by K. L. Slater
There was nothing sordid in it. If her dad wasn’t so uptight at the moment, he’d have probably understood.
Meeting Gareth felt like a chance too good to miss. It was very early days, she knew that, but this could be the start of something positive in her dull village life… if she didn’t muck it up by letting her own insecurities and family worries intrude.
‘You forgotten your phone number now?’ Gareth narrowed his dark-blue eyes, and for a brief moment she thought he was annoyed, but then he smiled and his eyes twinkled again.
Rose rattled off the number.
‘Good,’ he murmured as he tapped the digits into his phone. ‘Eight o’clock it is, then. Tomorrow night.’
She nodded. He winked and smiled that sexy smile again and her heart did a double flip.
When she reached the gate and looked back, she saw he was still watching her. He raised a hand to wave and she smiled but her hands were full so she couldn’t wave back.
5
SIXTEEN YEARS EARLIER
Rose pushed the back door open with her foot and staggered awkwardly inside, trying to balance all her art supplies.
Her eight-year-old little brother, Billy, had obviously arrived home just before her. He sat on a stool in the kitchen, kicking off his scuffed trainers.
‘I saw you standing with a bloke at the top of the street.’ Billy smirked, stuffing a handful of cola bottles in his mouth and watching as Rose struggled inside. ‘He was carrying your stuff for you. Is he your boyfriend?’
She glanced anxiously towards the door, wondering if her parents had heard but she could hear the TV in the front room so they were both probably in there, eating their tea on trays.
‘Keep your voice down,’ Rose hissed at her brother. ‘He’s not my boyfriend.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Gareth.’
‘How do you know his name then, if he’s not your boyfriend?’ He laughed and dodged her hand as she dropped the portfolio case and swung for him.
‘He’s not my boyfriend, Billy.’ Rose bit her lip. ‘Do you want to get me into trouble with Mum and Dad?’
He pulled out more sweets from his pocket and shook his head solemnly. She wasn’t the only one suffering her father’s bad moods. Judging by the state of his unruly mop, Rose could hazard a guess that he hadn’t brushed his hair at all that day. She dumped her bag and art materials on the drop-leaf table, and smoothed his ruffled locks. Billy jerked his head from side to side in an effort to avoid her fussy finger-combing.
‘Stop saying it then, else they’ll hear you. Let’s have a drink.’ She pulled two glasses from the cupboard, walked over to the fridge and searched for fresh orange juice but there was none. ‘What did you do at school today?’
‘Just boring stuff.’ Billy pulled a face.
She’d had countless talks with Billy about trying harder at school.
She sighed. ‘Are you serious about being a pilot when you grow up?’
He shrugged but didn’t reply.
‘What’s the attitude for?’ She made up two glasses of orange cordial instead.
‘Carl Bennett in my class says it’s just a stupid dream, Rose.’ Billy looked at her over his glass with soulful brown eyes. ‘He says people who come from round here never have exciting jobs, they just go to work down the pit because that’s all there is.’
‘Not any more,’ Rose said. ‘Pit’s been closed for ages now and that’s done local young lads like you a favour. You can do what you like, if you put your mind to it.’ She took a long draft of juice. ‘Remember how we talked about getting a good education?’
But Billy had already stopped listening; he began to lay out his football cards in precise lines on the other side of the table.
Rose was dying to call Cassie and tell her about meeting Gareth but the telephone was situated in the hallway and her parents would definitely be able to overhear. She’d just have to keep him to herself for now. It felt like a delicious secret that was only hers to tell.
Later, it took a long time for Rose to get to sleep.
The next day at college, Cassie met her off the bus and was instantly delirious when Rose told her.
‘What, he’s actually asked you out on a date?’ Cassie exclaimed.
Rose grinned as she thought about how those big blue eyes looked in serious danger of popping out of their sockets.
‘How old is he?’
‘I don’t know, exactly. But like I said, he looks quite a bit older than me.’ The girls sauntered up Nottingham Road towards West Notts College, perched on top of the hill. ‘I reckon he’s maybe in his mid-twenties.’
Cassie’s face shone. ‘I bet you’ll do it with him on Wednesday. He’ll be your first one, you wait and see.’
‘Cassie! We’re only going to the cinema, for goodness sake.’ Rose scowled but found she couldn’t fully hide a grin.
‘Yeah, you’ll tell me anything. Look at you – you’re gagging for it. Little virgin.’
She squealed and jumped back as Rose swung her shoulder bag at her. Cassie proceeded to dance around her, singing Madonna’s ‘Like A Virgin’.
‘Cassie, pack it in,’ Rose hissed, glancing round to see if any of the other students walking nearby had overheard.
‘Seriously though, this is definitely progress, Rose.’ Cassie fell back into step beside her. ‘I was beginning to think you’d eventually take over from Miss Carter as the village’s official old maid.’
‘Very funny.’
Cassie was the same age as Rose but rather more experienced when it came to boys. She’d had three steady boyfriends and had slept with all of them. Her relationships to date had been with lads from college, all the same age as her, but Rose noticed that she seemed to find Gareth’s age particularly attractive.
‘I’d kill to shag an older man,’ she said dreamily. ‘All that experience.’
‘Cassie!’
‘It’s true, I would!’ She stuck her tongue out. ‘If you’re going all prim Miss Jean Brodie, you can introduce him to me. Maybe I could teach him a thing or two.’
‘And, get this… ’ Rose said, ignoring her crude comment, ‘he recited me a poem by Byron.’ She waited for her friend to pale in admiration.
‘Now I know you’re having a laugh,’ Cassie snorted.
‘It’s true!’ Rose giggled and nudged her. ‘It even had my name in it, the poem. Something about a rose’s leaves being the earliest of the year.’
Cassie’s grin slipped from her face. ‘Rose, you lucky cow, he sounds like a dream. For God’s sake, don’t mess it up.’
‘Mess it up, how?’
‘By being naïve. You need to show him you’re not a kid just because you’re a lot younger than he is.’
‘How do I do that?’
Cassie gave a heavy sigh. ‘We’ll talk about it later. Come round to mine tonight and I’ll give you a masterclass in how to snare a man.’
She stuck out her boobs and bumped into Rose on purpose, and they dissolved into laughter.
Rose felt all warm inside. Life felt good. Exciting.
6
ROSE
PRESENT DAY
I walk into the small, local Co-op store where I do my food shopping.
There are two major supermarkets within about four miles of the village and I’m fully aware that they offer a much broader choice and cheaper prices but I feel more comfortable staying local.
Here, I know all the checkout operators, the shelf-stackers and even the store manager. I can take my time and relax a little as I browse, as much as relaxing in public is ever going to be possible.
Food is important to me, always has been. It’s my companion, my undemanding friend.
Every morning when I wake, I push away the heavy, unwelcome stuff that rushes into my head with thoughts of food. What I’m having for breakfast, what I’ll take into work for lunch and, of course, the main event of the day: what I’m having for tea.
I start each day promising mys
elf I’ll do better, I tell myself I can stop the destructive eating pattern. But something inside of me is broken and I always let myself down… By nightfall, the early morning hope has turned full-circle, back to self-loathing.
The double wardrobe in my bedroom is crammed full of old clothes I won’t wear any more. I can count on one hand those that I still look OK in: a pair of jeans, a pair of black work trousers, a blouse and two brightly coloured cardigans that help to disguise the multitude of glaring body faults I see the moment I look in the mirror.
I know I ought to sell the old stuff on eBay and use the money to buy one or two good quality new items that fit me properly. If I could just gain a few pounds in the right places, then I’d have dozens of outfits become wearable that are currently baggy on my bony shoulders or hang off my scrawny hips.
Plenty of people would swap bodies with me, I know. But that’s because they don’t know the full story. I’m not healthy, not attractively slim. I’m dry, malnourished and I’m hungry.
Most of the time I’m so bloody hungry.
Periodically, a voice inside me urges me to do something about the destructive cycle that on one level, I know I’m in. I’ve tried to come up with a plan many times but all those faddy diets in the women’s magazines… they seem to feed the fear rather than allay it.
So last week I did a bit of online research on eating well and came up with my own solution.
Basically, it amounts to eating three sensible meals a day, cutting out sugary snacks and generally making healthier choices. Sounds simple enough when you commit it to paper.
Yet even as I noted down the meal ideas, I knew the fear of gaining weight would almost certainly outweigh the probability that I could ever eat normally.
You see, with me, it’s always been all of the food. I just have to have it, to fill up the gaps of nothingness, the holes that run through me like in a slice of Swiss cheese. The only thing I feel in control of is what happens after I’ve eaten it all.
When I had my ‘food problem’ – Dad named it thus to avoid the stigma attached to the official medical term and it stuck – it was ages before my clothing started feeling looser. Once the weight loss did start, though, it just didn’t seem to stop.
I reach into my handbag and pull out the scrawled list I compiled. I’d been moved to do it yesterday when I sat down at my desk with my sandwich lunch. My eyes flashed over the chicken salad wrap, the packet of cheese and onion crisps and the small banana I’d packed at home that morning and felt what can only be described as a raw panic.
If I kept eating like this, I’d swell, grow fat again.
Those words, the ones that had leaked from his cruel, stretched lips as he grabbed my hair and pulled my head back; disgusting… vile… obese… sickening…
They’d bounced around my head yesterday like a ping-pong ball and I felt seized by an urgency to have another go at taking myself in hand.
Attending the council-run gym in nearby Hucknall and mixing with strangers was out of the question, as would be taking long walks alone in the fields that surrounded the village. Far too many hiding places there to conceal anyone wishing me harm. But I also knew that if I didn’t do something, I’d just carry on, trapped in this negative and dangerous cycle.
Now I glance at the list of my optimistic ideas for nutritious, filling meals, and after grabbing a wire basket, I head off up the first aisle.
Before I’ve even reached the salad section I’ve exchanged pleasantries with a fellow villager and two members of staff. No deep, searching questions, thankfully, just observations about the weather and the agenda for the upcoming village committee meeting. This, I can handle.
I put a Romaine lettuce, two tomatoes and half a cucumber in my basket. I add a carton of eggs and a piece of cooked salmon with a chilli ginger glaze from the chill cabinet and, instead of my usual two litres of fizzy pop, I grab a two-litre bottle of water.
As I turn the corner on to the next aisle, I look down into the basket at what I have so far and I don’t see fresh and healthy at all. I see only bland and tasteless with nothing to look forward to.
I’d desperately like food to cease playing such a major role in my life and control it, instead of the other way around, but the thought of cutting back on the sort of dishes I love makes my heart sink.
How on earth am I going to fill the long evenings, eating just a few leaves and a scrap of fish? I’m used to what I call my ‘never-ending meals’. These consist of maybe a ready-made lasagne or spaghetti bolognese with a slice or two of garlic bread, followed by a nice fresh cream cake.
All this I usually wash down with a bottle of nice chilled Sauvignon Blanc, the first glass of which I consume immediately upon getting home from work, after locking and bolting the doors. Then, as I prefer to think of it, I ‘pop upstairs’.
When I come back down again, I’ll have a coffee and a few chocolate digestives or perhaps some cheese and biscuits.
Finally, I might down a couple of iced Baileys and, after taking a trip upstairs again, I usually fall asleep watching a box set on Netflix.
I’m aware it might not sound like much of an evening but it’s my life. I’ve become accustomed to evenings spent alone by building this sort of sanctuary around myself, based largely on food, drink and television.
It’s the way I forget about everything; what’s happened in the past and the future I can never look forward to. Sometimes, it even works for a short time.
‘Hello, Rose.’
Miss Carter stands in front of me in aisle two, holding a basket weighed down with cat litter and numerous tins of flaked tuna.
‘Hello.’ I smile.
‘That’s all looking very… healthy.’ She peers into my basket and then looks at me, narrowing her eyes. ‘How are you feeling these days, Rose?’
I dampen down the flare of irritation that rises in my chest. Those five words might sound innocent but what she really means is, I see you have lettuce in your basket… are you heading back to the food problem again?
‘I’m very well, thanks, Miss Carter,’ I say, purposely keeping my voice bright. ‘I feel absolutely fine.’
Her eyes flicker over me, hovering just a second or two over the waistband of my trousers. ‘That’s good to hear,’ she says, clearly unconvinced. ‘Don’t go too mad with the salad though. You’ve still room to put a few pounds on, dear.’
One disadvantage of living in a small village with the same small-minded people all your life is that they never quite grasp you’re no longer the clueless teenager they once knew… that now you’re a functioning adult who doesn’t need their rude and often thoughtless suggestions.
People around here have very long memories. Ask any ex-miner and they’ll happily point out the ‘scabs’: the derogatory name reserved for the men who refused to strike back in 1984.
The villagers all knew about the bulimia, how could they not? It was impossible to hide at the time. After Billy’s death, I lost around a pound in weight every few days for weeks and looked like death warmed up, due to my digestive system all but breaking down.
It was a very public disappearing act I tried unsuccessfully to pull off.
I mumble some excuse to Miss Carter and move on to the next aisle. The plastic tubing on the basket handle slips in my clammy hand and I feel a trickle of moisture gather in the small hollow at the bottom of my back.
I stand for a moment, staring at the shelves, and when my vision finally clears, I see row upon row packed with cakes and biscuits.
I breathe out, feel my shoulders relax. Comfort at last.
7
ROSE
PRESENT DAY
I exit the supermarket and, loaded down with over-full plastic bags, I walk across the village whilst still running my observation checks.
There’s just a few minutes to walk now until I reach my house but it feels like it’s taking a lifetime to get there.
As my heartbeat races faster still, and despite being fairly sure there is
nobody to fear anywhere near me, I keep my gaze on the pavement in front of me and begin to count my steps. I begin to feel a little easier as my narrow, brick-fronted terrace comes into view. Familiarity is good. I crave it. Need it.
Seeing Miss Carter, and having her mention my food choices, opened up a can of worms I was totally unprepared for.
Sometimes I can build up my defences if I know the past is going to be mentioned in some way. It might just be someone who’s using the library facilities referencing what happened long ago and asking if I’m OK. I take it in my stride.
But when I’m unprepared, like today in the supermarket, a couple of ill-considered comments can knock me off my feet and it can take days for me to restabilise.
I glance down at the bulging bags, the handles of which are cutting into the soft flesh of my palms.
I’d rushed away from Miss Carter and by the time I’d reached the checkout, my proposed healthy eating plan had been shelved indefinitely and I’d ended up clutching two wire baskets filled with comfort foods that would serve to act as a powerful balm for the painful memories she’d inadvertently disturbed.
My pace picks up as I hasten towards number thirteen, my house. But before I can go home and close the door behind me, I need to look in on Ronnie and drop off his shopping.
I push open the small, wooden gate to number eleven. Glancing behind me to make sure I’m alone, I walk briskly down the little cut through between the houses, round to the back of his property.
Damp patches begin to chafe the sensitive skin under my arms. I catch my breath and hurry round the back of the houses.
The concrete paving slabs feel cracked and uneven beneath my worn, flat soles.
I peer down at the chickweed borders that spill over onto the path. The green, leafy bunches are dotted so prettily betwixt tiny innocent-looking star-shaped flowers that will surreptitiously strangle any other sign of life.