I said, 'Do they never go out?'

She said they went out on Fridays to the Madrigal Society.

I said, 'Well, what a coincidence. Friday is the only night of the week I am free.' I smiled to show her that this was a little joke and to try and put her at her ease.

I am not at all interested in doll's houses. The last I remember seeing belonged to Rosie; it was a plastic, vulgar ranch-house-style thing, inhabited by Barbie and her boyfriend, Ken.

I asked Marigold if she would like to meet up after work for a drink. She said that she wasn't very good with alcohol.

'Coffee then?' I said.

'Coffee?' she said, as though I had suggested fresh pig's blood.

I said that I had heard that red wine was good for the circulatory system.

She said, 'OK, I'll join you in a glass of red wine, but I can't tonight. I'd need to give my parents notice.'

'How about tomorrow?' I said.

'All right,' she said, 'but you will have to give me a lift home. We live in Beeby on the Wold and the last bus leaves Leicester at 6.30.'

For some reason we had been almost whispering. Marigold gives the impression that she is a spy living in enemy territory. Her skin is exquisite. I longed to stroke her face.

When I got home to Ashby de la Zouch my parents informed me that they had decided to sell up. Some fool has offered them PS180,000 for their semi, including its hideous carpets and curtains. I pointed out that they would have to pay the same amount for a similar property.

'Aha!' said my father triumphantly. 'We are not buying a similar property. We are going to buy a wreck and do it up.

I left them poring over the Leicester Mercury property guide, ringing the more dilapidated houses in the worst areas.

Their tired old faces were suffused with enthusiasm. I hadn't got the heart to pour cold water on to their mad plans.

Neither of them would know what a joist was if it sprang up and hit them in the face.

Wednesday October 16th I dressed carefully in natural organic-type colours this morning. Mr Carlton-Hayes complimented me on my aftershave. I told him that Pandora had bought it for me as a Christmas present four years ago and that I only wore it on very special occasions. Mr Carlton-Hayes told me that he had read in the Bookseller that Pandora had written a book called Out of the Box; it is due to be published in July 2003.

I asked Mr Carlton-Hayes if he would order a few copies, pointing out that Pandora was a local MP and was constantly on Newsnight, smarming up to Jeremy Paxman.

He asked me if Pandora's book was likely to be ghost-written. I said it was highly unlikely -- Pandora was a control freak who had once gone berserk when I had changed the station on her car radio.

I met Marigold, as arranged, in the Euro Wine Bar -- it used to be Barclays Bank -- and we sat where the paying-in queue used to form. I asked for the wine list. The waiter shouted over the salsa music that there was no wine list and that the choice was red or white, in sweet or dry.

Marigold said she would have sweet red because her blood sugar was low. I ordered the dry white.

Conversation was difficult because of the noise. There was a speaker directly over our heads. I looked around at the other customers. They were mostly young and seemed to be lip-reading. Perhaps they were on an outing from the Royal National Institute for Deaf People.

After a while Marigold and I gave up trying to converse and she sat and looked at the dozens of miniature silver things on her charm bracelet.

A hen party -- a collection of females dressed as mini-skirted nurses wearing fishnet tights -- came in and sat at the next table. One of them took out a clockwork penis, which went round in circles until it broke free and collided against Marigold's leg. I paid our bill and we hurried out into the street.

I asked Marigold if she liked Chinese food.

She said, 'If I'm careful with the monosodium glutamate.'

As we passed the clock tower, I looked around at the crowds of young people gathered there, and realized that, at thirty-four and a half, I was probably the oldest person in the immediate vicinity. Even the policemen in the parked Transit van looked like kids.

Thursday October 17th It took for ever to get to sleep last night. I lay awake in the dark, thinking about Marigold. She is a fragile, sensitive creature. She needs somebody to give her confidence in herself and free her from her overbearing parents.

I took her to Wong's and ordered Menu C, and we ate prawn crackers, wanton soup, crispy duck with pancakes, lemon honey chicken and sweet and sour pork balls with egg-fried rice.

I asked the waiter, Wayne Wong, whom I have known since our school days, to remove the cutlery and bring us chopsticks, and I also asked Wayne to tell the chef to go easy on the monosodium glutamate.

Marigold seemed to be impressed at my confident, cosmopolitan restaurant manner.

Wayne had seated us at the best table in the house, next to the giant fish tank, where Koi carp costing 500 quid a throw were swimming about.

Marigold said, 'I find them a little intimidating.' I put my hand on hers and said, 'Don't worry. They can't get out of the tank: I asked her if she would like us to move table. She said, 'No, it's just that they're so big. I prefer small things.'

This is the first time since I became sexually mature that I have worried that a woman will find my genitalia too big. I can't wait for our next meeting tomorrow.

Friday October 18th Rosie sent a text which said: M's safe in Woolgoolga.

It wasn't until I was halfway to Leicester that I realized what she was texting about.

I told Mr Carlton-Hayes that I was going to Marigold's house tonight to have a look at her doll's house collection.

He said in tones of astonishment, 'You're going to Michael Flowers's house? Do be careful, my dear, he's a dreadful man.'

I asked him how their paths had crossed.

He said, 'Flowers used to be the vice-chairman of the Literary and Philosophical Society here in town. We had a vehement disagreement about Tolkien. I said that the opening paragraphs of The Fellowship of the Ring were enough to make a strong man retch. I'm afraid we came to blows in the car park of the Central Lending Library.'

I said, 'I hope you came off best.'

He said almost dreamily, 'I rather think I did.'

I explained that Michael Flowers and his wife would be out at the time of my visit, at the Madrigal Society.

When he had gone in the back I took a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring and read the opening paragraphs. I couldn't see what the fuss had been about. It certainly wasn't worth coming to blows over, though perhaps 'eleventy' was an invented word too far.

I looked through at Mr Carlton-Hayes in his baggy cardigan. It was hard to imagine him brawling in a car park.

Marigold made me park in Main Street, Beeby on the Wold. Then we cut through fields to the Gothic-looking house she has lived in all her life and entered by the back door. She said she didn't want the neighbours to see me entering the house. I looked around. There were no neighbours.

It was freezing cold in the dark interior. Apparently, Michael Flowers doesn't believe in central heating. He believes in wearing layers of wool and keeping busy.

Marigold was obviously very nervous.

I said, 'Perhaps this is not a good idea.'

She said, 'No, I'm a woman of thirty. Why shouldn't I show my doll's houses to a friend?'

We passed through the gloomy hail. There was a stack of library books and cassettes on the hall table, waiting to be returned to the Central Lending Library. One of the cassettes was Rolf Harris in Concert.

I said, 'Rolf Harris and madrigals?'

She said, 'My father has eclectic tastes.'

We crept up two flights of stairs like burglars. I went up the loft ladder first, because Marigold was wearing a skirt. Then Marigold went around switching the lights on in the doll's houses. I was enchanted with the first few. The delicacy of the stitching on the soft furnishings was awe-inspiring, and when Marigold demonstrated the flushing toilet I was gob smacked. I was impressed with the next batch, but quite frankly, diary, by the time I had inspected the eighteenth I was more than a little bored. However, I feigned interest.

I was relieved when we were walking across the fields back to the car. I held her delicate hand. I wanted to ask her to marry me, but I fought the impulse.

When we reached the village we sat in my car and talked about our families. We have both suffered. She said that her greatest fear was that she would never leave home and that she would be trapped in her parents' house for ever. Her elder sisters, Poppy and Daisy, had fled years ago.

At 10 o'clock she said that she had better go home and prepare a late supper for her parents. I stroked her face. Her skin felt as soft as a silk shirt I used to have. She is almost beautiful when she smiles. She has got good-quality teeth.

When I got home I told my mother a little about Marigold.

She said, 'She sounds like a nightmare. Take my advice and keep well away from needy people. They suck you into their own miserable world.'

She should know -- she married my father.

Saturday October 19th At lunchtime today I walked to Country Organics to give Marigold a copy of What Not to Wear by Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine. I haven't mentioned it before, diary, but Marigold has very little dress sense. Somehow she has not realized that pop socks should not be worn with a mid-calf skirt. Or that lime-green shoes are not a good idea.

When she saw the title, her lower lip trembled and her eyes filled with tears. She was obviously touched.

There was a big bombastic man behind the counter wearing a hairy tree-patterned jumper, obviously hand-knitted by a friend, or an enemy. He was lecturing an elderly couple about GM crops in a booming voice. He said, 'Let's be honest, mark my words, there won't be a single tree growing in this country in fifty years' time. If GM crops are planted, we can say goodbye to our song-birds and butterflies. Do you want that?'

The elderly couple shook their heads.

His completely bald bonce glinted under the fluorescent lights. His yellow beard was crying out for a trim. It was Michael Flowers. I hated him on sight. I felt like shouting, 'Yes, Flowers, I can't wait until trees, song-birds and butterflies are a thing of the past.' But of course I didn't.

Marigold must have sensed my mood. She did not introduce me to her father. I left the shop with a heavy heart.

Sunday October 20th Because they are 'between cars', my parents asked me to give them a lift to Harrow Street, in the Grimshaw area of Leicester, to view what my father somewhat grandiloquently called a property. The photograph on the estate agent's particulars showed a boarded-up terraced house with vegetation growing out of the chimney pot.

I pointed out that Harrow Street was a police no-go area. But they said that after viewing the property they had promised to drop in for a cup of tea with Tania Braithwaite and Pandora, who was visiting her mother on the second anniversary of her father's death. I still go weak at the knees whenever Pandora's name is mentioned, so I was putty in their hands.

5 Harrow Street was a waste of time. My father was too frightened to get out of the car. My mother was brave enough to look through the letter box. She said that a flock of pigeons had broken in and made themselves at home. She made it sound as though the birds were sitting around drinking tea and watching television.

As my mother was getting back into the car, a youth in a top with the hood pulled over his face approached her and said, 'Yo, woman, do you wanna score some draw?'

My mother said, 'Not today, thank you,' as if she was refusing a Betterware catalogue.

She turned to my father in the back and said, 'Do you remember those Saturday nights when we used to smoke dope, George?'

My father said, 'Shush. Not in front of Adrian, Pauline!'

I said, 'When was this? Was I born?'

My mother said, 'It was the 1960s, Adrian. Everybody did it.'

I said, 'Everybody? Grandma Mole? Winston Churchill?'

I was disgusted with them and didn't speak until we got to Tania's house.

Pandora was looking ravishingly beautiful in a cream trouser suit. I will never stop loving her.

A large photograph of Ivan was on the sideboard next to a burning candle and a vase of red flowers. The photograph had been taken when he was still married to Tania. Nobody mentioned the fact that he was on honeymoon with my mother when he drowned. Also nobody mentioned that my father was living with Tania when the tragedy occurred.

When Pandora went into the garden to smoke a cigarette, I followed her and asked her if she would agree to be interviewed for my book, Celebrity and Madness.

She threw her treacle-coloured hair back and snapped, 'How dare you call me a celebrity? I'm a serious politician with a crippling workload.'

I said that I had often seen her in the pages of Hello! on the arm of various old blokes.

She said that she was powerless to stop the paparazzi. She smoked in silence while I watched her lovely face. Then she sighed deeply. I asked her what was wrong.

She said that she missed her dad and added, 'Has your mother ever talked to you about it?'

I told her that I only knew what had been written in the papers and that my mother had been deeply traumatized into silence by the tragedy.

Pandora said bitterly, 'So traumatized that she seduced your father away from my mother within a week of my dad's funeral: I said, 'It's baby-boomer behaviour, Pandora. That entire generation is morally corrupt.'

I told her about my parents' 1960s drug habit. She laughed and said that a few spliffs on a Saturday night didn't constitute a habit.

I told her about poor blind Nigel and she said she already knew and had put him in touch with the top man at the RNIB.

'For counselling?' I asked.

'No. For fund-raising,' she said. 'Nigel's well connected with the gay mafia. He is a direct route to the pink pound.'

Tania called us in for tea and we spent an uncomfortable hour eating and drinking and reminiscing about Ivan. However, we were all careful to avoid mentioning the circumstances of his watery death.

To break the tension I told Pandora that I had written to Tony Blair, asking him to send some documentation verifying the Weapons of Mass Destruction/Cyprus! forty-five-minute statement.

My mother said, 'The tight git is fretting about losing his holiday deposit.'

Pandora said that she rarely saw Mr Blair nowadays as he was never in the country. I asked her if war with Iraq was inevitable.

She said, 'I've heard a rumour that the MOD is about to call up reservist medical staff.'

My mother said, 'So there'll be even fewer doctors and nurses in the hospitals.'

My mother had obviously been gossiping while I was outside with Pandora, because Tania said, 'I hear you have got a new girlfriend, Adrian.'

Pandora said, 'What's her name?'

I took a deep breath and said, 'Marigold Flowers.'