by Jane Asher
‘No, I don’t think it was anything like that, Hol. I know them when they’re rowing and it was different. And it wasn’t like when he’s worried about work – I’m used to that, when he goes all moody and difficult. This was – well, he was like someone else, that’s the only way I can put it – and after the way he’s been so different lately it really got me. There’s something going on.’
Sally
God, I’m really putting on weight, I’ve got to watch it. I tried on a pair of trousers in a size 12 today and they were so tight I could hardly get the zip done up. It’s my thighs that are the problem: I’m getting that horrible pear shape that just wrecks the outline unless I wear something that covers my hips.
I hadn’t meant to start trying on clothes: I’d really gone to do some Christmas shopping and I was finding it so difficult that I took a break and thought about what I might ask Mum to get me as a present instead. It’s funny – I usually find it so easy to buy things for them but because everyone’s been so moody lately it’s quite put me off. Since Mum’s been spending so much time upstairs with headaches she seems to have lost interest in clothes and things – I keep asking her to go and see the doctor but she insists she’s OK. So when I looked at some of the scarves and belts I might usually have chosen for her I got quite depressed and couldn’t imagine her being pleased with them at all. Or any of the lipsticks or perfumes either: they just seem totally irrelevant somehow. And it’s a bit the same with Dad – I usually get him a silly, funny kind of present: a singing dog turd sort of thing or beer glass that burps when you pick it up – but his sense of humour is completely unpredictable at the moment and there’s not much less funny than opening a singing dog turd on Christmas morning if you’re not in the mood.
I caught him looking at Mum today with an expression that quite gave me the creeps. I guess I’ve always taken for granted that they love each other in that unembarrassing, friendly kind of way that you hope your parents do – the last thing I’d want is for them to start being openly romantic or anything – God forbid! But recently I’ve begun to wonder: they almost seem as if they don’t like each other any more.
Crystal
Whoa, Stacey!!!
How’re ya doin??? I’m writing this one week post-op and I’m feeling great! I thank God so much for blessing me in finding such a loving and kind-hearted friend as yourself. I have been blessed to meet many of my angels in person, but you’re my kinda favorite even tho’ we’re only pen buddies.
You have been a very big part of my life over the past year as I began this journey and this quest to be a better, more healthy human being. And I just want to say thank you for being there!!! I’m praying for you, honey, that you may reach your destination in WLS as I have and live a whole and complete life as God intended for us all to have. May the love of God keep you, the peace of God surround you, and the grace of God be ever present in your life. There are some things in our lives we can’t change – and I sure as hell should be the one to know that if anyone does – but with the Lord’s help I am changing my body shape and finding the person I was always meant to be.
It all went great last week and thanks to Jesus and my family I am on the mend now. Already as I type this message, I swear my arms are closer to my body and I can actually see the keyboard on my lap without straining. The swelling has gone down around my ankles too. I have gone from asking if I needed to have my brain examined to knowing this is the most important thing I have done for my health.
Get over here, Stacey! Get onto the Other Side – you won’t regret it.
Love and kisses
Crystal
Stacey
When I read the letter from Crystal it really made me think. I was sitting at the kitchen table with my ma, and I was finishing a virtually fat-free organic yoghurt. Well, in fact I was finishing my third one – they just don’t seem to fill me up somehow and I read that you can eat as much of the fat-free ones as you like and they don’t give you much calories. My mum said she couldn’t get the totally fat-free in the flavour I like and in the organic so she got the virtually fat-free instead. I like the organic because they don’t use the chemicals and that in them and you never know what’s gonna make allergies. Allergies can cause weight gain ’cos they upset your metabolism and that. So I always get the organics when I can. Don’t s’pose the virtually makes much difference. Each 125g carton is pure and natural and contains 0.1g of fat and 97 calories, so that’s OK. And they contain as much calcium as a full-fat one so that’s got to be good for my joints.
So I was finishing the yoghurt when I read Crystal’s letter. The post comes after I leave for work if I’m on an early shift so, if I get any letters, I read them later when I get in and have my tea. The girls at work had been talking about going on an outing all together to see a movie so I was in a bad mood anyway: not that they didn’t ask me, but they know I can’t fit on them seats at the UGC one where they’re going. Last time the manager found me a space at the back where he could pull up the arm and give me a double seat, but I’m not doing that again. Not unless I’m on my own at any rate. God bless videos, that’s what I say. Whoever thought of videos gets my vote, that’s for sure.
They know, of course, about the seats. The girls. They pretend they want me to come, but they just want to see what I’ll say. Or they want me to come with them and then they’ll act all surprised when I’ve got a problem. ‘Oh, sorry, Stacey – we didn’t think.’ Oh yeah – pull the other one. Mrs Peters has enough trouble squeezing in herself; it’s only beside me she looks normal – she’s quite a fat old bag herself in fact.
So Crystal’s letter was a real eye-opener as they say. I looked down at the yoghurt pot and the way I’d scraped it clean. Well, licked it clean, if truth be told, as my mum says. Looked like it’d been washed. Not a speck of pink on it; not a hint of rhubarb virtually thingy anywhere in sight. It made me fucking depressed. This ain’t gonna work, Stacey, I said to myself. This just ain’t gonna work. I suddenly saw it so clear. It was like one of them revelations people get when they find God, like Lorraine did when she got born again. Mind you, I’m not so sure our Lorraine did see things clearly once she’d found Jesus – not like you’re s’posed to anyway. I always thought she went a bit daft. She walked round at work with this shining look in her eyes all the time and nothing I could do would annoy her. That was weird for a start, ’cos before I used to be able to get her going with no sweat and it always give me a kick ’cos she got so worked up. ‘Oh, sorry, Lor, was you waiting for me to take over?’ I’d say, all innocent, when it was my shift. Just two minutes late and she’d be in a right state, slamming her cash drawer in and flipping the carriers about as she closed up. Perfectionist, is Lorraine. Changeover at four means exactly four with her, and she likes to get her till all sorted and prepared, so if she has to do another customer once she’s ready for the changeover it gets her right thrown. But once she’d found God she’d just look at me all dreamy and not say a word. I got later and later just to see if I could get her to blow, but she never. Till Mrs P pulled me up with one of her sarky comments and I had to be on time again.
And that’s another thing: the swearing. Lorraine used to eff and blind with the best of us but it seems Jesus don’t like her swearing so that all stopped once she went to the classes. And she’d turn that stupid dreamy look onto me when I said fuck or something and shake her head just that tiny little bit the way she does that makes you want to press your mouth right up against her ear and say every bleeding word you can think of. Just to get rid of that understanding fucking smile and those shining fucking eyes. She’s still like that now, although the shine’s worn off a bit over the last year. I guess it’s tricky to keep up all that peace and understanding stuff when the highlight of your life is listening to some old bird complaining about mould on her Jersey royals. Must begin to wonder when God’s plan for you is gonna reveal itself.
Crystal’s a bit heavy on the Jesus stuff, too, but I don’t mind with
her somehow. Anything that gets you through the night when you’re a big girl like Crystal and me, you see. I can’t wait now to see that picture she promised me – I want a before and after, I told her, like in the magazines, so I can see how quick she’s changing. It’s funny the way she’s never let me see one before – mostly I’ve found with all the girls I write to they’re dead keen to send pictures. That’s half the point really, of writing to others who’re obese – you don’t never have to feel shy about it ’cos we’re all the same. It gets almost like a competition to see who’s the biggest even.
I envy Crystal the way she feels so looked after by Jesus and her angels and all that. Double angels, in fact, ’cos she’s got the ones like me who’s ordinary friends and then she thinks she’s got real ones as well. The ones with wings up in the sky flying about and blessing her and stuff – keeping an eye. Must make her feel she’s worth something, mustn’t it? Self-esteem, that’s what they’re always banging on about in my diet magazine. How can you esteem someone you can’t stand? They don’t explain that one. If I catch sight of myself in a mirror it makes me feel physically sick; no way can I esteem that. When they try and get psychological they talk a lot of shit in them magazines if you ask me: feel good about yourself, they say. And try to find your inner child. Crystal started some of that too in one of her letters and I says no way – if there’s an inner child in there it’s gonna take so long for me to find it I’ll die in the attempt. She got quite upset when I wrote that – I sometimes think Americans don’t have no sense of humour.
I hadn’t never really taken the surgery stuff seriously before. I’d thought I had, and thought it was only ’cos I knew I’d never be able to get it done that I didn’t find out more about it, but reading her letter I suddenly saw the light. All the diets and gadgets and supplements in the world wasn’t gonna help me – I was too far gone. Crystal had done it and already she felt the change – I knew just what she meant about her arms, too, and I looked down at mine on the table. Once I looked at them I could feel them, and I knew the insides was sore and red where they rubbed against the sides of my chest. I wanted a space between, like Crystal’s getting. I wanted it so much it made me get a bit tearful. Thousands of people get the weight-loss surgery in America, Crystal says. We get all the good things they have over there in the end, whether it’s McDonald’s or Nike trainers, so we’re bound to start doing the WLS soon, I thought.
‘Ma,’ I said.
‘Yes, love,’ my mum said. She was sitting in her chair by the fire reading Hello! She loves that chair – it’s sort of moulded to her bum after all these years and she don’t like to leave it much really. She’s not as big as me, anyway. Not near as big, in fact, but I wouldn’t say so to her. That last time I went to the doctor’s and he said all that about losing weight I told him I was just big like my mum. (I didn’t go to be told to lose weight – I don’t need a doctor to tell me that, do I? I just gone to get something for my joints, you see, ’cos the aching was so bad.) Anyway, that’s when he said I was much bigger than my mum and if I didn’t lose weight I’d be dead within a year. I was about 19 stone then and what he said scared me so much I hardly ate for a week. Didn’t last long, though, and I haven’t dared go back since ’cos I know I’m much heavier than that now.
‘Mum – what do you know about weight-loss surgery?’
‘You mean that liposuction – you want to be careful about that, Stacey. My friend Terri’s daughter had that done on her thighs and they’re like two bags of laundry now: all ruckles and dips and folds. Revolting. You wanna be careful, Stace.’
‘No, I don’t mean liposuction, Mum, I mean stapling. My friend Crystal – you know, the one I write to – she’s had this stapling thing on her tummy and she’s told me stories of all these friends of hers who’ve had it and they lose all this weight ever so easily.’
She’s not really one for new ideas, my mum, so I knew this wasn’t gonna go down too well, but I just wanted to say it out in the open. It’s much easier to take things seriously if you’ve heard yourself say them out loud, and I’ve had this surgery thing in my head for so long I wanted to get it out and share it. It didn’t seem so crazy once I said it.
‘You don’t wanna touch anything like that, Stacey. Terri read about this woman who had her jaws wired together and she went mad.’
‘What are you talking about, Mum?’
‘She did, Stacey. Terri says this woman went mad and attacked her dog with a spoon ’cos she was jealous of the dog eating dog biscuits, when she could only eat mush through a straw. You ask at the doctor’s, they’ll tell you about wires and staples and that. It’s diet and exercise that’ll do it. That’s the only safe way.’
I didn’t say nothing more but she hadn’t put me off. My mum comes up with all kinds of scare stories when you ask her things. Seems like if it ain’t the papers it’s one of her friends what’s heard something terrible that can happen, even if you’re just thinking of changing your toothpaste. But to me it all seemed possible, suddenly. I was going like Crystal: I was going on to the other side.
Charlie
I never did discover exactly what passed between Ben and myself the other night, but I’m absolutely certain that I must have walked into his room and spoken to him. I managed to put it to the back of my mind and set off for work feeling far more cheery than I had when first getting out of bed. Indeed, the memory of that odd experience of waking to find myself unilaterally clad, sock-wise, soon faded into insignificance and became a dream-like part of all the experiences of the previous twenty-four hours. Rather amusing, in fact, and most probably simply a manifestation of the tension I had been putting myself through over my current case.
Much as I dedicate myself utterly to the client I am representing at any one time, it is naturally something of a strain to fight on behalf of someone when one’s sympathies tend to the other side. I’d never admit it to anyone, but even if I don’t positively favour the opposition, I more and more often find myself seeing all angles of a case, and feeling uncomfortable in maintaining the one-sided approach necessary to conduct a successful defence. The awareness of there being two sides to every story has always been at the back of my mind, of course – as it would be in any reasonably intelligent person’s – but I seem to be consistently more conscious of it these days, so that even as I ask a question of my own witness I am horribly aware of the opposite point of view. This makes it very difficult to summon up the dogmatism to make a really good case, and the strain of pretending to feel something I don’t is bound to tell.
By the time a couple of days had passed, I’d pretty much concluded that the Stacey ring ‘vision’ and the sleepwalking were easily explained in terms of overwork. I decided to set myself a little test: I’d promised Judy that I’d pick up some Paracetamol at some point during the day (she was in bed with a headache that morning), so I thought I might as well get it at SavaMart. I could easily pass by on my way to Lincoln’s Inn, say a cheery hello to my fat friend and bring a little light into her life before closeting myself in the dimness of court no. 4 in the family division.
Could it ever have been that simple? Perhaps, if I’d left it alone and gone straight to work, I need never have faced the truth; I could have continued to believe that my revelation had been an illusion, and that the feelings it had conjured up had been transitory. My relationship with Stacey could have remained as insignificant as it then seemed to be – a passing aberration that meant nothing and would quickly fade. Or was it only because I knew I was bound to see her again that I felt so deceptively peaceful and unconcerned?
The sun was shining as I turned into Victoria Street, catching the tinsel decorations strung across the road as sharply as spotlights, making them flash and sparkle. I glanced up at them when I reached the supermarket, and remembered with a jolt of guilt that I hadn’t yet ordered the new set of tableware that I was planning to give Judy for Christmas. I was left with dancing after-images in my eyes as I entered the store and
at first found it hard to see clearly in the comparative gloom of the interior. Having picked up a basket and headed towards the chemist supplies via the bread aisle, I glanced back at the checkouts and it took me a moment or two to take in what I saw. Amazing, really, that the absence of something so enormous should take so long to register. She wasn’t there.
Two of the tills were unattended, and at the other four were girls of average, if uninspiring size. Where was Stacey? She was usually on this shift – I’d seen her many times as I’d popped in on my way to work and bought a newspaper. Extraordinarily, and totally unexpectedly, I was almost knocked over by a wave of panic, and had to hold on to a shelf to steady my balance. I dipped my head and took a couple of deep breaths in an attempt to pull myself together, then, bracing my shoulders and assuming what I hoped looked like a normal expression, I continued down the aisle, putting a couple of packets of scones unthinkingly into my basket as I went. It was all I could do to stop myself rushing to the checkouts, grabbing one of the bored-looking girls by the shoulders and demanding that she tell me where Stacey was. I managed to stall myself for a few more minutes, but after a half-hearted examination of a plastic-wrapped German rye and pumpernickel loaf, I could bear it no longer and walked back, as nonchalantly as I could, towards the tills.
I wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved to find that they were all empty of customers. I could have done with a few more minutes to collect myself before having to face anyone, but equally I was desperate to find out whether Stacey was lurking somewhere on the store premises and might be appearing any moment for her shift. I picked the till with the least unfriendly-looking girl ensconced next to it, and unpacked the contents of my basket onto the belt as I cleared my throat. The girl and I both listlessly watched the two packets of fruit scones gliding slowly towards her, and it struck me that they would in all probability never be eaten. Judy makes extremely good scones and would never dream of buying them ready-made, and there was no way I could explain my sudden decision to do so. Unless I could eat eight scones myself before returning home at the end of the day I was going to have to throw them away, and as I couldn’t imagine being able to eat anything ever again I was sure they were doomed. Even as I opened my mouth to inquire casually about Stacey’s whereabouts I considered grabbing the packets just before they reached the girl’s outstretched hand and changing them for something more useful – fascinating that I should find myself worrying about eight wasted fruit scones when my life was in chaos. All this was going through my head as I struggled to maintain an appearance of normality.