Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years Part 15

I said icily that I was looking forward to making my son's acquaintance. He laughed a smoker's laugh and put the phone down.

Monday December 15th The New Dog had a sudden burst of energy this morning and attacked the Christmas tree, almost destroying it. Ivan offered to repair the damage. It is now back up, but many of the old decorations seem to have disappeared. I searched the waste-bins and the wheelie-bin, but found no evidence, yet I know that the cardboard star I made for my mother twenty-two years ago is in the house somewhere.

As I was loading the was.h.i.+ng-machine tonight, I found a note in the pocket of William's anorak; it was dated Thursday December 3rd.

Dear Parent, Guardian/Primary Carer Your son/daughter has been allocated a part in the Kidsplay Nativity enactment.

He/she will require a costume for the following character: goat.

The performance will begin at 4 a.m. sharp on Tuesday December 16th.

Yours sincerely, Mrs Parvez Tomorrow!

I was outraged. William is to play a lowly goat! Mrs Parvez obviously still bears a grudge over the farm visit incident.

And how am I supposed to find a goat costume before tomorrow morning? And, anyway, what role does a goat play in the Nativity? I checked the Christmas cards hung by a string on the living-room wall, but didn't see a single goat in any of the mangers.

My mother has refused to have anything to do with the goat costume, so I was forced to ask for Tania's help.

Tuesday December 16th William was easily the best performer in the Nativity play. He was the essence of goatiness. My mother whispered, 'How is he getting his eyes to protrude like that?'

He looked magnificent in his goat outfit--though Ivan was furious to see that Tania had cut up his old grey car-coat for the body, four legs and goatee beard. He had a little trouble with the 'horns' made of painted carrots, but the cloven hooves that my father had fas.h.i.+oned from four empty Flora tubs were a triumph.

Pauline 'n' Ivan and George 'n' Tania ignored each other and also the printed notices left on our seats.

Please do not take flash photographs.

Kidsplay will be selling official photographs @ PS27.50 per pack in the new term.

NB. Please note, it is not possible to split packs.

I thought the other children gave a distinctly lackl.u.s.tre performance. Joseph looked particularly gormless.

During the children's long and atonal rendition of 'Away In A Manger', my thoughts drifted to Glenn Bott; the type of child who was unlikely to be chosen to play anything ever in a Nativity play, not even a goat.

I phoned the Bott household when I got back home, but there was no reply.

Wednesday December 17th A Christmas card from Pandora. It began 'Dear Const.i.tuent,' and was signed with a rubber stamp.

I drove to Sharon's tonight and sat in the car rehearsing what I would say to the boy. Would I be expected to hug and kiss him, or merely shake his hand in a manly way?

As I sat there, a battered white van drew up at the kerb. Glenn and Douggie emerged. Douggie pointed at my car and laughed, and Glenn put his head down and went into the house, slamming the door behind him. I turned the engine on and drove away.

Thursday December 18th Brick Eagleburger rang to say that he'd had an irate Arthur Stoat on the phone, demanding the ma.n.u.script of Offally Good!--The Book!.

Brick said, 'Level with me, Aidy, I'm your agent for Chrissake, I lie for a f--living. I can ring Stoat and tell him you've been in a f--coma. But I wanna know the truth. I'm gonna ask you two questions. One: have you written the f--book?'

'No,' I said.

'OK, so now we're getting somewhere. Two: is a ghost-writer writing the f--book?'

'No,' I admitted.

Arthur Stoat is threatening to sue me for breach of contract and claim compensation for lost income and damage to his professional reputation. I asked him how much Stoat was demanding. Brick said, 'The guy was quoting a ballpark figure of sixty K.'

After I'd replaced the receiver I sat on the stairs for a full five minutes trying to imagine the life that lay ahead of me. I did a quick calculation on the telephone message pad.

Stoat Books 60,000 Legal fees 6,000 (approx) PS66,000.

I would be forced to live in penury in my mother's house with two sons to support and my professional reputation in tatters. It was my darkest hour.

When my mother came in from Christmas shopping I told her everything: about Glenn, and Stoat Books, and the hopeless future that lay ahead of me.

She put her arm round me and said, 'Don't worry, pet, you've still got your mother. I can be strong for both of us.'

She then went to her bedroom and lay down with a cold white flannel over her face.

Friday December 19th I heard my mother get up at five this morning and then start clacking on her computer keys in the alcove. My bedroom lies directly above Ivan's work-station and I was forced from my bed by the disturbance. I went down to complain. She swung round guiltily on her typist's chair and said, 'I'm writing our round-robin Christmas letter. Go back to bed.'

She is so inconsiderate: I need all the sleep I can get at a time like this.

Sunday December 21st Am I the only person in this house who is remotely interested in the arrangements for Christmas? There isn't a candle, a mince-pie or a bag of nuts in the house. And I need to focus my little remaining energy on tracking down a Teletubby.

Monday December 22nd I have bought book tokens from Waterstones for everybody, apart from my mother, for whom I already have a gift. It is a set of mini toiletries I took from a boarding house I stayed in last year: shampoo, conditioner, bath gel, sewing kit, cotton buds and a shoes.h.i.+ne pad. I plan to place them in a wicker bread-basket and cover them with clingfilm. She will never know it is not a bona fide shop-bought present.

Tuesday December 23rd My mother has still not bought a turkey, even though we are apparently to host the entire family on Christmas Day. She is spending sixteen hours a day at the keyboard writing her interminable round robin.

Wednesday December 24th Christmas Eve I rose at dawn and went downstairs to find my mother still seated in front of the screen, the ashtray next to her overflowing. I pointed out to her that this was a pointless exercise as she had long missed the last posting day for Christmas and she said that she had turned it into a New Year greeting. When I told her that, after a tip-off from Nigel, I was going to queue outside Safeway's for a Teletubby, she said, 'Pick a turkey up while you're there, and a Christmas cake and stuff.' As I slammed the door she shouted, 'Don't forget the bread-sauce mix.'

The Teletubby queue was at least thirty people long by the time I arrived; some had been there all night. I cursed G.o.d, went inside, filled two trolleys with Christmas Fayre, drove home, unpacked, put the turkey in the bath to defrost, drove to Toys 'SV Us, threw a lot of plastic rubbish suitable for a three-year-old into a trolley, and drove home again.

I was wrapping the book tokens in my room when the doorbell rang with an aggressive urgency. My mother shouted from the computer alcove, 'For Christ's sake! Will somebody please answer that b.l.o.o.d.y door!'

William got there before me.

Glenn Bott stood on the doorstep looking down at his half-brother. He was holding a large envelope. Wordlessly he handed it over to me.

Wordlessly I took it. He would not look me in the eye.

William said, 'Do you want to see my dinosaur farm?'

Glenn nodded, and William led the way up the stairs. I followed, tearing open the envelope. Inside was a Christmas card. A picture of a pipe-smoking-dad type, in a cardigan, sitting by a roaring fire in an armchair with a decanter and a gla.s.s on a small round table next to him. Across the top was gold-embossed writing: 'To Dad at Christmas'.

May Yuletide cheer Be yours this year And may your Christmas Dreams come true If e'er I'm sad I think of Dad And I'm so pleased My Dad is you!

He had signed it--'To Dad, from Glenn'.

I thanked him and he frowned. He doesn't go in for smiling much. He looks like a cross between William Brown (the same tuft of hair sticking up at the back) and a younger, blonder, thinner, more authentic version of Gordon Brown. The Chancellor of the Exechequer.

I couldn't think of anything to say to the boy, and thanked G.o.d for William's obvious social skills. But when William went to the toilet and we were alone, I confided in him my despair at being unable to give William his most devout wish, a set of Teletubbies.

Was I subconsciously warning the boy about my inadequacies as a parent?

Eventually, Glenn said, 'What shall I call you? Dad or Adrian?'

I said, 'Dad,' and he now calls me Dad at least once every sentence. I never call my father anything.

When William came back, Glenn got to his feet and said, 'I've gotta go, Dad.'

My mother was waiting at the foot of the stairs. Her face crumpled slightly when she saw him. Glenn blushed a deep red as they were introduced and my mother was uncharacteristically lost for words, so I hurried the boy out of the door. He said, 'I'll be back, Dad.'

After he'd gone I drove to the BP garage, where I panic-bought a plastic football. I hoped that the boy had at least a pa.s.sing interest in the game.

I got back to the house to find my mother in the kitchen with Ivan. She kept saying, 'Just you wait until you see him,' in a kind of despairing way. Ivan said, 'Pauline, the child has had none of the advantages of our children: library tickets, nouris.h.i.+ng food, etc.'

This is a joke: I was brought up on boil-in-the-, bag.

Rosie said, 'He's riding around on a PS200 BMX.'

'It's probably stolen,' said my mother.

I defended Glenn, saying, 'He is my son, a member of the Mole family. We must grow to love him.'

My mother said, 'I'll try to like him, Adrian, but love may take some time.'

Rosie had prejudiced my mother against Glenn by telling her that he is a psycho and has been suspended from school three times, once for throwing his shoes over the oak tree in the grounds (one got caught in a lower branch), once for saying that the moussaka he had for school dinner was 'c.r.a.p', and once for a.s.serting to his comparative religion teacher that G.o.d was 'a bit of a b.a.s.t.a.r.d' for allowing famines and plane crashes to happen.

Thursday December 25th Christmas Day--Bank Holiday The day has been exhausting. William was up at 5.30. I tried to fob him off with his Christmas stocking and then to persuade him back to bed, but the kid was in a frenzy of excitement and made several attempts to break into the living room, where Santa had left his presents. As arranged I telephoned my father and Tania, and told them that William was about to 'open'. Next I knocked on my mother 'n' Ivan's door and told them the same. I shouted to Rosie and went down to put the kettle on. This was only the first of my many domestic duties on this day. I sometimes wish I lived in pre-feminist times when if a man washed a teaspoon he was regarded as 'a big Jessie'. It must have been great when women did all the work, and men just lolled about reading the paper. I asked my father about those days when we were preparing the Brussels sprouts, the carrots and the potatoes, etc., etc. His eyes took on a faraway misty look. 'It was a golden age,' he said, almost choking with emotion. 'I'm only sorry that you never lived to see it as an adult man. I'd come home from work, my dinner would be on the table, my s.h.i.+rts ironed, my socks in b.a.l.l.s. I didn't know how to turn the stove on, let alone cook on the bleeding thing.' His eyes then narrowed, his voice became a hiss as he said, 'That b.l.o.o.d.y Germaine Greer ruined my life. Your mother was never the same after reading that bleeding book.'

The Norfolk Sugdens, my mother's parents, turned up at 1 a.m. I'm amazed that the Swansea licensing authorities allow Grandad Sugden to drive. He's got cataracts and narcolepsy, a condition that sends him to sleep every twenty minutes.

'He ain't asleep for long,' said Granny Sugden, 'no more 'n a second or so.'

They sat down in front of the television five minutes after arriving, and watched everything on the screen with the same open-mouthed fascination. The signal is weak where they live. I asked my mother if she'd told the Sugdens about the Great Mole/Braithwaite Partner Swap.

'No,' she said, 'they're retired potato farmers. It would only confuse them.'

I certainly saw confusion in Grandma Sugden's eyes when Ivan took my mother into his arms under the mistletoe and French-kissed her for a good two minutes. I was glad to leave them all to it and get into the kitchen. Though I was enraged to find out that the turkey hadn't defrosted properly!

Why not? It had been in the bath at least sixteen hours.

Rosie sat for an hour with her new Rowenta hairdryer on full, directing heat into the turkey's cavities. By the time it came out of the oven, the light was fading and everyone had stuffed themselves full of chocolates and mince-pies. I must admit, my dear Diary, that the last ten minutes before dis.h.i.+ng up the Christmas dinner were possibly the most pressured of my life. Serving dinner for sixty at Hoi Polloi was a doddle by comparison. I have been nagging my mother to have the large ring on her electric cooker repaired for months but, oh, no, that would have been too sensible!

Finally, when all the vegetables were in their serving dishes, and the roast potatoes and chipolatas and stuffing b.a.l.l.s were cl.u.s.tered around the turkey, I realized the horrible truth: I had forgotten to make the gravy! In a normal household this would hardly matter--a dollop of Bisto and a few pale Oxos would suffice. But the Christmas Gravy in the Mole house has over the years taken on the stuff of myth and legend.

My dead grandma, Edna May Mole, is responsible for setting the standard. First the turkey giblets are stewed for twenty-four hours, and when the stock has been reduced and the sc.u.m has been removed, then and only then are proprietary gravy brands added, slowly and carefully, until exactly the right shade of light brown liquid, not too thick, not too thin, simmers in the Christmas Gravy Saucepan.

I tore some kitchen paper from the roll and buried my face in it, only to be jolted from my feelings of inadequacy by Tania, who burst into the kitchen and asked irritably, 'How much longer must we wait? I'm hypoglycaemic you know.'

I said, through gritted teeth, that I had forgotten to make the Christmas Gravy.

'I'll do it,' she said.

This would be tantamount to having Charles Manson give the Pope's Easter Blessing. I tried to stop her but before I could she had pulled the chicken Oxos out of my hand and crumbled them into the turkey roasting-pan. She was stirring it (quite viciously, I thought) when my mother arrived on the scene. 'What do you think you're doing?' she asked.

'I'm making gravy,' said Tania.

'Only a person who carries the Mole name is allowed to make the Christmas Gravy,' said my mother, whose lips, always thin, had now all but disappeared. 'Give me that spoon.'

Tania said, 'Whether you like it or not, Pauline, I will soon be a Mole. George and I are getting married as soon as we're all divorced.'

'Fine! Fine!' shouted my mother. 'You can make your own Christmas Gravy in your own house, but until then get out of my kitchen!'

Everybody then congregated in the kitchen to join the row, apart from William who was putting his plastic insects (a present from Rosie, 30 for PS1 from Poundstretcher) to bed in various containers.

Meanwhile, the Christmas dinner, over which I had toiled for most of the day, grew cold. I went upstairs, slammed shut my bedroom door and threw myself on to my bed. I waited for the sound of feet on the stairs; surely somebody would come to me and beg me to rejoin the company? But the next sounds I heard were pings from the microwave, then crackers being pulled, corks being popped, and eventually, to my disgust, laughter!

Several times I heard the word 'gravy' shouted in tones of hilarity!

I must leave this house at the earliest opportunity.

I woke at 7.30 in the evening to find Glenn Bott shaking me roughly. 'Thanks for the football,' he said. Then, 'You've got dribble on the side of your mouth, Dad.' He gave me a badly wrapped and Sellotaped parcel, which bore an ill-written label: 'To Dad, from Glenn'. I opened it and found a bottle of anti-freeze and a mitt for sc.r.a.ping ice off a car windscreen. I was very touched. I'm going to try to persuade the boy to grow his hair. Apart from the tuft his scalp is intimidating.

Tania patronized Glenn for a few minutes, 'I say Glenn, those trainers are terribly cutting-edge,' then left to join Pandora at a hospice carol service. I was glad to see the back of her. She had made it obvious all day that Christmas Day at the Moles' had been a walk on the wild side for her.

My father, maudlin on Johnnie Walker, invited us to The Lawns tomorrow for Boxing Day 'Brunch'.

Glenn helped me to sort out the Sugdens' camp beds. We worked quite well as a team. Before he went home on his bike he said, 'I was just thinkin', Dad, Jesus is 1,997 years old today, ain't he?'

It was a rhetorical question, which, thank G.o.d, I didn't need to answer. Is the boy a religious obsessive? How will he react when he finds out that his father is a radical agnostic?

Friday December 26th Boxing Day--Bank Holiday Brunch at The Lawns was a tense affair. It started off badly when Grandad Sugden slipped and fell into the Koi carp pool and damaged the lining. Tania's mouth turned into a slit and stayed that way throughout lunch. The atmosphere was not helped by my mother laughing openly at their Christmas tree, on which were arranged twenty-five gingerbread men, each hanging by their necks from a noose-like silver ribbon. 'I thought you were against the death penalty, Tania,' she said.

'George forgot to put the holes in their heads for the ribbon,' Tania said, as she handed round a plate of home-made sus.h.i.+; it looked suspiciously like bits of the Koi carp, which were gasping for breath outside as my father tried desperately to repair the pool lining.

I saw Ivan look wistfully around at his old s.p.a.cious home.

Things livened up a bit when the Labrador puppy woke up and caught one of Rosie's hair extensions in his paws, but as soon as she was disentangled we left.

In the late afternoon I took William for a walk with his wheelbarrow, and b.u.mped into Archie Tait outside the BP garage, where he'd just been to buy a turkey burger for his dinner. I asked him how he'd spent Christmas Day.

'Alone,' he said.

He asked me how I'd spent the day.

'Lonely, but not alone,' I replied.

Some insane impulse prompted me to say that if he felt like coming to Wisteria Walk at 6 a.m. there would be Christmas cake, pickles, leftover turkey, etc. He looked at the turkey burgers and said, 'I wonder if they would consider a refund.' Talk about mean!