Thin Read online

  ‘You’ll be fine.’

  ‘You always do well.’

  ‘It can’t be difficult for you!’

  ‘We know you’re the best.’

  The voices of everyone around her are played back loud.

  Got to be thin! If only I were thin. That’s it. That’s what can be changed. Got to be thinner.

  Three

  Grace runs down the stairs to the letter box. She knows that the post will bring news of rejection or acceptance from her chosen universities, delivered to the door. She opens the envelope; it is the third one to arrive and the first rejection. She doesn’t know what to do with rejection. She throws the letter in the bin. She decides to keep the news inside, pretending that it didn’t happen. She sits on the secret all morning. At lunchtime, over bread rolls and milk (cheap school dinners to save money for pints of cider on Friday night), she tells her friends.

  ‘I didn’t want to go there, anyway,’ she preempts them.

  They look surprised, thinking about how she always does well, always seems to find things easy.

  ‘Sorry,’ they say.

  I hate the word sorry. I haven’t really failed. Let’s get back to you. Let’s not dwell on me. It wasn’t right, anyway. I never wanted to go there. Never, not one bit. Don’t look at me like that. Don’t be sorry.

  Grace comes home from school; she takes off her uniform and changes into her smart outfit with her high-heeled boots, just so that she looks acceptable in case anyone should see her. She applies her make-up, and sits in her bedroom waiting for her boyfriend to come over. He doesn’t arrive. He doesn’t call. He forgets to send her a Valentine’s card. He isn’t going to university; he certainly isn’t coming with her. Things are changing.

  Grace doesn’t have a problem with self-discipline, not like Boyfriend does. She does what is needed, and she does it all on time. She doesn’t hand her homework in late. All under control. Nice and controlled. All in order. It is just irritating that Boyfriend keeps getting in the way. She doesn’t like the way she is always thinking of him. He is annoying now, taking up too much of her revision time and spoiling all the perfect plans.

  Dad helps her revise. Grace wants to do well in her A levels. What Grace wants, Grace gets. She wants to be one of the people whose name makes it on to the school newsletter – an A4-photocopied piece of paper with the school logo on it. If she gets all A grades then she will be recognized on there. She did it for her GCSEs – she was acknowledged. She keeps that newsletter in a box in her wardrobe with certificates, badges and other assorted items that show her that she has done well. Grace paces up and down the house, up and down, up and down, reciting bits of history, French verbs, literary quotes. She draws up a detailed plan and sticks it on the wall over her bed. She rewrites all of her notes on to neat and lined pieces of paper. She asks Dad to test her.

  ‘OK, Grace, tell me about Lord Liverpool,’ Dad says.

  She sees the words from the page in her mind, she holds them all in her head; she has a very good memory for facts. She tells him about Lord Liverpool and then she carries on. She takes him through Wellington, Peel and Palmerston to Disraeli, Gladstone and beyond. Not a detail missed. Dad silently turns page after page. He smiles at her. He says nothing. He never has to say anything. Grace is a good daughter, who he is sure will do well in her A levels, like she has done well in everything else. So different from his own experience of school. He is proud of her, how she has moved on from where he was.

  Grace sits on the floor and looks at the Easter eggs in front of her. One by one she puts them to her side, then she gets up, sits on the sofa and looks down on them. She is too old for Easter eggs, anyway; they are something for her little brother and sisters, something for childhood, not grown-up Grace. If she gives them to her little brother and sisters, then they will be happy and she will be healthier. No big deal.

  She stepped on the scales and was heavier than she thought (she was heading for nasty nine stone), and it didn’t feel nice, so she is cutting down on food. Since glandular fever knocked her down and then she got ‘all better’ again, she has put on a bit of weight. Nobody has mentioned it, but surely they must see it … surely? They must be able to see what she can clearly feel. So it is a diet. It is not something that will be shouted about, but it is a good thing and it will help her feel better. She will be more prepared for her exams and clearer about university. She will simply look better if she weighs a little less – a new image for a new place.

  Grace has been up and down the country looking at universities. Mostly they are in the south of England, miles away from home.

  Who would want to stay here?

  She must get these exams right to make sure that she can get away. She goes to Bristol and stays with a friend’s sister in a student flat. They eat spaghetti bolognese together, and Grace tries to think of some interesting things to say. There is a coldy feeling inside her in this strange place. On the long train journey home she eats a beef burger. Yuk, food. Big yuk.

  She rustles under her coat in the cold carriage. Her body feels bigger. It is so obvious to her now: the way it is suddenly there, in a different form. She feels her body the whole time: her hot skin in the bath, the veins in her arms, her freezing finger-ends in the cold northern winter. It bothers her now, whereas before it was just there and it didn’t matter. She hates the consciousness of it, but every time she tries to hide it, it seems to tighten its grip – telling her it is hungry, or thirsty, or fat, fat, fat. Grace covers her lap with her scarf; it feels better when she can’t see it, it helps to get rid of the feeling. If she doesn’t look down on it, then it isn’t really there.

  Grace sits on a sunlounger at her new best friend’s house and they eat Pot Noodles. Grace grazes on the chicken-and-mushroom-flavour variety. She loves the taste of it, and hates it when she gets to the bottom of the pot. She tried the other flavours but they didn’t match up, and so now she only eats this one, repetitively. She used to eat them without thinking, but now she looks at the hot, steaming pot and starts to think about every mouthful: every individual pea and noodle, each tiny drip of soya sauce and each fragment of chicken.

  She wasn’t considering food in that way before, and now she is – like in a moment she has been sucked into a different channel of thinking. And suddenly, every bit of food has a significance. Every mouthful has an important place, and she can’t determine (nor does she really try to determine) how it has become like this. Every food either goes on the ‘Yes’ or the ‘No’ list in her head. Pot Noodles are on the ‘Yes’ list, but she is thinking of moving them on to the ‘No’ list after thoroughly reading the ingredients and storing information about the calorie and fat content.

  Grace’s best friend watches her closely. Grace can see it, because all of a sudden she is quiet and awkward-looking, like she is thinking of saying something but doesn’t know how. Grace watches her back – her friend is twisting her noodles round her fork and slurping and sucking them into her mouth. She seems to be eating her Pot Noodles very slowly, Grace thinks. Grace watches how she does it, how she points her fork in the air as she makes some joke, or asks some question, between each mouthful. Grace thinks to herself that she must eat more slowly. That must be the secret of Best Friend’s thinness, she decides.

  ‘Do you want to make pancakes?’ Best Friend asks. Grace explains that she doesn’t want any more to eat after the big, hot Pot Noodles.

  Best Friend looks at Grace and says, ‘I’m worried about you. You should eat some more. You’re not fat. Honestly. You’re not fat in any way, not in the slightest.’

  Then Best Friend rolls up her trouser leg and pinches the back of her thigh and says, ‘I have cellulite too, you know. You shouldn’t feel like you’re the only one who feels fat, because everybody does; I do. You probably don’t have any cellulite or fat, or anything like that, anyway. Yeh. Does that help? Honestly, you shouldn’t worry.’

  Then she rolls down her trouser leg and smiles. Job done. Best Friend g
oes into the kitchen, puts the pot in the bin and decides to make some pancakes. She wonders if she should, when Grace is becoming stranger, and more of a stranger every day. But she decides that she wants some. She feels annoyed that Grace can’t seem to just pull herself together and eat some more, just a little bit, because she hasn’t been eating enough recently, not by a long way and everyone is starting to notice, and to worry. And so Best Friend heats up the butter on the gas stove and through the kitchen window watches Grace, who is lying on the sunlounger, with her legs covered by a towel, reading through the ingredients on the outside of her tub of food.

  Grace writes her diary every day. Mostly it is scribbled words about nights out and the boyfriend and moods and school stuff. Today things are different on the diary page; Grace writes something down which she can’t take back. On other pages, her writing is bold, exclamatory and thrown down quickly, but on this page things are different and a bit more considered. There are big margins at each side of her writing and so the words are squashed and reduced. They are neatly and quietly formed, afraid of themselves and afraid of their admission. Grace writes her diary for a second audience, never entirely for herself. She holds things back, just in case anyone finds it, reads it and she is exposed and shown to be not as good as everyone thinks. She imagines the repercussions – of being told off, of getting into trouble for drinking, for the boyfriends, for the thoughts – so, just in case, she is careful with her words. She is careful with what she says, and what she doesn’t say.

  revised. Everyone doing more revision than me. Feel so fat all the time. It’s so horrible. Tried to exercise but it just doesn’t seem to work. I am really obsessed and I can’t eat or drink anything without thinking what the calorie value is. I realize it’s a big problem and as this is the first time I’ve written about it, I think that is good. I just can’t wear any of my clothes or feel comfortable or nice any more. I’m no way going on holiday unless I feel thin. Nobody understands, all my friends worry about their weight, so to them it’s like no big deal. Reassurances help a little bit, although I think I know myself better than anyone does. I really want to get it off my mind so that I can revise properly.

  Grace decides not to say any more. The diet that started with eating everything but Easter eggs, then everything but chocolate, then everything but sweet things, then only pasta, then only rice cakes and tuna, no longer feels like a diet. In fact, it is no longer a public thing. It is not for anyone else’s consumption. Instead, an inside voice has started to take hold. A constant pressuring, pulsing voice, which reminds her, you are just not as good as you could be! She weighs eight stone, then she eats a bit less and then she weighs seven and a half. Monday mornings are all about new intentions, new resolutions, further ambitions to change shape and change everything around her as a result.

  I really want to succeed in these exams. It means everything.

  Grace decides not to write in her diary any more. After seven years of every-day, every-night writing, she decides to hold on to her words with all the power that she can muster. She folds in her secret. She sits tight on the lid. And she tries, tries, tries to be the thinnest that she possibly can. The limits are gone. A world of eating-related happiness and unhappiness has opened up and swallowed her whole.

  GAME ON

  Now it’s time to start the game. A chequered board. There is black and there is white. There is winning and there is losing. There is up and there is down. There are simple rules. Don’t try to make it more complicated, because it isn’t, not at this stage. It is like Snakes and Ladders in reverse; the winner is the one who gets to the bottom, who goes down, who slides, not climbs.

  Rules:

  Lower the numbers on the scales

  And, most of all, bluff your opponents.

  Are you ready, Grace?

  Warning – this game is addictive and once you start you might find it hard to get away.

  Squelch your fat and imagine a knife slicing right through it, cutting it off. It’s good to have a visual image like that from the start. Keep it in mind and remember, if you win then everything will be OK. If your fat goes then you will feel contented. Whatever you do, don’t sit still. Keep looking at your fat thighs and watch that fat blubber, lift it in your hands, pull it and play with it. Already there is too much of it, too much of you, too much space. Look at your stomach and imagine it smaller and flatter and tighter and less present.

  Tactic 1: Spin the lie:

  ‘I’m just eating too much,’ you tell yourself. ‘Much more than I need.’

  You must rise to the challenge, nobody likes a loser.

  Tactic 2: Cut it out. Make your move from words to action. Chocolate is indulgence. If you eat it you go up, if you don’t, you go down. Down is good. Less is more. Thinner is better. Thinner is success. At this stage it is important to normalize what you are doing. Give away a few details so your opponents don’t guess that you might have a master plan in mind. And anyway, at this stage you can’t jump ahead to more severe tactics – you haven’t got that far in the game yet. So start by cutting out the sweet stuff from your diet, starting from next Monday. It’s only a few, small, pointless pounds to lose.

  Tactic 3: Each week drop another item from your list of consumables and see how you are racing ahead. Look at the scales. The counter is moving in the right direction – down, down, down! See how each thing you stop yourself from eating makes you feel so much better. And no one is even trying to stop you. Where is the opposition? They are miles behind. They won’t resist your attempts to change because they don’t understand it, so you already have a flying start. Watch them all sit back and let you get on with it. Watch them as they eat their fish and chips with Tomato Ketchup on the sofa, watch their eyes and mouths with fascination. How little emotion they display when they put the cheese on toast between the teeth and swallow in careless mouthfuls! Can you feel that moistness at the back of your mouth? Now refuse. And all you can think about is the creamy taste of their cheese. Quickly, before you succumb, chew two pieces of gum to expel the desire. Can you feel the high?

  Tactic 4: Now the game slows down. OK, so you don’t have much energy, but you need to stick to the task. Just take a single plane. Focus in and don’t relent. Watch how the longings to move and eat and think and do just disappear. Purify everything, make yourself purer, better. Squeeze out the fat cells one by one.

  Tactic 5: You need to be quiet now. Don’t make a fuss and don’t let the opposition know what you are doing. This could be a fatal error. An interception now could be your downfall. One inkling of your strategy and they will be in there with the fish and chips and pasta and all the nasty things you have stopped eating. You just don’t eat those things, OK?

  Tactic 6: Stick to your patterns. The ones that make you comfortable. The strategies that keep you sane and driven. You need to keep driven to succeed – to be the best girl. Top marks. Top girl. You will soon find yourself waking at the same time each day, eating the same foods. There are foods now that make you feel repelled. How can people be so sloppy with what they ingest?

  Tactic 7: Things are really going well for you now, but to make it better you need to bring in some exercise. Start with ten minutes a day. Exercise is a good solitary activity. Your competition is all those other fat and lazy people who aren’t doing anything. Imagine them all lying on their sofas while you are succeeding, slimming and winning.

  Tactic 8: BANG. BANG. I’m here. Can you hear me? I am the winning spirit. The voice to take you beyond the place you currently inhabit. Can you believe that we have become such close friends already? Thanks for inviting me in. You know that I’m not going to leave. I can’t possibly leave. You opened a crack and I shifted my way into place. I am there every morning, all day and all night to help you win this. We can do it together, against them all. Best keep everything on the outside clean and tidy so no one can get through to you. I won’t let them. Let’s make sure it all looks spick and span. Dirt penetrates just like food, and we
must keep it out. Keep the control. Don’t slip. Don’t make one wrong move now or it will crash BANG down. BANG BANG BANG BANG. I’m here, Grace.

  Tactic 9: OK, so we need to keep this quiet. People are looking strange on the outside now. Just fold up. Folding up makes us smaller, and that can only be a good thing. That sick feeling which is permanently inside, that’s me keeping the crap out. The one thing they always get you to try, especially the girls, is alcohol. Just think how bad you will feel in the morning with all that slosh inside the pit of your stomach. Become the ‘friendly driver’ of the group. That will make everyone like you. Stick to Diet Coke with lots of ice. Just better make sure you locked the car door. Did you lock the car door? Is it locked? Do you want to go back and check and double-check? Can’t get it out your mind now, can you? Best plan the route home, and again, and have a backup, and second backup. Is it time to go already? You haven’t said a word. Just keep chewing gum and playing with your mouth and your packets of cigarettes. Stop the thinking.

  Tactic 10: They have got their eyes on you. You thought this was going to be easy. They were miles behind, but now they are starting to really play. You could do with taking a step back now. Move your pieces. Get out of their sight-line. Already you have to make concessions, taking the slices of toast that they offer you with a big smile. That smile really hurts. The numbers are starting to go up. They must be. It might not show on the scales but they are bound to climb if you don’t keep an eye on things. Already they are trying to break the routine that you have so carefully planned and implemented. Pah. There is no way now. Not a chance. They are all too frightened of saying the wrong thing. Their hand is weak, they aren’t going to show. You can carry on with your next move. They don’t believe you. They don’t make the connections. Congratulations. Phase one over. It is all black or white.