The Whirlpool of Warning

Thursday November 11 1982. 

We've got the first performance of the play tomorrow so I've been really busy with that, and my essay on the Attlee government (I really need to get a good mark for this one, given all the extra time B**** has given me - a whole hour's extra tutorial, it was great - he's brilliant.). Last night's rehearsal was cancelled because Jane was waiting for the result of the ENTS election - Steve F* was running, but he lost. I think he's a bit of a wanker anyway so wasn't bothered.

So after dinner I went over to R's room again and we did a couple of read-throughs, though we mainly ended up talking about other things (like his ex-girlfriend, who chucked him over the summer holiday a week before they were due to go camping in St Tropez.). At first he pretended he'd been relieved because he hadn't really wanted to go to St Tropez - too full of poseurs, he said - but then he admitted that she'd destroyed him and of course she was - is - the subject of most of the poems he writes. He got out one or two more that had a lot of stuff in them about knives and hearts (better than the insane poems Colin used to write about having dinner with his pet rat because he'd been stood up, but still a bit baffling, really.). Anyway I was there until 1.30 and for some reason he shook my hand and pecked me on the cheek as I was going, which was a bit strange! Of course the next morning at breakfast all the wankers on his corridor were acting like apes, giving us both a round of applause when we arrived (separately) and going on and on about how we didn't have to pretend we hadn't spent the night together. One of them who thinks he's a particularly fine wag made some comment about "method acting", so I had to remind him that as R's actually playing my father in the play and I'm supposed to be a lesbian in it anyway, he was talking crap. These boys are idiots.

Sunday November 14 1982
Well, we didn't win the play competition, but it was hilarious and a real laugh. I'm so glad I did it. The first performance in the JCR was hardest as the whole of Hall was there, meaning all the stupid boys, so there was loads of catcalling and general overexcitement when C and I had to kiss each other (which never got any easer, to be honest - I can't stand her.). There was also some predictable muttering and hissing when I had to deliver the line "Oh, it's all just 'the North', isn't it?", so I imagine Julian was skulking round the back somewhere, obviously unable to understand that it's only a play and I was ACTING. It was much easier last night, in the actual theatre on a proper stage with lights so you couldn't see the audience, and we got a lot of good laughs and applause but not enough to win. We all went to the bar afterwards, all in a really good mood, but unfortunately Robin got very drunk and started grabbing my thigh, which was embarrassing - I asked him politely to stop and he wouldn't - he said he was "out of control" - so in the end I told him to fuck off, which I hadn't wanted to do, and then he got really angry and said I was a "callous bitch", and stormed off. R went to look for him after a while and eventually found him running round and round the track at the sports hall, in a right state. R took him back to his room and put him to bed, but it put a bit of a damper on the evening. I'm angry with Robin for being so stupid. I hope it hasn't made people think worse of me, as I never gave him any indication I was interested in him like that. I hope R doesn't think it was my fault. It's not that I'm interested in HIM like that either, but he's really nice.

Tuesday November 16 1982.
I'm lying on my bed in my green bathrobe. The record player's on, it's "Big Sleep" from New Gold Dream and I've just been reading (again) the letter I got from M this morning, which is very sweet..."I went to phone you on Saturday night, but then realised you'd be out receiving your thespian acclaim" - that made me laugh. I've been down to the JCR and had a couple of vodka and limes, then we nicked some bread and came back here for peanut butter on toast. I also did some washing. The record's just ending so I'm going to turn it over, and by the time the other side's finished I shall no longer be a teenager. I shall have attained the ripe old age of twenty, and shall consequently have one foot in the grave. I am recording all this minutely boring detail so that I can remember what I was doing in my last teenage moments. Ok. It's 11.47pm. I'm going to turn the record over, stick on my headphones, and be damned. If I don't die of old age overnight, I shall face my twenties in the morning. And I SHALL age gracefully!

*He's an editor on the Financial Times now, so it did him no lasting harm...


©Kolley Kibber 2012. All memories and depictions thereof my own. Geddit??