If I am going to marathon eat, my body might need a little help.
I put my granny’s pink furry dressing gown on over my nightie and head out.
Amber opens her door dressed in metallic purple leggings and a fur jacket. I think she looks more ridiculous than me. ‘Hey babe, not working?’ she says.
‘Special Project,’ I say. ‘Listen, you know that £100 I lent you for coke about a year ago?’
‘Oh babe, today’s a really bad day for me, I’ve got to pick Annalex up from the vet, poor baby’s got terrible worms, and then I’m off to Bikram …’
‘Fine, on your way back do me a favour. Get me £50 worth of whatever weed your dealer has on him and we’ll call it quits. Or I’ll have £100 tonight if you prefer …’
‘I was going to go straight to the spa after …’
‘Just post it through my letterbox by 5pm, then we’re quits. Okay?’
She pouts, but I can tell she’ll do it because she looks a tiny bit scared of the new me.
I climb back into bed and when I get up a few hours later, what do you know? There on my doormat sits a beautiful little baggy of sweet smelling skunk.
SHIT! I have no fags, no skins, and it’s still pissing down with rain.
This dressing gown is so cosy and my flat is so cold, I can’t possibly take it off. Fuck it, it’s dark already anyway.
I put on my trainers, put a coat over the dressing gown and a hat against the rain and dash round to the newsagent. For some perverse reason this trip reminds me of dancing naked round the fountain in France, and I let out a small howl of pain.
Good thing I really don’t care what I look like these days. I find this fantastically liberating, having spent most of the last year trying to look pretty and slim, rather than furious and insane.
Right. Home. Climb the stairs. Lock the door. Skin up. Smoke weed. Strong weed. I am stoned. Soooo stoned. Eat big bites of all the cold puddings, they all taste amayyyyyyzing. Berry and Cherry Jelly, Belly and Jenny Cherry, Benny and Jerry Chelly, Belly and Jelly and Shelliii …
I can’t be arsed to write any notes and now I really am soooo stoned and very, very sleepy and it’s already 8.30pm and so I climb into bed.
Day two, I wake up, get stoned in bed, then drag myself into the kitchen and heat the Belgian Chocolate Marble pudding for four. I sit staring through the oven door, watching as it cooks, but halfway through, my mind flits to a memory of watching James naked through the glass in the swimming pool and I take the half-cooked pudding out and start to eat.
I pour double cream on to dilute the richness; because the pudding’s undercooked, the sponge is too dense and hasn’t risen properly. I start to feel sick in my throat, but soldier on like the true professional that I am. I make it to the end and halfway through an all butter shortcrust cherry lattice pie before I am slightly sick in my kitchen sink.
Day three – the only way I am going to get through this is if I portion out single servings of each remaining pudding, and give or throw away the rest.
I divide up the food, then summon Ben the caretaker and beg him to take away as much as he can carry. ‘And for God’s sake take the Millionaire’s Shortbread,’ I say.
I try to offload on Amber too, but of course she’s wheat
and
gluten
and
dairy intolerant this week.
I throw away the extras, guilt-ridden about the waste, and go back to bed exhausted, then remember that I haven’t eaten anything yet today. I’m craving something green, or some fruit, but when I bite into an apple it tastes so … uncreamy, so I chuck it on top of the pile of puddings in my bin.
A new hit in the hall of shame. I only get through three individual portions of dessert before I burrow through my bin to retrieve seconds of the Salted Caramel Pecan Torte.
Day four and now I can see the weight gain in my face, around my chin. In the bath I can feel my muffin tops rising again. The realisation disturbs me so much that I
rush to the kitchen, dismember the chocolate cheesecake, and eat only the crunchy bourbon-biscuit base.
It is only when I go to bed at 6pm that I realise that today is Saturday and I shouldn’t have been working at all, and wonder if I can bill Fletchers for a day’s overtime and spend the cash on more drugs …
Day five – some of my shelf lives are imminent so I decide to keep on working. My flat now stinks of weed, so I decide to smoke only in the bath, and after washing I change into a new selection of clothes that are currently decorating my floor.
I only have two desserts left in the fridge and to this day I have no recollection or understanding of how that can be, as I thought I had at least seven more to go. Regardless, I take the top one out of the fridge and set about eating it as intelligently as I can. It occurs to me that I have written no notes, nor given the slightest bit of thought to the job in hand, i.e. Devron asking me to think about how we could copy any of this lot on the cheap.
It’s a Key Lime Pie Tray Bake and for a microsecond I think, well, you could substitute the double cream they’ve used for a cheaper cream and starch powder, and leave off the zest, try a different base that doesn’t use as much butter. Of course, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as nice, but Devron doesn’t care about nice, Devron cares about cheap.
And then I go to the fridge to fetch the final pudding and recoil in horror when I see what it is. How did I put
that in my basket without realising it? I must have scooped it up by accident because there’s no way I’d have that in my house willingly.
It is a Tarte Aux Abricots and the very sight of it (or maybe the entire Key Lime Pie I’ve polished off) makes me violently sick.
I spend the rest of the day in bed staring at the ceiling and sleeping and wishing I was not such a giant loser, and could just shag a barman, ten barmen, and get over this.
And then the following morning, five pounds heavier and six days after I last showed my face, I re-enter the work place.
‘Where have you been?’ says Janelle. ‘Did you not get my messages?’
‘My phone broke. I told you … Special Project, working from home,’ I say.
‘That was on Tuesday afternoon.’
‘So?’
‘Last week.’
‘… And?’
‘… What about all the rest of last week? Where were you?’
‘I just told you.’
‘But you need to tell me in advance if you’re working from home.’
‘No, I don’t, I need to tell Devron. I texted him and then my phone broke.’
‘Shall I mark you down as sick?’
‘I WAS WORKING!’ I say. ‘On Wednesday I researched cheesecakes and steamed puddings, Thursday – mousses, soufflés and frozen, Friday – tarts, trifles and pies. I’ve only just finished my notes. I’ll talk Devron through them in due course.’
She pulls the ‘you’re in a world of shit and I’m glad’ face that I’ve come to know and love and goes back to her desk.
I settle back at mine and click on an email from the Pantry Team inviting anyone with a spare ten minutes to come to the twelfth floor to beat the Monday blues and sample their new ‘Super Biscuits’ range. With my expert palette and in-depth knowledge of the Treat Market, it’s basically my duty to help.
Heartbreak is like the Lynx effect in reverse. Walk around a room with a biscuit in each hand, staring pink-eyes, unbrushed hair and a bottom lip slightly wobbling and I guarantee you won’t find yourself having to fend off Raymond Cowell-Trousers from Accounts.
‘Take some back to your desk if you like,’ says the Product Developer, noticing I’ve been in the room for the best part of an hour.
How kind! I believe I shall. I build a foundation of two Chocolate Mega-Bics. On top I layer two Fig Newton knock-offs, two shortbread squares, a cherry flapjack and three vanilla bourbons, topped off with a mini Wagon Whirl.
As I’m walking down the stairs trying to balance eleven biscuits on a napkin, the Wagon Whirl topples and falls down the central stairwell. I hear a small yelp. I think about dropping a penny off the Empire State Building. I could really do without killing a colleague today. I hope it’s not one of the grannies from the canteen.
When I get down to the fourth floor I see a slim woman in a short skirt looking seriously pissed off, and I think, ‘serves you right for walking up these stairs, you could have taken the lift. You’re lucky it wasn’t a Chocolate Finger, that could have done some serious damage’.
I’m due at Maggie’s for dinner at 8pm, but before then I need to relax.
I need more weed.
‘I’m all out,’ says Amber. ‘How’s Jason?’
‘James? Over,’ I say.
‘Oh, sorry, babe. You know I heard the best advice the other day …’
Here we go.
‘If a guy dumps you, all you have to say to yourself is “He’s just not that into me”. Like in that Scarlett Johansson film. It’s really amazing, it makes the whole dating thing so simple.’
Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off. ‘Yeah, Amber, it was a little more complicated than that, but thanks for the advice.’
‘No, really, babe, that’s all you have to do. I used to walk Annalex on Primrose Hill, and there was this boy dog Gillespie, and they fell totally in love.’
Don’t tell me … the owner was some hunky Abercrombie model type, and he dumped you after two dates, and you said ‘he’s just not that into me’ … blah blah blah.
‘And when Gillespie’s owner moved to Brighton, Annalex just cried and cried for like a month … It was so sad.’
I’m going to commit an act of violence on Amber, I am. A jury would find me not guilty on the grounds of sufficient provocation.
‘How did Annalex pick up the pieces and move on?’ I say.
‘It just took time and lots of dog biscuits,’ says Amber.
‘I can’t talk to you ever again, Amber.’
It’s my turn to have Maggie round but I can’t let her see the state of my flat, plus I haven’t felt like cooking for months. Since the Noushka night, I’ve subsisted on cakes, takeaways, marijuana and fags. I have not eaten a single piece of fruit that wasn’t part of a pudding since January 31st and today is April 11th.
Maggie’s cooked my favourite, Armenian Lamb with rice, pine nuts and sour raisins – that’s old sour grapes, I think, as I help myself to a third portion. Maggie is looking at me with concern.
‘How are you, Soph?’ I would have made it through without crying if she hadn’t asked. But now she has, and now I’m forced to stop eating for five whole minutes while I try to explain that I can’t explain why I’m crying.
‘Oh my poor love,’ she says, hugging me.
‘I’m fine, honestly, I know I’ll get over it, I know I will, but I just need that to happen now.’
She heads off to the kitchen and comes back with a ginger tea.
‘My ex-husband, Howard, used to tell me I was too opinionated, my hair was too short, and that I didn’t wear skirts enough,’ she says.
‘I didn’t know you were ever married,’ I say.
‘Even though I left him, it still took me five years to get over it. I cried every day for the first year.’
I take a tissue from the box she’s holding. ‘I can’t believe a woman like you would cry over a man – a man who said something as dumb as that.’
‘I could say the same to you. But you learn from your mistakes, if you’re smart. My marriage changed me, and I’m grateful for it.’
‘Er, Maggie, do you have any pudding?’ I say, conscious that I am now officially the world’s rudest dinner guest.
While she is in the kitchen I look at the teabag in my cup. It’s from some cute Californian company that print mantras on their teabag tags. Mine reads ‘You can climb a mountain through your strength alone’. Great. I’m seeking
spiritual guidance from a cocking tea bag. Is that better or worse than a horoscope?
She returns with two molten middle caramel puddings and a carton of double cream.
‘The thing is, Maggie, I can look at my relationship and see a hundred different versions of what happened.’
‘Stop looking at it.’
‘But if I hadn’t let him knock my confidence, I think I could have made it work.’
‘What sort of man chips away at a woman’s confidence in the first place? Relationships are meant to nurture you, lovers are meant to support you.’
‘But he would have, maybe, if I’d just been a little bit more toned.’
‘Sophie, you want a tree to be a fish.’
‘And he’s been shagging Noushka since the minute we broke up, probably since way before that, and he won’t have felt a moment of sadness.’
‘Men always screw things into their subconscious. They repress their feelings, it’s very unhealthy.’
‘I can’t bear the fact that he’s so happy.’
‘I bet he’s not happy, and he’s not going to be happy, because he’s incapable of real intimacy, of being vulnerable.’
‘Who wants to be vulnerable, Maggie? He’s got a Sub-Zero fridge and a Russian model for a girlfriend. Why wouldn’t he be happy?
‘Sub-Zero fridges are a bloody waste of money. And
who says being a Russian model is better than being a pudding developer?’
‘Of course it is, in his world.’
‘Fine, let him live in his world. That’s not the real world. Besides, it’s not about whether
he’s
happy. It’s about whether
you’re
happy.’
‘
I know I’m not happy
. By the way, are you going to eat the rest of your pudding?’
The following morning I am on the bus to work. I’ve forgotten to charge my iPod and I’m staring out of the window when I see Noushka on a poster for L’Esteeme, wearing high heels, tights and nothing else. I feel instantly queasy.
I turn my head and look the other way. There are road-works and the driver has just let in a bendy bus that is now blocking the junction.
In front of me, two 12-year-old boys notice the poster.
‘Ah man, check out that arse,’ says the first squirt. ‘Well fit.’
‘I’d tap that from behind,’ says the second.
‘Bet she’d suck me off better than your sister,’ says the first one.
‘Your mum,’ says the second, and they laugh.
‘We could tag team her,’ says the first.
‘As long as I can have a go on that arse first, I ain’t having your sloppy seconds. I bet your dick still smells like Mrs Herbert’s minge.’
‘More like your nan’s mouth.’