Biggest culprit

I got in to discover Elson had locked the Common Room because someone had left it in a state, with chairs upturned and cushions everywhere. He refused to open it until the culprits came forward. Suspicion immediately fell on me and Lee. I felt awful.

The mock for English Paper III was held in C11 from nine until eleven and it was OK, not brilliant, but not bad either. Afterwards everyone hung around in the Youth Area and as we did so, Reg the caretaker pointed an accusing finger at me. “He's one of the biggest culprits; we’ve watched you throwing water, playing football, smashing tiles. . . .” He got quite annoyed. “I resent that” I said to loud laughter from Laxton and Abbot.

In History, I accused him of blaming me for the morning's crime and called him a “doddering old fool” and “a lackey” who “should get back to his sweeping up” but this was because I felt guilty, and what's worse is I know he's being fair. We do vandalise things, mess about, cause trouble. I ended up raving on about my 'inability' to work.

At twelve, me and Lee left school feeling stigmatised and guilty. The weather was spring-like and we got a lift into Easterby from Dad, wandered round second-hand shops and went to the library (got out The Secret Of Meditation by H. U. Rieker), but I felt pissed off and depressed and only later did I brighten up.

I read Rieker all afternoon and evening, Mum sleeping, me quiet, feeling excited at what I was discovering, but also a basic fear of total commitment, a feeling of having too much to give up. But I'm not happy now, and the way things are going I never will be.

Climax

Absolute insanity at school; me, Peter and Lee hurling spoons, knives, curry powder, shouting, being crude, childish, acting like total nut cases. Many disapproving looks and comments. It was a madhouse. . . . Frustration, desperation . . . nihilism . . . dead inside.

Later I did sporadic ‘revision’ for Giles’s Paper III tomorrow but mostly we just tossed about, reaching a crazy climax after school, before Art . . . It's all so completely negative and off-putting.

Mum and Dad came home at seven with the news that Uncle Kenneth has crashed his car, got breathalysed, spent the night in the cells, and will probably lose his driving licence, car, job ⇒ Fraught worry.

Nihilistic

Gale force winds continue, and the last few days have been really bad.

Blandness. I can't communicate with anyone about how I really feel and the boredom of school is ruining me, making me do lazy and destructive things that are ‘out of character’ (so to speak); I'm nihilistic about everything, and can’t talk with Laura, can’t talk with Deborah (who still seems cool). How I hate everything!

Seems our illnesses could’ve been gastric flu’, passed on by Janet’s baby, as others who were at the christening are ill too.

I just don’t know what to put, can’t describe it properly.

Diary of a madman

At seven I was up spewing in the toilet. I felt awful, my stomach about to burst, my head dull and muzzy. But I set off at nine and endured English and half of History before I had to rush out and retch yellow bile in the bogs.

Today I was struck by how claustrophobic everything feels in the vast shadow of revision and mocks, Slicer’s work, and my inability to face up to my responsibilities. My aptitude for indolence reduces me to after-school vandalism, utter slobbishness, shallow selfishness. . . . Deborah and Steve joked about my future and my present state. I was at least happy for contact. What an awful rut I’m in. Everything’s too much! Lee brought a pair of baggy dinner suit trousers. . . .

During the evening, I had a lot of homework to do. Grant rang to ask if I fancied going to see Gogol’s Diary Of A Madman at the Hattersley Theatre in Easterby but I reluctantly declined and decayed instead in front of the TV screen.

I read some Burroughs: a little feeling of excitement when he talks about LSD, mescaline and cannabis. “Colours and sounds gain an intense meaning and many insights carry over after the drug effects have worn off.” He then describes “a permanent increase in the range of experience” of aesthetic things (music, paintings, etc.).

Finally, in bed at 11.30, I did some work for Slicer. . . . Mum and Dad are both sick: diarrhea, minor food poisoning?

Dwarf disco

I was hardly in school at all, and I acted loud and silly with Lee and Peter when I was. Wandered down to Farnshaw with Lee in the afternoon.

I rushed off my Pollock essay by about eight in the evening and, after much uncertainty, set off for a birthday party at the Escapade nightclub. I wore my new jacket. . . .

I met Tim and Peter on the way in and we bought drinks in the tiny foyer. Downstairs, the main part of the club was even smaller, a tiny and cramped dwarf disco with trappings (dance floor, lights) that looked like cheap simulations. It was too crowded and incredibly cramped; too warm, too isolated, too alone, too empty. . . .

We left at eleven thirty.