by Rae Earl
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’.
Apparently councillors are having urgent meetings about us! An ‘outraged’ Tory says only one or two boys from Stamford School seem to be involved! THEN WHO ARE WE KISSING??!! I’M NOT KISSING ANYONE IN PUBLIC OR PRIVATE. I do have a laugh on the Meadows though – WE ALL DO. It’s not Stalin’s Russia is it??!! The best thing is Miss Byron is quoted as saying that ‘I would defy anyone in 1990 to make sure that 18 year old girls are perfectly behaved 24 hours a day.’ YES!! Finally a biddy that talks sense! We are allowed to be living loving women AND wear a school uniform.
We are going to get ROYALLY DONE tomorrow though! I’m glad I’m at the hospital having a check-up!!
Thursday 17.5.90
5.23 p.m.
We DID NOT get bollocked! Apparently the Lower 6th did – HA HA HA!!
My operation was a complete success. As they thought, I haven’t got cancer but this is something I will be prone to for the rest of my life. I will have to be investigated every 5 years. Can’t wait to tell any future husband that one!
Rae Earl – what a catch.
Friday 18.5.90
10.30 p.m.
What a bloody crap day. Unbelievable. It’s one of those days when you know it’s going to be totally crap. First, I nearly got run over by a pissing navy blue Metro. Then my Theatre Arts teacher gives me a 40 foot lecture. My head is burning. And nobody knows this side of me. Nobody could possibly comprehend how utterly messed I am. Why am I so buggered up?!
I know partly because of stuff that happened.
I know the ‘if onlys’ are a dangerous thing but if I’d just had the sense to run. Get out before . . . I didn’t fight. I can’t understand. I was frozen to the spot. It wasn’t even that serious. And I’m so numb about it. I feel nothing. I feel like slipping away. Going somewhere where no-one knows who I am or what I am. But I couldn’t cope. I know that.
It wasn’t that bad. Other people have had it far, far worse. I was bad before that. I’ve always been weird.
When I hit myself it hurts but it feels like a massive relief. A relief from all the anger and the guilt and being TERMINALLY PATRONISED.
At least I’m not under a Mini Metro. Look on the bright side.
Saturday 19.5.90
11.12 p.m.
I have had to listen to both Haddock and Battered Sausage go on and on ALL NIGHT about how fit Kylie Minogue is. Battered Sausage put on ‘Better The Devil You Know’ on the Vaults jukebox about 7 times. I came home early – they were a right pair of lads tonight.
On the quiet, it’s quite inspirational for us pretty-faces-but-fat types. Not that Kylie was ever LARDY but it proves that you can change. I just need a fit man for a sex transformation.
I think a problem with my life may be that I’m waiting for people to come along and sort things when actually they can’t be arsed!
That’s not fair. No-one can. If they could they would have done.
Haddock is growing bloody sideburns. Yes he still looks gorgeous.
Sunday 20.5.90
5.12 p.m.
Tomorrow is the last week of school before . . . FOREVER.
Shit!
Monday 21.5.90
8.12 p.m.
WE HAVE OUR YEARBOOKS!!
They are great and everything but I’m slightly annoyed. In the ‘What Will You Miss Least About School’ section there are loads of things about me like –
Rae’s annoying moods
Rae’s being self righteous and lecturing me
Rae’s tantrums
Rae’s singing
Rae scrounging at break
Rae’s gob
I’m also in the ‘What Will You Miss Most About School’ bit tons too BUT it’s a bit harsh!
Tuesday 22.5.90
5.34 p.m.
It’s probably good that it’s the last week at school because there is basically now CIVIL WAR over the yearbook. Natty Dawlish has written in the ‘What Will You Miss Least About School’ ‘the false pretentious stuck up cows who one tends to find in the U6 common room’ and then Ava Laird wrote in the ‘What’s Your Greatest Achievement’ ‘beating THEM at Rounders 91 to 85.’ Apparently the THEM is US in the common room. I thought they were both OK till I read that. I tell you what, they both live in far better nicer houses than I do so don’t call me a stuck-up cow!
BUT THEN that all faded into insignificance because Drew Walker had written in her Greatest Achievement bit ‘fulfilling all my sexual fantasies.’ EVERYONE was talking about it. She’s quite quiet but at Olivers she did dance in a very odd way to ‘Touch Me’ by the 49ers. Bum wiggling ahoy and all over the place.
It all made my 4 fishcakes achievement look even crapper than I thought but never mind!
Wednesday 23.5.90
10.38 p.m.
YEARBOOK 1990 – What Will You Miss Most About School?
‘The comforting sense of security that being so efficiently controlled has given me!’
ROSANNA – YOU ARE MY HERO! Her yearbook thing is brilliant. She’s really clever and funny AND she’s got a boyfriend. I should have asked her for tips!
Battered Sausage came round tonight. He took me for a drink. Haddock was waiting for us. Sideburns and all. Everything wonderful and perfect. And utterly beautiful. In a rugby shirt.
Can’t wait till June 21st. PARTY TIME!!
Leavers’ cheese and wine evening tomorrow at school. Sometimes it’s so posh it hurts.
Thursday 24.5.90
&nb
sp; 10.12 p.m.
Well that was BLOODY annoying. Listen to this CRAP.
Mum thinks I shouldn’t be annoyed but I bloody am.
Me and a few others were standing round tonight in the hall with wine (WINE IN SCHOOL – LEGALLY MAD!!) and a teacher came over. She started saying stuff to people ‘I can see you doing very well at Cambridge’ and ‘you’re a natural for law’ and then she turned to me and said ‘And Rachel you’re just one of life’s survivors.’
NOW WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!
One of life’s survivors?! When I think of a survivor I think of someone clinging to a bit of wreckage avoiding sharks with half a gob of salt water. Is that all I’m worth?! Sod being a survivor. I want to be brilliant. I want to rip up the sky.
Mum says she is saying that I’m tough. No. A survivor just survives. SOD SURVIVING.
Pissed off. And Camembert should be banned. It’s like heroin. I was like Zammo from Grange Hill tonight for a piece.
Friday 25.5.90
7.35 p.m.
Last proper day of school ever. We had chips. It was a bit moving when we put our trays on the conveyor belt for the last time. Normal life disappearing through a hatch waiting to be washed up.
Saturday 26.5.90
11.35 p.m.
Oh why does he do it? Why does he hug me and stroke my hair. I push him away and joke it off because I’m a twat but it kills me.
Once my A levels are over I’m going to stop dreaming and start living.
Sunday 27.5.90
3.50 p.m.
THE FUNDAMENTAL THINGS THAT ARE WRONG WITH MY LIFE:
THE EASIER STUFF
1) A levels – ONLY DAYS AWAY!!
2) My mental condition. Confused.
3) People are very condescending to me because they’ve had sex. But actually WHAT DO THEY KNOW? I feel like saying ‘Oh yeah you may have had a boyfriend but what the hell do you actually KNOW?’ SERIOUSLY??!! Bollocks. THEY KNOW NOTHING. ZILCH! People say to me ‘Oh I bet you marry someone really nice!’ SO PATRONISING. What if I JUST WANT TO MARRY A REALLY HORNY TOTAL BASTARD SEX MACHINE??!!
4) No-one really loves me. Nobody has given me a hug and said ‘Rae – I really love you.’ I mean I’m not loud and annoying ALL THE TIME! So why can’t they? Have I just got really bad breath?
