My Fat, Mad Teenage Diary

by Rae Earl

  It’s summertime, there’s no need to be afraid.

  At summertime we don our shorts and we don our shades.

  And in our world of beer we can spread a smile of joy

  Put your arms around a Gad at summertime.

  But say a prayer

  Pray for the jibbers

  At summertime, it’s hard but when you are having fun . . .

  That’s as far as we have got writing it. We just skipped to Bono’s bit because that’s the best bit. Dobber screamed it, and was well embarrassed because everyone in the pub seemed to have a lull in their conversations at exactly the same time. Dobber is a great laugh and NEVER puts me down. We’ve agreed to have an all-summer sesh, but just for the record: the Gads will not be doing ANY anal-chugging.

  I had a great night tonight. No names. No feeling uncomfortable. I’m sorry, Diary, I have to link that up to the fact that there was NO Bethany. I’m honestly not being a cow, and it’s so difficult to explain to you but she is horrible in ways that I don’t think about till afterwards. Things she says are like bombs that have a timer and go off later in my head. Little comments, digs – I am not being hypersensitive – they exist. She must know what she is doing.

  The kebab I had on the way home has made my breath so bad that White the cat just went for me. Deal with it, cat – it’s only garlic. You eat moths and lick your own arse.

  Saturday 3.6.89

  2.45 p.m.

  IHATE EXAM TIME – BECAUSE EVERYTHING in my head gets worse and I end up having to do all the stuff I need to do to make everything OK. And I eat. All the time. Toast – slice after slice after slice. Fat. Butter sliced on. Marmite so thick it makes my gum tingle.

  I’m eating it now. Big greasy stains all over me.

  It’s all kicking off in China. Students are protesting for freedom. I remember when Wham! went there – the crowd weren’t even allowed to dance. In fact . . . indirectly, perhaps George Michael has caused this. Brilliant!

  Yes, it does make my fat problems seem ridiculous.

  11.50 p.m.

  Just got back from the pub.

  NO BETHANY again. Battered Sausage was asking where she was. Like I should know? I said, ‘Ring her yourself. In fact go round her house and call for her if you are that bothered – she doesn’t live that far away. I’m not her keeper.’ He looked pissed off and made up some bullshit excuse why he needed to see her – something to do with some revision notes of his. Shut up, Battered Sausage – I can see right through it.

  Mind you, it’s good to see blokes getting pathetic over girls. I hope they hurt too. I hope they get home and think about all the things that have been said. I hope they have to write it down and go to sleep worrying about it.

  Revision notes?? I don’t think they even do the same subjects. I bet what he wants to revise does NOT get taught in schools!

  The French students were out tonight. Jeanne and me had quite a long conversation. Out of the blue she goes to me, ‘Bethany talk to you shit.’ I said, ‘Vous dites that parce que vous deteste Bethany.’ She said, ‘Vrai, but she talk to you shit.’ Thing is, Jeanne does not need to speak English to know how Bethany treats me. You don’t need words sometimes. I like Jeanne, even though later on Battered Sausage was all over her asking her if she wanted a pizza – he has never offered me so much as a chip. But then at the end of the night when he was really pissed, he out of the blue said, ‘Rae, come here,’ and gave me a massive kiss on the forehead, and said, ‘Love ya,’ like I had been his wife for 20 years. How are you meant to read all this???

  Sunday 4.6.89

  3.28 p.m.

  EVERYTHING HAS GONE TO CRAP in the world. I have been so excited recently because it looked like there was going to be this massive revolution in Communist China. There have been these students wanting freedom and democratic rights. One bloke even stood in front of a tank – just him on his own with his carrier bag, against everything. It will make the greatest poster ever. But now the soldiers have rolled into Tiananmen Square and started shooting and people are dying. Just so depressing. Everything stays the same. Nothing EVER changes.

  Everywhere in the world there is repression and cruelty, with the older generation hammering down the young.

  All the Chinese are very thin. Not an ounce on them. Surprising – considering all their food is done in batter.

  5.09 p.m.

  Listening to more about China and the Tiananmen Square demonstration. And I have made a decision. It’s time to distance myself from Bethany. If people my age can protest when they are getting shot, then I have to grow some balls. This weekend has convinced me.

  I don’t want to fall out with her. I don’t want a big row. But I don’t think I can get better when she is around. She makes me eat more. She makes me feel like I will always be the donkey with all of the racehorses. And I realise now I actually really don’t enjoy being with her at all. The thing is, how do I tell her? With a letter? With a phone call? She will call round for me and I have to be honest with her. She deserves getting a straight reason for it all.

  6.30 p.m.

  Just rang Mort. She thinks it’s absolutely the right move. She says if I send Bethany a letter she will end up showing it to everyone and it could even do the rounds at the boys’ school, and I can’t risk that. She thinks a face-to-face meeting is totally the best idea. Feel sick thinking about it, but I know she is right.

  7.12 p.m.

  Bethany just called for me. I ignored the front door and turned my music right down. When I peeked through the bedroom curtains, I saw her walk as if she was going into town. A group of lads were staring at her and one whistled. I have to do this. I will never get a bloke when she is around.

  Monday 5.6.89

  Late (time doesn’t matter)

  EVERYTHING ALWAYS GOES TO SHIT. From the crap that’s going on in my life to what happens in the world.

  Bethany cornered me today by the computer room and said, ‘Can we have a chat?’ My stomach was doing flips but I said yes. She started spurting out such shit:

  B: You cling to me. We need some distance. You make me feel guilty when I am with boys because they don’t fancy you.

  ME: Thanks . . .

  B: But you won’t do anything to make it better.

  You have seconds every day. And then you accuse me of taking Battered Sausage off you.

  ME: I said that once when I was pissed.

  B: But I can see that’s what you think ALL the time with everyone. That’s why I didn’t come out at the weekend.

  ME: OK. Well, I was thinking exactly the same things actually, so . . .

  B: And stop telling people that I take people off you. I have never taken anyone off you. You are so immature. If you don’t like the way you look, then DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Every time you come round my house and sit on the sofa, the first thing you do is pick up a cushion and put it over your belly to try and hide it. And you’re always going on about what you will wear when you get thinner. How about trying to look good now? Stop wearing rugby shirts and dirty jeans. Wear a skirt!!

  ME: Oh yeah – that’s really me!!!

  B: I am meeting someone for lunch. I’ve got to go.

  I cannot believe the stuff she came out with. It shows what she was thinking all along. So much for the kind speech I had planned. I thought I would be really upset, but I just feel angry that I even put up with her. She is obviously a robot with no feelings.

  So that’s it. But I’m not that bothered. Mort is a great friend – and I know Dobber and all her gang now, so I have someone to go to the pub with.

  Should I wear skirts out, though? Wouldn’t everyone piss themselves laughing if they saw me trying to be sexy? I can’t even imagine it.

  Tuesday 6.6.89

  10.53 p.m.

  I’M WATCHING AN EXTREMELY BRILLIANT programme on nuns. There is always that option if I flunk the exams, I suppose.

  11.30 p.m.

  The nun thing is a complete non-starter. For one – chastit
y. Plus I do not want to wear another uniform after seven pigging years of having to wear a hat and KILT!!! And nuns are always meant to be quiet, and I think that’s out of the question.

  I wish things would change between Battered Sausage and me. I wish he wouldn’t think with his dick and just see me as an adequate proposition – aka a woman he wants to SNOG!

  Got to revise The Tempest. Wish Shakespeare had got a bloody medieval life and written less.

  Mum has been up twice to complain about music being too loud. Have played Smiths’ ‘How Soon Is Now?’ over and over and over again. When I feel down I always do it. It says everything. It’s like I sat down with Morrissey in the pub and told him all the shit and he sang it.

  Wednesday 7.6.89

  7.50 p.m.

  IHAVE HAD A RESPONSE FROM Wall’s Ice-Cream!!!! Can’t believe it. They claimed that the chocolate had actually merely changed shape and still weighed X number of grams . . . and as a ‘gesture of goodwill’ they enclosed a £2 voucher. I went straight to the shop and blew it on Cornettos. Mum was cross that I had spent it so quickly, till I gave her one. Amazing how a mint Cornetto can stop nagging almost immediately. I must remember that.

  Just watching Coronation Street – Lucky the greyhound is pregnant. They thought she was ‘just getting fat’. Even a dog comes under scrutiny for sticking it on.

  Thursday 8.6.89

  9.15 p.m.

  GOT UP EARLY TO REVISE. Got to school at 8.30 a.m. Went to queue for exam – and it was in the afternoon. Bloody typical. Hung around the library but couldn’t concentrate on work, so looked at the pictures in French Elle and thought and dreamt. Usual stuff: brilliant jobs, massive wage packets that buy lovely clothes for my new model figure, Tom Cruise as a boyfriend. Usual stuff that has sod all chance of coming true, but passes the time.

  There was this one model in French Elle. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be her. She was brunette with big thick lips and was wearing this tight navy dress by Azzedine someone. She was so beautiful; and the choices she must have, and . . . Oh, I would give it all up just to have been born that way because her life will be so easy. She won’t have to think, and men will fall into her lap and . . . It’s all unfair and I don’t want to even write it. It will never change, and no one wants to admit it but being thin and pretty is the best thing a woman can be.

  All shit.

  Friday 9.6.89

  10.35 p.m.

  TOLD MUM ABOUT THE WOMAN in Elle tonight because I went to look at her again today and I just can’t get my head round it. Mum said her usual nonsensical phrase: ‘You talk more random than duck’s shite.’ She reckons most of those models eat about one carrot a week, chew cotton wool like racehorse jockeys to keep thin, and smoke cigarettes. Apparently, they all look crap by the time they are 30, and go out with the ‘wrong’ sort of men (any men would be right right now). I said, ‘You have edited Vogue and know all this for definite, do you?’ She said, ‘Rachel, I have moved in circles that have allowed me to get this information.’

  Let’s see, shall we?

  Born in 1942 as a result of her mother’s affair with a Canadian soldier.

  Lived in Hastings and Leicester with her granddad. Or in Barnardo’s homes.

  Married Dad. Had first baby at 18. Lived in Ketton. A village the size of a thimble in Lincolnshire.

  Worked in a factory sewing knickers.

  Worked cleaning offices where they made blood bags for hospitals.

  Started ironing shirts in the boarding house of the boys’ school. Admittedly, she reckons at one stage the drummer from the Police’s son was there.

  Divorced my dad. Married the Latin teacher.

  Went abroad to see him in Turkey and Morocco.

  Now lives in a council house in a small town – looking after my nan.

  Where in that list would you gain knowledge about haute couture and the fashion world, precisely?

  She talks crap. Howard Jones said it years ago in ‘Look Mama’. She has to let me get on with it because she does not know it all. This is my life, not hers!

  Saturday 10.6.89

  6.16 p.m.

  HAVE TO BE HONEST WITH you, Diary – I have been thinking all week about what Bethany said about me wearing different, sexier clothes. I got out the free booklet from Looks magazine last night – ‘Dress to Suit Your Figure’. I found my figure shape. I was described as ‘You know there’s a bit to lose’. It suggested no big patterns, bold accessories and lots of black.

  So I have just been to Peterborough. What a depressing waste of time. Every shop I went into I was greeted by coat-hangers that only went up to size 14. So I went to Evans, which is meant to be for bigger ladies, and it was full of clothes for the only people they think are fat right now – women over 40. Row upon row of kaftans and dresses the size of marquees. It’s like all the shops were saying, ‘You don’t deserve nice clothes, fat cow – do something about it.’

  Eventually ended up in Burton’s men’s shop trying on men’s large trousers. They fit and everything but there was massive extra space in the crotch. I can’t walk around looking like I have a penis. So thought, ‘Fuck it.’ Bought some Japanese Wash Grains from the Body Shop and some big T-shirts from the market. Yes, they hang off my breasts, but by that stage I just felt so finished by it all.

  Meant to be revising. Sod it all. If bloody Beadle’s About is on tonight that will just top a totally shit day off.

  Sunday 11.6.89

  10.23 p.m.

  JUST BEEN DOWN PUB AS it was the French-exchange students’ last night. There was a really uncomfortable moment at the end when Jeanne went to give me a hug goodbye. She obviously hadn’t been told I don’t do hugging. Even when I tried to bat her off she grabbed hold of me and said, ‘Bonne chance and love Sausage.’ Battered Sausage doesn’t need any loving from me – he was too busy sticking his tongue down the throat of some girl from the fifth year. Bethany looked well pissed off. She was with her ‘new friends’ from Stamford College. I sat with Dobber and Fig.

  SAW LUKE TONIGHT! He hasn’t been out in ages. Exams, he says, and I imagine he wanted to avoid seeing Bethany. I upset Luke for the most ridiculous reason today. He was wearing that bloody white jumper that he always wears EVERY time he is out, so I go, ‘Luke – that white jumper is becoming famous – is it true that it is going to open a branch of Sainsbury’s all on its own?’ He got really mardy about it. Definitely right off him. Mind you, was I ever really on him? Still, that’s life. Full of the emotional fibs that you tell yourself.

  Can’t sleep at all at the moment. Feel like a zombie. Going to do a quick bit of revision.

  Monday 12.6.89

  12.20 a.m.

  HAD ENOUGH OF REVISION. IT’S so weird: I’m worried sick over an exam, but someone I used to go to school with is worried sick because she is about to give birth to another human being. The rumour is that Chloe is just about to drop the baby, and she is really shitting herself about it. Actually, ‘shitting herself’, according to Mort, is an apt term – because apparently you do when you give birth.

  Anyway, it puts exams into perspective.

  Got to go – up at 4.20 a.m. to cram.

  Tuesday 13.6.89

  7.24 p.m.

  ALARM WENT OFF AT 4.20 a.m. but put it on snooze and fell back asleep. Woke up at 7.30 and there was no time for any cramming at all.

  So tempted to cheat in these exams but I can’t work out a safe way to do it. You do the exams in either the gym or the main hall and the teachers patrol them like the Gestapo. Also, normal desks are so full of graffiti you can go into the classroom before the lesson and hide stuff like historical dates and French vocabulary in the graffiti. Exam desks are a different matter. Green and plain with nothing on them. Bastard desks.

  I thought the exam went OK today but then everyone got out of the gym and started discussing how they had answered certain questions, and I’d answered nothing like everyone else. I’m not too worried, though, as Daisy admitted that s
he had a total mental brain collapse and had forgotten how to spell the word ‘why’ – so just wrote the letter ‘Y’!

  I hated being in the gym. The bloody vault and beam were in there. I didn’t even get BAGA Award 4. Everyone had an award patch on their leotard except for me, even (and this will sound really bad but it’s true) Sharon Teeg – who was in a wheelchair. Who decided flipping on a plank should be a sport, anyway? It’s bollocks.

  Wednesday 14.6.89

  8.15 p.m.

  LAST TWO EXAMS TOMORROW and Friday. Currently making a ‘Chartform’ compilation tape. I’m up to Chartform Volume 10, but I am thinking of packing up the series. I can’t be bothered to sit around taping the charts on a Sunday any more. Anyway, Bethany’s mum buys her every Now That’s What I Call Music tape that comes out – so I’ll just copy hers.

  HAH!! Just realised that I may still have to tape the charts after all. I can’t really just turn up at Bethany’s house and ask to borrow her records now, can I?

  9.32 p.m.

  Mum has just been up to ask if ‘NEEE-NAARR Cherry’ is helping me revise. I said, ‘It’s Neneh Cherry – get it right – and yes it is.’ I don’t need to be nagged by a woman who has never taken an exam in her life. Every time I say that to her, she says, ‘I was in the Girl’s Naval Training Corps, and never had the chances you had.’ Then she started to give me a lecture on how she is going away for two weeks and she does NOT want the following:

  girls she doesn’t know staying round

  any boys AT ALL staying round

  any parties (she reckons she will ‘know’)

  loud music

  smoking

  drinking

  funny stuff (she means shagging – chance would be a fine thing).

  I agreed to all these but I don’t intend to stick to any of them. Actually, some I will probably have to stick to because I can’t imagine losing it over the next two weeks. I don’t think I could do it in my bed or her bed, anyway. And if I do have a party I will be making damn sure no one else does it either. I don’t want people having a better time than me in my own house.