My Fat, Mad Teenage Diary

by Rae Earl

  Bethany wasn’t in tears this time – she was FURIOUS. But I could see part of her was loving it. And who wouldn’t? Battered Sausage and Fig were like male bodyguards that just sprang to attention. Only Haddock sat there and wouldn’t do anything – all he could say was, ‘I’ve been there, mate, I know how he feels.’ OH, SHUT UP, HADDOCK – no you haven’t. You have got no idea what it’s like to feel crap about yourself and hate your body and feel totally alone, because you are Mr Gorgeous My-Body-Is-a-Temple Sportsman. I hate people who try to make out that they know how it feels when they so obviously don’t. Haddock really needs taking down a peg or two. And I will do it one of these days.

  Luke was there. Came over and talked, then went back to his girlfriend. I didn’t look at her – it hurt too much. Later on it looked like they were having a row. Battered Sausage reckons it has been rocky for a while. OH, PLEASE LET THAT BE TRUE . . . AND PLEASE LET HIM LIKE MEATY GIRLS.

  May I just give you this little table?

  Now, there may be something in this. Perhaps the lack of success with men is not because I am fat and ugly – it’s because I am going for totally the wrong star signs. As a Sagittarian, I need FIRE and AIR signs – NOT water!!

  COMPARATIVE ZODIAC SIGNS OF PEOPLE

  I FANCY (OR FANCIED)

  Saturday 13.5.89

  5.50 p.m.

  ANOTHER BORING SATURDAY. WHAT DO other people do on a day like this? There is nothing to do without money. No, Mum, I do not want to go to the library to get a book out. I want to be sat here with someone. But there is no one, and only Speedway or a John Wayne film on the TV. So I sit here with two slices of cheap white bread, a packet of Walkers prawn cocktail crisps and a glass of full-fat milk. I put the crisps in the bread to form a sandwich, seal the edges by crimping the crusts and dunk it in the milk. Yes, I know it sounds disgusting. And I hate myself for doing it – but while I am chewing and licking and swallowing it all feels nice. Without these things there would be no pleasure. There is no Knight in Shining Armour coming to save me. I’m on my own. I have to find ways to make things OK.

  Pub tonight. If I can be bothered.

  Sunday 14.5.89

  12.35 a.m.

  I’VE GOT SO MUCH TO WRITE. I’ll probably forget things, but here we go!

  Well, I went down the pub and I was thoroughly peeved off. I really felt lonely, as if I didn’t fit in anywhere. Bethany kept going on about how she was depressed without a man. She has been without one for all of two minutes. Luckily Dobber came in with all the lads and we had a right laugh. I love Dobber – she is just so . . . Well, she doesn’t make little digs like bloody Bethany does. Like every time I eat something bad, Bethany always says, ‘Should you be eating that?’ I get sick of it.

  BUT FORGET BETHANY AND BUGGER HER, BECAUSE LISTEN TO THIS:

  There was no sign of Luke tonight but LUKE’s girlfriend – who I have never, ever spoken to before – came over to me and said, ‘Well, Rae, me and Luke are finishing – so you can have him.’ I was like, ‘PARDON?!’ and she said, ‘Look, Rae, everyone knows you like him. Well, you’re free now because we’ve finished. No hard feelings.’ I don’t know why but I denied it and said, ‘Look – I am not interested.’ She just smiled at me and walked off. OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD!! Battered Sausage said there is someone Luke has been hinting about. I daren’t hope – but it MUST be me. It has to be. SURELY?! Bethany was like, ‘Oh, that’s right, you’re going to be with someone and I will be left here on my own.’ But she said when she next sees Luke she is going to do some digging for me.

  This time next week I could be writing all sorts of stuff here. SOME ACTION FOR ONCE!

  Had chips on the way home. Sod it. I think I may have broken up a relationship, so I can’t be that bad.

  5.18 p.m.

  Unbelievable. Vroom just turned up at my house to ask ME why Bethany dumped him. I said, ‘Look, Vroom – it just wasn’t working out for her. It’s not because you are nasty or anything.’ He said, ‘Watch her, Rae, she is one nasty piece of work. You want to hear some of the stuff she says about you.’ Then he disappeared in his dad’s Volvo.

  Bethany can’t say anything worse behind my back than she does to my face. At least you know where you are with her.

  7.20 p.m.

  Bet she calls me ‘fat bitch’ or something.

  11.25 p.m.

  Been down pub. I’m pissed off with myself. When I like men – when I fancy them – I just start ripping the piss out of them. WHY?? Luke came over to speak to me and Bethany. I was like, ‘Hello, Luke. FANTASTIC stripy shirt tonight – don’t go to Yarmouth, someone might sit on you.’ It’s not even funny. WHY do I do it?

  Anyway, we had a little chat about A levels and stuff, and then he said he had to get back to do some more A-level revision. We did NOT talk about his girlfriend. But in a genius masterstroke Bethany has agreed to meet him for coffee Monday lunchtime to find out more information. Love her for this because I know she is feeling really cut up about the Vroom situation.

  Hate myself for the nerves I get when blokes are around.

  ME LIKE THE MAGNET

  Men I like, I repel

  Like a magnet do

  So if I’m nasty

  Then you know

  I probably fancy you.

  ‘It’s defence,’ the shrinks would say.

  ‘It protects against a fall.’

  It’s impenetrable this fence of mine

  It’s like the Berlin Wall.

  Monday 15.5.89

  6.19 p.m.

  BEEN TRYING TO GET HOLD of Bethany all night. She met Luke for coffee this afternoon. I have walked down the phone box about 50 times, but according to her mum she is still out. Spoke to Mort at school – she is really excited for me and reckons the Luke situation sounds positive but told me not to get my hopes up as ‘Men can be bastards and act in ways you can never predict.’ I know she is right, but I cannot help thinking that there might be something in it.

  On the way back from 62929 phone box I had a Wall’s Feast. I am telling you now that the chocolate bit in the middle of the ice-cream has shrunk unbelievably from last summer. I am not having it. I have borrowed Mum’s typewriter and I have sent them a letter accusing them of reducing the chocolate and therefore swizzing us. I know I’m right. Mum said I was daft for getting so het up about it – but we all need to stand up for what we believe in. NOTHING gets done without pressure. FREE NELSON MANDELA!!!! I’ve got the T-shirt and bought the record. We have to keep the pressure on South Africa and the other people. It’s an ice-cream today, but it could be a country tomorrow.

  Tuesday 16.5.89

  9 p.m.

  BETHANY AND ME SAT DOWN today and analysed the coffee session with Luke yesterday, and she reported back the following:

  Luke is undecided about the whole relationship issue.

  Luke likes me and thinks I am a good laugh but thinks I am a bit insecure.

  Luke feels under a lot of pressure to do well in his A levels, as he would like to be in marketing.

  She said that reading between the lines, she does not think he wants something serious – and still seems quite hung up on his previous girlfriend. In fact they aren’t even completely finished – just ‘taking a break’.

  OH, LUKE . . . JUST SEE THROUGH THE LOOKS AND LIKE ME. BUGGER THE A LEVELS – YOU CAN RETAKE.

  Exams fuck everything up.

  Just listened to ‘O Superman’ by Laurie Anderson in the dark and really freaked myself out. It just makes me shiver when she is going on about planes coming and she’s going, ‘Ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaa.’ I don’t even know what it’s about but it messes with my head. So freaked out I had to put on ‘International Rescue’ by We’ve Got a Fuzzbox and We’re Gonna Use It straight on afterwards to lighten the mood.

  Thoughts awful tonight. I know no one I know thinks this way. God, who would want me? I’m a mess.

  Wednesday 17.5.89

  1.55 p.m.

  JUST HAD FIVE YORKSHIRE PUDDING
S and then rhubarb crumble. Bethany just had a yoghurt today and took an apple for ‘later’. She says now she is single again she has to be ‘really careful’. And then I swear her eyes passed over my belly, and I feel . . . Oh, if I was thin! If I was thin, all this would end. Why can’t I have discipline? Why am I so out of control? I’ve been chubby since I was . . . I can’t remember. I’ve always felt chubby. I always felt big and clumsy and not like a girl. When they sent me to the child psychiatrist she kept asking me about stuff. You know . . . Oh, I don’t want to write it here. The really bad stuff. But she said that had affected me and made me scared to be feminine. But it doesn’t make sense. Why, then, am I so desperate to look nice and go out with someone?

  Child psychiatrists talk shit anyway. She made me draw a picture of a garden, then she said the gardener I had drawn looked disinterested, and what did I think that meant? How the fuck should I know? She’s been to university, not me.

  Oh, Luke . . . just like me.

  Going to see Hamlet tonight. I really don’t want to. We are not even studying the play – it’s for theatre arts A level. They want us to take note of the staging. I can tell you now the only good things will be the bus trip there (as long as we get the FULL back seat) and the ice-cream in the interval.

  Thursday 18.5.89

  9.45 p.m.

  RUSSELL GRANT’S STARS SAID THIS week would basically be CRAP and he was right.

  Luke HAS finished with his girlfriend, but he wants me to know (and the rest of the world) that he’s not available. He’s not available because he’s after bloody Bethany – who dropped the bombshell this dinnertime, which ruined the particularly delicious chicken curry I had just scoffed.

  Yes – Luke rang Miss Bloody Perfect Bethany up, walked her home, and is generally making advances in that direction. So I wrote Luke a letter which apparently made him feel guilty. While I am left here extremely pissed off. Because the fact is – there goes another one. I am very bitter. As a friend, I comforted Bethany and helped her out. It’s like a punch in the face – people progress and I get nowhere. Why? Because I am fat and ugly . . . and Bethany is neither.

  She wasn’t going to go out with him but she will. She is meeting him tomorrow. But Luke has reassured her that he doesn’t want to avoid me – OH NO!!!! – I’m a good friend! Yes, I’m a good friend to everyone . . . As Miss Bloody Perfect Arse Bethany says, ‘She’ll understand.’ Good old dependable me. Well, it doesn’t stop the fucking hurt and the pissing pain, does it? NO IT DOESN’T. OR THE RESENTMENT!!!

  Every pretty so and so gets a man. When will I find one?? God, at the moment I could just lose three stone and walk into a party with nothing on and just get off with everyone regardless – that’s how I feel.

  It’s worse with Bethany – SHE’S MEANT TO BE MY MATE! If she does go out with Luke, I’ll be hurt. If she doesn’t, Luke will hate me and resent me because he fancies her.

  MEN!!!! They just can’t see through, can they?? I feel so ANGRY!! It’s not like me to feel so extreme, is it? Dear Diary, what the hell am I going to do? What about when they are down the pub? Shit – what if she gets all smug? I’ll get so angry. Megan is another one who keeps going on about her looks . . . SHUT UP, SHUT UP!!! YOU ARE A SIZE 8, FOR GOD’S SAKE! DON’T BE SO SELFISH! AND DON’T CALL ME SELFISH, BETHANY, BECAUSE I AM HUMAN!!!

  I’M SO CROSS!! Everybody’s probably laughing at me and feeling sorry for me.

  Oh well . . . They’re probably not . . . Calm down. What’s the best plan? Play it cool and not be bothered. It will be hard, but I’ve been kicked before. Come on, Rae – you’re tough, baby! Fight it! Fight it!

  Superiority. That is the thing. Get it sorted out here in this diary – it’s safe.

  Luke does not fancy me.

  So . . .

  He fancies my friend.

  So . . .

  He goes out with her.

  So . . .

  I act not bothered. Still act the same. ‘Do what you will.’

  THEN . . .

  I GET OVER HIM!

  I still feel a little resentful of Bethany. I mean, it wouldn’t be so bad but she was my confidante in all this and I helped her out in a rut. I DIDN’T EXPECT ANYTHING! Just seems a hard lesson to learn, that’s all. I know we are all FREE. I’d probably convince myself everything was all right and it was an OK thing to do.

  I just feel betrayed.

  When will things really get better? When will I get that kind of affection? When? I bet Bethany will probably marry Luke, knowing my luck.

  SO WHEN?

  Another couple interlock

  Clenching surface and soul

  This time a friend is in the double with Him

  So when

  When do I find the key to my lock?

  Jealousy like a duvet smothers me

  Others find love and I am left to brood

  So I turn to crisps and other food.

  (I’ll probably piss myself over that poem tomorrow. Still – it suffices for now.)

  I don’t think my mood is helped by sitting in a 1 cm2 pissing seat from 7.30 to 11.30 yesterday watching a crap production of Hamlet. I wanted to yell out,

  ‘JUST BLOODY KILL YOURSELF AND FUCKING YOVIK!!!’

  Friday 19.5.89

  9.23 a.m.

  I’VE JUST GOT TO SCHOOL and I’m literally spouting fire!! CALM, RAE!!!

  11.06 a.m.

  Bethany has told everyone that I don’t mind her going out with Luke and that I have given her my approval. This is partly true because she said, ‘Rae, look – I won’t go out with him if you don’t want me to, but he really likes me and I really like him.’ What could I say? I had to do what I normally do and say fine. I said, ‘How long have you felt this way?’ She said, ‘Since the coffee on Monday.’ Mort death-stared her across the common room and has told everyone what she did. I said, ‘Mort, do you think I need to lose some weight?’ She said, ‘If it makes you feel better, darling, yes.’ This is a lovely friendly way of saying, ‘I can’t lie to you, your weight is putting people off – but let’s pretend you are doing it for yourself.’ But I wouldn’t be. I’d be doing it for men. I’ll admit that to you, Diary. I am.

  Have come into the toilets for a cry. I am not doing bloody PE today. It’s trampolining, but my bra is crap and everything bounces out.

  Not going out tonight either. Can’t face seeing Luke and Bethany. Oh, it even sounds good . . . Luke and Bethany. Luke and Bethany. Bet she practises signing her name with his name. Bet they have this enormous wedding with Bo Peep bridesmaids and an announce ment in a posh paper. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat.

  Saturday 20.5.89

  Late (who cares?)

  TONIGHT WAS EXTREMELY DEPRESSING FOR several reasons:

  1) Luke/Bethany situation: yes, he is going out with her. Well, it was on the cards, wasn’t it? I was out with Dobber (who admitted she didn’t like Bethany, and that even at Stamford College where Dobber goes she is known as a man-stealer) when they walked in. They nodded hello to me. Later when we waved goodbye I went over and said goodbye properly, and he was ruffling her hair and stroking her back and . . . well, I smiled through it and it was all very happy, but inside I was . . . dying, basically.

  2) Battered Sausage told me that if Bethany wasn’t going out with Luke he would be making a serious move on her. Even though he was in a drunken stupor, this counts. What the hell is the big difference between me and Bethany? Except for about four measly pissing stone?.

  Had a pizza on the way home. All to myself. Fuck it. Big fat pig. Don’t care. I love the night. No one can see.

  Sunday 21.5.89

  IBLAME MUM FOR SO MUCH. She denied me a Girl’s World as a kid so I have absolutely no idea how to apply make-up. The Christmas I wanted one I think I got Connect Four instead because she said Girl’s World encouraged an unhealthy interest in the external appearance. The feminine side of me has been completely played down. Sometimes I could just wear a boob tube and miniskirt and do everybody’s head in.
If it wouldn’t show off the massive spare tyres round my waist, I would.

  Now sat in one of the fields on the way to Tolethorpe, listening to ‘Messages’ by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Just beautiful. The lyrics just say it all. This song was written for beautiful evenings when you are in bits.

  And I am in bits. Falling apart. Have to keep it together. Can’t end up losing it again, because no one knows what to do with you – you just get . . . you just get . . .

  I can’t write it.

  Monday 22.5.89

  9.45 p.m.

  B ETHANY TOLD ME TODAY THAT after I went over to say goodbye to them on Saturday night, Luke said to her, ‘God, Rae has got balls. That must have been so hard for her.’ Bethany simpered this to me like I should be grateful for this. I’m not. What did he expect me to do – plead for him to go out with me? Even I have got more self-respect than that.

  Haddock apparently told him off for leading me on. I don’t need the pity vote from Haddock, thank you very much. Now there’s a man who won’t ever know what rejection feels like.

  It’s the talk of the school of course. Walked into the common room today and there was a debate going on about ‘If your mate fancies a bloke and that bloke fancies you and not your mate, is it OK to go out with him?’ The general consensus was no. Someone tell Bethany that. Someone tell Bethany that when someone does that to you, you feel so angry you want to punch every skinny woman you see on the street. Because however nice I am, however funny I am, I will never beat them.