Thursday 17th July 2008. B*stard.

Thursday 17th July 2008.

I went to Lisa’s wedding do on Saturday night. I didn’t really enjoy it and missed Russ’ company. It was pretty bleak. Lisa looked stunning and the weather pretty much held up for her. I’d be lying if I said that I sat by myself all night and nobody spoke to me. Hell, Lisa was all wrapped up in her wedding day and my family in each other. People did come and say hello and would talk to me for five minutes here and there but for the most part I sat at a table on my own and was un-included. Well what can I expect? I never go to visit any of them. I don’t see them from one year to the next, and it’s common knowledge that I was going to boycott the wedding altogether.

I felt sorry for Lisa and Paul as they missed the last half of their wedding night festivities. Arran, Lisa’s son, had his first real experience with alcohol and, like most sixteen year olds who have been deprived the joys of the evil spirit, he over indulged. Mind after saying that I never deprived my boys of it. From the age of five, if they wanted to try alcohol, I let them. My method of alcohol parenting didn’t pay off because Marty drank so much strong cider one night that he ended up in hospital. I don’t think he was any worse than Arran was on Saturday night. The cute young usher in his kilt and sporran was found lying in the gutter outside the club. He was saying hello again to the lager he’d enjoyed so much.

Paul is a rough around the edges Glaswegian. He disgusts me because he spits and thinks that it’s funny when I refuse to be anywhere near him unless there’s a carpeted floor. In the past I have literally stormed off and refused to walk in the street with him. I think it is a dirty disgusting habit and I won’t be near somebody who does it. For that reason and none other, well maybe apart form the fact that you can’t understand a word the man says, I wouldn’t have married him. Good job too as it’s not me he asked. In the man’s defence I do think Lisa’s got a good husband. Arran was being poorly sick and Paul left his own wedding to half carry him the two miles home. They didn’t even attempt to ring a taxi because nobody would have taken him in that state. Not only did he have to walk the lad home, but he was wearing a skirt at the time! If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a man in a kilt. Lisa left at the same time and she did get a taxi to be at home to meet them with black coffee and a bucket when they arrived… some long time later. Even taking that into consideration I think they had a fantastic day and Lisa was very happy.

I know I’m writing about Daz on an almost daily basis but Goddammit. I want to type a string of twenty-three profanities here, one for every year of his age, but I shall refrain and just make do with another Goddammit because I like the feel of that one, even if it is blasphemous.

I arrived at work on Monday morning and practised smilies for when Daz walked through the door. Smiling or being nice to him in any way no longer comes naturally and I have to work at it. At two minutes to nine the phone rang. I knew before I even picked it up that it was going to be him. I lifted the receiver and before I even got it to my ear I heard the worst impersonation of a hacking cough.

It was absolutely bloody pathetic, Marty used to put on a better performance before school when he was about eight. Cough, cough, cough, hack hack, hack, wheeze, wheeze, wheeze and back to cough, cough, cough again. He hadn’t said a word, it could have been anybody on the other end of the phone but I decided to cut off the performance before he made any more of a pillock of himself.

“Hello Daz. You’re ill and you’re not coming into work.” It wasn’t a question. I was stating the obvious.

“I can’t. I’m not well and I’ve been up all…” His voice was barely a whisper. It was so laden with pain and suffering that he must have at least been nailed through the hands and feet to a crucifix for three days and three nights with a crown of thorns embedded into his skull. No man has ever suffered the way our Daz has.

My voice was like steel, “Cut it Daz, save your voice, I’m not interested in how long you’ve been up, or how many times you’ve puked, or how sloppy your crap is. I’ve heard it all a hundred times before. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I won’t be in tomorrow. I’m really ill Jane and I’m taking the rest of the week off, I won’t be in now until Monday.”

Well the little bastard.

“So you’re letting me down for all of my weekend off now?”

He shouted at me, gone was the lost voice whisper, “Fucking hell Jane, I’m ill. I can’t help being…” I slammed the phone down on him.

He walked into the shop late on Monday afternoon. I hadn’t calmed down and was ready for pelting him with dildos and butt plugs. I looked up from my laptop (the new one that I had to have after he smashed my last one) but couldn’t open my mouth to speak to him. I didn’t trust myself to say a word. He had a huge bag of MacDonald’s burgers in one hand and a giant paper cup of cola in the other. Poor sick baby needs his sustenance. All right, I admit, he probably does have a sore throat, there’s a lot of it about at this time of year. I’ve just recovered from a three week run of it myself. I’m even annoyed with his doctor for being blagged by him. I know I’m not a qualified practitioner. I’ve got no right to say that he was faking. How can I presume to know the doctor’s job better than him? … But I do know Daz. He put his food for a small nation on the counter and fished a week’s worth of sick note out of his pocket. He clung onto the edge of the counter to steady himself and rocked backwards and forwards a couple of times. He closed his eyes and let his knees buckle slightly. I sat in my chair devoid of any expression at all. I still hadn’t spoken a single word.

“Laryngitis,” he croaked. “See, I told you I’m ill.”

He slammed the piece of paper down on the counter. I picked it up and threw it into one of the drawers without even bothering to look at it. “I’m signed off for a week,” he said and he didn’t even try to hide the note of triumph in his voice, “And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

I spoke a single word. “Fine,” then turned in profile to him and began typing. He was dismissed. I had nothing more to say to him. The few sentences that I typed as he limped (what the hell was the limp all about? He must keep his larynx in his kneecap) out of the shop were complete gibberish. Just for the sake of typing something to stop my hands from securing themselves around his sore throat I rambled on about the new range of Leg Avenue lingerie because it as the first thing that came into my head. I had to delete it all after he’d gone.

So this week I’m working the full sixty-six hours. My housework isn’t going to get done, the animals will be neglected and I’ve had to cancel my part in Furness Fest completely. Russ is blazing. He’s so annoyed with me for letting Daz get way with it, but what could I do? I know he’s faking but I can’t prove it. I’m not even that bothered about missing the festival, even though I’ve been looking forward to it for months. What I’m most upset about is having to let people down at the last minute. I know I’m not much of a writer but I do have books for sale and I do want to at least try and behave like a real writer and build a decent reputation. After this there’s no way that Callum’s going to invite me back next year. I’ve ordered extra copies of all my books on the strength of selling them at the festival, that’s cost me hundreds of pounds. I am so angry that I really don’t know how I’m going to maintain a professional demeanour when I see the little shit again. His arrogance is all encompassing.

Corona, my female collard lizard laid her eggs last night. Normally they will have between six and twenty-four eggs. Corona laid just two. I could not believe the sheer size of the things. I am not exaggerating when I say that each one was a third of the length of her body. They were identical to bearded dragon eggs and beardies are ten times the size of Corona. She’s been separated off in a nesting viv for the last five days but if there was even the remotest chance that one of the beardies had got in with her (impossible) I wouldn’t have believed that she laid those two eggs. They are enormous and have taken a lot out of her. She’s very thin now and needs a lot of feeding up before I prepare her for hibernation in November. She’s in good shape though and feasted on her extra rations last night. The eggs look perfect and are sitting pretty in the incubator along with thirteen dried up corn snake eggs. They can be discarded as soon as the owner comes to see them as they are now several days over their remotest due day.