But you’re either in it or you’re not, as I once said to James, so I push myself and push myself round the 20 different stations till I’m sweating and exhausted and my muscles are burning.
‘How many side crunchies did you do?’ says Go-Go.
‘Wasn’t counting,’ I say.
‘Grant, how many side crunchies did I do?’ says Go-Go.
‘48, good performance,’ says Grant.
‘Ladies, no time for sitting down, let’s do it all again,’ says Big Tony.
And around we go. I can barely walk, and yet here I am, bench-pressing, doing half push-ups, planks and tricep kickbacks. Big Tony is shouting ‘That’s it girls, smash it out,’ and I’m thinking only two more ‘stations’ to go and I’m done. And the penultimate ‘station’ is an exercise called a ‘Russian Lying Dumb-bell Twist’, and I think, ah, the story of my life.
We finish the circuit and we are all broken. We lie on the grass, bodies trembling, and Go-Go asks how many crunchies she did this time round, and Grant says, ‘49’, and Go-Go hisses ‘Yes!’ and makes a little fist.
‘And those were the best tricep kickbacks I’ve ever seen a girl do, Sophie,’ says Grant. I blush with pride. I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me! Go-Go glares at me out of the corner of her eye.
As we stand up, Hildegunn points to my leg – ‘What have you done?’
My knee is bleeding quite heavily. I must have knocked yesterday’s scab off when I was on my knees doing the half push-ups, and now it’ll be bleeding for a while.
‘Let’s get you tidied up,’ says Grant. He sits me down on a chair with my leg up and applies clear liquid to my knee that stings like hell, but smells divine.
‘Is that alcohol?’ I say, bringing my nose toward my knee and inhaling deeply.
He laughs.
‘Can I lick my own knee?’ I say. ‘You won’t tell Big Tony, will you?’
Tonight I cried for the first time in weeks. Not because I miss James, not even because I miss my friends or family, but because I miss bread. I called Laura and sobbed down the phone to her, and she told me it would all soon be over, and that we’d go for a medium-sized curry the night I come home. I love you, Laura, I do.
Day 4. Boot camp. Fall out.
Today we climb another, even bigger hill. I really overdid it yesterday, I can barely bend my arms or legs. The knee swelling means that every downward step feels like a gremlin’s fist is punching the front of my knee from inside. First James rejected my body. Then I rejected my body. Now my body’s rejecting me.
We break for our square of chocolate, but I have already snuffled mine when no one was looking, as today’s act of minor and pointless rebellion. I sit on a rock and I think: one day the words ‘James Stephens’ will move from being a mantra to being just a string of letters. They’ll have no power to make my heart hurt. One day, when I’ve untangled this knot of pain, he’ll recede in my mind to just being a guy I was in love with, and then just a guy I went out with, and then just a guy in a bar looking for a woman, and then just some guy. One day I’ll feel as good as I felt the day before I met him. I finally believe this is true. Thank God.
Lunch is a joke without laughs and then it’s lecture time. Today’s sermon is called ‘Live to Eat vs. Eat to Live’. I know exactly what Big Tony is going to say, and I’m already annoyed.
Big Tony is standing at the front with his charts, and the other three are sitting on stability balls, bouncing on his every word.
‘Who in this room weighs themselves?’ says Big Tony.
We all put our hands up.
‘How often?’ says Big Tony.
‘Twice a day,’ says Go-Go; ‘Every day,’ say the other two; ‘Not often, I look at how my clothes fit,’ I say.
‘Right,’ says Big Tony. ‘Here’s what I eat every day. Breakfast – porridge with water, berries. Lunch – whole-meal bread, chicken, veg. Dinner – steak or chicken, a medium-sized potato, loads of veg. Snacks – yoghurt in the morning, a cube of cheese at 4pm. I have two beers on a Saturday night, and a curry once a week. That’s what I do, week in, week out. I never have to think about food.’
But I like thinking about food.
I put my hand up.
‘What?’ says Big Tony.
‘Do you like cooking?’ I say.
‘Once in a while,’ he says. ‘You have to understand, the body needs calories like a car needs petrol.’
I put my hand up again.
‘Can’t it wait?’ says Big Tony.
‘Do you actually like eating?’ I say.
‘Listen. Some people live to eat, but that’s just wrong. You only need to put in the tank what you use every day. Food is just fuel.’
The others are nodding, but I feel my old self rise up again and I can’t put a lid on it.
‘That’s bollocks,’ I say. ‘Food is not just fuel. Food is life. Food is family, and sociability and pleasure, showing
someone you care. Waitrose sell 19 types of mushroom – that’s not fuel. It’s part of the fabric of our lives.’
Big Tony’s hands are on his hips. The others are staring at me.
‘I understand exercise is important, being healthy, taking care of yourself. But whether it’s our boyfriends, Heat magazine, or whatever other forces conspiring to make us feel crap about our bodies – we have to understand – it is okay not to be perfect! We have to reject a culture that says “Britney’s too fat”, or “Lindsay’s too skinny”.’
I think back to how I made Noushka the focus of all my rage and self-loathing. I blamed her and ignored all the things that were already wrong in my relationship.
‘The beauty industry trades on our low self-esteem. We have to learn to love and accept our own bodies. Food is not the enemy! We need to teach our daughters the value of kindness and strength!’
I’m expecting this to be my Spartacus moment. Together the four of us will rise up, storm the kitchen, get our hands on those Kit Kats.
But no. The others look at me like I’ve just announced I’m having a coprophilia pool party, animals and kids welcome.
So now I’m the black sheep. Even Sephonie comes up to me at the end and accuses me of ‘ruining it for other people’.
This evening we do boxing. I’m partnered with Sephonie who keeps on taking off and putting on her Zadig et Voltaire cashmere hoody – she’s too hot, too cold, too hot.
I’ve been holding up the pads, straddling her, while she does sit-ups with a follow-through punch. Hard at the best of times, let alone four days in, with precious little ‘fuel’ in ‘the tank’.
‘Punch THROUGH the pain,’ screams Big Tony
Even though it looks easy, holding the pads is almost as hard as punching, and it takes all my strength to keep them up so the bitch doesn’t punch me in the face.
Then it’s change-over time, and I’m lying on my back on the mat with Sephonie straddling me, holding the pads up in front of her face in lacklustre fashion. I have no strength left in me, but I visualise Devron’s face on the black dot at the centre of the pads, and, along with the pleasing thwack of the gloves on the pads, it gives me enough oomph to keep going.
‘COME ON GIRLS, PUSH IT OUT.’
Just three more jabs to go, and I force my stomach muscles to haul me up and my bicep to punch, but on the last one I can barely do it, and then I think ‘JUST ONE MORE,’ and throw my right arm straight at where the pad was, but where Sephonie’s jaw now is – she’s dropped her pad at the last minute from exhaustion.
It really was an accident. Honest.
Day 5. Boot camp.
And then there were three.
‘Sephonie’s fine, but she’s still got a headache. She doesn’t feel like doing the mountain today,’ says Big Tony, giving me a stern look as we fall in. Oh for goodness’ sake, having 32 teeth is so last season.
I have become chief lag at this facility. As we pack our bags for our day-long hike, I sidle up to Go-Go and Hildegunn, and they trade me their chocolate squares for the fruit I have not eaten for the last two days. They are more focussed on the weigh-in than I will ever be, and this barter system suits us all. We load up our rucksacks with oatcakes and a pack of power-seeds for a ‘treat’.
We spend the whole day walking and finally come to the summit of a very small montagna. The view is breathtaking, and makes me think: this is special and beautiful, and I am very lucky.
I shake the power-seeds into my palm and look at the tiny black and brown dots, like dashes, commas and full stops. I rejoice that tomorrow I can have a treat of my choice: a nectarine, a piece of toast with butter and Marmite, a glass of orange juice!
On the way back down I realise that I lost myself when I found James. I thought he was the prize. He wasn’t.
But one day, when I have truly stopped caring about my weight, and found peace with myself and this one gift of a body that lets me dance and climb mountains and see
the world in all its glory, I will look back at those golden days James and I had, and I’ll be truly glad of the joy that he gave me, that I gave him, that we created together.
Because for those days I felt all the potential and the beauty and the hope that this world has to offer.
I felt alive and I felt love.
I didn’t imagine it – it was there, and some people never even get to feel that.
I will realise how lucky we were.
And maybe he will realise that too.
When we return to basecamp, Big Tony says ‘Pool! Swim Sprint! Time to beat your day one scores.’
Go-Go jumps from side to side with excitement. Hildegunn nods stoically, and I shake my head. I have just climbed a bloody mountain; I am tired. I don’t need to prove anything else to myself or to any man, and while part of me thinks it’s a cop-out, the larger part of me thinks: from now on, I will do what I want. If it doesn’t hurt anyone else, then I shall please myself.
And I say to Big Tony that I have ‘women’s problems’, and fortunately he is just as embarrassed as Mr Harcourt always was, and I am let off games. I sit by the pool and watch Go-Go power through the water, and Hildegunn take a more leisurely approach, and I think: I’m okay. I’m very okay.
Before the final weigh-in, Big Tony asks the three of us still standing what were our highlights and lowlights of boot camp.
‘High – when I bench-pressed 50kg,’ says Go-Go. ‘And low – when I couldn’t do that fourteenth chin-press,’ she says.
‘High – jumping in the river,’ says Hildegunn. ‘Low – feeling tired all the time.’
I think long and hard. Highs: punching Sephonie. Figuring out a way to get more chocolate. Doing great tricep-kickbacks. Lows: the hunger. The rationing. The joylessness of extreme cardio.
‘High – getting my mind and my body back,’ I say. ‘That was worth all the lows.’
As we wait for the final weigh-in, Go-Go keeps rushing to the loo to emit any last mass that might show up on the scales.
I’m eating another piece of chocolate and drinking a cup of tea, because I like chocolate and I like tea.
‘I can’t believe you’re eating before the weigh-in!’ says Go-Go.
‘I’m having a curry when I get home,’ I say, knowing how much this will appal her.
‘But what about keeping up the good work?’ says Hildegunn.
‘I’ll do more exercise,’ I say. ‘Moderation in all things.’
I step on the scales and Grant smiles. ‘Terrific, Sophie, you lost 8 lbs. You worked really hard, you should be proud of yourself.’
I am, Grant. I am.
There is a phone call I need to make and it can’t wait.
We’re taxiing on the runway back into Gatwick and before I can talk myself out of it, I dial.
‘It’s me. I know you’re probably busy but I need to see you, tonight – it can’t wait,’ I say. ‘I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Can I come round?’
And Maggie says, ‘Of course.’
‘You’re looking fantastic,’ says Eddie as I walk in on Monday morning, my size 12 cords now gently hugging my hips. ‘How was it?’
‘A cross between prison and hell with better scenery,’ I say.
‘Did they feed you much?’
‘Don’t!’ I’m still mildly traumatised by how it felt to be utterly at the mercy of someone else being in charge of what I could eat.
‘Sophie, I know you’ve just got back in, but we’ve got a 9.15 with Devron on Fat Bird!’ says Ton of Fun Tom, ‘are you coming?’
‘I’ve never been readier,’ I say.
Devron’s staring at a pile of papers on his desk when Tom and I walk in.
‘Right, let’s get on with it,’ he says. ‘I’ve been reading
your Phase 2 update, Sophie – what’s this about you and Appletree not thinking you can quality benchmark on the low-cal custards?’
‘Will and I have talked extensively about how to reduce the fat content on the existing products. We’ve trialled versions with skimmed milk powder, soy, whey, and maize starch, and they all taste bad. We’ve researched them with panel-groups; housewives also think they taste bad.
‘Yeah, I can see the quotes: “tastes like misery” … “lacks any sense of indulgence” … “I’d rather be fat than have to eat this” …’ Did you write these yourself, Sophie?
‘Er, no.’
‘Well, I don’t give a rat’s arse what a few chunky northern housewives think. Forget the existing products, what about a blank page approach?’
‘We’ve tried. We’ve tried biscuits with custard, frozen custards, tarts and trifles. Bottom line is that anything with lower than 3% fat has a weird, gloopy texture and needs so much sugar we go off the scale on the RDAs. If we use aspartame, it tastes totally synthetic.’
‘Is this Will Slater being difficult because of the reduced margins?’
‘No, it’s Will Slater being honest about an unrealistic brief,’ I say.
‘Don’t let your friendship with a supplier get in the way of your judgement,’ he says.
‘Devron. If you’re on a diet and you want a treat, you’re better off eating a square of dark chocolate; at least it’s full of phenols. If you fuck with all the raw materials in custard and substitute them with synthetic crap, you upset the stability, tolerance, life and taste of the product. Diet custard is an oxymoron. That’s like moron, only more so.’
‘Sophie, a word?’ says Devron at the end of the meeting.
Of course, I knew I wouldn’t get away with quite that level of insolence in front of a wider audience. Let Devron say whatever he needs to say to re-masculate himself. I have climbed a mountain, jumped in a river in my pants. I am not scared of Devron.