Pandora and I are enjoying the last of the autumn together by walking through leaves and sniffing bonfires. This is the first year I have been able to pass a horse-chestnut tree without throwing a stick at it. Pandora says I am maturing very quickly.
Went out conkering with Nigel tonight. I found five big beauties and smashed Nigel’s into pulp. Ha! Ha! Ha!
Took Blossom to see Bert. He can’t walk far these days. Blossom is being sold to a rich family, a girl called Camilla is going to learn to ride on her. Pandora says Camilla is so posh as to be unintelligible. Bert was dead sad, he said, ‘You and me will both end up in the knacker’s yard, gel’.
Fifteenth after Trinity
Blossom went off at 10.30 AM. I gave her a sixteen-pence apple to take her mind off the heartbreak. Pandora ran after the little horse-box shouting, ‘I’ve changed my mind’, but it carried on.
Pandora has also changed her mind about Ian Smith. She never wants to see another pony or horse again. She is guilt-ridden about selling Blossom.
Ian Smith turned up at 2.30 PM and was turned away. There was an evil look on his black face as he stood in his horse-box and was driven away. Pandora’s father is going to his bank early tomorrow to cancel the cheque he wrote out last Thursday. There was an evil look on his face as well.
New Moon
Bert has got something wrong with his legs. The doctor says he needs daily nursing. I went in today but he is too heavy for me to lug about. The district nurse thinks that Bert will be better off in the Alderman Cooper Sunshine Home. But I don’t think he will. I pass by it on my way to school. It looks like a museum. The old people look like the exhibits.
Bert doesn’t get on with his district nurse. He says he doesn’t like having his privates mauled about by a woman. Personally, I wouldn’t mind it.
I am glad September is nearly over, it has been nothing but trouble. Blossom gone. Pandora sad. Bert on his last legs. My father still out of work. My mother still besotted with creep Lucas.
Fall 1981
7.30 AM. Just woke up to find chin covered in spots! How can I face Pandora?
10 PM. Avoided Pandora all day but she caught up with me in school dinners. I tried to eat with my hand over my chin but it proved very difficult. I confessed to her during the yoghurt. She accepted my disability very calmly. She said it made no difference to our love but I couldn’t help thinking that her kisses lacked their usual passion as we were saying goodnight after youth club.
6 PM. I am very unhappy and have once again turned to great literature for solace. It’s no surprise to me that intellectuals commit suicide, go mad or die from drink. We feel things more than other people. We know the world is rotten and that chins are ruined by spots. I am reading Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom, by Andrei D. Sakharov.
It is ‘an inestimably important document’ according to the cover.
11.30 PM. Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom is inestimably boring, according to me, Adrian Mole.
I disagree with Sakharov’s analysis of the causes of the revivalism of Stalinism. We are doing Russia at school so I speak from knowledge.
Pandora is cooling off. She didn’t turn up at Bert’s today. I had to do his cleaning on my own.
Went to Sainsbury’s as usual in the afternoon; they are selling Christmas cakes. I feel that my life is slipping away.
I am reading Wuthering Heights. It is brilliant. If I could get Pandora up somewhere high, I’m sure we could regain our old passion.
Sixteenth after Trinity
Persuaded Pandora to put her name down for the youth club’s mountain survival course in Derbyshire. Rick Lemon is sending an equipment list and permission form to our parents. Or in my case to my parent. I have only got two weeks to reach peak condition. I try to do fifty press-ups a night. I try to do them but fail. Seventeen is my best so far.
Bert has been kidnapped by Social Services! They are keeping him at the Alderman Cooper Sunshine Home. I have been to see him. He shares a room with an old man called Thomas Bell. They have both got their names on their ashtrays. Sabre has got a place in the RSPCA hostel.
Our dog has gone missing. It is a portent of doom.
Moon’s First Quarter
Pandora and I went to visit Bert, but it was a waste of time really.
His room had a strange effect on us, it made us not want to talk about anything. Bert says he is going to sue Social Services, for depriving him of his rights. He says he has to go to bed at nine-thirty! It is not fair because he is used to staying up until after The Epilogue. We passed the lounge on our way out. The old people sat around the walls in high chairs. The television was on but nobody was watching it, the old people looked as though they were thinking.
Social Services have painted the walls orange to try to cheer the old people up. It doesn’t seem to have worked.
Thomas Bell died in the night. Bert says that nobody leaves the home alive. Bert is the oldest inmate. He is dead worried about dying. He is now the only man in the entire home. Pandora says that women outlive men. She says it is a sort of bonus because women have to suffer more earlier on.
Our dog is still missing. I have put an advert in Mr Cherry’s shop.
Bert is still alive so I took Sabre to visit him today. We propped Bert up at the window of his room and he waved to Sabre who was on the lawn outside. Dogs are not allowed inside the home. It is another of their poxy rules.
Our dog is still missing, now presumed dead.
The matron of the home says that if Bert is dead good he can come out for the day on Sunday. He is coming to our house for Sunday dinner and tea. The phone bill has come. I have hidden it under my mattress. It is for PS289.19p.
I am really worried about our dog. It has vanished off the face of our suburb. Nigel, Pandora and I have walked the cul-de-sacs looking for it.
Another worry is my father. He lies in bed until noon, then fries a mess in a pan, eats it, opens a can or bottle, then sits and watches After Noon Plus. He is making no attempt to find another job. He needs a bath, a haircut and a shave. It is Parents’ Night at school next Tuesday. I have taken his best suit to the cleaner’s.
I bought a book from W.H. Smith’s, it was only five pence. It was written by an unsuccessful writer called Drake Fairclough; it is called Cordon Bleu for the Elderly. Bert is coming tomorrow. Pandora’s father has ordered their phone to be taken out. He has found out about the reverse-charge calls.