by Rae Earl
I’m going down the pub. This country is a mess.
Sunday 23.9.90
11.37 p.m.
Haddock said to me tonight, out of the blue, ‘I’ll come to see you in the week.’
So I said ‘OK.’
Oh don’t get your hopes up. It will be about me giving him something back that I’ve borrowed and forgotten about. What I want it to be is ‘Let’s not go to university, let’s travel the world. Every time you have a panic attack I’ll give you a paper bag and you can blow into it and then we will do it in every continent, even Antarctica, totally naked except for furs.’
But it will be about a jacket or something because that’s my life. Jackets. Potatoes. Medicines. Panic attacks. Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers still making records that Mum plays full blast. ‘Can Can you party?’ In a word – No.
Monday 24.9.90
12.16 a.m.
If I wasn’t so totally knackered I could write mountains and acres.
Why do I think such bloody horrible things?! If I told people what was going on in my head I would be locked up forever. I want to be at peace not in a constant state of worry.
So bloody worried about uni. What if I hate it? What if they hate me? What if I can’t do the work? I can’t stay here but I don’t feel I can go anywhere else.
Haddock told me last night he doesn’t want to come out in Stamford again. He says he hates it. It’s ‘full of bad memories.’ It is for me too but it’s full of classic ones too. Doesn’t he remember the great nights? There were lots of them.
I’m already talking about it all in the past tense.
It feels like it’s gone already.
Tuesday 25.9.90
4.32 p.m.
Now I know what Donna Summer meant in ‘MacArthur Park’. I always thought she was talking bollocks but now I know what she was trying to say. The recipe she had was the special time, the mix of people and you can’t get that back. That’s what I’ve had and now it’ll only be there in holidays if it’s there at all. It’s gone. Bloody hell it’s all gone.
Mess. Mess. Mess.
Wednesday 26.9.90
7.34 p.m.
Haddock came round.
He didn’t say ‘Let’s go travelling and do it in every continent known to man’ but he did say ‘Here’s a good luck card and a crap present. It’s all I could carry on my moped. See you Saturday.’
Then he went round to see his girlfriend.
The card says ‘Dear Funky Chick. Have a good time. You will. Make sure this stays blue. Love Haddock X’
The present was a mood ring. It apparently changes colour with your mood. Blue means calm and relaxed.
I love him. I’m sick of writing it. You’re sick of hearing it diary but he could just – but he’s going. He’s going.
Thursday 27.9.90
6.37 p.m.
Mum said to me ‘Have you started packing for Essex yet?’
I told her yes. The truth is I’ve got 5 tins of beans, a box of sugar lumps, a pink dinosaur teapot and a mood ring.
Friday 28.9.90
9.24 p.m.
Today’s big revelation. Dad is taking me to Essex because a) he knows where he is going b) It’s near Ipswich where he lives. c) I can fit everything in the back of his Opel Manta d) According to my mum ‘it’s about time he did bloody something.’
Well it’ll be nice to see him for the first time in yonks – even if he is taking me to doom.
Saturday 29.9.90
12.16 a.m.
The end of an era.
Sunday 30.9.90
2.10 a.m.
This really is the end.
I am dreading tomorrow. Will I get that awful thing when I feel that blind panic for home and I start to feel ill? I want to be all right. I’ll fight this thing. It’s not part of me. I’ve got to purge it out.
That was the last Saturday night. Haddock just gave me a hug, winked and went. And that was it. He’s gone. Too late now. I’ve let the person who seemed to understand me the most run off without telling him a bloody thing.
7.10 p.m.
Well I’m here at the University of Essex. I’m on the tenth floor of Keynes Tower. My TV doesn’t work and my room is a bit bare and made of breeze blocks. My window only opens a little way. I’m thinking that’s to stop me jumping out of it.
Oh fuck off Rae – it’s a university not a psychiatric ward.
The courses don’t start till next week so this is totally for what they call Fresher’s Week. Going to go down and watch the film they are putting on for us. It’s in Spanish – Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. I think someone is trying to tell me something.
11.23 p.m.
Film was brilliant and I’ve met some lovely people from Tawney Tower! Aggi and Sarah. Told Sarah I had panic attacks and she said I could kip in her room on the floor on the first night which was dead sweet of her. There doesn’t seem to be anyone on my floor of my tower yet except for mature students.
Monday 1.10.90
5.45 p.m.
I spent most of the day with the Tawney Tower lot. I kept talking about Stamford a lot till one of them said ‘You go on about your mates all the time. I’m sure they’re nice guys and that but shouldn’t you talk about something else?’ They’ve got a fair point but I feel that . . . I don’t feel well. I’ve had about 2 sugar lumps since I’ve been here. I can’t eat. I dread going back to my room. It’s then it all hits me. The fuck up. The massive fuck up.
9.35 p.m.
Told Aggi how I felt and she is letting me sleep in her room. We are watching Killer Clowns From Outer Space on video which is horrible but I don’t want to be on my own. There was a ‘Library Orientation’ today. I don’t like lifts anyway but these don’t stop apparently. You have to jump out at just the right point. It’s wrong. It all feels wrong. This place feels wrong. Tower blocks. Concrete ponds. Confused ducks. American Studies?! Why am I doing American Studies?! It involves a year in America?! I’m struggling in Colchester. I can’t go anywhere. But I can’t go home. That’s finished. This is finished. Finished. Fucked. I don’t know where to go.
Tuesday 2.10.90
8.12 p.m.
Aggi and Sarah told me today that I can’t keep sleeping in their rooms and I really had to go back to mine. They are right. Plus Sarah has already pulled. She shouldn’t be giving me hot orange squash and managing my hyperventilating when she should be shagging. So I did go back. I met a bloke called Dave-O who was reading a book about Sodom and Gomorrah for fun. We chatted for about half an hour ABOUT HIM and then he said ‘this is quite a boring floor isn’t it.’ Yes Dave-O it is. Asking questions about other people might help you.
This isn’t right. It’s not just me being weak and mad. I’m not meant to be here. It’s all wrong. I can’t go home though. Mum will kill me. Actually that might solve a problem. No – she wouldn’t stop me coming home but . . . oh I would let so many people down. I’m the first girl in a million generations to go to university. My great grandmother was in service scrubbing floors even though she was clever as hell, Mum had to gut fish rather than do exams. My grandmother was a bit thick but that’s not the point. I’m messing up the opportunities they all wanted. Well let them have them because I can’t cope with them. I want to go home. I want to be at home.
I realise most of them can’t have the opportunities because they are dead. Mum could though! Let her come to university if she wants it so much. There’s even younger men here for her to go out with!
That was nasty. I feel mad.
Wednesday 3.10.90
5.24 p.m.
My head got so bad today. I took 4 Co-codamol. I fainted by the student union laundrette. I ended up in the university clinic. I told the doctor what I’d taken. They didn’t need to pump my stomach. 4 tablets is a piss poor amount of pills, I know, especially spaced out over 3 hours. I just didn’t want to be conscious for a time. I don’t want to be dead. I just don’t want to be here. They let me lie down on one of their stre
tcher-beds for ages to think but thinking just went in circles and ripples and spirals and words. Bloody words that mean nothing. Explain nothing. I’m watered down to the same old crap. I can’t cope. I have to go home till I can.
They’ve all been lovely but you can see in their eyes –
‘weirdo’. I have to go and speak to one of the student counsellors.
I’m leaving. I’m going to ring Mort tonight and tell her.
9.06 p.m.
Mort got it. Mort always gets it. It’s not right. I know. She knows it. I’ve now just got to tell my mum.
Thursday 4.10.90
2.10 p.m.
I’ve just been to see the student counsellor. She was really kind. She asked me to give her some background on my life and my family. I told her my mum had just divorced a gay Latin teacher, then married a Moroccan bodybuilder and had him tattooed on her bum. My dad was a big drinker and he’d never been that bothered and I had always suffered with anxiety. I also told her about the time I was molested by a weirdo. I told her I thought I controlled nearly everything through my thoughts and that I had a growth removed from my anus one month before my A levels.
There was more stuff I could have told her but we only had an hour.
She looked at me for ages and said she thought I would benefit from further counselling.
9.12 p.m.
I rang Mrs Armitage tonight and told her that I needed to speak to my mum. She went to get her and predictably she went mad. ‘I never thought you were a quitter Rachel. I’m telling your dad not to come and get you. You’ve got to stick it out. You’ve got to give it a chance.’ I’ve told her I’m not. I said ‘Look it’s like the song says “We want the same thing!” I do want to go to university – just not now.’ She just shouted ‘Rachel – you’re not coming home’ and put the phone down.
I have to make the decision tonight.
Friday 5.10.90
1.05 p.m.
Where do I start? I was frightened of coming here. Petrified. Still feeling pressure from myself and others – ‘You can’t have a year off’. So I got here and it’s WRONG. WRONG! WRONG! Not wrong will eventually be right wrong. I can tell the difference. I can’t go against what I want. I don’t want this. I don’t want university now. I can’t cope with it. I can’t convince my mother that reapplication is right. Perhaps use a Belinda Carlisle song to explain it was a bad move, I don’t know WHERE I can be happy but it’s not here. My mum says there are no jobs and this is the easy way out and I’m a quitter BUT NO. SHE’S WRONG THIS TIME.
Thank GOD for Mort and her family. They get me more than my own family do.
I hate myself. I feel like crawling underneath a stone and shrivelling up. I keep fucking up. How many more times do I need to scrape myself off the floor.
I’m such a horrible, weak, evil cow and I hate myself. Despise myself.
I wish I was somebody else. Anybody else. Even bloody Timmy Mallett. Saddam Hussein. A member of Roxette! ANYONE!
Sometimes it feels like dying is the only way out of this mess. I’ve never felt so much despair. But I don’t want to die. I just don’t know how to live without messing up.
I’m leaving. The Mortimers are coming to get me tomorrow. Without them I’d be in a total mess.
Saturday 6.10.90
7.01 p.m.
Mort and her dad helped me pack. They thought it was a bloody depressing place too. As I was putting stuff in the back of the car one bloke said ‘Going already?’ I said ‘Yeah – not for me.’ He shouted ‘Not given it much of a chance have you?’ Er NO. No I haven’t but some of us just KNOW when things are wrong toss face so bugger off and let me get on with my own life. I’ve noticed that people with Inspiral Carpets T-shirts think they can say what they like. They can’t.
When I got home Mum was LIVID that I was there. She shouted at me for ages about how I had to get down the Jobcentre first thing in the morning. The thing is it will be SHUT as it’s a SUNDAY. Apparently I’ve also got to start paying for food and ‘board’ as that’s what REAL adults do. I’ve been buying my own salt and vinegar Hula Hoops for years and hiding them so ZERO CHANGE THERE WOMAN!
Sunday 7.10.90
9.23 a.m.
And now I’m not allowed to read the Sunday papers because they cost money too!
I completely missed all the news last week. Germany is now officially reunified and massive again. It’s probably a good thing that Nan is dead as she’d be currently preparing for another war. She never liked the Germans. To be fair they did try to kill her husband so she had a point. There is a time to move on though.
I can’t say that – I still feel bitter about loads of things. Bethany nicking everyone I ever fancied last year, Haddock not fancying me, Maria McKee getting to number one with drippy smooch crap about having an orgasm, Happy Mondays not getting to number one BUT Sonia getting to number one. SONIA!!!
My Haddock mood ring is permanently black. This means I’m constantly depressed or it’s broke. Both are right.
9.54 p.m.
I have to ring up school tomorrow to tell them I’ve dropped out and to make an appointment about reapplying. That means I have to go through the entire Essex saga YET AGAIN. I might get a T-shirt done – ‘Don’t like tower blocks. Didn’t want to go there in the first place. I’m nuts. NOW FUCK OFF’.
Monday 8.10.90
8.34 p.m.
I rang school from Mrs Armitage’s. Mrs Crane the teacher was totally brilliant and I’m going in tomorrow. Feel bad now about taking the piss out of her on that TV show she was on.
Also I went in the Jobcentre and The Body Shop in Peterborough want temporary staff up to Christmas! Shelf stacking in one of my favourite shops! I can do that – PEASY! The Jobcentre rang them for me and I have an interview on Thursday. UP YOURS MUM. I CAN COPE IN THE SO-CALLED GROWN UP WORLD!
I’ve got to tell everyone I’m home. I’ll write to Dobber and Battered Sausage. I’d rather Haddock didn’t know just yet. Ever in fact.
Tuesday 9.10.90
12.55 p.m.
So here we are – reapplication! I’m currently in Stamford High School’s careers library. I’m REALLY flavour of the month. I am totally embarrassed by my shitness but fuck it – come on – this won’t be the first time you’ve slipped in shit and it certainly won’t be the last Rae.
Still I’m a total crash and burn artist. Not knowing if I can survive. Am I weak? Do I need my head taken apart more? Am I insecure or a raving exhibitionist?
It’s time to move on I suppose.
I have to convince the universities that my A level grades aren’t a fair representation of my academic ability. Of course they aren’t! I was having a tumour taken out of my bowel a month before and did hardly any work for two years.
Must go. Have to see Mr B later at 1.30.
4.12 p.m.
Thank GOD for Mr B – a teacher who actually respects my bloody intelligence and says he will write me a sod off reference. He’s Sagittarian. He gets it.
Wednesday 10.10.90
9.30 p.m.
Body shop interview tomorrow. I don’t need to prepare. Passion fruit cleansing gel to me is a way of life. As are Japanese wash grains and patchouli oil. Some of my mates go in there before a night out and put their make-up on for free from the samples! They never get done! It’s the best shop ever.
Ideally, life would be spent in bed with the curtains closed, black and white TV and you-know-who stark bollock naked (me in his pyjamas) with those big monstrous arms round me in a constant state of semi-awakeness and warmth.
1) What would we live on?
2) Probably soon get bored.
3) Why am I such a screwed up obsessive git?
Thursday 11.10.90
11.20 p.m.
Body shop ‘interview’ wasn’t! I couldn’t get a word in edgeways. Mum thinks they have all the people they need and they just have to go through the motions.
So much other stuff is going through my head.
1)
Will I get to uni and stick at it?
2) Will I get to a good poly?
3) How will people react to a potential new sex Rae?
4) What do I actually feel for him? Merely lust or real love or both which is actual relationship perfection?
5) Will I ever be settled?
6) Will I ever be married?
7) Will I ever get rid of the psycho bits?
8) Should I go and see a counsellor as suggested by the student counsellor. I don’t want to get locked up again.
Friday 12.10.90
11.01 p.m.
Crashed and burned! Went to school and handed UCCA form in. Then I went down the Meadows and I was sat by the big willow tree and I heard ‘RAE!’ I realised it was HADDOCK’S GIRLFRIEND. Bless her. She is funny and pretty and sweet – I should bloody hate her but I can’t.
They aren’t together amymore. Haddock is apparently having a whale of a time. Perhaps he has woken up to what the rest of us have known for ages. HE IS THE LIVING EMBODIMENT OF HORN.
Anyway I told her he’d come round. Honestly I don’t know if he will or not. I miss him everyday but I’ve just learnt to live with it like I learnt to live with everything else. His mood ring is black and rusting but I keep it on.
Why must I pray and hit myself in order to reach that security? It’s an awful killing feeling. Repeat and repeat like a washing machine on spin – around and around. It’s the only way to obliterate the pain.
That’s what I am. A really crap washing machine that doesn’t get anything clean but just goes round and round making a fucking big noise.
Saturday 13.10.90
7.45 p.m.
The truth is I’m waiting for someone to save me. I’m waiting for someone to come along with this amazing big wand, wave it over my life and make me skinny and normal. I want a way out. AN ANSWER. Not therapy sessions or clay or painting or sodding group sessions. I WANT AN ANSWER. Why can’t someone just save me from me?
And why can’t someone save me from Saturday night television? Surely every animal ever has had every disease ever on All Creatures Great and Small?! Can’t they get an interesting animal on like a tapir instead of a bloody poodle or a Friesian EVERY WEEK?!