Kitten

A hot, sunny day. In Dearnelow with Robert in the morning to see about a picture he’s having framed, dreading getting back because he had to ring the vet at twelve. He said he thought they’d have to put George to sleep, but the vet said he wanted to operate and would ring back, which raised our hopes. Carol prayed to God, and while she was upstairs we played knockout cricket. No football, wasted journey.

Then, at two-thirty the ‘phone-call, and I suppose I knew really, and Robert’s subdued voice told me I was right. The vet had put George down. Robert went and told Carol, who sobbed her heart out, and we went down to pay the vet. All this sentiment over a cat sounds quite stupid, but we were really sickened and I felt close to tears myself. Robert’s eyes were watery and he kept damning Fate and life.

The vet looked upset. He told us that George’s bile duct had been ripped away in the accident and his digestive juices had turned his insides bright yellow. Robert and Carol's force feeding probably helped kill him, although they weren’t to know. If only it hadn’t been a Bank Holiday when the car hit him! As I waited outside the vet’s for Robert in the sun, George’s collar and little bell in my hand, I felt so bad I could’ve cried. We set about looking for a kitten for Carol, reasoning that a replacement would take her mind off things. The people at the pet shop told us about two, and at five we went down to a nearby warehouse to get them, but the kittens were hiding among the bags of corn and grain. The woman from the pet shop woman told us she’d deliver a tabby tom at nine.

By the evening, Carol had got over it a bit better, and we were playing dominoes when the kitten arrived. He's only five weeks old, a tiny yelping thing with big feet, a surprised expression and a bright red nose. Robert and Carol named him Wilmott.

It's been a really horrible, unreal day that has seemed to last forever. I can’t get George out of my head.

Cat

At school, more of the same, more dislike of people and my circumstances.

I set off for Robert's at six, getting there at eight to find Carol on the settee tearful. George is at the vet’s again and is a “very sick cat.” He's being kept in overnight. Carol burst into tears as she told me this and is still upset. The house is heavy with sadness, and I keep gazing at his basket, his cushion, his little furry ball. . . .

We went out to the pub’ and I had two pints of cider and we all cheered up. Carol seemed better and we really quite enjoyed it.

Trap

Back at school. All my old feelings, dull rage at myself, people around me, my trap.

Then, surprise surprise, Andrew arrived, ladened with presents and LPs and full of the joys of Denmark's geniality, generosity and aggro free environment. He seems really sad to have left, and was almost in tears at teatime when he told us about his friends waving goodbye at the station.

In the evening, as he, Mum and I watched Top of The Pops, he told us what had happened, occasionally stopping as if embarrassed, or sitting with head in hands. He was staying with Sten Mortensen and had an affair with Sten's girlfriend Amalie. I could only listen completely amazed at the drama, like it was something out of fiction, and writing this I can't help but reduce it all to triviality, and I still don’t really comprehend. "Things snowballed" he said. "I couldn't stop them, and sometimes I'd tell her we couldn’t go on, that it must stop, but she said No and that it was too beautiful to end and we got really involved.”

He said he felt guilty and ashamed at the furtive way he was behaving, and was jealous of Sten. “I’ve never cried so much as over this.” But eventually Sten found a letter Amalie had written Andrew and so for the last fortnight things were a bit uncomfortable, Andrew writing letters of apology, Sten answering them coolly. "I don’t blame him.” It throws my infatuations into the correct perspective. He says he has a photo of her in his diary, but “I’ve just got to forget.” I have got to see this girl who loves Andrew!

Contradictions

I went into Easterby to change my jeans (the first pair faulty, the second too small) and also to go to the library. I also photocopied eight double page spreads from Picasso and Braque, and this done, sat reading Nietzsche for much of the day. I read A Reader carefully, slowly, puzzled by the contradictions, sometimes quite amused by the immodesty. Met Dad and came home in the car.

I'm feeling good about school, but it’ll all be just the same; optimism at home, then boredom once I'm back at school, filled with feelings of self-indulgent regret.

God

I went into Easterby with Dad at twelve to go to the library, but it was closed.

When I got home Mum had come back from school; she had to go to get things ready for the new term. She was depressed, a woman at work in tears because her husband's got cancer and he's been sent to Bakersford cancer hospital, a virtual death sentence. One of those cruel situations, just managed to buy their own house, etc. . . . The woman's a Sunday school teacher, a Methodist . . . If there is a God he must be a real bastard. But if there is a God, maybe his ‘form’ is some sort of spirit of continuity, within everyone, that links us all to our past and to the future.

I'm looking forward to school. I saw Sean Barker, and he said there's a chance of a job at Topshop in a fortnight. Also, Robert and Carol's cat is OK apparently, and only has shock and concussion.