Stan Cattermole - Sexy Beast - The Intimate Adventures of an Ugly Man

For Melanie, with love, and for Ange, with boundless optimism.

… I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamp’d, and want love’s majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deformed, unfinish’d, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them; Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun And descant on mine own deformity: And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover, To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain And hate the idle pleasures of these days …

Richard III , William Shakespeare

Cover Page

Title Page Bête de Jour The intimate adventures of An Ugly Man Stan Cattermole

Dedication For Melanie, with love, and for Ange, with boundless optimism.

Epigraph … I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamp’d, and want love’s majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph; I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deformed, unfinish’d, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them; Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun And descant on mine own deformity: And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover, To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain And hate the idle pleasures of these days … Richard III , William Shakespeare

Introduction A WORD ABOUT THIS BOOK This book was born of a blog. The blog was born of a dream. The dream was born of a desperation to change things. And the good news is, it worked. Things have changed. My life is now wholly positive and I will never frown, curse, spit, swear, scream, or suffer an overwhelming urge to go on a murderous rampage through South London ever again. This , then, is the story of my life: the ups, the downs, the sickness, the health, the good, the bad, and the ugly. As it was and as it is. All the names of the people in my life have been changed because, for various reasons, they don’t deserve otherwise. The dialogue has also been polished for purposes of heightened readability. A few of the locations have been changed too, as well as one or two absolutely crucial facts. But the rest is pretty much verbatim. I hope it pleases you. If it doesn’t please you, I am genuinely sorry, and I hope you find what you’re looking for elsewhere. Before you get stuck in, however, be warned… This book has a happy ending.

Chapter One Nobody, not Even the Rain

Chapter Two Whiskers of Immorality

Chapter Three Bag of Elbows

Chapter Four Like a Leopard on a Dove

Chapter Five Being is Other People

Chapter Six Picking Up

Chapter Seven Sally Valentine

Chapter Eight Love is Natural and Real

Chapter Nine Sick

Chapter Ten Payback

Chapter Eleven Everybody’s Free (to Wear A Paper Bag)

Chapter Twelve Everybody’s Blogging Nowadays: no Hard Feelings

Chapter Thirteen Lost Weekend

Chapter Fourteen Life & Death

Chapter Fifteen Love Handles

Chapter Sixteen Bad to the Bone

Chapter Seventeen Brains

Chapter Eighteen Welcome to Peckham

Chapter Nineteen Snapshots

Chapter Twenty Pablo, Pablo, Burning Bright

Chapter Twenty-one a Fresh Start: Audrey Tautou

Chapter Twenty-two Speed Dating: Our Time is Running out

Chapter Twenty-three Bestial Oblivion

Chapter Twenty-four Fuck Buddies

Chapter Twenty-five Act of God

Chapter Twenty-six Box of Frogs

Chapter Twenty-seven Love 2.0

Chapter Twenty-eight London to Brighton

Chapter Twenty-nine all That David Copperfield Kind of Crap

Chapter Thirty Turn and Face the Strange

Chapter Thirty-one My Parents and Other Anomalies

Chapter Thirty-two There is No Sanity Clause

Chapter Thirty-three His Name is Stanley Cattermole

Chapter Thirty-four Glad all Over

Chapter Thirty-five Wee Timorous Beasties

Chapter Thirty-six Positive Mental Attitude

Chapter Thirty-seven Throw Your Arms Around the World

Chapter Thirty-Eight the Scottish Play

Chapter Ninety-Nine Hidden Track: Ps I Lied to You

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

Thisbook was born of a blog. The blog was born of a dream. The dream was born of a desperation to change things. And the good news is, it worked. Things have changed. My life is now wholly positive and I will never frown, curse, spit, swear, scream, or suffer an overwhelming urge to go on a murderous rampage through South London ever again.

This, then, is the story of my life: the ups, the downs, the sickness, the health, the good, the bad, and the ugly. As it was and as it is. All the names of the people in my life have been changed because, for various reasons, they don’t deserve otherwise. The dialogue has also been polished for purposes of heightened readability. A few of the locations have been changed too, as well as one or two absolutely crucial facts. But the rest is pretty much verbatim. I hope it pleases you. If it doesn’t please you, I am genuinely sorry, and I hope you find what you’re looking for elsewhere. Before you get stuck in, however, be warned…

Thisbook has a happy ending.

I have been led to believe that when I was first presented to my mother, her face collapsed in on itself like a failed soufflé. All of the joy and lust for motherhood leaked from her body, face first, like she’d just been handed a baby with little more than blunt stumps for limbs, or a baby with its heart on the outside of its skin, clinging to its chest like a silver bell on a kitten’s bib, beating and bleeding and raw for all to see.

But really there was nothing wrong with me. I was just a bit ugly.

It was often said, by my father, to his friends, that I had the kind of face only a mother could love. Just not my mother. How Father would laugh.

Mother wanted to know. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘Nothing’s wrong with him,’ she was told. ‘He’s a perfectly healthy baby boy.’ As it happens, this was true only to a certain extent. I was healthy, yes, but I had a couple of conditions which would in time necessitate medical intervention.

‘But,’ Mother insisted, scandalised, unable to stem the flow of fat, affronted tears, ‘but he’s so ugly! How can he be so ugly?’

Father was there too, sweating pale ale and chip fat. It is to him that I owe this account of Mother’s reaction. Although Mother did later confirm it.

I was born with a large face, shaped not unlike a lozenge, or even—if one were feeling particularly cruel—like a gravestone in a rough part of the cemetery, defaced, vandalised, and overgrown. I had the dark patches of skin—intrinsic atopic dermatitis—which were later to become my trademark. Added to which, my eyes were further apart than was strictly necessary and, irritatingly, they were staring out in opposite directions. This was rather unpleasantly pronounced strabismus, which I am ecstatic to say was later corrected with surgery. When I first opened my eyes, however, it was apparently something of a shock. Oh, and also—for a baby—I did have rather a large nose.