She said, 'You still haven't realized that it's a social sin to turn up on time, have you?' She then gave me a flashy pink jewel and a piece of Blu-Tack and asked me to fix it into her bellybutton. After a few minutes, when I'd managed to fix it in place she turned her attention to me again and said, 'Who the fuck are you meant to be?'

I took Madame Bovary out of my smoking jacket pocket and showed her the title.

She said, 'You're Madame Bovary's husband?'

I said, 'Isn't it obvious? I'm Gustave Flaubert.'

She said, 'No, Adrian, it is not at all obvious.'

I was given the job of strategically placing little china bowls of expensive snack foods around.

The Lawns won an architectural award when it was built in the late 1970s. It was designed for entertaining: the downstairs rooms flowed into each other but were on several levels. The decor had undergone many changes since I first visited the house in 1982. Then it was full of books, potted plants and Indian rugs; now it was a creamy, decluttered, multi-levelled 'space'. Tania Braithwaite had certainly had the builders in since my father left her and returned to my mother.

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, hooped 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.

When I remonstrated with Marigold, saying, 'You've got a passably good figure, why hide it under a clown's costume?' she said, 'I thought it would be fun.'

I tried to explain to her that clowns were not 'fun' and in fact were deeply unfunny, even sinister. She took the false red bulbous nose off that she was wearing and blew her own.

Tania Braithwaite came out to greet Marigold and said through a slit in the carrot, 'Adrian, why is it that your women seem to spend most of their time weeping?'

I said coldly that, apart from her daughter, Pandora, all the women I had loved had been sensitive creatures who were easily moved to tears.

Then the carrot put her arm around the clown and led her off to be introduced to my family and friends.

Nigel had a toy golden Labrador at his feet and was wearing a scruffy false beard. He was David Blunkett. He said, 'I've just been introduced to your fiancee. She reckons you're getting married in the spring. I presume I'm going to be the best man?'

I said, 'She is my ex-fiancee, and anyway a best man needs to have good eyesight as he has many duties to perform.'

My mother and father turned up carrying bulging black bin liners which contained their fancy dress clothes. They hogged both bathrooms for half an hour before emerging as Dolly Parton and Saddam Hussein.

Parvez and his wife, Fatima, had come as Robin Hood and Maid Marian.

Parvez said, 'I hope you're controlling your spending, Moley.'

I didn't tell him about Barclaycard's generosity.

Fatima said, 'I've just been introduced to your fiancee. She's obviously got a sense of humour.'

I said, 'She is my ex-fiancee, Fatima.'

Fatima said, 'You'd better tell her that. She's talking about an April wedding.'

I glanced across the room at Marigold, who was talking earnestly to Brain-box Henderson, who had flattered himself by coming as Tarzan. In my opinion, he should not have worn the black shoes and grey socks.

Pandora put a CD of Motown hits on and turned the volume up. I sat with my fingers crossed, hoping that my father's bad back would prevent him from taking to the floor with the other guests.

My mother frugged over to me in what she imagined to be a playful manner and said, 'Shouldn't you be dancing with your fiancee?'

I said, 'She is my ex-fiancee. I told her in clear, unequivocal terms on Christmas Eve. She is here as Tania Braithwaite's guest, not mine!'

Anyway, it was impossible to get near enough to dance with Marigold due to the wire hoops inside her trousers and her comedy shoes.

My mother glanced over at Marigold and said, 'Yes, it's a tragically sad choice of costume. Perhaps you should take a full-page advert in the Leicester Mercury to explain to half of Leicestershire that you are no longer engaged to the poor cow.

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 heard. 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.

Pandora shouted above the din that she was a minister of the crown and would be one of the first to know if our country had been attacked.

After a few moments a Radio Four announcer apologized for the non-appearance of the Big Ben bongs, but Marigold took it as a portent of doom. She said, 'A barn owl flew in front of my taxi on the way here. That always signifies death: I said, 'Barn owls have to cross the road somehow, Marigold.'

The partygoers sang 'Auld Lang Syne' in the traditional cross-armed manner. I held a hand with Rocky (Othello), Pandora's ex-lover, who had arrived late but seemed to be her escort for the night, and the flipper of one of Tania's neighbours, Mrs Moore, who had restricted her enjoyment of the party by coming as a penguin.

When the singing died down, I asked Rocky if he still owned his chain of gyms around Oxford.

He said that he had sold the gyms and was doing a degree course in African studies. He looked across at Pandora, who was doing her party trick -- balancing a chipolata on the end of her nose -- and said, 'She's asked me to be her guest at the Afro-Caribbean constituency New Year's dinner. Do you think she's just using me, Aidy?'

I said, 'I'm saying nothing, Rocky, but on the Chinese New Year she invited Wayne Wong and his family to the Palace of Westminster. The photos got as far as the Hong Kong Times.'

At 1 a.m. my mother and the carrot started reminiscing about Ivan Braithwaite, to whom they had both been married (though not at the same time, of course).

The carrot said, 'Poor Ivan, dead for two years and two months today, Pauline.'

My mother batted her huge false eyelashes and said, 'I still feel responsible for his death.'

The carrot said with a viper's tongue, 'Pauline, you mustn't blame yourself. I'm sure you didn't make him swim back half a mile to that small island to see if you'd left your sunglasses on a rock. And if you did, how could you have known that he'd get cramp and drown on the way back?'

A single tear fell from my mother's eye and she said, 'Yes, but five minutes after he'd left the shore I found the sunglasses in my beach bag -- I'd been too hot and bothered to look for them properly!'

The carrot said coldly, 'None of this came out at the inquest.'

I thought it wise to intervene at this point and led my mother away before the novelty vodka she was drinking loosened her tongue further.

At around 2 a.m. I slid the patio doors open and went outside for a breath of fresh air. The stars blazed in the black sky and once again I felt a boyish wonder that the same moon was shining on me in Ashby de la Zouch, on Glenn in Cyprus and on William in Nigeria.

I wondered how Daisy was spending the first few hours of the new year.

Wednesday January 1st 2003 New Year's Day, holiday (UK, Rep. of/re/and, USA, Canada and Australia) I woke up this morning and was horrified to find Marigold next to me on the futon. She was still dressed in a few pieces of her clown outfit. When she turned over to face me, I saw by the morning light that she was wearing smeared full clown's make-up. I was completely naked. I pulled the duvet over my head, unwilling to face the day.

Marigold put her arms around me and said in a tiny voice, 'You're a wonderful lover, Adrian.'

I said coldly, 'Have you got a bad throat? Do you want a Strepsil?'

She said, a little more vigorously, 'Our lovemaking went on for hours.'

'Hours?' I questioned.

'Well, at least twenty minutes,' she said.

I was appalled at the thought that I could have been in any way sexually excited by a woman dressed as Coco the Clown. What does this mean? I was with my mother at the circus once when a clown sat on her knee and she screamed and pushed him off. Is there a connection? I must know.

Twenty minutes is good going for me.

I was desperate to go to the toilet, but I didn't want her to see me naked. I asked Marigold about her movements for the day.

She said, 'I'm all yours. I've got nothing to do and nowhere to go. I was hoping that you would take me out to lunch.'

I said, 'I'm an unconventional man, Marigold, but I draw the line at going out for New Year's Day lunch with a clown on my arm.

Eventually my bursting bladder forced me out of bed. I stayed in the bathroom for longer than was strictly necessary. Under the shower I tried to remember how much I had drunk the night before and when I had lost consciousness. How did I get back to Rat Wharf? The last thing that I remember is drinking a glass of a purple-coloured drink which Pandora said was a tropical cocktail.

When I came out of the bathroom, Marigold was leaning over the balcony, talking to the swans. She started to tell me a fairy story about a prince who had been turned into a swan. She gestured towards Gielgud, who was pecking at the floating litter on the opposite bank.

She said, 'Perhaps he's a prince waiting for a human girl to free him from his swanhood.'

I said, 'Why don't you go down and peck him on the beak? But remember, a swan can break a girl's arm, y'know.'

I was finding her presence extremely irritating. My head was pounding and my mouth tasted so vile that I was surprised my tongue had not fled from it in disgust, to cower in a corner of the room. I couldn't wait for her to leave.

When she went to have a shower I wrote my New Year's Resolutions: 1. I will never see Marigold Flowers again.

2. I will stick to my usual drinks: lager and lime, red wine at PS4.99 a bottle and above, and dry whites.

3. I will work out how much money I owe.

4. I will read aloud to poor blind Nigel on a regular basis.

5. I will learn how to operate my home entertainment centre.

6. I will eat five pieces of fruit and vegetables every day.

7. I will email William and Glenn on a weekly basis.

8. I will prove to Latesun Ltd that Saddam Hussein does have Weapons of Mass Destruction and get my deposit back.

Marigold was wearing my white bathrobe when she came out of the shower. She asked me if I had any clothes she could borrow to go home in. I gave her a kaftan I'd brought back from Tunisia, a pair of jogging trousers and the three-quarter-length Parka I used to wear when I had my moped. There was nothing I could do about shoes. Marigold's feet are only slightly larger than those of a Tiny Tears doll, so she wore the one-size-fits-all comedy clown shoes to walk to the car park.

It was unfortunate timing. We passed Mia Fox on the stairs and Professor Green in the car park. I felt obliged to stop and introduce Marigold to them. Perhaps I should have explained why she was so very badly dressed, but I didn't want to upset Marigold and have her crying all the way to Beeby on the Wold.

Before she got out of my car I shook her hand and said, 'Unless we run into each other, this could be the last time we meet.'

She said, 'Don't be so silly and ran, somewhat clumsily because of the clown shoes, indoors.

Thursday January 2nd Holiday (Scotland) The Daily Telegraph claims that Saddam Hussein has hidden 360 tons of chemical weapons, 30,000 Weapons of Mass Destruction launch mechanisms and 3,000 tons of chemicals. I have snipped out the article and sent it to Latesun Ltd with a note: Dear Johnny Bond Please read the enclosed article. As you see, it appeared in the Daily Telegraph. I'm sure you will concur with me that the Daily Telegraph can be trusted implicitly. I look forward to receiving your cheque for PS57.10 in the near future.

Yours sincerely A. A. Mole Friday January 3rd Mr Carlton-Hayes told me that his nephew is a major in the army, stationed in the Gulf. Apparently, Tony Blair sent a Christmas message to British troops in the Gulf: 'Prepare for war.'

Thank God Glenn is not eighteen until April 18th. The war with Iraq will be over by then.

I picked up a copy of Survivalist in WH Smith. There was an advertisement inside for a biological and chemical protection full-body suit. I may send for one. Rat Wharf is very near the epicentre of Leicester.

Saturday January 4th A busy day in the shop, exchanging unwanted Christmas presents. I was pleased to exchange a copy of Barry Kent's Making Love with Wendy Cope for Simon Armitage's All Points North.

I told Mr Carlton-Hayes that my association with Marigold Flowers was over.

He said, 'I think that's wise, my dear. The Flowers family have a way of sucking you into their dreadful world.'

Nigel rang and said, 'You promised you would come round and read to me. Was it a blag or will you keep your promise?'

I told him that I was free tomorrow.

He said, 'You can start with the Sunday papers then. Bring an Observer with you.'

Sunday January 5th Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, formally Roy Jenkins, died today, aged eighty-two. Had he been able to pronounce his Rs he would almost certainly have become prime minister.

My mother rang and invited herself and my father for Sunday lunch. I said that I could not give them lunch because I had a prior engagement, reading the Sunday papers to Nigel.

My mother said, 'Me and your dad were looking forward to being somewhere dry and warm for the day. It's been raining non-stop for two days. The tent's flooded out and it's impossible to keep anything dry. I think your father is going down with trench foot. And living in the bloody camper van is sending me stir crazy.

Nigel was totally unappreciative, snorting impatiently when I stumbled over a few words of a 3,000-word article in the Observer about the inadvisability of Britain and America going to war with Iraq. He is, like Ken Blunt, anti-American and has been since he went to Disneyland, where he had to wait for two hours in the queue for the Jungle Cruise, during which time a man in a Mickey Mouse costume who was meant to be entertaining the queue called him a 'son of a bitch' when Nigel complained about the long wait.

Monday January 6th Still raining. The swans are swimming in the car park.

Tuesday January 7th The car park at Rat Wharf is like an ice rink. Gielgud and his wife looked like a bad-tempered Torvill and Dean this morning.

Wednesday January 8th I visited my parents after work tonight and found them in a pitiful state. It was very hard for me to leave them shivering over their table-top Calor gas heater. As I trekked across the frozen field towards my car, I was reminded of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I did not have rags wrapped around my feet, but the soles of my shoes were far too thin for the weather.

Thursday January 9th When I got home from work, I rang my mother on her mobile and asked if the camper van was still iced up inside.

She sounded stranger than usual. She said, 'I'm chilled to the marrow and your father's hands are blue. We haven't had a hot meal for days.'

I took pity on them and rang Domino's and asked them to deliver a Full House Deep Pan Pizza to The Piggeries, The Bottom Field, Lower Lane, Mangold Parva.

I then rang my parents to tell them that hot food was on the way.

My mother said, 'Thank you, Aidy. I knew you'd come and rescue us, and take us back to your place.'

I told her about the pizza and she went quiet. Then she said sort of weakly, 'thank you.'