by Cathy Kelly
Mel raised her eyes heavenwards.
There was more raising of eyes when Abby slouched into the kitchen and looked at the dishes on the table.
‘I told you, I’m not eating that,’ she said shrilly, pointing to the bubbling casserole.
‘I’ll have yours, then,’ said Danny, loading up his plate.
‘You won’t,’ Leonie said patiently. ‘You have to eat some dinner, Abigail. And you’re not leaving the table until you do. Tomorrow, I’ll make you veggie burgers but, today, this is what we’re eating.’
She missed the look of panic that crossed Abby’s face before she sat down and helped herself to a minuscule portion of chicken and a slightly bigger spoonful of rice.
‘That’s hardly enough,’ Leonie said, turning back to the table with a steaming bowl of mangetout and broccoli.
‘It’s loads.’ Abby helped herself to a huge portion of vegetables. She then got a large glass of water and drank it down before filling another one.
Dinner was a silent affair. Danny just wolfed his down in ten minutes while Mel picked at her food delicately, reading the magazine she’d hidden on her lap. Leonie hated people reading at the table when they were all eating together.
Abby ate slowly, endlessly rearranging the food on her plate until Leonie told her to eat it all. ‘I know you’re trying to eat carefully, Abby,’ Leonie began, ‘but you are still growing and your body needs nutrients. I don’t want to see you on a diet,’ she warned. ‘You’re too young to diet. Eating sensibly is one thing, but missing meals is another. If I get you both some multivitamins, will you take them?’
‘Mmm,’ said Mel, engrossed in her magazine.
‘I suppose,’ answered Abby in a tight little voice.
She continued to fiddle with her food. Leonie knew she shouldn’t say anything but couldn’t help herself.
‘Abigail, stop playing with your dinner and eat it!’ she said, much more sharply than she’d intended.
‘Stop telling me what to do!’ shrieked Abby in retaliation. ‘I’m not a child! Stop treating me like one. Fliss and Dad don’t!’
Everyone looked at her in surprise. Abby never got into a rage, ever. But she was in one now.
‘I hate this sort of horrible food, and I hate you for making me eat it!’ she roared at her mother. ‘When are you going to learn that I’m not like you? That I’m different, a different person. Not a bloody child!’
Leonie stared at her beloved daughter in shock; not just shock at Abby using bad language, but shock at the whole thing. ‘Abby, stop it,’ she said weakly.
But nothing could stop Abby now: ‘It’s my body and I can do what I want with it!’ she said fiercely. ‘You don’t understand what it’s like, Mum. Nobody does.’
Shoving her chair back violently, she ran from the room.
‘Hormones,’ said Danny sagely.
‘Must phone Louise about homework,’ Mel said, before racing off.
It was their turn to do the washing up, but Leonie was too shell-shocked to say a word.
What was happening to them all?
Chicken casserole was horrible, especially the way Mum made it, with olive oil and stuff. It was bound to make you huge if you ate it. And as for rice, that couldn’t be good for you. She’d have to look it up in her calorie book, Abby decided, as she leaned against the bathroom door, taking a few deep breaths to calm herself before she started. She hadn’t meant to shout, but she had felt so tense, it had just happened. It was important that Mum didn’t cop on to what was happening.
Veggie burgers were her favourite meal now; there was only just over two hundred calories per burger and it looked like a big meal to everyone else, particularly if you ate it with a baked potato. No butter on the potato, though. Butter was a killer. And lots of water with the meal. Abby had told everyone she was drinking plenty of water because it was good for your skin. Mel had even started joining her, trying to outdo her in the eight-glasses-a-day stakes. The only thing was that Mel had no idea the real reason her twin consumed so much water with meals: it made throwing up easier.
It was handy in school because there was less time to spend in the loo after lunch, so drinking lots of water meant Abby could simply rush into the upper years’ bathroom, wait for someone else to flush and then puke quickly and efficiently. She always saved her apple and ate that afterwards; otherwise, her stomach rumbled terribly all afternoon. It had been quite noticeable in History one day. Luckily, the history teacher, Miss Parker, had such a loud voice that her droning on about Lenin quite drowned out Abby’s intestinal rumbling. Mel had given her a funny look at one point, though.
She’d have to be careful in case Mel copped on to what she was doing. That was the problem with a twin: they noticed stuff that other people didn’t. Like Mum never noticed her giving her cereal to Penny in the morning, and she didn’t seem to realize that Abby never ate the chocolate biscuits she brought out at night when they were watching the telly. Instead, Abby would hide them in her sleeve and put them back in the cupboard later, although once she’d kept some under her bed and ate eight of them in one go. Puking them up had been horrible; her throat hurt like hell and she was sure she hadn’t got them all up.
But Mel was cute enough. Even though she always seemed more interested in herself than in anyone else, she just might notice what Abby was up to. Anyway, it was none of her business if she did. Mel was so bloody lucky to be naturally thin, like Fliss. She didn’t need to puke four times a day to lose weight. So she’d better keep her mouth shut if she did cop on. This was Abby’s secret.
As for Mum, she’d apologize to her later. She hated upsetting her mother but she had to do this, had to.
When she was finished, she sat on the floor of the bathroom, shattered from retching, her stomach aching and her throat burning. She felt terrible. Hot tears ran down her face and, as she wiped them away, her jade bracelet rattled. Fliss had sent it to her as a present from the honeymoon in China. Abby loved it. It was so pretty. Fliss was kind and knew exactly what things she liked without having to ask. Fliss would understand about this, Abby thought darkly, even if her mother didn’t.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
By six the following Saturday, Leonie wondered why she hadn’t had her tubes tied years ago. Children were a nightmare. Well, her lot certainly were. She could remember the far-off happy days when they’d confined their energies to drawing on the wallpaper, eating clay in the garden and hitting other small children over the head with their wooden alphabet bricks. She’d thought those days were difficult. How wrong could you be? Small children were a joy compared to three teenagers. At least when Abby had been sweet and amiable, there had been some let-up in the constant warfare that made up the Delaney household but since Abby had turned into a cranky, health-food obsessed creature, it had been sheer hell all the way. They’d made up after Abby’s outburst the other night, but Leonie still felt as if she was walking on eggshells with her.
Today had started well enough: Leonie, happily thinking about her first date with investment-banking Hugh that evening, had bounced out of bed early, enjoyed a peaceful breakfast with Penny and the pair of them had gone for a wonderful three-mile-walk, buffeted by brisk January winds. As the rain started just when they reached home again, she was delighted they’d escaped a drenching. At half twelve, she left the house to do some grocery shopping and had bought herself a pair of pretty pink glass earrings in a local dress shop for her date. With a nice juicy magazine thrown into the shopping trolley along with a pack of her favourite low-cal chocolate drinks, Leonie decided she had a relaxing afternoon sorted out for herself. Saturday was the day when the kids did their bit of housework, which meant ten minutes of bickering over who did the kitchen, who did the bathroom and who did the hoovering and dusting. Leonie never minded the bickering. She’d long ago stopped herself from entering into the fray by screaming that she’d have the whole place clean in the time it took them to argue over who did what. That type of involvement got you
on the slippery slope of doing it yourself anyway. Now, Leonie let them argue.
However, when she got home, it was apparent that the vacuum cleaner hadn’t moved from the last time Leonie used it. The inevitable layer of Penny’s blonde hairs was still scattered all over the hall carpet and the kitchen was unswept. Worse still, the remains of teenage breakfasts still littered every surface and an empty carton of milk stood on the worktop beside the bin. Whoever had emptied it hadn’t bothered to move it the eighteen inches required to put it into the bin. Furious, she dropped her grocery bags on the floor and went in search of the people responsible. Unfortunately, this meant passing the bathroom. The door was open and a pile of towels were clumped damply on the floor. The toothpaste, squeezed in the middle, was abandoned in the hand-basin and there was so much water in the soap dish that the soap itself, carelessly abandoned, was melting slowly into a puddle of sludge.
The lazy so-and-sos, she thought furiously. They expected her to do bloody everything. Well, it wasn’t good enough. They weren’t getting away with it this time.
‘Melanie, Abigail and Daniel!’ yelled Leonie. ‘Why is this house such a pit? It’s your turn to tidy up. Twenty minutes each, that’s all I’m asking for.’
She flew into the twins’ room but there was nobody there. Danny, looking outraged at being interrupted, was rubbing gel on his wet hair when she knocked brusquely and entered his den without waiting for a reply.
‘Have you got the slave’s wages?’ she demanded.
Danny looked understandably blank.
‘Because you and your sisters insist on treating me like a slave, so I presume I’m going to get paid some sort of pittance.’ Leonie glared at her son.
He began to look mildly ashamed.
Leonie ploughed on: ‘I work hard all week and I cook, clean and tidy up after you lot. Saturday is the only day when I expect some serious help keeping this house clean, and what do I get? Nothing!’
‘Cool it, Ma. I’ll start now,’ Danny said.
‘Where are your sisters?’ she demanded.
‘I’m here, Mum,’ said Mel meekly, appearing in her dressing gown with what had to be the remains of Leonie’s last bit of avocado face mask plastered all over her face.
‘Is that my face mask?’ Leonie asked.
‘Er yes, I’m going out in half an hour and my skin’s a mess…’
‘Going out in half an hour? So when exactly were you going to help clean the house?’ Leonie demanded icily.
‘Well, I didn’t think it’d matter…’
‘“Didn’t think it would matter,”’ her mother said angrily. ‘No, let stupid old Mum do it all, that’s all she’s good for, isn’t that what you thought?’
‘No,’ protested Danny and Mel in unison.
‘Where’s Abby?’ Leonie asked suddenly.
‘Gone jogging.’
‘Jogging! It’s pouring from the heavens, what’s she jogging in this weather for?’
‘Dunno. I’m sorry, Mum. I’ll do my share now,’ Mel said, remarkably docile for her. ‘I’ll hoover and dust, Danny, if you do the bathroom. You did mess it up,’ she began, then stopped when her mother shot her a fiery glance.
‘I don’t want to have this conversation again,’ Leonie said, still angry. ‘You all expect to be treated like adults, yet none of you will actually behave like adults. I’m not a skivvy, remember that!
‘You can put the shopping away, Danny,’ she ordered. Bringing Penny, who hated the vacuum cleaner, with her, Leonie marched into her room and slammed the door.
When she came out later, Abby had returned and cleaned the kitchen in a very haphazard fashion. Even though Leonie’s rage had passed, she still had some harsh words for Abby about duties and how they all had to pull together to keep their home running smoothly.
‘Smoothly?’ shrieked Abby. ‘If this is what you call smoothly, I want to leave. I’m sure Dad and Fliss would like me to live with them! I hate you.’ With that, she ran into her room and slammed the door. Too shocked to go after her, Leonie stood like a statue for a few stunned minutes then did the only thing she could think of in her distraught state: she drove to her mother’s house.
Claire was in the garage practising her golf swing when she arrived. She’d only taken the sport up in the last month and was keenly going to the driving range with her friend, Millie, at least twice a week.
‘You should try golf,’ Claire advised, putting her eight iron back in her bag and escorting her daughter into the house.
‘I have enough trouble coping with all the things I do now,’ Leonie said tearfully, ‘without taking up something else I’d be useless at.’
‘Nonsense.’ Claire was brusque. She raked her eyes over Leonie’s flushed face, spotting the tell-tale signs of impending tears. ‘What’s Mel said now?’
‘It’s not Mel, that’s the awful thing, it’s Abby.’
When she’d recounted the whole sorry tale, Leonie felt somewhat better. Tash, one of Claire’s beautiful Siamese cats, had deigned to sit on her lap and Leonie always felt better when she had an animal to hug. Her own cat, Clover, wasn’t the sitting-on-laps variety, so her animal comfort normally came in the form of cuddling Penny. Tash rewarded her with a few rumbling purrs and arched her graceful neck.
‘Abby sounds a bit like you when you were younger,’ Claire said reflectively.
‘I was never like that!’ Leonie protested.
‘Yes, you were,’ her mother pointed out, ‘when you were about sixteen and decided you were huge and ugly. It was awful, but there wasn’t much I could do. You blamed me in the absence of anyone else to blame.’
‘But Abby is miles prettier than I was then and she’s always been such a sweet person,’ Leonie said helplessly. It was totally different. She did everything she could to make Abby feel serene and secure in herself. Not that Claire hadn’t tried to do that with her, but, well, it was different. Wasn’t it?
Claire took a tin of catfood from the fridge and Tash leapt off Leonie’s lap, claws tearing into her skirt as she left. The other two cats mysteriously appeared, all trying to look uninterested in the catfood, but eyeing each other warily all the time, as if determined that the others wouldn’t get any more than they did.
‘She is pretty and growing prettier, but don’t forget that you didn’t have a beautiful twin sister to compete with all the time,’ Claire pointed out.
‘I had you to compete with,’ Leonie said wryly, looking at her mother’s petite and trim figure, slim in navy trousers, a matelot jersey and a jaunty red scarf round her neck. Claire had Gallic style, the ability to make the simplest outfit look chic. ‘You looked miles better than me when I was a teenager. Remember that awful striped crochet bikini I insisted on buying for that holiday in Spain?’
Her mother laughed. ‘You donated it to me.’
‘And you looked fantastic in it,’ Leonie said. ‘Ursula Andress, compared to me as Two Ton Tessie.’ She watched the cats circle their respective dinners, tails aloft as they assessed the food like disgruntled restaurant critics trying to ascertain whether the pesto oil was home-made or not, purely by sniffing it. ‘Life was easier then, wasn’t it?’
‘Life is always easier in retrospect,’ Claire said. ‘What else is wrong? You hardly drove over here on a Saturday afternoon just for that.’
Leonie shook her head. ‘There’s nothing else wrong, apart from the fact that Danny’s failing college, Mel isn’t even vaguely interested in school, except when it comes to getting the bus there so she can bat her eyelashes at boys en route, and now Abby has turned from the best, most well-adjusted person I know into this prima donna I barely recognize who never stops talking about her stepmother. I’m sick of dealing with it on my own,’ she said in an unguarded moment.
Her mother sniffed. Leonie groaned inwardly. She knew what that meant.
‘If you hadn’t broken up with Ray, you wouldn’t be on your own and the children wouldn’t have a fairy godmother for a stepmother,’ Claire said
primly.
‘Mum, I don’t want a lecture.’
‘I’m not going to give you one. But if you come over here and ask my advice, you have to expect to get something. It’s tough bringing them up all on your own, but that was your choice, Leonie. You decided you wanted true love and that Ray didn’t measure up. You’re living with that choice now,’ Claire said heavily. ‘That’s all I’m saying. End of lecture. So, what are you up to this evening? Myself and Millie are going to the cinema. We can’t decide whether to go for improbable thriller, improbable courtroom drama, or something with Sean Connery in it. Do you want to come? It might do your terrible offspring some good if you leave them to their own devices for once. They’ve got so used to having meals cooked for them and the house magically cleaned that they’ll die of shock if you’re not there to dish up some cordon bleu meal.’
‘I’m…er, actually going out this evening,’ Leonie stuttered.
‘With the girls?’ asked her mother absently, then catching sight of Leonie biting her lip, she pounced. ‘With a man! I’m right, aren’t I? Good woman, Leonie. About time you got yourself a man. Who is he and where did you meet him?’
It was either the Spanish Inquisition or the How to Live Your Life lecture, Leonie realized. ‘He’s a friend of Hannah’s,’ she lied.
‘Really. Tell me all about him – or will that jinx the entire enterprise?’
‘No, his name is Hugh Goddard, he’s an investment adviser with the bank, he’s separated and he loves dogs.’
‘His CV sounds wonderful, but what’s he like as a person and what does he look like?’ demanded her mother.
Leonie paused. She could hardly admit that beyond knowing he was sensitive – well, he’d rescued a poor dog from the Grand Canal, so he must be – she hadn’t a clue what he was like and no idea what he really looked like. Solid, one-time rugby fanatic, works with money, no spring chicken but GSOH. Prospective partners must be animal nuts might be very descriptive as far as personal ads were concerned but didn’t yield the private nuggets to describe the person in detail to interested parties. She went for the vaguely impatient approach: ‘Really, Mum, he’s just an ordinary guy, honestly. We met at Hannah’s and he seemed very nice, so I’ve agreed to meet him for a drink, that’s all.’