My Madder Fatter Diary (8 page)

Saturday 28.4.90

Midnight

My life is like a Carry On film at the moment. Just not a funny one.

Hospital tomorrow. Shit. Today.

Sunday 29.4.90

9.32 p.m.

Here I am in Stamford hospital.

I really don’t think I can go through with this. I am convinced I am going to die. It’s agony. I just had a look at my medical records at the end of my bed. I am described by one doctor as a ‘curious girl’. What that’s got to do with rectal problems I don’t know. Same with my mum’s tattoo. Doctors have a God complex.

I want to run away. Maybe I’ll have a painful tummy and bum but at least I won’t be dead.

Monday 30.4.90

7.39 p.m.

I know this is weird but I have had the most amazing day. I’ve had to be weighed (don’t ask – BAD BAD BAD) BUT first Battered Sausage came to see me and stayed and chatted for ages. THEN HADDOCK came to see me with a plastic plant he had bought from the shop where he works. He said ‘This crap will last longer than flowers.’ Then he had to go again because he was working. Now all the REAL plants are being taken out but MY one stays because it can’t produce carbon dioxide and it’s PERFECT.

10.15 p.m.

Long entry – morbid in places but it’s all there.

Rae Earl emotionally checking in.

Let’s go through everyone shall we.

MUM

Sometimes I ‘hate’ her but all the time I love her. Never have I met someone with such force of character. You have fought through so much. Looked after me in times when I was unbearable. I trust you and I love you. Simple as that.

Dear Haddock,

Well my friend, time for some honesty. You are –

1) One gorgeous person

2) GORGEOUS looking. Honestly Haddock YOU ARE GORGEOUS. YOU ARE THE HORN.

Stop doubting yourself and listen. I think underneath it you and me were the same. Hypersensitive little sods. Anyway I bloody loved you. I would have never had told you when I was alive as I know you didn’t feel the same way. You should STOP HIDING! Everyone who got to know the ‘underneath you’ would LOVE it. I mean you are handsome – PHYSICAL PERFECTION – but moreover inside you are very special. Remember that – good and pure.

Please get off your arse and listen to one of the few people who thinks that they knew you and saw through the grumpy bastard part of you. You are a massive bomb of potential. I can see your face tutting and your eyebrow going up in the air but I AM RIGHT!

Do you know what I was going to do? I was going to lose loads of weight. I wanted you to fall in love with me as well as ‘loving’ me as it were. Oh I don’t know. I know that’s the worst kind of selling out but I just ADORED you. I wanted to hold you but you sort of pushed me away.

No more else to say but I love you and I mean that and to have you as a friend was a great honour. Past all of the feelings of really, REALLY wanting to shag you – you were one of my best mates. I mean that. I love you Haddock. Love Rae XX

P.S.

I know more than you think I do so I’m in a position to say so. I think a hell of a lot of you and a hell of a lot for you.

MORT

Morty – you’re a classic and I love you lots. No person on earth could have had a better best friend.

Love Rae XXX

P.S. Short message. You’re well solid and don’t need any of my daft advice. My records and smurfs are all yours mate.

Everyone is now snoring. It’s hilarious! Actually I’m tired, I love this world and my mates.

Dear Battered Sausage,

When you are drunk you can be a knob end but I bloody loved you. Wherever I am I’ll look out for you. I love you. RXX

Life
was
IS good. Must be positive.

Nil by mouth sign. Wish they could hang this over me all the time. Don’t feed the Rae.

Tuesday 1.5.90

2.50 p.m.

WOOH!!!

Rae Earl is still here! She can take the beer! She can take the anaesthetics! What a stupid cow I was. JIBBER!

1) I’ve got half a brain.

2) For the first time in TWO YEARS I HAVE MY HEALTH!

3) I have brilliant mates!

4) AMEN!

PARTY!!!!!

9.35 p.m.

Wild Rae’s do and they don’t regret it!

Now I’m bloody worried about post-operative complications.

Typical.

FROM MY HOSPITAL BED

You came

You sat.

We talked.

A smell of antiseptic. Nurses staring

You made that sterile ward

Come alive.

Even old ladies admired.

All their parts removed. They still felt for you.

I love my plastic plant

But I wish it would come alive

Like our love

And grow into a garden

Packed full of passion

Like our love.

10.35 p.m.

This is fatal, I’m sure something is going to go wrong. I feel like writing an erotic fantasy. HA HA! Yes I am going to. Shocking.

He comes in, undresses me. He puts me in his massive masculine bed. As I hide under the sheets he undresses. He says I am the wild mare that needs breaking in and he intends to do it. Then we make mad passionate SCREAMING love until I collapse in his arms.

I’m wearing gauze surgical underpants. I can’t think of rude things.

Fuck it – I can do what I like with my head. It fucks me up enough.

Wednesday 2.5.90

3.12 p.m.

I’m HOME!!

I don’t believe I wrote that last thing. But isn’t it a turn-on? Talk about gorgeous situations.

I’m allowed to feel sexy things too!

Thursday 3.5.90

6.35 p.m.

Battered Sausage just bRought me round a chilli con carne he’d made.

I have lovely friends.

9.35 p.m.

I can’t stop crying. Mum says it’s general anaesthetic. It might be but it’s also the fact I’ve done BUGGER ALL revision for my A levels. TOTAL PANIC.

Friday 4.5.90

9.00 p.m.

I’m so inadequate. Frigid. How wonderful it would be to hold him.

How can I be such a bitch? I mean I’d never do anything but . . . Haddock’s girlfriend is going through a really hard time and I’m listening to everything she says and I love her to bits but . . .

How can I even write this?!

11.45 p.m.

When my inadequacy gets the best of me . . .

When everyone else attacks

When I’m scared.

The solution to what I’m feeling is easy.

I just put my head on the pillow and I pretend that it’s him.

Arm around me stroking my hair.

Being a proper woman. Being safe. Feeling comfortable.

Why do guilt and reality exist?

Saturday 5.5.90

Late

Eurovision has just been won by the most boring song there has ever been. Some Italian crap about Europe uniting. AWFUL. And the Italians made ‘Ride on Time’ and ‘Numero Uno’. They should know better!

I can’t stay in anymore. I’ve had enough rest. I’m missing out. I’m spiralling down.

Sunday 6.5.90

4.02 p.m.

Mum thinks I’m mad for going to the pub tonight but look at yesterday – without other stuff I start going off it again. I need other people.

Monday 7.5.90

12.30 a.m.

Here’s how it is. He looks beautiful from the side. And I look like a house.

Just been to Olivers. What a laugh! Haddock told the DJ it was my 19th birthday. We were VOGUEING! He kept hugging me! Even when he’s striking a pose in a twat way he looks gorgeous.

He kept framing his face with his hands. Beautiful. But I beat down everything inside of me or I’d explode with it all.

Haddock. Vogue with me forever.

Tuesday 8.5.90

9.20 p.m.

It’s bloody ridiculous. I’ve had a major operation but all I can think of is my total inability as a person.

I’m frigid. I can’t hug people. And I’m so lonely. The loneliness eats me up. There is no-one who gets up in the morning, gets a passing glimpse of me in their head and thinks ‘You know I might see her today.’ I have A levels in less than a month. I can’t go to university. How can I move away? I love people who can’t love me back. I love the most impossibly beautiful man on earth.

How many more times do I have to smash all the bad from my head and hit myself. I am so ungrateful but most of the time I HATE MYSELF. That’s the cardinal sin. All the shrinks tell you to love yourself, if not you are completely useless. But HOW DO YOU LOVE YOURSELF? They don’t tell you HOW.

HOW DO YOU LOVE
THIS?????????

Wednesday 9.5.90

11.25 p.m.

I wish I could bloody sleep. Did 3 hours revision last night. Feel better about school things at least.

Sod
Gulliver’s Travels
. Sod those tiny shits!

Why?

Why is someone’s beauty, strength, grace, intelligence and humour all spoiled by a person’s unfounded and utterly destructive dislike of themselves?

I don’t mean me. That makes more sense.

Thursday 10.5.90

10.35 p.m.

I didn’t tell you about Ryan.

Well you know when you get those sorts of vibes from people? Well he’s been hanging around me a lot and then tonight I said something and he said ‘Rae, I fancied you till about 5 minutes ago.’

But he doesn’t really. He just wants someone like we all want someone and he thinks I’m easy. I don’t mean a slag. I mean he thinks I’m desperate. I’m not though. I’m hardly a gratuitous snogger. And he’s lovely but I don’t think I really fancy him.

Friday 11.5.90

9.35 p.m.

We all went down the
Meadows after school today and had a right laugh! Until this old biddy came along and started saying stuff like ‘I’m an old girl – in my day you weren’t even allowed to be seen eating in the street.’ Old spinster cow – all we were doing was having a good time in a PUBLIC SPACE which we are entitled to do! A lack of sex really does turn people into horrible, miserable things. It’s a lesson to us all. MORE SEX.

Actually she could have been having LOADS of sex for all I know. Certainly more than me! In fact I never jib on anyone’s sex parade. The only place I moan is here!

Saturday 12.5.90

12.25 a.m.

Haddock was gorgeous to me tonight. He had his arm round me for a time. We can dream. I couldn’t hug him back. He’d fallen off some steps at work packing tinsel away. I’m not joking, I love Haddock. I really do. This is not the prattling of a lovelorn teenager MUM!

Sunday 13.5.90

11.25 p.m.

Home is unbearable. School is unbearable. Work is unbearable. Nobody loves me. I’m deeply unattractive. I have A levels in 3 weeks. My stomach aches all day. I’m lonely. Tomorrow is Monday. I’m sure my friends actually don’t like me. Bad horrid thoughts are back as are the dreams. Voices telling me I’m terrible.

I know. Tell the voices they are talking shit. But it’s hard. It’s hard.

Monday 14.5.90

9.01 p.m.

The Inspiral Carpets have made a song called ‘This Is How It Feels’. I think they have been in my house and listened to everything that has gone on and everything that has been said. That’s all tonight. BOLLOCKS.

Tuesday 15.5.90

5.12 p.m.

Dobber has come up with a brilliant idea but it also scares me senseless. She wants to go for a holiday after the exams to Cornwall with Ronni and Fraggle. I want to but Cornwall is miles away. MILES. 7 hours away. It will cost about £150 plus petrol and spending money. I will get Mum to ask Dad. In a way I want him to say ‘No’ so I don’t have to go. I can’t tell my mates about my head. It’s pathetic.

8.49 p.m.

Mum has been down the phone box. Dad has said ‘yes’. I get yeses when I want no’s and no’s when I want yeses.

Wednesday 16.5.90

6.32 p.m.

UNBELIEVABLE!!

WE ARE FRONT PAGE OF THE STAMFORD EVENING TELEGRAPH TONIGHT!!!

It says ‘RUMPUS OVER AMOROUS SCHOOLGIRLS – They smoke, drink, kiss in public view’.