by Rae Earl
3) I don’t know where I’m going. I want to be famous but I don’t know who the hell Rae Earl is.
4) Well, let’s be honest – lack of boyfriend is becoming a major, major issue. Why can’t my love life be like one of those Jackie or My Guy photo love stories, where everything turns out OK? Because they never feature fat girls. You never see a speech bubble coming from a bloke with the words ‘What you look like doesn’t matter – it’s your personality that counts.’ Because that’s lies. That’s the lies they tell girls like me so life seems to be fair. But it’s not. A sexy face and body can jump queues, be wined and dined, cuddled and stroked and loved.
I’m the clown. They tell me the appeal of that will last far longer than a great pair of tits. But at the end of the night, when a thousand couples are snogging, my jokes feel like big, deflated, sagging balloons.
I’m so jealous of the choices being pretty brings. I know girls in my class who start conversations with sentences like ‘I don’t know if I want my current boyfriend any more’ nearly every week. But half of these blokes they are talking about are smashing – I’d have them. They’d be bloody perfect.
I’ll have the cast-offs. I understand the cast-offs and the way they feel.
I’m watching Mistral’s Daughter starring Timothy Dalton. He is so horny . . . Well . . . perhaps not so horny when his hair descends into that middle parting.
I’m full and totally empty all at the same time.
Oh, I bloody well hope everything will be OK. Oh, and another problem . . .
5) A Moroccan bodybuilder who I have never met before is coming to stay in my house.
Saturday 8.7.89
4.38 p.m.
GOT MY PHOTOS DEVELOPED FROM the parties. All great and everything. None of me – YES! YES! YES!! Though apparently there is a video of one party with me in jeans and everyone else in ball dresses. Oh, bloody great – hope no one sees that. Back to the photos: Battered Sausage spitting beer at the camera, usual staged nonsense. Sweet ones of Fig and Dobber. But the most astounding thing is Haddock. He is so bloody good-looking. I mean, it takes your breath away in a way. In a dinner jacket he looks like ruddy James Bond. What is it about men in dinner jackets?! Black tie makes even the most geeky bloke look gorgeous, and as for the already good-looking ones – well, it sends them into sex-appeal overdrive, and they know it. And then there’s me in a huge ball dress that Nan helped to finance. It was dead sweet of her to do it, but you can’t disguise a doughnut body whatever you try to squeeze it in. Thank God there were no photos.
I wish Haddock didn’t hate me. But that’s something that I have to learn to live with.
Sunday 9.7.89
10.52 a.m.
FREAKIEST THING EVER TODAY. I have discovered a song via Dobber’s mum that could have been written for me. It’s called ‘At Seventeen’ by Janis Ian. The words of the song have just blown me away. It’s a bit of 70s folk music basically, but it’s phenomenal. It’s about being ugly and young and not pulling. It’s about pretending you have boyfriends when you don’t. It’s about Valentine’s Day when you get fuck all and how blokes only like the perfect women.
It is just . . . brilliant. And it’s how it is. Because it is the truth. The pretty girls get it all. They have different rules.
IT IS MY LIFE SUMMED UP IN THREE MINUTES.
Have put it on an H–J compilation tape. Unfortunately it is sandwiched between Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley’s ‘Jack Your Body’ and ‘White Wedding’ by Billy Idol, so it’s not really flowing at the moment.
Monday 10.7.89
7.10 p.m.
MUM IS WORRIED ABOUT THIS Moroccan bodybuilder coming and I can see right through her tactics. Out of the blue she just comes up to my room and says in a forced cheerful voice with shark’s smile, ‘Have you seen the TV Guide this week? There’s a big bit on Chris Tarrant.’ She knows I have loved him ever since he did Tiswas, and she could not wait to tell me that he had been a teacher – ‘So he must have been to university, Rachel.’ It always comes down to this. All the good people have been to university, and I MUST GO because SHE would have wanted to. No one in our family has been ever before. I must make the best of all the opportunities I have been given. Unless I leap in the air and say, ‘YES, YES, YES!! I will do as you say, Mother!!’ I GET THE LECTURE. If I make a mess of things I will be ‘stuck in a crappy council house in Stamford with no money. Do you want that? Don’t work hard, then, Rach, be stuck for the rest of your life like I am, in a dead-end job. The choice is yours.’ I know this speech back to front. I think she gave it to me in the womb.
Then she remembered she was actually trying to get me on her side, and said with too much enthusiasm, ‘I’ve done sausage and bean casserole for tea,’ and then she sits me down and decides to tell me more details of her marriage break-up. I didn’t want this information, but here it is:
Second husband told her he was gay back in April, BY LETTER. Well, if she won’t install a phone, that’s what happens. She was upset, but had ‘suspected it for a while’. They will remain friends. Adnan and her are just ‘close friends’ – he is coming over for a study visit. He is a local celebrity in Casablanca, opens restaurants and gets stopped for his autograph apparently. He is six foot tall, and eats six meals a day – including whole chickens stewed in turmeric. He is a Capricorn. He trains every day. Now, Mort is my best friend on earth, but I don’t know her as well as Mum knows Adnan! Then I started to ask some questions like ‘How long will he be staying for?’ and ‘Is he married?’ But THEN she decided that there were some burning broad beans downstairs that she had to save. There’s always something burning when things get too in-depth.
I can’t cope with being this lonely. Everywhere, couples. Outside, but please not inside too. I know it’s selfish, but . . . there’s no one just for me.
Listening to more Janis Ian. There’s a song called ‘Tea and Sympathy’ about her setting fire to her house and throwing her life away just because there is nothing left and no one left to give a stuff about. Every time I am down Mum says, ‘Have a cup of tea,’ rather than face the problem or give me a cuddle. ‘Tea, No Sympathy’ would be my version. But my house won’t burn down. I check the plug sockets and the iron too often for that to ever happen.
I take the piss but it kills inside.
Tuesday 11.7.89
6.22 p.m.
IT’S BEEN SO BLOODY HOT. This sounds like it’s great, but it’s bad news all round for me. First of all – if I start sweating I feel 50 times more self-conscious than other people because I know people are expecting me to sweat more because of my size. Then there’s the clothes issue. I still have to wear big T-shirts and long trousers because of my fat arms, fat gut and fat knees. Meanwhile, everyone else in the world is in bikini tops and crop tops and little bits of bloody fabric that make pretty girls look even bloody better than normal.
So – BRING ON AUTUMN – BRING ON THE RAIN – BRING ON EVERYONE WEARING 27 LAYERS AND EVERYONE EATING BIG STEWS AND PUDDINGS!
I hate summer. I hate the heat. I hate being left out. AND I HATE ME SOMETIMES.
And there is bloody ice-cream everywhere. Nearly ate a whole tub of Neapolitan today. Then Mum went mental because I had left the tub out and the ants that are coming out by the gas fire were having an orgy all over it. She has refused point blank to do anything about them for ages. Don’t worry, Mum, I am sure when Adnan gets here he will crush each one individually with just one look of his bodybuilder eyes. Pathetic.
Wednesday 12.7.89
7.02 p.m.
THIS MORNING MUM NAGGED ME from when I got up to around 12.25 p.m. when I finally said, ‘OK – I WILL GO TO THE BUGGERING JOB CENTRE AND LOOK FOR A HOLIDAY JOB.’
That was approximately 45 minutes of pure earache and bile. Same old arguments: ‘You don’t contribute . . . You just laze around the house . . . And could you get some stuff to kill the ants from Wilko’s, please?’ Went down the Job Centre and checked that I am not eligible for any benefits. I am not
. Then experienced the most depressing 30 minutes of my life so far, watching the casualties of Thatcher and the recession. Men of 50 that will never work again being forced to sit in interviews and then ‘have a look round for something that might suit’. BUT THERE IS NOTHING. Nothing but ringing people up, trying to sell double-glazing, and lorry-driving and trainee hairdressing.
Went down the Meadows straight afterwards and tried to write a song called ‘Flat in a Flat Cap’ about unemployment for the over-50s.
On the shelf
Frozen foods and you
Best before date your packaging is used.
Feeling flat in a flat cap
The good days have gone bad
You were taken in by their promises
And now you have been had.
If I could find someone to write music, I could bloody make it. I know I could.
Had a 99. Came home.
Got Mum’s ant spray. It’s called Doom. Sums everything up.
Thursday 13.7.89
6.05 p.m.
THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO die this afternoon. Mum used the Doom spray on the ants that live in the hearth. It did kill the ants almost instantly. Unfortunately then she put the fire on so she could get a light for the oven AND ALL OF THE HEARTH TILING WENT IN FLAMES LIKE A CHRISTMAS PUDDING. I SHAT MYSELF.
It was my nightmare come true. Mum started stamping on it, and then she rushed off and got a tea towel and got rid of all the weird flames. Then she just turned round really calmly and said, ‘Well, Rach . . . that’s got rid of them!’ At times like that I just feel such a surge of ‘like’ towards her – she is witty, and just gets on with things. Why can’t she be like that all the time?
Party at Fig’s house tonight, near Bourne. His parents are away and everyone is going – including Dobber, Battered Sausage and Haddock. I am dreading seeing Haddock because every time he clocks me now he looks at me like I am shit. And to him, the truth is I am. After what I did.
Friday 14.7.89
2.12 p.m.
ONLY JUST GOT HOME. I am knackered, but I want to get all this down before I forget. Lots happened at Fig’s party last night. For a start, Fig’s house is huge but looks like it hasn’t been decorated since about 1976, which explains Fig’s obsession with Showaddywaddy and Bruce Forsyth. Battered Sausage was in a right state – drunk as a skunk – and locked himself in Fig’s parents’ room with a girl from Rutland Sixth Form College and a plate of oven chips. Some of the tossers from the boys’ school started to shave off the eyebrows of a boy that was so paralytic that he went unconscious. They think they are hilarious. They are not.
I spent most of the night with Dobber having a right laugh in the kitchen, until she went to bed with Fig at about 3 a.m. I tried to ignore the fact that the rest of the world was either snogging, flirting or shagging, and perched myself by the fridge (my usual spot). I chatted to loads of people while organising and making toast, and I made sure I put extra butter on the thin girls’ bread – HAH!!!
About 4.30 a.m. I was going to go and sit in the back garden on the swing chair (because most people had crashed out), when Haddock stumbled into the kitchen. His girlfriend is on holiday so he was on his own. He stopped dead when he saw me and tried to make a retreat – and then realised it was too late. I thought, ‘Right – he is pissed, so now is my chance.’ He would not look me in the eye. He did not even say hello, he just went to make himself a cup of coffee, so I said, ‘Look, Haddock – can we have a chat?’ He said, ‘Nothing to say, mate.’ I said, ‘PLEASE?’ He just stood there looking half at me, half down to the ground.
Massive conversation with Haddock went as follows:
ME: Look . . . I am so, so sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean it. It was just a joke.
HAD: Not interested.
ME: Yes you are. You were really upset by it. And it was a shit thing to do. The shittest thing I think I can remember doing.
HAD: It doesn’t matter. Battered Sausage should never have told anyone – especially not someone like you.
ME: It does matter. It does. I can’t believe I said it.
Please – I am really sorry.
HAD: Are you sorry because you’re sorry, or because you’re worried other people won’t like you any more if you don’t get on with me?
ME: I’m sorry because I think I have been mean to you, and upset you, and I feel bad.
(PAUSE.)
HAD: What have I ever done to you? You are nice to everyone but me. I have never taken the piss out of you. When all the stuff was going on with Harry I tried to tell you what was happening. You took that the wrong way too.
ME: I just thought . . .
HAD: You just thought the same shit everyone thinks about me and shit.
ME: What?
HAD: Can’t be bothered to go into it, mate. No point.
ME: I know all that. What can I do to make it better?
And then he just looked at me and went, ‘Make me some toast.’ So I did. He had two slices of white with apricot jam. Then he just winked at me and left. I don’t know if that means we are mates or not.
Went to the garden. Sat listening to the birds with a glass of vodka and Coke. This was only spoilt by Battered Sausage yelling at the top of his voice, ‘I haven’t got another one.’ No idea what this means but he was wetting himself one minute later so it couldn’t have been serious.
Fig’s mum and dad have concrete mushrooms in their garden. Don’t know why.
Feel so lonely. I could just curl up and die.
7.12 p.m.
Forgot to tell you the quote of the week. Fig was looking at my ‘Legend in My Own Lifetime’ badge and he said, ‘And you make a lovely slice of toast.’ I know it’s easy to warm bread, but it’s still lovely to get a compliment about your cooking.
Saturday 15.7.89
11.51 p.m.
NOBODY WAS OUT TONIGHT SO I stayed in – everybody was either working or knackered. Rang up Mort. She had a good time in Egypt, but somebody offered her dad 15 camels for her. Apparently, Arabs like young women with blonde hair. Mum also says Arabs love older, fat women of Mum’s age – as being big is traditionally a sign of wealth. Trust me to live in a country where the men prefer their women to be like matchsticks.
Told Mort about everything that had been going on and asked if she thought Haddock had forgiven me. She said, ‘Yes, but men actually can’t say that they have, as they can’t show their feelings.’ She said Haddock sounded like he had ‘more to him than a lot of boys, underneath it all’. She also agreed with me that he does look a bit like Bruce Willis in Moonlighting. Sort of stocky, with killer eyes.
Wish I could catch some decent zzzzzzzzzzzzzzs. You would think sitting through Bob Holness and his Champion Blockbusters and the sodding film The Odessa File would send me off to sleep, but it hasn’t.
Sunday 16.7.89
4 p.m. (in the second Meadows)
MIND HAS BEEN ALL OVER the shop today. I have days like this. Fields make it better.
Sanctuary above sanctuaries . . . I think that the second Meadows is it. There’s a gorgeous hum of the A1 here, but it’s still quiet.
I’m so NUMB. I just don’t care, it seems – but I must do. This is all going to sound totally incoherent. I’m that bunged up, but totally empty. I think my worries about who I am have reached a head. I mean – who is Rae Earl? I think I know myself, but then other people say things. Mum says I am selfish and arrogant, but her reasons for saying that are essentially selfish ones to do with our relationship. So it’s difficult to judge. Haddock hates me, but then again he incorrectly thinks that I hate him. Battered Sausage made a sarky comment about my three-day relationship, and EVEN bloody Phoebe Brown (square and quite plain really) is going out with someone, and then had the audacity to make yet another comment about my bloody three-day relationship. She likes heavy metal – but even she’s pulled!
I suppose the Madonna line ‘No one knows you better than you know yourself’ holds true. And she knows better th
an most, so bollocks to all of them. You know the good people of Stamford would like you to think that the Meadows is for family days out, picnics, dog walking, water jousting and other such middle-class bollocks. It is; but like most things here, it has a flipside. It’s also home to underage drinkers, people shagging, and over there a bloke is lighting a marijuana joint the size of a drainpipe. If I wasn’t so scared I would ask for a puff of it – it might cheer me up. Plus the fact I’ve heard that hash makes you hungry . . . I don’t need more appetite.
Monday 17.7.89
6 p.m.
DOWN THE MEADOWS AGAIN. LIVING down here at the moment.
I think I’m like Ruby Wax – I scare people off. Is she married? I hope so.
I’m too over . . .
A BLOODY WOLF JUST CAME AND SNIFFED ME. THAT’S A HAZARD OF FIELDS.
. . . powering but I can’t seem to help myself. You see, I don’t know if it’s just Stamford and my age. I love being with people and I hate being disliked. I love making people laugh. It’s a mass thing . . . but I want a special kind of relationship with one person too. I just can’t seem to have both.
Being so fat is driving me insane.
Being at home with Mum is driving me spare.
She calls me ‘self-centred’ all the time. Do you think I am self-centred, Diary? I think this may be the problem – YOU, Diary! I’m that took up with you and what I feel that I completely forget about the feelings of other people.
It’s so safe here I could stay here for ever. No sounds – except the old church bell, water sounds and the birds and the bees (no innuendo meant). It makes you think, it puts you in touch with what is under all this fat.
