Adrian Mole: Diary of a Provincial Man

Ex wife is watching you

Tuesday, April 25, 2000, Arthur Askey Way, Gaitskell Estate

My father begged me to help him escape from the hospital this afternoon. He said he is losing the will to live due to lack of sleep and the pain from his bedsores. His false teeth have not turned up, despite a top-level internal inquiry. He is living on soup and porridge — when somebody remembers to feed him. He is almost entirely helpless.

Personally, I blame Tania, his new wife, for his accident. My father is too old to be up a ladder trying to construct a Japanese-style pagoda under her exacting instructions. I have suggested to the rest of the family that we arrange a rota so that one of us is always in attendance at hospital meal times.

I rang Pandora at her Westminster office and asked her to visit the hospital incognito. I said that she should see the third-world conditions for herself. She said she would "drop in if she could", but she was "terribly busy" with Dobbo's campaign. I laughed a hollow laugh and said: "Did she realise it was Anzac Day; the anniversary of a similarly doomed campaign."

Thursday, April 27, Bevan Ward

A letter from my ex wife, Jo-Jo.

Dear Adrian,

Your mother has written to tell me that William is living in 'morally dubious circumstances'. She writes that he mixes with criminals 'on a daily basis'. Can this be true? I have looked at Arthur Askey Way using the world wide web satellite and was disturbed to see a burned-out car in front of your house. I also saw that your front garden was extremely squalid. Is that the mattress we used to sleep on?

Please do not forget, Adrian, that William is part Nigerian and is the grandson of a chief. It is essential that he is brought up extremely carefully. My circumstances are such that I cannot send for him at present, so I beg you to move William away from the Gaitskell Estate before his character and personality are irrevocably damaged.

I have tried to reach you on the telephone, but a recorded voice tells me 'it has not been possible to connect your call'. I looked you up on the net and was alarmed to see that you are considered a bad credit risk and that you owe £75.31 to your newsagent, £43.89 to your milkman and to BT £254.08. A further search revealed that you are overdrawn at the bank by £947.16. I scrolled on further and found that you withdrew all monies from your savings account with the Market Harborough Building Society on December 19, 1999. This money was put aside to pay for William's piano lessons. Is he having them?

I am very concerned about your mental health. A search of your medical records revealed to me that you visited your doctor's surgery three times last month, complaining that you were being spied upon. Your doctor has written on your notes 'could be mildly paranoiac'. Please contact me at jojomole.comataol.com.

So, 1984 is here in the year 2000. It is the end of privacy. I may as well walk naked through the streets shouting out the small details of my life.

I went to see my mother and charged her with gross disloyalty. She was unrepentant. She said, "William spends too much time playing round at the Ludlow's house." She said, "Vince Ludlow is a career criminal, for Christ's sake!" I have to admit, Diary, that William's frame of reference has widened lately. Last night I overheard him saying to Glenn, "Mad Frankie Fraser was well harder than Charlie Kray."

Saturday, April 29

I ask Pamela Pigg about that maisonette she promised me. She said (with relish, I thought), "I've let it to a family of asylum seekers." I asked her to arrange a swap. She said, "They're not that desperate."