The Food of Love

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘It’s not yet six in the morning, I have to say this doesn’t bode well.’ He gave a small smile. ‘I have been thinking similar thoughts, the times I’ve teased them both about eating sweets, told them they were too heavy to lift up – jokes, I thought. But now I’m not so sure.’ He sighed. ‘Another coffee?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  She opened her laptop and as she did so, a ding alerted her to a new email. She saw Marcia’s reply in the inbox.

  Freya, I am on my way.

  ‘Oh God! Marcia is coming over.’ She looked at Lockie, ‘I don’t want to see anyone and I don’t want to be sitting here waiting for her. I need to be with Lexi by ten!’ The idea of not being there on the dot, of missing a second of visiting time, filled her with panic.

  ‘Text Marcia, tell her that, she’ll understand.’

  She did as he suggested, only to receive a rather curt reply informing her that she was twenty minutes away.

  ‘I’d better go and grab a quick shower.’

  ‘Okay, coffee can wait.’ He nodded.

  Freya towel-dried her hair as she sat on the bed. Brewster was curled illegally on the duvet. If Lockie discovered him, it would mean instant dismissal. She nodded in response to the knowing look he gave her, as if they were co-conspirators.

  The front doorbell rang. Freya glimpsed her reflection in the mirror; she looked pale and flat – not that it mattered, not in the grand scheme of things.

  ‘Freya, the witch is here!’ Lockie called up the stairs, trying to lighten the mood and at least give the illusion of normal.

  She walked down the stairs to see her dear friend and agent standing behind her husband.

  ‘A witch who might cast a spell and turn you into a toad!’

  Marcia prodded Lockie in the shoulder with her long red-painted fingernail, a colour that clashed quite dramatically with her spiky marmalade-coloured hair.

  ‘Oh, could you summon me a new fifty-two-inch curved-screen TV first?’

  ‘That’s right, Lockie, if we could have one wish right now, it would definitely be for a new TV.’

  He ignored Freya’s barb.

  She pulled a face and slipped off the bottom step, into her friend’s waiting arms.

  ‘Freya, my girl, what are we going to do with you?’ Marcia spoke over her shoulder. Lockie trod the stairs to the studio, giving them privacy.

  ‘What can I get you? Coffee? Herbal tea?’ Freya perused the cupboard.

  ‘Herbal tea? Do I look like a hippie?’ Marcia scoffed.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this early in the day,’ she noted as she made coffee.

  ‘Yes, you have: when we were in Nice for that hotel opening and we stayed up all night mixing with the great and good, swigging champagne and watching the sun rise over Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. That was some party.’

  ‘I’d forgotten that. Yes, it was.’ She felt instantly guilty to be smiling at the memory, while Lexi was . . . Her face crumpled and her tears flowed.

  ‘Sorry, Marcia, I can’t help it.’

  ‘Don’t apologise. I get it. You are having a really shit time. I wish you had told me sooner.’

  Freya was grateful for the lack of padding on her friend’s summary.

  ‘Do you know what? Having you only half aware has meant that one aspect of my life wasn’t dominated by Lexi’s illness. It was an escape of sorts.’ Freya also knew that at some level, she hadn’t wanted to shatter the illusion that her lovely life with her two beautiful girls was not what it seemed.

  ‘How’s Charlotte doing?’

  Freya ran her hand over her face. ‘Poor old Charlotte, she’s having to fend for herself pretty much. I know how unfair that is, but it’s like the ship is sinking and my hands are busy bailing; everything else takes second priority. I keep telling myself I will make it up to her, but I’m sure that’s scant comfort to her right now.’

  She thought of how excited her daughter had been about her trip to Geneva and felt the spike of guilt go straight through her once again.

  ‘Your article was . . .’ Marcia paused.

  ‘You didn’t like it? That’s okay. I can’t even remember what I wrote; it just flowed.’

  ‘No, I did like it. I liked it very much, but it’s so raw, I wonder, if you want it published, it’s such a very personal statement of affairs . . . I thought maybe Lexi should approve it? I wondered whether it was more like a self-soothing therapy session. We both know that sometimes it’s good to get stuff down on paper, shift it from inside your head.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Shall I sit on it? Let you think, let you be? I’ll wait until you say you want me to push the button, if you want me to push the button, otherwise it can be between you and me. It’s a beautiful account, moving, thought-provoking, and I think one of the most honest pieces you have ever written.’

  ‘Goodness me, Marcia, are you sure you don’t want herbal tea? You certainly sound like a hippie.’ She laughed mockingly, the only way to dilute the pain of her friend’s words and to halt the next bout of tears that hovered close to the surface.

  ‘So what can I do?’ Marcia banged the tabletop.

  ‘Nothing, sadly, but I really do appreciate you asking.’

  ‘I feel helpless and useless and I’m not used to it and I don’t like it. There’s usually a solution that I can throw at things.’ Marcia sighed.

  Freya recognised her own frustration in her friend’s words. ‘I know and if it was a case of us doing something, she’d be fine, she’d be fixed by now. But we can’t do any more than we have,’ she acknowledged. ‘We have had to hand her over to people who know better than us, even if they don’t know Lexi better than us. And it’s not easy for me to admit that, Marcia. It hurts. And leaving her there last night was one of the hardest things I have ever done.’

  It was the first time she had said it aloud, and once the words had been exorcised, her body slumped a little, as if beaten.

  ‘I can only picture her as a little girl who needs her mum, and so when I’m not with her, it’s like I’ve abandoned her. I see her face constantly. We lost her once in the market – only for a minute, she had wandered off and I couldn’t see her behind a clothes rack. I remember feeling this blind panic, a surge of fear that I’d not experienced before, and suddenly there she was, standing in front of me, smiling. I don’t think she’d been afraid until she saw my face, and then she cried. I held on to her so tightly.’ She coughed and placed the mugs on the countertop. ‘But that blind panic, that adrenaline-fuelled surge of fear, that’s how I feel all the time. It’s like I’m waiting for her to stand in front of me again, smiling, and until she does . . .’

  ‘She’s lucky to have you. Both of you,’ Marcia whispered. ‘With you guys in her corner, I’d say she has every chance of beating this horrible thing.’

  ‘It feels like a war. And every time you think you are advancing, winning, the enemy comes at you from directions you haven’t got covered, with weapons that outweigh whatever you have. It’s exhausting.’

  ‘But this place she’s in, they’ll take away some of that burden, won’t they?’

  ‘Larchcombe House, yes, they will, I guess. They are . . .’ She paused and pictured the moment they put the tube into her nose. ‘They are giving her nutrition.’

  ‘It sounds like this might crack it.’

  Freya nodded. ‘I hope so. Otherwise what we are putting her through would be pointless. Truth is, Marcia, she’s my little girl! I don’t want her to go away, to be in a hospital with people like that.’ Her tears again pooled.

  ‘But what if it’s the only way she can get better? What if she is people like that?’

  Freya opened her mouth to reply, to rebuff, but there were no words, not this time.

  Two hours, thirty minutes . . .

  Freya listened but there were no shouts from the front door. Charlotte was clearly dealing with it, probably another delivery or unwanted package. She remembered the three books she had
ordered an age ago.

  Reaching down, she pulled the drawer open and there they were, pristine and unmarked: My Journey In and Out of Love with Food; Starvation and Me: A Tale of Anorexia; Ten Steps to Recovery from Self-Loathing to Self-Love. She once again let the books fall open at various pages and let her eyes rove over the painful accounts. She felt a spike of sadness pierce her core at the photographs of emaciated bodies and words that leapt from the page: ‘disgust’, ‘purge’, ‘decay’.

  Closing the pages, Freya remembered quietly putting the books in the bottom drawer of her desk, deciding it might be a mistake to read these very graphic accounts, written by women who seemed to be suffering to a far greater degree than Lexi. Now, however, the images were no more shocking than the sights she had seen every day in her own home, the declarations and descriptions no worse than anything she had regularly dealt with.

  This marker of Lexi’s decline brought a whole new level of sadness.

  How naïve she had been. How different her family life . . .

  ‘Mum?’ Charlotte crept around the door.

  ‘Yes, love?’ She wiped away her tears and tried out a smile. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Daddy’s back, he’d forgotten his key . . .’

  FIFTEEN

  They sat in the car park at Larchcombe House from 9.30, making sure they could go in on the dot of ten o’clock.

  As they entered, a harrowing wail of distress floated towards them. It was the sound of a girl crying; her distress, most extreme, made the hairs on the back of Freya’s neck stand up. When Mikey, the male nurse, spoke without mentioning it, Freya wondered if she had imagined it.

  ‘Beds are at a premium here. For every place available, we have at least five patients needing care, waiting, and I’ve seen that number double at times and so it’s a fairly intensive routine. It has to be. We need to get results in the quickest possible timescale and we need absolute compliance, otherwise patients, no matter what their condition, will be discharged.’ Mikey spoke openly as they trotted behind him, navigating the soulless, silent white corridor to Lexi’s room.

  ‘If they fail here, the only other option locally is Morningside Hospital, and that place makes Larchcombe seem like two weeks on the Riviera.’ There was something in his tone that suggested it might be a warning, and the idea of somewhere worse than this place was unthinkable.

  ‘Is Lexi being compliant?’

  She hardly dared ask, hating the use of the word when talking about the child she had always encouraged to be a free thinker.

  Mikey stopped and turned to face them, his manner that of a man who was weary of fighting against the odds. It was the first time Freya considered how hard it must be to be dealing with such a foul disease and simultaneously battling a patient who did not want to get better.

  Freya knew the statistics, could see that much of what he did was futile, and that not all of his patients would make it out alive. The thought that Lexi might end up as one of those they were unable to save was terrifying.

  ‘She removed her feeding tube.’ He delivered the words neutrally.

  ‘Oh, dear God!’ Lockie placed his hand over his mouth.

  Freya stared straight ahead, unable to imagine how that must have felt and what kind of emotional state her daughter must have been in to do such a thing.

  ‘We reinserted it this morning and she has been given her second syringe already. And we have sedated her further, just until things calm down a little.’

  He continued to walk, leaving the Braithwaites to follow in his wake, trying to take in the new, devastating piece of information.

  ‘What’s to stop her pulling it out again?’ Freya asked, wary of the response.

  Mikey spoke over his shoulder. ‘It won’t happen. She’s being monitored twenty-four seven. For now.’

  The wall gave way to a communal area on the right-hand side. It was a large sunny space with a laminated wood floor, well lit, with an assortment of tables, chairs and small sofas positioned in front of a television and others next to bookshelves, the contents of which looked a little sparse. More shelves held board games. Freya spied all the usual suspects: Monopoly, Uno, Trivial Pursuit. The sight of the games that were so familiar in their house, the ones they argued over at Christmas, while they laughed and nibbled on leftovers, caused a lump to form in her throat.

  Freya reached for Lockie’s hand as they strolled past patients. Nearly all were female and young. All in similar attire of baggy joggers and long-sleeved sweatshirts or hoodies, Lexi’s uniform of choice. And all with the skeletal frame and haunted eyes that similarly marked her daughter. Having spent time on Pro Ana sites and having spoken to Lexi at length, she knew that the pairs of eyes that now followed her progress along the dust-free floor would be taking in her toned flank, her pert bottom, her full bust, and they would be doing so with disgust. She felt horribly self-conscious, gripping Lockie’s hand even tighter and looking to the left, peering at closed doors, wondering what lurked behind them – anything other than meet the stares that scorched her skin.

  Her eyes were drawn to a laminated notice, stuck to a door with tape. It read:

  These toilets will be locked at all times. For entry please approach a member of staff who will be happy to escort you. Other toilets are available near the main desk and the kitchen, where members of staff are on hand at all times. Thank you.

  The words were followed with the little floral Larchcombe House logo, as if the addition of a petal or two might make the message more palatable.

  It didn’t.

  Even though she was impatient to see her baby girl, Freya felt her stomach lurch as they approached Lexi’s room. Mikey turned the handle and nodded to the tall nurse who sat in the corner.

  Lockie inadequately stifled a sob that filled the room.

  Mikey laid his hand on his shoulder. ‘I’ll be back in a bit.’

  The female nurse stood and wiped the creases from her pale-green tunic. ‘I’ll give you folks some privacy. Be back in a minute, Lexi. I’ll just be outside.’ She whispered the last bit to Freya, who nodded absently, her full attention given to her daughter.

  There was a smear of blood at the corner of Lexi’s nostril, whether from the insertion or removal of a tube she wasn’t sure – not that it mattered; both ideas were equally distressing.

  Freya took a step closer to her child, who lay flat on the mattress; a thin pillow had been placed under her head, which listed to the left. Her eyes stared in their general direction, but looked past them towards the wall with an impossibly slow blink, coming from eyes that looked empty.

  ‘Hello, darling.’ She tried her best to keep her voice level. ‘I missed you very much.’

  Lexi didn’t move, didn’t react at all.

  ‘Charlotte sends you all her love.’

  As her tears pooled, she turned to Lockie, whose colour had drained from his face. She managed to suppress the words of regret and sorrow that she wanted to hurl at him, at everyone!

  Tentatively Freya reached out and stroked her daughter’s narrow forearm with her finger. Still she didn’t react.

  ‘She’s out of it, Lockie.’

  He was unable to respond, his distress seeming to take up all his reserves and rendering speech impossible.

  ‘I can’t leave her here! I can’t leave her here on her own like this. I know she needs their help . . . but look at her, Lockie!’ she pleaded, a little louder than she had intended.

  ‘It’s going to be okay,’ he whispered. ‘It’ll all be okay.’ Whether his words were meant for her, Lexi or himself she wasn’t sure.

  The female nurse came back into the room.

  ‘How are we doing?’ she whispered, clearly alerted by her raised voice.

  ‘She hasn’t spoken and I’m not sure she’s noticed me,’ Freya admitted.

  ‘She’s been quite heavily sedated.’

  ‘Is it really necessary?’ Lockie’s voice was still hushed.

  ‘It is,’ the nurse asserted.
>
  Freya shook her head. ‘But only yesterday we were in A & E, waiting for her to see someone about her arm, and we chatted about stuff like’ – she wiped her nose – ‘like music and schoolwork, and just one day later I come and find her like this!’

  She let her palm hover over her child’s head. Lockie stood by her side.

  ‘I understand, but yesterday her heart rate was dangerously slow. It is vital we get nutrition into her system. I know this must be traumatic for you to see, but we only care about getting food into her. To remove a feeding tube you have to be pretty determined, but it’s that determination that can mean the difference between success and failure. We need to be more determined than Lexi; we need to take measures, like these’ – she pointed at the bed – ‘to get her to eat. That’s it. It’s that simple.’

  The nurse made it sound that simple; no one could fault her logic or question the strategy, and were they discussing any other patient, Freya could see that this was the right thing to do. But no one could account for the pull of her heartstrings linking her to the fifteen-year-old girl who lay on the bed. The child who was so frail she looked to be at risk of floating away.

  Stay with me Lexi . . . Stay here . . .

  ‘How was she?’ Charlotte asked, as she lay on the sofa in the den, her long legs crossed at the ankle, resting on the arm of the sofa, and her mood thankfully lifted from the previous night.

  ‘She was great! Doing really well. Sends you all her love.’ Freya beamed, but her fake smile and false demeanour was getting harder to enact. Lockie threw his keys into the bowl on the sideboard.

  Despite the fraught nature of their relationship at that moment, both were in agreement that they would do whatever necessary to keep things as positive as possible for Charlotte, whose exams were looming.