Prosperity and ruin

I got to Jeremy’s at about eight last night. Duncan Verity and Tommy Whelan there already, Tommy in quasi-New Romantic garb. Neither very forthcoming about anything, each content to hang back and laugh at the jokes and comments.

There was quite a big spread of crisps, pizza, flans, sausages on sticks etc., laid out on a trestle table outside. The barbecue sizzled and smoked in the drizzle. Quite a lot of effort had gone into this: a dance floor was outside in a stone shed, with straw bales around the walls for seating and Jeremy’s stereo for the music. The booze was in a nearby wooden outhouse.

We went for a brief drink somewhere nearby and when we got back Duncan was leaving; he played a Diana Ross track on the stereo outside and then was gone. I subjected everyone to the Sex Pistols and Siouxsie & The Banshees before I was outvoted. There were a lot of boring middle-aged people present, presumably friends of Jeremy’s Dad and his step-mum Jane; one graying bloke came and sat down and pretended to enjoy the music, even tapping his foot to “Pretty Vacant.”

This was the only stage where I actually enjoyed myself. Soon the stereo was reclaimed and the straw bales were packed with young friends and relatives of the extended Beaumont family who milled around, although to look at them he and they seemed a million miles apart.

I retreated inside and was subject to drunken unfriendly comments from Jeremy's sister Sarah’s fiancé Robert: “Fuckin’ hell, look at the size on ‘im! Frankenstein! All he needs are bolts through his neck!” From then on he called me “Frankenstein.”

Later, as I was sitting down eating, Sarah herself started in at me: “All your friends are puffs Jeremy,” then, to me, “Look at you, trying to be something you’re not, trying to put yourself above us.” And then she erupted at her future step-mother, and a huge family scene started.

Tommy and I fled into the front room, while out in the hall and kitchen angry voices got louder and angrier until all hell was let loose – hysterical crying and screaming as the women tried to stop the men from kicking the shit out of each other. I heard Jeremy’s brother shouting at his mum Jane and it all ended up in a physical fight outside.

Tommy and I hid in the front room drinking vodka. It was disturbing & unpleasant listening to so many people crying and shouting and I felt I shouldn’t have been there listening to it; I wanted to go but I daredn’t brave the storms raging on the other side of the door.

We tried to calm down a little kid who came skulking into the room; he kept shouting “Me Dad’s fighting!” and running fearfully to the window. Sarah was in tears, weeping uncontrollably and saying her head hurt. What can you do? I helplessly tried to console her and soon she was sobbing in Jeremy’s arms. I felt so sorry for him.

I fell asleep and when I woke up everything was quiet and most people were in bed. Tommy was gone and Jeremy had gone to bed. I heard later that the aggro had spilled out onto the street and a taxi driver had somehow got involved and his cab window was broken.

It was just me, Robert and his drunkenly unpredictable mate Adrian, Robert still calling me “Frankenstein.” They speculated how they would each crush the other’s balls at karate. I couldn’t take it any more and so I left at three o’clock or thereabouts, my name-caller insisting on shaking my hand and apologising for “taking the piss,” saying I seemed like a “nice bloke.”

I got home to find I was locked out. I spent the night in the back of the car, and staggered blearily in at about eight this morning with a headache, feeling rotten. Dad was up and writing away.

I went back to bed after the air had been soured by Mum erupting at Dad as he was preparing to launch himself into yet another of his “declining morals” tirades against “filth” and porn. It’s 5.30 p.m., I just got up and they’re still not speaking to one another, but Dad seems cheerful enough.

Mum is in a silent morose sulk.