by Lucy Diamond
She shuddered there in the driver’s seat, feeling small and sad and vulnerable. Remembering how broken she’d been for a while, how she hadn’t been able to imagine a way through the darkness. Oh, help, this had been a mistake, she shouldn’t have let herself get talked into coming this far, she thought despairingly. Why had she allowed Margaret to bulldoze her into it, rather than listen to her own instincts?
She put her hand on the key, wondering if she should just turn it again, restart the engine, bail out with some excuse. She could blame a flat tyre, a sudden stomach bug that had erupted on the motorway; she remembered, from all the times she’d phoned in sick in the past, that if you went into enough graphic detail, people just said, ‘Okay, don’t worry about it’, simply to shut you up.
But then a smartly dressed woman walked through the car park, carrying a large bag as she headed for the school door, and Bunny knew this would be Sally Coles, her contact, who’d be leading the slimmers’ group; and – yes, right on cue – just as she was thinking this, the woman turned round, spotted her skulking in the car and changed direction. ‘Hello. You must be Bunny!’ she cried, as Bunny rolled down her window. ‘Excellent, you found us all right, then? We’re so looking forward to your talk. You’re an inspiration!’
No turning back now. Bunny hoped her bright smile of reply was enough to cover up the inner clenching of her heart, the dismay she felt at being there. ‘Great,’ she said. ‘I’ll be five minutes. I just need to make a quick call,’ she added, which wasn’t actually true, but would at least mean that this woman wouldn’t stand there and wait for her.
‘Absolutely,’ said Sally. ‘Well, we’re very easy to find – straight through the double doors and into the main hall. I’ll be setting up for the next twenty minutes, so you just come on in when you’re ready.’ She beamed, showing neat white teeth. ‘You’re really going to motivate our group. Thank you so much for coming.’
‘Thank you for having me!’ said Bunny in the most enthusiastic voice she could manage. You’re an inspiration, she repeated sternly to herself as Sally trotted away and unlocked the school doors. She had lost over half her own body weight since she lived in this area, she was happier and more confident than she’d ever been. Nobody pushed Bunny around or made her feel worthless any more. ‘You’ve got this,’ she told her reflection as she dusted powder onto her nose and sprayed on an encouraging blast of perfume. ‘Don’t look so scared. It’ll be over in an hour. Think of everything you’ve been through to get here. You’re a survivor.’
She glanced over her shoulder at her broad cardboard doppelgänger, propped faithfully in the back seat as ever, and cringed a little at that wide, fake printed smile, the smile that had never quite reached her eyes back then. In hindsight, it was a smile that said: I’m lost in this big old body, I’m hiding here and hoping things will get better for me. But in the meantime, I’m going to self-medicate with chips and wine until I feel I can cope.
Oh, Rach. Poor old big, fat Rachel.
‘You’re not her any more,’ she reminded herself under her breath as she got out of the car, then opened the passenger door and reached in for her old unhappy self, her arms circling the wide cardboard waist like an embrace. ‘You’re Bunny, and you can do this.’
Her mother had started the nickname, back when she was about seven. With a fuzz of fluffy blonde hair, round blue eyes and – yes, okay – endearingly protruding front teeth, the affectionate ‘My little bunny’ soon became ‘Bunny’ or ‘Bun’. Little Rachel would twitch her nose obligingly, just like a real rabbit, and it made her mum laugh and ruffle her hair. Bunnies were so cute! Who wouldn’t want to be called that, anyway? The pet name stuck, for years and years, until she was a self-conscious teenager and suddenly would rather die than stand out from the crowd in any way, let alone with a seriously uncool name. And so ‘Bunny’ went, along with the goofy teeth (thanks to the local orthodontist) and she was Rachel again, ordinary Rachel with spots and a tendency to blush; Rachel who was good at netball and swimming, popular with both girls and boys. She had breezed through school and college and her first couple of jobs, until . . .
Well. There was no need to go into how she’d fallen for charming Mark Roberts and how everything ended up going wrong. Especially not now, when she was standing in front of a room full of people waiting for her to begin.
She tapped the microphone, took a deep breath and then gave them all her best and brightest smile. One more time, with feeling. ‘Good evening, everyone. My name is Bunny Halliday, and I’m delighted to say that nine months ago I was voted SlimmerYou’s ‘Slimmer of the Year’, having lost almost ten stone!’
Cue a generously thunderous round of applause.
‘This was me, three years ago,’ she said, gesturing to her portly cardboard twin, propped up beside her. ‘There I am, with that big old smile on my face. Doesn’t she look happy? you might be thinking. But no. Deep down inside, I was not happy. I was bingeing on ice-cream and biscuits. I would think nothing of eating a family-size pizza all to myself for dinner, along with chips, onion rings, chicken wings . . . the lot. Side orders don’t count, right?’
A few smiles of acknowledgement greeted this comment, and she went on, emboldened.
‘So no, I was not happy. I slept badly and had very little energy. The thought of doing any exercise was just so embarrassing, I couldn’t face it. Swimming at the local pool, where I’d have to wobble along, thighs quaking, to the edge of the water? Forget it. Go jogging around my local streets to be smirked at by teenagers or, worse, overtaken by pensioners on mobility scooters? No, thanks. It was all I could do to wheeze my way into the kitchen for another snack and then back to the sofa to watch telly. Even that felt like an effort.’
She paused, trying not to think about how Mark’s voice would become dangerously soft sometimes when he came in at night and saw her there. Fat fucking bitch. Look at the state of you. ‘The irony was,’ she went on, trying to push him out of her thoughts, ‘that I had reached this size and all I wanted to do was shrink away, where nobody could see me.’ She cocked her head, a self-deprecating expression on her face. ‘You’d think I might have twigged that there was a better way of achieving that than getting even bigger, right?’
Rueful laughter, several people nodding. They knew her. They were with her.
‘According to my doctor, I was morbidly obese and in danger of becoming diabetic,’ she went on. ‘My blood pressure was high, I was at greater risk of having a heart attack, a stroke – all kinds of alarming conditions. I felt pretty miserable, I can tell you. Pretty defeated. I made excuses not to socialize because I could feel people judging me. I could hardly look at myself in the mirror any more, because I was so ashamed of what I’d become. I felt like a bad person, basically. And yet . . .’
This was always the part when she could feel the audience shift in their seats and lean forward hopefully. Because here, right down at the depths of despair, came the turning point, the moment of change.
‘And yet, there was one small kernel within me that held out,’ she went on slowly. She always felt her fists clench when she reached this bit of the story, that same old determination taking hold of her. ‘One small shred of me that still had some dignity. Which said: Something’s gone wrong here. This is not the person I thought I would be. And do you know what? The only one who can fix the situation is me.’
You’re very good, Margaret had said, the first time she saw Bunny give one of her talks. Very sincere. I’ll see if I can get you some TV coverage, they’ll love you. (‘No,’ Bunny had said immediately. ‘No TV. I want to be as low-profile as possible. If it’s all the same to you.’)
A man in the audience had his hand up and she gave him a quick, pleasant smile. ‘I’ll take any questions at the end, by the way,’ she said as an aside, before continuing down her well-worn path. ‘So I decided I would make a change. To hell with what other people thought. I was going to get fit – but not because the doctor said I should. Not because of
those kids shouting “Fatty!” at me in the street. Not because I felt bullied into it by all the many, many unkind remarks I’d heard made about me, either to my face or behind my back. No.’ She let her pause hang in the air for effect. Work it, girl, said Margaret in her head. ‘I was going to get fit and lose weight because I wanted to. Because I wanted to change.’
More nods from the audience. Some people already had that glassy-eyed look of reverence as they listened, although the man with his hand up was still trying to get her attention, she noticed with a flicker of irritation. ‘Excuse me,’ he called, waggling his fingers.
Bunny ignored him. ‘It’s not easy, though, is it? Making that decision and then sticking to your guns,’ she went on. ‘All of you, I can see, have taken up a similar challenge. Just by coming here, you’ve made a commitment, you’re on your own journeys. So you’ll understand when I say that for the first few weeks I found myself wondering if—’
‘Excuse me,’ the man said again, louder this time. He was actually waving his hand from side to side now.
Bunny broke off, losing her thread, glancing round to try and catch the eye of the group leader, Sally, who’d introduced her. Wouldn’t somebody help her out and shut this man up? But nobody was coming to her rescue, so she smiled at him tightly. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to save questions for the—’ she began, but he was already talking over her.
‘Is it true you stabbed your husband?’ he called out.
A ripple of astonishment spread through the audience like a Mexican wave, while Bunny stood there, stunned. ‘I . . .’ she stuttered, the ground seeming to rise and tilt beneath her feet. ‘What? I . . .’
‘I never forget a face. It was you, wasn’t it? Married to that Mark Roberts fella? My uncle lived next door to the pair of youse. Bakerfield Road, right?’
Bunny was going hot and cold all over. She swallowed hard, her mouth dry, her mind in freefall. ‘No,’ she did her best to say. ‘You’re mistaken.’ She could feel the audience eyeing her differently all of a sudden; there was a chilliness in the air, a terrible stillness, as every single person began recalibrating their impression of her.
Maybe she’s not one of us, after all.
Did she really do that?
And she’s got the nerve to stand up there and lecture us!
Sally had hurried over to the man and had a hand on his arm, leaning close to him. The spell was broken, noisy chatter bursting out like gunfire amidst the hall. Every survival instinct in Bunny’s body was telling her to run, to get away, forget the rest of her talk and escape in her car, as fast as she could, back up the motorway. ‘Did you really stab him?’ a woman called out from the crowd, with a mix of horror and fascination, and Bunny felt her face turn scarlet, hot and humiliated – the feeling of being unmasked, a disguise ripped off her, leaving her stranded there vulnerable and afraid.
‘I’m sorry about this, everyone,’ Sally said, wringing her hands as a large bloke hauled the man out of the room.
‘I was only asking a question,’ he protested, twisting in his captor’s grip and glaring back at Bunny. ‘Get off! This is assault, this is. Get your hands off me!’
Bunny’s heart was pounding. She was trembling all over. Fight or flight, fight or flight, her body said, adrenalin going berserk through her veins. And then a cool, determined voice in her head said, Fight. Fight on. Keep talking. You were just getting to the good bit of the story. Big smile and keep going. Don’t let that bastard beat you.
So she gave it her best shot. Even though she felt very much like crying, even though she was shaken and unnerved, and sweat was drenching the back of her top, she stood there and rolled her eyes comically and said, ‘Do you know, I must have got one of those faces; it’s a nightmare. Because everyone thinks they know me! This happens wherever I go – someone thinks I am their niece’s friend, or that I used to work in their local pub, or that I was at school with them. Mind you, the response I’ve just had tonight was a bit more dramatic, granted.’ She even managed a tinkling laugh and the audience, God love them, laughed along with her, their faith in her seemingly restored a little bit.
Keep going. Keep breathing. ‘But just in case you were wondering, let me assure you right here and now: my other half is very much alive and uninjured, and is probably sitting at home with his feet up on the coffee table, watching Sky Sport as I speak.’ She arched an eyebrow. ‘Well, that’s what he told me earlier, anyway . . .’ More laughter. Thank goodness. She’d turned the sinking ship around, no matter that she was talking about Dave rather than her ex. ‘Now, where was I? Ah yes. Those difficult early weeks.’ She pulled another funny face. ‘The weeks from hell. My goodness, I’m not going to forget them in a hurry . . .’
On she went, her speech salvaged, her composure just about recovered. Outwardly, at least. Because inside she was on fire with the terror and mortification of what had just happened; she had gone hurtling straight back to the bad old days, to the bleep and whirr of the hospital machines, to the policeman taking notes and asking her to sign a statement, to the stony-faced jury in the courtroom.
Somehow she was still talking on automatic pilot, she was saying all the right things in the right order, she had drawn her audience back so that they were rapt, hanging on her every word. But oh boy, this was it – she was done, she thought to herself as she paused for breath. Just as soon as this was over, just as soon as she was allowed to leave, she was driving back home to Dave and safe anonymity. And whatever Margaret said, however coaxingly she pleaded, Bunny was never doing this again, never, and that was that.
Chapter Ten
Something strange had happened to Alison since the night of the thunderstorm. She couldn’t put her finger on the exact moment things changed, it was more that there had been a gradual dimming of her usual ebullience, as if her happiness dial had been turned down low. After finishing work on Monday, she found herself driving the long way home and stopping for petrol, even though she still had half a tankful. She paused to chat to the lad at the cash desk, until she realized he was glancing behind her apologetically to the customers waiting their turn, at which point she turned bright red and stuffed her purse back in her bag.
‘Some of us do actually want to get home tonight, you know,’ somebody muttered unkindly as she scuttled past.
It was only when she was sitting at the wheel of her car again, key slotted in the ignition, that the words resonated fully. Because unlike the grumpy woman in the queue, Alison didn’t feel her normal enthusiasm for going home. In fact, when she thought about walking in there and sitting down in her usual spot in the living room, she realized with a start that she felt almost . . . well, depressed, at the prospect.
Depressed, she scoffed to herself in the next moment, starting the engine and driving away, rolling her eyes at her own melodrama. Her, depressed! It was ridiculous. Of course she wasn’t depressed.
But then when she was inside and the front door was closed behind her, the feeling descended upon her again, this sort of gloom, settling like soft, chilly snowflakes in her hair, on her shoulders. She’d always thought of her house as cosy, her little refuge from the rest of the world, but tonight the walls seemed to be closing in. The very air seemed to be smothering her. Knowing it was irrational, knowing that she was overreacting, she found herself walking straight through to the kitchen and out of the back door, where she sank down onto the doorstep, breathing heavily.
Daft woman. What had got into her, carrying on like this? Maybe the lightning had zapped a few of her brain cells when it frazzled her telly. Elbows on knees, she put her head in her hands, waiting for the feeling to pass, listening to the sounds of people having a barbecue in the garden behind hers. She could hear Lois next door laughing with her little daughter, and a couple of kids singing in another garden as they bounced up and down on a trampoline, and even though these were all happy noises of people enjoying themselves, for some reason tonight they just made Alison feel like crying.
It wa
s bewildering, frankly. Discombobulating. She never usually felt this way. She’d always cherished her evenings at home, looking forward all day to that moment when she walked in and closed the door behind her, leaving the rest of the world behind. Telly and a TV dinner – that suited her; you couldn’t beat telly and a TV dinner, she’d always said. Only all of a sudden, it didn’t feel quite so enticing. It didn’t feel enough any more.
It must be hard being on your own sometimes, Alison, Jeanie Mortimer said in her head, with that cloying sympathy, and Alison felt her hackles rise. Because she was fine. She was absolutely fine!
And yet . . . She kept spooling back to the moment her TV screen had blanked, the horror she’d felt at the prospect of an evening without it. You’d think she was some kind of an addict, the way she’d panicked at being cut off from her drug, terrified of having to face her own solitude.
She stared unseeingly out at the garden, absent-mindedly listening to the shrieks and squeals coming from next door, where Lois’s daughter was splashing about in the paddling pool. Music started up from somewhere – the barbecuers’ house perhaps – and she found herself getting up and turning away, unable to bear the sounds of other people’s enjoyment any longer. Then, crossing the kitchen, some impulse compelled her to unlock the door to the garage where Rich’s beloved old car sat, the red Jensen Interceptor, his pride and joy. When he’d died, she’d given away or sold a lot of his possessions, but she hadn’t quite been able to bring herself to part with his car. Not after he’d spent so many happy hours ‘tinkering’, as he called it.
‘You’ve still got that old thing?’ Robyn said periodically in a disapproving sort of way. ‘And you don’t even drive it?’, as if her mother was soft in the head, far too sentimental for her own good. ‘You should flog it, Mum, I bet it’s worth a fortune!’
