A Fucked Up Life in Books. Литагент HarperCollins USD

FUCKING CUNT!’

      ‘Shit, man,’ I said, ‘That’s bad.’

      She huffed and puffed and sorted her shirt and flies out and stormed out. I followed her downstairs where she left the pub immediately and I went back to sit with my friend.

      I was telling my friend what had happened when two policemen came over to our table.

      ‘What are you doing here, ladies?’

      Shit. They know we’re underage. They’re definitely going to put us both in prison.

      ‘Err, we’re at the college studying English …’ I held up our books. ‘And we are here for a … meeting.’

      ‘Have either of you been into the toilet? We’ve had a report of a man hiding in the toilet.’

      Thank fuck! I’m not getting arrested! I’m helping to condemn the filth, like a proper fucking brilliant hero.

      And so I told the policeman about what had happened in the toilet. I fabricated a brilliant description of the man because I was 17 and high on power and then they thanked us and we left.

      We were late back to school though, and a bollocking was in the air. Our head of year was waiting at the fucking gate for us, the jobsworthy cunt, and sniffed our mouths and looked in our eyes and declared us drunk. I tried to tell him that there had been a pervert in the pub toilet but he roared at me for admitting to being in the pub, and they rang my Dad and I got told off when I got home. Unluckily for my mate, her Dad was the head of drama so she had the pleasure of being bollocked in front of the entire school. She couldn’t get a fucking word in.

      I don’t know if that man was watching me piss. At the time I didn’t care. I’m not sure I even care now. I just hope that some poor cunt didn’t get arrested based on my ropey description of a tall man (6’2") in a long grey coat with a pointy beard, thin moustache and cold dead, eyes. I wonder if the police even used that description at all.

       Birdsong

      Being a fucking massive geek, rather than asking my parents for a party or a car for my 18^th birthday present, I asked for a trip to the Normandy beaches so that I could go on a D-Day tour.

      My Mum happily booked us tickets for everything that I wanted to see. I was going with her because I knew that she would fuck off and leave me alone. This way I could really learn about War.

      Mum’s friend heard that we were going, and decided for the first time ever to give me a birthday present: Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks. She’d bought me it because it was about ‘The War’. I decided not to tell her what was wrong with this, but instead thanked her graciously and packed it in my bag for the journey.