Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years Read online

  Rosie rang me at 2 a.m. begging me to rescue her from the Glastonbury rock festival. She thinks she’s got trench foot. The ground is a quagmire. She has lost her shoes and has queued for two hours to use the phone. I am her only hope. I said I had no petrol in the car and advised her to put her faith in her own caring, sharing generation.

  Saturday June 28th

  Luigi rang me today and told me that several rich investors have come forward to ‘save’ Hoi Polloi. There is to be a complete refurbishment and the cellars are to be turned into an oxygen bar (!). The present restaurant is to be refitted in a 1950s working-class kitchen style, using Utility furniture, and the upstairs (including my flat) is to become a Members Only club for smokers.

  Luigi said that smokers applying to join will have to provide a doctor’s letter to prove that they are serious and not opportunistic clean-lunged wannabes.

  Michael Caine is rumoured to be one of the investors. Not many people know that, and I am sworn to secrecy. None of the present staff have been retained. Luigi is helping his brother-in-law with his window-cleaning round in Cadogan Gardens. I have started looking for somewhere else to live in London. I don’t want to move back to Wisteria Walk: I have outgrown the provinces.

  Sunday June 29th

  The Savoy Hotel has been invaded by a small plague of mice. They are offering a free drink to any guest who spots one. I sat in the American Bar, nursing a glass of sparkling water, for an hour and a half tonight. I paid particular attention to the skirtings and floor, but saw no vermin of any kind. This is just my luck.

  Monday June 30th

  I am lonely. The only person I spoke to at any length today was a Japanese tourist, who stopped me outside Tesco’s in Covent Garden (where I was bulk-buying Opal Fruits). She asked me how to get to Torquay. I was pleased to be able to direct her to Paddington station where she would be able to buy a ticket to Devon. I offered to accompany her in a black cab, but she declined.

  I fantasized in bed about her on the beach at Torquay, wearing a black Lycra bikini, but nothing came of it. Even my penis has gone off me. Have I inherited flaccidity from my father, together with hair loss? Perhaps it’s time I visited Dr Ng again. If I ring today I might get an appointment three weeks hence.

  7 p.m. I am seeing Dr Ng on July 17th at 10.10 a.m. It’s a good job that of my multifarious ailments none is immediately life-threatening.

  Chris Patten and Prince Charles gave Hong Kong back to Communist China today. I predict that, by tomorrow night, Hong Kong will be attacked by the pillaging Chinese, desperate for Levi’s and Sony Walkmen. Hong Kong will be aflame. Question: Why didn’t Chris Patten wear a uniform for such a solemn occasion? There must have been something (a cocked hat) he could have borrowed. You can’t hand back our Empire in a lounge suit – it’s simply not appropriate.

  Tuesday July 1st

  I was waiting outside Hamleys at 9 a.m. As soon as the doors opened I escalated myself up to the dressing-up clothes department, where I asked about a Jeremy Clarkson outfit. The personage in charge, Kevin, sneered at my inquiry, saying, ‘We only do fictional characters.’

  I immediately pointed out to him a garish Robin Hood outfit (ages four and a half to eight years), which came complete with a feathered hat, and bow and suctioned arrow. Kevin said that Robin Hood ‘was a fictional character’, and went on to say that his dissertation, ‘Men and Myths in Sixteenth-century Nottinghamshire’, which gained him an MA from Nottingham University, explored society’s need for heroes.

  I asked Kevin why he was flogging kids’ dressing-up clothes when he was in receipt of a Master’s degree. He said, ‘To pay for my PhD.’ He’s already mapped out his subject: ‘Coffee: Its Introduction and Effect on English Literary Life, from Dr Johnson to Martin Amis’.

  My heart was beating fast with jealous rage. I asked him how such a subject would help him find a fulfilling and well-paid job. He fiddled with the Sleeping Beauty boxes and said, ‘Well, Nescafe might take me on.’ I bought the Robin Hood outfit. William must learn to be proud of his East Midlands heritage.

  Ashby-de-la-Zouch – William’s Third Birthday

  My father got out of bed for the blowing-out-of-the-candles-on-the-cake ceremony, which is such an important part of our English culture. William tried hard, but couldn’t blow the candles out in one go. It took five of his little puffs and a little surreptitious help from me before he extinguished the tiny flames. It’s my mother’s fault. He’s tied too tightly to her apron strings. He needs to toughen up. It’s a hard world out there.

  Jo Jo sent him some traditional silken garments, as worn by the Yoruba people. He preferred these to the Robin Hood outfit, and refused to take them off when it was time for bed. My mother told me that she is thinking of suing Imperial Tobacco for one million pounds. She blames them for her nicotine addiction, persistent smoker’s cough and wrinkles.

  Thursday July 3rd

  It was in the paper today that a Japanese woman had been found wandering around Torquay ‘in a state of distress’. Apparently she had wanted to go to Turkey and had been misdirected to the Devon resort by a Londoner unable to understand her heavily accented English. Coincidence!

  Friday July 4th

  At the Bar Italia

  Two Americans are celebrating Independence Day by ordering straight coffee, rather than decaff. But now that the cups are put in front of them I notice that they are sipping the coffee as though it were liquid nitroglycerine.

  Saturday July 5th

  Savage used his key to let himself into the flat today. He was accompanied by an architect, who was wearing what appeared to be a round-collared dentist’s overall, though I suppose it was a shirt. They walked in and out of my bedroom as if the room were empty whereas, in fact, I was there in bed. My slight depression worsened into misery. I almost wept when they’d gone.

  It rains unendingly.

  Sunday July 6th

  I must get out of bed and find somewhere to live. Savage brought three builders round today for quotes. They didn’t have a noble or honest facial feature between them.

  Rain continues.

  Monday July 7th

  Nigel rang to say that his mother had taken the news badly that he was gay. She was still ‘in denial’ about Rock Hudson, and was convinced that Nigel would turn heterosexual as soon as he met the right girl. His father had muttered something about ‘horseplay in the showers at Catterick’ then gone out to his shed.

  Wednesday July 9th

  Malcolm came round to see if Humfri had returned. I was forced to tell him that the cat had not been seen for days. I quipped, ‘It’s probably drowned in all the rain!’ To my horror, Malcolm burst into tears. I know that we late-nineties men are allowed to cry in public, and to show our emotions now, but it still doesn’t feel right to me. I had to resist the urge to tell him to pull himself together. I gave him £20 and told him to buy a Tamagotchi computer pet.

  2 a.m. I’ve just remembered that Malcolm won’t be able to read the instructions on how to care for his Tamagotchi. It’s probably already dead.

  Thursday July 10th

  Pandora has been attacked in the press for ‘crimes against the environment’! She admitted in an interview with Chat magazine to wearing Chanel No. 5, and the Green Party were down on her like a felled oak. It seems that Chanel No. 5 contains an oil which is extracted from a rare and exotic tree found in endangered Brazilian forests. I rang Edna to commiserate, and she told me that Alastair Campbell has ordered Pandora to go to her constituency and plant some trees. English oaks, preferably. There is a press call outside the KP nut factory in Ashby-de-la-Zouch on Sunday at 10.30 a.m. I might be there, I need to talk to Pandora in person.

  I bought an electronic organizer today on the Tottenham Court Road. I spent all night typing my personal data into it. It’s time I streamlined my affairs and became cutting-edge. The thing is amazing in what it can do, yet it’s small enough to fit in my pyjama pocket.

  Friday July 11th

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sp; Harriet Harman, the Social Security secretary, has been on radio and television trying to explain about the government’s ‘Welfare to Work’ scheme. Several times she called it a ‘crusade’. It has to be said that Mrs Harman has the look of the zealot about her, as well as a constant air of irritation. She should let her fringe grow out, stop wearing smocks and buy an uplift bra. Also, she should stop complaining about sexism in politics. It’s most annoying.

  Sunday July 13th

  I was outside the KP nut factory by 10 a.m. with a reporter and photographer from the Leicester Mercury, and a photographer bloke from the Independent, who told me that Pandora was the thinking man’s Princess Di.

  A small crowd of constituents were watched by eight policemen, who sat in two patrol cars.

  A helicopter appeared in the sky over the soap works, hovered about a bit, then landed in the grounds of the nut factory. Pandora jumped out, wearing Rohan-labelled clothes in khaki. She was carrying a gleaming stainless-steel spade. She is the only woman I’ve ever seen who looked good in outdoor-pursuits wear.

  Pandora’s entourage emerged from the helicopter with a scruffy man, in a stained jacket and crumpled trousers, called Charlie Whelan. He lit a fag and said, ‘Where’s the rest of the f------ press?’

  The photographer from the Independent said, ‘They’re staking out Kensington Palace. Princess Diana’s got a new squeeze, an Arab bloke.’

  Pandora said, ‘Charlie, where are the trees I’ve got to plant?’

  Charlie slapped his nicotined fingers to his rumpled forehead and said, ‘I’ve left the bleeders at the heliport.’

  At this point I took off my baseball cap and dark glasses and made myself known to Pandora. She didn’t look thrilled to see me. She said, ‘Adrian! Again! Are you stalking me?’

  I assured her that I was just passing, on the way to see my son William. I invited her and her entourage to Sunday lunch at my mother’s house. Charlie said, ‘I wouldn’t mind a beef and Yorkshire pudding job.’ They agreed to come, providing I helped them locate some trees. I drove them to Bob Perkins Garden Centre Ltd.

  The press followed, and Pandora and the eponymous Bob Perkins were photographed pretending to admire some mildewed saplings, which were leaning up against an industrial greenhouse.

  The Leicester Mercury quizzed Pandora about her green credentials: she was all for recycling, clean air and Leicestershire County Council’s plans to plant a New Forest, and she was very much against air pollution, poisoned rivers and ‘profligate use of electricity and gas’.

  As the interview continued, I went into a greenhouse full of hanging baskets and mobiled my mother, who didn’t yet know I was in the area. When I told her that I had invited myself and three guests to Sunday lunch, she screamed down the phone. She didn’t say anything at first, she just screamed. Eventually she shouted, ‘I’ve got a scraggy breast of lamb, which will just about stretch to feed me, your dad, Rosie and William, I’m out of Oxos and my Yorkshire-pudding tin is badly buckled. You’ll have to take them to a restaurant.’

  I said, ‘If this was Arabia you would give your own eyeballs to such honoured guests.’

  My mother pointed out, quite unnecessarily, that this wasn’t Arabia, it was Ashby-de-la-Zouch – and, anyway, why wasn’t Pandora going to visit her parents, who only lived round the corner from Bob Perkins Ltd? She said, ‘I know they’re in because I bumped into Ivan this morning while I was taking the New Dog for a walk.’

  I gave a hollow laugh and put the phone down. It was socially embarrassing to have to snatch back the invitation to Sunday dinner.

  Charlie Whelan moaned, ‘I’ve got the idea of Yorkshire pudding in my head now. My mouth’s watering for it.’

  When I asked Pandora if her parents would be up to cooking a traditional English roast at short notice, she laughed and said, ‘A and C haven’t touched meat for years. On Sundays their main meal is scrambled eggs on toast while watching The Antiques Road Show.’

  Bob Perkins suggested C. leylandii trees for the KP nut roundabout. So, after Pandora had been photographed planting them, we retired to a McDonalds on the bypass. It was mainly full of access-day fathers, trying desperately to control their children.

  Pandora was constantly pestered by constituents. Her Filet o’ Fish remained untouched.

  An old man in a golfing sweater complained that a streetlight outside his bedroom window flickered and kept him awake. An Indian bloke said he had nowhere to park his car. And a mad-looking woman said she was disgusted that Pandora had not paid public tribute to James Stewart, the actor, who had apparently died on July 2nd.

  As we were leaving, a bloke in a beige car coat with a walking-stick limped up to Pandora and gave her a sob story about his evil next-door neighbour, who had planted C. leylandii trees along their boundary fence, five years ago. ‘They’re fifteen feet tall now,’ he said, ‘and they’re blocking my daylight.’

  Pandora tapped his name and address into her electronic organizer and said she would see what she could do.

  There was a little crowd of schoolchildren on bikes waiting to see the helicopter take off; there was a ratio of one policeman for every two kids. I watched until the chopper was a tiny dot in the darkening sky, then I sat in my car for a long time before driving to Wisteria Walk to see my son.

  Monday July 14th

  Bought an Independent today. Pandora’s photograph was on the front. If you look very carefully you can just make out the tip of my nose in the background. I’ve decided to delay deciding about decision-making until I feel decidedly better. My mental state is fragile.

  The manuscript of my novel, Lo! The Flat Hills of My Homeland, was returned today from a publisher in Osaka, Japan. He wrote that it was ‘derivative but didn’t say of what. Perhaps I should change the title to something punchier, in the Trainspotting mode. After a lot of thought I have settled on Birdwatching.

  Tuesday July 15th

  I had to leave the flat to shop for Opal Fruits this morning. Then I hurried home and parcelled up Birdwatching – I think I might send it off to Iceland, where I understand they are enjoying a cultural renaissance. I rang a publisher in Reykjavik using the restaurant phone. A woman answered in a language entirely foreign to my ear: Icelandic, I presume. I put the phone down. Until they adopt the English language I fear they will remain totally isolated from the rest of the world.

  Wednesday July 16th

  What am I going to do with the rest of my life? Where will I live? How will I make a living when my work with Pie Crust comes to an end? Am I now formally separated from my wife? How long can a person go without a bowel movement? How much have I got in the bank? Will Savage offer me a job in one of his new enterprises? How long have I got before I am entirely bald? Which reminds me – will the Dome at Greenwich be finished on time? How does Mr Mandelson live with the worry?

  Thursday July 17th

  Dr Ng said that anxiety and insecurity are entirely sane responses to a mad world. He advised me to start a pension plan. So, the National Health has come to this.

  I struggled for an hour and a half to evacuate my bowels. Somebody rang on the doorbell of the flat, but whoever it was left no note. In future I will make sure that there is always a book in the lavatory. An hour and a half with my own thoughts was unbearable. A. A. Gill’s ‘turds’ review was a particularly painful memory.

  Belinda rang to say the Millennium Channel have finally given us a slot. It is 10.30 a.m. Wednesday mornings. I was bitterly disappointed and reminded her that we would be up against Richard and Judy. She said, ‘Believe you me, Adrian, if it comes to a ratings war, they’ll wonder what hit them.’

  Friday July 18th

  I searched fruitlessly through my fail-safe electronic filing system today, trying to discover the balance of my various accounts. For some reason it wouldn’t divulge the information. I went out and bought a new battery from the electrical shop on Old Compton Street. The helpful bloke in there said his electronic organizer had refused to give hi
m his Christmas-card list last year. He went on to tell me about the family row that ensued, but I wasn’t listening properly. I spotted Justine coming out of Pâtisserie Valerie opposite, so I paid the helpful bloke and ran outside to catch up with her. She took my arm as we walked towards Wardour Street. Was she signalling that she wanted to have sex with me? Or was it because she needed support? (She was wearing five-inch platforms.) You can never tell with women, these days.

  A colleague of Justine’s is giving Malcolm literacy lessons between shows. We arranged to meet on Tuesday and go for a Japanese meal.

  Saturday July 19th

  My mystery caller on Thursday was Malcolm. He was desperate for news of Humfri. I asked him why he hadn’t put a note through the door. ‘I can only write “The cat sat on the lap”!’ he said.