saturday june 4th
1:00 a.m.
What is it with boys? Just when I thought I had forgotten about my heartbreakosity vis-à-vis Robbie (merde, I’ve thought of his name again, I am going to have to call him something else so as not to attract the voodoo thing. I will call him…er…the guitar plucker.)…Anyway, where was I before I so rudely interrupted myself? Oh yes, just when I thought I had forgotten about my heartbreakosity vis-à-vis the guitar plucker, he sends me a really nice letter. Then Masimo pops by.
Oh, I don’t know!!!
churchill square
11:00 a.m.
Rosie said, “In this sort of situation, she who dares, shops.”
So in preparation for the Battle of the Chicks I am going to get a fabby and marvy pair of shoes.
ravels
11:30 a.m.
I saw these cool shoes in the window, with a bit of a kitten heel and some groovy strappy bits round the toes and the heel.
in the shoe shop
We all trooped in and I asked for my size. The woman said the biggest they had was a size 4 until next week.
Next week! Is she mad? I have to go to the gig, like, tonight!
I said to her, “OK, please bring me them.”
Jas said, “What’s the point of that, you take a size 7?”
“Sometimes.”
Rosie, who was trying on some ludicrous furry boots that made her look like a yeti, said, “So do your feet change size, then?”
I said, “Well, you know, it SAYS a size 7, but then if they are made in Japan where they have very tiny feet, size 7 is like a size 15 over here.”
They all looked at me.
Then the lady with the shoes came back. They were groovy as anything. Masimo would love them, because as every fool knows, Italians are the mistresses of footwear.
five minutes later
Blimey. I couldn’t get my heels in. I said politely to the lady, “Have you got a horn?”
And that set the gang off into hysterics.
She looked at us like we were loons but went off to get the shoehorn.
five minutes later
Got them on! Yesss!
The lady in the shop said, “Are you sure they fit? Walk around in them.”
The gang were all slouched about waiting for me not to be able to walk. I got up. Ouch ouch and double merde and ouch. They were bloody aggers. I looked in the mirror. They looked fab. I must have them; I must go through the pain for him. I smiled like a loon.
“Do you know, it’s amazing, they are sooooo comfy as well as being groovy. It’s almost like wearing slippers.”
bedroom
1:00 p.m.
I have stuffed my new shoes with newspapers to try and stretch them.
bedroom
1:30 p.m.
Mum came snuffling around. “Give us a look at your new shoes.”
I said, “Oh, I’ll show you later when I am all dressed up.”
in the bathroom
5:00 p.m.
Dad said he doesn’t know anyone who stays in the bathroom for four hours. It is a great pity that he doesn’t spend a lot more time on his appearance.
in my room
5:30 p.m.
I have two mirrors arranged so that I can see back and front.
I am so smoothy everywhere that I am like a human billiard ball, there is not one single lurking rogue hair on my entire body. I am a lurker-free zone and I have at least got my base coat of makeup on.
6:00 p.m.
I have got a couple of jumbo rollers in my hair, which I will take out at the last moment when I have done everything else so that I have max bounceablilty.
6:30 p.m.
Calm ohm. Save myself and my energy for the battle. Better check the weather. Hmmm, a bit cloudy.
Phoned Jas. “Jas, do you think it will rain?”
Jas said, “Just a min.”
I heard her scampering around and then she came back to the phone.
“No, I think dry spells with just a tiny possibility of precipitation.”
Blimey. I had to ask—I knew I shouldn’t, but I had to.
“Jas, can I ask how you found that out?”
“Oh, yes, well, the snails in the jar that Tom and I placed in the—”
“Jas, I really must dash. Libby is watching The Sound of Music again and I need to yodel along. See you at eight.”
7:00 p.m.
Just about ready. I am not going to risk the boy entrancers, even though they are fab and entrance boys like billio. I don’t want to take any risks glue-wise. I have put eight coats of mascara on, so that should do the trick. I put on one coat and then put talcum powder over it and then another coat and so on. I can hardly lift my top lids up, but I like to think that gives me a mysterious sexualosity.
7:15 p.m.
My little blue skirt looks vair fab and I have put fake tan on my legs to top up my Hamburger-a-gogo browniness. I don’t think you can really see the streaky bits unless you were at floor level, and who is going to be there? Apart from the midget lesbians I was worrying about before. I have got my strict bra on, the one that takes no nonsense from my basoomas, and a fabby blue and black top, which has got a really small pair of lips on it down at the bottom. You don’t notice it, but if you did, it would imply I liked snogging without implying I am a tart.
7:25 p.m.
Mum called up: “Can I come and see what you are wearing?”
Oh God.
I put my shoes on.
OH my God!!! Ag city Arizona! They were made for a child! I pushed my feet in and managed to get them on. And stood up. If I walked about I would probably get used to them.
Mum came in.
“Wow. You look really groovy! Is this for the Italian Stallion?”
Shut up. Please shut up.
Then she noticed my shoes.
“Are they your new shoes? They are gorge, aren’t they? Aren’t they a bit too small for you?”
I said, smiling widely, “Gosh no, if anything they are a bit slack.”
She was still looking at them.
“What size are they?”
I looked at my watch and said, “Crikey O’Reilly, is that the time? I promised to meet the gang at seven thirty. S’later.”
I dashed off down the stairs. Ouch ouch, aggers aggers. Bugger bugger bum.
on the way to jas’s
My God, these shoes hurt. On the plus side I think they are cutting off the blood supply to my feet, so with a bit of luck my feet will be numb soon.
I had to sit up on a wall for a resties just round the corner from Jas’s house.
7:45 p.m.
As we walked along Jas said, “Do you want to go to the loo? You’re walking funny.”
clock tower
8:00 p.m.
Met up with the usual suspects. Rosie had actually bought the furry yeti boots. Maybe they are to match Sven’s. He has the most unusual dress sense I have come across in someone who is not actually working in a circus. I wouldn’t have thought you could buy shiny purple suits with scarlet inserts, but you can. Also, if I could bear to think about it, I would say that he was wearing lipstick. He lifted me up and kissed me on both cheeks.
“Hi, girly girls, let’s hit it!!”
I looked into my compact. Yep, he was wearing lipstick.
We all trailed after him. Jools is in a state of near madnosity about whether she is going out with Rollo or not. Jas is in one of her philosophical moods, so she said to Jools, “If it is meant to be, then it will be. Did I show you my song from Tom called ‘You Are the Only Fish in My Sea’?”
As Jas got it out (ooer) to read to Jools, I walked on quickly with the rest of the gang. Ouch ouch ouchey ouch. Still got feeling in my feet.
Ellen said, “I think I am going to, like, make Dave the Laugh jealous.”
I laughed and said, “Oh, yeah, good luck.”
And she looked at me.
“How do you mean?”
I said, “W
ell, he, you know, he’s not, erm, he doesn’t really seem like the jealous type, does he?”
Ellen said, “Well, I’m going to, you know, dance and flick my hair about with that friend of Rollo’s. I am going to try all those tricks and stuff.”
I said, “Promise me you won’t try the infectious laugh.”
By this time we were outside the Buddha Lounge.
in the tarts’ wardrobe
8:40 p.m.
We had a last-minute ace gang conference.
Well, Rosie, me and Jas did. Mabs and Ellen and Jools were so eager for boy action that they did a quick lippy check, visit to the piddly diddly department and off out onto the disco dance inferno emporium.
Rosie said, “Go through the checklist.”
I sat on the edge of a sink. (Oh, the relief, the relief in the tootsies department.)
I began: “Mascara?”
We looked at my mascara.
“Check.”
“Lippy and lurker situation.”
Jas and Rosie looked and said together:
“Check.”
I said, “Attractive smile full of Eastern promise?”
And I smiled.
Rosie said, “Phwoar, give us a snog, I have come over all lesbian.”
I like to think she was joking.
I am ready to take on Lindsay. Flicky flicky. Hip wiggle, hip wiggle. Smiley smile.
Left the tarts’ wardrobe.
Just as we were about to hit the dance floor Jas said, “What about knickers?”
I looked at her.
“Yes, what about them?”
“Have you got any on?”
Is she truly mad? But then I couldn’t actually remember putting them on. When did I put them on? I remember putting the skirt on and my bra and top, but knickers? Which ones were they? Oh God. Perhaps I had forgotten and then I would fall over and reveal my front and back bottom to the world.
Or Sven would pick me up like he very often did when he was doing his frenzied Saturday Night Fever routine.
I dashed back into the loos.
Knicker alert over. I blame Jas entirely—she is so obsessed with underwear.
9:00 p.m.
Vair vair dark in the club, and crammed. We edged around to the bar; it took a while to get used to the dark. Especially if your eyes were weighed down with one pound of mascara and talcum powder. Dave the Laugh was about an inch away from my nose before I saw him.
“Hello, kittykat, you’re back.”
I smiled at him and then Rachel popped her head over his shoulder.
“Hi, Georgie, cool to see you.”
She was always so alarmingly pleased to see me. Why? There is nothing wrong with her, but I’m Dave’s friend, not hers. She pulled on Dave’s arm and said, “Come and dance, babe.”
He looked at me and I for once had the upper whatsit. I said, “Yeah, babe, go dance.”
He gave me a cross-eyed look and went off to dance.
Rollo and his mates were all there at the bar with Jools, Mabs and Ellen hanging on their every word. Pathetico. I would never do that.
Everyone was there.
I said to Jas, “Jas, just nod your head up and down wisely. You don’t have to talk. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t. I want you to be my decoy duck whilst I look around for any sign of Masimo.”
Jas tried to have a strop but I stopped her by saying, “You know I am only asking you to do this because you are my vair vair bestest palsie in the whole world. Also, if you help me with this I will let you sing Tom’s song to me.”
Jas perked up then.
“Yip yip, he’s back in five days. I only came out to help you with all your boy troubles, you know.”
I was going to give her a friendly dead arm for being so annoying, when some bulky girl trod on my toe as she was going by with her lardy mates.
I shouted out.
“Bloody hell in a handbasket, ouch ouch! Bollocking bugger bugger bum!”
Jas said, “Are you sure your shoes are okay?”
I said, “Jas, some complete imbecile of gigantic proportions has just trodden on my foot. That is why I am leaping like a loon.”
I might actually have to slip off for a quick lie-down in the loos and put my feet up on the loo seat.
But then “all pain dropped away from my tootsies forsooth,” as Billy so eloquently put it in his famous sonnet “Ode to My Feet.”
Masimo came up to the bar.
He looked megacool (and a half). He doesn’t look like English boys. He’s more sophis. He is wearing a cool, pale blue Italian suit with a T-shirt. Like me, he is wearing fabby shoes. (Although his don’t have kitten heels and he doesn’t look like he is going to wet himself.) I put my shoulders back to give a bit of nunga emphasis (looking round first to make sure I didn’t knock anyone over).
Also, I let my mouth drop open a bit and put my tongue at the back of my bottom teeth. Like Britney Spears but without the big tongue piercing.
I was deliberately not acknowledging Masimo. I was absolutely tip-top full of glaciosity.
Jas, Ellen and Mabs were, however, full of stupidosity. They all came crowding round me going, “Have you seen him? Have you seen him? He’s at the bar, over there—look, can you see him?”
And so on. Soooo annoying and uncool.
I was still doing my tongue-behind-the-teeth thing, so I said, “Thlear off, tho away, thleave me ayown.”
I pretended to wave at someone in Masimo’s direction. He caught my eye and smiled. I slightly smiled and he began to come across to me. Oh, I love him I love him. But no! Remember the plan. I smiled again and then I forced myself to walk away.
And not look back. Cor, how difficult was this? It was like walking with my feet facing in one direction and my body facing in the opposite direction trying to snog him. Like a really crap mime artist. But I must do it. I must keep up my glaciosity.
Also I was trying to make a good impression from the back. I was concentrating so much on crap mime-walking, hip-wiggling, hair-flicking and eschewing the Luuurrve God with a firm hand that I went nunga-nunga–first into Dave the Laugh. Again.
He said, “Settle down, lads,” straight to my basoomas. Cheeky cat.
However, he was the Hornmeister and there was no sign of Rachel, so I told him what I had just done.
I said, “You would have been proud. Masimo came over to me and I walked away with glaciosity at all times. What do you think tacticwise?”
He looked a bit funny. If I didn’t know that he was a callous Hornmeister I would have said he looked a bit sad, but I must have been wrong, because he said, “Excellent work. Keep it up. What handbag has he got tonight?”
Then Rachel came bounding up like a friendly red setter. Dave was nice to her but he looked a bit cornered. If I were her I would give him a bit more space. Blimey, I am suddenly full of wisdomosity about relationships. I have become an expert in the oven of love.
9:30 p.m.
No sign of my rival in love, the incredibly useless Stick Insect of the Universe and Back. Good. Oh, maybe she is dead. How sad, never mind.
The Stiff Dylans are coming on in a minute.
9:40 p.m.
Wow, the place has gone hog wild!!! Girls were shrieking when Masimo came to the microphone and said, “Ciao. We are back.”
10:15 p.m.
I am quite literally in a dance inferno. Hit it, lads! The whole club is kicking. All the boys are fit and cool and Masimo is a brilliant singer and sooooo sexy on stage.
10:35 p.m.
Girls were even trying to get up on the stage to get to the Stiff Dylans! One got up and managed to kiss Masimo on the cheek before she was pulled away by a bouncer. Vair vair embarrassing. The final straw was when Nauseating P. Green tried to get up onstage. No danger of her managing that. She got one knee on and then just jumped up about a foot and came back down again. She would have been stuck there for eternity going up and down, but a bouncer came and pulled her away. Her new enormous glasses were
on sideways.
Attractive.
10:40 p.m.
I’m sweating a bit so I had better go and cool myself down in the loos; the last thing a Luuurve God wants is a slippery girlfriend. I have been doing some of my best moves in front of him. Just subtly, you know, nothing flash, although I did have to shove Jas quite hard once or twice to get her to let me in. Now and again I have glanced at him and then looked away. Wet Lindsay has been dancing in front of him with her eyes fixed on him like she was trying to hypnotize him.
I said to Ro Ro, “As the Swan of Avon said in his famous snogging comedy Midsummer Night’s Snog, ‘When you wanteth to snog a Luuurve God, do not prithee danceth about like a prat with stick insect legs.’”
Rosie said, “Ye are wiseth in the extremeth, my paleth. Billy also saideth, ‘Forsooth and lack a day, do not have ye a tiny forehead, otherwise you are simply askingeth for a duffing-up scenario…ith.’”
Then we laughed like the proverbial draineth.
10:50 p.m.
As I went to the loos I saw Rollo and Jools snogging for England on the steps. And then in the corridor by the loos I found Mabs snogging someone, I couldn’t tell who it was boywise as I didn’t recognize the back of his head. As I went by, Mabs opened her eyes and winked at me—what was she on about? Then she pointed at her wristwatch. With the other hand she held up three fingers, Then she did the thumbsies up. Still snogging. What in the name of arse? I went into the loos.
in the tarts’ enclosure
Blimey good job I did a makeup check. I looked like a red-faced loon.
Then I got it! Mabs was saying that she had got up to No. 6 on the snogging scale, a kiss lasting over three minutes without a break!
Yess! She’ll be thrilled as a thrilled thing on a thrilling holiday. Unless it was Spotty Norman.
They were all at it. Apart from me. It was so long since I had snogged anyone, I couldn’t even remember what it felt like to snog. Perhaps I had lost my technique. I tried a quick snog on the back of my arm, but it was very difficult to tell the difference between arm and lipsies.
I must take my shoes off for a moment. I went into a piddly-diddly kiosk and sat down on the loo seat. Hmmm, my feet look a bit red and swollen, maybe I should take my shoes off. But if I got them off I might never get them back on.