by Rae Earl
Left about 10.45. Bethany was snogging Pretty Boy. I snogged a burger.
Sunday 19.3.89
BETHANY CAME ROUND TO ASK me why I didn’t wait for her last night. I mean, what am I? Her bodyguard? She can piss right off. She said that Pretty Boy and her were full on and that this could be serious. She says that about everyone. She’s just gagging to lose it. That’s the problem.
Monday 20.3.89 (holidays)
WENT TO SEE NAN TODAY. She is completely blind now but still lovely. Mum is looking after her and bathing her, and Mrs Berridge across the road in Edmund’s Close is making her meals. Mrs Berridge always laughs at everything I say and calls me a Dutchman for some reason. However, she always redeems herself by making me an extra Eve’s pudding and custard so I’ll let her off. Mr Berridge was doing his usual – moaning about the Japanese in the war and telling me to buy British. I told him my Lloytron personal stereo was British-made. Secretly I would love a Sony one – at least it would have a bloody rewind button. I wouldn’t say that to him, though – him and his flat cap would have a fit.
Nan asked me if I was courting. I said no. She said, ‘Plenty of time, Rach.’ Then she tells me about running the post office in Wittering during the war and the great times she had. God, she loved her husband. It must be terrible to lose someone after so many years of being married to them. I can’t imagine. That’s perhaps because I can’t imagine a time when I will ever be married. Who’d have this gob on a blob?
Incredible that Nan is no relation to me at all. She feels like it. She is just a lady that lived next door to us and we got friendly with her years ago – but absolutely know she IS my nan. She has also never got angry at me – except for the time I tripped on her emergency cord and Mrs Houston the warden shouted, ‘Everything OK, Mrs Clements??’ It was a bit embarrassing but piss funny too.
I love Nan. She never judges me and she never comments on my weight.
Tuesday 21.3.89
JUST REALISED FROM LAST ENTRY Nan can’t comment on my weight because she is blind.
Feel bad talking about Nan and sex in the same entry but Bethany is already talking about going on the pill for the Easter weekend as Pretty Boy’s parents are away, and could I go to the doctor’s with her for moral support? I said to her, ‘Isn’t this a bit quick?’ She said even though her and Pretty Boy have only been together for four days there is a connection. An almost freaky thing! Oh yeah, of course there is, dear. He just wants to get his end away. She’s booked in tomorrow and I am going with her. Got nothing else to do. Except revision. And I can’t face the Ottoman Empire right now.
Wednesday 22.3.89
12.53 p.m.
JUST BEEN TO THE DOCTOR’S. Bethany got a right grilling! She thought they would just give her the pills, but the doctor wanted to know how many partners she has had, how old her current partner is and how many sexual partners he has had. The doctor suggested the barrier method may be better. I had to ask what that was – he means johnnies. Bethany then told him that she hadn’t used condoms before and he told her to practise on a banana! HELLO!!!! What do these people think we are?? He gave her the pill in the end with a huge lecture about AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases. Like there is AIDS in Stamford. Come on – it’s Lincolnshire. We only got the wheel 50 years ago.
She went into Boots and got them. Honestly, she looked so proud of herself. It’s only sex!
10.20 p.m.
Who am I trying to kid? I would love to be having an Easter weekend of doing it. As it is, I’ll be lucky if I get a Smarties Easter egg.
Thursday 23.3.89
10.45 p.m.
SOMEONE SAW ME IN THE doctor’s and Mum cornered me and said, ‘Why were you in the doctor’s yesterday?’ I said I was just waiting for someone. She goes, ‘Rachel, I would like to think that if there was anything important happening in your life, you would tell me.’ AND YOU COULD TOTALLY SEE SHE WAS THINKING SHAGGING.
It’s great, though, that my mum thinks I just might need contraception. I said, ‘Look – I’m 17 and I think it’s OK that some things are private.’ She walked off then, pulling a right face. There is something going on but I can’t get to the bottom of it. I did have a poke around in her bedroom but the only suspicious thing was a bloody Open University book on child psychology. You won’t understand me that way, love, ’cos I ain’t no kid no more!
Just looked out my window. Mrs Bark across the passage was washing up and laughing with her husband. They looked really happy. Even though he was wearing a white vest. Well, off-white. Perhaps true love is blind.
Good Friday 24.3.89
HOT CROSS BUMS. HURRAH! HA! Meant to write buns!! I must be obsessed.
Bethany is gutted because she has to take a week of pills for them to work, and they can make you put on weight . . . OH YES, YES, YES – there is a God! PLEASE let her pile it on.
Actually I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, even people I can’t stand.
Mrs Bark has just death-stared me and closed her kitchen curtains in a really pissy way. Oh, get over it, woman – I don’t want to be living on top of you either.
Saturday 25.3.89
11.52 p.m.
IJUST HAD A VERY INTERESTING Saturday night in the Vaults. Firstly Bethany has told me she is not going on her pill just yet as she is worried about weight gain early on in a relationship. It’s like she fears being fat – being me – more than anything. Thanks.
Later I was sat with Battered Sausage, and Haddock’s girlfriend came to sit with us. She is lovely – I don’t know what she is doing with him. Well, I do – he is fit – but he is also bloody moody and she is a right laugh. She is good mates with Dobber, Fig’s girlfriend, who was also brilliant tonight. It worries me I can get people so wrong. Haddock came in later – he put ‘Convoy’ on the jukebox – that shit CB radio song from the 70s. No doubt it’s a rugger-bugger in-joke thing because he sat there smirking to himself. I said sarcastically, ‘Good choice, Haddock – you should be a DJ. With that mumble-grunt you could be on Radio 1, mate.’ This made everyone laugh except Haddock, who just sighed into his beer and glared at me. If he can’t take it he shouldn’t give it.
No Luke. Good job. I was wearing an old sweatshirt. Not very feminine.
Bethany and Pretty Boy disappeared to his house at about 9 p.m. – probably to do it. She has said she is losing it tonight. Another virgin bites the dust. I looked around the table tonight and I just knew I was the only virgin there. I’m so behind. I look 12. I feel about 12. Only my figure looks middle-aged. I wish I was like everyone else.
2.25 a.m.
Just discovered a note on my window-sill from Mum. ‘Don’t look into Mrs Bark’s window. She has mentioned to me you are staring in.’
So while Bethany is having the best weekend of her life, I am being told off for LOOKING. You couldn’t make it up.
Easter Sunday 26.3.89
TWO EASTER EGGS. ONE DAIRY Milk egg. One Double Decker egg. One china mug with hollow egg and chocolate-flavoured footballs (not counted).
Gagging to know how Bethany is getting on. She is due to come round tomorrow to tell me all about it. I feel sick. Don’t know if it’s because I have scoffed two Easter eggs or if it’s because I am so jealous – almost aching with jealousy of Bethany. Just to be loved and cared for and WANTED. I can tell you, Diary, but I can’t tell anyone else. Just to be held. Just to be needed. This stupid body. It stops everything, everything that I want. I’m like a blancmange – wobbly and good at parties, but inside all this fat I’m a girl. I want to be a normal girl wearing clothes that fit and . . . Oh, what’s the point? If I turned up in a skirt and make-up everyone would laugh and I couldn’t take it.
Just listened to the charts to make me feel better. Some great songs about:
Texas – ‘I Don’t Want a Lover’. Yes – forget love, I do just need a friend.
Poison – ‘Every Rose Has Its Thorn’. Basically a song warning blokes off pretty girls.
Bananarama and Lananeeneeno
onoo – ‘Help’. Piss funny.
Madonna – ‘Like a Prayer’. Brilliant.
I even have to say I love that Paula Abdul record.
Please notice every woman in the charts is thin. Bar Dawn French in Lananeeneenoonoo – but that’s not counted.
Easter Monday 27.3.89
4.10 p.m.
Bank holidays mean nothing
Just Disney Time and such,
A Bond film, a hero,
A dream at which I clutch.
Just someone who can see through it,
Through fat and come what may;
Just someone who can stand up to
What his mates might say.
A someone who won’t judge me
Who’ll understand, not tut;
But for now I’m like the shops today
I’m well and truly shut.
BETHANY HASN’T BEEN ROUND. SHE must be staying over longer. If I had a phone of course she could have rung me – but I haven’t. It’s not 1989 in this house, it’s 1959.
Tuesday 28.3.89
7.09 p.m.
HELLO, DIARY. WHAT A GREAT day. Can you sense sarcasm in my voice? I have spent all afternoon listening to Bethany describe losing her virginity. Of course it was perfect. He made her a cheese sandwich after the pub. He got two brandies from his dad’s drinks cabinet. They drank them on the sofa. He then picked her up and CARRIED her to bed. ‘He even bumped his head on the beams.’ YES, Bethany – we know you lost your cherry in a barn conversion. He undressed her. It hurt a bit the first time, but not the second, third, fourth or fifth time (pretend embarrassed laughter). They slept in each other’s arms.
The condom split but it didn’t matter. I said, ‘Bethany, you need the morning-after pill.’ She said, ‘You’re jealous – just trying to spoil it.’ I said, ‘Look, Bethany – I have read Just 17’s problem page for five years – I know when a johnny breaks you need the morning-after pill.’ She then called me a baby that had fallen for adult propaganda. There’s no telling her. They are meeting each other for a pizza tomorrow. But it’s love. BIG love and she is no longer a virgin.
Yes, the ‘fell asleep in each other’s arms’ bit did make me jealous. I can’t imagine being naked in front of a man. I’ve only had one shower after PE in the past six years because I can’t bear the thought of people looking at THIS.
Wednesday 29.3.89
IAM SICK OF HOLIDAYS NOW. Just spend all my time avoiding work and watching crap on telly like Gardening Time and Rainbow.
Walked to the Vaults with Bethany tonight. Pretty Boy had bought her a necklace – black cord with a silver disc. He reckoned he had made it himself at college. It was vile and you could see she thought it was too, but she put it on and rubbed his hair and said, ‘Vroom, thank you.’ I pissed! Apparently ‘Vroom’ is her pet name for him because he mends cars!! When I laughed she said it was because I am just jealous. Now normally I would say she might have a point – but for the record I never want a boyfriend called Vroom!
LUKE was in the pub unfortunately – he was with a girl and a group of people I didn’t know, so I sat with Fig and Dobber (Fig’s girlfriend). Again we had such a laugh – they never make me feel like a gooseberry and Fig always buys me a drink because he knows I am skint. Dobber asked if I fancied an afternoon and evening sesh on Saturday as Fig has got his proper A levels in two months and has to revise. I said yes. This is brilliant. She only lives by the rec, and crucially – unlike Bethany – is lovely.
Feel bad about the last Bethany bit. She is OK. She just loves feeling better than me.
Thursday 30.3.89
11.?? (digital clock has broken so can’t see the minutes)
BETHANY IS REALLY RUBBING MY nose in it – I’m sure she doesn’t mean to but she is. Why do I need to see that Pretty Boy has bought her a double love album? Why do I need to see that he has customised the song titles on the album sleeve to suit their relationship? For example, for ‘It’s Heaven When You Lie Your Body Next to Me’ he has written in biro in brackets ‘Bethany, you know it’s true.’ I pretended to retch (and it is vomit-making) but it still makes me wish . . . wish I wasn’t so ugly and big. I don’t want albums, but . . . I don’t know.
Had two Twixes tonight and shoved the wrappers down the side of my bed. Don’t want to put them in the bin or Mum will see them and have a go. I know it’s crap but right now it makes me feel better.
Friday 31.3.89
IN TV GUIDE THIS WEEK THERE is a competition to win a part in Neighbours where you get two weeks in Australia, £500 spending money and a cameo part in Neighbours. That programme needs a fat girl on it – every women who has ever been on it has been thin. Charlene – thin. So-called Plain Jane Super Brain – thin. Even that ancient Helen bloody Daniels woman is thin. In the same mag Paula Yates (still gorgeous after having kids) is going on about how much she fancies CLIVE JAMES – old, fat bloke. Yet again proof a man can be fat AND sexy – but it don’t work the other way round, does it?
Saturday 1.4.89
10.45 p.m.
KARATE KID IS ON TELLY. Wax on. Wax off. The love interest of Karate Kid – a girl called Ali – is skinny as anything. I have seen this film a thousand times. In the end it does not matter that the Karate Kid is bullied because he beats everyone. Classic American fairytale lies. I’d like to see him tackle the blokes from Green Lane shops in a kilt when they are calling you every name under the sun.
Just got back from a major session with Mrs Classic Dobber. Only a bit ruined with Bethanbitch. Write tomorrow as too knackered and beered.
Sunday 2.4.89
12.10 p.m.
THINK I WAS A BIT PISSED last night.
Have a hangover, but what a night. Met Dobber outside Tesco at four and then we walked to the shop on Scotgate run by the Maltese guy where she can get served. Got a massive bottle of Diamond White, a big bottle of lager and a bottle of Ribena. Ended up down the Meadows (till the Vaults opened at seven) making our own snakebite and black! Dobber is lovely – she was telling me how her parents are getting divorced and stuff, and things have been hard for her – but she is such a laugh. We then stumbled on to the Vaults where we met up with everyone and we had a TOP night. The only crap thing was Bethany, who came in with Pretty Boy and said, ‘Can I have a word with you?’ Once we were sat outside the girls’ toilets upstairs, she said, ‘I’ve been talking to Luke tonight in the Hole in the Wall and he says he really likes you and really wants to go out with you.’ Honestly I nearly died – I was going off my head until she said, ‘April Fool!’ I think she realised she had gone too far because . . . well, I welled up a bit really but I told her it was OK and pretended to see the funny side. When I went back downstairs Haddock said, ‘What’s up with you?’ but I couldn’t tell him . . . He’d just take the piss something chronic. I know I play practical jokes on people, but I’d never do anything like that. Bethany thinks she is a right Jeremy Beadle.
God, it hurt.
Monday 3.4.89
RANG MORT AND TOLD HER about Bethany. She thinks it was a cow thing to do and I am not being hypersensitive. I know you think I am overreacting, Diary, but . . . Oh, don’t want to think about it any more. Don’t want to think about men any more or anything about love or anything. Because while I am like this it won’t happen. With anyone. Even a blind man could feel my gut.
Listening to ‘Like a Prayer’ by Madonna loads. Madonna is looking so bloody brilliant as a brunette. This is probably my favourite look of hers since the ‘Live to Tell’ video. The cassette I bought stinks of patchouli oil, which is weird. I don’t know if Madonna had it specially scented or something. She can do what she likes because she’s Madonna.
She tells men to jump, they say, ‘How high?’ According to Smash Hits, Madonna and me are the same height. She weighs under nine stone. God knows how much I weigh.
How long would it take me to get to her weight? And would I change? Perhaps I’d be like Madonna – all hard-faced and don’t mess with me. I’d like to be t
hat. I would, however, never dance round burning crosses in the middle of the Fens wearing a nigh tie like she does in the ‘Like a Prayer’ video. Even she would get the piss taken out of her if she did that round here.
Tuesday 4.4.89
SHIT. BETHANY CAME ROUND – SHE IS LATE and BRICKING IT. Didn’t know what to say at first. I said what we need is a Brook Advisory Clinic because that’s what Melanie in Just 17 always recommended. Of course there isn’t one in Stamford. She kept saying, ‘It was only once – it was only once.’ I could hear Mum in my head saying, ‘That’s all it takes – that’s all it takes.’ If she is pregnant it will be a disaster. She’ll either have to have an abortion or leave school. Our place doesn’t do pregnant schoolgirls. Bethany kept gripping her stomach saying, ‘I know I am – they say you just know.’ She wants me to go and get a pregnancy test for her. But I can’t. Someone would tell Mum and I can’t cope with that amount of Gestapo interrogation. She is only two days late anyway – I told her worrying about things would make it worse. She hasn’t told Pretty Boy yet as ‘Vroom wants to keep things casual.’ In other words he is a bastard shag-about who wants to sleep around. I told her this but she doesn’t want to hear it. He, according to her, is a bad boy – which, according to me, means he is a twat.