Sunday, September 24
Woke at 5pm to find that a small earthquake had shaken the East Midlands. A few dogs barked, but tragically for the local media nobody was killed.
Living without a partner
Monday, October 2, Eddie's Tea Bar, Cement Works, Leicestershire
I am on my break and am sitting on a white plastic chair, writing on a matching picnic table. I am surrounded by lorry drivers and motorists. It is only 11.30am, but I am already exhausted. I have been on my feet since 5am (though, to be strictly honest, and at the risk of being labelled «pedant», I did sit down in the car during the journey here).
Eddie and his third wife, Sandra, were already here and the urn was warming up, as were the deep-fat fryers and the griddle. Eddie and Sandra seem to have fat running through their bloodstreams. Their hair, skin and pores seem to be clogged with it. Eddie said to me, as he gave me a huge wrap-around apron, "You'll never shake off the stink of the fat, lad. It makes it 'ard to get a woman outside the trade." All Eddie’s wives have been in the frying business, apparently. I reassured him that I was not actively seeking a woman at the moment, and told him that I was due to start a course at the adult education centre in Leicester called Living Without A Partner. He looked at me, pityingly, and asked quietly whether I had "Somethink wrong under yer clothes".
I reassured Eddie that I was made as other men were made, but that my heart had been broken a few times recently and needed time to recover. Eddie lifted the spatula off the sizzling bacon slices and said, "I get bad headaches if I don't have a bit of sausage-hiding once a day, don't I Sandra?"
Sandra tucked a strand of oily hair behind an ear and said, "'E was on a box of Nurofen every 24 hours when I went in the General to have my veins done." Eddie shook his head and gazed into the middle distance where the lorries were parked, obviously re-living the horrors of sexual deprivation.
I phoned my mother to ask how the child-care arrangements had gone this morning. She said, "Badly, I can't get up and come to your house at five every morning. I'm falling asleep at the wheel." I pointed out to her that day nurseries don't open until 7am and begged her to continue. She said bitterly, "I blame Tony Blair and Jack Straw for this. Why should grandmas have to be dragged in to look after their grandkids, eh? I've already served my sentence with you and your sister."
She made me and my sibling's upbringing sound a joyless business. I asked how her new husband, Ivan, was doing in the mental hospital. "He's developed an aversion to all things technological," she said. "A male nurse used an electronic Ronson to light a patient's birthday cake and Ivan had to be sedated." I wondered if Ivan «techno» Braithwaite would be capable ever again of coping with the modern world.
Tuesday, October 3, Ashby-de-la-Zouch
DH Lawrence, my literary hero, enjoyed working with his hands and reputedly took a pride in his jam-making. I, too, have discovered the small joys of manual labour. I like to think that DH would have been proud of me as I serve up a bacon 'n' egg sandwich to our first customer, Les, who was driving an Eddie Stobbart lorry full of mineral water from Liskeard to Dundee. Though I say it myself, Les's sandwich was a work of art. The bacon was succulent, the egg was cooked sensitively, so as to prevent yolk leakage, and the bread was as white and soft as a newly-hatched maggot. I was quietly pleased when Les pronounced it to be «champion».
Capitalism at work
Thursday, October 5, Eddie's Tea Bar, the Cement Works, Leicestershire
Working in Eddie's has given me a unique glimpse of how capitalism works. Eddie goes to the cash-and-carry and buys catering packs of bacon, beefburgers, white sliced bread, ketchup, etc, and then uses me at £3.60 an hour to convert the ingredients into food items that sell for 200 % profit. Eddie does not have a computerised till. His is strictly a cash business. There is a notice on the trailer wall next to the peeling Samantha Fox poster: "Please do not ask for a receipt, as refusal often offends."
He keeps the coins in an old Cadbury's Luxury Biscuits tin. It offends my sense of order to see the coinage jumbled up together, but it works well enough. Banknotes are kept in Eddie's apron pocket. I suspect that Eddie pays little tax or VAT, though he is vociferous enough on the subject of social security cheats. "They should be took to a island somewhere in the North Sea an' left to fend for themselves," he said this morning. "Though," he added compassionately, "I'd give 'em a packet of seeds an' a spade."
Eddie's biscuit tin is the proletarian equivalent of a Cayman Islands tax shelter. All it lacks is financial advisers and accountants. Eddie's wife does his «books» while watching the omnibus edition of EastEnders. It's a weekly ritual, apparently.
The lorry drivers provide another facet of globalisation. Some truckers have travelled three days to haul Romanian fridges to Bolton, England. Others have taken gerbil food from Bury St Edmunds to Hamburg and returned with a cargo of Hamburgian carrots, which they've dropped off at a warehouse in Stowmarket, Suffolk. This is madness.
As I serve each trucker, I make a point now of enquiring as to his ultimate destination and the nature of his load. I have thus come to the conclusion that capitalism is no way to run the world's economy — it is inefficient and it exploits workers such as myself.
I put this argument to Eddie as I was scraping the griddle clean with a spatula. He profoundly disagreed with my analysis and said, "If you carry on shoutin' for revolution, Moley, you'll find yerself outta a job so far yer stupid Birkenstock shoes won't touch the bleedin' ground."
Friday, October 6
Couldn't sleep for wondering about the necessity of hauling mineral water from Liskeard to Dundee. Scotland is awash with the stuff.
William and Glenn are both away from school because their hair is infested with head lice. I rang Eddie on his mobile and told him that I wouldn't be in today, as I would be preoccupied with banishing the nits from my boys' heads. Eddie said, "Me an' the missus was up all night scratching our soddin' bonces as if they was scratchcards. You should examine yer own 'ead, Mole."
Glenn and William sat me at my desk and aimed my anglepoise lamp on to my head. There were so many nits in my hair that Glenn said, "You could fill Wembley stadium with 'em, Dad." He is going to watch the England-Germany match tomorrow with a group from the school. They are doing a project on English historical monuments and he is hoping to bring a few blades of grass back to paste into his project folder. Though, as the headmaster said in his email to me, "Glenn's head will be examined by myself in the morning, and if evidence is found of head lice or their progeny, in the form of unhatched eggs, he will NOT be allowed to board the coach to Wembley."
I was up most of the night going through Glenn's hair with a fine-tooth comb. Eventually, at 3.30am, I cracked and shaved his head. I used five disposable razors. He looks decidedly thuggish, but at least he was allowed on to the coach.
Saturday, October 7
Glenn returned victorious with a plastic seat, a square foot of turf and one of Kevin Keegan's chewed-up finger-nails. The boy will go far.
Living Without A Partner has been cancelled. I was the only one to turn up.