My Madder Fatter Diary (15 page)

Haddock’s girlfriend calls me her marriage guidance counsellor. I feel like a double agent.

And Haddock looked lost. A person totally lost and it kills me because I think he’s lovely. He IS lovely.

11.58 p.m.

It’s all sorted!

What did I tell you?!

Bugger this all. Stop all this noise because it’s me who is left at the end. Stranded.

Saturday 25.8.90

9.23 a.m.

Next time someone asks me
my advice on anything or for help or anything I am going to point them in the direction of the following people – Irma Kurtz in
Cosmopolitan
, Clare Rayner on
TV-AM
, Marje Proops in the
Daily Mirror
and Miriam Stoppard wherever she is. I can’t sort out my problems let alone yours. In fact I might write to them all. Irma Kurtz is a bit harsh though. She’d probably tell me to pull my crap together. She’d be right.

Clare Rayner is nice. I’d like her to be my mum. Dear Clare. Please be my mum as mine is marrying bodybuilders and having tattoos on her arse. P.S. Can I come and live at yours during my year off please?

Sunday 26.8.90

1.32 a.m.

BLOODY HELL! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON! THIS IS BAD!!

Dobber couldn’t get into Olivers for some very strange reason. The bouncer wanker completely thinks she’s someone else that he had to carry out once. She is not. I’ve had to prop her up sometimes but never carry her out. This is bad. Olivers is the place where we all go. We need to SHIMMY!!

Battered Sausage’s amazing and totally BOLLOCKS theory is that maybe Betty Boo has been to Stamford, got bladdered and had to be carried out of Olivers. Naturally they think Dobber IS Betty Boo and that they won’t let her in again.

4.12 p.m.

I have spent most of the day trying to convince Battered Sausage that Betty Boo has never been to Stamford. There is no mention of it in any
Smash Hits
(I keep them all) AND it would have made the
News of the World
. It has NOT. Plus Olivers would love Betty Boo to come to their nightclub. No celebrities have ever come to Stamford.

No – the following celebrities have come to Stamford.

1) Harry Secombe doing
Highway
. Sang a hymn on the Meadows. VERY unlikely to have visited any nightclub.

2) Michael York – actor bloke in
Logan’s Run
– smiled at Mum. I have heard this story a billion times.

3) Gary Wilmot. Opened a jewellery store down Stamford Walk.

4) Bill Oddie came to our school to talk about the rainforest. He looks nothing like Dobber by the way.

5) Una Stubbs dressed as Aunt Sally from
Worzel Gummidge
. She came to open the Bradford and Bingley building society when I was about 9. Dad refused to wait with me for an autograph as he wanted to go to the pub. If I told Mum that fact even 9 years on she would go mad.

6) The Queen and Princess Anne. I can’t see the Queen dancing to ‘Naked in the Rain’ by Blue Pearl but I’m sure in Battered Sausage’s head it’s possible.

Monday 27.8.90

9.34 p.m.

I’m trying not to think of Essex. I’m trying to think of other more important stuff like 1) getting Dobber back into Olivers 2) convincing Battered Sausage that Betty Boo is very unlikely to visit Stamford and even less likely to sleep with him if she does 3) trying to get Haddock out just so I can see him before we move to opposite ends of the world.

Tuesday 28.8.90

9.35 p.m.

Today Dobber admitted to me that she likes, no, LOVES ‘Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini’ by Bombalurina.

I have told her she should not be allowed in any nightclub ever.

Wednesday 29.8.90

4.56 p.m.

Just when my life couldn’t get any weirder, today I was watching
Tell the Truth
with Fred Dineage and Mrs Crane our teacher from school was on it!! I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT. I managed to quickly tape most of it! Anyway I’ve not told anyone WHY but everyone is coming round tomorrow to watch it!

9.12 p.m.

Mum was cross when I told her everyone was coming round tomorrow (the house is a bit of a tip) BUT when I showed her the video she totally understood. She said ‘And people think I’m eccentric.’ To be fair being on
Tell the Truth
isn’t half as loony as having a bodybuilder tattooed on your arse but I wasn’t going to argue.

Thursday 30.8.90

6.32 p.m.

Everyone thought the video was EPIC. In fact the words ‘I’m Mrs Crane and I’m the school teacher’ have become a national catchphrase. Well a Stamford one anyway! Ronni thinks we should get T-shirts printed with it on!

I’m going to miss all this. There’s always someone up for a gig and a laugh. Even about stuff featuring Fred Dineage.

Friday 31.8.90

11.58 p.m.

Haddock out but tonight he was a bit of a git. He was with these two amazing looking women (where did they come from – Europe?) and he winked at me and said, ‘Don’t get the wrong impression Rae – seeing as you’re my girlfriend’s friend.’

What is that actually meant to mean? I’m not your friend anymore?

And Battered Sausage singing ‘Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot WILLY’ full blast in the Vaults is not funny – it’s tedious. Especially after the 405th time.

Saturday 1.9.90

5.39 p.m.

Yet another argument with my mother. She started this one by calling me a ‘little shit of an 18 year old’. I said ‘Better a little shit of an 18 year old than a massive shit of a 48 year old.’ That was it. The killer line. I beat the teacher at her own game.

Sunday 2.9.90

2.46 a.m.

Do you know that is just the way it goes. You think Saturday is going to be a total load of crap and then you get a great night down the Vaults. Firstly I got pissed with Mort down the Meadows. What a classic love she is. Then, I can’t believe it, without any pre-planning I had a massive in-depth session with HADDOCK.

I can’t live with what a total and utter epic person that man is. He says he’s ‘sorted himself out’ (I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever be). He told me about things. He’s had some quite hard times in his life. Why isn’t he addicted to fucking chocolate and crisps?

Anyway some things I said

1. I wish you were my brother (NO I DON’T – I WISH WE WERE BLOODY MARRIED YOU HANDSOME, FUNNY AS HELL, BRILLIANT SOD)

2. You are in my top 5 best friends.

Things he said to me

1. Stop undervaluing yourself.

2. I’m sure you’ll find a bloke at Essex.

3. I know you’re lonely but there’s no need to be. You’re brilliant.

4. If you lost weight you’d be doubly attractive. (NOTICE – ‘doubly attractive’ – in other words I’m at least a bit attractive to start with)

Dear Dr Haddock,

You could cure my loneliness.

Please write me a prescription for your love and frankly a totally hardcore full-on session of DO.

Love from Patient Earl (PATIENT in many ways too. Too bloody patient)

Monday 3.9.90

2.13 p.m.

Keep thinking about some things Haddock said. His girlfriend must talk about me. That’s weird. I don’t want people to get this impression that I’m this fat, ugly, unapproachable pitiful figure.

Even if I am.

Tuesday 4.9.90

4.23 p.m.

Tomorrow I’m going to Hull with Aristotle. I love Aristotle (that’s another Mort codename) – we have a real laugh. He’s Battered Sausage’s mate and he’s going to Hull to sort out his accommodation for next year or something because he’s going to university there. I’m in charge of music because his crappy car doesn’t have a radio or cassette player (his parents are loaded – this makes NO sense). He’s just got a mini ghetto blaster at the back. He loves The Wonder Stuff and it will be good for me to go somewhere different. I took some of Mum’s funny tablets just in case I have a ‘do’.

Wednesday 5.9.90

This is a weird entry because I will sound mad.

I think I’m meant to go to Hull. I can’t explain it. We just went all round the city and this instinct, this voice in my head said ‘Come here’. It felt RIGHT. Now every time I have ignored that voice (and it’s different to the panic voices) something bad has happened. Like when – when you know what happened. I had a funny feeling about that man but I told myself it was just me being stupid and then look what happened. He got me on my own and . . . Anyway this voice was shouting ‘Come here . . . Come here!’ Even though there was nothing special about it. In fact one of the last things we saw was this really dodgy sex shop! But it didn’t matter. It all felt like it was meant to be.

And it’s near Leeds. One train journey away. Just one.

Aristotle’s music was great too – ‘Charlton Heston’ by Stump. LOVED it!!!

I feel like I’ve . . . found somewhere. It had white phone boxes. It was all odd but odd in an ‘I’m Hull – deal with it’ sort of way.

But I’m going to Colchester. Where the phone boxes are red and we are nearer to France than Leeds probably.

Thursday 6.9.90

10.54 a.m.

My personality eats up my gender

The femininity is denied

It doesn’t hurt me till I see him.

Then I feel like a boy monster

I’ve got tits but they’re hidden

Underneath this uncomfortable gob.

No. Why should I stop being funny? THAT’S ME.

The one I want doesn’t even want me to stop being funny either.

Just went mad in my bedroom to ‘Groove Is In The Heart’ by Deee-Lite. I could just dance some days till I died. Or was nearly sick, like then.

Friday 7.9.90

11.01 p.m.

What a palaver! MAJOR problems. Haddock’s girlfriend in tears. I love him but he is acting like a bit of a git. She stayed at mine last night. I had to hide the Haddock museum of photos and artefacts so far under my mattress. She has no idea. I can tell. She honestly believes I just like him.

Saturday 8.9.90

7.09 p.m.

Black Beauty
is BACK on TV! It’s got the same theme tune and everything! It’s set in New Zealand though but who cares?! I LOVE
BLACK BEAUTY
!! Might gallop down to the Vaults with that on my L–N compilation tape. Thank you London String Chorale.

11.08 p.m.

No Haddock. Dobber still can’t get in Olivers.
Black Beauty
was the highlight of the entire day.

Sunday 9.9.90

8.23 p.m.

Sat here looking out my
window, listening to ‘Wishing on a Star’ by Rose Royce. It’s the most beautiful song. It’s about when you’ve lost someone and you just want them back. I wish on everything. On stars, on rainbows, on the mangy black cat from 3 doors away that sprays on Mum’s passion fruit plant and drives her loony. I wish on it all that the bad stuff all goes away and only he’ll be left. He is the prize for getting rid of all the fat on my body and the mad stuff in my head. But even I know it’s going to take more than wishes.

If I know that, why do I have to swipe myself 6 times and say the Lord’s Prayer 10 times perfectly to stop my mum dying.

‘Groovy Train’ by The Farm is brilliant.

Monday 10.9.90

4.35 p.m.

I’ve been trying to sort out my grant today. I get £790 A TERM!!! THAT’S A FORTUNE!! Mum says you’ll have to make it last but £790!! AND apparently because you’re a student the banks give you massive overdrafts too! HELLO HMV!! I can just get the textbooks from the library and MUSIC BINGE!! This may have been the greatest thing Thatcher has ever done!

Tuesday 11.9.90

11.01 a.m.

Woke up this morning to find an envelope put through the letterbox. It had a chicken bone put through it and the message ‘Put this in your nose and fuck off back to where you came from’.

Now I’ve had some fat abuse in my time but this does not make any sense at all.

1) I don’t binge on chicken. Stamford doesn’t even have a KFC. I occasionally eat too many spicy wings and stuff but not regularly.

2) I was born in Stamford Hospital. Go back to where I came from?! Do they mean Rutland Road where I first lived or Stamford High School?! Either way it’s STUPID.

3) Putting the bone of anything through someone’s letterbox is vile.

4) So now I get bullied not just in the street but in my own house too by thick twats who make no sense. WANKERS.

5) I wish I could get out of this place. Even though I’m scared to.