A Fucked Up Life in Books

by AnonYMous

  So one day after I’d got home from work and it was warm and sunny outside I sat and tried to roll a joint to accompany Sandman. I’d done it loads of times before, but for some reason this day my hands weren’t working and I kept spilling tobacco and ripping the papers and making a complete twat of it every time I tried. So I went upstairs and asked my brother to help. I left him my hash and tobacco and papers and he rolled me a small and neat little joint. Then I went downstairs, shouted goodbye to my Dad, I’d be back later, I was going to the lake, and off I went.

  The walk takes about forty minutes, and I never rushed it. Once I got there I unfolded my tiny little blanket that I’d bought from the pound shop and sat on the little bit of sunny space in the middle of the trees. I flipped open A Game of You and put my hand in my pocket to retrieve the joint.

  Except it wasn’t there.

  That was a bit annoying, but not the end of the world. I was a bit pissed off that I’d managed to lose it along the way and wondered where I’d dropped it. Oh well. It was fine like this. I’d stay and read and not get stoned for A Game of You. You don’t need to, anyway.

  After an hour or so when it wasn’t so warm anymore, I got up, folded my Poundland blanket up, popped my comic under my arm and headed home.

  I arrived home and shouted to Dad that I was back. He didn’t respond. I went and sat on the bench in the garden and after a few minutes Dad appeared, clocked me, said ‘Hello, Flower,’ (yes, my Dad calls me Flower) and wandered up the garden to the greenhouse.

  Then my brother came downstairs.

  ‘You’re fucking lucky that I don’t think you’re a cunt,’ he said.

  I looked at him.

  ‘Stoned?’ he asked.

  I shook my head. ‘I think I dropped it somewhere. When I got to the trees it had gone. Bit annoying.’

  My brother nodded his head. ‘You didn’t drop it. You left it on the kitchen table. Dad found it.’

  Fuck.

  ‘Fuck. Did he think it was yours?’

  ‘Of course he thought it was mine. He came upstairs to bollock me about it.’

  ‘Shit. What did you say?’

  My brother peered up the garden. Dad was still in the greenhouse, looking pretty intently at the tomato plants. Nothing unusual there. He fucking loved the greenhouse; the tomato plants especially, but also the chillies and artichokes and various herbs he had potted on the tables and on the stone floors underneath.

  ‘He came upstairs and asked if I’d left a cigarette on the table. I knew you, you fucking idiot, must’ve left your joint on the table on the way out. I told him it was mine and then he kind of laughed at me. Said that he knew it wasn’t just a cigarette, and did I think he was stupid.’

  ‘Oh fuck.’

  ‘Yeah, fuck. And when I said it was just a cigarette he said to me, “It was not just a cigarette, and the reason I know that it was not just a cigarette is because I smoked it.”’

  We both looked down at the greenhouse again. Dad was still looking at the tomato plants, and now we could see quite clearly that he was stoned off his tits.

  That evening was great. Dad got really hungry and cooked us all a feast and we watched Indiana Jones.

  My Dad never bollocked me or my brother for smoking, in fact, now I think about it. He never really told us not to do anything.

  There’s not really a point to this story. I’m just thinking about my Dad and wishing for a day like that again.

  The Princess Bride

  In my second year of university I got glandular fever.

  It started with me going to bed at 6pm because I felt a bit tired, and by 3am I was the most poorly I’ve ever been in my life. I could not deal with this shit, and I didn’t know at the time that it was glandular fever and thought that I was actually dying, and so I went to the train station at half 5 in the morning and got the first train home.

  The train home, for a start, was fucking horrible. There were three drunk boys, obviously on their way home after a night out who were well horny. They would not shut up or leave me alone until I told them that I was quite heavily diseased, possibly dying, at which point they all moved carriage and left me to die in peace.

  After two days at home and not feeling any better, I decided to make a doctor’s appointment and see what the old bastard who’d been dealing with me for all of my life so far had to say about why I was ill.

  I went in and told him what was wrong with me. Up until this point in my life, all of my visits to the doctor had been with either my Mum or my Dad, and so I was not used to being in a room alone with a doctor, and trying to tell them what hurt.

  But I did try. I told him that my throat hurt, my head hurt, my stomach hurt, I felt like I was going to die, and I can’t sleep because my throat felt like it was trying to close up and murder me.

  He was one of those cunts who hears but doesn’t listen. The first thing he did after I’d described all my woes was to ask how my Mum was doing. I don’t know, I told him, she’s a twat. He did a little cough. He did not look in my mouth or touch the Satsuma-sized glands in my neck, but instead told me that I had a throat infection, prescribed me antibiotics and sent me on my way, telling me to drink lots of fruit juice because it would make me ‘feel better’.

  At home and on doctor’s orders, Dad fetched me plenty of juice and ran around after me while in between sleeping and whining I was reading The Princess Bride, telling Dad how it was different from the film. I took my antibiotics for three days before my hands started to feel very peculiar. On day four the skin started to peel from the palms of my hands and soles of my feet.

  I don’t know if anything similar has ever happened to you, but it is very fucking unnerving to be reading a book and having bits of your own hand peel off and stick to the pages. I went back to the doctor. A different one this time who looked in my mouth and felt my glands and gasped when I told him what I’d been prescribed. It was only then that I was told it was probably glandular fever, throw the fruit juice and antibiotics away and go and have a blood test.

  I had my blood test and stayed at home and missed a lot of uni. The skin started to heal on my hands and feet and after a while I stopped making plans to murder the GP who had nearly killed me.

  He still works at the practice though, a big fat cunt who wears tweed and goes hunting, he’s a fucking delight. If you’re from where I’m from you’ll probably know him, so if you get the chance, do pop in and tell him he’s an arsehole from me. Ta.

  Howards End

  ‘Howards End is the involved story of two sisters and a house and the family which occupies it. But hints about the plot do little justice to the subtle art with which the narrative is developed or to the delicate pattern of its composition. This is not one of those novels which can be taken to pieces or put together, as if it were made of neat prefabricated units of experience. In the tangle of unpredictable and contradictory circumstances which beset the characters of Howards End there emerges a convincing portrayal of the complexity of human affairs. Margaret and Helen Schlegel, so different in character, are women of intense individuality: Forster’s analysis of the values and impulses which animate them make this book an absorbing scrutiny of motive and behaviour.

  Thought E.M. Forster only wrote five novels, here and in A Passage to India he created what are widely held to be masterpieces.

  The cover shows a detail from ‘Interior’ by Edward Le Bas, by courtesy of the Trustees of the Tate Gallery, London (photo Rodney Todd-White)

  For copyright reasons this edition is not for sale in the U.S.A.’

  The above is the the only piece of text that I have ever read whilst someone is having sex with me.

  I was seeing a boy for a period of time whilst at university. He came to visit and I’m not sure exactly how we got there, but we ended up having sex with my head within reading distance of the book I had thrown on the floor, which happened to be Howards End.

  Now, I did not try to read the book. It was just there. As the se
x was going on for some time longer than usual I was beginning to get a bit bored. I was used to 30 seconds at the best with this boy. Maybe it was my head turned to the side, clearly engrossed in the blurb of this book that helped him carry on for those all-important extra few seconds.

  Needless to say, this boy wasn’t particularly special or important to me. I told my friends and couldn’t play a game of ‘I have never’ without one of them announcing on their turn: ‘I have NEVER read ANY PART of a BOOK whilst having sex.’ And I would duly finish my wine.

  If you find yourself on your back, your vagina full(ish) of penis and you’re looking for something to do – not necessarily to distract you, just to fucking excite you for a few seconds – I would highly recommend having a book nearby, and afterwards sacking off whoever has just penetrated you and settling down with the book instead.

  Stone of Tears

  The last house that I lived in while I was studying at university had four floors. The kitchen was in the basement, and when I had a day free I would go downstairs, make a huge pot of coffee, sit at the table and chairs that we had down there and read my book.

  I liked sitting in the kitchen. It was less lonely that locking myself in my room, and I did not have to go far to make some toast, or refill my coffee. I could also smoke down there, in a little nook by the window, which is where I liked to sit.

  After finishing the last few pages of Wizard’s First Rule, I quickly moved on to the next book in the series, Stone of Tears. I loved being downstairs in the kitchen, about to begin reading a huge book, knowing that all I had to do all day was read. It was fucking glorious.

  I lived with three other people. They were all pretty used to finding me sat in the kitchen reading and drinking coffee. Once or twice, one of the boys would join me. He’d sit reading comics and I’d sit reading fantasy epics.

  On this day, though, everyone had already left the house before I’d got to the kitchen.

  I must’ve sat there for about four hours reading, interrupted only by a couple of piss-breaks when I heard the front door go and someone stomping into the lounge above my head. I could hear the voices of the girl that I lived with and her boyfriend. The door down to the kitchen was propped open, and so I could hear the conversation that was happening.

  Her: ‘I’m sick of her, I’m so fucking sick of her. I can’t believe you kissed her.’

  Him: ‘That was a long time ago, I don’t fancy her.’

  Now, I’d got off with this lad about a year before he started seeing this girl. Were they talking about me?

  Her: ‘You do fancy her, I can tell. I can tell you want to fuck her, I’m not stupid. I’M NOT FUCKING STUPID. I see you looking at her. What the fuck do you like about her anyway? Her tits? HER FUCKING TITS? I’m sick of it. Fuck her if you want. Go on, go and fuck her. She’s probably up there now reading some fucking shit about fucking dragons or dinosaurs or WHATEVER THE FUCK IT IS THAT SHE FUCKING READS.’

  Yep, they were talking about me.

  Him: ‘I don’t fancy her. I kissed her once.’

  Her: ‘You did fancy her though, didn’t you?’

  Him: ‘…’

  Her: ‘I fucking knew it! I FUCKING KNEW IT. I FUCKING HATE HER AND I FUCKING HATE YOU. Go and fuck her, GO ON. I DON’T CARE ANYMORE. I. DON’T. CARE’.

  Jesus Christ, this was all a bit much. Should I go upstairs? If I made a noise where I was they would both hear me and know I’d heard their whole conversation. If I was quiet then maybe they’d go away and I could ever-so-quietly sneak up to my bedroom and lock myself in there. The problem was that I’d just finished my third cup of coffee and I needed to piss desperately. I would just have to sit still for a while and see what happens.

  Her: ‘I feel like I’m always having to compete with her. Everyone likes her better, I’m new to the group. I don’t know what they see in her, they’re all like ‘oh, she’s SO funny!’ but I don’t see it. She’s not funny, she’s not even fucking interesting. How could anyone be fucking interested in her?’

  Fucking bitch!

  Him: She’s a nice girl.

  Her: She’s not a nice girl, she’s a cunt!

  I’ll let her have that one.

  Him: She’s alright, I don’t want her though, I want you.

  Her: *inaudible mumbling*

  Him: *inaudible mumbling*

  Were they going to fuck? I hoped not, I didn’t need to hear that.

  I needed a piss very badly now. I had to get out of there. I looked at the empty Coke bottles by the bin. Could I very quietly piss in one of those? Probably not.

  I’d have to go out of the window. The window led into a kind of concrete hole thing that if I clambered out of I could then run round to the front of the house, let myself in and run upstairs to piss and then hide. Perfect.

  Trying to climb out of a tiny window without pissing yourself and without making a sound is no easy feat, but being an absolute fucking legend, I managed it pretty painlessly.

  I ran round to the front of the house. Guess what I didn’t have? Keys.

  I rang the bell.

  The girl answered the door.

  ‘Helllooooo,’ I cooed as I dashed past her. I was going to fucking piss myself.

  Her: ‘Why aren’t you wearing any shoes?’

  Me: ‘Byeeeeeee.’

  I didn’t go downstairs again that day. Later in the day the girl’s boyfriend knocked on my door and handed me Stone of Tears.

  ‘You forgot this.’

  Wild Swans

  If there is one day of the year that fills me with dread, it is Mother’s Day. I don’t speak to my Mum, so Mother’s Day is not such a big deal for me. While friends are organising a nice dinner, searching for the perfect greetings card and buying flowers and cake, I usually just toy with whether or not to send my Mum a card as a part of ‘damage control’ plan, or whether to just leave it and see what happens. Sometimes she says nothing. Sometimes she is, frankly, a nasty and manipulative cunt.

  I spent quite a few years looking after my Mum. Not because she was an invalid, but because she was an idiot. I don’t feel like I should do that anymore, and so I don’t.

  But I used to go to her house, look through the cupboards, make a list and go shopping, tidy up, clean the kitchen and hoover everywhere, take the many empty wine bottles to the recycling bins, and let her get on with drinking, or working, or seeing her friends.

  I never lived with her after she left. One day I walked round to her house, as usual. I got my key out and opened the door and shouted for her. A woman that I’d never seen before came out of the living room and introduced herself to me. Halfway through her introduction my Mum came stumbling into the hallway after her, telling me that this was her friend. Her best friend.

  ‘How long have you known each other?’ I asked.

  ‘A week,' they answered.

  The offered me some wine. I declined. They offered me a cigarette. I declined. They both went back into the living room and sat down on the one sofa that my Mum has in her house. I went into the kitchen to unpack the shopping I’d brought round and to start making Mum (and now her friend, too) some lunch. If I didn’t go round and put food on a table in front of her she’d just forget to eat.

  As I was preparing lunch, I could hear their conversation.

  Mum’s friend: ‘I fucking hate him, I hate him so much. How dare he say I have a problem?’

  Mum: ‘If he comes round here I’ll tell him where to go.’

  Friend: ‘I know you will, I know you will. I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t picked me up. That cell they had me in was horrible. Have you been in one? Horrible.’

  I stopped what I was doing and went into the other room. Through clouds of smoke they were both sat there. I asked the Friend again who she was, and why she was there. My Mum answered,

  ‘Her fucking husband beat her up. The fucking prick. And then he rang the police and they chucked her in a cell and I had to go and fetch her. The fucking cunt
s.’

  I went back into the kitchen, brought food through and put it in front of them both. They ate it. I went upstairs and began to read a book, a book that Mum had bought me a couple of years back, Wild Swans. She was drunk when she gave me it and muttered some guff about family and women and love and a lot of other things that I have, over the years, learned to almost completely block my brain from taking in as the words fall from her mouth.

  So I sat upstairs reading, waiting until I had to do something else which would probably be either help Mum to bed because she’d drank too much, or kick this woman out. I assumed it would be the latter.

  I must’ve been up there about half an hour there was a knock at the door. As soon as the knock sounded both Mum and her Friend started screaming to me: ‘Did you lock the door, did you lock the FUCKING DOOR?’

  I went downstairs. Of course I’d locked the door. Mum had this habit of wandering off, so I’d always lock her in when I was there. I turned to see that they had shut the door through to the living room and were now waiting, silently. I opened the door. A rather large man was stood there.

  Man: ‘Is ___ here?’

  Me: ‘Are you ___?’

  Man: ‘Yes’

  Me: ‘I’m ___, ___’s daughter. ___ is here, but I’m not letting you in because this is my Mum’s house, so you’ll have to leave.’

  The man looked sad. He didn’t argue with me, he didn’t try to push past me. He just said, ‘I didn’t hit her.’

  I closed and locked the door. As soon as they heard me put the chain on they both sprang from the living room.

  ‘That fucking prick, I can’t believe he came here, what the fuck am I doing to do? How does he know where I am?’

  I took them both into the living room, and told them to be quiet. Did they want me to call the police? No, we don’t want you to call the police. Then stay here, I told them. I won’t let him in.

  I sat downstairs with them then. The continued to drink, and suddenly, Mum’s friend turned to Mum and said: