Wednesday, March 29
Am I in love? I rang Nigel at work, and he faxed me a questionnaire. Some of the questions were relevant, some were not. He told me that if I answer yes to any four, then I am definitely in love. He had scribbled on the bottom that the questionnaire was obviously prepared for gay men, but it probably works for straights, too.
a) Do you think about him constantly?
b) Have you had your chest hair waxed?
c) Do you ring him more than four times a day?
d) Have you stopped going to saunas?
e) Are you afraid to have your hair cut in case he doesn't like it?
f) Are you writing overwrought poetry about nature?
I sat at the kitchen table with a cup of Kenco and a ballpoint, and quickly found out that I am in love with Pamela Pigg. I rang her at the housing office to tell her so (my fifth call of the day), but the senior housing officer, Terry Nutting, told me that he had given Pamela "compassionate leave" to have her hair done.
Nutting thinks he is such a wit. He'll be laughing on the other side of his beardy face when Pamela leaves to become my wife. According to Pammy, Nutting is an incompetent idler who sits all day in his office answering the personal adds in Private Eye.
She said, in that sweet voice of hers (like a zephyr blowing across a linnet's egg), "Terry Nutting wouldn't recognise a homeless person if he fell over one in a shop doorway."
Friday, March 31
Pamela's new hairstyle is growing on me. Not, of course, literally growing on me. What I mean is that I can now glance in her direction for seconds at a time without flinching. I still think it was a mistake to go quite so short: her head is a rather peculiar shape, and her scalp is criss-crossed with scars and the evidence of childhood accidents.
Saturday, April, 1 — April Fool's Day
At 11.30am, my sister Rosie rang to say that there was a letter at their house addressed to me from Greg Dyke, head bloke at the BBC, to say that he had read the Restless Tadpole, my epic poem, and wanted Andrew Davies to adapt it for BBC2. When I asked her to fax me the letter, she laughed her horrible laugh and put the phone down.
Sunday, April 2
So, I have reached the age of 33 — the same age as Jesus was when he was killed. Glenn gave me a card which said on the front in gothic print "Happy Birthday Single Father". There was a picture of a man with a moustache standing on a hump-backed bridge and staring down into a river — as though he was thinking about throwing himself in. Perhaps to escape his responsibilities. William had made a card at nursery school out of egg shells, lentils and crushed cornflakes. I thanked him but privately thought it was disgusting, especially when half the world is starving.
Mushrooms in Stockport
Monday, April 3, 2000, Arthur Askey Way
My love affair with Pamela moved into a sexual stage tonight, though "full union", as she calls it, has yet to take place. Pamela is a fan of the female condom, but, after examining one she took out of her briefcase, we discovered that it had been issued in 1998.
We decided not to risk it. Pam was keen to consummate, saying, "I just want to get it out of the way, Adrian." I explained that I hadn't kept condoms in the house since William took one to nursery school as his contribution to the hot-air-balloon mural. It was an eagle-eyed Ofsted inspector who spotted the "big boy arouser" rising between the cotton-wool cloud.
Pamela asked me if I'd like to go to Stockport next weekend to meet her parents. I lied and said, "Yes, Wiggly." She asked me to call her Wiggly. She calls me Snuffly. I've had a slight head cold since we met.
Tuesday, April 4
The Ludlows held a welcome home from prison party for Vince tonight. I went next door at 10pm, after William and Glenn had gone to bed. I don't want my boys to associate the word «prison» with the word «party».
Vince said he had seen Jonathan Aitken in the prison chapel, and had witnessed Mr Aitken's religious fervour. Vince said, " 'e was shakin' 'is tambourine so 'ard that 'is Rolex fell off".
Vince told me to back Papillon in the Grand National. I said it was highly unlikely that another son/jockey and father/ trainer combination would win. I rang Pamela as soon as I got home. She said she was in bed with a Trollope. "Anthony or Joanna?" I asked. Pamela laughed, as though I'd made a joke.
Thursday, April 6
The Piggs' don't like children, so my mother is babysitting William for the weekend and Glenn is going to his mother's. Pamela warned me tonight not to tell her father that I am an unpublished poet and novelist. I pointed out that I have published two cookery books: Offaly Good and Offaly Good Again. She told me that her father was a militant vegetarian and a former RAF kayak instructor. I dread meeting Mr Pigg.
Friday, April 7, The Olde Forge, Stockport
He is even worse than I feared. "Call me Porky!" he boomed. He was wearing a sort of fleecy Babygro garment and rubber socks. He had just returned from a training session on an artificial slalom course on the River Tees. He has offered to take me down the rapids in his double kayak on Sunday. Mrs Pigg was loading her van in preparation for a country fayre, at which she sells the hedgehog boot scrapers she makes out of pine cones and plastic bristles.
As Mrs Pigg was showing me to my single bed, she asked me to call her Snouty. When I enquired what her real Christian name was, she glared and said, "Why are you presuming that my parents were Christians?" I told her I'd seen the photograph on the mantelpiece of her parents' wedding, which had been taken outside a church and been attended by a vicar holding a copy of the Old Testament. She said that I "mustn't bother" Pamela in the night, as Mr Pigg did not approve of sex before long-term commitment.
Saturday, April 8
The Piggs took me to a Beefeater restaurant for dinner tonight. A cardboard cut-out of the TV chef Brian Turner welcomed us in. The conversation ground to a halt over pre-dinner drinks, when Porky discovered that I am a single father living in a council house. The tension was palpable. Pamela developed a most unflattering tic in her left eye.
But all was not lost because Porky and I chose the lightly breaded deep-fried mushrooms at £2.95 (with a choice of two dips). Porky and I now have something in common: we will talk about our Beefeater experience for many years to come. Thank you, Mr Turner.
Ex-ham time
Monday, April 10, 2000, Arthur Askey Way
William woke up screaming in the night. He'd been having a nightmare about the exams he will be taking when he is seven. He was mostly incoherent, but I managed to glean that his nightmare included David Blunkett's guide dog and the gay Teletubbie. I didn't press him for details.
Pamela hasn't rung me since our weekend with her parents. I fear that beside the hirsute masculinity of her father I appear a poor specimen. My expert knowledge of the early poetry of Philip Larkin cannot compete with Porky Pigg's ability to roll a double kayak in white water. I could tell that my refusal to join Porky in his flimsy plastic boat sowed doubts in Pamela's mind.
Did some primeval instinct warn her that my spermatozoa and her eggs were incompatible and wouldn't add to the quality of the gene pool? Whatever — as they say on Jerry Springer — she was very quiet as we drove south and didn't offer her tongue when I kissed her goodnight. Ugh.