My Madder Fatter Diary (29 page)

Friday 24.5.91

9.13 a.m.

Last day on Hereward FM but it was fantastic. Paul Coyte introduced me by saying ’She’s caused a storm! People have been saying to me – who is that girl you’ve got on this week? She’s really good.’ Anyway I ended up winning £178 which will very nearly pay completely for Poland.

God I love Paul Coyte – he was such a love and so nice. He really put me at ease and he said hello to loads of people at the end – mainly because he hates it when people say ‘Hello to anyone who knows me.’ Well that is a stupid bloody phrase.

Saturday 25.5.91

10.35 a.m.

I have decided radio is definitely for me –

1) It seems to suit people who are loud and weird.

2) I genuinely think I could be better than Jakki Brambles.

3) I can basically tell you every highest chart position and the lyrics of every song of the past 30 years. Even the stuff in French like ‘Joe Le Taxi’ by Vanessa Paradis.

4) NO-ONE CAN SEE YOU on radio.

5) I can DEFINITELY present
Top of the Pops
better than Anthea Turner.

Sunday 26.5.91

7.42 p.m.

I sat down with Mum today and said ‘Do I need to go to university if I really know what I want to do?’ Mum said ‘Look Rach – getting a degree gives you something to fall back on for the rest of your life and doesn’t Hull have its own student radio station? You can get good there and then go on Radio 1.’

She’s right. I do need a degree. I think I was just trying to chicken out of moving again. I’m scared. I can’t really do Radio 1 from Stamford either though can I?

9.13 p.m.

Just realised Mum didn’t freak out when I said I wasn’t sure about university. I MUST have been good at the radio.

Friday 31.5.91

11.10 a.m.

BLOODY HELL!! POSTCARD FROM HADDOCK!!

Dear Rae,

Hear you are the new Simon Bates. If you get rich can I have a new moped please?

See you in the summer. Love Haddock X

It’s wonderful, it’s perfect but it’s also torture because I’ve seen the passport photos. I’m still not in his league. I’m still not pretty enough. I’m still the lump. The lump that doesn’t know how to wear a dress, or to be touched or . . . Oh I’m just not ready. Perhaps I AM the problem. I am thought of. I am loved but I piss it all away because I’m . . . Oh you know it all. You’ve heard it all. It’s ME. I’M THE PROBLEM and I’m not putting it all down again because YOU know it and I know it.

Saturday 1.6.91

6.38 p.m.

I’m down again. In fact I’m pancake flat. It’s the anticlimax I suppose. The massive up of the radio, the amazing postcard from Haddock out of the blue. All the hope and possibility and now life returns to normal and reality. The lack of money. The dreadful passport photo. I could take it again I suppose but would it be any better? The fear of going to Poland and university. The fear of NOT going to Poland and university. Oh . . . SODDING THE WORST NUMBER ONE EVER. Color Me Badd’s ‘I Wanna Sex You Up’. If bloody Haddock offered to sex me up I would tell him to bollocks. What a pile of TOTAL EXCREMENT and one of them has a perm. SORT IT OUT.

Sunday 2.6.91

6.54 p.m.

The phone rang about 11.55 a.m. This really weird voice said ‘Will you accept this reverse charge call from Cape Town’ or something! MORT!! OF COURSE I said ‘YES!’ She is having a BRILLIANT time, she had her passport nicked but it’s all sorted! She was telling me about all the blokes she has met, all the things she has seen – it sounds amazing BUT she still sounds like my Mort. I’m so relieved because I thought all this foreign stuff could change things between us. It hasn’t though. We gassed on for ages. This may end up being a bit of a problem because God knows how much a reverse charge call from South Africa costs. Quite a bit I imagine. It’s not fair though because Adnan is allowed to occasionally ring his family in Morocco to ask them quick questions and Mort is MY family. She’s like a sister to me.

Mum will go mad when she sees the bill. Hopefully I’ll be in Poland! Lech Walesa will protect me from the wrath of Mum. He stood up to communist nutters – but can he stand up to her? Is my mum scarier than Stalin when she goes mad? No. Not now I’m 19. She has limited powers. What’s the worst she can do? Throw away my Smurfs? I can live without Papa Smurf now. I can even live without the one that’s a chimney sweep and has its own little brush. These are the things of childhood. I am beyond them.

She could sell my records but she knows I would genuinely never talk to her again. My vinyl – it’s part of me. I might still hide it though.

I’m feeling . . . better. Up. I might go into Boots and see how much I’ve lost. I’ll wait till it’s quiet though.

Actually I love my Smurfs too and my Britains model stable and all my horses. I better hide everything.

Thursday 13.6.91

10.30 p.m.

Just as the thoughts get better and I feel more happy, optimistic – just a few sentences can send me hurtling back. I always think my thoughts are gone but they are just lying dormant.

Got a phone call at 9 p.m. It was Battered Sausage. He said come to Exeter and the End of the Year Ball thing. My initial response – excitement, butterflies but after the euphoria comes the inevitable practicalities.

1) Absolutely NO money. Barclays WANK have taken my Connect Card off me. This is just because I never put my student grant in there (because I never got it!) AND because I went £54 overdrawn. Oh big deal. They treated me like I was a criminal. No. John DeLorean. Denis Nielsen. THEY are criminals. Barclays WANK need to get some perspective. It’s FIFTY FOUR QUID not five million. I rang Dad and he paid it off. He wasn’t happy about it – he said ‘You should bank with the Midland anyway.’ Thanks for that Dad. When I actually ever get some money I may consider it.

2) I have NOTHING to wear. They don’t do ball dresses in aged 19, losing weight but still bloody fat.

3) I’d be a gooseberry anyway because Battered Sausage has got a permanent woman. She’s pretty, rich, loaded, probably clever as hell. Oh – I’m not ready. I want to shove people up the bum. I want to make a glide-in beautiful Oscar red carpet entrance. Not a stomp, stomp, stomp elephant entrance.

Mort is back on Saturday. Thank GOD.

I’m currently sitting at my desk with the window wide open because apparently there is going to be an Aurora e.g. loads of flashing mad lights in the sky but all I can see is darkness except for Mrs Bark still working. It’s now 11.15 p.m. She gets up at 4! Does the woman ever sleep?!

Mrs Bark has gone to bed she’s in her pink nightdress. And if she complains to Mum about me looking – CLOSE YOUR BLOODY CURTAINS!

Saturday 15.6.91

9.12 a.m.

MORT’S BACK!!! She landed this morning at 6 a.m. or something. I wonder when it’s OK to ring.

10.45 a.m.

Apparently she’s really jet lagged and asleep! Fine but I want to speak to her Mr Mort. I think asking him to wake her though would be a bit selfish so I’ll wait till tomorrow.

Sunday 16.6.91

3.12 p.m.

Just spoke to Mort for ages. It’s OK now she’s just in Oasby to talk to her forever. She asked me about Poland. I said ‘Yeah – I’m really looking forward to it.’ She said ‘I know but I bet you are shitting yourself a bit.’ I told her I totally was. There is rabies in central Europe, what if I get appendicitis or meningitis or we have a car crash or they decide they want to be communist again and we are stuck there forever? Mort said ‘Rae – it’s going to be OK and I am there.’ She’s right. It won’t stop me being in a total state but Mort knows me and she can calm me down. I wish she was going to Hull but she’s way smarter than me and she’s going to St Andrews. I could never go there even if I was mega-brain because it’s in another country!! It’s a 6 hour train journey. SIX HOURS. If you have a panic attack there and need to get home you would have to call the coastguard and use their helicopter.

What if I lose it in Poland though? I can’t think they are used to mad people. Well they are – they used to run the country! I mean mad people like me.

It’s going to be OK

It IS going to be OK

I am going to take control like the psychiatrist says. I’m going to listen to music, go for a walk and keep it together.

I must take loads of batteries. So I’m never in a no music situation. Mum can use her staff discount card and completely empty the Duracell rack.

Monday 17.6.91

1.32 p.m.

According to sources ‘in the know’ the phone bill will arrive next week bringing with it –

1) One reverse charge call from South Africa.

2) About 3 half hour conversations with Dobber in Canterbury.

3) A few calls to Battered Sausage in Exeter. They are long because they have to go and get him from his room.

Tuesday 18.6.91

6.12 p.m.

Mum said to me today ‘Go and weigh yourself Rach – you’ve lost a lot of weight. Everybody is saying so. Go to Boots and see how well you’ve done. I’ll give you the 20p.’

My jeans
are
hanging off me. Well I can’t really wear them anymore. Leggings are good.

Perhaps I should do it.

People are saying lovely things to me. I don’t write them here. It’s seems big headed and I still feel . . . I don’t feel right. I don’t feel like the woman I thought I would feel. I still want to be in my jeans. Just I need a belt these days.

Actually if I go to Boots and show Mum how much weight I’ve lost it might slightly take the sting out of the phone bill.

Wednesday 19.6.91

7.12 p.m.

I went to Boots at about 10.30 this morning. It’s before the lunch rush but after all the pensioners have got their blood pressure medicines.

Anyway I am 11 stone 6.

I have lost THREE stone.

That’s MASSIVE.

Three stone.

When I told Mum she said ‘Rachel – that is FANTASTIC. You must be so proud!’

I told her yes.

Yes. No. I’m just thinner. I still feel fat in my head. I still feel like the . . . thing. The ugly thing. Deep inside I want to be sexy but I’m lost. Perhaps I just need to lose more. Get more normal sized and THAT’S when it all happens. That’s when you just become like the other girls – that prettiness, that woman thing. Not the Rae in-between thing.

But I’ll still have a mad head. I’ll just have a mad head in a size 12 dress.

Ignore me. I can’t cope with any change even if it’s good.

Thursday 20.6.91

9.23 p.m.

When is Haddock coming back? I would like to see his reaction to all this.

Why am I waiting on a bloody man who has NEVER snogged me just bloody confused me?

Top of the Pops
tonight featured a song called ‘People Are Still Having Sex’.

1) People are actually making money from stating the bloody obvious and putting a dance track behind it.

2) It was LAME. It was hardly Frankie talking about gay orgasms.

3) I am NOT having sex.

Friday 21.6.91

I sent Hull accommodation off. It took about an hour to check it. Aristotle told me which one to go for – Ferens. It’s a traditional hall so you get your food BUT it’s on the Lawns complex in Cottingham so it’s near the student bar.

Why can’t I just send things off. I’m always convinced I’ve written ‘Fuck you!’ on things. I get random people in the post office to check and pretend it’s to check if people can read my handwriting.

I write it. It’s NUTS. I can’t stop it though. WHY?!

It’s the year’s longest day. I’m starving for longer.

At least this diet is working – but for what?

I’m less out of breath but Etam is still out of reach.

Sunday 23.6.91

11.45 p.m.

Today is the sort of day when I’d rather be just about anyone instead of me. My head is . . . it’s like a fire not even the best pop can put out. I’m so scared of having Breakdown Number 2. That makes it sound like a film! It would be a shit sequel. It would be exactly the same as the first one. I’d be convinced I was dying, hurting myself, hurting others, rambling for hours and hours whilst psychiatrists encouraged me to talk about my experiences with people at least twice my age. What good does talking do? Does it really fix things? They bury dead people for a reason. Why can’t we just bury bad things and memories too? Raking it up. What is it like when a man touches you and you’re a kid and you don’t want him to? When he scrapes his hand across your groin LIKE IT’S HIS. Well clearly Mr Twat Psychiatrist it’s FUCKING AWFUL. Is this a trick question? Now let’s throw a beanbag at someone else and make them answer a horrible question.

Balls to it. Balls to HIM. I bloody LOVE MEN. I bloody love them. There are good ones everywhere.