“Including having lunch with Anne.”
“Including that. I even paid.”
“Will she be able to help you? Here, feel here, there’s a foot or a hand or something. I am like a fucking whale I am so big.”
I rub the hard little protuberance under my hand.
“Way cool,” I say, and it is. “No, she can’t help me,” I tell Miranda. “She’s doesn’t have any contacts in my field, she’s into marketing.”
“What did she eat? She always ate in the most disgusting way. Did you ever notice that? I still can’t believe you had lunch with her. So, what’s her news?”
“She’s married and her name is now Anne Carmichael Pondicherry.” I wait for the reaction that is not long in coming.
“Pondi-fucking-cherry.” Miranda sits up and huffs slightly. “So she ended up marrying that Indian student she was fired for having an affair with? She’s lucky they didn’t press charges.”
“He was just over sixteen, that’s why they didn’t, and in his last year of school. Yes, she married him and they’ve got a baby who’s two and a half years old. She showed me pictures and he’s quite beautiful.”
But Miranda isn’t interested in the baby’s beauty. “I can’t believe she married him. Or that he married her, shall we say.”
I don’t want to dwell on that part of Anne’s life because I know it will only make Miranda feel awful because she has never recovered from the heartbreak of Sanjiv marrying Rijuta instead of her.
“She ate a baked potato with loads of cheese and bacon,” I report, knowing this will distract Miranda. “And it was yellow cheese too. And she had butter on her potato.”
“Totally fucking gross,” Miranda comments and repositions herself again. Miranda, I think, is like some kind of shifting land mass. “And what’s to bet she thought she was being so super healthy too.”
“Yes she did, she said exactly that. ‘I’ve stopped eating junk food,’ she said. And she had coleslaw covered with a ton of mayo and a huge pile of potato salad too. I was mesmerized.”
“And how did she eat?”
I shrug. “Her eating never bothered me, so I don’t get what you mean. Like she drooled or what?”
Miranda shrugs too. “She was just such a bitch, I always hated her. She was always so odd. I still don’t have a clue who her parents were. She had those grandparents but they weren’t really her real grandparents were they?”
“I don’t know the story either,” I admit. “She mentioned something about her mother but I didn’t want to say oh, so you do have a mother, or something like that. She is odd though. She told me she and her husband are going to adopt a baby from Africa.”
“How can they afford that?”
“I have no idea. I tried to extract the exact details out of her, I really I did, but it would have been easier to get blood from a stone as they say. She never gives you the full picture. She did tell me one of her brothers is in jail again for having a grow-op and she said that he was already in jail back when we were all at university, did you know that?”
“Of course I didn’t, how could I, she never told me anything.” Miranda pauses. “So, she’s really not fat?” She seems hopeful, like maybe I’ll give her a better answer this time.
“No, she looks really good.”
I can see that Miranda isn’t happy she’s agreed to see me. Not only have I now seen her in her vast grossness, but I have come bearing the news that Anne Carmichael married her Indian fellow and to top it off, Anne is no longer fat. Miranda seems put off by the magnitude of injustices levelled at her. She scowls.
“So, boy or girl?” I ask.
“Boy,” she says, “which I am glad about. Boys can take care of themselves better.” She stares off into the distance.
“Dr. Lit doesn’t want to see me anymore,” she says. “He says it’s wrong, what we’re doing.” Her eyes fill with tears.
“I asked him how he could expect to be a part of the baby’s life if he wouldn’t see me and he said, well, that’s exactly it, he’s not a part of it and doesn’t plan to be, either. He said he realizes he’s never going to leave his wife and it’s better if we call it off now.”
She is crying openly, and she blows her nose loudly.
“I am so, so sorry,” I say. I want to touch her but it is another of our unspoken rules. We never invade each other’s body space. That is what strangers do who presume too much.
I don’t know how to comfort her and I sense asking about Nate will only make things worse.
She blows her nose again. “Oh well,” she says. “You’ve seen me as big as Noah’s Ark, Dr. Lit’s left me, Nate’s such a kid, Carmichael got her man. What the fuck happened to me?”
“Miranda,” I say. “Imagine if all the wonderful muddy earth was taken off the planet and the only thing left was rock and sheer cliffs, how harsh, how barren, how infertile would that be? I am trying so hard to get in touch with my body because it’s the flesh and not the bones that gives life. And look at you now; you are having a baby. It doesn’t get much more life-giving than that.”
I am trying to make her feel better and for a moment, I even believe it myself.
She gives a snort of derision. “Right, sure,” she says. “It’s the invasion of the body snatchers if you ask me. I’ve been taken over by an alien from Planet Fat, that’s all there is to it. So what did you eat while Pondi-fucking-cherry was guzzling her oil-fest?”
“Green tea,” I say, and I crack into a grin and before we know it, we are both howling with laughter.
“Yes,” I say, and I wipe my eyes. “Green tea.”
A bit all over the place
JUST WHEN YOU START TO THINK you may be feeling better about things, you realize you’re not. I go to the hairdresser and all I can see in the full-length mirror in front of me is a big fat blob.
My hands look fat, like farmer’s fingers with heavy wrists. Even my usually gaunt neck looks fat; I swear I see a fold, a line, a crease in the flesh. Then I go home and weigh myself. Impossible horror.
Monday, I go to work, an elephant. A hungry elephant who is never allowed to eat again.
And, to make matters worse, Mathew and I have a huge party to attend next Saturday, a nightmare of fashionistas, editors, ad men; the whole shebang. The party of all parties; that is, the Plum Awards, which celebrate the very crème de la crème of the creative industry. And there is no way I can get out of going. I have tried on all kinds of excuses for size but like my clothing, nothing fits.
Where has all this terrible fat come from? I resolve to eat even less.
Kenneth strolls into the office, stands at Brit’s desk and moans about the usual; he is overworked, when are we getting our own sales person, they keep talking about this Colleen person but he doesn’t believe them any more. But, he says, at least they fired that useless hulk Max … it was about time … no idea what Pablo was thinking when he hired that guy … sometimes Pablo just doesn’t think straight.
Max fired? I want to jump up and fire questions at Kenneth but I don’t. I pretend to be engrossed in the page I am working on, keep my eyes fixed on my screen, my hand on my mouse, while my heart pounds so hard in my chest I can feel it in my ears.
Thank heavens for Brit’s curiosity.
“Why did they fire him?” she asks. “He hadn’t been here long at all. And why didn’t you like him? I thought he seemed quite nice.”
Kenneth shrugs. “He just wasn’t all that bright if you ask me. I don’t know; he just bugged me. And he wasn’t bringing in the money like he said he would, like he was supposed to.”
“Where did he go?” Brit asks. I could kiss her.
“I have no idea and even less interest,” Kenneth says. “Well, I’m having lunch with Pablo so I must be on my way. See you all later.” He smiles in my direction and leaves.
“Brit, let’s you, me and Meg all go out to lunch,” I say, unable to believe it is my voice talking. “We can take it out of petty cash and it won’t cos
t us a thing. Kenneth will never know the difference. I think we deserve it.”
What on earth am I doing?
Brit and Meg both immediately jump at the idea and rush to get their coats, and it is too late for me to back out. I head for the washroom before we leave.
I lean my head against the cool wall of the cubicle and feel bathed in the sanctuary of wonderful relief. I am going to be fine, the threat has been eliminated.
I think about my uncharacteristic lunch offer and wonder if the others have noticed the coincidence of Max’s departure and my need to celebrate. Surely they can have no idea of the scope of my relief at this heavensent rescue from the quicksand of my overwhelming desire. But even if they do, who cares? And besides, we need a treat; the magazine’s lack of success is affecting us all. I am constantly exhausted and my doctor recently told me my blood pressure is awfully low. Plus, I have a sinus infection as bad as that time in Paris; my head is sore, my entire body aches, and all I want to do is sleep, even though I can’t. The antibiotics aren’t helping my energy levels either. I think all the worrying about Max has nearly undone me.
I came close to speaking to my doctor, like really speaking to her about the food thing, but I caught myself in the nick of time. I like her. She’s matter-of-fact but empathetic. But thank heavens I didn’t say anything. I will beat this on my own. I have the willpower, the intelligence, the focus. It’s just that the timing is wrong for my immediate recovery. But with Clarissa helping me and Max gone, I will be just fine. Besides I don’t really have an eating disorder, just issues with food. It just needs to work its way out of my system.
I feel so bad because I have tortured my body. There is no escaping that I have, and that I still do. And yes, I have been shamed by my own body. I’ve punished it relentlessly.
The day before, Sunday, I once again paged through Clarissa’s book, desperately seeking answers. The beautiful message I read was clear; the body is a series of doors and dreams and poems through which we can learn and know all manner of things. It is not a dumbbell that we are sentenced to carry for life, it is not a beast of burden, pampered or otherwise. The body is a being in its own right, one who loves us, depends on us, one to whom we are sometimes mother and who is sometimes mother to us.
But, I thought, gnawing my lower lip until it was bitten and raw, that is not my truth. My body is a beast of burden. And mothers can be dangerous.
The next day, Monday, my predator vanquished, although not by my own hand, I lead us all to lunch, to celebrate. Before we leave, I tell Meg and Brit I need to look up “sinus infection,” in the Messages book.
“Inner crying,” I read.
They are having a reaction to an experienced rejection from someone they love, or they are undergoing an exacerbation of or a return of their longstanding feeling they have never had the love they have needed from someone they loved very deeply. They feel that they somehow caused the abandonment, rejection or loss.
They are compulsively looking for love in all the wrong faces, and they are trying in all the wrong ways to win love via perfectionist performance. They are trying to “put a better ending on the old story,” with “standins for the original cast.” They are trying to “squeeze blood from a turnip” and they deeply resent the way it is going.
I sigh. Yes, that sounds like me. I wonder if I should order a holographic face reading from Dr. Lincoln Nayaran-Singh but I don’t think it will tell me anything I don’t already know. Besides, I am going to be fine now that Max is gone. My predator has been taken out of the equation and I will stop looking for love in all the wrong faces.
We have a fine old time of it too, at lunch. I eat a grilled vegetable salad, no dressing. Meg eats the same as me but she has the dressing on the side, which she then pours all over her salad. Brit has a cheese salad with a vegetable pie and chips. Meg eats most of Brit’s chips. I pick at Brit’s cheese but she doesn’t seem to mind either of us helping her out.
Despite my relief about Max, I still feel quite overwhelmed by life and a bit all over the place in every sense of the word. But sitting with Brit and Meg, I am almost happy.
Potential employers
IT’S TIME FOR A NEW job yes, but because I scrape out the last remains of the the inside of a jar of peanut butter with my finger, I can never work for her.
She, of course, would never do that, tiny little bleached whippet that she is, tiny little rich girl in a shiny gold convertible Mercedes, 500 SEL, married to the heir of a newspaper empire. Peanut butter she would think? How thick, how coarse, how oily.
“I’m very into power dressing,” she says, “you have to dress the part. I only buy labels but I only buy from second-hand shops where the women take their stuff when they have only worn a suit once. Some of those women simply won’t wear a suit twice, even if it’s couture, can you believe that? Do you know I picked up this Ralph Lauren for next to nothing?” Her porcelain doll eyes are saucers of blue, her thin lips smile, she is incredulous at those shameless, privileged women, her expression greedy with delight at being able to pick at their discarded fashion carrion.
I look at her outfit, not really caring one way or the other. I am not even employed by her and I am already bored out of my mind by her company.
“I only buy my suits in London when I am back in the UK,” the editor says. “I haven’t worn anything off the peg for bloody years. Pity the poor sots who do. It shows, you know.”
I cast my mind back to my closet. “I love Burberry,” I say. “You can never go wrong there.” I had picked up my brands as bona fide fakes in Petticoat Lane. I have never bought the real thing in my life. But by my calculations at least I had bought it in the same country as the mother store, so it counted as real.
The publisher looks disapproving. “I told my husband to stop shopping at Burberry’s,” she says. “Too pricey for what you get. Whatever you paid my dear, you overpaid.”
I smile inwardly. Twenty pounds for a full-length “Burberry” coat, two pounds for an umbrella, two for a wallet, three for a hat, ten pounds for a pink Chanel purse. I had thought I had done fabulously.
“Kenzo is definitely the best designer for short men,” the editor chimes in. “His trousers are perfect. But for a woman, if I am trying to impress her, it’s Janet Reger underwear all the way, at a couple of hundred quid a piece you can’t go wrong.”
The publisher drinks gin and tonic. The editor drinks beer and lime. I drink water with a slice of lemon.
Two’s a couple, three’s a clown.
But they are the ones who invited me. I have no idea why. I go because I harbour a hope they’ll offer me a job and save me from Pablo and Kenneth. After two hours of having to listen to second-hand accounts of several thousand fashion shows, the only thing I want is to be as far away from them as possible, at home with my broccoli and Freddo.
The publisher isn’t into shoes per se, she says. Although she is currently wearing a pair of pink fluffy mules that nearly has the editor writhing in ecstasy on the floor. Clearly, he is a shoe man.
And on the conversation goes; through the myriad collections of North America, the UK, Europe and all the way down through Africa.
“I’ll get the car,” the editor finally says and he gets to his feet and air-kisses me, kiss kiss, and off he goes.
The publisher looks nervous at being left alone with me.
“I’ll get the bill,” I say as the editor pulls up alongside outside.
“Phone us soon,” the publisher says, and she gets to her pretty little pink-muled feet, complete with vermilion pedicure I notice, “and come in any time, for a day, see how you fit and all that, if you can spare the time. We’d love you to do a personality test for us, maybe a few designs to show us what you’ve got. Ta ta, we are off to do radio.”
She jumps into the editor’s big BMW and they wave. The editor had said he longed for a convertible and the publisher giggled at that. She giggled at a lot of things that weren’t really funny and the editor managed t
o keep up with her with a smile that must have hurt.
I tried to keep up with her too, really I did, but I just succeeded in developing an odd twitch to the left side of my mouth.
The thing is, I think later, I don’t really care about Bill Blass, Calvin Klein or Katherine Hamnett. A personality test. Show her a few designs. I think not. No, I like baked potatoes and broccoli and being on my own and she likes caviar and being in the spotlight. I don’t think I’ll go and hang out for a day. I already know that shoe doesn’t fit; I guess I’m not Cinderella after all. I don’t need a personality test to tell me that.
My instinctive wolf woman is telling me to run and for once, I decide to listen.
A week before my birthday
FAT JANET HAS EXPLODED. She’s given up the fight completely and is much larger than her pre-wedding self. She’s eating like she just doesn’t care anymore. I am alarmed but perhaps Fat Janet is the freer of the two of us?
“I don’t want to be neurotic about this fat thing,” I say to Meg on the Monday following the Plum Awards. I am hoping that talking to her will help get me back in control. “I just had such a major food weekend, and now my birthday is coming up which means dinners and lunches and cakes and things, so I am a bit concerned.”
I am generally reticent about my issues. I try not to volunteer anything. I just listen, relieved when I seem to be doing better than whoever it is I am listening to, because then I can tell myself I have beaten this thing, I am no longer a slave to it.
But this morning my panic gets the better of me, and I can’t stop myself from talking anymore than I could at dinner last night.
Mathew and I went out for a bite after a movie and I ordered a salad platter and a baked potato. I was really hungry. I sat through the movie ravenous, and was delighted when Mathew suggested dinner.
I went to the salad bar and piled three inches high of lettuce on my plate. Then I added a few slices of tomato and one half spoonful of potato salad. “It looks like a lot,” I explained to Mathew, when I returned to my seat, “but it’s mostly lettuce and tomato, no dressing.” I guess I was thinking back to the time when my father had looked at a similar plate and commented, “Are you really going to eat all of that?”
The Hungry Mirror Page 28