My Madder Fatter Diary (11 page)

Saturday 23.6.90

10.23 a.m.

Sorry I didn’t write last night. I was very pissed and a bit emotional.

Got down the Vaults at about 8 and everyone was there. The atmosphere was just ON! The garden was packed. Bar the people who do foreign languages, most people have finished. Anyway I was just chatting to Dobber about shagging (I was actually digging for more info on sex things that I might not know about) and Haddock walked in WEARING BLOODY SHORTS. Yes it was hot but – in a way it should not be allowed as even his calves are amazing. Anyway he came to sit with us and then – oh – bloody hell. We ended up having this semi-pissed conversation and then he dropped a Hiroshima bombshell.

HADDOCK: What you are you going to do now?

ME: Doss. Avoid getting a job. Wait for my results. What about you?

HADDOCK: I’m going Interrailing all summer. I go next week.

Now he did say last year he was going to South Africa for 6 months but when he kept on working I just thought he’d given up on the travelling thing. But no. He hasn’t. He’s off. Anyway I said . . .

ME: Oh really?! That’s brilliant (no – it’s not. It’s shit. Haddock it’s so shit you have no idea because frankly without you around everything is grey and flat and hopeless).

HADDOCK: You should do it too! Do you good. Get out of this place.

ME: Nah mate. I’m skint. And I’m going to Cornwall for a week aren’t I? (which I am shitting myself about)

HADDOCK: Well I’ll come and see you before I go and I’ll send you postcards.

And that was it. What did I want to say? God, I would love to come with you because you’re fit as hell, you make me laugh like a drain and you just make my brain and heart leap ten foot in the air you dry-as-a-bone, genuine, real bloke who listens to me and is totally not a cock AND is the most fantastic example of a man that I would probably consider doing all sorts of sex things with.

But I can’t get to Peterborough without feeling mad so Greece on a train is out of the question so I said:

‘Have a great time mate.’

Have a great time mate. Everything I feel for Haddock gets diluted down into the sort of thing I would say to our bloody postman.

I am officially shit.

Sunday 24.6.90

10.12 a.m.

Y
OU
magazine is full of stupid thin actresses and the paper is full of famine. IT’S SICK IN THE HEAD.

Seething masses

Formless cameras

Flashes kill the player

While in one click

A fat bellied baby snuffs it

And the tattered queen sucks up the good stuff.

Perhaps they should get together

Former Hollywood society belle

And emaciated bag of Ugandan bones

No more milk for the child

You must starve

They milk her Queen, Tattered beauty queen

Shrivelled breasts are out in this studio and in Africa too.

Monday 25.6.90

6.12 p.m.

Is that poem brilliant or bollocks? I can’t decide.

Mum said to me today ‘You seem a bit down Rach. Adnan noticed too.’

If Adnan didn’t sing so badly, snore like a rhino, eat everything in sight and use everything heavy as a toning opportunity he’d be OK really.

I am down because everything is changing, I have no idea where I’m going and Haddock is going away. I can’t speak to anyone because they will either think I’m pathetic/mad/going mad/totally and completely intent on nicking their boyfriend, and they would be right.

Tuesday 26.6.90

11.22 p.m.

We beat Belgium in the World Cup.

Haddock is probably going to travel through Belgium. Hope he doesn’t get attacked for being English. Though he could probably beat the crap out of anyone Flemish if he needed to.

What am I going to do this summer? My head is already starting to . . . I’m fighting for stability. I can feel it.

And I’m listening to Dire Straits’ ‘So Far Away’. DIRE STRAITS! Old people in sweatbands from my brother’s record collection but that song says it now. Everything I love isn’t here or isn’t about to be here.

Dire Straits though. That’s bad. Tell a psychiatrist that I’m listening to them and I’d be straight back in the ward.

Wednesday 27.6.90

‘World in Motion’ has been ruined for me. Every time I hear it all I think of is anal sex.

Thursday 28.6.90

9.34 p.m.

I was in my bedroom with Shellboss this afternoon and I heard car doors and then a voice. I’ve been hallucinating Haddock everywhere so I just thought it was me being barking. But he’d come to say goodbye. I told him to take care and then he went to hug me. I ended up headbutting his chest in a sort of hug. And then he went.

I spoke to his girlfriend for ages the other night. She’s so pretty and lovely and funny – you can’t not like her! Haddock wrote her a letter. Listen to this. He wrote her a letter saying he said a prayer for her every night. BIT IRONIC! There’s me saying one for him every night and he’s praying for someone else.

Mind you, I also pray that I don’t go to hell, that God won’t let me catch rabies, that God won’t kill the people I love, that I’ll pass my A levels and that The Smiths will re-form . . . so he’s part of a long list.

Shellboss said to me ‘You like Haddock don’t you?’. When I said ‘yes’ she said ‘No Rae – I mean you really like him.’

Shellboss can see it but she has known for me for ages and she can see through loads of crap other people can’t. Other people can’t see it. He can’t.

I looked at some photos today and I am honestly totally disgusting.

Friday 29.6.90

6.20 a.m.

I’ve been up since 3.30 a.m. I can’t sleep. Last day of school after 7 years. I shall miss my mates immensely. Still what can you do? I shall hopefully keep in touch with the people I can keep in touch with.

My thoughts – a mixture of sadness and fondness.

No – my thoughts are just SHITTING IT.

9.12 p.m.

So that was it. We had made a massive spider to levitate over the headmistress’s head when she was doing the usual Bible reading in the final assembly but Mrs C caught us and said she didn’t think it would be a good idea. She’s lovely and we didn’t want to get her in trouble so that was abandoned. We did sing ‘Angelo’ by Brotherhood of Man though and the rest of the school went mad and clapped.

And that’s that.

But how the hell am I going to manage? That place . . . it kept me OK and now it’s gone. Seeing my mates everyday has gone. Food at the same time everyday has gone. Escape has gone. The common room has gone. Wellington Fudge pudding has gone. I feel like someone has pulled the carpet from underneath my feet and I’ve fallen over but, like a massive fat beetle, I can’t right myself. I’m on my back legs kicking in the air and it looks funny but it’s not.

Saturday 30.6.90

9.34 p.m.

So I’ve left school and I don’t really know where the hell I am going. I can only party while I wait and watch
War and Remembrance
.

To life and love I say cheers.

Close all the curtains

The doors – slam them it hurts less

I bloody loved school.

Sunday 1.7.90

2.20 a.m.

SUMMER ’90!!

Welcome. I hope you can be as good as ’89. You’ve got one hell of a lot to live up to.

11.35 a.m.

Got in bloody late last night after Olivers.

11.45 p.m.

Good Gad night down the pub. John D is a bit of an epic slice and a total classic.

It’s good to know other men exist when the one man who you DO want around is on a train God knows where.

Battered Sausage was lovely. He took his shirt off in the pouring rain to lend it to me so I didn’t get soaked. It was totally useless but fine.

Monday 2.7.90

2.11 a.m.

Just come back from Olivers. I’ve got gross Olivers ear. All I can hear is beeeeeeepppssss but you HAVE TO PLAY MUSIC LOUD.

I have got the most humungous crush on Paul Gascoigne. We won 3-2 against Cameroon. I’m not usually very patriotic at all but this World Cup I’m really enjoying and the football.

5.57 p.m.

I went round Fig’s house with Dobber this afternoon. He’s a right laugh and such a love. Dobber was talking about the trip to Cornwall. I should be looking forward to it but I’m scared. I’m scared of dying, of leaving here, of being stuck somewhere in Cornwall that’s not near a hospital, of my friends’ seeing what I really am – weak and nuts and like an 11 year old. I’m scared of people seeing my mad head and my panic. If they see that I’d have no mates left.

Essential holiday list of things to take

Rennie

Colofac

Gaviscon

Paracetamol

Travel sickness tablets

Clothes

Purse

Sheet

Pillow

Batteries

Camera

Walkman

Walkman tapes

8.12 p.m.

Even medicines are coming before music in my lists. The hypochondria has started. You can see it. I’m not good.

Tuesday 3.7.90

9.45 p.m.

I’m staying at Mort’s. Told her about the holiday and how frightened I am about going. I can tell her everything – even some of the really, REALLY mental bits. She says I just need to take it one hour at a time and when I feel myself going downhill I’ve got to do something else. It’s brilliant advice but I know my head. When it says that I’m dying, I’m dying. When it says I’ve eaten a Death Cap mushroom, I’ve eaten one and I’ve got delayed symptoms of poisoning. I can’t stop it. I can’t stop the voices. The tablets didn’t stop it either. I saw a programme once about a bloke who’d had a lobotomy because he couldn’t stop ripping clothes. Perhaps I need one of those. Perhaps I should just bang my head hard with a tea tray like the bloke used to do ‘mule train’ on
Tiswas
and see if that works.

That was a joke. I’m not going to attempt amateur brain surgery.

Wednesday 4.7.90

Late. Who cares! PISSED off.

Tonight was just one of the
biggest most gutting nights of my life and I mean that. I’ve just watched England v. Germany in the World Cup Semi- Final. It was a draw for ages and then Paul Gascoigne got a second yellow card, realised he couldn’t play in the final if we got there and started to cry! Like PROPERLY cry and Gary Lineker had to go and give him a cuddle (footballers cuddle – why can’t I?). Then it went to extra time, then it went to penalties and the sodding Germans won. Honestly the tension made me feel sick. It was more tense than Eurovision 1988 when Scott Fitzgerald nearly won. In fact I think the Germans buggered up that for us too.

Poor Paul Gascoigne. Then Chris Waddle and Stuart Pearce missed the penalties and that was it. Out!

The one good thing was they showed a brilliant
Naked Gun
advert for Red Rock cider directly after we lost. Which cheered us up a bit.

Why can’t one thing just work out?

I have to get A levels into perspective. It’s not like missing a goal and messing up the entire dreams of a nation. I haven’t liked Chris Waddle since that ‘Diamond Lights’ crap he did. Perhaps he should have practised penalties a bit more than singing love songs with Glen Hoddle. I’ve never had as shit a haircut as him either, unless you count the time Chloe put my hair up like a Mel & Kim pineapple look in 1987, told me it looked good and then pissed herself laughing at me in Ironmonger Street.

I am very unforgiving and I’m not the Saint and Greavsie either. Shut up Rae.

Thursday 5.7.90

5.36 p.m.

Everyone in England is pissed off today.

I’m back from Mort’s. I wish I could just go and live there. No tension. No arguments. No Mum talking pidgin English. No kissing in the kitchen. No weightlifting equipment that you would like to get out of your way but it’s actually too heavy to move.

Friday 6.7.90

6.12 p.m.

Lack of activity has caused chronic hypochondria to return combined with this blind panic of WHAT THE HELL DO I DO NEXT?!

It’s all an anticlimax. End of school. End of everything. I’m just waiting for stuff to happen.

NEW ACTION PLAN

But before this let us look at the successes of the last action plan, mid-year, and see what has been achieved/rectified/ resolved: