Dear Fatty

by Dawn French

  We raced away from there so fast. Halfway back up the hill towards school we finally stopped running and sat on a wall to catch our breath. ‘Where did you hide them?!’ I puffed. ‘I didn’t nick any tights, I thought you had …!’ It was only then we realised what had happened. A sleazy git had just groped us in the stairwell of the Co-op. He had expertly taken advantage of our obvious fear and lured us into a vulnerable situation where we were willing to let him fiddle with us, to let him put his filthy mitts all over us under the pretence of an official frisk. We were wholly complicit! Well, no, actually, not wholly because of course we were not aware of the intent. It was so easy for him. How many times did he do it to others? Did he ever do anything worse? I hadn’t properly remembered the incident until I came to write this letter to you, and was thinking about the uniform and the unwanted attention it attracted, so I don’t think I could ever claim that it scarred me in any deep way. Sadly, it has melted into my memory as just another one of those difficult and unpleasant moments that young women experience all the time with dirty old men. How many times did we turn round on a tube or train and see some sad old git’s cock dangling out of his smelly old trousers? Admittedly this horrid man had gone a lot further and as the mothers of girls we would now reflect upon it with horror, imagining what could have happened. Instead, luckily, I was shaken but unhurt and I learned a big lesson about how crafty and manipulative predatory men can be. What strikes me as one of the worst aspects of the whole sorry episode was the fact that my friend and I kept this story to ourselves. We felt stupid and embarrassed and, most of all, we were so afraid because we were breaking a school rule! The priorities of a 13-year-old are admittedly difficult to fathom, but the fact is that school was our whole world and the fear of the consequences of breaking school rules was far greater than our concerns for our safety.

  Have you and I taught our beloved daughters enough to keep them safe? While we pray they never have to face anything too scary, surely we also know they can learn to navigate their way through life by occasionally butting up against something a bit frightening and realising they can indeed cope with it. I don’t savour the idea that they will no doubt witness a few unsightly limp willies on the tube, but perhaps those awkward and startling moments will strengthen their resolve to judge a dud and reject any unwanted attention in the future. Perhaps they will more readily tell those rude and uncouth codgers to cock right off. I wish I had.

  Dear Madonna (the Madonna, the Yankee singer, not any old Madonna from religious history like The DaVinci Code),

  I IS WRITIN’ to you for enquirin’ about the procurement of the tiny brown baby. I seed you on the teleovision box sittin’ all important next to a candlestick with flouncy drapin’ all behind you like in a Meat Loaf video, explainin’ to the news that you is wantin’ everybody to be doin’ the bringin’ home from dark incontinence, many of the tiny babies that is not got family due to disease and fightin’ and no money. They certainly did get bad cards to play life with, didn’t they? Some of them doesn’t get to live at all because celebrities from England and Yankees is snappin’ their fingers every three seconds which means one of them has to die each time. That don’t seem much fair, do it?

  You is obviously done a kind thing. There’s no miss doubt-pants about that. ’Cept I is scared for you somehow. Will the baby grow up wonderin’ what the cock is gone on? Will he be doin’ confusion about why he is the only one what looks like him? Maybe it would help if some Africas could be allowed to show him oils for skin and hair care or is you in charge of that with many a top stylist/dancer advisin’ it? Will he be permitted the tastin’ of big mutton stews with flour and fat in with maize and cornflour nan breads on the side? Or is you wantin’ only for him to be fed the macrobiotics with raws and no pop to drink whatsoever thank you? Will he be listenin’ of the harmonionial voices with clever clickin’ and ululation-type singin’ from deep place inside with the beatin’ of drums and stampin’ of feet in rhythm of heartbeats and warm winds in strings of guitars what is made at home? Or will he be havin’ to dance to electro disco rock pop videos of yourself with tight ladymen jumpin’ all around you, doin’ the adorin’ and touchin’ of you in private places for voguin’ purposes? Will he be doin’ the talkin’ in the home-heard Chichewa words or will he be speakin’ in American soundin’ like English like you is, or posh soundin’ cockernee like the gangster-type husband who is huntin’ and shootin’ in tweed strides at the weekend on a big peasant and pheasant estate, but durin’ the week is neckin’ pints of Irish foam and wearin’ usual jeans and pumps, mate, with flat cap on the side jaunty angle?

  Is you mainly thinkin’ it don’t matter as long as he is gettin’ to stay alive, and have school and bikes and maids and hold hands with his new friendly pink family? Yes, you might be right about that, but sista, just watch out for when the baby does growin’ and finds it all out. He might do some confusion about what all’s been done. He might not warm to the rainbow family idea of many roots to put in a cultural stewpot for the equal lovin’ of all, coat of many colours, side by side on my piano keyboard oh lord why can’t we? Watch out then for some shoutin’ and stompin’ and explainin’ to do. But then again, he might not. He might just love it and say thanks Mum, with a big sloppy smacker. Have a make-up on hand to touch you up again if so …

  That’s all, so you can go about your busyness now, probably gettin’ the bingo wings made to go away with pumpin’ so you can instead have the toned sculpturalness we, the hungry magazine readers, have come to expect. Or p’raps you is upside down with yoga, gettin’ bendy so you can kiss your own arsebum with ease? Hope so.

  Take care, lotsa care.

  Dear Nigel,

  MAY I JUST say what a delight it has been to be your number-one fag hag all these years. May I also say that you deserve major regalia-type bling for the remarkably long and loyal service you have put in as BBF (Best Boy Friend). You ought to have a medal. But perhaps you would prefer an ankle bracelet? Needless to say, it will involve Diamonique in ample measure.

  How I loved the teen-slouching around your kitchen table in Plympton with you and your twin bro Gareth, eating your mum’s Welsh cakes, and raging about the injustices of the school youth drama club and life in general. We didn’t take any action, of course, that wasn’t the point at all, we just wanted to moan and grumble long into the night. We had lots of dates, you and I. We went to the theatre and films and exhibitions and concerts, where we became unfeasibly harsh critics. We performed onstage together, we learned lines together, we wrote sketches together. Probably the first bit of comedy writing I ever did was with you. I think it was a pisstake of a Pinter play, with jokes galore about pauses and dot dot dots. But the most wonderful, inventive and thrilling part of it all was the letters. At least once or twice a week, do you remember? You wrote to me as many different characters, inviting responses from me in the character you had addressed your letter to. So, it was my mission to reply in kind, becoming one of these many people, inventing a whole life around them and a situation in which the two may be corresponding. Sometimes they were engaged in a torrid affair, or in the midst of a petty row, or a communication about a lost dog, or they might be gossiping about the news of their time. It might be present day, or Edwardian, or Elizabethan, or anything. The joy of these letters and my eagerness to reply filled many a long evening of boarding school life, and often entirely replaced prep. When I look back at it now, I probably gained more from writing those letters and using the skills they developed than I ever would have from the study of silt and sediment in riverbeds for Geography. I only ever wanted to make you laugh and I hungrily sought your approval. So, in a way, you were my first script editor.

  Obviously, admitting this does not commit me to any form of pecuniary reimbursement. You will have the ankle bracelet, and that’s that. We’re quits.

  May my suffocatingly enormous love for you smother you to certain death.

  Your devoted hag

  Dear BF,


  I HAVE ALWAYS enjoyed partnerships. It’s how I think and work best. A chum to bounce ideas around with, to have a career with and laugh your tits off with, like Jennifer. A chum to trust and to go into business with, someone who inspires and motivates you, like Helen Teague. A chum to dress up in bridesmaid gear with and share dreams of hairdos and bouquets, like Sarah. A chum to guide and listen, to share home truths and teenage wrangling tips with, to be continually delighted with their direct-from-heaven-via-nowhere-else talent, like Alla. A chum to gossip and chirrup with like Di Cracknell. I have needed every one of these important partnerships and I have greedily gorged on all of them, and felt grateful to know and care for these wonderful women. And to be cared for by them.

  You. You have so generously encouraged me to give myself to these remarkable relationships because you know the utter joy they have given me back. The bigness of your love is astounding. You are selfless. I don’t know how you are able to be the phenomenon you are. I don’t know anyone else like you and I never will, it’s too tall an order for any other human to emulate the beauty you have. If there is such a thing as reincarnation, I reckon you are the result of several astonishing souls merged together. If I had to put the ingredients together, I’d say you consist of varying degrees of the following (apologies to those still alive!):

  Bessie Smith for raunch and heart

  James Joyce for rich characterisation

  Spike Milligan for wit and splendid insanity

  Van Morrison for poetry

  Mother Teresa for patience and selfless love

  Lassie for alertness to danger

  Emily Pankhurst for righteous anger

  Anne Frank for bravery, dignity and hair grips

  Liberace for campness and bling

  Tinkerbell for fairy outfits and shoes

  Giacometti for surprise and elusiveness

  Howard Hughes for fiercely private

  Hercules for tenacity and stamina

  Mary Magdalene for sauciness and forgiveness in equal measure

  Tiny Tim for fun and silly singing in a high voice

  Garbo for style and class

  Dusty Springfield for song and soul

  Edith Piaf for heartache

  Marilyn Monroe for ditz

  St Joan for dedication and commitment

  Cher for chutzpah

  Joyce Grenfell for pure funny

  Archangel Gabriel for heavenliness

  Jung for philosophy and method

  Mike Yarwood for mimicry

  Confucius for wisdom

  Marianne Faithfull for hair and make-up

  Lilith for earthy rootyness

  Your mum and dad for everything else

  Meeting you at college was my saving grace. I arrived late for the start of term, and I didn’t really fit in. The groups had forged themselves and I was a sort of lost puppy bounding hopefully between them, looking for a way in. My dad had committed suicide a matter of weeks before and I was dripping with sadness. But of course grief is invisible and suicide is tricky to introduce as an ice-breaker, so I kept it to myself until I knew and trusted people more. You have an extrasensory superpower, and it wasn’t long before you sniffed me out as the walking wounded, which was remarkable considering you weren’t even in my year. Central School of Screech and Trauma was run under a regime of separation. The actors didn’t speak to the lowly teachers (who were, in their opinion, people who had failed to make it onto the acting course), the speech therapists were distinctly aloof, so only those on the stage-management course were friendly with everyone else, and that’s because they were too knackered to put up any resistance. On reflection, I can’t understand why the staff allowed or even encouraged these damaging segregations. Except, of course, that they themselves were divided. Anyway, it was unusual to mix with folk from other years and you were someone who refused to be limited by that. I remember very early on, you required of me a proper, formal commitment to this new friendship. I think you must have been subconsciously searching for a ‘bestie’ forever, and when we set our sights on each other there was, frankly, no other avenue open except total devotion. I knew instantly that I would know and cherish you till my dying breath, or yours. I would truly lay my life down for you, give you my kidneys, my eyes, my teeth, my tits, whatever you ask for. That’s the key though, isn’t it? You never do ask, for anything really, which is why I belong to you. Our friendship is a labour of love, a pledge to keep watch over each other and to stay constant. It is a quiet arrangement. Deep calling to deep. I will never leave my post, I will remain vigilant, I will not falter, I will always forgive. These are our unspoken vows and I respect them. The massive anchoring stability of my love for you, and vice versa, means that I can float about quite carefree in the surety of it all. You know any secrets I have, you know my fears, my demons and my delights, and I yours. I feel honoured to have obligations to you. You make a mirror for me in which I used to seek out my shortcomings, but with your ceaseless support I have learned to recognise my strengths. What a very grown-up thing to do.

  Being grown up isn’t exactly a mainstay of our partnership though, is it?

  Do you remember when Billie was about to arrive? We only had a week or so’s notice and I had to somehow get every bit of baby kit together in one day, without rousing any suspicion. It was essential that her arrival was calm and unannounced by the press. We wanted her to come home without any fuss and to nest in with her away from any noisy publicity. It was the most important thing we had ever done and we were very serious and protective. Fatty swung into action, like a superhero, helping me to suddenly walk out on a French and Saunders series that was in production by taking over the crew, the studios, the whole obligation and plonking her new sitcom idea Absolutely Fabulous right down on it instead. It fitted well. She has since said that she needed that kick up the bum to force her to develop the idea we had written together in a single sketch on our show a year or so before. She was thrown in at the deep end and swam easily along with her brilliant new project to buoy her up.

  On the day in question, Len and your chap Barrie remained at home putting up shelves and trying to navigate their way around the construction of a cot. Potentially disastrous. We drove the 40-odd miles into London and parked behind Mothercare in Hammersmith. Your mission, which you boldly chose to accept, was to pose as the heavily pregnant first-time mother, and I was there as your mate, helping you to select all your baby kit. I nearly peed with glee when you shoved our sofa cushion up your front and rearranged it under your top to look convincing. We went into the store and you were immediately offered seating and a glass of water, which you graciously accepted. You stumbled about a bit when a young assistant asked ‘how far on’ you were and when the ‘little one’ was due. You had to do some quick mental maths – never your strong point. With my hasty calculations you were confidently informing her the baby was going to be eleven months in gestation …

  Our elaborate system of coded winks and blinks and coughs meant that you could be seen to be choosing everything you wanted for your baby, whereas in reality I was making every choice. The downside of you being up the duff was that I had to load up the car while you looked on smugly from the comfort of your chair in the shop, nursing your ‘swollen’ ankles. With the car now full of baby stuffing we went home, where you gave birth to your baby cushion in a hilarious display of torturous labour. That cushion slept in that cot until that real bundle turned up. You were a great decoy.