’t afford a cup of tea, but I retorted that it was the duty of all of us to make sacrifices in order to finance the munitions industry. Mrs Arkwright sarcastically asked what I, as a grocer’s daughter, went without. I answered that I had given up applying Vaseline to the sores on my legs caused by my wellington tops rubbing.

Mother simply stank of garlic tonight. Is she turning Catholic?

Thursday May 26
^th

Police Constable Perkins called round to the shop to report that the cyclist Tebbit had been held at the Police Station for three days of questioning but had now been released without charge. I was rather put out by this apparent evidence of police laxity, but Perkins said, “His spokes were in a proper state by the time we’d done a strip search of his bike. So don’t worry, Miss Roberts, he won’t be riding around no more Lincolnshire lanes a’ bothering young ladies. No, he’ll be pushing that bike all the way back to London town!”

We all had a jolly good laugh and Father invited Perkins to join us in a cup of tea at the side of the bacon slicer. He didn’t stay long, because, as he explained, it was the scrumping season, and he was kept busy catching young boys and fracturing their eardrums.

When he had gone, Father and I did the daily stocktaking and were shocked to find there was a tin of salmon and a small Hovis missing.

My mother claimed that Constable Perkins had slipped them into his truncheon pocket as he left the shop!

Father sent her to bed for daring to cast a slur on a fine body of men. All the same the loss of the salmon and Hovis was a severe blow. Strict economies would have to be made, so Father and I sat up all night grinding chalk and adding it to the flour bin.

Friday May 27
^th

Got up at dawn to write an essay on magnetic particles. It was so enjoyable that I got carried away and was almost late for school.

After school dinner (
lunch
, Margaret,
lunch
) I was summoned to the head. She astonished me by saying, “Margaret, I can’t fault your school work, but please do try to take life
less
seriously, perhaps strike up a friendship with one of the girls in your class.” I pointed out to her that there
were
no girls of my class at the school, but she murmured, “That isn’t quite what I meant, dear,” and dismissed me.

After school I counted and bagged the currants and raisins for the shop, then spent two relaxing hours doing mathematical equations.

There was a church social at the Methodist Hall so I took a pound of broken bourbons that father had donated and spent the evening chatting to a visiting Russian Orthodox priest. He was awfully handsome and intellectual and I was delighted when he offered to walk me home. We were approaching the shop chatting about samovars when he crushed me to his chest in a bear hug and whispered lewd and revolutionary suggestions of a personal nature. I screamed and ran into the shop. I didn’t tell father, but I will never trust another Russian as long as I live.

Took a cold water bottle to bed with me to punish myself for stealing a raisin.

Saturday May 28
^th

Spent a frustrating morning poring over my school atlas doing Geography homework: locate and then draw the Falkland Islands. After searching the entire coast of Scotland and its environs I happened to glance down at the bottom left-hand corner of the map and found them off the coast of Argentina!

Sunday May 29
^th

At 7pm I broke my promise to myself and with a trembling hand I closed and locked my bedroom door, took my secret box out of my wardrobe and had a session of dressing up and posing in front of the mirror.

The crown kept slipping down over my head and I had to stop twice and stitch the cotton wool back onto the ermine robe, but I think I have almost perfected the regal wave.

I am now certain that I am of royal birth. I’m grateful that I have been adopted by simple, kindly grocer-folk, but the life of a commoner is not for me. I need to know my
true
lineage.

Dear King,

I will get straight to the point, did you or any of your close relations visit Grantham fifteen and a half years ago? And if so, did you or they happen to ‘bump’ into a plump, pleasant faced, rather simple woman?

I ask, sire, because I am the offspring of that good woman. There is a certain Hanoverian cast to my features which does not correspond to any other branch of the ‘family’ physiognomy.

To be blunt: I am convinced I am of Royal birth. At present I am living with good, decent grocer-folk but ‘tis with your family I belong, sire. I know you are a busy man but I would appreciate an early reply; my future depends on it. By the way, you can count on my complete discretion. There is no danger of me blabbing our secret to friends – I have no friends.

I sign myself,

Margaret Hilda Roberts

(until you inform me otherwise)

PS. Should you need to order ceremonial robes etc., I am a size 14 with my Liberty bodice, size 12 without. PPS. Should I start having riding lessons? If so, should I ride side-saddle or should I straddle the horse?

Monday May 30
^th

Dearest Diary,

Poor father has been inundated with complaints about his food. Mrs Arkwright came into the shop this morning and claimed that “Your eggs is all rotten, Roberts.”

Her coarse working-class accent grated on my ears and she went on, “An’ I ain’t surprised, seeing as how youse chickens is all scabby and mangy an’ is fed on fish ‘eads.”

She was joined by Mrs Pork-Cracklin who accused father of selling diseased cheese. In more refined tones she complained, “My dinner guests have telephoned me this morning – from their respective lavatories – to inform me that they suspect your cheese to be the cause of their lavatorial incarceration.”

Father got rid of Mrs Arkwright by threatening to inform the authorities that she keeps lodgers. However, he was extremely unctuous to Mrs Pork-Cracklin – he gave her a box of iced fancies and a tin of Earl Grey. Then, he dropped to his knees and begged her forgiveness. She generously gave him absolution before sweeping out of the shop and climbing into her limousine.

Tuesday May 31
^st

I received the following note from Cecil this morning:

The Little Hut

The Woods

The Wilderness

Mags old girl,

I say, do you think you can deliver another jar of Brylcreem to me tonight? This ‘living in the open’ business is playing havoc with my hair. Also, Mags sweetie, could you put in a good word for me with the Grantham worthies – I’m most awfully fed up with living in the actual and metaphoric wilderness. Surely I have paid the price for my little slip up last year. It proves I have red blood in my veins (and lead in my pencil) doesn’t it? I steered the Methodist Youth Club to victory in our last election didn’t I? Without me you could be languishing on the sidelines – making the tea, instead of enjoying high office as Chairwoman (Youth Wing).

Well, old girl, most stop now, I have to bathe in the stream and later rebuild my little hut which blew down in the night.

Yours with love and devotion

Cecil Parkhurst

PS. Could you make it a
large
jar?

Wednesday June 1
^st

I saw Cecil tonight! We sat inside his crude hut illuminated only by the candle I had slipped inside my knickers. He told me the whole sordid story: how he had been cruelly seduced by a girl who, instead of doing the decent thing and going to Switzerland for nine months, had stayed in the district and paraded her shame for all to see. Cecil, poor pet, had subsequently been banished from Grantham (Father has forbidden his name to be mentioned in our shop).

I swore to Cecil that I would not rest until he was reinstated into some high office in the Youth Club. I asked what other skills he possessed.

He said, “Well, I used to be quite good at tinkering about with the electrics on my Hornby train set.”

Thursday June 2
^nd

Mother was seen hob-nobbing with Mrs Arkwright this morning; they were admiring each other’s aprons. Father warned her against getting too familiar. He said, “As a Christian you have a duty to avoid the ungodly.”

Mother replied, “Oh go and stick your head in the pickle barrel you stuck up prat!”

And this in front of Mrs Arkwright! Father sent Mother upstairs immediately. After she had slammed the bedroom door he turned to me and said, “Let this be a lesson to you Margaret, steer well clear of the working classes. Not only do they pollute the air, they also have a deleterious effect on the vocabulary.”

This evening in my role as Chairwoman of the Methodist Youth Club I proposed that Cecil be given the job of rewiring the premises – he would be Head of Electricity. There were a few grumbles but the motion was carried and a runner (Wriggley Ridley) was sent to inform Cecil that his period in the wilderness was over.

Friday June 3
^rd

Mother has gone on strike. She stayed in bed all day reading
Madame Bovary
and eating violet creams. Nothing father said or did would shift her. She is demanding a wage for her work in the shop! I fear this is a sign of madness. She will surely end up in the Grantham Insane Asylum. This is tragic for us all. Father may have to
employ
somebody to help in the shop
and
keep the house. And how will we afford the bus fare to the lunatic asylum once a week?