The Curvy Girls Club

by Michele Gorman

  And just like that, I was cast back to my schooldays. Her delivery may have been a little less horrible. She didn’t call me Cakey Katie, pour salt into my pudding or trip me on the stairs just to see the fat girl wobble. But she might as well have been speaking for the girls who’d taunted me. You’re not one of us, and that makes you less than us. No matter what the scales said, I still carried all those extra pounds in inadequacies. Deep down, would I always be Fat Katie, no matter what the mirror showed me? That scared me more than anything.

  Ellie looked like she might crawl under the table. Pixie held my gaze. The injustice of her statement washed over me in a bilious wave.

  ‘Pixie, frankly, just … Just fuck you. I can’t help the way I look, but you’re acting like this is my fault.’ I could hear my voice shaking. ‘This has nothing to do with the amount of food I eat, you know.’

  Her expression matched mine. ‘So if it was just down to plain old eating, then it would be your fault? Does that mean being fat is our fault then?’

  ‘That’s not what I’m saying.’

  ‘Oh, but it’s exactly what you’re saying. You said that it’s not your fault because it has nothing to do with the amount you’re eating. That means that if it did have to do with the amount you’re eating, it would be your fault.’

  ‘It’s a medical condition, Pixie.’

  ‘It’s one that you’re not getting treatment for! Don’t you see that this is your choice? Don’t get me wrong. I’d probably do the same thing in your shoes. But the fact is, you’re choosing to be the size you are, and now you’re different to us. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not just trying to make you feel bad, you know.’

  Then it was a remarkably lucky strike.

  Jane stood up, swaying a little. ‘Pixie, you’re judging Katie and tearing her down like her weight loss is a personal affront to you.’

  ‘She’s right,’ said Ellie. ‘It’s not fair to attack Katie, especially after all the support she’s always given you. You’re letting your personal feelings cloud your judgement.’

  ‘But I’m not!’ Pixie said. ‘I seem to be the only one thinking about the club’s members instead of our own feelings. I’m sorry but this is an issue and we’re going to have to deal with it.’

  ‘There’s nothing more to say right now,’ I said. ‘We’ve had our vote about Fat Friends. I think we should adjourn this meeting now.’

  Suddenly the colour drained from Jane’s face. She sat back down, staring at the floor, then started to speak. Only a mangled sound emerged. Then her eyelids started to flutter.

  ‘Jane? Are you all right?’

  She didn’t respond. Her eyelids were going crazy.

  ‘Jane!’

  She began to slip forward. I lunged forward to stop her toppling from the chair. Gently I lowered her to the floor.

  ‘Jane! Jane, can you hear me?’ She grunted faintly.

  ‘Has she fainted?’ Pixie asked. ‘Her eyes are open. She’s not epileptic or anything, is she?’

  ‘No,’ said Ellie. ‘It doesn’t look like a seizure. My parents’ dog is epileptic. When Spike fits, his arms and legs jerk a lot more and he wets himself. I’m calling 999.’

  ‘I’ll get a cold cloth,’ said Pixie. ‘How long will the ambulance take?’

  It seemed like hours, but was probably only a few minutes. We held and rubbed her hands, checking that she was still breathing. Her colour started to come back but she continued to twitch, oblivious to the three terrified women beside her.

  When we heard the siren Ellie hurried outside to make sure the ambulance found us. Pixie and I stayed with Jane, gently telling her, and ourselves, that she’d be okay. Two female paramedics hurried in with bags and quickly took our places. All we could do was watch while they worked. They shone lights in her eyes, checked her throat and pulled open her blouse to stick patches to her chest and tummy, connected to a machine. All the while they spoke quietly to each other in acronyms and numbers. They asked us questions about her health and whether she’d had any earlier symptoms. When Ellie mentioned the diet pills, the paramedic swore under her breath. ‘Bloody stuff.’

  As the other paramedic watched the machine, she said, ‘She’s in arrhythmia. Tachycardia. Get the gurney, please.’

  ‘What’s happening?’ Pixie asked. ‘Is she going to be all right?’

  The paramedic nodded. ‘Her heart has gone out of rhythm and it’s beating too fast. We’ll just need to get her back into a rhythm.’

  ‘She never could dance,’ Pixie said. We smiled despite our fears.

  Ellie rode in the ambulance with Jane, leaving Pixie and me to hurry to the Tube in silence. What was there to say? Speaking about Jane was too risky. If fate were to be tempted, that’d be just the excuse a bugger like him would look for. And whining because Pixie had said I didn’t fit in with the other kids seemed rather petty given the circumstances.

  Andy was already with Jane by the time we arrived to the busy A&E. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked Ellie when she rushed to hug us in the waiting room.

  ‘They think her heart is failing,’ she cried. ‘They’ve given her drugs to try to get it beating normally again and she’s hooked up to a million machines. She looks so vulnerable in there!’

  We clung together in the waiting room, attracting furtive glances from the walking wounded waiting to see a doctor. Of course everyone was curious about what the others were in for.

  ‘Should we pray or something?’ Ellie suggested. Pixie and I drew back to stare at our friend.

  ‘Aren’t you an atheist?’ Pixie asked.

  ‘Well yes, but Jane’s not. She can’t do it with a tube down her throat …’ Her voice caught. ‘And IV drips in her hands.’

  I winced at the thought of her in there, surrounded by machines. Even if she wasn’t awake she might have been aware that something was very wrong. Tears squeezed from my eyes at the idea that she might be terrified.

  So we went to a corner and sat holding hands. ‘Do we need to do it out loud?’ I asked.

  ‘I shouldn’t think so,’ Ellie said. ‘He’s supposed to be all-knowing, right?’

  I contemplated what I wanted to say to the Big Man Upstairs. Not being on first-name terms, I felt I should start with an explanation about my lapsed membership status. My parents weren’t natural churchgoers, though they did make me do my communion and confirmation. C of E only came up when it appeared on census forms and the like. We were Christians for bureaucratic purposes only.

  ‘Are you done yet?’ Pixie asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ I said, opening one eye. ‘I’m covering all eventualities.’

  ‘I used a blanket fix-what’s-wrong prayer,’ she said, opening her eye too. We sat there, watching each other from one eye until Ellie was finished. ‘Feel better, love?’

  She nodded just as a stocky middle-aged Asian doctor approached. ‘Are you Jane’s friends?’ We nodded. At least he hadn’t used the past tense. ‘Her husband asked me to let you know that we seem to have Jane’s heart episode under control. We’ve given her a medicine called adenosine and luckily it’s worked.’

  ‘It doesn’t always?’ I asked.

  He shook his head. ‘Sometimes we have to use cardioversion – the paddles you may have seen on TV.’

  ‘Clear!’ said Pixie.

  ‘Exactly, yes, although it’s not as dramatic as Holby City makes it look. The medication seems to have brought Jane’s heart back into rhythm. She’s resting now, sedated, and we’ll keep her in for a day or so to make sure there aren’t any more complications.’

  ‘Do you know what caused this?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘Not definitively, no. We’ve run preliminary tests and she’ll be under the treatment of a cardiologist who’ll do a full assessment. Apparently she was taking diet supplements?’ We nodded guiltily on her behalf. ‘They can have side effects like this. My advice would be to stay away from them. Often we don’t really know what they contain. That makes it very hard to treat when problems ar
ise. She was also getting dangerously low on vitamins and minerals, so we’re correcting that with a drip. You can go in to see her for a few minutes, although as I said, we’ve sedated her, so she won’t be awake.’

  My heart was in my mouth when we entered the cubicle where Jane lay in a hospital gown. Andy held the hand that wasn’t trailing an IV drip. He smiled when he saw us.

  ‘Hey,’ he whispered. ‘She’s out of it, but they say her heart’s beating okay again.’ He gestured to the machine that blipped a red line across its screen just like in the films. ‘Did you know about the pills?’

  We nodded.

  ‘Then why the hell didn’t you tell me?’ he hissed. ‘I’d have made her stop them.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘We only just found out, and did try to make her stop. We confronted her about it the day we moved Pixie out. She got angry and left. I’m sorry, Andy. We should have talked to you about it.’

  He blew out his cheeks, then gazed at his wife. ‘I wish she could see herself the way I see her. Is it an illness, do you think? She can’t see how beautiful she is. She only sees flaws.’

  ‘I don’t know if it’s an illness, love,’ said Pixie. ‘But I do think you can’t really understand how an overweight person feels unless you’ve been there yourself. It’s hard to explain properly.’

  Ellie spoke up. ‘It’s like there’s a filter over you, and that’s what your friends and family see. They’re describing what they see through the filter. But you know what’s beneath that filter. You can’t believe that they won’t see you without the filter one day. And then they’ll be horrified. At least that’s how I feel.’

  I rubbed Ellie’s arm. ‘Can’t you learn to like what’s beneath the filter?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m trying, I really am. I’m happier now than I was a year ago. The club has a lot to do with that. But sometimes it feels like a losing battle. Just look at Jane.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Andy phoned in the morning to say that Jane was awake and feeling suitably stupid for nearly accidently killing herself. A diet aid would never again pass her lips, she promised. Just to be sure, he flushed her stash down the loo when he went home to change, and started looking into some therapy to help her. She wasn’t so sure about the therapy but agreed to try.

  I decided to go into the offices to clear up from last night. And I finally had something to say to Rob. It was early when I let myself in. The lights were still on from when we’d left with the ambulance. I picked up the scraps of medical packaging left on the floor and put the chairs back where they belonged. When I saw the cheese puffs Jane had made, with yellowing bits of gorgonzola where she’d filled the choux, the tears that had stayed thankfully lodged in their ducts in the heat of the crisis flowed. My friend had almost died last night, and for what? To fit into her old dresses. Anger swept through me. First she’d taken those Alli pills to crap out the calories, and now this. No wonder her body rebelled. What an incredibly stupid risk to take. There was no way that being thin was worth a possible heart attack.

  As I sat alone under Pete the bear’s watchful gaze I realised something. In a way, Pixie had been right, but for the wrong reasons. I didn’t point the finger of blame for a person’s size. How could I when I knew from a lifetime’s experience just how complex the brain/food relationship really was?

  I was simply saying that my overactive thyroid was a fact … and yet it was a fact that I’d chosen to accept. As much as I wanted to tell myself that I was simply taking the time to consider the options, that that was just responsible healthcare, it wasn’t really true. I had the hammering heart and sweating palms to prove otherwise. I’d read the leaflet my GP gave me. My risk of an arrhythmia or heart attack was higher as long as my thyroid was overactive. Sure it was a smaller risk than for someone with heart disease in her family, but it was still a risk. I could spin it any way I liked. Pixie was right. When presented with the options, I’d chosen my figure.

  Finally, I knew what I wanted to say to Rob.

  He let himself in a few minutes after I’d cleaned up. ‘Sorry, I didn’t get an extra coffee,’ he said. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here.’

  I examined his statement like tea leaves, looking for their meaning. ‘That’s okay. I’ve got a cup here. Listen, something happened last night. Sit down.’ We sat on opposite sides of his desk with the mouse menagerie between us. I told him about Jane, starting with the punch line – that she was okay.

  ‘Those fucking pills!’ he said, standing up to pace between his desk and Pete the bear. ‘Why do people do this to themselves? And Jane is a smart woman. She had to know the risks.’ He shook his head. ‘You’re sure she’s okay? No long-term damage or anything?’

  ‘The doctor says no. She’s lucky. And she won’t be taking any more diet pills.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘That’s what I wanted to tell you. I’m going to make an appointment with the GP and get the treatment started.’

  ‘Soon?’

  ‘Yes, as soon as I can get an appointment. I’m sorry I’ve been such a bloody-minded arse lately.’ A wave of sadness enveloped me. ‘I haven’t treated friends like you very well. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own crap, but that’s no excuse for being a dick. Can you forgive me?’

  ‘Come here.’

  A hug never looked so inviting. When I slumped against his chest, sniffing his lemony aftershave, the floodgates opened. ‘I’m sorry,’ I sniffled. ‘For everything. I’m not sure where we went wrong but I want to get back to the way we were.’

  But that wouldn’t be possible. At least, it wouldn’t be possible to get back to the relationship I wanted.

  ‘But we are friends like we were,’ Rob said, missing the point. ‘We’ve always been friends. You don’t have to worry about that.’ When he hugged me again I thought I felt something overly friendly. But I must have been mistaken.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe what an idiot this friend has been lately,’ I murmured into his chest. I’d have given anything to know I’d always be welcome there.

  ‘I’d probably believe it. I’ve known you for a while, remember?’ He smiled, pulling away to look at me. Moment over. ‘Are you talking about your colleague?’ His jaw clenched.

  ‘Amongst other things. I’ve been such a fool. You know how I’ve felt about Alex for ages. God, I blathered on enough about it. It always seemed like a completely unrealistic dream. And then … he started paying attention to me, and then we went out for drinks and one thing led to another. I saw a side of him I didn’t expect, beyond the dreamworld Alex. He showed me a real sensitive side.’ I hesitated, wondering if I should disclose something so personal about him. Then I remembered how much loyalty he’d shown me. ‘He had a sister who died on his birthday. The whole family was out together so that he could ride his new bike. They were playing I Spy, and she was hit by a train right in front of him. When he told me that, it struck a chord. And … well, I’ll spare you all the gory details. But then he completely ignored me afterward.’

  Rob’s brow furrowed. ‘She was hit by a train playing I Spy? He told you that?’

  ‘I know.’ I shook my head. ‘I didn’t expect anything that personal. But he seemed to feel close enough to me to say it. I was flattered. But then, as I said, he ignored me.’

  ‘Boy, girl, mum, dad, on their bikes?’

  ‘Yes, Rob. What’s got into you?’

  He rubbed his face. ‘Oh Katie.’ He quickly typed something into his computer. ‘Come here. Look.’

  In the video, a happy family of four pedalled along wooded tracks and over fields, pollen floating around them in the sunshine. The boy says, ‘I spy with my little eye, something beginning with T.’ Tractor, tree, train, teddy. No, no, no, no. The sister stops and says, ‘Is it a track?’ Train whistle, whoosh, fade to black.

  ‘It was a Network Rail advert? I don’t believe it!’

  What kind of person makes up a dead sister? Maybe she wasn’t even made up. For
all I knew they had dinner together every week. She might have been the one who’d decorated his flat. I knew it was way too stylish for a man.

  ‘That fucking lying wanker.’

  ‘Katie, I’ve never heard you use such language.’

  ‘I’m sorry but he deserves it. He used that story just to get me into bed.’

  Rob winced. ‘I suppose it’s possible his father was the exec who came up with the advert from first-hand experience.’

  ‘His father’s a GP.’

  ‘So you think. Sorry, that was insensitive. This guy’s an arsehole. But anyone can be fooled once.’

  My guilty face told him that wasn’t the end of the story. I told him the rest as he slowly sipped his cooling coffee. He didn’t interrupt.

  ‘For a while I forgot that I was just Fat Katie,’ I finished. ‘It was kind of nice.’

  ‘You’re not just Fat Katie!’ he said. ‘Don’t ever talk about yourself like that. Please. I’m sorry it didn’t work out with Alex, if that’s what you wanted. But you are not just Fat Katie. You’re, well you’re quite wonderful, actually. Any man should be over the moon to go out with you.’

  I smiled my gratitude. Unfortunately Rob wasn’t any man.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The GP was able to fit me in on Monday morning. When I admitted he’d been right about needing treatment he was just the tiniest bit gloaty, but I suppose he needed to get his job satisfaction from somewhere. He gave me a prescription for something called Carbimazole, which he promised had nothing to do with carbs. Carbs or no carbs, in a couple of months I’d be back to my old self.

  As I sat on the post-rush-hour Tube I tried to think about the bright side. It would be nice not to have my heart clattering in my chest like marbles going down the stairs. And I could stop wearing sweat-guards-cum-panty liners under my arms. It might take a month or two for the medicine to gradually start working, the doctor said, so at least my arse wouldn’t balloon overnight.

  I popped my head into Cressida’s office when I got in. ‘Hi there,’ I said, standing in the doorway. Her expression froze when she saw me. ‘Just to let you know, I’m back from my doctor’s appointment. I’ll have to go again in a few weeks to check the medication’s working. But I can book the last appointment of the day so I shouldn’t have to take much time off.’