Massive

by Julia Bell

  Down the road from Nana’s house there’s a row of shops. A newsagent, a curry house, an off-licence and a mini supermarket. Nana has taken her wheely trolley and her walking stick. She wheezes when she walks and the daylight has made the lenses of her glasses go a smoky brown.

  ‘Oooh, I don’t get out enough,’ she says, stopping at the crossing to catch her breath.

  The supermarket is small and overflowing with stuff. Boxes of apples, oranges, peppers, mushrooms, onions, potatoes are banked up outside. Nana walks right past as if she doesn’t even notice them. Inside it smells weird. I wrinkle my nose.

  ‘Curry powder,’ Nana says, looking at me. ‘That’s what you can smell.’

  There’s stuff piled right up to the ceiling. The aisles are only just wide enough for Nana to squeeze down them.

  ‘Where are the chocolate biscuits?’ she asks me.

  ‘In front of you, look,’ I say.

  She peers over the bulk of her belly. ‘Ooh, yes, get two packets of those bourbons, there’s a love. I don’t think I can quite reach them.’

  In fact, if she bent over to reach them, she would probably knock over the shelf of toilet rolls, nappies and Tampax behind her.

  ‘How about some of those for our tea? While Grandad’s not looking?’ She points to a pyramid of Pot Noodles.

  I shrug. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Curry or chicken?’

  ‘Don’t mind.’

  She puts two of each in her basket. ‘Save you making the wrong decision now.’

  Everything is neon colours and plastic packets. At the chiller cabinet she picks up a few packets of processed cheese slices and a tray of ready cooked sausages. Next to the cheap cartons of orange juice is a whole shelf of fluorescent bottles of Sunny Delight.

  ‘What flavour d’you want?’ she asks.

  I shrug and she puts two bottles of strawberry in her basket.

  There are no other customers in the shop but I’m embarrassed anyway. Under the striplights Nana’s skin looks blotchy and saggy. Her fingers are fat bananas, like something a kid might draw. She touches everything, looking at the descriptions on all the packets: high in calcium, great for kids!, snack size, ready in minutes!, quick and convenient. When her hands get to the pasties and the cooked meat I have to look away.

  The man at the till raises his eyebrows.

  ‘Put that little lot on my slate will you, Mr Mahmood? I’ll pay you come pension day.’

  Mr Mahmood narrows his eyes. ‘You owe me twenty pounds already.’

  ‘It’s my granddaughter,’ she says, looking at me. ‘Half-term.’

  For a moment I think Mr Mahmood might say no. ‘So long as you pay next week. This is a shop, not a bank.’

  ‘Oh, come on. I always pay, don’t I?’

  Mr Mahmood looks away and starts jabbing the prices into his till, giving the things he’s counted to Nana to pack into her trolley bag.

  ‘That’s thirteen forty-two,’ he says after the last packet of Maltesers has been accounted for. ‘That’s thirty-three forty-two altogether.’ He looks at Nana for a moment as if he expects her to hand over the money. Then he gets out a notebook and writes in it. ‘Sign here,’ he says, tapping the page with a pen.

  ‘Monday,’ Nana says, her eyelashes fluttering behind her glasses. ‘Promise.’

  When we get back she puts everything out on the coffee table in bowls.

  ‘Help yourself, love,’ she says, picking up the remote control and flicking through the channels before settling back on UK Gold again.

  I eat a Smartie really slowly, letting the chocolate melt on my tongue. Nana gets stuck into a tube of Pringles. She’s absorbed in her programme, face wobbling as she munches. Watching her makes me feel sick. I’m like that, I think. That’s how I look.

  ‘I’m bored.’

  ‘Don’t you have any homework to do, love?’ She says, taking a swig of strawberry Sunny Delight.

  I must try harder, I write, pressing the biro into my biology book, not to eat. It is this which is at the root of my problems, I have decided. Not Mum and Dad, or Nana or Kelly or Maxine and Paisley, but this: my puffy face, my swelling breasts, my belly. If I was beautiful I could have everything I wanted. I could stay with Dad and Mum wouldn’t hate me.

  I poke myself with my finger, digging the nail into the skin until it leaves a crescent shape in my flesh. I hate you, I say to myself under my breath. I hate you.

  I rip the page out, but the shape of the words has pushed through the soft paper. I trace my fingertips along the indents. The m of must has ripped the paper of the sheet beneath.

  When I get the bus back into town, it’s already dark. Rain splatters the bus windows as it squeaks and creaks its way down the hill. I feel sickly but not sick. A kind of acid taste in my mouth. Lights on the cranes underneath the Rotunda wink against the black sky. They look like a monster, a spider, chewing up the town in slow motion. If I close my eyes I can almost hear the crunch of its jaws, rubble falling from the sides of its mouth in long drools of concrete and dust.

  17

  ‘We’re moving,’ Mum says. ‘I found our new house today.’

  She’s got paint catalogues out, looking at colours. ‘What kind of colour d’you want in your bedroom? I thought maybe a pink or a green.’

  ‘Where is it?’ I ask.

  ‘Not far,’ she says. ‘It’s new. And they do the decorating before you move in. We’ll go and see it soon if you want. For keeps this time, promise.’

  ‘But I like it here,’ I say.

  ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ she says, not looking up. Then under her breath, ‘Teenagers.’

  As well as a new house, Mum has a new friend. A woman from work called Victoria. Victoria is thin as a stick and beautiful. She comes up from London a few times a month to check on the shop. She has glossy blonde hair, pink, French-polished nails and something my mum calls class.

  We are meeting Victoria in the Circle bar that has opened across the road from our tower block. Mum won’t invite her into the flat, she says it’s too shabby. She’s made me put on my new dress and before we came out she spent half an hour plaiting my hair into two fat pigtails.

  ‘Maria, how lovely to see you again,’ Victoria says, arranging herself on the hard metal seat. ‘And this is Carmen,’ she says, blowing cigarette smoke in my face. ‘Such a lovely name. Simply my favourite opera.’

  Apart from her boots, which are black, Victoria is all gold. Gold leather jacket, gold jewellery, skinny beige trousers and a tight golden top that shows off her belly button which is pierced with a little gold stud. She looks like someone has bent pipe cleaners to make her sit down. I am probably twice her size and she is probably more than twice my age.

  ‘You look quite fabulous,’ she says.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  ‘Oh,’ she says, ‘I meant your mother.’ She pauses to take another suck on her cigarette. ‘But you look great. That Native American look is so in at the moment. I’m so glad I persuaded the stores to buy them. You couldn’t move for feathers and moccasins in Milan last year and now we can’t get them made up quick enough. We had to get on the phone to the factory, tell them to hire more workers. Isn’t that wonderful?’ She clasps her hands together. ‘Now we employ whole towns in Papua New Guinea. All that money we’re making for their communities. It’s marvellous, marvellous.’

  Mum smiles approvingly.

  ‘So you’re moving, Maria? Tell me all about it.’ Watching her, I realize that Victoria is the kind of woman who breathes rather than talks.

  The waiter comes over. He’s young and spotty with a white apron tied at an angle across his waist. ‘Would you like to see the menus?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ Mum says.

  ‘Not for me,’ says Victoria at exactly the same time. ‘I’ve been eating like a pig all day.’ She smiles, baring her teeth. ‘I’ll have a mineral water. But don’t let me stop you.’

  Mum has gone a bit red. ‘No, it’s fine,’ she s
ays, ‘I’ll just have a mineral water, with a touch of lime,’ and before I can protest, she adds, ‘for both of us.’

  ‘So tell me, Maria,’ Victoria says, leaning across the table conspiratorially, her gold shoulder rudely in my face. ‘Are you coming down for London Fashion Week this year?’

  ‘She’s so lovely,’ Mum says, as we navigate the puddles in the underpass. ‘She goes to parties with Kate Moss and Meg Matthews.’

  ‘Mmmm,’ I say, wondering if we’re going to get any supper, glad because once we’re home I can take my dress off. Mum seems not to have noticed that Victoria spent the whole night asking her questions without waiting to hear the answer.

  ‘If I was young and single, I’d be like her,’ she says.

  The landing light on our floor needs fixing. The neon flickers faster than you can blink, making everything seem out of focus. There’s a strong smell of fresh cigarettes and I can see a figure, slumped on the floor of the corridor outside the flat.

  ‘Orright, Maria?’ It’s Billy.

  ‘Who let you in? What you doing sitting outside?’ Mum asks, the questions running into each other, she says them so fast.

  ‘Still got the key in’t I? It is still my flat. Anyway, you changed the locks or I’d be sat inside, wouldn’t I? What d’ya do that for? No need to get new locks put in.’

  ‘Didn’t know who else’d been here did I? Wouldn’t trust some of the scum you hang out with further ’n I could spit on them.’ Mum’s voice has dropped a few notes; she sounds flatter, broader than she did with Victoria.

  ‘Oh, come on, Maria, don’t be such a snob.’

  ‘I’m not. I’ve got Carmen to think about,’ she says, using my name with a flourish.

  ‘Actually, it was Carmen I came to see. Not you.’ Upright, Billy fills the whole corridor. He’s wearing a blue suit in shiny, sparkly material with a dark velvet trim on the jacket, and a pair of shoes with thick crepe soles.

  ‘And what’s with the Elvis routine?’ Mum demands.

  ‘Hollywood night at the restaurant,’ he says. ‘Everyone dressed up as their favourite staaaar . . .’ He sways towards us as he says this, and I notice a can of Stella by the wall where he’s been sitting.

  ‘Are you drunk, Billy?’

  ‘Might be,’ he says, smiling. ‘You gonna make us a cuppa tea then or what?’

  Mum sends me to bed while Billy goes for a pee. ‘He’s drunk, sweetheart, you don’t want to listen to him going on. Go and do your homework.’

  I lie in bed listening to them talking in the lounge. I can’t hear what they’re saying, Mum has put some music on: Ibiza Party Anthems that she bought last week. She said she’s going to go next year with the girls from work, that I can stay with Nana for a week. ‘Cheryl and Denise have both got kids and they go every year,’ she said, as if I were accusing her of something.

  I’m starving, my belly feels like it’s caving in. I run my hand across it to see if it’s got any flatter. I haven’t even got any emergency chocolate: I ate it all last night.

  I flick through the copy of Elle that has been on my floor for weeks. It’s full of women like Victoria: gold women, thin women, women who feel hungry all the time.

  I check myself in the mirror to see if I look any thinner. I suck my cheeks in, giving myself cheekbones like Kate Moss. Good, I think, that’s better.

  In my diary I write:

  Slice of toast, orange juice, tea, mineral water, NO lunch, NO supper.

  I underline the NO in red pen so Mum will see.

  18

  I stand on the scales in the bathroom. The window faces out on to the corridor, hidden by frosted glass and a dirty green curtain. It’s the only part of the flat where you can’t hear the traffic, the howl of wind round the building.

  I look down, gritting my teeth. Eight stone two. It’s more than last week.

  ‘I’m fat,’ I hear myself saying, miserably, hopelessly. I look in the mirror. My face has gone hot and red, I feel like I’m going to explode. ‘I’m fat.’ It sizzles under my skin, thick yellow layers of it, puffing me up, pushing me out, making me massive.

  ‘Metabolism,’ she says. ‘Metabolism. Does anyone know what that means?’

  Paisley and Maxine are giggling. ‘Is that like when you’re really fat, Miss?’

  Miss Burton arches an eyebrow. ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

  ‘Like Kelly, Miss.’ More giggles. Next to me Kelly tenses.

  ‘Paisley Harries and Maxine Miles, you will see me after class. Now. Metabolism. What is it?’

  I doodle on my notebook. I can’t concentrate. I haven’t eaten anything all day. I draw stick men and women. THIN I write underneath in big black letters. THIN.

  My stomach feels like it’s caving in. My head hurts. And as I get off the bus it’s like I’ve got nothing to do with it: one moment I’m about to turn the corner to the flat, the next I’ve ordered pie and chips and a chocolate milk from the chippie on the Bristol Road.

  I eat really fast, like I can trick myself into forgetting that I wasn’t going to eat anything today.

  I drink the chocolate milk anyway. I don’t see that it’s going to make any difference.

  I look at myself in the window; my freckled cheeks are puffy like balloons. I am stupid, pathetic, dumb, like Kelly.

  I want to be sick.

  When I get back to the flat Mum’s in the bathroom.

  ‘I’m having a bath,’ she says when I knock on the door. ‘You’re not desperate, are you?’

  Yes, I think, yes.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  I watch cartoons. I can feel my stomach growing, rising into a bloated, doughy mound. I tell myself that this is the last time. That I will eat nothing tomorrow. I think of the girl on the problem page. I started to make myself sick after meals and I’ve got really thin.

  Mum comes into the living room with a towel wrapped around her body. The bones in her shoulders look like coat hangers.

  ‘I’m going out with Victoria tonight. You’ll be all right on your own, won’t you?’

  She looks at me, her head on one side.

  ‘Yeah.’ I stare at the TV.

  The bathroom smells of her. Of perfume and antiseptics. The room is humid; the mirror steamed up so my reflection is just a haze. I run the taps so she won’t hear.

  My mouth fills with saliva as I push my fingers into my mouth. I retch, but nothing comes up and my eyes start to water.

  When I try again the milkshake comes up first. Then clumps of pie and chips. It scalds my throat, my tongue, makes my eyes water, my nose hurt.

  When there’s nothing left, I flush, stand up, holding on to the sink, drink water from the toothmug smeary with toothpaste. My belly feels better now. Flatter. Though I should have done it sooner, before so many calories soaked in.

  When I sit down to pee, there’s blood in my knickers; I have to use toilet roll to stop it because Mum hasn’t got any Tampax. ‘I haven’t bought any of those things for ages,’ she says, waving her hand vaguely, giving me some money.

  She inspects herself in the mirror before she goes out, smoothing down her hair, wiping an imaginary smudge from her cheek. There is a fuzz of soft, downy hair on her face. She touches her neck self-consciously.

  ‘Like a chicken,’ she says. She turns ninety degrees and studies herself sideways, her hipbones jut where her bum should be. ‘Look at me,’ she says. ‘Look. I’m an old hag.’

  Later in bed, I hear her coming in. There’s someone with her: a deeper voice, a man’s voice. I wonder if it’s Billy. I sit up in bed, pull my knees to my chest. Someone trips over the coffee table and there’s a crash and a giggle and Mum saying shhhhhhh.

  I know they’re doing it. Mum makes noises like a kitten mewling. The bed creaks, a man grunts. I light a cigarette and smoke it in the dark, flicking ash in an empty Coke can, watching the tip glow red in front of my nose.

  When I go to the bathroom to clean my teeth I meet him in the corridor, a towel round his waist.
He has gold rings on all his fingers and a thick gold chain round his wrist. I push past him as if he isn’t there, keep my eyes on the carpet, fold my arms across my chest. He sniffs and lumbers back to Mum’s room. As I lock the door I can hear the springs of her bed creaking as he gets back into it.

  In the morning I wait until I hear him leave before I get out of bed. Mum is running a bath. She looks tired, her eyes have bruised, purple lines underneath them.

  ‘Don’t you start,’ she says, seeing me mooching in the corridor. ‘When you’ve had a husband you get used to having a man about the place. You’ll learn.’

  19

  Billy’s invited us over for supper. When I ask why we’re going Mum says she wants to keep him sweet because our new house won’t be ready for another month. ‘I don’t want him turfing us out before it’s ready,’ she tells me. ‘And don’t eat too much. Just have a starter instead of a main course and NO pudding. OK?’

  We walk across town to get the bus up the Hagley Road towards Ladywood. Mum’s wearing her new leather trousers and a gold jacket like Victoria’s. She’s been to the Suncentre this week too, her skin looks orangey and her eyebrows have been plucked and pencilled into sharp razored peaks.

  When we get to Steers, Billy’s waiting outside.

  ‘I thought we could go somewhere uptown,’ he says.

  ‘I thought we were eating here.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have you eat in here, Maria, what d’you take me for? Some kind of cheapskate? Only the best for you, now you are moving up’ – he raises his eyes to the sky – ‘in the world. Your carriage awaits.’ He points with a sweep of his arm to a silvery car parked on the gravel nearby. ‘Even got a driver for tonight, we have.’

  A heavyset mound of a man waves out of the window. ‘Orright, Maria?’

  Mum looks taken aback. ‘Dickie. Didn’t know you were still on the scene.’ Then to Billy, ‘I wish you’d said, we could have met you in town.’