BERT: Beetroot sandwiches have kept me healthy, I've slept well, and played a lot of ball games in my youth. I've never smoked and I've jogged my way around Europe.

Bert was horrified when he saw Midlands Today, which had been trailed by teasers all day, e.g. an unseen announcer would say between programmes, 'And in Midlands Today at six-thirty, the Leicester pensioner who says that jogging around Europe has kept him alive for 105 years.' Why the stress on 'has' was there, I don't know. Was there a dispute about this? I don't think so.

I was glad that Bert died in a stair-lift accident the day before his 106th birthday. I couldn't have gone through another grisly birthday party. And I know for a fact that the Mayor and Mayoress of Leicester had booked a holiday in Tenerife to encompa.s.s that very day, May 9th. Still, I think Bert would have been pleased with the size of the headline in the Leicester Mercury, if not the content.

STAIR-LIFT TRAGEDY: OLDEST JOGGER DIES. Bertram Baxter, the oldest man in Leicester, died early today in a tragic accident involving a dressing-gown cord and the mechanism of a stair-lift at the Alderman Cooper Sunshine Home, in Brook Lane, where he had resided for many years. Mr Baxter, whose wife Queenie died in 1982, was described by the senior nursing officer, Mrs Loretta Harvey, today, as 'quite a character, who didn't suffer fools gladly'.

Mrs Harvey recalled the time that Mr Baxter had sued the Alderman Cooper Sunshine Home for damages--claiming that he was not being provided with his dietary needs. Mr Baxter ate only beetroot sandwiches, Spotted d.i.c.k and custard. The case became a cause celebre when Mr Baxter went on hunger strike and for a while he enjoyed considerable national notoriety, becoming known as 'Beetroot Bertie'. His victory was widely applauded as a triumph for common sense--though Mrs Harvey claimed that the kitchen staff were 'greatly inconvenienced'.

I shouldn't be sorry if I never saw another old-age pensioner again. I have decided that I cannot bear their slowness, their ill-fitting teeth and their mania for pickled vegetables. My mother soon got bored with a.s.sisting the pensioners: she said she'd rather be 'at the hub of things', so I dropped her off at Labour Party HQ. I continued alone.

The next person I picked up was another old man called Archie Tait. He was infuriatingly slow in getting into the car. He hawked and coughed into a large white handkerchief, and when I asked him sarcastically if he was all right he said no, he wasn't, he had pneumonia. He spoke very nicely for somebody who lived in a terraced house.

'Shouldn't you be in bed, or in hospital?' I said.

'No,' he said, 'I must vote, I'm a socialist.'

'Mr Blair wouldn't want you pa.s.sing out at the polling station,' I said.

'Mr Blair?' he said, disdainfully. I've just said I'm a socialist, I'm voting Socialist Labour, for Arthur's party.'

'Arthur?' I checked.

'Arthur Scargill,' he said, as if talking to an idiot.

I tried to persuade him to change his mind and vote for Pandora. I told him that she had supported Mr Scargill during the miners' strike by holding a raffle at school and sending the proceeds (PS19.76, I recall) to the Strike Fund, but he would not be deterred.

'I left my left lung and my right leg at Arnhem,' he informed me, as he lurched out of the back of the car. 'And I didn't do that so that English men and women would turn into Europeans, drinking lukewarm cappuccino.'

To try to counter his fanaticism I said, 'Cappuccino is a perfectly harmless pleasant-tasting beverage. I drink six cups a day.'

'It's a little bit of coffee and a b.l.o.o.d.y lot of froth,' he said.

He shook my hand and thanked me for the lift. I told him that I would wait and take him back home.

Morally I would have been perfectly ent.i.tled to leave him, with his right lung and left leg, stranded at Carts Lane Primary School.

I felt a bit aggrieved that he had accepted a lift under false pretences, claiming to be a Labour voter when he was, in fact, a socialist all along.

When we were driving back towards his house, he apologized for swearing earlier. I said I no longer noticed profane language. I explained that I worked in a Soho restaurant where derivations of the F-word were used as nouns and adjectives and verbs--they were the building blocks of most Soho sentences.

When we stopped outside his terraced house, he had a violent coughing fit that made his face go red and his eyes run. It took a long time for him to catch his breath, so I helped him out of the front pa.s.senger seat and supported him to his front door. He took a bunch of keys out of his trouser pocket and handed them to me while he leaned against the wall, gasping.

As the front door swung open, I saw a bookcase stuffed with books. Facing me were Das Kapital, Ulysses and Harold Nicolson's Diaries. Under the window that faced the street there was a single day bed. A low table stood next to it, covered with a clutter of medicines and jars. A coal fire glimmered in the hearth. A fat cat sat on the mat. Tait lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. He was a tall man, his feet (foot) hung over the end board. As I went into the tiny back kitchen to put the kettle on, I cursed G.o.d and socialism for sending this pensioner to me. Am I never to be free of them? Are pensioners my albatross? Am I destined to voyage through life with their liver-spotted hands circling my neck?

I made him as comfortable as a one-legged, one-lunged old man with pneumonia can be and took his phone number. I ascertained from him that he had no relations (of course), and no friends (naturelle-ment), he had quarrelled with his neighbours (mais oui) and guess what? Quelle surprise! He is alone in the world. Apart from the huge ginger cat, which is called Andrew. I complimented Tait on the creature, saying it was the biggest cat I'd ever seen.

Then I wrote out my mobile number, stuck it under a jar of sweet piccalilli on the low table, and told him to ring me if he needed help tonight. He a.s.sured me that he was perfectly all right, and asked me to go away and leave him in peace. I knew he wouldn't drink the tea I'd made him in the big china cup with the rose design and the gold rim. He didn't look as if he had the strength to raise his head from the pillow.

As I drove back to the committee rooms, I wished that everybody over fifty years of age would commit ma.s.s suicide and give the rest of us a break.

I understand that certain 'grey' industries would collapse; garden-trellis and thermal-underwear manufacturers spring to mind. But the benefits are obvious: no pensions to pay out, no residential homes for the elderly to maintain, and at least half of the disabled parking s.p.a.ces outside Marks & Spencer's would be reclaimed by the young and the able-bodied.

Once again I thank Pepys, the G.o.d of diarists, that my own journal will never be read in my lifetime. I would not like to be thought an uncaring ageist. I know that when I reach fifty, I will happily sacrifice my life so that the young are not saddled with the old.

On reflection, perhaps fifty is too young. Fifty-five would be a more reasonable cut-off point (if in good health or a non-smoker), but sixty would be my absolute limit. What's the point of anybody living after then? Sans teeth, sans muscle tone et sans s.e.x?

My last job before the polling station closed at ten o'clock was to pick up a Ms Clough of Bevan Close, Beveridge Estate. To my horror she had three little kids with her. 'I've got to bring 'em with me,' she said. 'I 'aven't gotta babysitter.'

Ms Clough was excited by the prospect of a Labour victory. She thought that Tony Blair would 'support single mothers'. She had heard him say so on the Jimmy Young programme, so she knew it must be true. I a.s.sured Ms Clough that Mr Blair was a trustworthy, caring man who had dedicated his life to righting the wrongs of our inequitable society.

'Do you know Mr Blair?' she asked, looking impressed.

I watched in the driving mirror as my expression changed from confident to enigmatic. 'Does anybody really know Tony?' I said. 'I think even Cherie would say she doesn't really know Tony.'

Ms Clough disciplined her children, who were fiddling with the pine-tree air-freshener, and, with a touch of irritation in her voice, said, 'But have you met him and spoken to him? Does he know your name?'

I was forced to admit that, no, I had never met him; that, no, I had never spoken to him; and that, no, Tony Blair did not know my name. We pa.s.sed the rest of the journey in silence. Ms Clough should join the Leicestershire Constabulary--she would be very effective in the Criminal Investigation Department.

Nigel's Next van was parked outside the house when I got home. He was in the kitchen drinking tea with my mother and Ivan Braithwaite. My mother was parading between the worktops in a new scarlet trouser-suit, which (I thought) clashed horribly with her red hair. However, Ivan Braithwaite (fifty-five, so ripe for the cull) was saying, 'It's immensely elegant, Pauline, but it needs high heels.'

How dare Braithwaite advise my mother on suitable footwear! The man is a sartorial disaster area. He is the Pompeii of menswear in his hideous Rohan outdoor trousers and his Birkenstock sandals/white socks combo.

I remarked to him that I was surprised he had the time for tea-drinking--wasn't he meant to be Pandora's local media co-ordinator? He said he had already written the local press releases. One if Pandora wins, and one if she loses. He said there was a lot of national press interest in Pandora because she was exceptionally beautiful and had long hair. Most of the other women Labour candidates had short hair, and couldn't fill a thirty-six AA-cup bra. Also, despite grooming lessons, they applied their make-up as though they were toddlers who had run amok at Boots' Ndeg7 make-up counter.

I was shocked at Braithwaite's shallow att.i.tude to the democratic process. At no time did I hear him talk about his daughter's beliefs, principles or policies. I said as much, and reminded him that he had once resigned from his local Labour Party branch on a point of principle (somebody had been fiddling the tea money).

No doubt to fill the conversational void that ensued, Nigel said he was sorry to hear that my marriage was over. I shot one of my venomous glances at my mother, who had the good grace to blush and look away (another hideous clash of reds). I said to Nigel that, on the contrary, I was better off out of it. My mother said, 'On the contrary, it's Jo Jo who's better off out of it.'

I said I could not understand why she had divorced me on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour. My mother replied, 'Come on! What about the Cotswolds sneezing row? That went on for three days.'

She was referring to the time when I accused Jo Jo of sneezing in an exhibitionist manner, by putting unnecessary emphasis on the shoo! of Ah-tish-shoo! And also of extending the shoo for longer than is functionally necessary. I accused her of wanting to draw attention to herself. Jo Jo pointed out that she was a five-foot-eleven, heavily pregnant black woman with braided and beaded hair walking down a Cots-wold street, which was entirely populated by white people who were staring openly at her. 'I lack many things, Adrian, but what I do not lack is attention? She sneezed again, extending the shoo! to ridiculous lengths. Men have murdered for less. I said so. My mother and father, whom I had foolishly invited to stay in our rented cottage, took Jo Jo's side totally. I was virtually sent to Coventry.

Meanwhile Jo Jo's exhibitionism worsened. She began to put even more stress, an inordinate amount of stress, I thought, on the Ah! before the tishl I was in torment. Dr Ng, my personal GP, put me on Prozac when we got back home to Soho.

Shortly after the Cotswold disaster, William was born into a paddling pool at the Royal Infirmary Maternity Hospital, Leicester--at my specific request--thus joining a dynasty of Moles who had drawn their first breath there (the Infirmary, not the birthing pool). It was my wish that William should enter the world via warm water, candlelight and Bach, as described in a leaflet issued by the Society of Radical Midwives. Jo Jo, however, was curiously resistant at first, saying that she would prefer to be unconscious throughout the labour. When I expressed surprise, saying, I'm sorry to hear you say that, Jo Jo. I'd have thought that you, as an African woman, would have had a more natural att.i.tude towards childbirth,' to my utter amazement she became tearful and angry, and raised her voice to me, saying, 'When my waters break, why don't you find me afield that I can work in throughout my labour? And there must be a tree in this field, because, as an African woman, I will naturally want to give birth under its branches. And, of course, as soon as I have done so I will strap the child on to my back and return to my work in the fields.'

As it happened, the birthing pool was a grave disappointment. The midwife put me in charge of catching Jo Jo's afterbirth in a child's fishing net. The last time I used such a net I was eight years old, and my catch was tadpoles, which I put into a jam jar. Tragically I missed the actual moment of my son's birth because my mother chose that very same time to telephone the maternity unit and ask for a progress report. I will never forgive her for that.

Ivan Braithwaite invited my mother and me, and Nigel and Nigel's boyfriend, Norbert, to the count at the Town Hall, and to the celebratory party afterwards, at the Red Lion Hotel. At no time was my father or Mrs Tania Braithwaite mentioned. They have already been airbrushed out of history, like Stalin or Anita Harris.

After a horrible meal cooked with haste and ill grace by my mother (lobster nuggets and Uncle Ben's Oriental Rice), I went upstairs and tried to persuade my father to leave his bed. I told him that Pandora's exit polls looked good.

'I don't care, Adrian,' he said. 'I don't care about anything. My life has been a total waste, I've done nothing and been nowhere. n.o.body knows my name outside my own family, and the storage-heating industry. I haven't even had my fifteen minutes of fame as promised by Andy-b.l.o.o.d.y-Warhol.'

'It was Marshall McLuhan,' I corrected.

'You see?' he said, and turned his back to the wall.

I tried to rally him by reminding him that he had been famous--perhaps not for fifteen minutes but certainly for five. When we were on holiday at Wells-next-the-Sea, he had been blown out to sea on a lilo shaped like false teeth. He had drifted for two miles before being winched to safety by the RAF. It made the regional TV news--Midlands Today--and the front page of the Leicester Mercury. Even the Daily Telegraph picked it up.

MAN SAVED BY SKIN OF TEETH! A Leicester man who was rescued drifting in the Wash on a lilo in the shape of a pair of false teeth was described by Captain Richard Brown of the RAF Helicopter Rescue Service as a 'd.a.m.ned fool'.

'There was a slow leak in a lower left molar,' said Captain Brown, 'he wouldn't have lasted long.'

Captain Brown called for legislation which would ban civilians from using the sea. 'The sea is not a toy,' he said today.

This was a mistake. It brought it all back to him. 'The waves were feet high,' he said, with horror in his eyes. 'And all I was wearing was a pair of Speedos. I was dying for a f.a.g.'

I calmed him down by lighting and handing him a Rothman's king size.

William cried and hung on to my legs when my mother and I were about to leave. Rosie, who was meant to be babysitting, was goggling at The Jerry Springer Show, where a hugely fat black woman was berating her husband for his transvestism. I carried the boy upstairs to my father's bedroom and said, 'Grandad is poorly. Do you want to play doctors?' I went into the bathroom and got the first-aid box out of the bathroom cupboard. I removed the pathetic out-of-date pills and medicines (a tube of eye ointment bore the date February 1989) and gave the box to William. I said, 'You are a doctor, William, make Grandad better, there's a good boy.'

My father lay apathetically on his pillows as William began to wrap a bandage around his left arm. As I went back downstairs my father whined, 'Not so b.l.o.o.d.y tight! You're cutting my sodding circulation off!'

Just before I closed the front door I heard William shout, 'Don't say swear words, Grandad, or I'll send you to prison.' The boy is certainly right-wing when it comes to law and order.

As I turned on the car engine, Radio Four boomed out of the speakers--a panel of writers were talking about the implications for literature of a Labour victory. Some old female git blathered on in a strangulated voice about Harold Wilson, somebody called Jennie Lee and the Arts Council, and then Barry Kent, ex-skinhead and prize-winning poet and novelist, interrupted her and said in his exaggerated Leicester accent, 'Yeah, but 'oo gives a toss about all that bleeding Arts Council c.r.a.p? A writer's gotta be a revolutionary. His true function is to subvert the [bleeping] establishment, whether it's the [bleeping] Tory sc.u.mbags, or the [bleeping] Labour toe-rags. And if a writer needs a [bleeping] pathetic grant before he can put a few poxy words down on paper...' He laughed scornfully. 'Let him spend a few days with me. I'll open his [bleeping] eyes, I'll show him poverty and degradation, I'll take him to where people are on the [bleeping] line.' Here Kent went into one of his ranting poems. The type of ludicrous thing that has won him six poetry prizes (three British, three French): Kill the rich!

Burn their houses!

Be unpleasant to their spouses!

Etc., etc., etc.

When he received his honorary doctorate from De Montfort University he grabbed headlines throughout the English-speaking world by parting his academic robes, revealing that he was totally naked beneath them, and intoning 'Yo! I'm a Man', the poem famous for being chanted on football terraces all over the civilized world.

Yo! I'm a Man Yo!

I'm a man!

Don't!

Wash the pan.

Won't change a nappy, This makes me happy.

I'm at the match This is my patch.

Yo!

I'm a man!

Beer's in the can, f.a.gs in the packet, Go on, boy, wack it!

Swear at the ref, Threaten him with death!

Yo! I'm a man!

Yo! I'm a man!

Yo! I'm a man!

Yo!

The 500 students who had been sweating in an heated marquee for three hours went berserk and gave Kent a standing ovation. Then Kent called his mother, Edna, up to the stage and said, 'And this is Edna, my mum. She's a toilet cleaner, and why should she be ashamed of it, eh?'

Mrs Kent, who had never to my knowledge shown any signs of shame in her job prior to this moment, fidgeted uncomfortably and looked as though, when she got Barry backstage, she would give him a good hiding for showing her up. I know all this because my mother told me about it as we drove towards the count.

There was strict security outside the Town Hall, courtesy of Citadel Security Ltd. We had to queue to have our names checked off against a list. My mother quickly grew impatient and began to complain in a loud voice. It was no surprise to me when she was pulled, supposedly at random, from out of the queue and taken away by a grim-faced, square-jawed female security guard called Sandra Leaf for a body search. When my mother returned she was muttering dark threats against Sandra Leaf and Citadel Security Ltd. She said she would ring Charlie Dovecote in the morning and see if she could 'do them' for s.e.xual hara.s.sment.

As soon as we got inside the hall, Ivan Braithwaite rushed up to my mother and said, 'Yes, Pauline, those shoes are perfect? What is it with the man? Is he a shoe fetishist? My mother pointed the toe of her vulgar red stiletto and Ivan practically e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed on the spot. I was relieved to see Mrs Tania Braithwaite approach and place herself between my mother and her husband.

I wondered how long Mrs Braithwaite had lingered in front of her open wardrobe before deciding on a suitable outfit for election night. Had she considered that she would be photographed and possibly filmed as the candidate's mother? It was a warm night. Was a green mohair sweater covered in embroidered French poodles a good idea? Was a pleated skirt in Prince of Wales check the perfect accompaniment? Did navy-blue Clarks sandals bring the outfit together? No! No! No! What had happened to the woman I had always admired for her elegant, bohemian style?

I consulted my mother. Mrs Braithwaite had suffered a slight stroke in December; she had made a good recovery, apart from the total loss of her dress sense. It was an appalling tragedy. I had been twenty-six years old before realizing that there were, in fact, six senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste and dress.

Television crews were queuing up to interview Pandora. Between takes she used a small black compact, embossed with the Chanel logo, to powder her gorgeous face.

Sir Arnold Tufton stood in a corner surrounded by worried-looking men in pinstriped suits.

Meanwhile, on the trestle tables that lined the hall, there grew more and more bundles of Labour votes. The word 'landslide' was whispered around the hall. Pandora's election agent, a former c.o.c.kney whelk-stall owner called Lennie Purbright, introduced himself to me, saying, 'I'd like to shake your hand. I had the best meal in your restaurant the other night. In my opinion you ought to get a Michelin star.' Naturally I was flattered and asked him what he had eaten at Hoi Polloi. 'The tripe, fat chips and baked beans,' he answered, smacking his lips at the memory. 'Mind you,' he said, 'you kept us waiting.'

I explained to him that Savage would not allow a microwave in the kitchen, believing them to release 'evil rays' whenever the doors are opened, so thawing the frozen tripe is necessarily a slow process. He said, 'Yeah, yeah, they was worth waiting for, I ain't complainin'.'

I asked him about his unusual transition from whelk-stall owner to full-time political animal. He said he was driving back from Billingsgate early one morning, with a van full of whelks, and had heard Roy Hattersley on the Today programme on Radio Four, saying of John Major, 'He couldn't run a whelk stall'. Lennie Purbright was inspired by Lord Hat-tersley's metaphor into changing the direction of his life. I told him that Lord Hattersley was a regular at Hoi Polloi. Bubble and squeak with Fray Bentos corned beef and HP sauce was a particular favourite of his. Buster, his dog, was given special dispensation and allowed into the restaurant, providing he sat at his master's feet and didn't hara.s.s the poultry or the other diners.

At 1.30 a.m. an announcement was made, asking the various candidates to gather on the stage in five minutes. I ran to the lavatories. My bladder tends to be overactive at times of excitement. The urinal was crowded, so I looked under the door of the first stall to see if it was occupied. It was--by a pair of red stilettos and two Birkenstock sandals. There are, of course, many explanations for this conjunction of shoes, but nothing came to mind apart from the obvious one: that my mother and Pandora's father were so desperate for privacy that they were prepared to stand in a lavatory stall which reeked of uric acid to obtain it.

I fled from the men's lavatories and went into the ladies', where I found an empty cubicle. I was in mid-flow when I heard two women come in. They went into cubicles either side of me and they continued their conversation: 1st woman: I dread it, I do. Nine days!

2nd woman: My clots look like continents. I had a perfect Africa last month.

I fled without washing my hands.

The candidates were lined up on the stage. I noticed that Sir Arnold Tufton had a fly-b.u.t.ton undone. A cheerful-looking woman with a shaved head was helped on to the stage, wearing a T-shirt with the acronym SLAG emblazoned across her chest. I asked my mother what it stood for.

'Socialist Lesbians Against Globalization,' she said. 'She's Christine Spicer-Woods, ex-RAF, all-round good egg.'

'What makes a woman have a hairstyle like that?' I said.

'Chemotherapy,' said my mother, with a withering look.

Ms Spicer-Woods was an arresting sight. But it was Pandora who drew all the eyes towards her. Nigel and his 'friend', Norbert, pushed their way to the front of the crowd where I was standing. Nigel said, 'She's the most beautiful thing I've seen since Leonardo DiCaprio.' His friend, an over-muscular man wearing Gucci sungla.s.ses, said, 'Yeah, she's a babe, Nigel--and that suit's a nice bit of shmutter an' all. It's Chanel, ain't it?'

Nigel explained that Norbert was in the rag trade, and could identify a designer label at a thousand paces.

The returning officer, a small man with a face like a beaver, glared towards us, and silence fell, apart from some feeble chanting of 'Keith, Keith, Keith!' from a group of Monster Raving Loony supporters at the back of the hall, in support of their candidate, a sad-looking man in a Groucho Marx mask, called Keith Mutton. Eventually, after intervention by Sandra Leaf and her Citadel colleagues, the Loonies fell silent, and the declaration began. I looked for my mother and Ivan Braithwaite, but they were nowhere to be seen. Just as the returning officer was saying, 'Marcia Grimbold, Bring Back the Rates, 758 votes,' there was a disturbance at the back of the hall, and I turned round to see Jack Cavendish, Pandora's elderly lover, being held in an arm-lock by Sandra Leaf. A uniformed policeman was moving towards them through the crowd. Cavendish was heard to shout, 'I'm Pandora Braithwaite's partner! I should be on the stage next to her, you b.l.o.o.d.y Fascists!' before he was bundled through the fire doors and out into the yard, to join the wheelie bins and broken office furniture.