Free True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole by Sue Townsend Page A

suffered from, clothes they had tired of. Then, after an hour of malicious gossip about a woman I’d never heard of called Cynthia Bell, I closed my eyes, feigning sleep. Would they take the hint and go to bed? No.
    “Funny looking bugger isn’t he?” said Mrs Bott. “What does our Sharon see in him?”
    Was she referring to me?
    “He’s supposed to be dead brainy,” said her eldest daughter Marjorie, “though I ain’t seen no evidence of brains. He just sits there looking like a wet weekend.”
    “He’s a randy little sod,” said Farah, the youngest Bott, “our Sharon reckons ‘e can do it four times a night.”
    “Do what?” screeched Mrs Bott, “thread a needle?”
    The Botts screeched and cackled for quite some time then finally, after a lot of noisy stair climbing, went to bed. Dawn was breaking as I stretched out on the couch and went to sleep.
    At 6am Mr Bott, a timid and, not surprisingly, quiet man, came into the living room, and switched on breakfast television.
    “‘pe I’m not disturbin’ you,” he said politely.
    “Not at all,” I said. I got up, retrieved my suitcase from the hall, and walked out into the cool morning air.
    I was on the first stage of my journey to Oxford, where I intended to fall on Pandora’s neck and plead sanctuary.
    Friday June 17 th
    It was lunchtime when I got to Pandora’s flat. Pandora wasn’t in. She was having a tutorial. However, a languorous youth called Julian Twyselton-Fife was in. We shook hands. I’ve grasped firmer rubber gloves.
    To make conversation I asked him what he was doing at Oxford.
    “Oh I’m just farting about,” he said airily. “I shan’t sit my finals, only people who intend to work do that.”
    He offered me Turkish coffee. I accepted, not wanting to appear provincial. When it came I regretted my inferiority complex. I asked if he shared the flat with Pandora.
    “I’m married to Pandora,” he said. “She’s Mrs Twyselton-Fife. I did it as a favour to her last week. Pandora has this dinky little theory that first marriages should be gotten over with quickly, so we intend to divorce quite soon. We don’t love each other,” he added. Then, “In fact, I prefer my own sex.”
    “Good,” I said, “because I intend to be Pandora’s second husband.”
    Pinky had slid out of his carrier bag. “I say, who is that divine creature?” brayed Twyselton-Fife. He grasped Pinky to his tweedy bosom. I said, “It’s Pinky.”
    He crooned, “Oh, Pinky, you’re a handsome one, aren’t you? Now, don’t deny it, sir, accept the compliment!”
    Pandora came in. She looked clever and lovely.
    “Hello Mrs Twyselton-Fife.” I said.
    “Oh, you know then?” she said.
    “Can I stay here?” I asked.
    “Yes,” she said.
    So that was that. I am now in a ménage à trois . With a bit of luck it will soon be a ménage à deux . For ever.
    Saturday June 18 th
    I phoned home this morning. One of the engineering lodgers answered. “Hello, Martin Muffet speaking.”
    “Martin Muffet !” I said.
    “Yes,” he said, “and spare the jokes about tuffets and spiders will you?”
    “I wish to speak to my mother, Mrs Mole,” I said.
    “Pauline,” he bellowed before banging the phone down on the hall table. I heard the click of my mother’s lighter, then she spoke.
    “Adrian, where are you?”
    “I’m in Oxford.”
    “At the University?”
    “Not studying at the University, no, that honour was denied me. If I’d had a complete set of Children’s Encyclopaedias perhaps I’d…”
    “Oh don’t start on that again. It’s not my fault you didn’t get your ‘A’ levels…”
    “I’m here with Pandora and her husband.”
    “ Husband? ”
    I could image the expression on my mother’s face. She would be looking like a starving dog which was being offered a piece of sirloin steak.
    “Who? When? Why?” asked my mother who, in the unlikely event of being asked for her recreation by the publishers of Who’s Who , would be