The Food of Love

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘Charlotte?’ Freya lifted her head from the arm of the sofa and stared at her daughter across the study.

  ‘It’s okay. I’m right here.’ She twisted in the chair to look behind her.

  ‘Is Lockie still asleep?’

  Her tears clogged her nose and throat as she laid her head back down, pulling the soft mohair blanket up to her chin.

  ‘I think so, Mum. Do you want me to go and wake him?’ She closed her eyes, unwilling to give in to the emotion that threatened, not while she still had a job to do. Tears would have to wait.

  ‘No. Let him sleep.’ Freya’s stifled sobs provided the background noise, as Charlotte once again picked up the pen and set the nib on the paper.

  FOUR

  The radio news programme burbled away, providing the background noise to their morning.

  ‘Shall I ask Toby if he wants to come with us to Charlotte’s concert?’ Lexi asked as she packed her pencil case and PE kit into her school bag and arranged her folders in a way that made them easier to carry.

  ‘It’s up to Charlotte. If she doesn’t mind, then yes, of course!’

  Freya smiled, unwilling to admit that she would welcome the opportunity to study the boy at closer quarters. The two had been friends for three months, but still Freya’s interactions with him were limited to polite, fleeting hellos and goodbyes that did little to reveal his nature. It wasn’t that she disliked him, far from it, but there were certain traits that both she and Lockie found a little ‘off’. He had a tendency to whisper to Lexi, speaking at a volume that excluded others in the room, and when asked a question would look at Lexi and answer, as if communicating via a ventriloquist’s dummy. Both habits verged on infuriating.

  ‘Maybe we could go out for supper afterwards?’ Lockie suggested, as he pressed several buttons on their rather complicated coffee machine. It beeped and gurgled and gave off an unpleasant grinding sound. ‘We still owe you a birthday dinner,’ he reminded her.

  Lexi had eschewed the traditional family meal out and had instead celebrated with Fennella and friends, as was befitting a newly minted fifteen-year-old with the world at her feet.

  ‘Don’t press all the buttons, you’ll just confuse the machine.’ Freya tutted at her husband.

  ‘It’s a machine. They don’t get confused.’ He pressed another button while holding his wife’s eye, just to annoy her.

  ‘Stop it, Lockie. I’m not joking. You’ll break it. And trust me, that’s a situation neither of us wants to find ourselves in. Me without decent coffee is one thing; me without decent coffee because you have broken my machine is quite another.’

  Lockie pointed his finger and let it drift towards the machine. Freya dashed from the den towards the counter. Reaching up, she grabbed his hand and tried to wrestle him away from the area.

  ‘No bending fingers back!’ he shouted as he manhandled his wife towards the table, finally securing her in a bear hug from which she couldn’t wriggle free.

  ‘Okay! Okay! I give in, let me go!’ she squealed through her laughter, hating to be so confined.

  ‘I will, but only on the condition that you teach me how to use the coffee maker,’ he bargained, easing his grip anyway and letting her go. ‘And I mean a proper lesson, delivered patiently with plenty of time for sample testing and questions.’

  ‘I tell you what.’ She placed her hands on her hips. ‘Instead of that, I will make you a cup of special coffee whenever you want it. You only have to shout and I will prepare you a flat white or a cheeky espresso, whichever you want, but please stay away from my beautiful machine.’

  Lockie kissed her on the cheek. ‘You’ve got yourself a deal.’ He winked at his daughter. ‘Works every time,’ he whispered as he swept past, and down towards his studio.

  Charlotte now hammered down the stairs; a segment of wavy hair sat like a genie’s ponytail on top of her head and the rest hung limply around her shoulders.

  ‘Have you seen my hair-straighteners, Mum? I can’t find them and I need them.’

  She did that: spoke far too quickly the more urgent a query, or the more stressed she was by the problem at hand.

  ‘Yes, good morning to you too, darling. Try the basket in the bathroom, under the hairdryer.’

  ‘I have. I bet you’ve taken them.’ She gritted her teeth and turned her head, accusing her sister.

  ‘I have not!’ Lexi’s voice was unnaturally high.

  ‘Please don’t get so flustered. It’s hair-straighteners, Charlotte,’ Freya reminded her. ‘Not the Crown Jewels.’

  ‘I know, but she just takes my stuff all the time without asking.’

  ‘I do not, Charlotte. I have my own stuff. You did this last time, going on and on about your fake ID and Tara had it all the time.’

  ‘What fake ID?’ Freya’s ears pricked up.

  ‘Nice one, dork!’ Charlotte stared at her sister, who shrank under her withering retort. ‘It’s not mine, Mum. It’s Milly’s. I was just looking after it for her.’

  ‘Oh. Well, I don’t think Milly’s parents would like her having a fake ID.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell them, are you?’

  ‘Of course I won’t. I only see them when collecting or dropping off, and only then from the car window. Can you imagine me calling them up, just to drop Milly in it?’ Freya rolled her eyes at her daughter’s apparent lack of faith, whilst secretly enjoying the fact they shared this minor confidence.

  Charlotte looked relieved.

  ‘We were just wondering,’ Freya asked nonchalantly, ‘whether it might be an idea to ask Toby if he wanted to come to your concert.’

  ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe you’d even think about that. He’s in my year, don’t forget, it’s bad enough that she wants to hang around with him, let alone my mates seeing him at my concert. No way!’

  ‘I just thought it might be nice . . .’ Freya tried to defend the suggestion, watching as Lexi’s face turned puce.

  ‘As if he’d want to go to your stupid concert anyway. I’m not even going – it’s going to be crap!’ Lexi stormed from the room and up the stairs.

  Freya shook her head. ‘I honestly don’t understand how a basic chat can turn into such a scene. It mystifies me every time. And here I am again, stuck in the middle of you two bickering.’ She threw the tea towel on to the table. ‘I sound like a broken record.’

  ‘But you’re not stuck in the middle, are you, Mum? You are very definitely on her side, you always are.’ Charlotte sniffed as her lip trembled.

  Freya walked forward and took her in her arms.

  ‘I am on no one’s side. That’s a ridiculous thing to say. I love you both, you are both part of me, and when you try to tear each other apart, it’s as if you are hurting me.’

  ‘She gets away with murder, she always has, just because she’s the youngest and because of her issues with school and stuff.’

  ‘That’s not true, love. I am equally horrible to you both.’ She kissed her child and tried to lighten the mood. ‘You are both hormonal and a little anxious. You’ve got your A levels coming up, and Lexi’s got her practice tests, and you are both trying to figure out this whole transition from teenager to woman, and it’s not easy. I get it. But we can make it easier by talking about it, by talking about everything. I’m here if you need me. Dad too.’

  Charlotte shrugged loose, rolled her eyes and left the room.

  ‘Well, that went well.’ Freya poked her head around the door. ‘We’re leaving in twenty minutes!’ she called up the stairs.

  Freya hated to think of Lexi brooding over her sister’s comments, and wanted to smooth things before she went to school, knowing that if she didn’t, she’d only worry about her all day. She knocked and entered Lexi’s bedroom.

  ‘Hey, darling, just to say . . .’

  She stopped speaking and watched as her daughter shoved the wide drawer of the divan bed, closing it with a slam. She jumped up from where she knelt as if scalded.

  Freya stared, per
plexed, as Lexi darted to the other side of the room and back again, as if unsure where to go, hoping for a hiding place, until, realising that she was trapped, she came to a standstill in front of her mother, with her hands on her hips. It was a stance that Freya had rarely seen. Lexi’s chest heaved, as if she were breathing too quickly, and her eyes were wide.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Freya let her eyes focus on the drawer that had been so hastily shut.

  ‘Nothing.’ Lexi stared, unblinking. There was an edge of fear to her voice.

  ‘Have you hidden your sister’s hair-straighteners?’ She felt a flash of irritation.

  Lexi licked her dry lips and looked at the drawer, then at her mum. She nodded, quickly, with a small smile playing about her nervous mouth.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ll . . . I’ll give them back to her. I’m sorry.’

  Freya noticed the sweat that sat in tiny droplets on her top lip.

  ‘Are you feeling okay?’ She took a step closer and heard the sharp intake of breath as Lexi took a step further backwards, her calves now resting against the bed, blocking the drawer. Her child looked sickly, afraid.

  ‘What’s going on, Lexi?’ she asked again, concentrating on keeping her tone level, her voice calm, unwilling to give rise to the concern that was growing at her child’s furtive behaviour.

  ‘I didn’t want you to shout at me and so I said I hadn’t taken them, but I had and I’ll give them back to her. Can you just go and let me get ready? Please!’ She swallowed again; tears pooled in her eyes.

  ‘I don’t shout at you. Not really. I mean, I might raise my voice to get things done, but you seem really scared, and the thought of you being scared of me is horrible.’ She gave a short, unnatural laugh.

  ‘Found them!’ Charlotte shouted from her bedroom. ‘Tara had shoved them in my laundry basket.’

  It was as if Charlotte called from the end of a long tunnel: her words had a vague, echoey quality. Freya twisted her head, as if asking the question Why? Why would you lie about that? Why would you lie at all?

  Lexi sank back on to the mattress, sitting and staring at her mum with her hands in her lap, as both tried to figure out their next move.

  ‘Open the drawer, Lexi,’ Freya whispered, as her mind raced, her daughter’s lie having sent her imaginings into overdrive.

  She thought of the things she hid in her room, things she wanted to keep secret: one or two bits of sexy lingerie that Lockie had bought, half in jest, that she wore on occasion; receipts for items she had bought with money they didn’t have; and a love letter from a time before Lockie. None of these fitted – certainly not a receipt – and there wouldn’t be this much fuss over a love letter. That left underwear: her best bet. She pictured the hapless Toby and felt her jaw tense in anger. If he has touched her . . .

  ‘There’s nothing in it, Mum. Please just leave me alone!’

  ‘If there is nothing in it, then you won’t mind me looking.’

  Freya walked forward as Lexi leapt from the bed; she grabbed her mum’s wrists, holding them fast as the two were trapped in a bizarre dance, both too frightened by the other’s reaction to move. Her husband’s footsteps travelled up the stairs.

  ‘Lockie!’ she called, her voice shrill.

  He pushed open the door and stared at two of the women he loved standing in the middle of the bedroom, his daughter restraining his wife by the wrists.

  ‘What the—’

  ‘Hold her, Lockie,’ she snapped.

  He stepped forward. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Please, Dad!’ Lexi called, her fear finally manifesting as tears that slid down her cheeks.

  ‘Darling! What is it?’ He pulled her from her mother, holding her flat against his chest, with one hand on the side of her face, as she shook against him.

  ‘Leave me alone! Both of you, go away!’ she shrieked. ‘Get out of my room!’

  ‘It’s okay. Whatever has upset you, it’s all okay.’ He tried to calm the child, his expression one of bewilderment.

  ‘Don’t open it, Mum! You have to trust me! Please!’

  Lexi’s pleas fell on deaf ears as Freya dropped to her knees and pulled the drawer that slid open with ease. It made no sense: she came to face to face with an old hoodie from year seven and a random pillowcase that they had taken camping once or twice. She looked at her daughter, as if trying to understand her strange reaction to these innocuous items.

  Lexi lifted her head from her dad’s chest and looked at her mum, who was crouched on the floor.

  Freya stared at her daughter and all three were silent and still, a precursor for what was about to unfold.

  Lexi’s eye flickered to the drawer and back to her mother’s face. Freya noted the way she looked: not at the hoodie, but at the space behind it. She reached her hand in and grabbed the fabric of the pillowcase.

  The shout was deafening.

  ‘No! Don’t you go through my things! Don’t you dare!’ Lexi screamed as if her life depended on it. She sank down on to her knees as her dad dropped to the floor with her, trying to cradle her, trying to calm her while she shrieked and railed.

  Charlotte appeared in the doorway. ‘What the hell . . . ?’

  Freya removed the item of clothing and stared at the neat rows of carrier bags, each deliberately packed and knotted about halfway down, then folded in on itself. Some were double-bagged, and all were arranged with precision, covering the base of the drawer.

  ‘What on earth . . . ? Is it drugs?’

  Freya asked the questions to both her children and her husband, as if one of them might be able to give her the answer she sought. Lockie shrugged and continued to hold Lexi, who seemed to go floppy in his arms, as if the fight had left her.

  Freya selected a plastic bag at random. ‘What is this, Lexi?’

  ‘Please, Mum! I am begging you just to put it back and get out of my room!’ Lexi tried one final time.

  Freya ignored her, feeling the weight of the soft, pouchy contents in her palm. It weighed little more than an orange. Gingerly, she dug her nail into the tight twist of plastic and wriggled her finger into its centre until she was able to loosen the knot.

  ‘No!’ Lexi continued to scream.

  The smell was instantly overpowering, filling Freya’s nose and mouth and causing bile to rise in her throat. It was disgusting, putrid and offensive. It was the smell of her daughter’s vomit.

  ‘Good God!’ Lockie placed his hand over his nose and mouth and released Lexi as he made for the window and opened it wide, letting the clean air carry away some of the stench.

  ‘Urgh . . . that’s disgusting!’ Charlotte reeled and walked backwards into the hallway.

  ‘I don’t . . .’ Freya re-tied the bag and stared at the thirty or forty similar bags, jam-packed into the space under her child’s bed.

  Miss Burke’s words, so easily dismissed, echoed in her mind: There is a pattern that we notice in some pupils who might be struggling with food issues. It was as if she had discovered the last piece of a puzzle in a game she didn’t know she was playing. The suggestion had been there, and now here was the evidence: how had she missed it? She felt her stomach bunch in fear, her mouth dry.

  ‘Could you leave us for a second, Lockie?’ She spoke calmly.

  ‘What do you mean, leave you? I want to know what’s going on!’

  Freya stood and nodded at him. ‘Please, Lockie, just give us a few minutes.’ Reluctantly he stepped from the room.

  Staring at her daughter, who lay coiled on the floor, she spoke rationally.

  ‘Lexi, I need you to stand up.’

  Lexi didn’t move.

  ‘Listen to me. I need to understand what is going on here. Today is the day it stops. It’s the day we start to get this sorted out. I need to figure out what’s been going on and then we work out how to go forward, but I need you to stand up. Right now.’ She tried to keep the impatience from her voice.

  Her daughter pulled herself into a sitting position, carefully
avoiding eye contact.

  ‘Stand up, Lexi,’ she repeated.

  Eventually she stood, facing her mother, but with her head hanging forward, her hair forming a curtain over her face.

  ‘I need you to take your clothes off for me.’ She spoke quietly and slowly.

  Lexi shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘Yes! I need you to take your clothes off here so I can see you, so I can understand what’s going on.’

  ‘I don’t want to!’ she cried.

  Freya swallowed. ‘I know. I know, honey, but right now, this is not about what you want. I am telling you, as your mother, to take off your clothes.’

  Lexi lifted her head and, with tears streaming down her face, she gripped the bottom of her sweatshirt and slowly peeled it up over her body. Next she reached for the buttons of her polo shirt and, with trembling fingers, she slipped them through the buttonholes and pulled this too over her head.

  There were yet more layers beneath.

  Freya stared at the long-sleeved T-shirt with thick vest over the top that gave her daughter a fuller outline. She stepped forward and, reminiscent of the thousand times she had helped this child undress as a toddler, carefully lifted the vest, and then the long-sleeved T-shirt, pulling them over her head to reveal not one, but two sports bras. Deftly she eased Lexi’s school trousers over her hips and let them fall to the floor. And there they stood.

  Lexi shivered, standing in her underwear, in the cold wind that whipped around the room. Freya shivered too, but not with cold. Her eyes lingered on the large knobbles of spine on her child’s back that had once been covered with a comfortable layer of fat. Her ribs were visible from the back and front and her bottom was all but flat, her stomach concave. Her whole body seemed to be covered with a fluffy blond down, particularly visible on her arms and legs.

  It was only with her child stripped down, without the artifice of her sweatsuit or the many layers that she had used to deceive, that Freya could see just how thin she had become. Pulling the duvet from the bed, she wrapped it around her little girl and held her close. It was then that her tears came, and her loud sobs, heard outside, brought Lockie’s knock on the door.