My Fat, Mad Teenage Diary

by Rae Earl

  hiatus hernia – from her. Makes you burp a lot. I don’t need to be told this. After some meals it’s like being with a sea lion.

  rheumatism, arthritis, diverticulitis, stomach ulcers and a menopause with hot flushes, which is apparently like wearing a fur coat in the Sahara.

  The good news is that you don’t really die from these things, but they can hurt. Of course none of them are helped by ‘being podgy’. Great. FAT IS EVIL. I AM EVIL.

  I have had to put on Now That’s What I Call Music 2. It’s old, but ‘99 Red Balloons’ by Nena and ‘Get Out of Your Lazy Bed’ by Matt Bianco are cheering me up no end. Mainly because it reminds me of the time Matt Bianco got called ‘wankers’ on Saturday Superstore by a kid.

  Wednesday 29.11.89

  9.16 p.m.

  TONIGHT I HAVE HEARD THE FUTURE.

  For ages everyone has been going on about the Stone Roses down the pub, but I thought it was just hyped-up, pretentious crap. I like the new single, though – ‘Fools Gold’ – so I taped the album off Dobber and listened to it tonight. It is honestly even better than – and I feel bad saying this – The Queen Is Dead. Sorry, Morrissey, but every track on this is fucking brilliant. It’s like four blokes who just got pissed one day and said, ‘Let’s make the best record in history.’ ‘I Am the Resurrection’ – just genius. The words . . . you could sing them to Mum, to Bethany, to anyone who tries to do your head in.

  Mum heard it and said, ‘Are they druggies? Why is there a lemon on the front cover?’ No, Mum, they don’t need drugs, they have an imagination – and unlike Jive fuckwit Bunny they are not shitting out records on our heads.

  Thursday 30.11.89

  7.34 p.m.

  I’VE JUST UPSET MUM AND I didn’t mean to. Mum said to me, ‘I shouldn’t go and see Nan for the moment.’ I said, ‘Why?’ Mum said, ‘She’s a bit . . . not herself.’ I said, ‘You think I can’t cope with Nan being a bit confused and not knowing what is going on? Well, I can. How many people have I been dragged to see in old people’s homes over the years who have lost the plot? What about that time when I went with Nan to see someone in St George’s Nursing Home and a bloody mad nun started shouting at me because she thought I was a pregnant schoolgirl or something?’ Mum said, ‘Rachel, today she didn’t know who I was.’ Then she went quiet. I didn’t know what to say, so I said, ‘I’m getting a yoghurt. Would you like one?’

  Why did I say that?

  Oh, this is awful.

  And then the bloody ‘Boxer’ by Simon and Garfunkel comes on the radio.

  Can’t stop crying.

  Friday 1.12.89

  7.12 a.m.

  JUST WOKE UP AND THEN remembered why I feel like shit. But I have to get over it. I love Nan but I can’t do anything to help her right now. Just have toget on and hope she gets better. Or doesn’t suffer. Now I’m crying again. Have to go to pissing school now.

  5.20 p.m.

  This is unbelievable. My nan is dying. Mum is going out with a Moroccan bodybuilder. I am in the hardest year academically, and we are all going through one of the most difficult stages of our lives. But at school they call us in for a special meeting because someone has been picking the foam out of one of the common-room chairs! The fact is, we all do it absentmindedly, but Daisy Connor owned up and took the flack. I don’t know why – it’s not like Duke of Edinburgh – you can’t put ‘foam picker’ on your CV.

  Can’t school get some perspective?? HELLO?????

  Saturday 2.12.89

  12.33 p.m.

  MUM HAS BOUGHT MY FOUR-year-old nephew an advent calendar this year, but not one for me. He’s four – he can’t even work out how to open the bloody doors – why does he get one? You are never too old for Christmas and chocolate – everybody knows that.

  I can’t believe December is here. Which means Christmas and my birthday are on the horizon. I don’t want to get too overexcited, as that inevitably means that things go badly. Don’t know what the hell I am going to do for Christmas presents this year. I used to make stuff – but I don’t think that would go down too well now.

  Sunday 3.12.89

  3.45 p.m.

  LAST NIGHT AT THE PUB we (Battered Sausage, Haddock and girlfriend, Dobber, Fig and me) all had a game of confessions. I dread this game because I have nothing to share, as I have snogged one bloke and slept with a total of no blokes.

  I don’t know why, but it got on to the most embarrassing thing you did as a kid. I had had a bit to drink, so I told the truth. I once got an empty bog roll and peed down it standing up – to see what it would be like having a knob. I bet loads of girls have done it – it must be one of the most common things in the world. Everybody pissed themselves – which is fine – but then ALL NIGHT Battered Sausage called me ‘Cardboard Cock’ – like he was Jim bloody Davidson. Twat.

  And conveniently, after I had told my story everyone decided they were bored of the game and that mine could not be topped.

  Everyone has done that, surely? I am just the only one who has the balls to admit it.

  Haddock winked at me, though, on the way out. I love it when I make him laugh. He is so grumpy I see it as an achievement. Last night I said, ‘I’ve got a present for you – guard it with your life.’ It was just a bunch of old receipts. He said, ‘Thanks – I will treasure them for ever,’ and he shoved them down the back of his trousers. His humour is as dry as a bone. As he left, he ripped the backside of his jeans on the side of the table. I couldn’t look – Haddock’s pants! It’s right, but it’s wrong – if you know what I mean.

  Monday 4.12.89

  EVERYBODY AT SCHOOL IS TALKING about two things:

  1) Cardboard Cock. It’s got round. BIG DEAL. They are all laughing a bit too hard at me. They have done it too. I can tell.

  2) This film that is out called When Harry Met Sally. Basically two things happen in it: a woman fakes an orgasm, and a bloke and a woman who are meant to be just mates sleep together. The whole point of the film seems to be that men and women can never just be good friends. Sex, according to the film, always gets in the way. How I wish this was true. Unfortunately the female lead they have got for the film is this thin blonde woman called Meg Ryan. OF COURSE BLOKES WANT TO DO HER. Change the female lead – put ME in it, for example. And I will prove to you that you can just be mates with a man. WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT. Men can see you in a totally asexual way. If you’re fat, all you have is just good friends. EVERYWHERE.

  Tuesday 5.12.89

  10.14 p.m.

  IHATE THIS HOME. I HATE this place. You do a tiny thing and it just turns into recriminations and hatred. I was sitting in front of the telly and I had a few of the chocolate decorations off the tree. It was only when I had a few that I realised that Mum had only bought a few, so I tried to reshape the foil and hang them back – but Mum knew the moment she walked in. Then it all started: ‘You do nothing all day – you contribute nothing to this house – all you do is eat – and they were £1.89 for six.’ Oh, big deal. Everywhere there is a trap, a reason for her to yell. Even in decorations.

  FAIRYTALE REWRITTEN

  Chocolate is a trap

  You have caught me

  Like the witch in Hansel and Gretel you lured me into your

  Evil cottage

  But remember – the witch died in the end.

  Wednesday 6.12.89

  8.19 p.m.

  MUM HAS JUST GOT BACK from the hospital.

  She looks awful.

  I don’t want to ask.

  Everything is falling apart. Today I lost my Swatch. I know it sounds pathetic but that Swatch has been like a faithful companion to me since Christmas 1985. Where I went, the Swatch went. It was like a dog. I tried to retrace my steps – no joy.

  Perhaps I should see it as a chance for a new image. The clear strap had gone green and manky with sweat. The loss of my Swatch could be a beginning. Just like the snake sheds it’s skin so I have shed my Swatch.

  Thursday 7.12.89

  BAND AID
II SHOWS THAT everything in life truly is on the slide. Yes, I know it’s for charity, but they could have made more of an effort. The first Band Aid had George Michael, Duran Duran and Culture Club. Band Aid II has CLIFF RICHARD, SONIA and BROS. Mind you, secretly I love Kylie and Jason.

  Mum says no news is good news from the hospital.

  Friday 8.12.89

  4.03 p.m.

  NAN HAS DIED. MUM WENT down to the hospital early this morning. I knew it was bad news because she came from the hospital with a Rupert the Bear cuddly toy for me – this is because she cannot give me a cuddle. She is just not the hugging type.

  Didn’t go to school.

  I have cried for most of the day. Now I think Nan can see everything, and she must see what a big nutcase I am, and all the dodgy things I think. And last year when I was ill she saw all that too and I was off my head. All so sad. I am meant to be doing the music for Antigone, the school play, at the Arts Centre, but what with Nan dying I’ve asked for someone else to do it. Can’t believe I will never see Nan again. Could almost laugh because it seems so stupid, but it’s not. It’s real.

  Saturday 9.12.89

  6.35 p.m.

  OBVIOUSLY NOT GOING OUT TONIGHT. I know everyone will be lovely – but if they are too nice I will cry and then people will try to hug me, and I can’t cope. And I am so ugly when I cry, my face almost collapses.

  Rang Mort – she was lovely.

  Mum and me were just talking and Mum reminded me of the time when Nan said, ‘Don’t eat unpasteurised ice-cream, it’s full of orgasms.’ She meant to say organisms. We both pissed ourselves and I said it seems wrong to laugh now. Mum reckons dead people have an ‘advanced sense of humour, and Nan would be laughing too’.

  Hope she is because it was funny and she was lovely.

  Bloody crying again. Can’t bloody stop.

  Sunday 10.12.89

  9.28 a.m.

  IHAVE JUST GOT UP THIS morning to find a note pushed through the door. It looks like it was written on a waiter’s order pad. All it says is:

  Rae

  Hope the Funky Chick is OK.

  Love

  Haddock

  He must have put it in last night. In fact – unless someone gave him a lift – he must have walked for 25 minutes to push it through.

  It seems wrong to be excited at a time like this, but I honestly could be sick.

  He came all this way. Is it wrong that I just want to listen to some very loud music and dance round the room? It doesn’t make sense to me either.

  Nan would understand. She loved her husband, and she loved music. Well – Val Doonican, and The Black and White Minstrel racist Show – but you know what I mean.

  7.12 p.m.

  JUST HAD THIS CONVERSATION WITH Mum:

  MUM: The funeral is on Tuesday. You don’t have to come, Rach.

  ME: I hadn’t even thought . . .

  MUM: Nan wouldn’t mind . . . And they are . . . funny things.

  ME: Is it wrong not to go?

  MUM: Don’t be stupid. Nan knew you loved her.

  It’s your choice.

  I think she is worried I might lose it again if I go. Once you’ve had a breakdown, everyone thinks you could lose it at any point – so they keep you away from nasty stuff.

  Am I a bitch if I don’t go? Aren’t funerals just for people who can’t get their head round stuff and haven’t been nice to the dead person when they were living?

  I can’t decide what to do.

  Monday 11.12.89

  9.30 p.m.

  NAN’S FUNERAL IS TOMORROW. I am not going. Can’t bear the thought of that coffin going in the ground.

  Had to stop then – can’t think about it. Just remember the good times. The times she told me Cinderella without her teeth in, the toast on the Aga, her enormous Yorkshire puddings, the smell of her Consulate menthol fags, whenever I bumped my head that great semi-whistle/groan noise she made as she went, ‘Mind!’

  Tuesday 12.12.89

  3.15 p.m.

  MUM SAID . . . IT WENT OK. She was OK. It was nice. What can you say? She’s gone.

  10.55 p.m.

  I just had to write – it’s my 18th birthday tomorrow. I suppose now I can reflect on my so-called childhood.

  My childhood was strange. And my teenage years . . . ? Well, they weren’t catastrophic – there were good times and bad times. It was often . . . Well, it seemed completely marred by certain events that I don’t really want to write about here. I think I am happy – but what is happy? Having laughs is easy. Spiritual peace is far more difficult . . . and I am still HUGE.

  I still struggle with my head. Not as bad as a year ago, but it is there. I think the worst things – I think I can control things. I still hit myself to punish myself for the thoughts I have. I have irrational, horrible thoughts, and I shall never, ever understand why. But I am an optimist, and in the past year the change in what I can do is phenomenal. I mean, this time last year approaching my 17th birthday I had never been near a boy, never went out, was tortured ALL THE TIME with the bad thoughts, and NOW . . .

  NOW, I have been with a boy – however totally unsuccessful that was. I know loads of blokes, I go down the pub every weekend – all the time in the holidays. Only sometimes I am plagued with it all, and those times – oh, those times – I need a field and some paper and I am soon OK.

  A man would make me better. One man in particular, but I can’t get him over the counter at Boots.

  Wednesday 13.12.89 (my 18th birthday)

  11.30 p.m.

  CAN HARDLY WRITE.

  MY BIRTHDAY BRILLIANT.

  HAVE BRILLIANT MATES.

  THEY SO CLASSIC.

  Thursday 14.12.89

  11.40 p.m.

  EXTREMELY DRUNK LAST NIGHT AS you can tell by that entry. Stupid question of the year award goes to Mum, who asked when I stumbled in, ‘Have you had a drink, Rachel?’ Errr . . . IT WAS MY 18TH BIRTHDAY, WOMAN!!!

  Hangover from hell. Thrown up most of the day. Mum was her usual ‘full of the milk of human kindness’ self. I swear she did extra cooking today because the smell would make me boff more. I will never drink snakebite and black again – I’m telling you now I was gone. When they put ‘Pump Up the Jam’ on at Oliver’s I went mad. Me and Mort were pretending to pump it with a bike pump. It was funny at the time.

  It was brilliant last night, but I have to say the most amazing thing was A PRESENT FROM HADDOCK. I didn’t expect it but he turned up with a compilation album called ‘Lovin’ Seventies’ and all round and round the inner sleeve he has written a message:

  Dear Rae,

  Not your sort of music, you Funky Chick. Dig the Abba and all will be well. Sound bit of ripped jeans the other night and thanks for the receipts (about the most interesting thing you have ever given me). Anyway I could keep on writing until I get to the middle but I won’t. Hope you like the record and note that the sleeve is an early version of a Reading Rock Festival. Just think, in about 20 years when a daughter or son of yours buys an 80s record there will be me in my Dead Kennedys T-shirt and khaki shorts knocking back a beer with Fig on the front cover. Better go now. My girlfriend needs a seeing-to. Love Haddock.

  The record is shit. It has got ‘Rose Garden’ and ‘Seasons in the Sun’ on it, but it is the best present ever.

  His girlfriend got a better present, though. A seeing-to.

  Friday 15.12.89

  4.35 p.m.

  WALKED INTO TOWN. COUPLES. WALKED to get Smash Hits from the Green Lane shops. Couples. Even in Queen Eleanor playground bloody kids in couples. And what I don’t understand is – lots of them aren’t even attractive. Lots of them aren’t pretty or thin or special or with a great personality, and yet they’ve got someone.

  I wish I was Rapunzel

  Letting down her hair

  But at the bottom of my tower

  There’s nobody stood there.

  No prince to carry me off to the sunset . . .

  The reason why of cou
rse,

  I don’t look like his princess,

  I look like his horse.

  Saturday 16.12.89

  23.59 p.m. (so says the video)

  IFEEL LIKE A MASSIVE ENTRY.

  I seem consumed with worry about everything at the moment. I hate the impression people get about me. Dobber told me last night that she hated me at first. Now LOADS of people say that. She thought I was just a really loud twat. Now we really get on. I am such a gob – I do people’s heads in. No one would be able to believe what I was like on the quiet. Oversensitive – I laugh everything off but inside I just remember it all and go over and over and over it.

  Battered Sausage is being a bastard at the mo, and his new girlfriend is a tart. Actually that’s a bit strong – she is actually really nice. But I hate him and I hate her. Love and hate do run an extremely fine line. What the hell do I feel for Battered Sausage? I can’t get my head round it.

  Fig came back and he was a bit of a jibber to be fair. Haddock and girlfriend broke up and then were back together in five minutes as predicted correctly again by Dobber. I hardly saw him all night but I can’t make it obvious. I have to pretend I am just his friend. Good old ‘one of the lads’ Rae.

  Didn’t even get a wink.

  Ryan the RAF party groper winked at me on the way out and stuck his tongue out. But knowing him it might just be a nervous tic.

  Sunday 17.12.89

  11.47 p.m. (excuse the handwriting – a bit drunk)

  WHAT I HAVE DONE BEGGARS belief. I am just a two-faced cow – you will hate me.

  Tonight I got a bit tipsy in the Vaults. Was sat with Haddock’s girlfriend and she asked me if there was anyone I fancied and I said, ‘Yes’! Then I talked about him for ages . . . but didn’t mention a name or say who it was! Then she said, ‘If you think this much of him, why don’t you tell him?’! I felt like saying, ‘How can I? He’s YOUR on-off boyfriend!!!’

  Haddock then came in with the 12-inch of a song he thinks is brilliant. It’s called ‘Getting Away With It’ by Electronic. He has let me borrow it. He added that he ‘doesn’t like lending stuff out but I know you will look after it, Rae’. (GOD, I WILL!!!) He then said, ‘Give it back to me when we go out on Thursday.’ I am a sad cow but it almost sounds like a date! I know it’s not but . . . you know.