The Food of Love

by Amanda Prowse

  Miss Burke raised her palm. ‘No. It’s not a work issue, but more of a pastoral concern.’

  ‘Pastoral in what way?’ Freya wasn’t entirely sure what that meant.

  ‘I’m sure, as you know, it’s not always easy being a teenage girl in today’s society.’

  ‘It’s not always easy being a grown-up one in today’s society!’ She smiled briefly, trying to lessen the quake of nerves in her stomach.

  Miss Burke ignored her. ‘Has she ever mentioned her weight to you?’

  ‘Erm . . .’ Freya hesitated, wondering how to couch her response. ‘She’s very into healthy eating, which I think is a good thing. We are quite aware as a household about food and health; it’s part of my job.’ She smiled, trying to reassure the woman that on this topic she knew her stuff. ‘And she loves to keep fit. She runs and swims – we don’t live far from Westminster Lodge pool, which makes it easy for her.’

  She saw the way Miss Burke looked at her fingers, as if lining up her next phrase and not listening at all.

  ‘Lexi nearly fainted yesterday. She was very wobbly.’

  ‘Oh no! Poor little thing, she never said. I’m glad I’m collecting her, she sometimes gets the bus, but if she’s not feeling a hundred per cent . . .’

  ‘She seems fine, but I do have concerns, as I said.’

  ‘What concerns, exactly?’ Freya pulled the rucksack closer into her chest.

  ‘Mrs Janosik is head of PE, and also Lexi’s academic tutor . . .’

  Freya nodded. She had heard the name.

  ‘And she has noticed that Lexi has lost a lot of weight and is more often than not in the gym at lunchtimes or running laps on the field.’

  Freya felt the weight of the woman’s stare as she struggled to see the issue, considering it a good thing that Lexi had taken control of her health and fitness and had trimmed down her baby fat. Her chubby pre-teen weight had knocked her confidence, but now she was blooming.

  ‘When Lexi nearly fainted, she spoke to Mrs Janosik and told her that she hadn’t eaten anything since lunchtime the day before, when she had an apple.’

  Freya opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again, trying to picture her daughter’s recent mealtimes.

  She tried to recall exactly what had happened over the weekend. Last night at supper? Lexi had been out on a run when they ate. And then later? She heard Lockie’s shout: We have a grape thief in our midst! They’d all laughed. And this morning for breakfast? She hadn’t seen her eat anything, but she might have. It had been a rush, as it usually was. She couldn’t be sure of the specifics, but knew her daughter had sat at the table over the last week and dined – maybe a little less than usual, but she had eaten something, certainly.

  ‘It’s not like I don’t offer her food or have food in the house. There’s always plenty.’

  Aware of her defensive tone, she blushed.

  ‘I’m sure that there is, Mrs Braithwaite, but there’s a big difference between having food in the house and Lexi choosing to eat food or choosing not to. There is a pattern that we notice in some pupils who might be struggling with food issues.’

  Freya snorted a short burst of laughter through her nose, interrupting the tutor. There was nothing wrong with her child. Yes, she was becoming more body aware, maybe slimming down a little for a boy she clearly liked – who hadn’t done that? But ‘food issues’? If anything, losing her chubbiness was something to be celebrated; it could only be good for her future health and self-esteem.

  ‘I really appreciate your concern and calling me in, Miss Burke. I think it’s great that the school is paying such close attention, vital in fact. But I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick where Lexi is concerned. As I have mentioned, I am very food aware and have a great relationship with both of my daughters. I know them better than anyone and I think I might have noticed if one of them wasn’t eating enough or, as you are suggesting, had an issue with food.’

  Miss Burke sat back in the chair. ‘I understand how this must make you feel, and believe me it is in no way a criticism, but Mrs Janosik was concerned enough to take her to see the school nurse, who said that she thought Lexi’s situation was one we should keep an eye on. That’s all.’ She splayed her palms, as if to neutralise the situation, no harm intended. ‘No one is bandying around any labels or trying to inflate what might already be a sensitive topic. We are just saying we should all be aware.’

  Freya felt a complex range of emotions: concern that Lexi had been earmarked in this way; embarrassed that someone outside of their family might think that things were amiss; and angry that they had put this idea in her little girl’s head. She stood.

  ‘Well, as I say, thank you for your concern and please pass that on to the PE teacher, nurse and whoever else has taken time out of their busy schedule today to analyse my daughter’s eating habits. I shall have a word with Lexi and take it from there.’

  Miss Burke stood too. Her words, when they came, were considered. ‘I think how you talk to her about this might be very important.’

  Freya flashed her a look that made the woman hesitate. She folded her arms across her chest.

  ‘Wh . . . what I am trying to say, is that if you want to talk to me again, or any of the team here that are trained in . . .’

  Freya hoisted her rucksack over her shoulder, opened the office door and walked back to the reception.

  She had heard quite enough.

  She was relieved to place her key in the door, happy to be home, having spent the journey from school stealing glimpses of her younger daughter, who sat on the back seat, engrossed in her phone. She looked at the jut of her jaw, comparing it to Charlotte’s, glanced at her willowy legs, and tried to think of her own at a similar age.

  ‘Got any homework, girls?’ she asked casually, as she began unstacking the dishwasher.

  ‘An essay.’ Lexi pulled a face. Essays were her very worst things.

  ‘Well, if you want to work at the table, I can help you,’ she offered, resisting the temptation to grab her child and fire questions at her: What’s going on? They said you weren’t eating. Why did you faint? Was it for attention?

  ‘I’m okay.’ Lexi rebuffed the offer and made her way upstairs. Freya watched her go.

  Charlotte opened the fridge and selected a yoghurt and three leftover slices of ham that sat in a little bowl; she then reached up to the top shelf of the cupboard above the countertop where multi-packs of crisps lived, before selecting a bag of cheese-and-onion.

  ‘Don’t spoil your supper.’ Freya’s rebuke was almost automatic.

  ‘I won’t. I’m starving. What are we having?’

  ‘Erm . . . Spanish omelette, avocado salad, tomato salsa and home-made pitta bread.’

  ‘Lush!’ Charlotte rushed to her room with her bag and laptop in one arm and her haul of snacks in the other.

  Concentrating on the dicing of tomatoes, the deseeding of fresh chilli and the whisking of eggs helped take her mind from her concerns. She then mixed the dry yeast and sugar with lukewarm water in a large glass bowl, before adding the wholewheat and unbleached flours and placing the mixture on the coffee table in the window, waiting for it to bubble.

  When Lockie walked through the door, throwing his keys into the ornate Moroccan pottery dish they had picked up from the souk in Marrakech, she abandoned her preparation and practically ran into his arms.

  ‘Oh, well, I rather like this!’ He chuckled. ‘Think I should go away for the day more often if this is the reaction I’m going to get. Mind you, I have been gone for a whole eight hours.’ He ran his hands over her back as she buried her face in the space beneath his chin and inhaled the scent of him.

  ‘What’s up?’ He pulled away from her and held the tops of her arms, looking into her eyes.

  ‘I went to see Miss Burke today, at school,’ she whispered, before taking his hand and pulling him to the sofa in the den, away from the bottom of the stairs, where sound might travel. Lockie flopped down and she sat n
ext to him, twisting her body to face him.

  ‘Yes? How did it go?’ He too kept his voice low, taking her lead.

  ‘She said Lexi was a bit faint yesterday and they were worried that she wasn’t eating. They got the school nurse involved and it felt like a really big deal.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’

  ‘No, I am not kidding. I don’t know what to do about it or what to say to her.’ She bit her lip, waiting for his advice.

  Lockie’s eyes darted left to right, as if he were considering how best to approach this. ‘But she’s always eating, isn’t she? They both are, and you are always cooking. We are a house of grub!’

  ‘That’s more or less what I said. I mean, yes, she’s eating less, but I think that’s a good thing.’

  She sat forward, folding her hair over her shoulder, glad that they were on the same page, reassured by his dismissive tone. There was probably nothing to worry about. No school nurse or PE teacher knew their daughter as well as they did.

  ‘I mean, we do need to talk to her,’ he countered. ‘If she’s nearly fainted we need to find out why.’

  ‘Yes, of course, but I don’t want to make it more of an issue than it was, or give her any ideas. She said that Lexi has lost a lot of weight. I can’t see it. I mean, she’s lost a bit, but she looks great, healthy.’

  ‘Yes, she does,’ he agreed. ‘I don’t know what to suggest.’ He looked stumped.

  ‘It’s unnerved me a bit, Lockie. I don’t know how these things start, and I don’t want to paint her into a corner or accuse her of anything. It’s hard enough being Lexi as it is. She’s up there right now, struggling with an essay.’ She pointed to the ceiling.

  ‘Poor love.’ He smiled.

  They used the silent interlude to process the rush of thoughts.

  ‘How much does she actually weigh?’ he eventually asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I did when she was little, of course, but I don’t know what either of them weighs. I haven’t for a while; it’s a sensitive topic.’

  ‘But maybe it shouldn’t be. Maybe we should just ask, or get them weighed, and then we know what we are dealing with.’ He shrugged, as if it were that simple. ‘I mean, that’s what we need, isn’t it? A measurement that we can work from? Without that, it’s all guesswork.’

  ‘No, Lockie, this doesn’t work like that. It’s not something you can apply your bolshie logic to and make about weights and measures. We have to tread carefully.’

  ‘Do you mean because she used to be quite chubby?’ He looked at his thighs, picking at a thread on his jeans.

  ‘You see? You’ve gone coy. Your instinct tells you it’s a delicate subject and you’re right. It’s partly because she was carrying a bit of weight, but regardless of that, girls are very fragile when it comes to this kind of thing.’

  ‘How much do you weigh?’ he asked.

  ‘How much do you weigh?’ she countered.

  ‘Two hundred and ten pounds, give or take.’ The answer tripped from his tongue, his expression challenging.

  Freya swallowed. His instant, honest reply was something she couldn’t emulate.

  ‘Maybe it’s not only the girls who are a bit sensitive,’ he pointed out.

  Shooting her husband a withering look, she sat up straight. ‘This isn’t about me. I’ve always been tall and slim, it’s genetic.’

  ‘Darling, you are indeed tall and slim, but you do work at it.’

  ‘I don’t work at it that hard!’ She narrowed her eyes.

  ‘But you do, and it’s interesting you feel the need to deny it. You only eat healthy and lean, and I’m not knocking you, but it’s a fact: you are a bit obsessed with it.’ He held her gaze.

  ‘How did this become about me?’ She stood.

  ‘It’s not!’ He took a breath. ‘It’s about all of us, about our family and food.’

  She shook her head. ‘I know, you’re right. I guess it’s just thrown me a little. I worry about her dyslexia, about how she’s coping academically and socially, and I don’t want to have to worry about her eating as well.’

  Lockie smiled. ‘I know, but let’s bring it out into the open when it feels right and take our steer from her. How does that sound?’

  She nodded, reaching for her bowl of fermenting dough. ‘Sounds like a plan.’

  Freya placed the napkin-lined basket full of delicious-smelling, hot, fresh pitta bread in the centre of the table and put the plates in front of everyone, pre-loaded with a folded omelette, heaps of salad, and salsa. She watched as everyone, Lexi included, picked up a fork and dived in.

  Catching Lockie’s eye, she smiled.

  ‘So . . . Miss Burke asked me to pop into school,’ she began, as she helped herself to the pitta. ‘She said you nearly fainted yesterday?’

  Freya felt comfortable raising the subject in the warm family atmosphere, keeping it casual. She kept her eyes trained on her daughter, watching for any sign of embarrassment or a lie. She saw neither.

  ‘Oh God, Lex! They’ve found out about your glue sniffing!’ Charlotte guffawed, before folding a large lettuce leaf, slathered in dressing, into her mouth.

  Lexi ignored her, nodding as she chewed. ‘It was horrible; that’s never happened to me before. I had gym and forgot I’d skipped breakfast and I came over all whooshy.’

  ‘Whooshy is bad!’ Lockie added for dramatic effect.

  ‘I know, Dad.’ Lexi rolled her eyes at him. ‘I usually get a flapjack or something from the canteen, but I was chatting to Mrs White about the writing assistant for my exams and I ran out of time.’

  ‘How does the writing-assistant thing work?’ Charlotte was interested. ‘Do they give you hints and clues if you don’t know the answer? Like, “Are you su-u-u-re you want me to put D? Doesn’t C look more tempting?” That’d be so awesome!’

  Lexi reached for a slice of bread and shook her head at her sister as she finished her mouthful. ‘It’s not awesome. You have to sit in a separate room on your own and get your thoughts straight so that you don’t write down any old rubbish, and getting my thoughts straight is one of the hardest bits for me.’

  ‘It still sounds like a bit of an advantage.’ Charlotte forked a chunk of omelette into her mouth.

  ‘Yes, Charlotte, not being able to read or write as easily as everyone else is really cool, especially when I know what I want to say, but just can’t get the words out, or when I look at a page and the words literally jump under my eyes so I can’t even focus on one word, let alone a whole string of them, or when I spell my own name wrong, that’s always fun and I know it’s wrong, but I can’t see why, that’s a big advantage!’

  ‘She didn’t mean it like that.’ Freya tried to catch her daughter’s eye, offering a smile of reassurance and trying, as ever, to mediate.

  ‘It just makes me mad! Even Mrs White was trying to tell me the other day that dyslexia was a gift.’ She placed her fork on the side of her plate. ‘I’d like to know who decided it was a present I might enjoy. I’d ask if there was any way I could return it. In fact, I wish I could track them down. I’d suggest they gave it to Charlotte instead – sounds like she’d appreciate it much more, as it’s so awesome.’

  ‘Like the “Hello Kitty” poster Granny sent you for your birthday!’ Lockie chimed in.

  It had been the source of much amusement. Lexi was offended by the gift she deemed babyish, whilst Charlotte tried to explain that it was so naff, it was cool.

  ‘Yes, Dad, exactly like that.’ Lexi laughed, and Charlotte joined in.

  ‘Honestly, you two . . .’ Freya smiled at her girls, happy that they joked with affection, relieved that the topic had been raised and put to bed without drama, but mostly delighted to see her youngest pick up the fork and resume eating her supper.

  She pictured Miss Burke, feeling vindicated and secure in the knowledge that she did indeed know her girls better than anyone.

  Eight hours . . .

  Freya appeared to be sleeping on the sofa.

&nbs
p; Charlotte held the pen and wrote:

  I don’t know why this is in my head, but it is! Do you remember when we once went to stay with Granny – I think you were about eight? Mum and Dad had gone to France on a working trip and I don’t think I have ever laughed so much in my whole life.

  Everything was funny, but of course it wasn’t. It was us: we were funny, me and you. It felt like we had been let loose and we were giddy with the freedom. We woke up one day and decided to say ‘Fanny’ instead of ‘Granny’ to see if she noticed, and you managed it once – you looked at me first to check I was paying attention and then you said, ‘Fanny? Can we go and play in the garden?’ You pulled it off, spoke so swiftly, not even smiling a little bit and you were so proud of your performance, holding it together brilliantly, until you turned around and I was lying on the dining room floor, laughing so hard. I was wheezing and started shouting, ‘I’m going to pee!’ That was it. You started laughing too and we couldn’t stop.

  And Granny, wonderful Granny, bent down and said, ‘You can of course go and play in the garden. Just give Fanny a shout when you want me to unlock the back door.’ She never broke her stride.

  I’m smiling now, thinking about that day.

  You are brave and brilliant and clever. And even though you are younger than me, you are so much more daring than I ever was.

  I envy you that, I always have. Like when we were on the pier in Naples that night and it seemed so high up and Dad told you there were sharks in the water, but it didn’t faze you, not even a little. You just climbed up and teetered on the edge and then you leapt in the air.

  I watched from the rails, scared on your behalf. You looked so far away, your little arms pulling you through the water, visible only by your splash that was picked out by the moonlight. And Mum, covering her eyes, couldn’t bear to watch you jump. I didn’t think you would do it, but you did! Graceless and screaming, I’ll admit, but you did it, Lexi, you did it all the same.