‘Summer is on the way!’ She smiled into Lexi’s eyes, her message one of hope.
Three hours, thirty minutes . . .
‘I’ll be off now.’ Lockie took a deep breath and cleared his throat.
Freya stood and held him tightly. ‘Oh God, Lockie!’
‘It’s okay. It’s just paperwork – that’s how I’m looking at it: a couple of signatures, that’s all. You stay here and carry on. I’ll be back before you know it.’
She kissed his cheek and watched him leave the study.
Charlotte heard the front door close. She grabbed a pen from the pen pot on her desk and opened her notepad; she rested it on her raised knees and started to write.
There’s something I wanted to say, something I’ve been thinking about.
It wasn’t only Toby’s weirdness that bothered me, the fact that he was a bit odd. It was how he looked at you, so in love, so besotted, and I now know I was jealous of that, Lex.
No one had ever looked at me that way. But not only that, and it sounds ridiculous, but I didn’t want anyone to love you the way I do. You are my little sister and I don’t want anyone else to muscle in on that.
I’m sorry for the things I said about Toby. You are lucky to have a friend like him and he is very lucky to have a friend like you.
That’s it.
I’m going to take this to Mum now. X
THIRTEEN
Freya noticed a change in Lockie. It seemed to coincide with Lexi’s outpouring to the Rendletons. He was angry, frustrated by her apparent lack of progress, as if it made all that they had gone through as a family feel like a waste of time.
She could see it in his every gesture: the heavy-handed bang of a mug on the table, the aggressive head shaking, and short, hard tut in response to anything he read in the newspaper; his agitated, fast pacing of the room when repeating how work was slow coming in and money was getting tight; his thin-lipped, half-hearted welcome of Iris into the house, and lack of enthusiasm when discussing a visit to Hilary – both of which he had deemed ‘completely bloody pointless’. Before storming off to the pub.
She knew his behaviour was born of love, his desire to fix his baby girl, and the futility of every suggestion, rebuffed, was a bitter pill to swallow.
Like the yin to his yang, Freya tried doubly hard to present a positive spin, smiling while crying on the inside and humming clichéd messages of positivity to drown out his monologues of doom, hoping some of it might stick.
Lexi had taken a mental tumble – unsurprising in the face of Fennella’s harsh betrayal and her further physical decline. Freya alternated between soothing her with words of encouragement and urging her to look to the future, offering glimpses of a sunny time ahead: ‘When you are better, we can . . .’
The looks of mistrust Lexi fired in her direction did little to bolster her confidence.
Freya was ignoring Marcia’s requests for an article on diet trends and how they affected health, the great ‘fat versus carbs’ debate, ‘Atkins or Paleo?’, ‘fasting or juicing?’ . . . The choices were endless and confusing, and to be frank, she felt they were all rather redundant in the face of what was happening under her own roof. The thought of someone wrangling with the choice of whether to go fat-free, vegan or raw, when she battled daily to get Lexi to consume a slice of toast, was frankly irritating. She felt a new wave of responsibility for every food-related article she cast out into the ether, aware in a way she never had been before of how her words could influence.
Instead of getting down to work, Freya spent hours, days, negotiating with Lexi over food. Her new authoritative stance seemed to be having little impact, which took its toll, and when she wasn’t in direct negotiations, she was building up the courage for the next bout – ding-ding!
‘Right, Lexi, half a sandwich or a piece of cheese?’ she offered, followed quickly by shouting, ‘Did you not hear what Iris said? If you do not eat, this will be taken out of our control, they will hospitalise you, Lex, and they will feed you with a tube! A tube!’
Lexi shook her head, tucking in her lips and folding her arms across her chest, apparently afraid now to talk in case her mother took advantage of the opportunity and shoved some food in her open mouth. The last time Freya had seen her daughter look this way, she was sitting on the other side of a plastic tray, attached to a high chair, being encouraged to try broccoli: Look! It’s a baby tree!
The memory caused Freya’s tears to pool. Awash with tiredness, she cried. Miraculously, her tears seemed to do the trick.
‘Okay, Mummy, I’ll do it, but not cheese or milk.’ She gagged at the thought. ‘I’ll . . . I’ll have some tuna . . . plain tuna, no mayonnaise or anything with it, and only in brine, not oil.’ Again she gagged and swallowed. ‘And I can only take tiny spoonfuls . . . but I’ll do it. I will, Mum.’
‘Oh, Lexi!’ Freya grinned, dashing away her tears with the back of her hand. ‘That is the best thing I’ve heard all day! Tuna it is! I’ll be right back!’ She kissed her daughter hard on the forehead and skipped to the kitchen cupboards. Moving packets and tins this way and that, she searched, but the ready supply of tuna she kept in the corner of the cupboard had gone.
‘Where’s the tuna?’ she shouted, angrily, slamming the cupboard door so forcefully that it sprang open again.
She instantly regretted shouting; it was no big deal if Charlotte or Lockie had made the odd sandwich for lunch, and she knew it.
Grabbing the front door keys, she ran from the house, jogging along the pavement to the shop half a mile away, which doubled as a post office and social hub, where dog walkers, teens with bikes on a quest for sweets, and dads and mums pushing strollers, all loitered to chat in the bumpy car park.
Freya scanned the shelves while catching her breath. ‘Tuna, tuna, tuna . . .’ she muttered, until she spied a tin and her heart leapt with relief. Her happiness quickly turned to angst when she saw it was tuna in olive oil. She looked either side of the stack of tins, hoping there might be some in brine, but knowing that if there were, they would be right there.
She queued, bouncing on the spot, as the lady in front told the smiley girl behind the counter that her daughter lived in Australia, but might, fingers crossed, be coming home for Christmas with the grandson she had only seen on the ‘Skype thingy’. It felt like an age until the woman loaded her bread and box of shortbread biscuits into her woven jute shopping bag that advertised a much bigger store, and left.
Freya was aware of her lack of neighbourly banter, but simply didn’t have the time. ‘Do you have any tuna in brine, or just this?’ she launched without greeting. She held the tin aloft.
‘Let’s have a look.’ The girl smiled, going at her usual unhurried pace. She took the tin into her hand and read the label aloud. ‘This is in olive oil.’
She handed it back to Freya, who was biting her cheek to stop from shouting out.
‘Yes . . .’ She coughed. ‘But do you have any that isn’t in olive oil?’
‘Was there none on the shelf?’ The girl looked over her shoulder, as if she could magically see through the different varieties of crisps and two-litre bottles of cider that blocked her view.
‘No,’ Freya managed. ‘It’s just that my daughter won’t eat it if it’s in oil.’
The girl gave a partial snort. ‘You’ll have to do what I do, love: tell her it’s that or nothing. Sometimes I think mine think they live in a hotel!’ She laughed.
Freya held the tin out to be scanned so she could pay and leave as quickly as possible.
She made it back to the house, noting that she had been gone for twenty-six minutes, desperately hoping Lexi hadn’t changed her mind. Her heart raced as she tipped the tuna into a sieve and watched the oil drip through the wire mesh. With the excess gone, she then tipped it on to folded sheets of paper towel, patting the remnants of oil as best she could. Flaking it into a bowl, she ferried it up the stairs to Lexi’s room.
‘Here we go!’ She smiled.
; Lexi sat up. ‘I thought you’d forgotten.’
‘Course not.’
Freya handed her the teaspoon and the bowl. She watched as Lexi dipped the edge of the teaspoon into the fish and withdrew a small amount. She placed a fleck or two on her lip and tasted.
‘It’s oily.’ She screwed her face up.
‘It isn’t. Not really. I removed the oil, so it’s fine now.’ She smiled again.
Lexi shook her head. ‘It’s not fine, Mum! I can see the oil. I can’t eat it. I’ll be really sick. It’s disgusting.’ She spoke with a rising panic.
‘Just have one mouthful for me,’ she pressed. ‘Just one.’
Lexi started to retch and Freya knew there was a very real danger of her daughter vomiting the remains of the protein shake she had taken earlier. The thought of her losing that sustenance upset and concerned her.
‘Okay, okay . . .’ She took the bowl from Lexi’s hand and sloped out of the room.
‘I’m sorry, Mummy,’ Lexi called after her.
Freya felt the stab of irritation in her gut: aware that she had jogged and queued, pandering to Lexi’s delectation, knowing that she would travel anywhere and do anything to get this child to eat. She began to realise that for all her words and intentions, taking a tough stance was difficult, and she wasn’t sure she was cut out for it. The fact that Lexi had chosen not to eat felt nothing short of punishment. And it was wearing.
‘There you are, I’ve looked all over the house,’ Lockie snapped, freshly emerged from his studio and looking for company. It punctuated what had been a very solitary day.
‘I just had to nip to the shop for tuna.’ She raised the bowl before letting it clatter on the drainer.
‘Oh, right.’ He nodded.
‘Lexi said she’d eat some, but not this kind.’ She stirred the spoon, listening to the sucking stickiness of oil-coated fish flakes against the china bowl.
‘Can you hear yourself?’ He paused. ‘It’s preposterous. The wrong kind of tuna?’
‘I know how it sounds, but you know how she is, this illness—’
‘Just stop!’ he interrupted her. ‘I honestly cannot listen to any more justification or reasoning. Not today.’
Lockie made his way back down to his studio, seemingly deciding against company after all.
Freya stood by the window and looked towards the sky. A bruise of purple cloud rolled over the garden.
‘Perfect,’ she whispered.
It felt as if she could do nothing right. Everyone was angry, everyone was hurting and she was the one at which they spat their venom.
One week later, a little before bedtime at the end of a busy day when her energy had been focused on getting Charlotte packed and prepared for her trip to Geneva, Freya placed a freshly filled water bottle on her younger daughter’s bedside table and tucked the patchwork quilt over her duvets. She was walking backwards out of the room when a small voice drifted from under the pile of down, whispered into the darkness.
‘I’m scared, Mum.’
‘Oh, darling! Would you like me to leave the light on or sit with you?’
‘I’d like you to sit with me,’ she whispered.
‘What are you scared of?’ Freya probed, hoping Lexi was taking Toby’s advice and voicing the fears that haunted her.
‘I . . .’ Lexi struggled to begin. ‘I feel like I’m in a dark place. I can’t see any light at the end of the tunnel and I don’t think I am ever going to feel better because the thinner I get, the uglier I feel, and if I eat more, I will hate myself and the uglier I will feel. I feel like I am closing down and I can’t win. I know that I am never going to win.’
‘Don’t say that! This is just a blip.’ Freya suppressed her panic and shook off the mental image of her leaving the office after her chat with Miss Burke, ignoring the terrified voice in her head that screamed: Why didn’t you act sooner, why didn’t you listen! You could lose her!
‘You are going to win, Lexi. You are going to get stronger and you will feel better, and this time next year we will look back and think: “Phew, we made it! We came out the other side.” We will keep seeing Hilary, and Dr Morris is great, and Iris . . . there’s a whole team of people all working to get you better, and they will!’
Please let this be true! Please! she offered up the silent mantra.
‘I love you, Mum.’ Lexi turned slowly on to her side, until she was facing the wall.
Freya sat stroking her thin back beneath the bulky covers until her breathing was regular and her body still. She closed the door behind her, unable and unwilling to further process this desire of Lexi’s to quit, fearing that if she did, she just might scream.
‘Can I get you a drink before bed?’ Lockie asked, as he heaped Ovaltine into a mug.
‘Nothing for me, thanks.’ She shook her head and set the dishwasher whirring.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, able to sense her mood, but his tone indicating a reluctance to have this conversation again.
Both already knew what the matter was, and to ask was merely going through the motions. There were only so many variants with which you could discuss the same topic; eventually the monotony, without ever reaching a solution, was wearing. The fact that the majority of their interactions were now pre-empted by a similar shrug or sigh set the spiral of decline in motion before they had uttered a word.
Freya stood and placed one hand on her hip. ‘Lexi just nodded off, but she more or less told me that she feels like giving up.’ She heard the quaver to her voice; this new level of fear was very real.
He stared at her. ‘Well, that’s bullshit! The consequence of her giving up is death. Is that what she wants?’ he spat, abandoning the spoon in the mug. He began to pace.
‘Please don’t shout at me, Lockie. I am only telling you what she said.’
‘But why is she talking like that?’ he continued, seemingly keener to get back on point than apologise. ‘Isn’t it bad enough that we have to spend every second of every day trying to make her eat? Her hair’s falling out, her bones are brittle, her teeth are loose in her gums, her heart is weak – for Christ’s sake! Her heart!’
‘I know, Lockie! Do you think I don’t? Shouting at me won’t change a thing and it’s unfair!’ The facts he emphasised rattled around her mind continually; she didn’t need or welcome his pointed reminders.
‘How much more broken does she want to get?’
Freya stared at him, feeling that she was merely an observer to this monologue; she could offer nothing that would help. ‘I don’t know what to say to you.’
‘No. No one knows what to say anymore, no one knows what to do anymore, and I am sick of it! I’m not about to sit back and let her make those choices. I won’t.’
He stormed from the room, up the stairs, to where Lexi lay very still. The beginnings of sleep peeled from her at the murmur of the row that rose up between the Edwardian flooring and swam around her room.
Freya followed, arriving a second behind Lockie as he switched on the main light and told Lexi to sit up.
‘You need to listen!’ he barked.
She watched as her daughter’s thin, pointy arm reached over the top of the duvet mountain and anchored her as she twisted into a sitting position. Her eyes blinked, trying to adjust to the sudden, harsh light. Her every move was now deliberate, considered and slow. With no fuel in her system and no layer of fat and very little muscle, her bones ground against each other, pushing against skin that had to be at the very least uncomfortable, if not excruciating.
Lexi propped herself up on her pillows and stared with her big sunken eyes as Lockie stood in the middle of her bedroom, clearing his throat and changing his stance, working up the steam to begin.
‘Enough, Lexi! This is what I have come to tell you. I have listened to your mum and all the advice from the professionals. I’ve driven myself nuts reading views and information from parents in similar positions, and all the time I’ve been ignoring that little voice on my shoulder, my g
ut instinct.’ He tapped his chest.
Lexi looked at her mum and back to her dad, her expression one of concern, in case she was caught not giving him her full attention, and also fear of what might come next. Freya avoided her eyes; part of her wanted this intervention, because if Lockie was taking control it meant she had time to draw breath, not only giving her time to reload, but more crucially, with him at the helm, it was no longer her fault.
‘You are going to start eating. You will take on food. And that’s that.’ He let his hands fall to his sides.
Lexi began to cry.
‘Tears won’t make a difference. Not this time. I will not let you give up! You are fifteen years of age! Fifteen! You are a child. You have so much life ahead of you, and yet you spend your days shivering in this room . . .’ He shook his head. ‘You were always the wild card, Lexi. The way you ran at life scared me. I used to wake with a jolt, trying to picture you at fifteen, thinking if she is this crazy, this gung-ho, at eight, nine, ten, what’s she going to be like as a teenager? I imagined you jumping on trains and calling up from Istanbul. I saw the rowdy parties, the mayhem, the sleepless nights . . .’ He paused, and looked at her face with tears slipping down her loose, sallow skin.
Freya pushed her fingers into her jeans – anything to fight the desire to swoop forward and cuddle her, knowing this would not only distract from Lockie’s message but would yet again set her role as the protector. She felt torn.
‘But I never in my wildest dreams could have imagined you like this, and I’ve got to tell you that how you live now scares me more than I ever thought possible, more than any rowdy party. I am beyond scared. I am petrified. I love you, Lexi. I’m your dad and that is why I need to take control, I need to tell you enough is enough, because I will not lose you. Do you understand?’ His last words coasted from a throat tight with emotion, his voice reed thin.
The Food of Love Page 22