by Rae Earl
King rib for dinner at school. Vera the dinner lady gave me two of them. Just fatty pork with sweet and sour on them but they taste like heaven.
Wednesday 8.2.89
SCHOOL WAS SUCH A GIG today. Great chats in the common room and a debate about dangerous dogs with Georgia storming out after Mia had offended her Rottweiler. Then I don’t know why but we decided to nick a load of forks from the dining room and put them on Mr Faux’s homework shelf. It sounds pathetic but we were weeing ourselves. Brilliant!
Started reading Becoming Orgasmic. I’m sick of it already. It starts off with this questionnaire thing to find out why you are not having orgasms. Here’s why: BECAUSE I NEED A BOYFRIEND IN THE FIRST PLACE. Perhaps I do need What Makes a Woman Sexy or the bloody F-Plan Diet or something. I need a bloody man, I’ll tell you that.
Thursday 9.2.89
11.40 p.m.
AND THIS JUST SHOWS WHY MY MUM IS A COW.
I left Becoming Orgasmic out in my bedroom. So what?? It’s not illegal. Mum was whistling, which always means trouble, and then she brings it up right in the middle of EastEnders.
MUM: What’s that book in your room?
ME: Which book?
MUM: The book about sex.
ME: It’s called Becoming Orgasmic. It’s not about
sex – it’s a personal development book.
(MASSIVE PAUSE.)
MUM: Have you finished Gulliver’s Travels yet?
ME: NO.
MUM: That’s fine, Rachel. If you want to end up in a dead-end job like me, keep carrying on the way that you’re going.
ME: I have had enough of this. I’m going upstairs.
This is typical of her – she doesn’t know what it’s like to be lonely. She’s been married twice. I show a bit of interest in becoming a proper woman and she can’t handle it. Well, I’m sick of it. I’m a living, breathing Rae and I need affection. She can’t even cuddle me because she says she is not the hugging type. All she cares about is her husband and her mates and me making her look good. GOD, I WANT TO BE NORMAL – I WANT A NORMAL FAMILY. NOT A MUM WITH PEROXIDE HAIR AND A DAD THAT TURNS UP EVERY SIX MONTHS TO SAY HELLO!!!!
And another thing – didn’t do PE today either because middle-aged cows are not bossing me around any more.
Friday tomorrow. Might see Harry.
Thoughts bad.
Friday 10.2.89
8-ish
TOOK BECOMING ORGASMIC BACK. Not worth the bother and it’s like running before I can walk.
Bob Tex the country music busker was outside the library. Wish I had his life – just turn up on the High Street, play two choruses of ‘Stand by Your Man’, collect for charity, and everyone loves you.
Plus, Mum reckons he has had loads of girlfriends, so it obviously helps him pull.
Bethany lent me the 1989 Just 17 Yearbook. I think I’m getting a bit old for it but as I am a retard when it comes to boys I thought it might give me some tips. Here is what I have learnt from it:
Teenage single mums need the support of their families and things are hard for them. (At least they’ve had sex – look on the bright side.)
Debbie Gibson doesn’t diet. (Bitch!)
Sinitta is an impulse-buyer. (Who gives a shit?)
Five-page special on Bros. (Seven-year-olds are too old for Bros.)
The Complete Guide to Being a Lad. (Basically they know nothing about women.)
A day out with Simon Mayo (who I LOVE) would be a laugh. (He seems like such a phenomenally gorgeous person, but he has wonky eyes.)
A day out with Patsy Kensit would make me sick because she is sexy beyond belief.
Two-timing is bad when it happens to you. (See teenage single mums – at least you have a man, even if he does the dirty on you.)
1988 was great. (No it wasn’t, it was crap. Proof: the second bestselling song of 1988 was by CLIFF RICHARD!)
My stars for the year say I will be attracted to men with humour and intelligence and that my true nature will emerge in July. Didn’t say for definite that men would happen. I can wait another year for a snog. I know that.
Didn’t go down pub. Harry might be down there. I’m skint, my best jeans are in the wash, and everyone will be down there in bloody Laura Ashley skirts paying for their own booze. Sick of being poor. Mum says, ‘Oh well, get a job, then.’ She doesn’t realise how much schoolwork I do at weekends catching up on essays and stuff. If you want your daughter at university, Mother dear, then GIVE ME SOME SPACE.
Saturday 11.2.89
3.56 p.m.
A NOTHER BORING SATURDAY. I’VE GOT nothing to do, I can’t be arsed to do anything, and bloody Grandstand comes on. I’ve got friends at school who live on farms or in bloody great houses and they come out of their house every morning to a nice lawn and flowers. Sitting at my window I can see Edinburgh Road, all the rubbish bags in front of our house put out for the dustmen on Monday, and Mrs Bark pegging her washing out with a fag in her gob. Totally depressing. Me and White the cat just sit here, wishing we could sail away somewhere. Just cut this bedroom off and go somewhere else. I can see it in her eyes that she thinks the same things as I do. I got so bored I made a showjumping course for her out of old Ladybird books. She wouldn’t do it and breathed Whiskas breath on me. Dismantled it. Now just lying here bored out my brain.
Ate so much today – about eight pieces of toast with Flora and Marmite. And that was just for breakfast.
Me and Bethany are going down the pub tonight. So hopefully more later.
12.01 a.m.
No more later. Bethany flirted with everyone. I made jokes at my expense. She made jokes at my expense. Harry giggled. Imogen got so pissed she got thrown out the pub. I came home. Had a kebab. Gave a bit to the cat ’cos she was sniffing at it, but she freaked at the chilli sauce.
Sunday 12.2.89
4.05 p.m.
J UST TALKED TO MORT FOR about an hour from 62929 phone box. She rang me back as I only had 10p. She thinks Bethany uses me to get men interested and that Bethany sees me as safe and non-threatening. This makes bang-on sense as last night EVERY TIME a bloke was near, Bethany changed her voice and started playing with her hair and basically acting like a right dumbster. It’s pathetic. But it works. It must do, because some bloke was licking her face in the Vaults beer garden before I went to get my kebab.
Still going down the Hole in the Wall with her later. I haven’t got any choice – she’s the only one around – and like I say, when we are on our own she can be dead sweet. Last night before the pub she told me she used to be fat and feel like I did. She was at a boarding school when she was a kid and apparently she was bullied quite badly. Had her head put down a bog at one point – which used to shit me up when I saw it on Grange Hill. I’ve got to remember that other people have been through shit too and that it has affected them.
11.39 p.m.
Well, Bethany pissed off almost immediately with some posh git from the upper sixth. Thanks for caring. The one good thing about this was it made me speak to loads of new people in the Hole in the Wall. It’s another fave jaunt for the boys’ school and the girls’ school and I met some classics tonight. HARRY WAS THERE. I’d made Harry a stupid card because he said he used to like Button Moon, and it was his birthday at the beginning of February. He looked really touched when I gave it to him.
FULL REPORT OF HARRY CHAT
ME: Hello, Harry, I’ve made you a card with Mr
Spoon. Sorry I missed your big one–eight.
HARRY: Oh, Raemondo – that is sweet of you. Excuse me, I’ve got to speak to Luke about general studies.
He seemed a bit flustered. Still, short but sweet. Promising, don’t you think?!
Monday 13.2.89
IALWAYS WANT TO BE honest with you, Diary. I made Harry a card because I wanted one back on Valentine’s Day. If I don’t get something tomorrow I will be mightily pissed off.
Begged Mum for a phone today because for about the 50th time this year I nearly got beat up down 6
3401 phone box. If I am talking for longer than five minutes the tutting starts. Today was a classic example. I was just chatting to Mort and this woman says, ‘Are you going to be any longer in there?’ I said, ‘No,’ and then she says, ‘If you can manage to squeeze out of that phone box, you bloody fat cow, somebody else would like to use it.’ It’s just crap and annoying but she looked rougher than me so I went down 62929. It’s in a posher area, more people have their own phones, and it’s near the little shop so I can get a KitKat on the way there. HATE these new phone boxes, though. They are always smashed in. I know the red ones smelt of piss but at least you got some privacy. And THIS is why me and Mort have come up with a code system. From now on new people in our lives are going to have code names so me and Mort can talk about it in open air and no one is any the wiser. We’ve already got them for the people I met last night. Mort chose them and has gone with a chip-shop theme. I’m going to use their new names here too so prying eyes will get NO information!
Battered Sausage
Real laugh. Scorpio. Lives quite near in the posh bit! He’s a real lad but we had such a laugh last night. He has nicknamed me Big Razza. It’s only affectionate, though – I can tell. Drives a big Cortina he calls Clarence.
Haddock
Battered Sausage’s best mate. Mr Rugger-Bugger Star Rugby Player. Mr Sit There With One Eyebrow Raised Looking Mean and Moody. Mr Loves Himself. Mr Don’t Say a Lot Because I Am Gorgeous and I Don’t Have To. Mr Everyone Fancies Me and I Know It. Mr Ignorant Public Schoolboy Tosser.
Fig (Mort got fed up with chip-shop theme)
Battered Sausage’s other best mate. Looks like Captain Scarlet. Really sweet bloke. Walks like a penguin and does the world’s best Bruce Forsyth impression.
Dobber
Fig’s girlfriend. Really pretty but kept giving me the evils all night. That’s her nickname already because she keeps doing dobby, thick things.
We can’t be bothered to give the people we already know new names.
I just wish Mum would get a phone – even incoming phone calls only. I mean, it’s weird considering her husband lives abroad – you’d think she’d want to speak to him. She reckons, though, she’d have my friends calling up at all hours. It’s just another way to make me feel even more crap about my things. If I get piles from sitting on cold phone-box floors it’s her fault.
Bloody hell – I’ve written loads tonight, haven’t I?
Tuesday 14.2.89 (Valentine’s Day)
MUM GOT THREE.
Loads of people at school got one.
One cow got flowers.
Feel bad about calling her a cow. She’s actually lovely. I’m just so jealous I could cry.
Of course I didn’t get any. You get home and all the way back you are hoping – but no. Not a chance. I hate Valentine’s Day. It’s like a distorting mirror. It makes you feel even fatter than you already are.
I laughed it off but I close the bedroom door and lose it and I stick it all down here and this is where it all stays. And this is where it has to stay because I am not ending up in the nutter ward again with brown walls and jigsaws, and people crying that their husband left them, and men slamming their heads against walls, and Mum bringing me a mini trifle and a copy of Smash Hits like that would make everything better. It didn’t. It won’t. It can’t. Psychiatric wards when most of my mates were . . . I can’t tell anyone what is going on . . . Can’t write it . . . Can’t think about it. Not even here.
So much shit on the radio today too. All love songs and lots of dedications like ‘Boo Boo in Wisbech – I love you – love for ever – Cup-a-Soup Hugger’. WHAT THE HELL??? And love songs all bloody day like bloody ‘Evergreen’ by Barbra Streisand. STOP RUBBING OUR FACES IN IT AND PLAY SOME STUFF THAT’S REAL. HANG THE DJ!!!
Wednesday 15.2.89
8.17 a.m.
I’m cold. I’m lonely. I’ve had enough. Only in this house could a battle start over the pigging radiators. I want to turn them on BECAUSE THERE IS FROST ON THE INSIDE OF THE WINDOWS. Mum is too tight and says to put on another layer.
Hello? I’ve got 27 on as it is! I am currently lying here in terry-towelling socks, old school jumper and pyjamas with a baked-bean stain on the trouser. I’m glad there isn’t a man in my bed as he wouldn’t see the potential hussy in me – he would just see the bag lady.
7.45 p.m.
There was string in the roast beef today at school. I know the council pays my fees, but if I was them I’d ask for a refund.
Yes, that was the most exciting thing that happened today.
Thursday 16.2.89
IT WAS GREAT TODAY WITH the ‘crack commando avoid PE squad’. We discovered if you climb out of the windows of the top study room there is like a roof where you can’t be spotted! We could see Miss Sadistic looking for us – it was like being up a turret. I’m sorry – I’m 17 – I’m not a kid. I am sick of being shouted at for not wanting to fling a ball round a pitch with a stick. I’m a bit beyond that. Instead we all had a Creme Egg and a water fight. It was going well till someone picked up a mug of Cup-a-Soup that hadn’t been cleared in about three months. I nearly chundered.
It’s got round that I like Harry!! Mr I Love Myself Haddock asked Bethany, ‘Does your mate with the bloke’s name fancy Harry?’ Bethany said, ‘She might do, why?’ Haddock apparently put his eyebrow ten foot up his forehead and said, ‘Aaahhhhhh,’ and walked off. He’s an arrogant tosser. But if he goes back to the school and spreads it and this leads to something, then I’ll live with it.
Friday 17.2.89
Bloody late
MY SO-CALLED FRIENDS ARE all a bunch of patronising dill-brains. We were having a convers ation today about how we will be remembered after we leave school and what do they come up with? Rae’s the funny one . . . Rae’s the one with the great personality . . . WE ALL KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!
Fed up with providing everyone’s entertainment – I’m going on comedy strike. No more fat, funny Rae. Just fat – then hopefully slim and dangerous.
BUBBLY GIRL
If you’re as round as a bubble
You have to be bubbly
And entertain the crowd
It’s as if people don’t notice your belly
When you’re fun and loud.
But I’m giving up the jokes and the laughs
I’ll retire to my den
This body bubble will get smooth and lithe
Then this bubble will nick your men!
My mum bought me the most foul pair of shoes ever today. They are called SunFlairs. (HELLO??? IT’S FEBRUARY!!!) They are green canvas and not a nice green, but 70s wallpaper green. They look like something Boney M would have worn on a bad day. She says they were ‘cheap and good for slopping around in’. She says this about ALL the stuff she buys me. She still thinks I’m seven.
Saturday 18.2.89
7.01 p.m.
HAD A GENUINE DISASTER WITH the SunFlairs but Mum does not believe me. Walking into town, just by the bottom rec, I stepped in a whole pile of dog crap. Honestly, it was an accident. Of course the SunFlairs are canvas so I had to abandon them by the side of the road and walk barefoot to the shoe-shop on Ironmonger Street to get some flip-flops (FREEZING). When I got home Mum said, ‘What’s happened to your shoes?’ I told her I had stepped in dog muck but she didn’t believe me. I said, ‘Go and check for yourself – I have left them by the drain opposite the putting green.’ She was furious. I kept saying, ‘IT WAS AN ACCIDENT,’ and she kept saying her usual, ‘SO WERE YOU!’ I said, ‘Normally you say when you step in crap or a seagull plops on you it’s lucky – so MAKE YOUR MIND UP.’ That shut her up. It was an accident but it was obviously meant to be!!!
10.43 p.m.
No one is going out tonight. I can’t just turn up and look like Billy No Mates if there’s no one I know there.
I couldn’t face another Saturday night just doing nothing so thought I’d do something. I’ve had the same wallpaper since about 1983 – red, yellow, green and w
hite horizontal stripes – so I thought, ‘I’ll change it. It’s my room, I can do what I like.’ Started ripping it down. And then sonic-hearing old bat Mum tears upstairs and says, ‘I pay the rent – you are not ripping anything . . . Blah, blah, blah . . .’
There’s a load of turf that’s never been laid at the end of the garden. If I could make a hut out of that and live in it, I would.
With someone like Harry.
I’d obviously need running water installed, by the way. Oh – and a toilet.
Sunday 19.2.89
LIVING HERE AT THE MOMENT is like living in a prison camp. I got up for a wee in the night. She yelled at the top of her voice, ‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING?’ I said, ‘I’m going for a wee,’ then she said, ‘WHY??’ I said, ‘BECAUSE MY BLADDER IS FULL! HOW CAN I HELP THAT?’
I got my punishment this morning – some radio station was playing church bells and she put that full blast on her manky stereo.
Went to Green Lane shops today and got spat on and slagged off by the twats who sit on the wall. ‘Posh fat bitch – eat another burger.’ Fat is one thing. Posh is another. My room is damp. I live in a council house. My last proper holiday was Mablethorpe Golden Sands in 1984. The DHSS bought my bed. I wish I was posh – then I would be a boarder – away from all this bullying shit.
Monday 20.2.89
THERE IS SOMETHING GOING ON with Mum. She has started shaving her legs and she keeps listening to bloody Nilsson ‘Without You’. I bet you now marriage number two has gone wrong, which is sad and everything but hardly a surprise. He was a school teacher – she ironed the shirts in the same school. He went to Durham University and studied Latin – she went to what she calls the University of Life and studied . . . errr . . . life. As soon as they got married he went abroad to teach. I feel sorry for her, though – it’s horrible being lonely and fat. I just hope she sorts it out with him in Morocco and he stays there to teach. I don’t want him coming to live here during my A-level year. He’s a so-called academic – he should understand that I need space and no hassle.