Theodora's Diary Read online

  ‘No! He died and left me the car. Lovely condition, beautiful bodywork. As I said, a miracle!’

  I felt a sensation of overwhelming weariness. I would have to grasp the nettle and ask him to leave. ‘I’m suddenly feeling rather tired. I think you’d better go so I can get some rest.’

  ‘But I haven’t prayed for you yet!’

  That was the final straw. He had to go. Pray for me, like he did for Mr Barrymore? No thank you! When most people ask God to undertake in a difficult situation, they don’t mean it literally.

  ‘By the way, that’s a lovely china figurine you’ve got on your table,’ Jeremiah said. ‘I’ve always wanted one of those. Do you have any plans for it when … well, you know … Have you made a will?’

  I couldn’t believe my ears. He was supposed to be making me feel better. Instead he was practically measuring me for my coffin!

  ‘I’m perfectly all right,’ I hissed through clenched teeth. ‘It’s only chickenpox, you know.’

  ‘Are you absolutely sure about that? It could be some deeply concealed, unconfessed sin—greed, perhaps, some demonic attack upon your psyche, some heinous iniquity festering away in your subconscious, manifesting itself in physical affliction.’

  ‘No it isn’t! It’s chickenpox!’ I snapped.

  ‘You look a little tense. It could be a stress-related anxiety disorder.’

  I had a desperate urge to say, ‘Look, you will be suffering from a boot-related backside disorder if you don’t leave pronto. I’m supposed to be ill. You come in here with your potatoes, scare me half to death with stories about dead uncles, try to worm your way into my will, then accuse me of being demon-possessed and mentally unstable!’

  Instead, I summoned the dregs of my energy, hoisted myself to my feet and opened the door. ‘Please, Jeremiah, you really can go now. I’m suddenly feeling much better.’

  To my utter amazement, Jeremiah seemed delighted to be evicted. His moist eyes shone and he rubbed his hands together with glee. He was beaming, as I stood pleadingly by the open door.

  ‘You see,’ he chuckled with delight, ‘a miraculous recovery! Works every time. What a gift!’

  Sunday 12 July

  Kevin popped round to bellow at me again through the letterbox and drop in some supplies. One of the items he deposited through the letterbox was the latest copy of The Church Organ. I’ve always been sure that church magazines only exist to stop people nodding off during the boring bits of the service, and it looks as if that’s right. Among the notices about the Ladies’ Guild and the Sunday School outing was a note in very small print, right at the bottom of the last page. It read:

  If you are reading this, the sermon must be really dull.

  Monday 13 July

  I have the feeling that my period of solitary confinement is nearly at an end. Today I sat and thought about all the things I could have done, even should have done while I had the time and still didn’t do. I thought of the painting-bynumbers set, still in its box under my bed. I thought of the copy of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time that Ariadne made me borrow. I haven’t even opened it. I guess now I’ll never understand how to synthesize the theory of general relativity with quantum physics. Oh well!

  There have been benefits. My time hasn’t been entirely wasted. I now have beautifully manicured hands and nails, my eyebrows no longer look like Eric Cantona’s, and I have a bikini line smooth enough to skate on.

  Tuesday 14 July

  Hooray! I saw the doctor this morning, and I’m no longer contagious. Theodora Llewellyn is now able to receive visitors.

  2 p.m.

  No visitors yet.

  8 p.m.

  Still no visitors. Where are they all?

  11 p.m.

  Fed up. Spent all day hoping someone would visit me after what seems like years in solitary confinement.

  No one.

  Not one single person.

  Not even Kevin. Nobody loves me.

  I’m going to bed.

  Wednesday 15 July

  It occurred to me this morning that perhaps I should phone people to tell them I can now have visitors. That might do the trick.

  11 a.m.

  Kevin popped in on his way back from a plumbing job nearby. He was positively bubbling over with excitement. I thought it was the joy of being allowed near me again, but then he let slip that the reason for his effervescence was that his new football season ticket had arrived in this morning’s post. Who said romance is dead?

  Friday 17 July

  I fell asleep on the sofa after lunch. It’s the sort of thing you’re allowed to get away with when you’re convalescing. I was in the middle of a very pleasant dream involving Mel Gibson and an enormous bar of chocolate, when the entry buzzer sounded.

  ‘Theodora, are you there, dear?’ called a quavering but genteel voice. If a slightly damaged Royal Doulton tea set could speak, it would sound like Miss Chamberlain. I reluctantly dismissed Mel Gibson and pressed the button to admit the elderly lady. I opened the door of my flat and galloped halfway down the stairs to take Miss Chamberlain’s arm and assist her up the last flight. Slightly breathless, she carefully manoeuvred herself into an armchair.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me visiting,’ she said, ‘but I thought you must be feeling a bit fed up, so I brought you this’. She pulled a huge bar of chocolate out of her string bag. I hugged her.

  ‘I know grapes are healthier,’ she said, her eyes sparkling with mischief, ‘but chocolate is much more fun’.

  As far as I know, Miss Chamberlain doesn’t have a first name—she has always been called ‘Miss’. A retired schoolteacher, she has been a Christian for so long and her faith is so seamless that you genuinely can’t see where Jesus ends and Miss Chamberlain begins. If I was asked how long I spent praying or reading the Bible, I would probably multiply the real amount by four or five so that I wouldn’t appear spiritually degenerate. I suspect Miss Chamberlain would divide hers by four or five to avoid making me feel inadequate.

  When we had eaten our fill of the chocolate, had a good chat and I had helped her back down the stairs, I sat on my sofa and looked round my flat. Everything appeared a little brighter, a touch less jaded. Apart from Mel Gibson (of course), I can’t think of anyone in the world I would have preferred to visit me this afternoon.

  Monday 20 July

  I was lying on the sofa under a blanket, finishing off the chocolate and giving daytime television a second chance, when the phone rang. It was my sister, Ariadne.

  ‘Get off the sofa, switch off that television, stop stuffing your face and do something useful, you lazy slug!’

  I jumped up, electrocuted by guilt. How did she know?

  ‘You were, weren’t you?’ she laughed. ‘You’re so predictable, Theodora.’

  ‘No, no … actually, I was …’

  ‘I can also tell when you’re lying.’

  Even when we were children, Ariadne had the knack of being able to catch me out whenever I was doing something iniquitous. She was my unofficial conscience and took great delight in recounting my misdemeanours to Mum or Dad. As we grew older, she no longer told on me, but prefaced her remarks with, ‘Do you really think that’s a good idea?’ or, ‘You could do it that way, but…’ which in some ways was far worse. It was like living with Jiminy Cricket.

  ‘I’ve been reading,’ I said piously. That, at least, was true. The Adventures of Noddy is an excellent book—if you’re six.

  ‘Why don’t you do something useful for a change? Something for somebody else.’

  ‘What exactly do you have in mind?’ I asked, my suspicions aroused.

  ‘Well, a guy from my church, Steve, has just gone out to Nepal with a missionary organization and various people have been writing to him—you know, to help him keep in touch with what’s going on in England. As you have so much time on your hands at the moment, I thought you could send him a letter.’

  ‘But I don’t know anything about him,’ I proteste
d. ‘I can’t just write to him out of the blue!’

  ‘I don’t expect you to write anything profound, just chitchat, really. He’s a doctor, about 30-ish, likes football. You could even send him extracts from that diary of yours.’

  I felt quite sure that Steve, whoever he was, would not wish to learn the gruesome details of Jeremiah Wedgwood’s visit. Whatever else I might write about, the diary would stay private.

  ‘Well, OK,’ I sighed. ‘Let me have the address.’

  Football! I’ve spent the last 10 years trying to avoid knowing anything about football. Perhaps I should get Kevin to write. They’d have plenty in common.

  Tuesday 21 July

  Ariadne came round with Steve’s address and a photo. Steve, it turns out, is totally drop-dead gorgeous—tall and dark, with a smile that would melt concrete. Surely missionaries aren’t allowed to be gorgeous? They’re supposed to be earnest, balding, middle-aged men in khaki shorts and pith helmets, not Mel Gibson’s better-looking brother. I’ve decided I will write to Steve (nothing to do with the photo, of course).

  5 p.m.

  I hate writing letters. After 13 attempts to write something vaguely interesting, which doesn’t make me seem like an eight-year-old writing about the Pony Club, I’ve decided this isn’t a good idea. Trying to appear light-hearted and chatty makes me sound like a character from Little House on the Prairie, and if I try a more formal approach I sound as if I’m writing to my bank manager.

  11 p.m.

  It’s not my writing style that’s the problem—it’s my personality. I’m just not interesting enough. Who wants a letter from a convalescent office worker from a boring little village near Sidcup?

  I know. I’ll invent a person to write to Steve. It’s not as if I’m ever likely to meet the guy. Ariadne said herself, the content of the letter isn’t important. I could say anything I want, be anyone I like.

  11.45 p.m.

  Inventing a personality is harder than I thought. I can’t pretend to be a doctor: Steve would see straight through that one and, even if he didn’t, he might want to discuss the gory details of his latest operation. Yuck! I can’t even pretend to be amazingly spiritual: he’d see through that even more quickly. Of course, I could say I’m a teacher—that sounds a suitably worthy profession—and pretend that I’m thinking of becoming a missionary too. That will instantly give us something in common. I’ll be single and totally unattached. I live only for the children—no, the socially deprived children—I teach. I shall be tall, blonde, attractive—in the spiritual sense, of course, a sort of cross between Pamela Anderson and Mother Teresa.

  Midnight.

  Letter finished. That was fun! The new, improved Theodora Llewellyn lives. Now comes the difficult part: getting the letter past Ariadne. Even if God forgives the subterfuge, Ariadne certainly won’t.

  Wednesday 22 July

  Success! She doesn’t suspect anything. She didn’t even look at the letter. She just asked if I got Kevin to write anything about football. Kevin? Who’s Kevin?

  Thursday 23 July

  I tried to cook a romantic meal for Kevin to celebrate my not-being-contagious. Unfortunately, as I hadn’t been shopping, I had very limited ingredients with which to create my culinary masterpiece. He nibbled politely at the food, forcing himself to swallow by sheer willpower. Maybe, with hindsight, ‘Kippers with Garlic Mayonnaise’ was a mistake.

  ‘You don’t have to eat it, you know,’ I said eventually.

  ‘It’s very nice; it’s just that I’m a bit full up tonight.’

  ‘It is not nice, it’s disgusting!’ I put my cutlery down with a clatter, pushed my plate away and sat with folded arms.

  ‘Theo, it’s just … different … unusual … distinct … unconventional …’

  I stopped Kevin trying to think of any more adjectives to describe the meal and sent him out to hire a video. He came back with Fever Pitch, the story of an obsessive football fan and his relationship with his long-suffering girlfriend. It was better than I expected—funny and romantic, not too much football. We even had a cuddle at the end.

  ‘Theo,’ Kevin whispered, ‘promise me, if I ever start getting like that bloke in the video, you’ll take me out and shoot me’.

  I hadn’t the heart to tell him.

  Friday 24 July

  I needed to go to the chemist’s to buy a very large spotconcealer stick to hide the remaining scabs and chickenpox scars, in preparation for my return to work. My neighbour Doris Johnson very kindly offered to give me a lift there in her gigantic old Volvo. The car has huge rust holes in the wings, but I accepted her offer gratefully.

  ‘Righto! I’ll go and get Matrimony out of the garage and get her ticking over.’

  ‘Matrimony?’ I asked. ‘Why on earth do you call your car Matrimony?’

  Doris giggled. It was a giggle which seemed to start at her feet and work its way up through her body, making the whole of her little, round frame shake with mirth. ‘Because it’s a holy estate, of course!’

  I should never have asked.

  Saturday 25 July

  I went out with Mum this afternoon to book our annual holiday. Kevin can’t get time off this summer and Dad won’t travel abroad, so it’s just the two of us.

  After much wrangling—she wanted Athens, I wanted Tenerife—we agreed on Kos. Mum’s into Greek culture and architecture and I’m a complete beach bum, so obviously some compromise was necessary.

  I’ve just tried on all last year’s holiday clothes. Am now deeply depressed. I squeezed into my linen shorts and caught a glimpse of my backside in the bedroom mirror. It looked like a sack full of footballs. Had to have a bar of chocolate to cheer myself up.

  Sunday 26 July

  Back to church today. My return after several weeks of absence wasn’t greeted, as I’d hoped, with hugs, kisses and tears. Most people didn’t even seem to notice I’d been missing. In fact, the only person who offered to hug me was slimy, oily Roger Lamarck. I declined. I know where he likes to put his hands.

  After the service, I wrestled with the lock on my driver’s door in the car park for a good five minutes before I admitted defeat. I was just climbing in through the passenger side when a sudden, violent impact from behind catapulted me across the front seats. I extracted my head from the driver’s door side pocket, clambered out backwards, tugged down my skirt and turned, red faced and fuming, to face a seraphically smiling Charity Hubble. One of her progeny had swung open the door of their prehistoric, text-covered minibus and nearly sent me into orbit.

  ‘So sorry!’ she beamed. ‘Nebuchadnezzar, say “sorry” to Theodora.’

  ‘Sorry I hit you up the bum with the door,’ replied the chastised but unrepentant Nebuchadnezzar.

  ‘Now, now, that isn’t a nice thing to say, is it?’ chided his mother.

  ‘No,’ concurred the grinning brat. ‘It was a good shot, though.’

  Seven other toothy faces grinned and grimaced at me through the sticker-covered bus windows like a pack of deranged hamsters. All the children appeared identical, varying only in size and degree of tooth protrusion. They looked like the result of a genetic experiment to cross a cabbage-patch doll with a gerbil. Nigel Hubble glided up, still in his curate’s robes, and put his arm around his rose-and-wisteria-clad spouse as she smiled up into his eyes.

  The bus and its inhabitants jolted and bumped out of the car park. As I rubbed my sore head and bruised backside, I caught a glimpse of the door with which Nebuchadnezzar had clouted me. It bore the text of Psalm 141:5, ‘Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness.’ Talk about rubbing salt into the wound.

  Monday 27 July

  Must be ready to go back to work. Had an overwhelming urge to organize my underwear into alphabetical order.

  Tuesday 28 July

  I had a discussion with Kevin about football hooliganism. Of course, Kevin denies even knowing anyone who has ever even been associated in any remote way whatsoever with violence on the terraces. I reminded h
im of the time he was sitting at the back of the stands with his half-witted mates and accidentally dropped a bag of mint imperials just before the national anthem. The acoustics of the stadium amplified the sound of the rock-hard sweets as they bounced down the concrete steps. Both teams thought they were under machine-gun fire and flung themselves face first onto the pitch. They were still visibly shaking during the first half. I made him write to the Football Association to apologize.

  ‘But me, Paul, Jez and Kev 2—we’re model supporters!’ His voice squeaked in incredulity.

  Model supporters? Smaller, non-working versions of the real thing.

  Wednesday 29 July

  It’s nearly August and I have no signs of great spiritual growth to report yet. It’s a bit embarrassing, really. This diary is supposed to be a record of my pilgrimage through life, but I don’t feel as if I’ve even got as far as the front door. I’m consoling myself by thinking this must be a waiting period, a time of preparation. I feel God must have some work of great importance for me to do, a project, a mission—a ministry, even. Everyone else seems to have one. Charity has her committees and good works, Miss Chamberlain has her lovely way of bringing happiness to people, Doris Johnson runs the playgroup and Sunday School, Jeremiah Wedgwood has his ‘ministry of visitation’. Even Kevin seems to find the time to do odd jobs for some of the elderly people in the village. Oh well, I’m sure God has something up His sleeve. Does God have sleeves? Does He have arms? Why am I even asking that?

  Friday 31 July

  Rang work today to tell them I’d be back on Monday.

  ‘Good, we’ve saved it all up for you,’ said Declan. ‘Bring a stepladder. It’s scraping against the ceiling.’

  I think I’m about to have a relapse. A return to an office where whoopee cushions, foaming sugar and soap which turns your face green pass as normality is enough to set back anyone’s recovery.

  God must have arms. The Bible says, ‘The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms’ (Deuteronomy 33:27). Can’t find anything about sleeves, though. Logically, if God has arms, He must have sleeves. But does He wear clothes?