Losing It

by Jane Asher

  Well, why not?

  Stacey

  It’s ten weeks now and I just can’t believe how much I’ve lost – I’m down by about 60 pounds. It’s so weird to get on the scales and see it continually go down instead of up. I know the weight loss will slow down eventually, but at the moment it’s just magic. Two pounds, three more pounds gone – it’s unreal.

  I know the doctors told me that to fully recover takes six months, but – for me – I’m only nearly three months out and I feel better than I have since I was a teenager. I feel great. People treat me different now I’ve lost weight – even though I’m still big I ain’t as gross as I was. And I know it shouldn’t matter what size you are but it does. Even that Vanessa, who used to look so smiley and jolly on the TV in the old days when she was big, says now that she was only pretending and that she hated it really.

  It’s brilliant to go into normal shops and look at the clothes; I used to do that in the old days just to imagine I could wear them and people always used to stare at me and whisper and I knew what they was thinking – what the fuck is that fat lump doing in here when there’s no way she could get into any of this? And they was right. And then I’d go to one of the outsize stores, as my mum calls them (only they don’t call them that now, they have all them fancy names to make you think it’s OK to be fat), and I’d see all them tents (well, marquees, more like, just like the one my cousin had for her wedding) and I’d get so depressed I’d go home without buying nothing. And now I can look in Marks, or Top Shop and, although I ain’t there yet, it don’t seem quite so crazy any more.

  Charlie says I’m ‘fading away’. But he’s such a depressing old git these days that it don’t matter what he says. He thinks I need him ’cos I’m gonna have the op to take away all my hanging bits, but I can manage on my own, thanks all the same. I’m saving from work now, and the hospital says I may be able to pay it off in instalments, in any case, so I shan’t get it done until I can pay for it myself. I know Charlie was good to me and all that, but I never asked him to fall for me, did I? It’s not like he didn’t want to leave his wife and come and get shacked up with me – it’s not like I forced him or nothing, is it? I don’t owe him nothing, in fact. He’s had his fun out of me – I never said no to all his fiddling and stuff that he used to get off on.

  Course I ain’t never told him what Crystal and I got up to that night we went out. No point in causing aggro – he’s touchy enough as it is, so I think it’s best to leave well alone.

  Crystal

  Hi, hon!

  How’re ya doin??? Wow – I miss ya lots! And didn’t we have fun???? You wicked girl!

  Well, I’m back at work now, and the show’s goin’ great. I’ve been telling all the other guys and girls about my British trip and they are soooooooo jealous!! I wore my cute outfit that you made me get from British Home Shops (is that right?) to a party that my friend Gavin gave the other day and everyone just drooled.

  I have great news. Me and my darling friend Wayne are gonna go through a ceremony of commitment next month!! Is that cool or what? Do you have them over there? It’s so cute – you promise to love each other and share all your stuff and that and it’s gonna be so beautiful. My ma and pa are coming over – they’re really supportive, like I told you – and Wayne’s brother’s coming from Arkansas. His parents aren’t too cool about it but that’s OK. I’m gonna wear an all-white suit with a cute frilled pink shirt and Wayne’s gonna be in his leather jacket and tight jeans. Way to go!!

  I guess my angel’s been working full time for me up there. Life is just so good I can’t believe it. It seems such a short time since the op and today I’ve lost over 97 pounds. I almost crapped myself when my big butt measured a demure 42 inches!!! I wish I’d kept some measurements before I came over to the other side – I kind of remember my hips being 54 inches but I wish I knew exactly.

  God bless and keep you, Stacey darlin’, and don’t stop writing!!

  LOL (which reminds me – still not get LYLMS? Love You Like My Sister, of course!) and kisses

  Crystal

  PS did ya ever tell Charlie???!!!

  Stacey

  It was really funny when I told him. I ain’t never seen someone so – what’s the fucking word? – that stupid one he uses. Discombobulated. That’s what he was.

  I’d known I had to tell him for days. It’s just he’d been looking so piss-miserable that I kept putting it off. Well, he’s always miserable these days, as I’ve said before, but somehow lately it’s been making me feel a bit – what? – scared, I s’pose. Specially with Crystal gone, it’s just me and my mum up against this old guy who’s cracking up. That’s what he is – cracking up. I thought once Crystal had gone he’d cheer up – having me back to himself again and all that stuff – but he never. I know what it is, of course, I’m not stupid. He knows I’m having a really good time, now that everything’s going so well for me and the weight’s still coming off and all that. He always said he wanted me to be happy, but I know that’s not fucking true, is it? It’s what they say in all the stories and that – I just want you to be happy, my darling – all that crap. What they mean is, I want you to be happy with me – and no one but me. Or else.

  So I’d been putting it off a bit, although my mum kept telling me to get on with it. She was right, and I knew it. I just didn’t know how to bring it up really, and I wasn’t sure how he’d take it. Although I had a pretty good guess. In the end I just come right out with it: I’d been practising it in my head all day at work, like what they do in comedy films in front of a mirror – you know, they practise over and over how to say something like ‘I love you’, and then when they meet the person they’re gonna say it to, it just comes right out without all the clever stuff they’ve been doing in the mirror. And it’s always right funny. Only it wasn’t so funny in real life – well, not after, anyway.

  I come in from work about eight – lately I’ve managed to stop him waiting outside for me every night and looking a prat – and he was sitting in front of the telly with my ma, and she looked at me when I come in and made one of her faces – when her eyes look up and down quickly and her eyebrows go up at the same time – like she’s going ‘tch!’ but without saying anything. I knew it meant he was in a bad mood, so I decided not to tell him. I sat down next to him on the sofa and I leant over and gave him a kiss on the cheek, but even that didn’t seem to get through much. He looked at me and his face was right sad. Hello, I thought, this means a moody evening.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ he says. This is my regular greeting every time I come in now.

  ‘I been at work, Charlie, where d’you think I been?’ I says back.

  ‘You finished over an hour ago,’ he says.

  ‘I know,’ I says. I’m buggered if I’m gonna tell him every single move I make. As it happens I had a quick sip of black coffee with Denisha in the canteen, ’cos I was right dry after shelf-stacking, but I wasn’t gonna tell him that. He could mind his own fucking business, that’s my attitude. He takes a liberty the way he’s always nosing about.

  ‘How’d you know what time I finished?’ I says.

  ‘I asked you this morning which shift you were on, Stacey,’ he says, all quiet like. ‘Don’t you remember?’

  ‘Oh yes. Well, I was late finishing.’ I dunno why he makes me wanna tell lies, but there’s something in the way he questions me that gets me making things up when I don’t need to. I dunno why. I ain’t got nothing to be ashamed of.

  ‘Oh, by the way,’ I says, just coming out with it after all my practising, ‘I’m pregnant.’

  There was such a silence you coulda heard a whatnot drop – pin – as my mum says. She looked as if she was gonna laugh – I guess it was the way I come out with it after all them talks she and I had about how to tell him. EastEnders was on, of course, and I couldn’t believe my mum was looking away from it, but she was. She was watching Charlie, and, once she’d stopped herself smirking and pulled herself together, her eyes
went all starey and big and she was ever so still. I couldn’t look at him for a while – I didn’t dare, somehow, but then I turned and faced him and I was ever so surprised.

  He was looking – joyous. And gobsmacked. Like them pictures of saints and whatnot that Crystal’s always sending me – he had that same kinda shining, amazed happiness all over his face. Like he’d found something that had been lost a long long time before. Made me feel quite embarrassed for him, in fact: it was so kind of – revealing, if you know what I mean; made him look real stupid, like my cousin who’s special needs. So I thought I’d better say something, ’cos the atmosphere in that room was getting a bit spooky.

  ‘Well, I hoped you’d be happy for me, Charlie,’ I says. ‘I was very surprised, ’cos I never thought I’d be able to have a baby, you know – not with all my problems and that. But there you are. Goes to show you never know, don’t it?’

  ‘But of course I’m happy, my darling,’ he said. ‘Of course I – this is the happiest moment of my life. Don’t you see? This is so – so wonderful, Stacey. So truly wonderful.’

  ‘Hang on a minute, Charlie – don’t go mad, mate,’ I says. It was getting even more embarrassing now, what with me mum there and all – I wished he’d just be a bit more normal. I’d rather he was grumpy again than all this over-the-top joy stuff.

  ‘I just couldn’t have wished for anything more beautiful in my life. It’s so perfect. I never dreamt – you see, I never knew I could love in the way I love you, my darling. And now – to have you bear my child, it’s –’

  So that was when I twigged, you see. I know it seems right stupid, looking back on it and all. You’d think it woulda been obvious what he thought – what he just assumed without so much as thinking twice. I can see it now. But I suppose I’d kinda forgotten that one time I let him stick his thing up me – I’d got to think of him as more like a friend than anything else over the last few weeks. Or more like family really, ’cos friends you don’t usually get so fed up with, but family can get on your nerves, can’t they? And Charlie was doing that all right. Especially since he’d been so grumpy and miserable and that. But – looking at it now – there was just as much chance of it having been his as – but it wasn’t of course. I knew that for sure, ’cos of my dates.

  Now I knew why he was looking so happy and that – proud and all. It seemed really funny when I realised my mistake – well, his mistake more like it. Talk about getting the wrong end of the stick. ‘What?’ I says, and I was laughing as loud as anything as I says it, and I could see my mum was holding her hand over her mouth so’s not to giggle too. ‘Bear your child? Pull the other one, Charlie – you’re having me on, ain’t ya?’ I says. ‘Are you joking, or what? I’m not having your child, you daft bugger – it’s Warren’s, of course.’

  Did you ever do that game when you was little when you have to put your hand up and down over your face and make it go from happy to sad as quick as you can? So you’re all smiley as it goes up and then fucking depressed with your mouth turned down when your hand goes down again? Well, I swear that was how Charlie’s face went. It was like he was turned off somewhere at the main power switch. His whole face kinda collapsed and his mouth drooped downwards and even his eyes seemed to sink a couple of centimetres down his face. Like a melting clay model. And he changed colour and all – he went a horrible dark purply grey. I thought he was dying or something, God’s truth. I stopped laughing then, anyhow, and tried to look serious and sad for him. ’Cos I could see he was disappointed, you see.

  ‘Come on, Charlie,’ I says, ‘you didn’t really think it was yours, did ya? Be serious. We only ever done it the once – ooh, sorry, Ma!’

  ‘Don’t mind me, Stacey,’ she says. ‘You carry on, love, I’m a woman of the world. You don’t have to mind me, love.’

  That sounded so funny, but I managed not to laugh and I looked back at Charlie. He still looked like he might pop his clogs any second so I kept talking, ’cos I could see he was in no state to say nothing just at the moment.

  ‘Not that I done it more than that with Warren, as it happens,’ I went on. ‘I don’t want ya to think I been having an affair or nothing. I just done it the once with Warren. The night I went out with Crystal, d’you remember? When you was getting the hump because we was mucking about on the sofa and going on about our ops and that. D’you remember? Well, we went out for a drink and I took Crys to the Rat and Carrot, and Warren and a couple of the girls was there ’cos it was his birthday and he’d had a skinful and we just got chatting and, of course, I was only sipping some water and me and Crystal was the only ones sober, as it happens. So we took Warren back to his place in a cab and – and we undressed him and that. And – well, you don’t wanna know all this, really, do you, Charlie? It happened anyhow. Fuck knows how, but it did. And they say at the hospital it’s not unusual, you see. ‘Cos my system’s just getting going again and that, and I’m very fertile. So they say.’

  Charlie

  I’ve read about love turning, on an instant, to hate. I never believed it could be possible. It is. A great passion contains its own opposite, you see: very simple really. It’s a conjuring trick – no, an optical illusion: like one I was shown as a child. It was a black and white picture – when you looked at it quickly you saw a little black rabbit against a snowy white field. If you kept on looking the cute bunny disappeared, and only then did you see the face of a devil in the whiteness and the black teeth and evil eyes outlined at its centre. Positive and negative. Which was true, and which was really there? One, both or neither? Just depended which way you looked, of course, but once you’d seen the devil that’s what stayed with you.

  I saw the devil in that moment with Stacey. With merely a tiny shift in my brain I saw the other side of her and of my heart. And in my case there was no going back – I don’t think I could have seen the rabbit again if I’d tried – it had been cast into a dusty pile of false memories on the floor as the scales had fallen from my eyes.

  It was surprising how quickly I was able to extricate myself from that ghastly house and the enveloping torpor of its inhabitants. I’d been steadily selling my clothes and possessions over the previous weeks so had very little left in any case and, within the space of three minutes or so, I had thrown it all into a plastic bin bag I found in the kitchen. I managed to avoid saying anything: I knew I had to contain my new-found rage or it was in danger of spilling over.

  It didn’t occur to me to wonder where I was going to stay; as long as I could find a quiet corner to myself where I could calm down and indulge in some quiet, cold exploration of my growing hatred, I should be happy. This proved easier said than done: I had no money at all and no prospects of getting any. I was already way behind with the interest payments on the loan, and, with no job or address, hardly in a position to secure another one. London is a hard place to hide away in, especially without cash, and it was only after several days of walking about the city, sleeping rough and damn near freezing to death that I came across a travellers’ shelter in one of the less salubrious corners of Victoria where I could spend a few days in relative obscurity.

  On my first night there I shared a table with four others, among them a foul-smelling female, dressed in several layers of impossibly greasy coats. It was when, fascinated, I watched her pull a large jar of apple sauce from the grimy depths of her clothes, unscrew it and spoon the contents into her mouth with two hooked fingers that my plan was born. God knows where the idea came from – whether it was something I’d been harbouring deep in the murkier recesses of my soul or whether I dreamt it up on the spot I shall never know. All I do know is that the plan was in my head and decided upon in a single flash of inspiration and certainty. And I never wavered: from that moment I knew what I had to do and how to do it.

  Getting hold of the razor blades was easy: in spite of my shabby, unwashed clothes, my appearance was still respectable enough to convince the warden that I could be trusted with them. I claimed, among other things, th
at I needed a daily shave in order to look for work. Buying the jar would be more difficult: I had no money of my own at all now, and I had no wish to expose myself to the powers of authority by registering for the dole, or claiming social security or any other of the handouts available to me. For the first time I understood the ferocious desire for privacy and independence of the natural traveller; to disappear into the background and move around without being counted, itemised, assessed and generally clocked in is the ultimate desire of those of us who have seen the other side of civilisation and attempt to flee its embracing tentacles.

  On the third day of walking about my local patch, turned out of my temporary home until the evening, I was beginning to panic. I wasn’t sure how long Stacey would be kept on shelf-stacking – if she was returned to the checkout the whole plan could fall to pieces, but, just as I was considering more drastic measures to obtain cash, it – literally – fell into my lap. I had been on my feet all morning and, beginning to tire, sat down on the ground at the fringe of the paved precinct of Westminster Cathedral, just outside McDonald’s. I knew it wouldn’t take long before I was moved on – the previous two days had quickly taught me the rudiments of living rough in London – but I leant my head back against the glass window and closed my eyes, happy to snatch a few moments of rest. I didn’t see who chucked the coins at me: whether it was out of genuine compassion, or whether perhaps a guilty soul on the way to or from confession felt a small gesture might ensure a better reception from the Almighty I shall never know. In any case, the £1.60 scattered on the stone in front of me would be ample for my needs. I silently thanked whatever angel or devil had brought it to me and stood up quickly, ready to make a move.

  I glanced across the road at SavaMart, but knew it would be impossible to make my purchase there: it would be hard enough to carry out the second part of the plan as it was, but to risk two excursions would be pushing my luck. I turned and began to walk along the main road towards the Army & Navy, keeping my head down and my eyes on the ground in the way I had become used to since wanting to avoid all contact with other people. I had a life quite full enough inside my own head: to allow anyone else in – even in the form of a split second’s eye contact or a muttered ‘excuse me’ would overcrowd it to the point of danger.