by Grace Bowman
Grace picks up a graduate careers handbook with ideas on different types of jobs and a directory of companies, and she starts to flick through it.
A is for Accountancy
A is for Actuary
A is for Advertising
She stops, and scribbles on her piece of paper, Advertising!
She quickly tears off another piece of paper and starts to write a practice letter:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am very interested in your company. I am just about to graduate from Cambridge at the end of the month and would very much like the opportunity to meet with you to discuss the possibility of joining your advertising agency. I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours faithfully …
She works through the handbook, crossing off names of companies as she goes. She is frenetic, charged, impulsive. Anything to stop her going backwards, anything to take her away.
She sends letter after letter, each one housing one of her stories:
‘This is what I have always wanted to do …’
Or, ‘I really see myself fitting into your company.’
Or, ‘I would welcome the opportunity to show you who I am.’
And, ‘I am a hard-working, disciplined and yet creative person.’
She dresses herself in a suit, and she constructs another form around her body. And they ask her, ‘Why do you want to work in advertising?’
She answers with the fluidity that never evades her in such situations. She has the perfect response for all such questions. All worked out. Line-perfect like a perfect actress should. Then there are handshakes and contracts and working hours, and she is going to lead a real life, and put a stop to those ridiculous head-dreams.
Grace sits in her Cambridge living room on the edge of the sofa. She is holding a cigarette in one hand and the phone in another:
‘Mum, Dad, guess what? I had an interview! It was in Knightsbridge, in London. I tripped along Sloane Street in my Topshop heels. Usually I am over-prepared for interviews, you know me, but for this one I didn’t get a chance. I just sent off a few letters, and then I am there, in this bigger-than-you-can-imagine office block, talking about TV ads. It all happened so quickly. The lady called me back the next day, and she told me that I had got a job! Can you believe it? I got a job, in advertising! It’s only a placement to start off with, but I’m going to be working for one of the biggest companies there is. So I’m not coming home. I’m not coming back, not now. I don’t know when I will be back, I’m afraid. But you are pleased for me, aren’t you? I have made you proud, haven’t I? I need to make you pleased and proud, especially after all I put you through. You know, that thing. But that’s over now. Look what I’ve done. I’ve moved on, we don’t have to talk about it any more. Thanks. Bye.’
So Grace packs up her case, locks the door of her Cambridge house and says goodbye to her friend, to university and to the stories that she made there. Just like that.
The first days at work are high-pitched and hot. Grace puts on her new work clothes and eats chocolate biscuits in presentations. She is very careful that no one gets the wrong idea this time, so she is sure not to be fussy or funny when it comes to food. It is difficult because there are sandwiches and crisps on every table. Fat, gloopy sandwiches with globules of mayonnaise seeping out of the sides. And so she keeps hearing the words, chicken, fat, mayonnaise over and over in her head on replay.
Grace has got to keep up with her story of advertising ambitions. She falls deeper and deeper into her story and begins to convince herself of its reality more and more each day.
Dear Best Friend,
How are you? Sorry I haven’t been in touch but things have been so busy, trying to sort out my new job and make new friends. I can’t let myself think about where I was before this. I just have to get on with my new life and put the old one behind me. I’m still trying to find my way around, not like at home where everything is small and clear and controlled. London doesn’t seem to work like that.
At work there are a few of us graduates and we are all in competition for a real job. It’s a two-month trial and sometimes it all gets very intense. We have to work late and go to the agency bar and be happy and sociable and friendly. There is lots of drinking, but I don’t mind because it calms my nerves. Things are blurry, but fun. There is so much noise and busyness that things are quieter inside. I think that I might be enjoying myself – maybe?
Sometimes, though, I feel lost. I am on my own. I don’t have any real friends here. I’ve lost touch with most people – like you. I go home and sit in my room at the top of a house, somewhere on a street that I don’t know, in an area that I don’t know, in a London that I don’t know, and I look out of the window.
I have tried really hard to get here, so I’m not going to let things turn around. I keep eating and drinking, and making people happy. I haven’t let out my secret either because I don’t want anybody to know. I let it out too much at university, and it made some people uncomfortable, they always held their distance.
Anyway, everyone has things from their past, and they don’t share them out, not when they’re over. You don’t go on and on about bad things that you experienced because it’s totally self-indulgent to do so. You have to get on with life, don’t you? You can’t be burdened with this kind of thing and you shouldn’t burden other people with it. You should be positive, not absorbed in your little eating problems, even if they do still seem like huge, monstrous things.
‘Smile, it might never happen.’ That’s what people say, isn’t it, even if it already has?
And it is over. It’s a new start. A brand-new me. See you soon maybe.
Love,
Grace
Twenty-one
They meet on the balcony of a tall building overlooking London. She has no idea where she is or how she got there. A group of them got in a taxi after work. They arrived at a party; they drank some wine and laughed and shouted. She joined in. She danced to some salsa music. She danced alone, round in circles, to herself, arms out to the sides, feeling and stroking the space around her. She balanced carefully, swaying back and forth on her high-heeled work shoes. She went outside for some air and he was there. It was unexpected, in the total unfamiliarity of the place, of the time and of herself, to find something so familiar right there, bottle of beer in hand, stepping forward to talk to her.
They go back inside and he dances with her. He spins her around and she collapses into him. He goes to the bar and buys her drinks. She plays with her hair and twists her cigarette between her fingers. They stumble out on to the pavement. He holds her hand, and they walk down the street, across the road, over the traffic lights, past the Tube station. She feels her head go dizzy with the disorientation, the sudden lack of control. He takes her to McDonald’s. She decides on a Filet-O-Fish burger. She hasn’t eaten a real burger for years and this one comes pretty close. He orders a McFlurry. He offers her a spoonful. She tastes it. It is cold and sweet on her tongue. Ice cream is not on her agenda. She doesn’t feel too bad either. The coldness of it is intriguing, the sweetness, powerful.
She looks at him over the dinner table. Red wine smudges her pink lips. She talks about her family, about university. He asks her questions. She asks him back. Words float from one side of the table to the other, conversation sails.
‘I have a secret,’ she says.
He listens.
She looks down at the tablecloth and rubs the side of her ring.
‘It’s just, I used to have an eating disorder. That’s why I am a year behind. Why I had a year off. That’s what I did, in that year. I mean, I did work in the pub, that wasn’t a lie, but I was also ill. I guess I could have died had it gone on longer.’
Then she stops. She can’t think why she did it, why it came out like that, instead of the story with the big gaps that she usually tells. Something made her tell him about it. She eats some more of her big bowl of cheesy gnocchi and smiles at him.
‘It was ag
es ago. It’s just, it’s a big part of me, so I’m not ashamed of it. I’m over it, and so I can talk about it now. Yes, I need to talk about it.’
She goes to the toilet and wipes the red wine stain from her mouth. She looks in the mirror. Why did you do that? Why did you let it out? Stupid girl.
She comes back to the table, she is quick in the bathroom, in case he might be thinking that she is being sick in the toilet. He might think things like that about her now, now she has let him in.
They sit in his flat, late into the evening. She calls him her boyfriend. He seems uncomfortable, but she has no doubt.
Everything will be OK if I am with you.
She eats the dinner he has cooked for her. She drinks the wine. She smiles and laughs and relaxes and sleeps comfortably, and the intrusive self-thoughts are quiet.
If I am with you then the things in my head go away.
Not an utterance, she realizes. The hours have passed and she hasn’t looked at the clock and tutted to herself for something that she hasn’t done.
Don’t make me go back to my flat. Don’t make me be on my own. Not when things are so perfect, so quiet, so different from everything I know.
He takes her to meet his family.
‘Shall I mention anything about, you know, certain foods that you don’t want to eat?’
He has watched her. Things have crept in, bit by bit. She doesn’t eat desserts in restaurants. She doesn’t like fast food. She asks him about her weight, her shape, her food – a lot.
‘No. No way. I’m fine. I’ll eat anything. Don’t let them know, will you? Please. I couldn’t stand it. I’ll be fine. I would hate it if they knew and judged me. You haven’t told them, have you?’
‘Of course not. Don’t worry. If you’ll be OK, then that’s great.’
She is sure that she will be.
She dresses in her smart work clothes. She wants to make a good impression, but not a fat one or a thin one either. In fact, she thinks it will be better not to stand out at all, if possible, because they will all be looking, weighing up, deciding.
She takes up the offer of crisps and nuts and dips with her glass of wine, and another glass.
Hi, everyone. I am normal. I am nice. Please like me. Thanks for the food, please like me.
It is a big family meal round the table. Course after course. Talking and questions, and traditions, and family jokes. She thinks of her growing-up house and how things are so different here, so much bigger, so much louder, so much more grown up. At home she had tea at five o’clock and usually it was something like shepherd’s pie and then apple crumble. They would eat tea on their knees in front of Neighbours. It is not like that here, she thinks, the way that people talk about their food, and take time over it, and ask questions like, ‘So, do you like garlic?’
And she says, ‘I suppose so. I don’t know. Yes, yes I do.’
She wonders if there is garlic in the dinner, and so says yes, because it would be a bad thing to be rude, and they might not like her if she sounds fussy.
They ask her if she likes her dinner and she says (without hesitation), ‘Yes, it’s delicious. Lovely, thank you. Thank you for having me.’ Like a good girl should.
They ask her if she wants more and she doesn’t, not at all, but she says, ‘Thank you, yes, it’s delicious. Yes, please.’
They talk about all the different meals they have had, and the different tastes and occasions on which they have eaten things. She doesn’t have much to say on such matters because she usually eats in secret, in private, when no one is looking.
He glances at her to check that she is all right. She doesn’t want him to make a fuss, and he doesn’t. He doesn’t know where she has come from, and how different things are there.
Don’t guess my secret, please.
She sits on the sofa with his family after dinner (crisps with dips, bread, soup, chicken, potatoes, vegetables, dessert). She eats chocolates with her coffee. People are talking and asking her questions, but all she can feel is her stomach swelling under her tight trousers. She tucks her legs under so that she doesn’t have to see them. She asks him for a baggy jumper so that the edges of her disappear.
‘Just a bit cold, that’s all. Oh no … it’s not your house that is cold, just me. I’m a bit like that!’
After the meal has ended, they say goodbye and she thinks she has done a good job making people like her.
They sit on the Tube side by side. He looks at her. ‘Thanks for coming. You are amazing.’
She closes her eyes and she takes deep breaths and she grips his hand tight.
Grace smiles as she finishes her presentation. She fields their questions one by one. An external confidence oozes. They offer her a permanent job. She has succeeded. She is sure that it is the right thing to do, to put behind her all the childish notions of writing and creativity. Someone like her can’t do something like that, can they? How would she earn money? Impossible. Switch it off.
She phones up Mum, to tell her about this new achievement. Mum is pleased, but perhaps surprised – not that Grace has got the job (of course she has) – but that she actually wants to do that kind of thing as a career. Her mum says, ‘OK, love, whatever you want to do.’
But Grace knows that Mum worries about her, worries that advertising isn’t really what she is about, worries that the corporate world isn’t for a sensitive girl from a small place, not for someone who feels things the way she does, soaks them in through her thinner-than-thin skin. Mum worries that Grace won’t cope with the pace of life in London because, really, she looks thin and probably she doesn’t eat properly, not at all, not by the look of things.
The family come to visit. Grace prepares the itinerary, plans it out so that everyone will have a good time – please do – and so that everyone will be happy and pleased with her. But London is noisy and full of people and there is rubbish on the streets. It isn’t like the place where she grew up, in safety and quiet alongside the ever-stretching fields. Grace feels bad that they don’t like it. She thinks it is her fault if there is too much rubbish and too many people.
They take the bus back to her flat – a room at the top of someone else’s flat – and she sweats and grinds her teeth every time the bus comes to a stop in the heavy-breathing traffic. She knows that they won’t be happy with the long, dirty bus journey home from work. She feels like they aren’t seeing it in a good light.
If only they had come on a different day and, Look how far I have come! I have. I have. Please agree. Times have changed.
They go to a pizza restaurant and everybody likes the pizza, and Grace has a salad (a big one).
I don’t eat pizza, OK? No thanks, not even a mouthful.
She drinks some white wine to stop the guilty feelings, and then she says, ‘Maybe you would like to meet my boyfriend?’
They seem pleased to do that, if she is pleased to do that, and they are all pleasing each other. They smile, and she thinks that perhaps they can see the difference in her after all. Perhaps the very fact that she has a boyfriend makes them think of her in a different way, with the anorexia now firmly behind them.
Then they leave, and Grace misses them, and she sits in her room and she wishes she was at home, with the sound of their voices rising up the stairs towards her small bedroom, in her growing-up house.
Twenty-two
He takes her to Borough Market. It is Saturday morning and it is crowded. They are jostled from one stall to the next. From fresh bread to cakes to meat to hot homemade meals served in small tubs, steam floating out into the chilled London air, dark chocolates and creamy coffees. On the edges of the market, the burger, chips and kebab stands, which cross with the organic health foods, sit stall by stall, side by side.
They taste bits of food on cocktail sticks, they buy hot bread, they eat it from the paper bag. They sip mulled wine, gasping for heat through their woolly gloves. After a lovely morning, they jump on the bus home, food nestled under their arms.
&nb
sp; They sit in front of afternoon TV, watching the football results come in. Grace tries to concentrate, but unfortunately she has her usual thumping head along with her strong-beating heart, framed with an edge of panic. She did have a lovely time in the market and she enjoyed sampling the food, and she didn’t feel too bad at the time, but afterwards, when they got home, she thought about the mulled wine, the olive bread and the pieces of chocolate for hours and hours. And still, here, the inside voice remains, and that is her difference from everyone else: the intoxicating guilt, the sitting, preying guilt.
Grace sits at her desk, early morning in the open-plan office. A girl comes in, past her desk, backpack on, red-faced after a six-mile run to work; she does it every day, every night. Grace thinks about her own Tube-crowded journey, and looks down at her legs. The girl opposite her desk is on a detox diet, and the one behind her seems to eat only fruits and salad. At lunchtime there are endless streams of people going out jogging around the park.
The office seems to be bursting with the sound of ripping Slimfast tins and low-fat Shapers sandwiches. Grace puts her head down and tries to concentrate on responding to her emails. It doesn’t help that she works on the advertising for a cereal company. One of her first challenges was to do a competitive analysis. They sent her out to Tesco, and asked her to buy a box of nearly every cereal on the shelf. She brought them back in a taxi, and lined the boxes up in a row. They told her to taste them all and read the product information so that she would be the expert on cereals and know what each product offered compared to hers. She bought some paper bowls and sat in a room, alone, pouring out small bits of each cereal from the packets, covering them with milk and eating each one. She did it in one afternoon, just because they were there, and she was nervous and intrigued, and because someone gave her an instruction to eat them; things she would never usually touch. She pretended that her bosses would be angry if she didn’t try them all. They didn’t even ask her about it afterwards. They had more important things to do (it wasn’t necessary for them to know how soggy, crunchy or sugary the other cereals were), not realizing they had given her the most difficult simple task of them all.
