My Madder Fatter Diary (16 page)

7.09 p.m.

I showed Mum the letter and the bone when she got back from work and told her I was sick to death with being bullied. Mum said ‘Rachel – things aren’t always about you and this isn’t for you. It’s for Adnan. It’s saying he’s a savage. Bone through the nose? Go back to where you came from?’

Oh she’s right. That’s BLOODY AWFUL. So now we basically live near Hitler and a load of fascists! I know I don’t always like Adnan but that’s not because he’s black! It’s because he sings badly, eats everything in sight and doesn’t get fat and turns this place into a right gooseberry palace. He would do that if he was purple! Where do people get off being horrible to him because he’s black. Why don’t we just rename Stamford South Africa!! No – because even they’ve released Nelson Mandela.

I asked Mum what she was going to do about it. She said ‘What can I do? Hide it from Adnan.’ Then she told me people had been making ape noises behind his back too. 1) That’s too horrible to even think about 2) That’s suicidal! Adnan could kill them with his little finger. But he won’t, that’s the point, because he’s a real gentle giant. So he just has to put up with it.

Just like me. We just have to put up with it. BUT WHY SHOULD WE?! I could lose weight and stop it. He can’t change his colour. WHY SHOULD HE ANYWAY?! AND WHY SHOULD I LOSE WEIGHT? I never thought being black and being fat had anything in common but we both have a massive history of injustice.

9.05 p.m.

Can I just say I am not completely comparing the civil rights struggles of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X to me being obese. That’s bloody ridiculous but it proves people get shit for just being different and it’s always from the same idiots. Bet the Green Lane Twats are behind the note. I wish Adnan would kickbox them in the face but he won’t. He’s too nice.

He goes back on Friday too. Which will make them think that they’ve won.

I might put an advert in the
Stamford Mercury
that says ‘To whoever sent the anonymous note and bone. You are a thick, spineless twat that needs a good kicking’. I don’t think they’ll put that in the announcement sections though with the ‘Congratulations on the birth of your beautiful boy’. There should be a COCK NOTICES section though. I’d pay.

Wednesday 12.9.90

11.48 a.m.

I walked into town this morning and every person I saw I thought, ‘are you the phantom bone sender?’ It just makes you doubt everybody. Who secretly underneath it all is a total racist who would happily be a member of the National Front? And what is going to come through the letterbox next? A bomb? A dog poo?

9.09 p.m.

Just rang Mort. Jasmine was telling her that Battered Sausage is hypersensitive and spends loads of his time asking her if ‘Rae really meant what she said’.

HA! Isn’t it good to know that men suffer too AND that I can make them suffer!

Thursday 13.9.90

11.02 a.m.

Nothing came through the letterbox this morning except some kind of bill. Wonder if Mum would prefer a bone and some racist balls. At least it’s not demanding money!

No she wouldn’t by the way. That was a joke. If Mum finds out who sent the bone she will be scary. She’s not violent. She will just destroy them mentally. I’ve seen her do it.

Good. They deserve it. I hope they end up in Ward 4 of Edith Cavell doing exercises with beanbags and I hope all the psychiatrists are Asian, Chinese and really, totally black.

8.32 p.m.

I just watched
Top of the Pops
. The KLF’s ‘What Time Is Love?’ is a MONSTROUSLY good piece of music. It was all slightly buggered by Sonia singing some utter balls but you can’t have everything.

Friday 14.9.90

10.12 p.m.

Adnan has left. He has to for Home Office immigration purposes. I said goodbye to him this time. He’s a nice bloke and doesn’t deserve to become the Steve Biko of Stamford. Now Mum has to go through this massive process to prove that her marriage is legitimate. It’s probably because he’s not white. This country is racist. Sinead O’Connor is right in her song ‘Black Boys On Mopeds’. She’s spot on.

11.23 p.m.

Thinking about it, it’s probably more to do with the fact that Adnan is 20 years her junior, he can’t speak English very well, she’d known him for about 5 minutes before they got together and she’d only just divorced her 2nd homosexual Latin teacher husband BUT still – Britain is racist. FIGHT THE POWER!

Saturday 15.9.90

10.45 a.m.

Life is a gift but this present keeps repeatedly kicking me up the arse.

I’m getting hammered tonight.

Sunday 16.9.90

9.23 p.m.

Dearest, dearest Haddock,

Where do I start?

You’re never going to see this so I don’t think it matters where I start does it?

I think you’ll never talk to me again after last night. I know I was pissed but that’s no excuse is it?

Look at me Haddock. I can’t explain it to you but I’m so fuck ugly, fat and have enough hang-ups to keep the psychiatrists in business for years. And you. You are bloody everything. What I feel for you cripples me. I’ve had it for so bloody long. In fact since exactly 23.7.89. That brought it down to an immature level. I don’t want it to. This isn’t a school crush. It’s something deeper.

Oh God – it all comes out wrong. That sounded bloody laughable. That’s what I am. Oh I am not going to get self-pitying. I’m worth more than that.

Last night I can’t remember what you said. I remember crying and you taking me out of the Vaults and you kept hugging me and holding my hand and basically being a total love. Saying all these lovely things. You told me you loved me. But I know you said that because I was so upset and I told you I wanted to die. Half truth. I don’t, I just can’t find a way to like living.

Then you force-fed me some pizza and then I farted in front of you. OH, TRAGIC AREN’T I? God I’ve broken all the rules of etiquette. Not only being drunk in front of the man I love but farting in front of him too!

I hate myself sometimes (you’re not meant to put yourself down either).

I know I sound like a prattling schoolgirl. I just think I’ve found someone and something beautiful and I want to be part of its life. Please let’s never lose touch.

I am a floundering pissed up twat but I do love you.

Monday 17.9.90

Still feel totally embarrassed.

Tuesday 18.9.90

11.30 a.m.

A typical day.

Wake up at 7.00 a.m.

Feel happy for 1 second then think of Haddock.

9.00 a.m. Watch
The Odd Couple
.

9.35 a.m. Go back to bed.

12.00 p.m. Get some dinner.

12.35 p.m. Go back to bed.

Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat.

Try to forget.

Wednesday 19.9.90

9.45 p.m.

One half of me says you have every reason to be terminally depressed –

I am fat, not beautiful, character faults galore, a family that try to help me but can’t because they don’t really know me, I’m a total hypochondriac, an image problem, I’m a cheap laugh to many people, frigid, more chips on my shoulder than the Brittania takeaway etc etc etc etc. INSECURE!!

But then again –

I have half a brain and nice hair.

Thursday 20.9.90

8.45 p.m.

Today has been a barrel of laughs! Mum, since she got home from work, has sat in the armchair staring into space. IT’S HER BIRTHDAY!! I know Adnan has gone home but at least she has a relationship. That’s more than me! Then she started going on about Winston Churchill. ‘You know Rach – they say he was a hero but we waited for hours for him and he didn’t even wave from his car. He didn’t come and save me either.’ When I said ‘Er Mum . . . he was a bit busy trying to save the free world’ she shouted ‘But this was in the early 1950s!’ I left her staring into space and went down the pub and had a birthday drink for her. I wish she’d cheer up a bit. I know she is down but I know her. She’ll make it work. She always gets what she wants.

Friday 21.9.90

11.01 p.m.

‘My biggest vice when I fall from the tightrope is to attack venomously the ones I love the most’.

Richard Burton.

Why O Why O Why O why am I such a bloody bitch to Haddock? I take the piss all night – NIGHT AFTER NIGHT. I make him laugh but that’s all I do. Why can’t I just tell him how I feel?! Soon it’s going to be too late.

No I can’t risk it – it’s the wrong time. I need to be thinner and prettier with decent bras NOT from old lady shop Harwayes. THAT’S the time to make my move. When my knickers are small and my bra is frilly.

I did my numerology today. I need to change my name or I’ll never be successful.

Haddock doesn’t. He’s set for life. I did his too. Actually if I take his surname I’m fine.

Now I sound completely obsessed. Only you know how bad this is diary. Well you and Mort and even she doesn’t know just how deep it goes.

Saturday 22.9.90

8.09 p.m.

If Jeremy Beadle was a woman he wouldn’t be on TV even though I could do his job a million times better than him.

I’m going down the pub. This country is a mess.

Sunday 23.9.90

11.37 p.m.

Haddock said to me tonight, out of the blue, ‘I’ll come to see you in the week.’

So I said ‘OK.’

Oh don’t get your hopes up. It will be about me giving him something back that I’ve borrowed and forgotten about. What I want it to be is ‘Let’s not go to university, let’s travel the world. Every time you have a panic attack I’ll give you a paper bag and you can blow into it and then we will do it in every continent, even Antarctica, totally naked except for furs.’

But it will be about a jacket or something because that’s my life. Jackets. Potatoes. Medicines. Panic attacks. Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers still making records that Mum plays full blast. ‘Can Can you party?’ In a word – No.

Monday 24.9.90

12.16 a.m.

If I wasn’t so totally knackered I could write mountains and acres.

Why do I think such bloody horrible things?! If I told people what was going on in my head I would be locked up forever. I want to be at peace not in a constant state of worry.

So bloody worried about uni. What if I hate it? What if they hate me? What if I can’t do the work? I can’t stay here but I don’t feel I can go anywhere else.

Haddock told me last night he doesn’t want to come out in Stamford again. He says he hates it. It’s ‘full of bad memories.’ It is for me too but it’s full of classic ones too. Doesn’t he remember the great nights? There were lots of them.

I’m already talking about it all in the past tense.

It feels like it’s gone already.

Tuesday 25.9.90

4.32 p.m.

Now I know what Donna Summer meant in ‘MacArthur Park’. I always thought she was talking bollocks but now I know what she was trying to say. The recipe she had was the special time, the mix of people and you can’t get that back. That’s what I’ve had and now it’ll only be there in holidays if it’s there at all. It’s gone. Bloody hell it’s all gone.

Mess. Mess. Mess.

Wednesday 26.9.90

7.34 p.m.

Haddock came round.

He didn’t say ‘Let’s go travelling and do it in every continent known to man’ but he did say ‘Here’s a good luck card and a crap present. It’s all I could carry on my moped. See you Saturday.’

Then he went round to see his girlfriend.

The card says ‘Dear Funky Chick. Have a good time. You will. Make sure this stays blue. Love Haddock X’

The present was a mood ring. It apparently changes colour with your mood. Blue means calm and relaxed.

I love him. I’m sick of writing it. You’re sick of hearing it diary but he could just – but he’s going. He’s going.

Thursday 27.9.90

6.37 p.m.

Mum said to me ‘Have you started packing for Essex yet?’

I told her yes. The truth is I’ve got 5 tins of beans, a box of sugar lumps, a pink dinosaur teapot and a mood ring.

Friday 28.9.90

9.24 p.m.

Today’s big revelation. Dad is taking me to Essex because a) he knows where he is going b) It’s near Ipswich where he lives. c) I can fit everything in the back of his Opel Manta d) According to my mum ‘it’s about time he did bloody something.’

Well it’ll be nice to see him for the first time in yonks – even if he is taking me to doom.

Saturday 29.9.90

12.16 a.m.

The end of an era.

Sunday 30.9.90

2.10 a.m.

This really is the end.