Girls Under Pressure

  “Feel free to insult him all you like, Magda,” I say, and I tell her about Dan and his new love.

  We end up having a really good laugh about it until Dad’s phone card runs out.

  “That was a great Christmas present,” I say.

  I get some great real presents the next day too—a book on Frida Kahlo, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, a stylish black designer swimming costume and a big box of very expensive artists’ chalks—all from Dad and Anna. Eggs gives me a new sketchbook. I spend most of Christmas morning doing a portrait of each of them.

  We’re playing Happy Families.

  But then it all goes wrong.

  We sit down to Christmas dinner around two o’clock. I’ve told Anna I want a really small portion but all the plates are piled high. She sees me looking anxious.

  “Just leave what you don’t want, Ellie,” she says, trying to keep the peace.

  It’s not that easy. Once my teeth get started they won’t stop. It’s truly delicious: large glistening golden turkey with chestnut stuffing and cranberry sauce, little chipolatas and bacon rolls, roast potatoes, sprouts, parsnips, beans. I eat and eat and eat, and it tastes so good I can’t put my knife and fork down, I cut and spear and munch until every morsel is gone. I even wipe my finger round my plate to savor up the last smear of gravy.

  “Ellie! You’ll be licking your plate next,” says Dad, but he’s smiling. “It’s great to see you’ve got your appetite back.”

  I don’t stop there. The mince pies were all eaten at the party last night but there’s still Christmas pudding with brandy butter, and then I have a tangerine, and then three chocolates with my coffee.

  “Glug glug,” says Eggs, downing a cherry brandy liqueur chocolate.

  “Oh, God!” says Anna. “Spit it out at once, Eggs!”

  Eggs swallows, his eyes sparkling.

  “Am I drunk now? Ooh, goody! Am I going to sing silly stuff like Dan’s dad did last night?”

  “You sing silly stuff without being drunk,” says Anna. “Don’t you dare touch any more of those liqueur chocolates.”

  “That’s not fair. You let Ellie.”

  “Well, Ellie’s nearly grown up.”

  I’m not so sure. I don’t know whether it’s the half glass of champagne at the start of the meal or the three chocs at the end, but I’m starting to feel seriously woozy. My stomach hurts, I’ve stretched it so much. I put my hands on it gingerly. It’s huge, like I’m suddenly six months pregnant.

  I suddenly panic. What am I playing at, stuffing myself with all this food? I must have put on pounds and pounds. I’ve messed up all the past weeks of careful dieting.

  I’ve got to do something about it. Quick.

  “I feel like a bit of fresh air,” I say, getting up from the table.

  “Hang on. We’ll just tackle the dishes and then we’ll all go for a walk,” says Dad.

  “No, I feel all funny. I’m just going outside for a bit. Leave the dishes. I’ll help with them later,” I say.

  I rush out without even stopping to grab a coat.

  “Ellie?” says Dad.

  “She’s drunk!” Eggs declares. “Um! Ellie’s drunk.”

  I do feel drunk as the icy air hits me. The mountain moves, the woods waver, the little brick privy fades in and out of vision. I feel sick. Thank God, it’s going to be easy.

  I breathe in deeply inside the loo. I retch at the smell. I get ready, tuck my hair back behind my ears, shove two fingers down my throat.

  It all happens in a rush and a roar. My eyes are tightly shut, tears seeping down my cheeks. Then I hear someone gasp. I open my eyes and see Anna peering round the door at me.

  “Anna! Leave . . . me . . . alone!” I gasp.

  She’s waiting outside when I stagger out.

  “What the hell are you doing to yourself, Ellie?”

  My heart pounds. I hold my neck. My throat’s so sore now. I’m trembling.

  “I was being sick, that’s all. Don’t look at me like that. I couldn’t help it. It’s because I ate so much. The chocolates must have been the last straw.”

  “Don’t lie, Ellie. I followed you. I saw what you were doing.”

  “You followed me into the lavatory? What sort of weird snoopy act is that?”

  “I care about you, Ellie. I’ve let you pull the wool over my eyes these past weeks but now we’ve got to sort this out. We’re going to talk it over with your father.”

  “Now? For God’s sake, Anna, it’s Christmas Day.”

  “Yes, and it was the Christmas dinner I spent all morning cooking on that awful stove, and it all turned out OK in the end, and I was so thrilled when you ate it all up so appreciatively, and we were having such a lovely time and then, then you go and spoil everything.”

  “I was sick. That’s not my fault.”

  “You liar! I saw you put your fingers down your throat.”

  “OK, OK, I felt sick and I just needed to help myself––”

  “You’re bulimic, Ellie. You did it yesterday too. I knew you had, but you kept lying to me. Why are you doing this? It’s so mad. I can’t understand how anyone could want to make themselves sick.”

  “I don’t enjoy it! It’s awful. But what else can I do when I’m so weak-willed and eat myself silly? I’ve got to get rid of all that extra food before it makes me even fatter.”

  “But you’re not fat.”

  “I am. Horribly fat.”

  “You’re not, you’re not!”

  “What on earth are you two doing out there?” Dad calls from the open kitchen door. “Why are you shouting at each other? Come indoors, you’re both shivering. What is it? What’s happened?”

  We go in. Anna starts. I tell her to leave it for another time. Dad tries to lighten things up, but Anna insists he listen to her. She says all this stupid stuff about me, exaggerating heaps. I’m not bulimic. I’ve made myself sick three times, that’s all. No big deal. And I’m not anorexic, either, though Anna insists I’m that, too.

  “Ellie can’t have that slimming disease thingy,” says Eggs. “She isn’t thin, she’s fat.”

  “See!” I say, and I burst into tears.

  Anna says Eggs doesn’t really mean fat. Eggs says he does. Anna tells Eggs to be quiet. Eggs says it’s not fair. He bursts into tears. Dad says this is ridiculous, it’s Christmas, and he’s bought this brand-new television and now nobody’s watching it and why did Anna have to start this stupid row. Anna says she’s desperately concerned about me, and Dad ought to be a better father and she’s sick to death of worrying about me and she bursts into tears. Dad says we’re all getting upset about nothing and of course Ellie isn’t really anorexic or bulimic and neither is she fat and there’s nothing to worry about and let’s stop all this nonsense and make the most of Christmas.

  So we try.

  Thank God for the television. There’s a good film on and after a few snuffles and sighs and wounded glances we all get absorbed. We’re almost playing Happy Families again—but then it’s teatime.

  I daren’t risk starting eating again in case I can’t stop. So I just sit there quietly, sipping a cup of Earl Grey tea with lemon, doing nobody any harm.

  “Ellie! You’re not eating,” says Anna.

  “I still feel a bit sick.”

  “Don’t start now.”

  “I do.”

  “Have some of this yummy Christmas cake. Look, this bit’s got extra icing,” Dad says heartily, as if I’m Eggs’s age.

  “I don’t want any cake, thank you,” I say, though the rich moist fruity smell is making my mouth water. I especially like the icing, that lovely crisp bite in and then the sweetness spreading over the tongue blended with the odd almondy tang of marzipan.

  “How about just a tiny slice if you’ve really not got any appetite?” says Dad.

  I could eat a huge slice. Two. I could eat the entire cake in one go, for goodness’ sake.

  “I’m really not hungry.”

/>   Anna sighs. “OK. No cake. But your stomach is completely empty now. You must eat something. A slice of bread and butter—and some fresh fruit—and a sliver of cheese.”

  She cleverly arranges a dainty slice of bread on a plate and puts an apple and a few green grapes and a slice of Brie beside it.

  “Hardly any calories, and it’s all good wholesome nourishing food,” she says.

  It’s so tempting—but my total splurge at lunchtime has scared me. Once I start I won’t stop. It’ll be another slice of bread and then another, more fruit, all the Brie, then I’ll get started on the Stilton. . . .

  “No, thank you,” I say primly, pushing the plate away.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Ellie,” says Dad. “Eat the damn food.”

  “No.”

  “Look, you’re acting so childishly. Just eat it.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Then get down from the table and stop spoiling Christmas tea for everybody else,” says Dad.

  “Certainly,” I say, and I march out of the room.

  Anna is crying again. I feel guilty. She was trying to be kind. But I can’t help it. I’m not being difficult on purpose. I’ve been a positive saint this Christmas, helping with all the cooking and not throwing a tantrum when Dan paraded his girlfriend before me. I’m not demanding special treatment or my own diet. I tried to be as discreet as possible when I was sick. It’s not my fault Anna came snooping after me. Why can’t they all just leave me alone?

  Dad comes to talk to me.

  “Leave me alone.”

  Anna comes to talk to me.

  “Leave me alone.”

  So I am left alone for the entire evening. I can hear them downstairs laughing at something on the television. I take my new chalks and my new sketchbook and draw a table groaning with Christmas fare. But it’s all been spoilt—there’s furry mold growing on the sandwiches, the fruit is rotting in the bowl, little mice are nibbling the cheese, and flies crawl all over the white icing on the cake.

  problem girl

  A pattern sets in. I don’t eat. Anna cries. Dad shouts. I go to my room and draw. I don’t eat. Anna cries. Dad shouts.

  I go to my room and draw. . . .

  Eggs stays on the sidelines.

  “You’re mad, Ellie,” he says, slurping chocolate in front of me.

  “She’s driving us all mad,” says Dad. “For God’s sake, Ellie, how can you be so selfish and self-obsessed? You’re just playing for attention.”

  “I don’t want attention. I want to be left alone.”

  “It’s all my fault,” says Anna.

  “What?”

  “I was the one who suggested a diet in the first place. It was crazy of me. And then it’s been hard for Ellie, losing her mother and having to get used to a stepmother. I think it’s partly symbolic. Ellie and I have got closer recently and this is worrying for her. She must feel she’s being disloyal to her mother’s memory. So she rejects my food. It’s a way of rejecting all my nurturing and care.”

  “I’ve never heard such silly rubbish,” says Dad. “I can’t stomach that psychological claptrap. Don’t you start blaming yourself, Anna! You’ve been great with Ellie. Look, she’s just gone on a diet and got obsessed with it, that’s all. She’s got nothing else to think about while she’s here. And she’s probably brooding about the Dan situation— which I didn’t help, I know.”

  They’re both so wrong. It’s certainly nothing to do with Dan. We saw them when we were out for a very wet walk. Dan and Gail were wearing matching orange parkas, hoods pulled low over the forehead. They were clasping woolly gloves and striding out in step, left, right, left, right. They might have been made for each other. I must have been mad ever to think Dan might have been made for me.

  It’s not anything to do with Anna, either, although that gets to me more. I feel guilty about Anna. I don’t want to make her so worried about me. I didn’t realize I could bother her so much. And fancy her saying that about my real mum! I never talk about Mum to anyone. Dad thinks I’ve forgotten all about her.

  I’ll never forget. I still talk to her sometimes in my head. I’ve got her photo on my bedside table at home but I didn’t bring it to the cottage. I suddenly long to see it. I try drawing Mum from memory but it doesn’t work out too well. The line falters as I try to sketch her chest, her waist, her hips. I’ve always thought my mum looked beautiful—long dark properly curly hair, not frizzy like mine. Big dark eyes, heart-shaped face, soft cheeks, soft white arms, soft cushiony breasts—I can still just about remember the way she used to cuddle me when she put me to bed. But now I think of her soft curvy body and I wonder. Was my mum a little bit fat? Not as fat as me, of course, but still pretty chubby.

  I try to remember what she looked like without any clothes. I must have seen her in her bath, or pottering around the bedroom in her bra and knickers? I feel bad, as if I’m snooping through a keyhole at her. What does it matter if she was fat or thin? This is my dead mother, for heaven’s sake.

  I don’t believe in heaven but I draw a child’s version of it, all snowy clouds and golden gateways, and I seat my mum on a special starry throne, decked out in a spangly robe and designer wings in sunset shades. Just for a moment her sweet chalk face softens in a smile and she says, “What does it matter if you’re fat or thin, Ellie?”

  I know she’s right and I try to hang on to this. Maybe if she and I were by ourselves in the cottage we’d have a meal together and we’d laugh and talk and eat, no trouble at all. But when Dad insists I come down for dinner he’s all bossy and blustering.

  “Now stop this silly nonsense right now, Ellie. You’re going to clear your plate, do you hear me?”

  Anna is all tense and tearful.

  “I’ve fixed you a special salad, Ellie, and there’s cottage cheese, no calories at all. You can just have a tangerine for pudding—just so long as you eat something.”

  Eggs is ultra-irritating.

  “I’m eating all my turkey pie and all my mashed potatoes and all my sweet corn and then I’m eating all my ice cream because it’s yummy and I want it in my tummy. I’m good, aren’t I, not like silly smelly Ellie belly who’s still f-a-t even if she is on this stupid diet.”

  How can I relax and say, “OK, folks, drama over, I’ll eat normally now?”

  So I don’t eat (apart from a few mouthfuls that I chew for ages and sometimes manage to spit into my paper hankie) and Anna cries and Dad shouts and I go to my room and draw.

  “Thank you for spoiling Christmas for everyone, Ellie,” says Dad as we drive home. He’s gripping the steering wheel so fiercely he’ll rip it right out of the dashboard in a minute.

  “I didn’t do anything. I don’t know why you’re being so horrible to me.”

  “Now listen to me, young lady. I’m making a doctor’s appointment for you the minute we get home, do you hear me?”

  “You’re shouting so hard the whole motorway can hear you.”

  “I’ve just about had enough of you and your wisecrack answers and your pained face and pursed lips at the dinner table and your sheer bloody obstinacy. You’ve not eaten properly for days. Weeks. You’re making yourself ill. It’s dangerous to lose so much weight so quickly. You look a complete wreck, all gaunt and pale and ghostly, like some poor soul with a terminal illness.”

  Do I really look gaunt? I try to see myself in Dad’s driving mirror. I suck in my cheeks hopefully but it’s useless, I look as round and roly-poly as always, baby cheeks and chubby chin.

  “I suppose you think you look soulful and interesting,” says Dad, catching my eye in the mirror. “Well, you don’t, you look dreadful. And you’re so undernourished you’re coming out in spots.”

  “Thanks a bunch, Dad,” I say, feeling a hundred suppurating boils erupt all over my face.

  I had been feeling a bit mean because I know how much Christmas at the cottage means to Dad, and he’d tried to be really sweet, buying the little telly and taking me down to the phone box so
I could chat to Nadine and Magda, but now he’s being so horrid I don’t care at all if he feels I mucked up his Christmas. Good. I can’t stick him. He can’t force me to go to the doctor. It’s my body and I can do what I want with it.

  I can’t be bothered unpacking and doing any of the boring stuff when we get home. Why should I help Dad and Anna when they just nag at me all the time? I rush to the bathroom, take off my shoes and my jeans and my heavy bangle and weigh myself. Wow. I really have lost weight. Of course I’m still fat. I stare at myself sideways on in the bathroom mirror, hiking up my shirt to get a proper peek at my tum and bum, and OK, I’m maybe a weeny bit smaller but I’m still huge. But not quite as huge as I was. Still a lot fatter than Magda, and totally gross compared with Nadine. But improving. I wonder if Nadine and Magda will notice?

  I phone them. Magda first.

  “Let’s meet up, right? Not my place, it’s all doom and gloom with my family,” I hiss. “What about the Soda Fountain?” I could just have a fizzy mineral water, no problem.

  “No, not the Soda Fountain,” Magda says quickly. “Let’s go somewhere . . . quiet. How about upstairs in John Wiltshire’s?”

  “What?” John Wiltshire’s is this dreary old department store where all these grannies meet for a cup of tea. “Are you kidding, Mags?”

  “No. They have luscious cakes. Or are you still dieting?”

  “Well. Sort of,” I say casually. “OK, John Wiltshire’s will be fine with me if that’s what you want. Four o’clock? I’ll phone Nadine, right?”

  Nadine sounds a bit odd too. Very subdued.

  “Are you OK, Nad?”

  “No,” says Nadine.

  I can hear Natasha in the background, squealing and giggling, and Nadine’s mother clapping and clucking at her.

  “Family life getting you down?”

  “Understatement of the century,” says Nadine. “Oh, Ellie, wait till you hear. I can’t bear it!”

  “What?”

  “No. I can’t tell you properly now, not with you-know-who around. I’ll tell you when we meet up, right? Only don’t say I told you so, please.”