Thin (18 page)

There is no kitchen here and no skimmed milk, and no
scales to weigh out my portions. We go to the bar for breakfast, but because we are late we have missed it, so my friend orders an orange juice and I order a Coke. I daren’t ask for a Diet Coke in case they don’t understand, or in case they look at me strangely, which I wouldn’t like.

It is easy to get drunk here. There are bars full of cocktails and happy hours and the alcoholic lemonade is still jumping on my tongue. It makes it easier if you are drunk to deal with the bread, chips, fried things and kebabs. I would never touch these kinds of foods at home but for some inexplicable reason I can here. It doesn’t feel real, it is like I am sleepwalking through every day. We go out, my friend and I, on an organized bar crawl. In one of the pubs we have to stand in a line and down shots of strange spirits one by one and play party games. In the darkness/drunkenness, I manage to throw my drink over my shoulder on to the floor behind me. I can’t drink it when I am forced like that. As people come close to me, I start to panic.

Don’t make me. Don’t make me. Get out, get out.

The music is loud and it hurts my head. The people are too noisy and too close to my skin.

It is hard when you are lying by the pool and there are hours until dinnertime. Other people are reading books and listening to Walkmans and falling asleep. I am sitting up, lying down, jumping in the pool, walking up to the room, sighing, coming back to the pool, getting hot and feeling like I need to put something in my mouth to stop the over-thinking. I walk to the shop and buy some fruit sweets. I eat the whole packet by the pool, frantically chewing, and then smoke one cigarette after another and pretend to rest. Nothing rests in me – everything moves and flips and jumps and spins and does cartwheels and then dives and lurches.

When I speak to my friend, I cry, but only once, because now I have force-fed myself a bit everything must be better.
I have a tan and I am a bit fatter. I must definitely be fatter, and so they will all be pleased with me.

After the eating and drinking holiday (I am not sure how I just did that), I feel like I must be a lot bigger. With every forkful I felt myself grow and widen. I get home to Mum and Dad but they don’t seem to think that I have been transformed. I have been eating to make them feel better because they were feeling sad about things, but it doesn’t seem to have any immediate effect. I am sure the whitecoats have told them to think that I am always deceiving them, which is not necessarily my intention.

I ask my dad for a lift to town to see my friends, and to half-listen to their conversations. I walk into the pub and people seem happy to see me. I think they are shocked when I order a Bacardi Breezer. They are all staring at me.

It’s just a drink, or two, or three. Yes, I have got fatter, thanks for commenting on how well I look.

I block my ears and float around. I am not going backwards. I am going forwards, and so that means lots of drinking, dancing and forgetting things because they are all too strange and blurry to cope with.

I am glad that they let me work in the pub now. I spend most of my time there, eating thick, salty, full-flavoured crisps and drinking alcopops and going out with students who are mad and drunk and fun-out-of-control. I serve the hungry customers with hot food from under the hot plate. I am shaking with the weight of the plates piled high with beef and potatoes and Yorkshire puddings and vegetables and gravy. I am walking through the hot, smelly pub and my arms are straining as I carry the steaming plates to the beer-filled tables, in my thick black woollen tights under my thick black trousers. I like feeding people. At the end of the lunchtime rush, I get to sit down and eat my food with the
rest of the staff. They get excited about the free Sunday lunch and pile their plates high, talking about the rich lamb and thick gravy. I take a big plate of salad with tablespoons of pickle. I like the taste of the pickle – a strong taste on my tongue. This is against the rules, because salad is not part of the staff meal deal at the pub, but no one dares tell me because they are so pleased that I am eating something. I can see them, though; they just can’t help looking at my green and brown plate.

I asked my GP to write a letter saying that going to work would be good for my health. I convinced him that I needed something to do to make me socialize and feel a part of teenage life, instead of sitting in front of the TV on my own all day. He didn’t seem to know that much about eating disorders. He seemed a bit embarrassed so I was too. He has been my GP ever since I was a little girl when I had chicken pox and measles and running noses; normal illnesses he could solve with antibiotics and sugary medicine. I don’t think he quite understands why I can’t eat. I must be strange if even he thinks that. I thought he would understand all medical things but, for some reason, I think this one is different. I think it is because I am a girl and he thinks that this is an illness that little girls get, and he is not a girl, and he doesn’t seem to understand it simply because of that.

Pretty girls, I see them everywhere. Ones that other people may have missed because they only cross the eye for a second, but I take them all in. Things like that don’t blend in for me. I see it all. Everything pricks me hard. There are girls sipping white wine, with beery boyfriends on their arms, and they have perfect seamless figures. I watch their thighs, and there is no dimpling or wobbling, their legs seem to be welded apart, they don’t rub together as they walk. They are all taller and thinner than me. I watch them on the streets, in the pub, the shops, the magazines, and I wonder if they were born that way. Are they natural or are they shutting themselves up in the bathroom and flushing their insides down the toilet? Maybe they are all at it in secret, and are trying to get me to stop so that they can win and be better and slimmer and neat-edged. This is what I am thinking every time I have to eat more. It makes it hard, but I am trying to get back to normality.

People look at me with different eyes now that I am a bit bigger, a bit more normal-shaped. Suddenly, they almost see me as I was before, even though I am no longer the same. I have small curves, which I can just about grab in my hands and squash – I spent a long time trying to get rid of this. Strangers have stopped staring in the same way. I am almost acceptable now that I am sevenish stone. People are not sure of their reactions. They look at each other, and then at me, and then they squint their eyes as if they are trying to figure me out. So I keep quiet. I merge into the background. I take deep breaths before I feel sure enough
to speak. I want to submerge, hold back and listen like a little body should.

When people bring up the subject of doctors and weight I do my ‘What are you making a fuss about?’ incredulous look. I flash some of my dinner in their face. They keep on testing me, of course, but I won’t relent. I keep munching right through the fatty-soaked Chinese food they put in front of me, and the thick and spicy Indian curry and I smile wide and drink another orange Bacardi Breezer. I have abandoned the calorie-counting in public. I reserve this for my private moments – the in-between parts (of which there are many). I fluctuate between control and crazy eating (well, crazy for me, anyway).

Lovely Mum and Dad sit on the sofa and watch me. I know what they are thinking. I am sure of it. They are wondering what they could possibly have done wrong to end up with me in this state. I know that they probably don’t trust me. I know that they think that my food is not normal food. I know their secret conversations. I have a good imagination, a really scary one too.

‘She’s definitely eating more – isn’t she?’

‘That must be a good thing – mustn’t it?’

‘It might even mean that she’s better – right?’

‘Does this mean we don’t have to go to the eating disorders support group one evening a week after a tiring day at work, and listen to more stories of starving, cottage-cheese-eating teenagers?’

‘Please tell me this is true.’

‘I don’t know.’

New people that I meet don’t even know about my eating problems, I think. They treat me like I am completely normal. They think I am shy and curled up, and that I am naturally quiet. I let them think that. I let them think that is me. I
don’t wear any bandages so they can’t tell what is in my head. Men start to come closer to me now, like it is acceptable, because I have these little curves. I want them to like me. I want them to desire me. But they won’t like me if I get any bigger. I need to stay small.

In the dark, in the club, I sometimes tell them more than I should. Words spurt from my mouth and I am telling strangers about this little illness I had a few weeks ago, and the feelings I had.

To Boy 1:
‘Hello. We get on but you don’t know me. You can’t really know me until I tell you this thing about me. I used to be anorexic. That means I got very thin – I was five and a bit stone. You seem shocked. Yes, I look OK now. I’m fine now. I decided to get over it. I work in the pub. Things are better; really they are fine. It’s just it is such a big part of me that I don’t want to be your girlfriend unless you understand this. I know we only met this evening, but when I’m drunk I become really honest about things. I prefer it to be that way. Sure, I’ll come outside with you. I’m so flattered that you think I’m gorgeous. No one says that to me any more. I feel really drunk. Let’s go and talk outside. Oh, you kissed me. This is what I should be doing, like a normal teenage girl. Thanks for your number, but I won’t be speaking to you again, or telling anyone about this. God, I shouldn’t have shared all this with you. I can hardly see your face. I can’t even remember your name.’

To Boy 2:
‘Thanks for the cheese sandwich. How did I get to your house? I think my friend likes your friend. They’re laughing in the other room. Oh, you’re kissing me. Look, there is something you need to know about me. Thanks for understanding and holding me so tightly. You aren’t really my type. You’re a personal trainer? You could
do a diet plan and exercise plan for me. I think everything would be all right if I had a professional exercise plan, then I could get the muscled, tight legs that I want. Don’t you think? You look like you could take care of me. It is a shame I can’t call you again. Cheese sandwiches at three in the morning aren’t something I should repeat. It upsets my routine.’

To Boy 3:
‘You thought I looked horrible before. I saw you looking at me and wondering how I could have changed so much, so quickly. Thanks for at least pretending you still liked me then with your letters and your phone calls (on and off) depending on how much you could cope with my strangely subdued voice at the end of the phone. I know you didn’t like me, not when I looked like that – who would? When we met I was on the edge of a new life, going to university, and it was all fun. Do you remember kissing me after the office trip to the pub? I was on work experience and I fancied you, and you liked me back. And then the next week you were landed with a new me. It was kind of you to keep in touch, when I was a very different person from the one you thought. Now it’s obvious you like me. Boys seem to like girls who are size eight, even if they say that they don’t. You can’t believe your luck. You tell me you have fallen for me. It sounds so romantic, I think. I don’t feel anything like that, but I accept the nice compliment. Did you see my ex-boyfriend in the pub with his pretty, curvy girlfriend? It makes me sad to look at him. There are silences in our conversation. I can’t think of anything to say to you that you might be interested in, or that I might be interested in – sorry.’

I see my ex-boyfriend. He is driving a blue Fiesta and his new girlfriend sits in the passenger seat. He doesn’t see me
because he isn’t looking for me, because I am out of his life and she is in it, but I see him. I see him everywhere, even when he is not there. I catch glimpses of his face on the edge of others. I write about him every day in my diary because I miss him, or maybe I just miss us, and the old me, eating spaghetti at his house and ordinary things I used to do. He looks guilty when he does see me, because he thinks that he let me down. He thinks that he should have helped me more, I know, he told me. But I tell him not to worry because, ‘I’m fine. I’m all better. I’m seeing other people now, so the old story of us is closed. I’m not going to go to the doctor any more, everything is all better. How is
she
, by the way?’

After I see him I feel a bit shaky. I walk up to my old school to meet my little sisters. I don’t look up in case anyone sees me, and they have heard about my messed-up head. I don’t want to speak to anyone in case they know that I didn’t go to university, and that I am one of ‘those girls’ (which they surely do, because everyone knows everything here). My teacher sees me and smiles. He makes me talk. I don’t want to talk. I want to walk past him so that he doesn’t have to think about me. If he hadn’t seen me, he wouldn’t have had to think about me. He would have just forgotten about me and got on with his day. Instead, he has to make some small talk and look concerned. He says the wrong thing. People always say the wrong thing. He says, ‘You look well.’

He must not have met a real anorexic before.

Well! Well! Fat. Fat – that is what he means. You look well – plump, round, healthy therefore fat, definitely fatter than the last time he saw you.

I wish I hadn’t gone out. I wish I could make them all forget. I don’t think they are ever going to forget, are they? They are always going to remember me this way. I have fought away my fear to make them all happy, and they still look at me in that strange way and try to make nice and
caring conversation. For those who know me it may always be this way.

I am moulding myself to fit into the ideal shapes that the doctors and the strangers and the family and society prescribe for me. Then they will let me go away and I can make things the way I want them to. For the moment, I need to curve myself more, so I will. They are all measuring me and sizing me up, so it all has to be as convincing as possible. The nice lady doctor seems to think that if I get to the ‘ideal weight’ my mind will flip over to her side, that I will somehow gain this understanding again. So I push my mind away. I sit in my bath of spiders every day and let them crawl over me. I wrap the snakes round my neck. I stand at the edge of the top of the highest building and let you push me. I don’t fall. I won’t fall.