My Pear-Shaped Life: The most gripping and heartfelt page-turner of 2020!

by Harrington, Carmel

  As Greta hoped, her words made Billie laugh. Which turned to surprise when Ray gave Greta a dig who went on to say, ‘Of course my thighs are in perfect proportion to the rest of my body, which isn’t horrendous.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s what Noreen had in mind,’ Ray said to Greta. Then he turned to Billie and asked, ‘I promised you dinner Billie, and I’d love to make good on that promise. Will you join us this evening? I’d very much like that,’ Ray said.

  ‘So would I, Ray. Lucy is with Mama now, but she’s messaged me to say that she can’t stay late. So it will have to be a quick bite.’

  Ray felt crushed. It felt like brick walls were continually being placed between them. Fortune favoured the brave. It was time to go for it. ‘I understand you need to get home. But rather than just grabbing a quick meal here, why don’t we order a takeaway and eat at your house? If that’s not an imposition. That way, we’re in no rush and can have that catch-up. I really would like to hear how you’ve been. What your life is like.’

  And when Billie agreed, Ray began to feel a sliver of hope take root inside of him. Could this finally be his time to eclipse 1995?

  Chapter 23

  Lucy hugged Billie, whooping with delight when she saw her trophy. She placed it over the fireplace in the dining room. ‘You should be proud of yourself, honey. You worked hard for that. Susan has been asleep for about an hour now.’ She turned to Greta and Ray and said, ‘I’m sorry I have to dash. But I hope to see y’all again soon.’

  Billie said, ‘I want to wash this day away, so I’m going to take a quick shower. Top drawer under the sink you should find some menus for an Italian restaurant that deliver. Order plenty. I’m starving! And in the fridge, you’ll find drinks. Help yourself.’

  She closed the door to the kitchen and left them to it.

  ‘What do you think is wrong with her mother?’ Ray asked.

  Greta shrugged. ‘She’s keeping her cards close to her six-pack.’

  ‘Ha ha. Funny. Seriously, I’ve been trying to remember everything she ever said about her mother to me. She always spoke about her so lovingly back then. It’s a bit weird her being locked in her room all the time, isn’t it?’

  ‘She’s hiding something all right. What’s the game plan here, Uncle Ray?’

  ‘Order food and eat. Talk. I don’t know. I’m making it up as I go along.’

  ‘Don’t let her brush you off any more. You need to get her on her own and get her talking! I think you should try to bring Billie out for a drink. Surely her mama can manage for a few hours on her own. I’m happy to go back to our motel and watch the weather channels some more.’

  He laughed at this. They’d both discovered that while there were hundreds of channels to watch, most of them seemed to heavily feature the weather. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. Don’t waste this chance. Billie has been giving you the goo-goo eye too. I reckon she’s still got a thing for you.’

  ‘I thought I was punching?’

  ‘No doubt about it. But there’s no sign of another guy on the scene. Maybe she likes nerdy old men from Ireland.’

  He stuck his tongue out at her and started to look through the menu. ‘What will I order?’

  ‘She said she was hungry. So we’d better order loads. We can pick at it, buffet style. Get me some kind of salad too, will ya? And some roasted vegetables.’

  Ray rang the restaurant and placed the order.

  Billie came back, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Without the make-up, with her hair tied back again, she looked ten years younger. ‘You look pretty,’ Greta said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Small issue. They said they couldn’t deliver. So we have to collect from the restaurant,’ Ray said. ‘I’ll go if you give me directions.’

  ‘You’ll never find it,’ Billie said. ‘I’d go, but I can’t leave Mama.’

  ‘Is she still asleep?’ Greta asked. When Billie nodded, she said, ‘Well, why don’t you and Ray go to collect the food together? I’ll stay here in case your mama wakes up. And if she does, I’ll just tell her you’ll be back soon. Sorted!’

  ‘She’ll fret if I’m not here when she wakes up,’ Billie said.

  ‘Have you told her about us visiting?’ Greta asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Then, it’s all good. Go on, you’ll be back in no time, she won’t even know you’re not here.’ Greta shooed the two of them out the door, then began to hunt down plates and glasses. The dining-room table looked like it also worked as a dumping ground. Piles of newspapers and magazines were on one end, with unopened white and brown envelopes beside them. And a vase with flowers that looked like they had died a death weeks before. She began to clear and clean, then laid the table, ready for food when it arrived.

  ‘Billie? Is that you? Billie?’ The mama was awake.

  ‘Billie’s stepped out for a minute,’ Greta shouted back. ‘I’m Greta. Did she tell you about Uncle Ray and me? Do you need anything?’

  ‘Fresh water. I’m thirsty. But I can wait until Billie returns.’

  Greta poured a glass with water from the tap, then made her way towards the bedrooms. Curiosity might have killed the cat, but Greta didn’t care. She assumed the only door closed belonged to Susan, so she knocked on it. ‘I have that water for you.’ She knocked again and, when there was no answer, felt a prickle of panic. What if something had happened to the woman? She was supposed to be watching out for her. She opened the door and looked in.

  A huge bed took up most of the room, and in the centre of it, a face peered out from under the duvets. She was alive at least.

  ‘I have your water. I’ll just leave it here.’ Greta walked over and placed it on the bedside locker. ‘Can I get you anything else?’

  Susan reached over and took the glass, drinking it down in one go.

  ‘Wow, you were thirsty. Here, I’ll go get you another.’

  ‘Could you fill the jug please?’

  ‘Sure.’ Greta picked up the jug that sat on the locker. As she filled it in the kitchen, she inhaled a lung full of air. Greta waved her hands in front of her, in an effort to get rid of the clawing, sickly smell that hit her when she’d walked into Susan’s bedroom. It reminded her of the smell of baby wipes that used to be in their house when Emily had done a spell of childminding a few years back.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ Greta asked Susan when she walked back in her room. ‘We’ve ordered from an Italian restaurant. Uncle Ray and Billie are gone to get the food.’

  ‘She said that some friends from her scouting days were in town. Where are you from? Scotland?’ This was followed by a wheeze, huuuu-hhhhhh, huuuu-hhhhh.

  So it was her lungs. Asthma? ‘That’s what Lucy thought too. We’re Irish through and through. Do you want to get up for a bit? Get some fresh air? I can help you.’

  Susan patted the bed. ‘No, I’m fine here. But sit down and visit for a while. Open the window for a bit, though. I know it’s stifling in here.’

  ‘It’s been snowing outside, so it’s cold,’ Greta said. ‘I’ll just open it for a few minutes, I don’t want to freeze you!’

  ‘I don’t feel the cold, honey. I’ve got my own thermal blanket. Open it wide and then tell me how your uncle Ray knows my Billie.’

  ‘They met at the World Scout Jamboree a hundred years ago. And fell in love. They used to write to each other all the time,’ Greta blurted out, then realized that she might have exposed a secret.

  ‘She used to go around the house like a lovesick puppy waiting to hear from him. I remember. Why did he stop writing to her? Did he meet someone over in Ireland?’

  It was good news that Susan knew about Ray. And even better that Billie did love him, but the wires had been crossed somewhere. Greta didn’t know whether to say something, correct Susan, or leave it. Her gut told her that she should interfere. Ray needed her help and she was going to give it to him. ‘It was Billie who stopped writing. She broke Uncle Ray’s heart.’

  Susan loo
ked puzzled. ‘I was sure she told me that he’d finished with her. But to be honest, back then things were a bit messed up.’

  Greta saw something flash across Susan’s face. Recognition of something. ‘How so?’

  Susan ignored the question. ‘Oh, I do declare, where is my head at? I nearly forgot! Did she win the competition?’

  ‘She came third.’

  Susan beamed at this news. ‘Good for her. I wish I could have seen her.’

  ‘She was incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it. Why didn’t you go?’

  ‘I don’t go out much any more.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I could give you a long-winded answer, about my lymphoedema, my arthritis, my knee and hip pain, but the truth really is quite simple. I’m too fat to get about any more. Getting dressed is a bit like a workout for me. It’s easier to just stay in bed.’

  Greta took a beat before she answered. Susan’s words shocked her. The raw honesty of her words. No dressing things up or down. She respected that. ‘You don’t look that fat.’

  Susan laughed. ‘I’ve a thin face, compared to the rest of me. But trust me. I’m fat.’

  ‘I’m fat too.’

  ‘Not a bit of it. You’re a slip of a thing!’ Susan said.

  ‘I don’t think anyone has ever called me that before. I’ll take it! But let’s just agree that if I’m not fat, I’m definitely not thin either. I’m at the point where you can tell that Tayto crisps have played a part in my life.’

  Susan smiled then said, ‘Well, I’m at a time in my life where I break beds for sport. This is the third one I’ve done in this year so far.’

  ‘You need to buy one with stronger springs.’

  ‘Hah! That I do.’

  ‘I broke a deckchair once. We had a week last year in May that was glorious. I decided to sit out the back and try to get some colour on me. All I ended up doing was getting a red backside when I hit the ground!’ Greta admitted. Aidan and Ciaran had laughed for a week about that. She remembered thinking, this is it. Rock bottom for me. No more excuses. And she started a diet that lasted a week or two at most.

  ‘I like you,’ Susan said.

  ‘Kindred breaker of furniture spirits?’ Greta joked and they both laughed.

  She grabbed her phone from the back pocket of her jeans. ‘Here, look at some photographs of Billie on stage.’

  ‘I can’t believe that’s my girl.’

  ‘I’ve never seen so many muscles on so many tiny women in my life. The dedication it must have taken to get to that point.’

  ‘Oh honey, looking like Billie isn’t sustainable for most. But there again, looking like me isn’t either. I think the trick is to find the middle ground somewhere between us two extremes.’

  Greta wondered if the reason for Billie’s need for a lean, mean body was in response to her mama’s bedridden body. Looking at Susan, she recognized something in the woman’s face. Something she’d lived with for a long time. Resignation that this was as good as it gets. Acceptance that there was no turning back. But that wasn’t true for Greta any more. She was changed. She wanted more for herself. ‘I’m working on finding that middle ground,’ Greta admitted. ‘I’m trying to make better choices with my lifestyle. But it’s hard.’

  ‘Good for you, honey. Find a way to live your best life, that’s what I say. Eat potato chips if that’s what you want. Just not every day like I’ve done, though. What do they say? You’ve only one body and you’ve—’

  ‘Already ruined it!’ Greta interrupted her, and when she saw Susan frown, added, ‘Joke!’

  ‘Ah, you’re the funny one,’ Susan said.

  ‘So I’m told.’

  ‘And if you make fun of yourself first of all, then no one else can do it, right?’ Susan asked.

  ‘Busted,’ Greta admitted. ‘You don’t miss much, do you? You know something? I’m so bored of the whole fat conversation I have going on in my head, with my mother … It’s exhausting.’

  ‘How long have you been having that conversation with yourself, honey?’ Susan asked.

  Greta remembered the moment it started as if it were yesterday. And when Susan reached over to clasp her hand as Greta relayed the story to her, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. Greta was ten years old, and her mam had bought all three of them a new Christmas jumper. Emily was bouncing with excitement, her camera already out, ready to snap a photograph. Aidan and Ciaran slipped into their new blue argyle knits in less than thirty seconds. But Greta couldn’t get her jumper over her shoulders. She tugged it hard, but it wouldn’t budge – stuck half on, half off. She was sure her mam had bought the wrong size. And so was Emily. But the size was correct. It was Greta who was wrong. After that, her mam started to buy larger clothes for her and, even though she never said anything, she could see her watching her, monitoring her food. And her dad began to make comments about the need to watch what she ate, almost every day.

  ‘God, it breaks my heart that children as young as that worry about their size. But it happens. You know I read a report recently that 81 per cent of ten-year-old girls and boys are afraid of being fat. When did you go on your first diet?’ Susan asked.

  ‘When I was thirteen. Dad suggested we all give up treats. Aidan and Ciaran weren’t impressed. I overheard Dad telling them that they had to do it for my sake, because I was getting too pudgy. I felt so guilty, that I had failed and it was impacting them now too. I think ever since then I’ve been on and off diets continuously.’

  Greta thought back to all the trips she’d had to the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre with her mam as a kid. Each time, they would end up going up another size, until there were no more kid sizes to go up. When she was twelve, she ended up wearing adult clothes. And she remembered standing in front of a mirror in the changing rooms of Marks and Spencer, sucking in her stomach because it looked too big. For decades now she had wanted to be skinnier, better, than she was. Food became both her enemy and her best friend, in a messed-up, abusive relationship.

  Susan said, ‘Diets never work unless you’ve got your head in the right place.’

  ‘My problem is that I have an addictive personality. Once I’m hooked on something, I find it hard to say no. I had help from a dietician recently to help me with that. She’s tough, but I don’t know, she just seemed to work for me. She talks about balance a lot. She says that if I want a bag of Tayto crisps, then I should eat one. But I have to eat an apple to redress the balance. It kind of clicked with me. Maybe it’s time for you to look for guidance? There must be someone who can help you get back on your feet,’ Greta said.

  ‘I think I’ve left it too late,’ Susan replied sadly.

  ‘It’s never too late to change. But I’m going to shut up now, because I know there’s nothing more irritating than someone talking to you about losing weight when you haven’t got any inclination to do so yourself.’

  ‘That’s for sure. I’ve heard it all. My problem is up here.’ She pointed to her head. ‘I might be fat, but I’m not stupid. I know my head has sabotaged my body for years.’

  Greta knew that feeling. How many times had she allowed her emotions to control what she put into her body?

  ‘I think us women have made a big old mess of ourselves in this world,’ Susan said.

  ‘So what’s the answer?’

  ‘The way I see it is this – you’ve got this body and you can choose to take care of it, or you can abuse it. If you do that, one day it will give up on you. Take me as proof of that very point.’

  ‘I always forget that part. I usually go straight for the second bag of Tayto. I never know when to say no,’ Greta admitted.

  Susan looked at the curtains that fluttered and flew into the room, as the wind from outside swept in through the open window. ‘Before this –’ she waved at her body – ‘I had a life. A good one. We went on holidays with the children, throughout America. The best times of my life, back then. When we were all together. Oh, the sights we saw. Some peo
ple prefer a glass lake, perfectly still and even, without a mark. Me, I prefer the ocean, with its ebbs and flows, different colours and swells. It’s perfectly imperfect as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘So the answer is to be like the ocean?’ Greta asked.

  ‘It’s one answer.’

  ‘And maybe I need to surround myself with more people who like an imperfect ocean too.’

  ‘Now you are getting it,’ Susan said, patting her hand.

  Greta thought about all the ways she put herself down. She looked down at her stomach, which gave her so much pain.

  ‘You said you have an addictive personality, Greta. How about you make a new addiction to be kinder to yourself? Can you try that?’

  Could she start to love her body, with all its imperfections? She thought about the waves on Curracloe beach, somewhere she’d holidayed as a child. She pictured them crashing to the shore, then receding back to the ocean, leaving a trace of foam behind.

  Greta blinked tears away and nodded once. A promise to Susan and, more importantly, to herself. She was going to try just that.

  Chapter 24

  ‘Hey Mama,’ Billie said, walking in. ‘Is everything OK?’

  ‘Everything is fine. I’ve been chatting with this lovely young woman. Congratulations. I hear you did real good. Come here and give me a kiss.’ She wrapped her arms around Billie and stroked her hair.

  ‘I got third. I’ll go get the trophy.’

  ‘Why don’t you come out to eat with us, Susan? We’ve ordered enough food to feed an army.’ Then Greta blushed and said, ‘Sorry, not inferring you need that much food.’

  Susan laughed. ‘It’s OK, honey. My ego has long since been that fragile.’

  ‘I’ve laid the table and there’s a spot just for you,’ Greta said.

  ‘It looks really nice out there. Thank you for that,’ Billie said. ‘But I’m sure Mama would rather a tray in here.’

  Susan thought about it for a minute, then said, ‘You go on out, Greta, and I’ll follow on in a bit. Get me the wheelchair, Billie, I think I’ll eat with our guests tonight.’