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

honour bound to reply: “My main recreation is gossiping.”
    “Do Pandora’s parents know that she’s married?” asked my mother, still agog.
    “No,” I replied. Then I thought, “But it won’t be long before they do, will it, mother?”
    In the afternoon, Pandora and I went shopping. Julian Twyselton-Fife was lying in bed reading a Rupert Bear annual. As we were leaving, he shouted, “Don’t forget the honey, darlings.”
    Once we were outside, on the street, I told Pandora that she must start divorce proceedings. “Right now, this minute.” I offered to accompany her to a solicitor’s office.
    “They don’t work on Saturday afternoons,” she said. “They play golf.”
    “Monday morning,” I said.
    “I’ve got a tutorial,” she said feebly.
    “Monday afternoon,” I pressed.
    “I’m having tea with friends,” she said.
    “Tuesday morning?” I suggested.
    We went through the whole week and then the following week. Pandora’s every waking moment seemed to be accounted for. Eventually I exploded, “Look Pandora, you do want to marry me don’t you?”
    Pandora poked at a courgette (we were in a greengrocer’s shop at the time), then she sighed and said, “Well actually darling, no; I don’t intend to remarry until I’m at least thirty-six.”
    “ Thirty-six! ” I screeched. “But, by then I could be fat or bald or toothless.”
    Pandora looked at me and said, “You’re not exactly an Adonis now , are you?” In my hurry to leave the shop I knocked a pile of Outspan oranges onto the floor. In the resulting confusion (in which several old ladies reacted to the rolling oranges as though they were hand grenades, rather than mere fruit coming towards them), I failed to see Pandora leaving.
    I ran after her. Then I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder, then a growling voice: the greengrocer’s.
    “Runnin’ off without payin’ eh? Well, I’m sick of you students nickin’ my stuff, this time I’m prosecutin’. You’ll be in a police cell tonight, my lad.”
    It was with horror that I realized I had an Outspan orange in each hand.
    Sunday June 19 th
    I have been charged with shoplifting. My life is ruined. I shall have a criminal record. Now I will never get a job in the Civil Service.
    Pandora is standing by me. She is feeling dead guilty because when she ran out of the shop she forgot to pay for a pound of courgettes, a lettuce and a box of mustard and cress.
    Nothing has changed. It’s still the rich what gets the gravy and the poor what gets the blame.

∨ The True Confessions ∧
Mole at the Department of the Environment
July 1989
    Monday July 10 th
    I was called into Mr Brown’s office today, but first I was kept waiting in the small vestibule outside. I noticed that Brown had allowed his rubber plant to die. I was scandalized by the sight of the poor, dead thing. Taking my penknife out of my pocket, I removed the decayed leaves until a brown, shrivelled stump was left.
    Brown bellowed, “Come”. So I went, though I was annoyed at being summoned in like a dog.
    Brown was looking out of the window and jiggling the change in his pocket. At least I think that was what he was doing, the only other possible alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.
    He turned and glowered at me. “I have just heard a disquieting fact about you, Mole,” he said.
    “Oh,” I said.
    “Oh, indeed,” repeated Brown. “Is there something you should tell me about your lavatorial habits, Mole?”
    After a period of thought I said, “No sir, if it’s about the puddle on the floor last Friday, that was when I…”
    “No, no, not at work, at home,” he snapped. I thought about the lavatory at home. Surely I used it as other men did? Or did I? Was I doing something unspeakable without knowing it? And if I was how did Brown know ?
    “Think of your lavatory seat , Mole. You have been heard bragging about it, in the canteen.” As I was bidden I thought about the newly installed lavatory seat at