The Year I Went Pear-shaped: A fat woman's tale of love and insanity

by Tamara Pitelen

  Mum never went anywhere without Triska, her tiny, pure white pekinese. Despite being spoilt rotten, Triska was the sweetest little dog. I teased Mum that she was a replacement grandchild and it was probably true.

  Over the years Mum and Joseph had risen up the social ladder on the Gold Coast and now were like minor royalty. They had made a fortune in clever property investment plus a sideline in swimming pool installation. Their latest business was a chain of surf schools up the coast to satisfy the never-ending demand from tourists and travellers wanting to learn how to ‘catch a wave’.

  With financial success well under their belts, they were now looking for new challenges and Joseph had recently launched a campaign to run for local government. Mum, on the other hand, used her power for good through lobbying -- not to mention bribing when necessary -- the local government members who were already in power.

  Her heart was in the right place though, she was a strong and vocal supporter of environmental issues and animal rights. She’d virtually singlehandedly saved a rare species of tree frog by campaigning against the construction of a highway through the one area where the frogs still lived. But, rather than chain herself to a tree, as was the usual modus operandi of green activists, she had entertained, charmed and seduced -- platonically speaking of course -- the local councillor in charge of making a decision on the highway.

  She says it was her brandy and dark chocolate trifle that won the day and saved the frogs. As the final attack in her plan of action, Mum had thrown yet another dinner for the councillor, Tom Beveridge, and his wife Yvonne. After Tom’s seventh glass of port, specially imported from Portugal, a large crystal bowl of Mum’s famous trifle and some gentle flirting, she says he would’ve left his wife and eloped with her to Slovenia if she’d suggested it.

  The frogs were saved.

  Chapter 5: Food as a Drug

  Dear Darla,

  Sometimes during sex I just want it to be over and I know I’m not going to orgasm so I fake it. Is that really bad?

  Lindsay, Tasmania

  Dear Lindsay,

  In a perfect world, you wouldn’t have to fake it. You wouldn’t have to lie about something that is at the very heart of the most intimate act two people can share. But, lets get real about it shall we Lindsay, the truth is that orgasms have been faked by millions of women for millions of reasons ever since the human race took its first breath all those centuries ago. Maybe you don’t want to hurt his feelings, or you want to finish up in time to watch the Sunday night movie, or you don’t want him to think you’re frigid…the list is endless. Personally, I think if you fake it once in a while, big hairy deal. Put it in the same basket as lying about the price of those shoes and keeping Mars Bars hidden in your car for sneaky treats. But if you’re faking all the time, that’s a problem because you’re denying yourself a wonderful and satisfying sex life. If that’s the case, your next question is whether it’s him, you, or a bit of both? Is he crap in the sack -- ‘doona dysfunctional’ as I like to put it? Or are you the one with the sexual hang-ups? From here the answers could lie in sex therapy, counselling, or a good long chat. Just don’t ignore it. All the best!

  In my last year at Rosewarne High, when Gordon Worsley had diligently worked his way through three quarters of the females in the senior year, I reached my fat peak of 94kgs. The only clothes I could wear were kaftan-like dresses bought from shops that specialised in ‘larger ladies’. For some reason, all the clothes made for us ‘big girls’ came in exactly the same style, i.e., box-like, and covered in the patterns so loud you could hear them scream.

  Thin girls, on the other hand, had a world of choice spread out in front of them! Everything from soft silks to figure-hugging Lycra, floaty chiffon, satins and lace, clinging woollens, stretch knits, gabardine, denim, polyester, cotton…the list was endless! But for us big girls the only option was the kind of canvas that they make circus tents out of. I used to have nightmares about trapeze artists swinging from the gusset of my knickers. And the people who ‘designed’ - and I use that word loosely - clothes for us ‘big girls’ all seemed to have a penchant for violent oranges, puce greens, and vomit yellow. Colours that clashed like cymbals played by a roomful of toddlers.

  And if the pattern didn't resemble a psychedelic nightmare brought on by an LSD flashback, then it would be vertical stripes, which, according to all the weight loss magazines, were ‘slimming’. Yeah right, like painting vertical stripes on an elephant means the other animals of the jungle will keep mistaking it for a gazelle.

  I always wondered if these ‘designers’ for "larger ladies" optimistically hoped they could deflect the onlookers’ attention away from the fact that the person beneath the satanic rainbow tent-dress was the size of a house. Well, let me tell you, it didn’t work. All the orange and green floral swirls, or vertical stripes, in the world couldn’t have hidden the fact that I had enough blubber hanging off my arms, thighs, breasts, chin and stomach to feed an Eskimo tribe throughout a tough winter and halfway into the following spring. And was I happy? What do you think? My self-esteem was zero; I hated my body and often cried myself to sleep at night. I couldn’t bear seeing myself naked and would even hang a towel over the bathroom mirror whenever I had to take a shower but even then there was no escaping myself. I would look down helplessly at breasts that hung like huge balloons filled with water, resting on a huge, white expanse of flabby tummy. To see my pubic hair I needed to bend forward and lift up the edge of my stomach but I didn’t do that very often. There was no need - what did I need to see it for since nobody else ever did? It may as well have been boarded up with a ‘closed till hell freezes over’ sign.

  So, in the summer of my final high school year, when all the other girls were planning dresses for the end-of-year formal, hanging out on the beach all weekend in tiny bikinis, flirting with guys, and carefully pruning their pubic hair into heart shapes, I was at home watching my Love On The Wards video tapes over and over again, or dreaming about Gordon Worsley while sitting in McDonald’s reading a Mills & Boon romance carefully covered by the jacket of some worthy novel from my parent’s book shelf. McDonald’s is a fat girl’s heaven. Not just because of the endless supply of dirt-cheap burgers and ice-cream sundaes but also because it's air-conditioned. A girl of my size couldn’t be out in the heat of a Sydney summer for more than ten minutes at a time without drowning small animals in the sweat that ran off my hulking frame.

  That summer, the summer when my fatness peaked, it was even hotter than usual and in a desperate attempt to cool down, I took one of Mum’s king-size bed sheets, cut a hole in the top for a head and wore it around the house like a huge poncho. Whenever I came into the room in my sheet-dress, Joseph used to shout out, ‘Man the hatches! Iceberg ahoy!’ and pretend he was on the Titanic. After he’d done this every day for 24 days straight I told him to shut up which was all the excuse he needed to fly into a rage. Shouting about what an ungrateful little bitch I was and how I couldn’t take a joke.

  Other times he’d call me the Great White Mope. I think he picked that one up from telly, he couldn’t have come with it by himself.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re eating again?’ he’d bellow out from the lounge if he heard me trying to tiptoe around the kitchen. Like a malicious mosquito, he never let up.

  ‘Who ate that leftover chicken breast?’ he’d demand, looking at me. ‘Who’s eaten one of the biscuits?you'll never find a man if you stay so fat! Are you one of them lesbians?’

  Joseph was a food Nazi. He was obsessive in keeping a record of everything in the kitchen and with a thick, black felt-pen would mark the level on bottles of chocolate sauce, lemonade or whatever, so he could tell if anyone (me) had sneaked some behind his back. He claimed that he only did it for my own good. He’d count the slices of bread in the bag, weigh the container of ice cream after any had been eaten and write the new weight on the lid. He would count the number of chocolates in a box and how many biscuits were in the tin, making a note of it a
ll.

  The hate between us raged as this food war. He might’ve been older and more powerful but I was smarter than him and took great pleasure in cleverly hiding my tracks and fooling him so he didn’t know I’d eaten an entire loaf of bread and half a kilo of peanut butter virtually under his nose. Yeah, did I ever show him! I'd be fat and miserable just to spite him.

  Apart from snide swipes and insults, Joseph and I generally didn’t speak to each other unless there was no other option.

  He thought I was lazy, greedy, fat and ugly.

  I thought he was a stupid, small-minded, bullying control freak.

  Suffice to say my teen years weren’t the happiest in the world. And as the food war raged with Joseph, I got fatter and fatter. My life totally sucked and I was convinced it would continue to suck until I lost weight.

  But for some reason -- call it desperate hope -- I honestly believed that I was in some kind of ‘waiting room’ for life and just beyond the door was my real, happy, successful life, which would begin as soon as I lost that pesky 40kgs. Then I’d get the great boyfriend, the fabulous job involving overseas travel and tons of money, the amazing friends, and invitations to all the coolest parties.

  With this in mind, I would get up every morning determined that that was the day everything would change. That was the day it would all just click into place and I’d start losing weight.

  But I couldn’t lose an ounce. Even though when I wasn’t sneaking food from under Joseph’s nose, I’d be earnestly trying to stick to whichever diet Mum had me on that week. And even though every morning Mum would weigh me and give me a pep talk about how it was going to be different that day, how today was a new beginning, how today I really could do it! And even though every morning I’d resolve to stick to the diet and lose weight so that finally my real life could begin. I never did. It was never different. Every day wound up the same. I’d start with a tiny, calorie controlled breakfast and miniscule lunch but the minute I got in the door from school at 3.45pm, tired and starving, the binge monster took over. And in the evenings, the food war with Joseph took hold.

  I was a dieting Jekyll and Hyde, religiously good while anyone was looking but as soon as I was alone I would uncontrollably shovel food into my mouth with my hands, so fast that I couldn’t even taste it. While I shovelled, everything else was forgotten - there was nothing in the world except me and that packet of biscuits, or container of ice cream. The problem was, and every addict will tell you this, as soon as I came down back to planet Earth when the last bite had been swallowed, reality rushed back bringing with it even more guilt and self-disgust. What else was there to do but start eating again?

  Chapter 6: ‘My Boyfriend has Sex with Fruit’

  “Are we interested in a girl with cervical cancer for a real life story?” Mands asked Naomi.

  “Hmmm, maybe, it's not very glam though, is it? Is she pretty?”

  “Yeah, gorgeous. Thin. Blonde.”

  “Then yes as long as she’s really sick with proper cervical cancer, and not just the boring old laser-treatable, common-as-muck variety. But try and find some sexy angle. And get photographs, the scarier the better. It would be good if you could get ones of her in hospital with tubes coming out her arms and "hair falling out from the chemo" shots” said Naomi, not even looking up as she finished typing an email.

  “Yep, sure. It’s a fantastic story though Nomes. Her name’s Fiona and she was given six months to live just days after announcing her engagement to the love of her life! This guy called Dan who is drop-dead, cream-your-knickers gorgeous. She sent me a photo of the two of them on holiday in the Greek Islands; anyway, they’re supposed to be getting married in nine months. It’s a great story either way. If she lives we can go with the ‘true love helped me beat cancer’ angle; but if she doesn’t then we can really tug at the old heart strings with the old ‘she bravely fought but lost and look at the stunning man she left behind who can’t believe he’s lost his angel’ type of thing.”

  “Ok Mands, it sounds great,” Naomi said, “but get the whole interview and photo shoot in the bag as soon as possible just in case she pops off sooner than expected, ok? Now, what about you, Darl? How’s that Dr Ramswell story coming on?

  “Well, I’ve spoken to the publicist for Love On The Wards, some chick called Trina Barnes, she said she’d ask Gordon if he was up for it and get back to me by this afternoon at the latest.”

  “Good. I'm sure he"ll do it. That tragic little show needs all the help it can get. Lets face it, it’s nothing but scowling teens with bad skin who spend all their time breaking up with each other in milk bars, and ridiculous adults with fatal diseases.”

  Naomi believed that daytime TV was only for the weak-minded, lazy and infirm. Although sometimes she’d watch Jerry Springer in order to get story ideas for the mag. Thanks to Jerry, we’ve run stories like ‘I became a prostitute to pay for a designer wedding cake" and "my boyfriend has sex with fruit". The important stuff.

  At that point Katerina butted in, as it had been at least two minutes she'd said anything. I mentally started counting down, ‘one Mississippi, two Mississippi’...

  "Oooh I just loooove that show, I tape it every day so that me and Hugo can watch it together over dinner. It's sooo much better than having to watch the boring old news..."

  Three Mississippi. Right on the nail as usual. Kat had the amazing talent of being able to bring any subject of conversation under the sun back to her and Hugo within three seconds. It leaves me in awe. Before I got bored with it, I used to test her by introducing the most outlandish topic and timing her, like "hey Kat, Hitler was a vegetarian you know". She came back with, "mmm, I knew that ‘cause Hugo's grandparents are Austrian and they mentioned it once over dinner at their place, Hugo’s Nana makes the best apple strudel ever! Not that I’ve actually eaten it though, it's waaay too fattening, I told him that I'd never fit into those gorgeous Bettina Liano jeans that he's just bought me if he kept bringing his Gran's strudel home! But he said I had nothing to worry about and that I had the best butt of all his girlfriends, he's so sweet...’

  She didn't stop there but by this time I had escaped up the corridor to check out something “urgent”.

  This time I was saved from Death by Kat by my phone.

  "Hello, Darla speaking."

  "Hi Dora, it's Trina from Channel Five here, just getting back to you re availability re Gordon Worsley."

  I ignored the fact that she got my name wrong. She knew my name; it was just a standard TV publicist's method for making sure I understood who was the boss and who was the lackey in this relationship.

  "Oh, hiiiiiii Trina,” I tinkled, playing the game right back at her. “Thanks soooo much for getting back to me on this, I can’t tell you how excited we are around here about working with Gordon! He's so fab! Anyway, what did he, like, say?" I squeaked in my best non-threatening, ‘IQ of frog sperm’ voice.

  "Well, he wasn't keen to be honest Donna," she said in her best ‘I’m very important you know’ voice. He really is extremely busy with his production schedule right now...buuut...I talked him round a bit and I think he just might do it as long as we can have copy and photo approval before the story goes to press."

  Translated, this means he's desperate to do it as the exposure could be good for his TV Awards chances. And, being an actor, he's a publicity slut who can’t get enough of seeing himself in the media.

  "Oh Trina, you know I can’t give you copy and photo approval but I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll read out his quotes to him over the phone once the story’s written, just don't tell my bloody editor or she’ll have my guts for garters."

  Reading out quotes was standard practise; Trina knew that, we were both just moving the obligatory pieces in the game of media chess.

  She sighed heavily, pretending to consider the offer. "Well, I guess if that's ok with Gordon we can go for it. I'll tell him that you'll meet him in the Channel Five Cafe next Monday at 10.30am sharp to discuss just what you n
eed from him. And don't be late Doris, Gordon's time is very precious."

  And with that she hung up. Which was the cue for panic to set in. Following closely by hysteria and hyperventilating.

  Oh. My. God. In just six days, I was going to meet Gordon Worsley. The man that I had lusted after, obsessed over, followed, fantasised about, written poems for, given star-billing in my dreams to, filled diaries with, and dedicated first born sons to -- ideally ones begat by him -- for the last 16 years. And I knew it was sad, pathetic and tragic and all that but still, there I was, a 34 year old, intelligent, career woman of sorts, reduced to a shaking, quivering mess at the thought of meeting some guy off a mediocre -- although admittedly incredibly popular and successful -- TV soap. A soap so cheap in fact that there were only three sets. There was the hospital cafeteria staffed by a kindly but bad-tempered elderly lady who delivered one-liners like machine gun fire at the expense of the dopey but good-natured orderly and, if you looked closely, you"d notice that the same extras were always sitting in the background, playing customers but sometimes they wore different wigs. Then there was the hospital ward which was a room with a bed in it, a vase of flowers on the side table, and a patient that never said anything more than "not too good to be honest Doc" and whose function was to provide a wrist for pulse taking so that the doctor could pretend to be working while he flirted with the nurse. The third set was the cocktail bar called Louie's where all the staff would meet after work to conduct the show's real drama away from distractions like pesky patients.

  But knowing all this didn't douse my ardour for Gordon Worsley. To me he embodied my lost youth. What could have been. Those precious years wasted inside a fat shell. Gordon Worsley was all the boys who had looked straight through me back in the time of obesity. He was a prize. And dammit, I deserved him.