The zone

I handed in my essay, written up and altered and discovered that only one person had done the reading for Black Americans anyway. I bought Throbbing Gristle’s Second Annual Report at the mini-market (first side played backwards) and afterwards I met Lindsey and Susie in the library coffee bar.

We met up with Barry and Guy and went to the Cellar for something to eat, and then L., S. and I went into Watermouth; we had to make an effort. Lindsey and I ended up at Dizzy’s, a disco at The Zone—½ price drinks until eleven thirty—and we met Alex who was acting as doorman. Ian and Mick were inside too.

Ian came across to talk to us for a few minutes; he and Lee are holding a performance in the crypt of a demolished church near Blenheim Place a fortnight today. I was supposed to go with aforementioned to said crypt at one, but I didn’t get up until half-past.

After a couple of pretty uninspired hours at the disco L. and I left and I walked the mile or so home.

Essay

Pete got back this afternoon and I wrote my essay in the evening while Inga was round again, but I didn’t copy it up.

Taste of doubt

I started my essay on The Awakening at about nine in the morning after staying up all night, and finally finished it around one in the afternoon

After this, Guy and I went to the betting shop, Crown Racing, on Old Priory Road so I could get the flat contracts signed. We walked back through Westdorgan Park in bright hot sun. Beyond the University, the landscape unfolds in idyllic scenes of trees and gently rolling park land, and although it just doesn’t appeal to me like the Yorkshire hills and dales do, it’s still as good as anything the South can offer.

Carl Cotton and an RCP friend were down from London to help Barry with the bookstall. When he’s with the RCP clique, Barry behaves very differently: he adopts a stonier and less equable attitude towards us and this place, and he withdraws into political talk. I’m never comfortable discussing politics with him, because sometimes my conscience is pricked and more often than not, this leaves the taste of doubt in my mouth.

Grave

I got into a panic over the outstanding essays for my major and so planned to stay up all night.

I bought ¼ gramme of speed from Stu, but I'm spending the night in that flush of grave enthusiasm speed always gives me, talking over-seriously about the summer with Gareth, Shelley and Guy. Shelley's staying up all night too,

Awakening

I woke up at six, then at eight, nine, and so on until finally I heaved myself out of bed at ten.

Weird dreams: a strange rainy and muddy landscape, a garden, a ruined village under renovation by a Canadian millionaire. Dotted on the distant hills are yellow and orange meditating figures. . . . Then, a confusion of shooting, hunting—a war. I'm pursuing someone, killing him finally, although I'm not there at the death. . . . Now I'm walking along a road filled with enemy vehicles; there are men on horseback galloping towards me, and they hack at my head and swear as I try helplessly to fend off the blows. . . . Armistice . . . I embrace the cavalrymen joyfully, running towards a jeep with two officers inside, crying happily as I throw my arms around them. . . .

I haven’t done any work since last week although I'm still optimistic about it for some reason. I got my essay back from Miriam today: “quite an impressive and sophisticated discussion” her comment, but also lengthy criticisms that I hadn’t tied my essay down to the text and that it had got too abstract. Perhaps I took her “concentrate on the social moment” too literally, but at least I know where I’ve gone wrong.

I’m supposed to have finished Kate Chopin’s The Awakening by tomorrow. I have lots to do . . .

I got a letter from Lee telling me he’s got in at Watermouth Art College. I feel glad; it will be so odd and so interesting having him here. He writes that he recently broke into the cellar of a disused photographic studio in Easterby and discovered boxes and boxes of old photos, portraits of Pakistani families from the 1950s through the ‘70s and a lot of glass negatives from the ‘20s, showing Easterby street scenes and buildings. He plans on selling them.

His letter really made me laugh. He sent me three photographs – one a bizarre family portrait from the ‘60s (“It’s a cracker – no explanation necessary”). I burst out laughing because I could just imagine his hysteria at the pic. He also broke into an abandoned pub’ but set off the burglar alarm and fled.

Something definitely to look forward to.

Today’s the third anniversary of this journal’s beginning and my mind goes back to that lazy Sunday, three years ago now, to how ordered everything was then. God, I was so innocent! Then I was looking towards ‘O’ levels, now it’s nearly my nineteenth birthday and I’m anticipating moving into my very own flat.

It’s been hot today once more, but there hasn’t been any thunder. I lounged about in the Humanities common room, drinking tea with Guy and talking about the summer. I’m looking forward so much to moving out at the end of term. In the late afternoon I went out into the sun and sprawled on the grass with Shelley and Lindsey and tried to read The Awakening but managed only a few pages before we went down to the dining hall for some food.

In the coffee shop later, Guy, Barry and I watched as Katie stole food from right under the cashier’s nose. She and Rowan have been nicking fags from Shelley’s and Stu’s rooms too. They act out their position of ‘No Limits, No Laws,’ stealing from people they know and not giving a shit about anyone or anything. They’re heading for Morocco in the summer.

Guy finds them both thoroughly repulsive and I can see his point, but still . . . there’s something about them that is vaguely attractive to me. What do they think, I wonder? Katie was in my room tonight, talking, talking – Susie had cracked a joke earlier, saying I had a thing for trying on her underwear, and as I told this to Katie, she asked me in all seriousness, “Well, do you want to . . .?”

Ghastly blue

Last night another great storm rolled in from the sea and we sleepers shivered in our beds as the world fell apart above us. I snuggled into my quilt as the ghastly blue flare of lightning lit my room and the sky rattled with ear-splitting cracks and rumbles, as though it was being torn from horizon to horizon. In my half-awake state I imagined I could see the figure of an old black haired woman sitting at my desk. My plastic shrunken head loomed at me from the wall, and looked as if it was about to swallow me up.

It has been a good week in a way. At least I got my essay done; I finally got it written up and handed in today. It’s taken me a week to get it copied out neatly, working on and off for an hour or so every day, and I pinned it to Miriam’s office door this afternoon.