The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole Read online

  Assorted fairies and Kermits and clowns were dancing downstairs, then the gorilla burst in and started dancing with a belly dancer who was wearing a most disgusting flimsy costume which showed her navel and most of her nipples. The belly dancer kept her yashmak on which I thought was hypocritical - as if anybody was interested in looking at her face!

  I couldn’t see Pandora anywhere, so after about half an hour I ran up to the door and put my letter through the letterbox. As I turned to run back down the drive Toulouse Lautrec shuffled out and was sick in one of the bay tree tubs.

  I got home to find Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in our kitchen. Queen Victoria said, ‘We’re going to the Braithwaites’.’ Prince Albert said, The dog needs feeding.’ Then they swept regally out of the kitchen and up the road to Pandora’s. Nobody tells me anything in this house.

  SUNDAY MAY 16TH

  Rogation Sunday.Moon’s Last Quarter

  3 p.m. My mother keeps being sick. It serves her right for staying out until 4 a.m. drinking. My father is still in bed, but he will have to get up soon. He has promised to take Grandma to the garden centre after tea.

  7 p.m. Garden centres must be the most boring places on earth, yet adults walk around them with expressions of ecstasy on their faces!

  My grandma bought a dozen rose sticks and a bag of fertilizer and a plastic Cupid urn.

  My father bought a rose stick called ‘Pauline’. He and my mother looked at each other in a sloppy sort of way and held hands over the stick. I left them to it and went and looked at the poisons on the bottom shelves.

  I was toying with the idea of buying a bottle when Grandma shouted and asked me to come and carry the fertilizer to the car. Thus my mind was torn from thoughts of death.

  MONDAY MAY 17TH

  I was doing my maths homework in the fourth-years’ cloakroom when I overheard Pandora’s confident voice ringing out.

  ‘Yes it was a brillo party. But, my dear, I’m rather worried.’

  Claire Neilson said, ‘Why’s that, Pan?’

  Pandora said seriously, ‘I so enjoyed dressing up as a belly dancer, even though it’s quite against my feminist principles to exhibit my body.’

  Then they moved away down the corridor gassing about Claire Neilson’s cat who is expecting kittens.

  So, Pandora, who refused to show me one of her nipples in the privacy of my bedroom is quite prepared to flaunt both nipples at a mixed gathering!!!

  TUESDAY MAY 18TH

  Bumped into Stick Insect in the library. She had her son, Maxwell House, with her. For a thin woman she certainly looked fat.

  Maxwell chucked books off the shelves while Stick Insect and I talked about the days when she had been my father’s girlfriend. I told her that she had had a lucky escape from my father, but she defended him, saying, ‘He is another person when he is on his own with me. He is so sweet and kind.’ Yes, and so was Dr Jekyll.

  Got The Condition of the Working Class in England by Frederick Engels out of the library.

  10.30 p.m. I have just realized that Stick Insect used the present tense when she was referring to her relationship with my father. It is absolutely disgraceful. A woman of thirty not knowing the fundamentals of grammar!

  WEDNESDAY MAY 19TH

  No word from Pandora. When we meet at school she looks through me as if I were the Invisible Man. I have asked Nigel where I can find Sharon Botts. I also went to the greengrocer’s to find out how much grapes cost per pound.

  THURSDAY MAY 20TH

  Ascension Day

  Started reading Fred Engels’ book tonight. My father saw me reading it and said, ‘I don’t want that Commie rubbish in my house.’

  I said, ‘It’s about the class you came from yourself.’

  My father said, ‘I have worked and slaved and fought to join the middle classes, Adrian, and now I’m here I don’t want my son admiring proles and revolutionaries.’

  He is deluding himself if he thinks he has joined the middle classes. He still puts HP sauce on his toast.

  FRIDAY MAY 21ST

  While I was listening to The Archers my mother asked me if I minded being an only child. I said on the contrary, I preferred it.

  SATURDAY MAY 22ND

  My father has just asked me if I would like a sister or a brother. I said neither. Why do they keep drivelling on about kids? I hope they aren’t thinking about adopting one. They are terrible parents. Look at me, I’m a complete neurotic.

  SUNDAY MAY 23RD

  Sunday after Ascension.New Moon

  I couldn’t sleep so I got up very early and went for a walk past Pandora’s house. I thought about her lying in her Habitat bed- wearing her Laura Ashley nightgown and I don’t mind admitting that tears sprang to my eyes. How-ever, I dashed them away and went to call on old Bert and Queenie.

  A wild old woman answered the door, she said, ‘What have you got me out of bed for?’ It was Queenie with her hair on end and no make-up on.

  I apologized and went home to wake my parents up with a cup of tea. Were they grateful? No! My mother said, ‘For God’s sake, Adrian, it’s cockcrow on Sunday morning. Push off and buy the papers or something.’

  I bought the papers, read them, then took them up to my parents. I think the central heating must need turning down because my parents were both very red in the face. As I went out I heard my mother say, ‘George, we will have to get a lock on that door.’

  MONDAY MAY 24TH

  Victoria Day (Canada)

  Went to the youth club tonight. Barry Kent was there with his gang, worse luck! Rick Lemon was showing a film about potholing in Derbyshire. I was very interested but I found it hard to concentrate on it because Barry Kent kept putting his fingers in front of the projector and making rabbits and giraffes and other animal shapes.

  When Barry Kent had gone to the coffee bar to harass the Youth Work student behind the counter I told Rick Lemon about my problems. He said, ‘Hey, that’s bad news, Adrian, but I’m busy tonight. Come and see me at 6 p.m. tomorrow night and we’ll have a good rap.’

  I think this means that he wants to talk to me at 6 p.m. tomorrow.

  TUESDAY MAY 25TH

  Went to Rick’s office in the Youth Club. We had a long talk about my problems. Rick said I was a ‘typical product of the petty-bourgeoisie’. He said my problems were the result of my generation’s ‘alienation from an increasingly urbanized society’. He said my parents were ‘morally bankrupt and spiritually dead’. He lit a long, loose herbal cigarette and said, ‘Adrian, loosen up. Don’t run with the herd. Try and live your life unfettered by convention.’ Then he looked at his watch and said, ‘Christ, I told her I’d be home by seven.’

  We walked outside and he got into his wobbly Citroen and said, ‘You must come round for supper one night.’

  I asked if he was still squatting in the old tyre factory. He said, ‘No, we’ve moved into Badger’s Copse, the new Barratt housing estate.’

  I can’t decide if I feel better or worse after talking to Rick. On the whole I think I feel worse.

  John Nott has announced on the news that ‘one of our ships has been badly damaged’. I hope it is not the Canberra. Barry Kent’s brother is on it.

  WEDNESDAY MAY 26TH

  My mother is pregnant! My mother!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  I will be the laughing stock at school. How could she do this to me? She is three months pregnant already, so in November a baby will be living in this house. I hope they don’t expect me to share my room with it. There’s no way I’m getting up in the night to give it its bottle.

  My parents didn’t prepare me or anything. We were all eating spaghetti on toast when my father said casually, ‘Oh, by the way, Adrian, congratulations are in order, your mother’s three months pregnant.’

  Congratulations! What about my A levels in two years’ time? How can I study with a toddler smashing the place up around me?

  10p.m. Kissed my poor mother goodnight. She said, ‘Are you pleased about the baby, Adrian?�
� I lied and said ‘Yes.’

  The ship that went down was the Coventry. It is very sad. I am glad that my dad got turned down by the War Office.

  THURSDAY MAY 27TH

  Got an airmail letter from Hamish Mancini, the American we met on holiday last year.

  1889 West 33rd Street,

  New York

  Hi there Aid!

  Fazed huh! Yeah well, thought I’d communicate. Been feelin kinda unzapped lately, guess mom’s divorce to number four kinda unhinged me some. But! Hamish Mancini aint gonna stick around and take no more adult crap, no sir Aid. I’m comin over to visit you some. I got finance. I got documentation, I got nothin keepin me here. Tomorrow I get a flight and wowee I get to see your olde British cottage in the ancient Midlands region.

  We’ll promenade around ancient ruins. We’ll explore Shakespeare land. Huh? I got me some good Lebanon.

  See you Saturday buddy.

  Hamish Mancini

  After reading it and rereading it I think it means that Hamish Mancini is coming to stay with us on Saturday! I wish I hadn’t told him that I lived in a thatched cottage.

  I haven’t told my parents yet. My mother said he ruined her adulterous holiday aveclucas with his constant yapping.

  FRIDAY MAY 28TH

  Dentist’s after school for a false tooth fitting. He took advantage of my weak position in the dentist’s chair to make disparaging remarks about British teeth. His assistant is from Malaya so they are both bitter about having lived under the Colonial jungleboot.

  I walked home slowly, I was dreading breaking the news about Hamish Mancini’s arrival. The dog met me halfway up the cul-de-sac. It was nice to see its happy face.

  When I got in I made a big fuss over my poor pregnant mother, I made her a cup of coffee and insisted she put her feet up on the sofa. I put a cushion behind her head and gave her the Radio Times to read. I’ve seen it done in old films (Cary Grant did it to Doris Day).

  My mother said, ‘It’s very kind of you, Adrian, but I can only sit down for a few minutes; I’m playing squash in half an hour.’

  But she was in a good mood so I told her about Hamish. She rolled her eyes a bit and pulled her lips tight, but she didn’t go mad. So perhaps being with child has improved her temper.

  SATURDAY MAY 29TH

  Moon’s First Quarter

  11.30p.m. The spare room is prepared, the pantry is full of tinned pumpkin pie, the freezer is bursting with pork grits and corn on the cob and pot roasts. The bathroom has been cleaned to American hygiene standards, the dog has been brushed but Hamish Mancini is not here.

  We watched the nine o’clock news but no airliners had crashed into the Atlantic today or any other day this week.

  At 11 p.m. my father said, ‘Well, I’m not sitting around in my best clothes a minute longer.’ So we all took our best clothes off and went to bed.

  5a.m. Hamish Mancini is in the spare room. He is playing Appalachian mountain songs on his steel guitar. He got a taxi from Heathrow Airport (130 miles!); the taxi driver found our house all right, but Hamish refused to believe that it was the right address and made the poor bloke drive round our suburb, looking for a thatched cottage. Eventually the taxi driver drove back to our house and got my father out of bed. Hamish paid the worn-out taxi driver with dollar bills.

  SUNDAY MAY 30TH

  Whit Sunday

  Hamish made a terrible faux pas at breakfast. He asked my mother, ‘Hey, Pauline, where’s that guy, Lucas?’

  There was an awful silence, then my father said coldly, ‘My wife and Mr Lucas are no longer friends.’

  But Hamish went on! ‘Gee, that’s too bad, Mr Lucas was cool y’know? What happened?’

  My mother said, ‘We don’t usually talk about personal matters at breakfast, not in England,’ she added.

  He said, ‘Wow, that great British reserve I’ve heard about.’ He seemed really happy, as if he’d found a whole village full of thatched cottages.

  In the afternoon we took him to see Bert and Queenie, he was beside himself with joy. On the way back in the car he kept saying, ‘Jee-sus! A genuine Derby [he pronounced it to rhyme with Herbie] and Joan!’

  I went to bed at 10 p.m. worn out with his constant enthusiastic exclamations.

  MONDAY MAY 31ST

  Spring Holiday (except Scotland)

  Bank Holiday Scotland)Memoriyal Day(USA)

  We took Hamish to the fun fair on our recreation ground. For once Hamish looked a bit subdued. He said, ‘I guess Disneyland has kinda given me a false expectation-of-enjoyment level.’

  He took my mother on the dodgems and I went on the Flying Whiplash with my father. I was dumbstruck with terror, so was my father; I was OK until I looked down and saw the moron working the machinery. He looked like a Neanderthal man in denims and I had put my life in his clumsy paws!

  My father had aged ten years by the time he got off the Flying Whiplash. But when my mother asked him if he had enjoyed himself he said, ‘It was grand.’

  Our dog has become Hamish’s devoted companion; it follows him wherever he goes. Hamish calls our dog ‘ol’ Blue’ and sings it sickly songs about American dogs who sit on their dead masters’ graves.

  It makes me sick to see how easily the dog’s affections are bought.

  TUESDAY JUNE 1ST

  Hamish wants to meet Pandora. I told him how things stand between Pandora and me, but Hamish wouldn’t listen. He just said, ‘But that doesn’t stop me from meeting her, for Christ’s sake.’

  Grandma rang up at tea-time and asked if my father would come and collect her but I told her that we’d got an American in the house, so she said she wouldn’t bother. She said, ‘I’m just too old to cope with Americans, Adrian.’ I know how she feels.

  Hamish got Pandora’s number from our pop-up phone index on the hall table, then he rang her up and invited himself round for supper!

  Still, at least the house is peaceful. I am reading The Quiet American by Graham Greene, Hughie Greene’s brother.

  WEDNESDAY JUNE 2ND

  Hamish has gone skiing on a dry slope with Pandora. I hope they both break something, preferably their necks.

  THURSDAY JUNE 3RD

  I took Hamish to see how an English comprehensive school works today. The only previous knowledge he had of English schools was taken from reading Tom Brown’s Schooldays, so Hamish was a bit disappointed to find that ritual floggings and roastings had been done away with.

  Mr Dock, my English teacher, asked Hamish to give our class a short talk on ‘His impressions of England’. Hamish wasn’t a bit shy. He went to the front of the class, spat his chewing gum into Mr Dock’s wicker basket and said, ‘Well, England’s great, cute, real fine. Jee-sus, it’s green! I mean like real green! And I just love your flues [chimneys, translated by Mr Dock]. In the Apple [New York] we don’t have flues [chimneys]. I guess the coolest thing, though, is your girls. [Here his eyes met Pandora’s.] They may look like icebergs on the surface, but Jee-sus, the seven-eighths that’s under the surface sure gets a guy warmed up.’ He drivelled on for another ten minutes! I was glad when the bell rang.

  It is twenty-four days since Pandora spoke to me.

  FRIDAY JUNE 4TH

  Hamish is spending every waking moment at Pandora’s house. It is an abuse of our hospitality. A telegram came from America. It was addressed to mancini but I opened it, in case his mother had dropped dead or something.

  BABY STOP COME HOME TO MOM STOP WE MUST TRY TO INTERACT POSITIVELY STOP HOW THE BRITS TREATING YOU STOP WIRE ME AND GIVE ME YOUR ARRIVAL AT KENNEDY STOP I GOT A NEW SHRINK STOP HE IS PORTUGUESE STOP ETHEL GLITTENSTEINER SWEARS HE CURED HER KLEPTOMANIA STOP HOW’S THE WEATHER STOP IT’S AWFUL HOT HERE STOP BUT IT IS NOT SO MUCH THE HEAT AS THE HUMIDITY STOP SAY HELLO TO ADRIAN PAULINE AND MISTER LUCAS FOR ME STOP I LOVE YOU BABY

  I delivered the telegram to Pandora’s house. Pandora took it from me without a word. I turned away without a word.

  SATURDAY JUNE 5TH

  Hamis
h has gone home to Mom. The next time he runs away from home I hope he goes to Cape Horn or the Arctic Circle or anywhere I’m not likely to be.

  SUNDAY JUNE 6TH

  Trinity Sunday, Full Moon

  Stayed in my room all day bringing my Falklands campaign map up to date. I am very aware that I am living through a historical period and I, Adrian Mole, predict that the British People will force the government to resign.

  MONDAY JUNE 7TH

  Holiday (Republic of Ireland)

  My mother

  Claire Neilson’s cat

  Mitzi

  What have the above all got in common? The fact that they are all expecting babies, kittens or puppies. The fecundity of this suburb is just amazing. You can’t walk down the street without bumping into pregnant women and it has all happened since the council put fluoride in the water.

  TUESDAY JUNE 8TH

  Saw Bert Baxter outside the newsagent’s. He was sitting in his wheelchair reading the Morning Star. We had a long talk about working-class culture. Bert said that if he were a younger man he would infiltrate into the Sun newspaper and smash the presses up!

  He tried to get me to join the Young Communists. I said I would think about it. I thought about it for five minutes then decided not to. The GCE examiners might get to hear about it.

  WEDNESDAY JUNE 9TH

  It is time I was done with childish things so I have taken all my Enid Blyton books off my bookshelves. I have packed them into an Anchor butter box and put them outside my door. I hope my parents take the hint and stop talking to me as if I were a moron. Anyone who can understand how the International Monetary Fund works (I did it in Maths last week) deserves more respect.

  THURSDAY JUNE 10TH

  Stick Insect is pregnant!