Tuesday, September 19
At 1pm, I was contacted on my mobile by my mother, who screamed, "Drop whatever you're doing and start queueing for petrol now!" As I scrambled into my car, I shouted the news to the neighbours in the street. A convoy, stretching 30 cars long, soon formed behind me. By the time we got to Mohammed's garage, we were more than 100 strong and had a police escort. Mohammed's jaw dropped when he saw me leading the convoy on to the forecourt. He was just about to take his wife panic buying in Iceland — she had heard that toddler-sized disposable Pampers were in short supply.
I now feel slightly ashamed of myself for getting caught up in the hysteria, but I need my car. I'm too sensitive to be a full-time pedestrian. The non-car-owning public are unpredictable, their voices are loud and their tempers are uncertain. I feel safer in my car with my Abba tapes and Radio 4.
Friday, September 22
I presented myself at the Job Centre at the appointed time, 10.30am, and was surprised to be taken immediately through to an interview suite by a personable young woman called Jane Doxy. She was neatly turned out in a navy skirt suit and a white shirt. The outfit would, in my opinion, have benefited from high heels, but no doubt Jane enjoyed the comfort of her Gucci-copy loafers. I'd had the foresight to take a copy of the Guardian with me, to impress on Jane that I was an intelligent and literate person. Though, when I saw the Daily Mail in her bag, I wondered if I had done the right thing.
She had read my manifesto with great interest, she said. However, she (and the department) felt that my writing was "only a hobby" and that "the government was not in the game of subsidising my leisure interests". She gave me two telephone numbers to ring. The first was that of Eddie's Tea Bar. Eddie himself answered. The job was assistant caterer in Eddie's cafe, which was a trailer parked in a lay-by next to the cement works. I asked what my duties would be. Eddie growled, "You'd be doin' all sorts, fryin' burgers, changin' the Calor Gas bottle, 'n' stuff like that, for £3.60 an hour." Under the watchful eye of Jane Doxy, I then rang the second number. A gentle pensioner called Mrs Banbury-Pryce answered, and said that she needed somebody to take her six dogs out twice a day for a walk. I start at Eddie's on Monday. I just knew that, with my soft heart, I'd end up helping Mrs Banbury-Pryce with the fastenings on her corset and cutting her toenails.
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."