Dying to be SLIM
ABBY
BEVERLEY
Dying to be Slim
Abby Beverley
Copyright © 2015 Abby Beverley
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This book is dedicated to anyone who is on a diet, has just come off a diet or is psyching themselves to go on yet another diet. Good luck and may the inner you emerge!
Contents
Cover
Acknowledgements
Dying To Be Slim
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
Epilogue
About The Author
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my daughter, Natalie Horton, for letting me bounce the initial ideas off her; my son, Josh Horton, for encouraging me to write on past the first couple of chapters; and my husband, Gordon (Gee) Beverley, who has had to put up with me reading random chapters aloud – he subsequently has no idea what order the events occur in!
Thank you to my ‘early’ proof readers: Judy Page, Jackie Broderick, Michelle Barbridge; and my ‘later’ proof readers: Natalie Horton, Leticia Salmon, Stephanie Beverley, Frances Stephens, Mandy Smith and Alison Love.
Thanks also to Kathryn Hughes for being so helpful regarding publishing and for pointing me in the right direction. I hope I can emulate your success!
***
Clara Waterfall was my husband’s late grandmother. She was not overweight but did come from the north – Wakefield to be precise. She was cremated in Durham during the 1970s. I used her name because I thought it was so beautiful. Hopefully, the beauty within my main character outshines that which society deems to be unattractive.
If, like Clara, I’ve borrowed your name, thank you.
Dying To Be Slim
Clara finds herself a single mother to two sets of twins by the age of eighteen. With her own mother absent from early childhood and the death of her father in her late teens, food becomes Clara’s crutch. Several decades on, Clara has a new partner and a fifth child. She oozes love and pride towards her flawless family, despite the fact that she is now thirty-four stone and housebound.
An unusual turn of events presents Clara with the ability to step out of her own body and, stumbling upon a problem within her ‘perfect’ family, Clara sets off in search of a solution. Far from finding answers, however, Clara encounters complications which question all she has ever believed to be true about her children, their partners and her man.
Thrust into the world outside her cosy home, Clara becomes confused to the point where she is barely able to distinguish truth from the perceived fantasy that is slowly becoming a reality…
Prologue
“Positively Obese”
(Interview notes for Femme Fanfare as recorded by Steven Kelly)
“You do know that I’m not quite Britain’s heaviest woman, don’t you Mr Kelly?
They said on the phone that your article is about positivity. I’m generally a positive person. I’m positive that I won’t ever be a cover girl. I’m positive that I won’t ever swim the Channel, run a marathon, or represent my country at the Olympics!
Seriously though, I do feel very positive. I have a cosy home, a partner who adores me and I have children who make me the proudest parent alive.
Look at my family photo shelf up there. They’re a good looking bunch, aren’t they? Clever, too. And here’s a picture of my little granddaughter, Skye. She starts school in September; she can write her own name already you know. Yes, of course you can have that photo. My youngest son, Guy, can always print me another one off at work. He’s really good with computers.
Talking of writing names… it’s Clara with a ‘C’. I think you’ve put a ‘K’.
Why, yes, thank you: Clara Waterfall is a lovely name. Shut your eyes for a moment. What image does my name bring into your mind?
A faraway, fairy dell, complete with magical, sprinkly-tinkly waterfall; dragonflies hovering above water lilies or aside bulrushes; delicate, flaxen-haired fairies skipping and flitting from one pebble to another, laughter tinkling like a kitten’s collar-bell. Clara, of course, is the beautiful fairy princess: the one that kisses a toad, probably after singing an enchanting little ditty about how love has escaped her until that very day…
OK, let’s scratch that record and break it in half now! The only thing that I have in common with the mythical dell is the toad. I don’t have bulgy eyes or a tongue that flicks out to snaffle up flies. On the contrary, I am told often that I have a very pretty face. I also know that my features are ‘enhanced’ by these thick waves of hair because my talented hairdresser daughter, Marnie, says so.
It’s after my face, when your eyes drift down to my neck and shoulders, that the toad is revealed. Look at my skin. It has been stretched so far, it resembles that of our leathery, amphibious friend from the fairy dell. I even appear to have his warts. But if you look closely, you can see that these ‘warts’ are just broken veins that have knobbled and buckled under the strain of blood that has to circulate around my M25-sized system.
I know I’m a big girl, Mr Kelly. I’m well over thirty stone but fewer than thirty-five. In pounds, that’s a mere four hundred and seventy six, making me positively slender next to some of the Americans that you see on the telly. They go on these programmes to have their fifteen minutes of fame but end up displayed as freaks.
Is that why you’re here, Mr Kelly? Am I just part of a freak show? I’m happy to talk about it; I don’t mind, you know. I’m not after fame but I do enjoy a bit of attention. Don’t we all?
Make yourself comfortable, there’s some tea and biscuits on the way.
What’s that? Do I have any health issues? Give me a letter of the alphabet, Mr Kelly, and I’ll tell you what I’ve got beginning with t
hat letter! We could start with D for diabetes, dermatitis, diaphragmatic dysfunction and deep-vein thrombosis.
Of course, I know the solution is to eat less and move more. I’m not stupid; I just have a very unlucky metabolism. Believe me Mr Kelly, if I could create an armpit-to-hip zip, allowing the slim woman inside me to step out, I’d be down the nearest pit mining out the metal for it right now!
Ah, here’s the tea. Would you like a chocolate marzipan slice or a ginger oat biscuit? They’re all homemade by my talented other half.
I have tried to lose weight, you know. In my lifetime I have been to every ‘Skinny Minnie’ club known to man. (I should say ‘woman’ since the slimming clubs are mostly full of female followers.) I have eaten diets based on protein milkshakes, eggs, fruit, nuts, oats, soup, non-carb, low-carb, retro-carb, yadda, yadda… I have done all this, yet my addiction to food is stronger than my ability to resist.
Yes, I will join you and have a biscuit, thank you. I’ll just have a ginger oat biscuit though; the chocolate marzipans are very calorific. You know what they say: a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips!
Obviously, I don’t move much now. I’ve never moved much, truth be told. I was slow and overweight at school. It was humiliating at times.
I particularly remember athletics. The other girls ran to the high jump and either scissored it or flopped over, shoulders first. I trotted as best I could, my arms folded in front of me to support my fatty, floppy breasts. It took me ages to pluck up the courage to ask my father about buying a bra.
Not my mam, no. Sadly, she left when I was just four years old; same age as our Skye is now. She took all her stuff… everything except me, my dad and the kitchen sink. I never saw her again. Dad told me nothing. They didn’t in those days; adults kept their conflicts to themselves.
Anyway, every time I reached the high jump bar, I would nudge it off with my folded arms before stepping onto the thick blue mat behind it. Every time, Mrs Puck the PE teacher, would scream at me. Every time, the other girls would snigger behind their hands and whisper cruelly, as if I were a creature from outer space. Every time, I would climb down the other side of the mat, blushing and wishing I were anywhere else but there. You get the idea…
My own children? No, none of them are even overweight Mr Kelly. My oldest boy, Mikey, is a big lad but he’s a rugby player so it’s pure muscle with him. Billie’s a bonnie lass; she’s the youngest out of all of them. She’s not huge though. She’s fifteen so it’s only puppy fat. She’ll be home from school soon. You’ll probably see for yourself then. She’s easily as tall as you, you know!
Having five children obviously hasn’t helped my figure, although I should state that I’ve only had three actual pregnancies. OK, I can see that I’ve lost you on that one…
Do help yourself to more chocolate marzipan while I explain.
I became a mother to two sets of twins before most people have even realised that the birds and bees have wings! Just sixteen years old with the non-identicals: Marnie and Mikey. Then eighteen years old with the identicals: Gavin and Guy. I named all four of them. I really didn’t care about anyone else’s opinion and certainly not much about their father, Vic. He managed to clear the hospital grounds and jump on a shuttle bus out of South Yorkshire before the ultrasound jelly had dried second time round. I guess another set of double heartbeats and a couple of toddlers throwing tantrums at home put him off fatherhood.
A few years later, I had to smile when I heard that Vic was given a nine month sentence. I hear that Her Majesty’s compulsory room sharing scheme can be a little cramped to say the least. Vic may not have learned to behave as a result, but I’m sure he can now empathise with the confined quarters his children had to suffer before they were born!
I first met Vic Smedley at the Hawpeak Youth Club when I was just fifteen years old. He was a stocky, loud-mouthed seventeen year old who clearly loved the ladies. They appeared to love him right back. He was a fledgling firefighter, with the muscles to match. Imagine my surprise when he began to show some interest in me! I was a substantial girl but, at that time, I knew all my curves were mostly in the ‘right’ places. His friend, Jakey Jackson, a skinny, spot-ridden trainee chef, initially made a beeline for me but only seemed able to talk to my chest. Vic’s pale blue eyes at least made it to my face once or twice during conversations. I held Vic at arm’s length for many, many months; his age and experience frightened me, as did his reputation, but I guess I’m as weak-willed with men as I am with food.
I kept that first pregnancy a secret for as long as I could, despite the twins’ rapid growth within me. My bulk may have worked against me in the high jump at school, but it saved me from the high jump at home for several months. Thankfully, my father barely noticed me, let alone my expanding girth. This gave Vic and me the chance to sort ourselves out with a cheap bedsit, albeit at the dodgy end of town. We didn’t have much money, especially when Vic was slung out of the fire brigade for taking drugs. He protested his innocence, of course, but his seniors took the ‘no smoke without fire’ line of thinking – well, they would, wouldn’t they? At least we were able to collect benefits and, because of the twins, we got rehoused here to Jubilee Terrace. Hawpeak is so much nicer than our first location. As I recall, there’s quite a good view from the bottom of the garden. You must pop out and have a look before you go. Me? Noooo… I’ve not been outside for years. I’m more of an inside girl – give me a movie and a bucket of toffee popcorn any day!
You’re probably thinking: how did I get to this size with two sets of twins running around? Well, I don’t think I had any proper food in years. I ate mounds of chocolate bars, biscuits and cheese chunks, washed down daily with an ocean of fizzy drinks. Most nights, when he was still around, Vic would bring takeaway food home from the chippy at the bottom of Church Street. His mate, Spud, worked there so I guess he gave Vic leftovers on the cheap. The only greens I ate were the bad potatoes which all too often made their way into the deep fat fryers.
After Vic left me, Spud would bring enormous bags of scraps around most nights. I guess he either felt sorry for me or fancied me. I wasn’t bothered by his Tourette’s, although it frightened the babies. It’s hard to get to know someone when three of your four kids are screaming the place down. Marnie took to him alright – she always ran to the door when he came over, shouting ‘…pud… pud…’ and giggling with glee – but the boys were terrified. Spud’s tics seemed to worsen with their cries. It was a shame really because he was such an attractive, friendly young man and, following my father’s fatal stroke not long after the identicals were born, we needed support wherever we could get it.
Thankfully, another regular visitor was Jakey Jackson. He would also arrive laden with food. After finishing his apprenticeship, he gained employment at the Muncaster Hotel here in Hawpeak, specialising in desserts and pastries. It was hard coping on my own but Jakey would pop round most days between his split shift. The kids adored him and he was such a help to me. He even managed to progress in terms of eye movement. Actually, he managed to progress quite a bit as the years rolled by.
Cue my third pregnancy: a single child at last! Billie must have had plenty of space in there on her own because when she came out, she was one big, bouncing bundle of baby joy! I was only just into my thirties, heavily overweight and eating even more than ever before. It was how I coped with the strain of having a baby and four stroppy young teens in a small council house. By the time Billie was two, I was very much the wrong side of twenty stone.
Would you like more tea, Mr Kelly? I’m sure Jakey would pour us both some. Just shout through to the kitchen. And perhaps a slice of Jakey’s delicious chocolate truffle tart? It’s one of my favourites, you know.
While he can’t hear us, Mr Kelly, I should tell you quietly that the trouble (if you can even call it that) with Jakey is his incredible kind-heartedness. He really is the most wonderful man and would do anything for anyone. He would have married me in a heartbeat, you kn
ow, but I kept putting it off because of my weight. And now… well, I guess he’s more medic than romantic! He’ll still do anything I ask him to do though. If I ask him to fetch me takeaway food, he arrives back, arms laden. If I ask him to make me cake, biscuits, pastries or chocolate truffle tart, he’s on the case. If I ask him to cook me up a fried breakfast or Sunday lunch (no matter what time or day of the week), he cheerfully dons his R2D2 apron and sets to. He loves cooking, knows his stuff, and he really does make the finest profiteroles you’ve ever tasted.
He just works evening shifts at the hotel now; caring for me takes up a lot of his time I’m afraid. When he’s not helping me with my ‘essentials’, he’s in the kitchen. It’s his territory; his studio of edible art. I leave him to it Mr Kelly. He’s happy enough and, let me tell you, everything that Jakey bakes is worth having a bite of. I can barely find the words to describe the feeling that washes over me when I have Jakey’s delicious food in my mouth. It’s like a heavenly hug that radiates from the top down, caressing every part of my body; an angel’s sigh stroking my soul. You don’t get that effect with celery Mr Kelly.
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