Читать книгу It's Okay You're Not Married - Rosalind Dorrington ( Amelia Williams) - Страница 15

I’ve often wondered why I bring out the worst in people. Is it because I’m short that people think that they can treat me like shit and get away with it? Or is it because I’m so brutally honest in my comments and they can’t handle the truth? (I know that honesty is not the best policy, because I’ve proved time and time again that when someone asks for an honest opinion they are really saying, tell me what I want to hear.) Perhaps I’ve got the type of face that only a mother would love. I’ve never thought I was good-looking and I still get a sixth sense about some people and I know they don’t like me just by the way they look at me. Some may call this paranoia I call it gut instinct.

I don’t know what it was that turned a party I went to into a near riot. We were having a BBQ on a secluded block of land out Stafford way when another girl called Pat took a sudden dislike to me. (What is it about these girls called Pat?) She had been making snide comments about me for the best part of an hour and I was getting very pissed off with her. But I thought, keep your trap shut, Amelia, or you’ll end up getting your head kicked in or at the very least walking home on your own.

I would’ve kept my trap shut too, except Pat came up to me and told me that she hated my guts because I was so bloody ugly. I replied only too readily, ‘You’re no oil painting yourself and you’re a fat slob.’

That was it we got stuck into each other, no holds barred. I made sure she threw the first punch, because there was no way in the wide world that I wanted to be accused of starting the blue. She was a big lump of a girl with long blonde hair, which was a distinct advantage for me. I didn’t hesitate to get a good grip on her hair and twisted many strands around my fingers and pulled as hard as I could. She punched me several times in the stomach and breasts and I knew I was losing the fight and my grip. I decided to go for broke and I kneed her in the crutch. As she fell, I fell on top of her, with her hair still knotted in my hand. My face landed onto her arm and I thought, Oh well! here goes the teeth again. I sank my fangs into the fleshy part of her upper arm. People were running around yelling instructions, some were saying, ‘Let them go.’ Others were screaming, ‘They’ll kill each other.’

Somehow or other we stopped fighting and the party broke up. Two weeks or so later, whilst a number of us were waiting for a tram to go to the city, a voice yelled out, ‘Amelia’. I turned around and nearly had heart failure as I came face to face with Pat. She smiled held out her hand for me to shake

Pat ‘No hard feelings, mate’.

Amelia ‘Yeah, no hard feelings, mate’. As I shook her hand I said, ‘I’d rather shake your fist than feel it in my gut’.

Pat (laughing) ‘You’ve got bloody strong teeth I can tell you that, have a look at this’.

She turned her arm towards me to show a distinct T scar where I’d bitten her.

Amelia (horrified) ‘Jesus, I’m sorry. T for teeth huh?’

Pat ‘No T for tough, you’re as tough as old boot leather’.

The tram came along and we said our goodbyes and I never saw her from that day to this. Teenagers in the fifties were certainly a very strange breed of animal.

I was about to turn sixteen and I had to plead with Edith to allow me to have a birthday party. I invited most of the regular crowd from The Hub to attend. I didn’t expect too many of them to arrive because I lived so far away from their area. Most of them had to rely on public transport which meant a change of two trams to get to my place, then a ten-minute walk from the tram stop. I was like a Jack in the box the entire day waiting the time of the arrival of my guests, I was so nervous.

Finally, they started to arrive a few at a time and within half an hour there were so many kids flooding through the doors Edith said, ‘How many more are coming? I don’t think we’ve got enough food for them all’.

A few of the older fellows arrived on their motorbikes and had brought a couple of bottles of beer with them. I asked Dad for his permission to allow them to bring the beer in but he was adamant that they couldn’t. I was really angry with him for that, but the fellows weren’t a bit upset by Dad’s decision. They said that they could understand how he felt and they stayed and enjoyed the party anyway. I only wish I could have enjoyed the party as much as everyone else, I was still so nervous about everyone enjoying themselves I was running around like a chook with its head cut off. So much so, that I kept changing my clothes about every half an hour or so. The one thing that stays in my mind about that night was, all the girls exclaiming how lucky I was to have so many beautiful clothes to choose from. As per usual I was unable to take a compliment and all I could say was that they were nothing but old rags.

Mum had baked me a beautiful birthday cake and Edith had iced it. Unfortunately, the icing left a lot to be desired. Edith could cook, crochet and sew, but icing cakes was not one of her best qualities. I, being the ungrateful little bitch that I am, had to make a big song and dance about it, telling her that I didn’t want the cake because everyone would laugh at me. Fortunately, one of the girls told me not to be so silly and the cake was hungrily devoured and enjoyed by all. I only wish I could remember more of that night because I know it was one of the happiest nights of my life, typical of me to only remember the worst moments of it.