Leaving Jetty Road

by Rebecca Burton

  “I’m just tired,” I say, truthfully enough. “I didn’t sleep very well the last couple of nights.”

  Immediately she’s concerned. “Why don’t you go to the infirmary? Have a bit of a lie-down?”

  I shake my head. “I’ll be all right. I just need to go outside for a moment and get some fresh air.”

  She opens her mouth, and I can see her words coming before she says them: I’ll go with you. But I’m still cloaked in the aftermath exhaustion of the Fear, and desperate to be alone.

  “I’ll catch up with you and Sofe in a sec, okay?” I say hastily.

  I leave the locker room, come out into the schoolyard. It’s lunchtime: people are sitting around on benches in the early spring sunshine, eating sandwiches, pies, pasties, doughnuts. Smells of tomato sauce and hot, flaky pastry waft toward me, and my stomach, despite the recent nausea, feels suddenly hollow. I take a deep breath and push out my abdominal muscles so that my stomach swells and hardens against the waistline of my skirt. You can do this without anyone noticing: it’s a trick I discovered recently. When you suck your stomach in, it feels empty, but when you push it out, it stops rumbling (temporarily).

  Anyway, I tell myself calmly, I can’t eat things like pies and pasties and sandwiches anymore. Apart from the fact that they’re too fattening, they’ve also all got wheat in them. Since last week, when I read an article in an alternative health magazine about wheat, I’ve cut down to eating it only once a day. The article said that it’s bad for you. It bloats you up, apparently.

  I lean against the brick wall of the school building in the sunshine, taking deep breaths. The trembling slows. I tell myself, will myself, to relax. For a moment—just a moment—I close my eyes, feeling the sun tickle my skin. The last traces of the Fear recede, and I’m safe again.

  At least for a little while . . .

  From the pavement, Nat’s house looks achingly familiar. The white paint on the wrought-iron lace around the porch is rust-stained and peeling, and someone has used a discarded piece of wood to wedge open the window of the living room, which looks out onto the street. One of Tim’s steel-cap work boots lies side down, abandoned, by the front doorstep. (The other, bewilderingly, is nowhere to be seen.)

  I push open the front gate, squeeze my way past the fruit trees, shrubs, flowers, and creepers that spill riotously over the garden Nat’s father works so passionately on. Not for the first time, it occurs to me how different his idea of a garden is from my parents’. Our house is all neat flower beds and fastidiously clipped, weed-free front lawn.

  Today is a typical Sunday afternoon. Classical music drifts out an open window in the house across the street, and next door two men peer under the hood of a car in the driveway, beers in their hands. I walk down the mossy brick-paved driveway to the Jordans’ back door. Please don’t let Nat be here. Please let her be at her boyfriend’s house . . .

  Last night, I didn’t sleep for hours. I sat at my desk in my bedroom, drowning in Fear: wave after wave of it. When at last it passed, everyone else had gone to bed. I stumbled down the stairs to the kitchen, opened the fridge door. I don’t think I knew what I was doing: my legs felt watery beneath me, and my mind was awash with fatigue. I pulled out cheese, butter, bread, Nutella.

  And I ate. Slice after slice, I ate. I couldn’t seem to stop. I don’t even remember what it tasted like.

  Afterward, I put everything neatly away (what was left of it) and crept back up to my room. I lay in bed, switched off my light, stared up through the darkness to the ceiling. I counted calories over and over in my head, trying to work out how I could make up for everything I’d just consumed. My stomach felt huge, tight, swollen under my hands, but I still felt hollow inside.

  Is that where this Fear is taking me? I can’t do it anymore. I can’t go there alone.

  This morning, when I woke, I didn’t go for a run. My stomach growled, and my body ached with tiredness and unshed tears. And I felt so guilty. These days, I always feel guilty about all sorts of things: whether I’m studying enough, or exercising enough; whether I’m eating too much, or sleeping too much. Sometimes I just feel guilty about whether I’m being nice enough to everyone. But this morning the guilt was unbearable.

  That’s when I thought of Nat’s mother, who used to chat for hours with us whenever I came over. Who used to say to me, “If you ever need to talk about something, Lise, you only have to ask.” With Nat groaning (“Mum, shut UP”) and me saying brightly, “Thanks, Mrs. Jordan. I will.” Thinking, Why does she say that to me? Does she say that to ALL Nat’s friends? I never followed her up on it, of course.

  Now I push open the screen door, which is half open, and steal through the laundry room into the kitchen. Unbelievably, Nat’s mother is sitting right there at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper, wrapped up in a thick quilted jacket. The house, despite the arrival of spring, still feels icy.

  “Lise!” she exclaims, glancing up as I come in. Her eyes flicker over me briefly, oddly, and then she rushes on. “How nice to see you. How are you?”

  “Good, thank you, Mrs. Jordan,” I say politely, as I always do. “How are you?”

  She pushes her chair out from under the table, goes over to the kettle and switches it on, gets out the tea bags and milk. All the time she’s doing this, she keeps up a stream of friendly chatter: How are your parents? How’s Terri’s modeling going? Are you still enjoying running? I know how you feel; I used to LOVE it. I’d forgotten how interested in you Nat’s mum can seem to be.

  “Milk?” she offers, handing me a steaming mug. “Cookie?”

  I shake my head quickly. “Just black tea, thanks.”

  We go back over to the table together. Sitting down, Mrs. Jordan falls suddenly silent; she’s waiting, I think, for me to speak. To explain why I’m here; why I haven’t asked where Nat is; why I didn’t just turn around and go home again when she told me Nat wasn’t here. I wrap my hands around the warmth of the mug, stare down at my tea.

  Now that I’m here, I don’t know how to start. I’m ashamed of everything I can think of to say about myself, ashamed of all the fear. Ashamed of all this sudden neediness.

  “What is it, my dear?” Nat’s mother says finally, putting her mug back down on the table.

  And it’s almost as if she knows why I’m here.

  “It’s the exams,” I blurt out, because this is easier to say; and because this, too, is true. “My grades have gone down this year. I think I’m going to fail.”

  “Are you studying enough, do you think?”

  I hesitate. “Yes. No. I think so . . .”

  I tell her my current studying timetable: an hour before school and four hours afterward, as well as all day during the weekend, including after dinner. I look at her anxiously: the thought occurs to me suddenly that maybe I should be squeezing more in, somehow. Then I remember that day at Nat’s house—the day I went over to study with her—when Mrs. Jordan lectured me on doing too much schoolwork. She went on and on about it, to the point where I just wished she’d stop. I KNOW I study more than most people, I kept thinking; I HAVE to, to keep the Fear at bay.

  But I was studying heaps less back then.

  Now she tilts her head to one side, questioning. “What about other stuff ? Is there anything else you can think of that might be affecting your marks?”

  I take a breath. Now, I think. Now is the time to tell her. There is this Fear, I will say. It gets so bad sometimes, I think there must be something wrong with me . . .

  But the words are hard to get out. They stick in my throat. I struggle desperately to speak.

  “Because, you see, I can think of something,” she continues. And she gives me that odd, flickering glance again.

  I close my mouth quickly. Is it that obvious what’s going on inside my head?

  Nat’s mother settles comfortably back into her chair, as if she’s getting ready for a long session. She even folds her hands on her lap.

  “You’re very thin these days
, Lise,” she observes conversationally.

  I stare at her, taken aback.

  “You never used to be so thin,” she goes on. “Are you sure you’re eating enough?”

  “Of course,” I say immediately.

  “It doesn’t look like you are,” she says calmly.

  I rub the sole of my shoe up and down the leg of my chair, confused. This isn’t at all the conversation I was planning to have with her. It’s pretty ironic, really: here she is going on about my weight when that’s the only thing about myself that I am sure of, the only thing I know is (sort of ) okay. Can you imagine how good it feels, knowing your clothes are getting looser on you? Dropping a couple of dress sizes, feeling the way things hang so straight on you all of a sudden? It’s the best feeling in the world. It’s a feeling of—yes, power.

  “Tell me, Lise,” Mrs. Jordan says gravely, “are you on a diet?”

  I shake my head quickly. “Diet”: it’s such a strange word, isn’t it? That’s what I thought this eating plan of mine was once, way back when I started it. And yet somehow, somewhere along the line, it stopped being that. Now it’s just something I have to do. A set of rules I have to follow . . .

  “Lise.” Mrs. Jordan’s voice breaks into my thoughts. “How much do you weigh now, exactly?”

  Bingo. The million-dollar question. This morning, when I weighed myself, I was 93 pounds—down from 121 pounds at the beginning of this year. (Yes, Mrs. Jordan, I HAVE lost weight.) And do you know what I found out the other day? Terri’s 108 pounds—15 pounds heavier than me. Isn’t that bizarre? I’ve always thought of Terri as so thin.

  But “thin,” I’ve discovered, is another one of those strange words: a relative concept, not an absolute one. Recently, I’ve realized that what other people see as thin just isn’t thin enough for me. Nowhere near. It’s to do with the way you feel, I guess, rather than the way you look. And I don’t feel thin yet at all.

  It’s not that I don’t care what other people think, it’s that I just can’t seem to see myself as they do. And for once in my life, I want to meet my own expectations. I’m aiming for 90 pounds, which, by my reckoning, will look thin on me. Not anorexic ( Jessica Fuller got way lower than that), but definitely thin.

  Nat’s mother sits forward in her chair.

  “I asked you a question, Lise,” she says sharply. The sudden sharpness bewilders me: she’s always seemed so friendly before. So nice.

  I look up at her at last, defiantly. “I don’t know how much I weigh. I don’t have a set of scales.”

  “I think you know exactly how much you weigh,” she remarks, undeterred. “And I think you are a very hungry girl.”

  Her words bring a sudden stinging hotness to the back of my eyes. A voice murmurs unbidden in my mind: I AM hungry. Can you IMAGINE how hungry I am? I swallow, hard. This is not what I came here to talk to her about. I thought she was on my side.

  “Lise . . .”

  I wait, wary now.

  “You have to do something about this.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “Have you discussed this with your parents at all? Your mother?”

  I shake my head, horrified at the thought.

  She sighs. “Lise, I think you need help.” She spreads her hands out on the table before me, palms down, firm. “I’m really worried about you. You need to see a counselor, or a doctor. I can give you some names, if you like.”

  I shrug. She can give me all the names she likes. What help are they? I thought she said that she would talk to me.

  “Lise,” Mrs. Jordan says again. “There’s something I have to tell you.” She leans back in her chair, arms folded across her chest. “If you won’t do anything yourself, I’m going to have to speak to your parents. Not today. Not tomorrow. But soon. You’re not well, my dear. I have no choice.” She nods firmly. “You need help.”

  Something creaks then, in the laundry room or up on the roof. I struggle to speak, to say Please don’t, or You can’t, or At least not my MOTHER. PLEASE not my mother. Again, no words come out.

  And it’s then that we both become aware of someone standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

  “Lise!” Nat exclaims, coming in. “What’re you doing here?”

  I push back my chair hastily. My cheeks are burning. How long was she standing there in the laundry room? How much of our conversation did she hear?

  “I came over . . . I forgot that you’d be at Josh’s . . . I’ve just had a cup of tea . . .,” I stammer.

  “I should’ve been back ages ago,” she admits ruefully. She glances curiously back and forth, from her mother to me. Then she says awkwardly to me, “How are you, anyway?”

  “All right,” I say stiffly.

  I can feel that I’m still blushing. The conversation between us feels heavy and stilted, as if we haven’t spoken to each other for months. Actually, we probably haven’t—not properly, anyway. Not as best friends.

  “How’s Josh?” Nat’s mother asks her quickly.

  Nat turns to answer her.

  “Okay.” She pulls a face. “I had to tell him I can’t see him for a while. He’s stopping me from getting any studying done. I can’t concentrate when I know I’m going to see him.”

  Mrs. Jordan smiles knowingly.

  Nat colors. “It’s just—the exams’re getting so close.”

  And this is the cue I have been looking for. Thank God, thank God, a cue. I scramble up from my chair.

  Nat looks surprised. “You off already? Don’t you want to stay?”

  “I can’t,” I say, with what I hope is a convincingly apologetic look on my face. “I’ve got that math assignment still to do . . .”

  “Not even for a second cup of tea?” says Mrs. Jordan.

  They are both facing me now, waiting.

  “I can’t,” I repeat frantically. “I’ve got so much to do . . .”

  Neither of them moves to follow me out. In my haste, I let the screen door bang loudly behind me as I leave, but I ignore it and don’t look back. As I hurry up the driveway, a stray branch from a creeper brushes against my face. The feel of it on my skin startles me: its leaves are rain-wet, heavy, fat with luxuriant growth. I think longingly of my mother’s barren lawn.

  Back in the safety of my own bedroom, I sit at my desk, staring at the studying schedule pinned up on the corkboard above it.

  I lied to Mrs. Jordan. In her way, my mother has spoken to me. When I lost those first few pounds, she praised me: See what a little cutting back can do? Now, though, at dinner, she says things like Have a little more, Lise. You make me feel guilty. As if her struggle with chocolate bars is my fault. That’s what my mother says to me.

  Sometimes, as we eat, I look in the mirror on the wall opposite the stainless steel countertop, see her eyes flicking between Terri and me, measuring, weighing up, comparing. This is nothing new: she’s done it all my life. If she’s worried, as Mrs. Jordan seems to think she should be, it doesn’t show. I weigh less than Terri now, I whisper silently each night to my mother’s reflection in the mirror. I know it doesn’t LOOK like it, but I DO.

  But her eyes are down on her scraped-clean plate. Her fingers drum their cigarette cravings out on the stainless steel, and she doesn’t look up.

  And this is proof to me that I haven’t gotten there yet: that despite all this weight I’ve lost, I’m still. Not. Thin.

  Will Nat’s mother ring my parents? After all these years, after all those promises, I can’t believe that’s all she had to offer me. It doesn’t make sense. Hunger is the least of my problems.

  And if she can’t help, who can? Let’s face it, the next time the Fear hits, I’m all on my own.

  Again . . .

  chapter twenty-two

  Suspended

  One Monday morning, three weeks before the pre-exam study week, Sofia turns up at Assembly with her nose pierced.

  The school, of course, goes into immediate uproar. You’re not allowed to get your nose pierced; you’re not
allowed to get anything pierced, really, except your ears. And even with earrings, you’re only supposed to wear one on each side.

  “They’ll make you take it out, you know,” Nat warns her as we file out of Assembly.

  Sofia rolls her eyes. “There’s only three weeks until we leave this place. And anyway, I can’t possibly take it out, because the hole will close up.”

  “Does Nick like it?”

  Sofia pushes her ponytail impatiently behind her shoulder. “Don’t know. Haven’t asked.”

  “What about your mum?” I ask curiously.

  Sofia shrugs. “Mum’s cool. She doesn’t hassle me about stuff like that.”

  But if her mother doesn’t hassle her, Miss George, the headmistress, does. Halfway through the first lesson, Sofia receives a message to report immediately to the front office. And at recess, when I next see her, she’s kneeling at her locker, packing her schoolbag, a truculent expression on her face.

  “I’m suspended,” she says tersely, before I can ask. “Until I take it out.”

  At these words, a crowd gathers quickly around her in the locker room.

  “Suspended?”

  “For a nose ring?”

  “That is just so typical.”

  Ignoring everyone else, Sofia stands up. She slings her bag over her shoulder, starts walking toward the door. As she reaches the entrance, someone calls out brightly, “Why didn’t you get your belly button done instead?”

  Sofia swings around, glaring. “What for? I like nose rings.”

  “Yeah, but no one’d be able to see a belly-button ring.”

  Sofia groans and turns away again. “What kind of Nazi place is this, anyway? It’s my body and my choice.”

  And she walks out of the locker room.

  Nat and I exchange glances. We run hastily after her, out into the schoolyard.

  “Sofe. You’re not really going to let yourself get suspended now.”

  “There’s only four weeks left till the exams . . .”

  “Oh, piss off, the pair of you,” Sofia says irritably. She stops walking. “Listen, I’ll be back in a couple of days, all right? Minus the nose ring. I’m not that stupid. I just thought . . .” And here a slow, cheeky grin starts to spread across her face. “I just thought I might as well make the most of it. I don’t think I’ve ever actually been offered a couple of days off school before.”