by Rae Earl
SPECIFIC PROBLEMS
1) HADDOCK.
Now this really is a sod of a problem.
I know it sounds immature when I write it. I can’t say. Don’t want to encourage fate to kick me up the arse.
I’ve GOT to change.
1) Lose weight.
2) Keep good bits.
3) Get rid of shit bits.
What a brilliant night down the pub. Atmosphere 400% on!
Haddock came in. He told me he’d had a dream about me. He’d bought a Harley-Davidson and I’d bust it. It’s nice to be in his dreams even if I am breaking stuff.
I just take the piss out of him all the time. Blood is blue and it comes out red. Same thing.
Monday 28.5.90
2.36 p.m.
That last entry sounded so monumentally pretentious.
I really need to start revising. Why can’t I just be a pub landlady? Or Bez from the Happy Mondays.
Tuesday 29.5.90
11.23 p.m.
Mum has just tried to show me she can moonwalk. She can’t.
Her impression of Mick Jagger is also crap. Pursing your lips together and strutting on the lino doesn’t make you the lead singer of the Rolling Stones. It makes you very annoying indeed especially when you’re in the way of the bloody fridge.
Wednesday 30.5.90
3.47 p.m.
Nothing is going in my head. Nothing is sticking. I’ve just sung every word of ‘Look of Love’ by ABC though – even the bit where Martin Fry starts talking to himself. But can I remember the dates that Perkin Warbeck kicked off some shit? No. Don’t care anyway. Like Mort says, he’s got the same name as one of the Flumps so you can’t take him seriously.
Thursday 31.5.90
5.12 p.m.
The reason why Mum is so happy is that Adnan is coming back on Friday. That explains everything – the singing, the dancing, the way she actually dusted for the first time since I had to have the doctor out in the middle of the night. Adnan is returning. Can he help me with my A levels? No. Is he an expert in Elizabethan court politics? No. Will the dining room be turned into a gym IN THE MIDDLE OF MY A LEVELS? Yes. Will he eat an entire Morrisons swiss roll cake like the rest of us eat a Polo mint? Yes.
The selfishness of my mum beggars belief. Just go out with a normal man like other women!! I know marriages break down but why can’t she marry someone with loads of money and a decent house. She’s even trying to get preserved lemons from somewhere? PRESERVED LEMONS?! It’s Stamford not Marrakesh. Tinned satsumas are exotic round here love!
WHY CAN’T WE JUST BE NORMAL?
Friday 1.6.90
11.12 a.m.
Yes Mum, you can revise The Tempest and listen to ‘Our Tune’ on Radio 1 at the same time and ‘Our Tune’ is more entertaining. No Mum I don’t care that you are going to the market to get some onions – WHY IS THAT RELEVANT WHEN SOMEONE ON THE RADIO HAS LOST THE LOVE OF THEIR LIFE HORRIFICALLY?! And yes I will hoover. Does anyone exist in my mum’s life other than her?!
2.36 p.m.
Just hoovered in time to the theme tune from Shaft! Think Mrs Maughn from across the road might have seen me but I don’t care. I do not fear people seeing my funkiness. HA! HA! HA!
Oh I bloody do. If she tells my mum they’ll think I’m going funny again.
I do feel funny again but it’s nothing to do with Isaac Hayes or Otis Redding.
7.12 p.m.
Adnan has just arrived. There’s a stinking olive tagine orgy and kissing going on in the kitchen. I’m going down the pub with Dobber where’s there’s just crisps and cider and people under 20 who should be the only ones snogging.
11.48 p.m.
I sat down the pub tonight telling Dobber about Adnan and in the middle of it she went ‘Ronnie Corbett.’ I was going on a bit and I know she’s got her own stuff to worry about but it was a bit harsh.
Do I go on, diary? Probably. But no-one else wants to listen and compares me to the Two Ronnies.
Saturday 2.6.90
Dobber house. Late. Really late.
No it was not the best idea preparing for your Shakespeare English A level by getting totally ratted and then hiding under an orange blanket whilst Battered Sausage ran around Dobber’s front room with no clothes on pretending to be a male stripper and gyrating on the orange blanket to ‘Hear the Drummer Get Wicked’ by Chad Jackson. But that’s what has just happened.
Sunday 3.6.90
4.15 p.m.
Somewhere along the way I have gone drastically wrong. My being is so consumed with the most hateful anger. I want to scream and kick it all out of me. Punch it out till I bleed and others finally see it.
My home life is total bollocks at the moment. They have no idea what it does to me. There’s no stability. Mum is either horrible or finding herself or making Adnan a massive non-pork sandwich. I’m staying round Dobber’s. I want somewhere safe and secure. Vine Street is it.
Monday 4.6.90
5.45 p.m.
Ladies and gentlemen I am fucking up my A levels!
It went alright. It’s English. Let’s start well and then spiral down like a massive crashing-on-fire plane disaster.
I can’t think about Lockerbie. It proves you are not safe anywhere. Even at home. That night I wanted to sleep in the garden but Mum wouldn’t let me because I was really ill then. And it was December and freezing.
Tuesday 5.6.90
7.23 p.m.
A levels have turned into a total fashion parade. You won’t believe how many clothes some of my mates have. Some are coming with a different outfit to get changed into after the exam! Loads of white Laura Ashley shirts and riding ankle boots. And the make-up?! They look like Yasmin Le Bon. It must take them ages to get it plastered on. These are like proper women that juggle revision and sex. I juggle sandwiches and avoiding revision by watching the bloody Open University.
Perhaps I can just stay in Stamford and get a degree off the TV.
That’ll cost though as our TV is still on a meter. Sorry I couldn’t finish my essay professor, we ran out of fifty pence pieces.
Wednesday 6.6.90
6.34 p.m.
I now realise I am the only woman in our school without a mini Liberty fabric frog. They are all bringing them in as mascots. I’ve just got an old Womble Uncle Bulgaria for luck.
Total depravity.
7.12 p.m.
Not depravity. Deprivation! Wish it was depravity. Massive Haddock-based depravity. Sometimes in the middle of exams he flashes in my brain like a sex storm.
Thursday 7.6.90
8.39 p.m.
English History A level – I’d done no revision. None of the questions even made any sense. One of the questions was ‘Explain the Advances in Elizabethan Culture and Music’. So I wrote this massive piss take about the popularity of ‘New Kids on Ye Block’ and Madonna being burned as a heretic because she was plainly too Catholic in all of her songs. When I told Mort she thought it was genius but I have a feeling it will not impress the massively virgin boring examiner who is looking for some shit standard answer. What sort of person decides to mark exam papers? People with no life who don’t have sex.
Oh God don’t let me become an A level examiner.
I’ve noticed sometimes when I have massive real stress then I worry less that I’m Satan or that I’ve got peritonitis. Perhaps I need to stay at school forever. No Rae you look stupid in a 38 inch waist kilt now – let alone at 31 or something ancient.
10.12 p.m.
ITV are going to show a miniseries called War and Remembrance about World War 2. They always show Nazis in Summer. Mum is taping it for me but I’m going to watch it on my portable too. John Gielgud and Jane Seymour are Jews and it’s obvious they are going to survive because they are famous. Which will piss me off because the Nazis were total bastards and killed everyone, Jewish or gay or Gypsy or people who just told them they were knobs.
Why am I even revising the Hapsburg tossers when the Nazis were killing everyone l
ess than fifty years ago?! All other history is pointless. Seriously Charles V can piss off. WHO CARES?!
Friday 8.6.90
5.23 p.m.
WHAT A DAY!
Mum called up and said ‘Your mate is in the back of the paper.’ Didn’t think much of it but it was HADDOCK! She said ‘He’s a good-looking boy isn’t he?’ Oh – I cannot tell you how much this is the understatement of the century. It is FRIGHTENING the level of horniness. He is crouching down with his team in shorts. THE THIGHS!! THE THIGHS!! You have never seen thighs like them. They are rock and silk in one. They are like a sculpture. When Mum went to make Adnan something halal I ripped it out. It’s just – LOOK AT IT! Tell me you wouldn’t. He could make nuns doubt themselves. Haddock – ruiner of nuns. Habits drop at the thought of him. I don’t mean biting nails or anything, I mean what nuns wear.
8.12 p.m.
Mum just burst in to tell me off for ripping the paper. Oh yes because she’s really interested in the local over 60s bowls league! ANY chance to have a go at me.
No-one is going out because of A levels. Annoying but if I was down the Vaults I couldn’t stare at Haddock’s legs for as long as I am without questions being asked – especially by his girlfriend HA HA HA!!
Listening to Hup by The Wonder Stuff. ‘Golden Green’ is brilliant. They are talking about somebody so brilliant even crap things they do still shine – who does that sound like?
Saturday 9.6.90
9.12 p.m.
Baked beans are halal. That has been established today. Baked beans with pork sausages are not halal. That has been established by STATING THE TOTALLY OBVIOUS.
Sometimes I think my mum just asks me stupid questions to check that I am still here. Or she wants to include me in family life. I don’t want to be part of it. I want to be EXCLUDED.
A levels, no-one down the pub, World Cup football and religious diets. What a nightmare combination.
CUTTING
You’re a crumpled piece of paper
A black and white bit of stuff
A cutting from my local
A tabloid bit of rough
But you’re more than just a photo
You’re the reason I tell lies,
You’re hope, you’re beauty, you’re kindness
With a magnificent pair of thighs.
I should be revising not writing poems.
I just don’t care about what’s going to happen.
Sunday 10.6.90
10.12 p.m.
They are showing some horrible stuff on War and Remembrance. Makes A levels seem like totally pointless shit. In fact it’s making everything seem like totally pointless shit. Including all the stuff I worry about but that won’t stop me next time I’m having a panic attack. Or thinking that I’m dying. That’s how weak I am.
Mum has just been up. Should I be watching this? She’s worried I’ll go loony again. If this didn’t make you feel slightly loony though you’d probably be a Nazi.
I’d rather be mad than Hitler. He was mad. I mean my type of mad where I just seem to hurt myself and slightly annoy others rather than murder millions and invade countries because my moustache is a bit itchy. Wanker.
Monday 11.6.90
5.49 p.m.
European History. I couldn’t even write anything funny after last night and Catherine de’ Medici apparently had sex with everyone and everything including horses. That’s funny but I don’t feel funny. I feel just lost and empty and worried and . . . just gone.
Tuesday 12.6.90
8.12 p.m.
I’m revising for my Politics exam. At least understanding how the House of Lords works has some relevance to life. Mum is in one of her funny moods. Just sat in the chair staring into space. Working on the checkouts at Morrisons obviously brings with it enormous pressures. American Tan tights or normal tan? No wonder she’s a woman on the edge. Meanwhile upstairs I’m revising the role of the monarchy in a country with an unwritten constitution whilst trying to stop myself thinking that in my bowel another massive cancer is growing. Whose life would you prefer to have?!
Keep peeking at the thighs. I think when I next see Haddock I might think of a reason to press them.
Wednesday 13.6.90
9.28 p.m.
Just been down the Vaults with Battered Sausage. I could not revise politics anymore. You have to think about Mrs Thatcher too much. It drives you to cider. Though I only had soda and black because I can’t face an A level hungover.
Mum came home, smelt my breath and gave me a lecture. Apparently drinking blackcurrant will now lead to a dead end job and a life of misery. Ribena will also make you a teenage mother and condemn you to a life of poverty. If I hear the line ‘You don’t want to end up like me’ one more time I may explode. Even Adnan – ADNAN!! – told her to stop going on at me. Well he said ‘Stop!’ At least my mother’s bodybuilding Moroccan boyfriend understands how hard exams are.
Actually the pub was boring. Hearing about Battered Sausage and women is nearly as dull as hearing about Nigel Lawson, Geoffrey Howe and other old tosser Tories who all went to Cambridge and have no idea what it is like to be fat on a council estate. Bet no-one gets called Jabba in Westminster.
Thursday 14.6.90
9.23 p.m.
5 MORE MINUTES
5 more minutes
I KNOW the time
11.15
Halfway through my final essay
Pens down
UP YOURS!!
UP YOURS!!!!
Exams are so unfair
Designed not for the clever
But for the Swots
Swots end up in good Jobs
The clever cast aside
Injustice has many forms
Those like me who are bright but not bothered
Get the cruellest cut of all
No steak just gristle.
Friday 15.6.90
9.34 p.m.
THE LIGHT IS SLIGHTLY VISIBLE! THE END IS NEAR!
Theatre Arts, U.S. Politics and English set texts and THEN I AM DONE!!
Loads of people going out tomorrow night so obviously I am too. I’m not missing out.
Saturday 16.6.90
5.12 p.m.
Mum just asked if I am going out tonight. When I said ‘yes’ she said ‘Rachel – you’ve got 3 exams coming up. You can’t stay here all your life. You need to get out and travel. See the world. Get a good job.’ What she really means is I can’t stay here and upset her exotic love nest. Well I’m not – I’m going down the Vaults. BYE!
Sunday 17.6.90
9.45 a.m.
Great laugh down the Vaults last night. CLASSIC but annoying! Battered Sausage put on ‘World in Motion’ about 6 times on the jukebox and when it got to the bit where John Barnes says ‘get round the back’ a load of the lads were laughing and shouting it. I didn’t know why and Battered Sausage wouldn’t tell me. He kept saying stuff like ‘Keep innocent Rae . . . keep innocent!’ Anyway eventually he told me. Apparently a girl from a couple of years above us has ANAL SEX with her boyfriend and he told everyone. ANAL SEX! Now fair enough gay men doing that – that makes total sense – but girls?! Diary, am I a prude or is that actually slightly disgusting? I mean do what you want in your spare time but having it up the bum? Isn’t that just pleasing a man for a man’s sake? Perhaps this is where I am going wrong. I’m not prepared to be in pain just to make a bloke happy. Sod off! I’ve had barium enemas – they are not sexy. This is where I can’t make it work – I don’t want to wear flowery dresses, have big red lips, laugh at shit jokes and then go home and have anal sex. THIS is why I’m single – I’m fat, I’m funny and I won’t take it up the bum. Well the fat part I want to change but the other things are staying.
And no, Haddock wasn’t there so I couldn’t look at his thighs or make up some excuse to touch them.
Monday 18.6.90
4.12 p.m.
Me, Mort and Shellboss made a pact today. We are NEVER mentioning Restoration comedy ever ag
ain. It can honestly fuck off.
Tuesday 19.6.90
3.39 p.m.
I should be revising caucuses and primaries, instead I’m wondering what women do in bed that I don’t know about and I should know about. And even if I do know about it would I do it?
Wednesday 20.6.90
9.13 p.m.
I think I made what I know fit the question. That’s the point of the entire exam system – bullshitting. Which is an essential skill for life. A level Politics exam asks you about the role of the vice president? Bullshit about Dan Quayle and his vice presidential cock-ups.
Going or feeling mad? Bullshit and say you are not. Totally in love with a man that treats you like his sister – bullshit and pretend you’re just mates. When people ask are you OK? Bullshit and say fine. Make a joke.
Thursday 21.6.90
11.12 p.m.
Why did I watch England v. Egypt in the World Cup? I don’t even like football.
You’re allowed to take the books in with you tomorrow so I can’t really do anything now. I will quite miss Doctor Faustus. ‘This is hell – nor am I out of it’. Best quote ever to describe feeling that your head is messed up. I could be a multimillionaire, lying on a beach, in a size 10 bikini with Haddock by my side and I’d still feel nuts.
No – if I was in a size 10 bikini with Haddock in Blackpool my life would actually be perfect.
Friday 22.6.90
1.23 p.m.
FINISHED!!!!!!!!!! A LEVELS HAVE ENDED!!!
Got home – FIRST thing Mum said ‘Good! Are you getting a job this summer?’
WHAT I SAID – ‘I’ll try!’
WHAT I’M REALLY DOING – Going down the pub and down the Meadows for the best summer there has ever been.
Pub tonight. Haddock is bound to be out.
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.
