Sue Townsend's "Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction"

Marigold and I walked to the cathedral arm in arm. She was wearing a red beret and a khaki trouser suit. I didn’t say anything, but she looked like a paratrooper on leave. Perhaps she is subconsciously preparing herself for war.

Marigold rang early this morning to say that her parents had told her that I was an admirable young man. She sounded very happy. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I had been awake half the night wondering how I could end the relationship.

The two girls of Two Gals ‘n’ a Van are not girls. They are strong-looking middle-aged women called Sian and Helen. My mother Had invited them downstairs to have a cup of tea. I could hear female laughter coming from the kitchen. I asked my father what the women downstairs were talking about.
He said, ‘Just women’s silly slobber – the price of cabbage, was Princess Diana murdered, will Hans Blix find any Weapons of Mass Destruction, cats, the change of bloody life, Sex and the City, and how men are not needed any more. Helen is trying to get pregnant. Sian has been doing the business with a turkey blaster and a bottle of sperm that’s been donated by their gay-boy friend.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Where did we go wrong, Adrian? We let them go to work, we let them be bloody vicars, they drive cars, there’s one who’s a captain in the navy, we bought them machines to make it easier to do their housework, but they still hate us, and they’d rather have sex with a kitchen tool than with a man.’

At 5.30 I asked Mr Carlton-Hayes if he would be the guest speaker at the creative writing group dinner.
He said, ‘My dear, what a shame. I’m hosting a drinks party for the neighbours this evening. The only person you’ll get at this late juncture is somebody who likes the sound of their own voice.’
We said simultaneously, ‘Michael Flowers’.
I checked the mumming poster. Flowers did not have a performance that evening. I rang him immediately. Netta answered and said that her husband was at the hospital, visiting Marigold.
I rang Surgical 2 and asked to speak urgently to Michael Flowers. The nurse asked me I I was a relation. I said no.
She said, ‘Then I’m afraid I can’t put you through.’
I was desperate to speak to him, so I said that I was Marigold Flowers’s fiancé.
I pulled a cracker with Marigold. The novelty was a plastic ring with a gaudy pseudo-ruby stone. Marigold asked me to put the ring on the third finger of her left hand. When I did so she shrieked, ‘Look, family, look, family, I’m properly engaged.’
How we all laughed.
Netta said, ‘I’m sure as the jewelry shops open Adrian will be buying you something rather splendid. Perhaps a large cluster of diamonds would suit you, Mazzie.’
I realized then that Marigold had not informed her family that the engagement was off.
A strange thing happened to me. I disassociated myself from my surroundings. I seemed to hover above the table. Voices sounded as if they were counting from afar.

I was mortified that it was not Coco Chanel who emerged from a taxi outside the Lawns, but Coco the Clown.
Marigold was wearing an orange fright-wig, a large checked jacket, hoped trousers, a bowler hat and flapping comedy shoes. She had completely misjudged the rules of fancy dress – that young women should dress alluringly. It was only women as old as Tania Braithwaite, who was dressed as a carrot, who could break this rule.

At 11.59 p.m. Pandora gathered her guests together in the living room and turned on Radio Four so that we could hear Big Ben strike 12. But nothing was hear. Radio Four was silent.
It was my father who started the panic. He shouted, ‘Iraq has sent a Weapon of Mass Destruction and flattened Big Ben.’
This was deeply ironical, since my father was at that moment dressed as the Iraqi leader.

Darren Blardsall said, ‘I reckon that George Bush is sort of like Mr Rochester and that Jane Eyre is a bit like Tony Blair.’
‘So who is Saddam?’ said Mr Carlton-Hayes.
‘Saddam is the mad wife in the attic’, said Darren.