Diary of a Chav (12 page)

“A bit,” I said.

“’Ere, well I’ll have to ring up Aunty Glo and see if she can cut your dad’s hair before we go. I’m not having him turning up looking like a badger.” Mum looked at the invite again. “’Ere, do you reckon they’ll have all the outdoor whirlpool jacuzzi things going, like on
Footballers’ Wives
? Shall I bring my bikini?”

I put down the Coco-Chocko Clusters, ’cos suddenly they felt like stones in my mouth. NO WAY ARE MY PARENTS GOING IN THE JACUZZI. My mother’s boobs are all saggy like an African tribeswoman’s and my dad’s toes have a calcium deposit problem which makes his toenails grow like werewolves’.

If Dad fronts up in those orange Speedos I SWEAR TO GOD, DIARY, I WILL KILL MYSELF.

WEDNESDAY 2ND JULY

Clinton Brunton-Fletcher has a new girlfriend. It is Latoya Bell from our school with the diamond face-stud and the Acceptable Behavior Contract. Latoya’s been quiet lately ever since Kezia kicked her ass, but she wasn’t tonight ’cos Clinton had bought an old Audi and they were driving around and around Goodmayes yelling out the window at people walking home from school. They called me “Moose,” and Carrie “Big tits.” Bezzie was fuming when Carrie rang him. Bezzie said he was going to go round and give Clinton a slap. Then Bezzie worked out who Clinton was and said that violence wasn’t the answer and he’d just diss him in the G-Mayes Detonators’ new track instead.

THURSDAY 3RD JULY

Cava-Sue is proper stressed right now ’cos her Theatre Studies A-Level group are putting on a play called
Waiting For Godot
by this bloke called Samuel Beckett and she has a lead role. I asked her what
Waiting For Godot
was about and she said, “Well, on one level, Shiz, it’s about two tramps waiting for their mate, Godot, to arrive, but on a deeper level it symbolizes lots of things like war and stilted ambition or the futility of modern existence.” Oh my days. It sounds more depressing than Christmas
EastEnders.
Why are all clever books miserable?

I told Cava-Sue about the two A– marks I got for English recently. Cava-Sue was really chuffed for me. She grabbed me and kissed my face! Cava-Sue said I’ve always had a brilliant imagination. Cava-Sue said, “Hey Shiz, do you remember the time when you were three and you took the top off my Barbie dolls’ house and did a poo in the bathroom area then told everyone that the jolly green giant did it?!” WHY DOES EVERYONE IN THIS FAMILY HAVE TO REMEMBER EVERY BLOODY THING?

SATURDAY 5TH JULY

BIG NEWS. The G-Mayes Detonators have SPLIT UP due to musical differences!! Carrie says that Wesley completely refuses to add human beatbox on Bezzie’s track, “Girl, U Iz My Baby-Boo.” Carrie says that Bezzie is going to be a solo artist now and is working on a concept album devoted to songs mainly about his relationship with Carrie. Carrie says she’s sending me an MP3 over of one called “Clinton — Don’t Diss My Wifey” that is so sweet that it made her cry.

It’s like talking to someone with brain damage.

WEDNESDAY 9TH JULY

Mum RSVPed the invite to Maria Draper, saying that we will all be attending the Draper Hydration Summer Barbecue. Mum seems quite excited by it. She can’t wait to get a good nose round Draperville. She’s not seen the hallway ceiling that Maria got painted like the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, except all the angels have Maria’s and Barney’s and Carrie’s faces on them. Maria is right proud of it. Maria rang up
Elle Decoration
and
Stylish Homes
magazines and asked if they wanted to take photos of it but they both said it was “not really their type of thing.” I don’t know how they can say that. The drawing of Alexis the Chihuahua with wings playing a lute is really tasteful. If that’s not style, what is?

FRIDAY 11TH JULY

Nan rang tonight and asked Mum to get her a ticket for Cava-Sue’s play.

“Ooh! Is Cava-Sue in a play?” Mum said loudly. “She never said!!” Cava-Sue looked up from her
Waiting For Godot
book and made a face like you would when your thong gets stuck up your bum-crack.

“Ooh it’s ages since I’ve been to the theater!” Mum said. “’Ere, Brian, when was the last time I saw a show?”

“We went to Goodmayes Social last year to see Jimmy Sparkle the Ventriloquist and his Cheeky Monkey, Rumpo,” Dad said.

“Ooh yeah!” laughed Mum. “He was a right laugh! Will it be anything like that, Cava-Sue?”

“Not really,” said Cava-Sue, then she made the thong/bum-crack face again.

Mum is making Cava-Sue get three tickets for me, her and Gran. Cava-Sue looked very sad when I told her.

WEDNESDAY 16TH JULY

Tonight me, Mum and Nan went to Cava-Sue’s college to see
Waiting For Godot.
We nearly missed the start ’cos Mum was trying to set Sky+ for
Dog Borstal
and find her spare pack of Lucky Strikes. Then Nan turned up dead late too ’cos she’d been at her Wednesday club and the meat raffle was late. By the time we got to the college we were last. We sat near the back like Cava-Sue told us to. She said that was where we’d get the best view. The audience was full of dead studenty sorts wearing weird hats and leg warmers and pixie shoes. Whenever I see Cava-Sue’s mates these days they remind me of that game me and Carrie used to play at birthday parties in Year Seven where you put on tons of coats and hats and scarves and then spin round proper quick and have to eat a Mars Bar with a knife and fork. Their clothes never match and they always look a bit confused.

Eventually the lights went off and the curtain went up. Our Cava-Sue was standing on stage with another girl, both dressed as a tramps with mud smears on their faces! Me and Mum laughed out proper loud and cheered, but no one else did. Cava-Sue paced about a bit, then her and the other girl began talking and shouting words. I listened as hard as I could but I couldn’t understand.

“’Ere, Shiraz! What’s she saying?” Mum said, nudging me. Nan started fiddling with her hearing aid. It began to squeak.

“Is it English?” Nan said. “Is that our Cava-Sue?”

“Shhhhh!” said a woman in front, wearing thick-rimmed glasses.

“Shhhh yersel’!” said Mum. The woman tutted. “’Ere at least Cava-Sue’s smartened herself up a bit!” Mum whispered at top volume.

The next half hour seemed to last FOREVER. I thought the play might get better when more actors joined in, but there WAS NO OTHER ACTORS aside from a weird-looking bloke who ran on now and then talking even more gibberish. Dunno whether he was even in the play or he just had learning difficulties and was lost. Then Mum’s cell phone rang, which was totally embarrassing, ’cos her ringtone is still “In Da Club” by 50 Cent which me and Murphy put on her cell three years ago for a joke. Everyone looked around and stared.

“Helloooo? Glo?” my mum said. “All right darling? I can’t talk. I’m in the theater. IN THE THEATER! Our Cava-Sue’s in a play. Yeah. YEAH! I know! Nah, not really. Nah, it’s not up to much. I ain’t got a clue what’s happening. It’s in Cantonese I reckon!”

By this point people were beginning to tell Mum to shut up. Even Cava-Sue was getting distracted.

“So you got time to cut my Brian’s hair or not then?” my mum said.

“Excuse me!” shouted the woman with the glasses. “There is a no-cell-phone rule during performances!”

“Oh Glo, I’ll ring ya back. Some woman ’ere is taking the right hump,” sighed my mum.

“I am not some woman!” tutted the woman. “I am Cava-Sue’s drama teacher! I produced this performance.”

I looked up at the stage and Cava-Sue was staring down at us in the audience. She looked like she was going to explode.

Soon after that the lights went on and my mum stretched and yawned and said, “’Ere Shiraz, thank god that’s over. My bum’s gone dead!”

Then the announcer said, “The interval will last fifteen minutes. Please return to your seats in good time for part two.”

“Part bloody two!” gasped my mum, then she woke Nan up and we went to Wetherspoon’s over the road instead and had some buffalo wings and waited for Cava-Sue to come out.

Cava-Sue never said a single word all the way home.

Sometimes I think Cava-Sue is embarrassed about us.

THURSDAY 17TH JULY

Ms. Bracket cornered me today and asked me why my mum wasn’t at Parents’ Evening on Monday night. I said she was at work. This wasn’t true. I didn’t tell my mother there was a Parents’ Evening on Monday night. She always makes a big deal about finishing work early to go, then there’s always at least one teacher who bends her ear, then I get loads of earache at home just ’cos she got a load of earache at school. What’s the point?

“Look Shiraz,” Ms. Bracket said. “Next year is crucial to you if you’re going to get those GCSEs and stay on in sixth form. Your geography and religion teacher and I know you are more than capable. Personally, I need to know you’re getting support at home. Will you get your mum to come in and see me next semester?”

She walked off leaving me in the corridor feeling a bit stunned. Ms. Bracket really DOES believe I can do A-Levels. I suppose if I’m real to myself, I do too.

FRIDAY 18TH JULY

END OF TERM. Six whole weeks off! Walked home with Kezia and Luther covered in egg and felt-tip pen and Rice Krispies. Superchav Academy made the local news again. That 911 fire engine prank-call is becoming a bit of an Uma Brunton-Fletcher tradition. She’s on the Ilford Fire Department central database of offenders now too. Uma is moving to Portsmouth for the summer to live with her real dad. Uma says this place is a shit-hole and she’s probably never coming back. Carrie got picked up by Bezzie and they went off to sort out the sound system for Sunday’s Draper Hydration Summer Barbecue. She’s hardly even mentioned me coming at all.

SUNDAY 20TH JULY

It’s 10
pm.
Even though I’m well tired I want to write down everything that happened as it might make me understand it more. Today was the Draper Hydration Summer Barbecue. My mum was up at 8
AM
moaning at my dad to polish his shoes and find his tie, and standing beside mine and Cava-Sue’s bunk beds yelling that it was a beautiful day and we should both put on our matching pink tracksuits and scrunchies and gold charm bracelets that she bought us from Granda’s will money as we all had to look “nice.” Mum is dead paranoid that Maria Draper thinks she’s better than us just ’cos she’s got more money. “At least I make an honest living!” Mum kept saying. “I didn’t just stand flapping my eyelashes at blokes with money who came in the social club!”

Mum then went on to announce that in the 1980s Barney Draper had the “glad eye” for her but she chose our dad instead. Dad groaned then and said that’s why Barney Draper always smiles and toots his horn when he passes him in his van, ’cos he had a lucky bloody escape. Then Mum told Dad to shut up and have a shave and do something with his hair ’cos Aunty Glo had cut it far too short and he looked a bit like Hitler. Then I put on my bright pink H&M tracksuit and my white Adidas trainers and some foundation and a load of bronzer and my thickest gold hoops. Then Cava-Sue came down looking like a homeless as usual in her footless tights and frilly skirt and a T-shirt that said
Young and Lost,
and then Mum shouted at her and then she shouted back and then we all shouted at each other and eventually we left the house.

We got to Draperville and it was like the bloody Brit Awards. They had security guys on the gate with headsets checking invites and helping people park cars. When we got inside there were guests everywhere; all the Draper Hydration employees, all their families, Lewis, Kezia, their mums and dads and tons of the locals from the Goodmayes Social Club. Collette Brown and her new boyfriend, Curtis, were there. Collette had a green bikini top and a sarong and big pair of dark glasses on and she looked well flash, like Victoria Beckham. Of course my mother had to show me up by shouting, “’Ere Collette, love that bikini, is it George at Asda?” and Collette just laughed and said “Gucci.” Collette and my sister barely spoke. Cava-Sue hid inside most of the time moaning about getting skin cancer. The sun was really hot and everyone was drinking glasses of this stuff called Pimms with strawberry and cucumber floating in it, and fancy cocktails with fresh raspberries. At the side of the garden some blokes in white suits were playing “When the Saints Go Marching In” on trombones and trumpets, and this circus clown was going around making balloons into wiener dogs. A whole pig was roasting on a spit and there were three grills covered in burgers and sausages. There were at least five whirlpool jacuzzi baths situated around the side of the garden too! My mother’s eyes were bulging out of her head, then she whispered to me, “’Ere, this is a bit tacky isn’t it? I dunno what they’re trying to prove, we all know they’ve got more money than sense!” I texted Carrie to tell her I was here, but she didn’t text back, so I decided to get some food.

And that’s when I saw him. Wesley Barrington Bains II.

He was sitting on a little bench beside the carp pond, all by himself, texting someone. He had a pair of navy-blue jeans and white trainers on and a baseball cap and a thick gold chain over his Hackett polo shirt. He looked lovely. Really bloody lovely. I wanted to run right up and say hello but I didn’t, I acted cool and I walked over slowly and said, “All right, Billy-no-mates.”

He looked up with his totally lush green eyes and he said, “Shiraz! All right babe?” then he stood up and gave me a little kiss on the face. “Had any mashed rat dramas lately, innit?” he said.

“Nah mate, I am totally mashed rat free,” I said, and then we both laughed about me running down the road in the wellies.

“I was so like a knight in shining armor, innit?” Wesley said, proudly.

“Yeah you were!” I said. Just then some of the grown-ups started stripping their clothes off down to their swimming suits and began getting into the whirlpools, which was so gross that me and Wesley could hardly talk for laughing. One geezer had a belly so big he looked like he was about to give birth to a hippo. Then, just as I was about to sit down and have a proper chat I heard Carrie’s voice.

“Wesley? Wesley?! Has Bezzie found that spare lead yet?” said Carrie. “I told him to do it for 3
PM
!” Carrie looked stunning. She was wearing a short navy-blue dress. Not her tracksuit or jeans. And she was wearing a TIARA! She had borrowed Collette Brown’s tiara! She looked totally beautiful. Like a WAG. She saw me and grabbed me for a hug, shouting, “Ooh! Shizza! You’re here! I didn’t know you were here! We were up in my bedroom putting on some more makeup!”