My father has decided to go to Skegness on the fifteenth. He has booked a four-berth caravan. He is taking Doreen and Maxwell with him! He expects me to go!
If I go people will automatically assume that Doreen is my mother and Maxwell is my brother!
I am going to Scotland.
Had tragic last night with Pandora. We have both sworn to be true. I have done all my packing. The dog has been taken round to grandma’s with fourteen tins of Pedigree Chum and a giant sack of Winalot.
I am taking
My father, Stick Insect and Maxwell House saw me off at the station. My father didn’t mind a bit that I chose to go to Scotland instead of Skegness. In fact he looked dead cheerful. The train journey was terrible. I had to stand all the way to Sheffield. I spoke to a lady in a wheelchair who was in the guard’s van. She was very nice, she said that the only good thing about being handicapped was that you always got a seat in trains. Even if it
My mother and creep Lucas met me at Sheffield. My mother looked dead thin and has started dressing in clothes that are too young for her. Lucas creep was wearing jeans! His belly was hanging over his belt. I pretended to be asleep until we got to Scotland.
Lucas mauled my mother about even whilst he was driving.
We are at a place called Loch Lubnaig. I am in bed in a log cabin. My mother and Lucas have gone to the village to try to buy cigarettes. At least that is their story.
There is a loch in front of the cabin and a pine forest and a mountain behind the cabin. There is nothing to do. It is dead boring.
Did some washing in a log cabin launderette. Spoke to an American tourist called Hamish Mancini; he is the same age as me. His mother is on her honeymoon for the fourth time.
Rained all day.
Sent postcards. Phoned Pandora, reversed charges. Her father refused to accept them.
Played cards with Hamish Mancini. His mother and stepfather and my mother and her lover have gone to see a waterfall in the car. Big deal!
Walked two and a half miles into Callander to buy Mars bar. Played on Space Invaders. Came back, hadtea. Phoned Pandora from log cabin phone box. Reversed charges. She still loves me. I still love her. Went to bed.
Went to see Rob Roy’s grave. Saw it, came back.
My mother has made friends with a couple called Mr and Mrs Ball. They have gone off to Stirling Castle. Mrs Ball has got a daughter who is a writer. I asked her how her daughter qualified to be one. Mrs Ball said that her daughter was dropped on her head as a child and has been ‘a bit queer’ ever since.
It is Mrs Ball’s birthday so they all came back to our log cabin to celebrate. I complained about the noise at 1 AM, 2 AM, 3 AM, and 4 AM. At 5 AM they decided to climb the mountain! I pointed out to them that they were blind drunk, too old, unqualified, unfit and lacking in any survival techniques, had no first-aid kit, weren’t wearing stout boots, and had no compass, map or sustaining hot drinks.
My protest fell on deaf ears. They all climbed the mountain, came down and were cooking eggs and bacon by 11.30 AM.
As I write Mr and Mrs Ball are canoeing on the loch. They must be on drugs.
Went to Edinburgh. Saw the castle, the toy museum, the art gallery. Bought a haggis. Came back to log cabin, read
The massacre of Glencoe took place on February 13th 1692. On February 14, John Hill wrote to the Earl of Tweeddale, ‘I have ruined Glencoe’.
He was dead right, there is nothing there. Glasgow tomorrow.
We drove through Glasgow at 11 AM in the morning yet I counted twenty-seven drunks in one mile! All the shops except the DIY shops had grilles at the windows. Off-licences had rolls of barbed wire and broken glass on their roofs. We had a walk round for a bit, then my mother nagged Lucas creep into taking her to the Glasgow art gallery. I intended to sit in the car and read
How glad I am that I did! I might have gone through life without having an important cultural experience!
Today I saw Salvador Dali’s painting of the Crucifixion!!!
They have hung it at the end of a corridor so that it changes as you get nearer to it. When you are finally standing up close to it you feel like a midget. It is absolutely fantastic!
Huge! With dead good colours and Jesus looks like a real bloke. I bought six postcards of it from the museum but of course it is not the same as the real thing.
One day I will take Pandora to see it. Perhaps on our honeymoon.
Oban today. Bumped into Mr and Mrs Swallow who live in the next street to me. Everyone kept saying, ‘It’s a small world isn’t it?’ Mrs Swallow asked creep Lucas how his wife was. Lucas told her that his wife had left him for another woman. Then everyone blushed and said what a small world it was and parted company. My mother went mad at Lucas. She said ‘Do you have to tell everyone?’ and ‘How do you think I feel living with a lesbian’s estranged husband?’ Lucas whined onfor a bit but then my mother started looking like my grandma. So he kept quiet.
Fort William today. Ben Nevis was another disappointment. I couldn’t tell where it began or stopped. The other mountains and hills clutter it up. Lucas fell in the burn (Scottish for ‘little river’) but unfortunately it was too shallow to drown in.
Went for a walk around the loch with Hamish Mancini. He told me that he thinks his mother is heading for her fourth divorce. He is going home tonight; he has got an appointment with his analyst in New York on Monday morning.
I have finished my packing and I am waiting for my mother and creep Lucas to come back from their furtive love-making somewhere in the pine forest.
We leave at dawn.
I made Lucas stop for souvenirs at Gretna Green. I bought Pandora a pebble shaped like an otter, Bert a tam-o’—shanter, the dog a tartan bow for its neck, grandma a box of tartan fudge, Stick Insect tartan biscuits, Maxwell a tartan sweet dummy. I bought my father a tartan tea towel.
I bought myself a tartan scribbling pad. I am determined to become a writer.
