Losing It

by Jane Asher

  Just then something happened that could be seen in the context as being extremely unfortunate, but that for me, in my particular parallel universe, was unexpected and wonderful. We were interrupted by Mozart’s Fortieth. Heaven knows why that’s what she’d chosen for me – I’d have guessed that Oasis or whoever it is now was more her style, but then the darling girl never fails to surprise me. Scrolling through the choices on the phone and making me laugh as easily as she always can, she’d said something about it being ‘a pretty tune’ and had insisted that it was right for me.

  Judy looked quite startled. ‘What on earth is that?’ she said.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I answered, taking the phone out of my pocket and standing up.

  ‘But you don’t have a mobile – you’ve always said you wouldn’t be seen dead with a – Charlie! Don’t walk away from me! Listen to me!’

  But I had already disappeared back into my real world. I pressed the little phone to my ear and smiled to myself as I walked into the hall. On hearing her sweet voice I immediately forgot everything else and concentrated on her news.

  ‘All the tests were OK, Charlie – isn’t it brilliant? I have a date! I need you, Charlie – come home. Come home as quick as you can!’

  Stacey

  Oh, Crystal – I just can’t believe it! I’m over!! I’m on the other fucking side (excuse my language but I’m just soooooooooooooooooo excited that I gotta tell someone how I feel and you’re my bestest friend and I wanna be able to say ANYTHING to you). I had the surgery last week and I’m OK, although it was pretty awful and I’ve been through a kind of hell and back. But I don’t have to tell you!!

  My angel Charlie took me to the hospital for registering or whatever they call it and I felt sooo nervous I can’t tell you. I had to sleep the night there and they kept weighing me and I had to give samples in jars and all that stuff and they was taking my blood pressure and I kept thinking they was going to say, ‘No! You can’t have it done after all,’ but they didn’t and I kept kinda half wishing they would so’s I could just go back home and have some chocolate and forget it. Can you believe that? I was actually wanting to go and eat some chocolate when I’d come so far!! Fucking weird I am, I tell you. Anyway, in the morning I had to put on one of those gowns that do up at the back and then they checked everything again and weighed me again (like I needed that like a hole in the head, as my mum says) and then I had a few minutes back in the room so I rang my mum to say goodbye just in case. (I’ve got a phone next to my bed and a telly of my own and it’s really like a hotel here ’cos I’m private!! Cool!) That made me really upset ’cos I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her all on her own. I didn’t care about me – I really didn’t, ’cos I’d kinda made up my mind I didn’t wanna go on living the way I was in any case, but I knew she was so worried and scared and that made me feel really bad.

  But I did it, and I managed not to cry too much and then I had to say goodbye to Charlie. Well, that was OK. I mean, he’s really sweet and all that, and he’s been good to me over all this and paying for it and that, but it’s not like he’s family – d’you know what I mean? So I didn’t feel anything much, except a bit sorry for myself when I saw how frightened he was at the thought of me maybe not coming through it. I suppose he felt about me not coming back like my ma did, but I couldn’t really get so worked up about that. I mean he’s only known me for a few months or whatever it is, for fuck’s sake, so he can’t really care about me in the same way she does, however much he likes to feel me up and all that. D’you know what I mean? But I kinda pretended to be all sad and stuff, ’cos the poor cunt’s paying for it and he’s left his wife and all so it was the least I could do, I thought.

  They took me down into this little room and the guy who was going to put me to sleep (whooops! Not like my old dog, I mean!!) had to search for somewhere to put the needle in and in the end he managed on the inside of my arm where my elbow bends. He asked me to start counting and I really thought I’d get to ten but I think at about four I was OUT!!! Weird!! After that I don’t remember anything. Not even in the recovery room, where they told me I was talking away like anything. Hope I didn’t say nothing embarrassing, like the way I talk in the pub when I’ve had a few drinks.

  It all went OK anyway – or so they tell me. I remember being wheeled back into my room and I saw Charlie there so I gave him the thumbs-up sign. I didn’t feel nothing – they’d given me loads of morphine. They made me walk that same night which was awful but I was still a bit woozy from all the drugs so I just went along with it, but I couldn’t piss for anything, so in the morning they put a tube in me and that was such a RELIEF!! Whew!! So many tubes then, ’cos I had one for oxygen and the one in my arm still – which kept beeping on the machine if I bent my arm so’s I had to keep it straight all the time which was real annoying – and tubes into my tummy and fuck knows what else. Wired for sound I was, I can tell you. They made me keep trying on the loo, even after I’d been through the tube, and it was so small to squeeze onto it in the space next to the wall that it didn’t help. Can you believe that?? A place that does surgery on fat people and the loo is normal size?

  Most of the doctors and nurses was great and really funny, except one called Angela, who was a bitch. Anyway, on the third day they told me I could go home, and that’s where I’m writing from now. Well, not really home, of course, ’cos we’re too far from the hospital to stay at Mum’s, so we’re in a bedsit hotel thing which is OK. But it was really hard not eating anything and just having all the liquid stuff. I got Charlie to bring back a tub of Kentucky Fried Chicken just so’s I could watch him eat it – that sounds crazy but you know what I mean, don’t ya? And I grabbed one piece of it and stuffed it in my mouth and chewed it and chewed it and I spat it out in the rubbish bin. It was so good just to feel something I could chew, and getting the taste really helped although I felt a bit sick for a while.

  I went back to the hospital for my first check-up yesterday and I’ve lost 12 pounds since the op one week ago!! In one week!!! I’m so excited, Crys, it’s unbelievable. I knew I was feeling different and have even been imagining that my chin rolls was smaller … but maybe they are!!

  The surgeon was really pleased and said I can add soft mushy foods to my diet as well as a little crispy food – YIPPEE! I came straight home and ate some cream crackers – just two of them with some mushed-up sardine on them. It took me over half an hour to eat them, ’cos I chewed each bite twenty-five times like they told me – I felt really full!!

  Is my life really changing? Am I going to have a life after all? I can’t believe it.

  Love and kisses

  Stace

  xxxxxxx

  Charlie

  I wasn’t that surprised when the letter came. In fact I’d been expecting it for some time but hadn’t realised that, of course, it would have difficulty finding me – I assume enough gossip had got through to chambers for them to know I wasn’t living at home any more, but I hadn’t given them a new address so it must have been a bit awkward. Having failed to reach me by phone – I’d been ringing in every day up to a week or so before to avoid giving them my mobile or Stacey’s home numbers – they clearly decided that to send it to the house was the only option. Amazing that Judy bothered to do anything with it, though I presume that, seeing the headed envelope, she guessed it was bad news and took a delight in making sure I got it. Particularly in the way that she did it – very inventive, I must say, and guaranteed to cause as much embarrassment and humiliation as possible.

  She’d left my name, but had crossed out our address and written next to it in red felt tip: NOT KNOWN AT THIS ADDRESS – TRY c/o THE FAT CHECKOUT GIRL AT SAVAMART, VICTORIA STREET. Clever that. Double whammy – or at least intended as such – to upset both me and Stacey in one fell swoop. Didn’t work like that though as far as Stacey was concerned, as only Lena saw the original envelope, which she showed me later and in private, and she opened the letter and put it in a new envelope which she s
ent to me up in Manchester. The supermarket must have had a good laugh – I can just imagine old Chipstead splitting his sides over it, and showing it to all the Andys, Sheilas and Denishas. I wonder if Lena read the letter? It would have been hard not to, but she’s been remarkably inscrutable about her daughter’s boyfriend’s disgrace if she did so. She certainly hasn’t said anything to me – very restrained.

  So I am out of a job. I might have been able to save it had the letter reached me sooner, but it was already past their pathetic little deadline before I got it. I’m not at all sure that I would have tried, in any case – all I felt was relief that I wouldn’t have to leave Stacey any more during the daytime when we returned to London. The wretched business of paying back the mounting interest on the loan and earning a living will sort itself out somehow or other; the main thing at the moment is to make sure Stacey’s recovery continues to progress and that she has everything she needs.

  Her new eating regime unsettles me: I miss having meals with her, and not being able to buy her little treats of boxes of chocolates and the jam doughnuts she used to adore. I started buying her flowers instead, and I just loved the way she looked so excited when I brought them back to the bedsit we were staying in for the first couple of weeks after the op. I don’t like the way she keeps measuring herself, though, and standing on the scales – it’s getting obsessive. She just laughs at me when I tell her, and says she was always just as obsessive before but I didn’t see it because she did it all secretly. I worry that she’ll end up anorexic – she talks about eating all the time, and how much she can fit in her new tiny stomach. She even tried a mouthful of chocolate pudding the other day to see if it would do what they said it would – and it did. She was really ill with the ‘dumping’ syndrome that they warned us about from the sugar and had to lie down. She was thrilled – says it proves it’s working.

  She’s right – she does seem a little thinner. She’s even looking forward to going back to work, so she can show the others. I don’t care, naturally, how she looks, as long as nothing threatens her health: I think she’s probably lost enough – she should stop worrying now and just eat as much as she can in the new stomach situation and concentrate on building up her strength.

  I wish they hadn’t been so accommodating about giving her this time off: I’d rather she didn’t go back to that ghastly supermarket at all. I’ve offered to support her (haven’t thought how the hell I’d manage, but I know I’d find a way), but she says she wants to work and that I must stop interfering. I’m feeling – how shall I put it? Very insecure about things. A sense of dread.

  Chipstead

  I had to pretend to be pleased when Stacey returned, because I feel very strongly about enforcing the company policy on staff morale. I first became aware of the importance of individual staff motivation when I was promoted to senior manager – I had of course received the usual training from my supervisor on becoming junior manager, but it was the spring seminar that really opened my eyes, and you’re not invited to them until you’re a senior. I was privileged to be invited to the seminar last March at the Dulton Hotel and Golf Club just outside Skegness, where the company line on skill-enabling and multi-tasking performance scheduling was explained in detail.

  We were treated to a very nice meal on the Friday evening, then a day of meetings on the Saturday during which we were encouraged to bond with the other senior managers in informal groups of six. Each group was given a set of questions for discussion, and after a bit of a nervous start I felt I made a healthy contribution to the debate. On the Sunday morning all the delegates were re-assembled in the ballroom and the group leaders (not including myself on this particular occasion but I’ve been advised there’s a strong possibility I might be one next year) stood up and read out the results of the previous day’s deliberations. It was excellent and very motivating, and I felt quite proud of our Victoria store when results were analysed and added to the flip chart at the back of the room. (What a wonderful invention the flip chart is! I can’t think how I would manage without the one I have installed in my office: a brilliant tool for staff reminders and so on.) The rest of the Sunday was spent in relaxation and colleague bonding – I found the whole experience AI.

  So I felt obliged to express my satisfaction at Stacey’s safe return from her operation, although, between you and me, the average till speeds have been noticeably faster since her departure four weeks ago. She told me the procedure had gone well, and, I must say, she did look considerably brighter on her return yesterday.

  Her obesity has never really been a problem for me as regards her work (although I do sometimes wonder whether customers fill their trolleys less fully when confronted by the sight of Stacey waiting for them at the checkout. Bit of a startling reminder of the effects of overindulgence.) It’s more her attitude which has been the stumbling block to her progression: we all understand feeling a bit down in the dumps from time to time, but Stacey’s glum expression and lack of conversational skills do put off some of our regulars no end. So if this new, brighter outlook is going to continue I shall be well pleased – I noticed she was attempting the occasional smile at the customers, and she’d put some mascara or eye shadow round those unusual eyes of hers. She even appears to be working a little faster – will wonders never cease?!

  I thought Sheila looked absolutely stunning when she came in this morning: that short skirt really shows off her legs and as for the tight, stretch top with ‘Baby’ on it in glitter – well! What can I say? It was all I could do to stop myself taking a good, long look straight at those fabulous breasts of hers. All the girls know the next spring seminar is not that far away, of course – I’m not stupid! We’re allowed to invite a guest to join us for the Sunday afternoon and evening – preferably another SavaMart colleague – and Denisha and Sheila are both hoping I’ll ask one of them. I may well do so, in fact. The company gives us tea in the afternoon and the dinner dance in the evening is out of this world. I felt quite lonely last year being on my own – I didn’t like to invite anyone along until I had seen what the others were doing. I’d hate to have brought one of the juniors, for instance, and then found everyone else had one of the management team as their guest – would that have been embarrassing or what? I did have a couple of dances with one of the secretaries from head office accounts whom I’d come across during one of my training days, but as she was there as a guest of my regional manager I certainly wasn’t going to monopolise her – even though she’d been at the wine quite heavily and made it clear she’d have been happy to have a one-to-one finance meeting in my bedroom, if you get my meaning! But now that I know a considerable number of the invited guests were at junior level, I shall feel quite at home with whichever of my girls I invite. Still a few weeks to go, though, so I’m not going to rush into asking one of them – I’d like to be absolutely sure they’ll be suitable before I mention it. Sheila does tend to wear rather revealing clothes (I’ll never forget her outfit at last year’s Christmas staff pub quiz at the Bear) and she might be a bit out of her depth at the Dulton. Class will out, as my mother always says. Now there’s a woman who knows about style.

  Crystal

  Hiyaaaaa, Staceeeeeeee!!

  I told ya you could do it, didn’t I? Welcome, welcome, welcome, gal, over to this side. You’re gonna love it here, hon, and it just gets better, I can tell ya. I’m doing just great – I have a beautiful new guy in my life and I’m still losing and everything’s just wonderful and God is being so good to me. My mom says she feels so happy for me that she thanks the Lord every day and lights candles for me and stuff – isn’t that just so cute? And I say a special thank you to my personal angel, ’cos not many people know that they have the day-to-day running of our lives and all. Makes sense, don’t it, that God don’t have time for all the itty-bitty things that need sorting every day – that’s where angels come in.

  No, I still say I won’t send you a picture – you’ve been asking all these months and I still say no way, n
o how! I know I sure look prettier now than I did last semester (even though there’s surely a lot less of me to admire!) but I guess I’ve just got used to you knowing me as a friend and not judging me on the way I look, Stacey honey, so I’m just gonna keep it that way for now. I love you sending the photos, though – don’t stop, will ya? Yes, I can definitely see the weight loss – for sure I can. Your chin is coming out of those rolls and your arms are looking real pretty – keep it up, Stacey.

  Hey – I might be coming over next month. My gorgeous new man is trying to arrange a visit – we’ve never been to Europe before and we want so much to see the Louvre and the Tower of London and all, so if he can get the MONEY sorted (!!) we might be over in your part of the world before too long and then we could meet up??!! Wouldn’t that be just amazing? Soooooooooo cool!!

  I know you said your part of London is on the south side, right? – are you anywhere near Maidstone? That’s in a part called Kent. My cousin Randy Brotwen lives at Maidstone – do you know him? We might be staying with him for a few days when we visit London so that’s when we could all get together.

  Are you still with Charlie? How’s he doing? Still crazy about ya?

  Love and kisses, and may your angel watch over you

  Crystal

  xxxxx

  Judy

  ‘Ben, do you want to talk about it? Would it make you feel better? I can’t bear to think of you being unhappy, darling, and I’m sure there are things I could do to help if you’d just talk to me.’