An Apple a Day (27 page)

There's a brief exchange about why I'm here, my medical history, and then she asks me to undress and lie down on the couch. The procedure isn't exactly pleasant, but it's not painful either: similar to a pap smear but with a tiny camera instead of a speculum. I remember what an ex-boyfriend, a medical student at Barts, once told me: “Never feel embarrassed by having an internal. Doctors have to examine all sorts, homeless people who haven't washed or who have urinated on themselves; for a doctor it's routine—they don't worry and neither should you.” Remembering that advice always makes me laugh. And today, in the imaging suite, I don't care about the discomfort or indignity involved; I'm just desperate to know what's going on inside.

I should point out that, despite having counted down the days until the scan, I wasn't expecting immediate results. I assumed the
sonographer would do her investigations and capture the relevant images and then just send a report to my GP like last time. But this middle-aged woman, wearing a hijab over her white coat, is quite chatty and forthcoming. Given my unfortunate position on the couch she seems amused by my precise questions, but she's happy to answer them. Will she be able to tell me if I've ovulated? No. Would she be able to see if I was pregnant? Yes. Please can she measure everything carefully? Yes. When will my GP get the full results? Seven to ten days.

There's a swirl of black-and-white images on the screen above the bed. “OK . . .” She focuses on the images. I hold my breath. “Good. So what we're seeing is normal, exactly what I see every day of the week; everything looks healthy.” Am I hearing things? I ask her to repeat what she's just said. “Yes, it all looks completely normal.” I realize I'm fighting down tears—first relief, then excitement—as I listen to her steady voice and gaze up at the screen.

Moving the camera around inside me, she presses down lightly on my stomach. Then she points out the black dots: these are the eggs that are ready to be released. “See, Miss Woolf, in the left and right ovaries, plenty of dominant follicles. And the uterus lining is very good; I can't see any problems here.” She smiles at me. “I can't say anything about trying for a baby, but structurally, this is all perfect.” I'm speechless; I think I'm going to burst with happiness. When I ask about my absent periods, she suggests two things: one, gaining a little more weight might well trigger them, or two, taking Clomiphene.

We talk for a while longer, and she tells me she'll write up the report for my doctor as quickly as possible. I pull my jeans on and practically dance back to the waiting room. Tom is engrossed in the sports section of
The Times
and looks surprised to see me, having expected the whole process to take much longer. “How did it go?” he asks, looking concerned, but I can't speak. Instead
I drag him by the hand, through the revolving doors and out to the parking lot, to tell him the amazing news: that everything's normal, there are lots of eggs there, it's game on.

It's raining heavily now but I don't even notice because we're hugging so tight. If I ever had any doubts about us having a baby, Tom's smile is my answer. We finally calm down and start walking toward the tube, holding hands and talking about the future. My God, it's no wonder that women get so emotional about their twelve-week scan—I'm not even pregnant yet and I'm in pieces. This feels like a new beginning.

* * *

We go back to Tom's flat and he announces he's making us a celebration dinner. I put on my new sea-green dress and light candles and open a bottle of champagne, while Tom does his chef thing—making a mess of the kitchen, contentedly “slaving over a hot stove,” swigging glasses of red wine. Tom calls me his Puerto Rican dancing girl (we bought this dress in San Juan a few weeks ago) because it swirls around me, fluid as silk, every time I move.

The starter is an arugula, spinach, and watercress salad with a garlicky olive oil and balsamic dressing; my mum taught me to make this dressing, really simple and delicious. The main course is a spicy chili (vegetarian for me and meat for him) with brown rice. I never realized Tom could cook because I've never really given him the chance, but the chili looks and smells amazing. At first my taste buds are overwhelmed by all the complex flavors—and of course I'm worried about the oil in the salad dressing, the size of my portion, the hidden, dangerous, mysterious ingredients. But Tom reminds me that kidney beans and rice are excellent sources of protein and iron. And, despite my anxiety, it's nice to share a meal that has been cooked with love.

Apart from the salad dressing, my culinary contribution to the evening is dessert: fresh strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries topped with vanilla frozen yogurt. It reminds us of our U.S. trip back in May, sharing tubs of frozen yogurt in Salt Lake City. After, we take our champagne through to the living room and play Leonard Cohen on the iPod. Curled up on the sofa together, my feet propped in Tom's lap, we reminisce about the road trip, all the miles we covered and places we visited.

Thinking back to the spring, I realize how far I've come: I couldn't have eaten Tom's vegetarian chili back then. Not only have I gained weight, but I also have a more varied repertoire—after years of sticking to the same fat-free, safe options. For anyone else who is trapped with anorexia, let me say this: for all the fear—and it's a hugely fearful process for me still—it's also exhilarating to take responsibility for your health. When you're not panicking, there are moments of actual empowerment: you're taking control of something that has controlled you for so long. Because anorexia is tyranny, that's all.

I remember something Tom said to me, months ago. We were in Bruges, warming up in the café of an elegant patisserie in the midst of a heavy snowstorm. All around us people were eating plates of hot buttered toast, slabs of Belgian chocolate, wedges of cheesecake. At a corner table by the fire, I remember Tom's words,“ . . . but fat doesn't make you fat, Em.”

It's the strangest thing to discover: that eating fat doesn't make you fat, that a vegetarian chili won't make you gain weight. There are no rules. You can experiment with flavors; you can explore the unknown. Daring to taste something new doesn't mean you're greedy or a failure. You can feed your body when it's hungry (though I still struggle with this one). The anorexic mindset is relentlessly black and white: things are either safe or unsafe, good or bad, thin or fat; I know this, I think like this. But it doesn't have
to be this polarized. I drizzled oil on my salad. I ate Tom's chili. For longer than I can remember my life has been all or nothing; now I'm starting to discover shades of happiness in between.

Shades of happiness like packing the dishwasher together at night, sharing the last sips of champagne, getting ready for bed. I lie awake for hours, smiling, replaying those black images on the screen, those dominant follicles, any one of which could contain the ingredients of a baby. I'm normal—yes,
normal
normal. For once that sounds just perfect.

* * *

“But I don't understand—you're not living together?” My aunt looks confused. “Are you planning to move in with him, or waiting to get pregnant first, or are you going to have this baby on your own?” We're drinking coffee in Covent Garden and the conversation has taken an uncomfortable turn. Alison is asking what I know a lot of people are wondering about us:
If they don't even live together, how the hell are they planning on raising a child together?

The scan was a breakthrough of sorts, but talking to my aunt reminds me of another element of “recovery” that I have yet to face. The primary goal I set myself, all those months ago, was to gain weight: to challenge my food fears and relinquish my rigid controls over eating. But there was something else in that pledge, not unrelated to the eating disorder, but in some ways even more difficult for me to face: “This year I'm going to kick down my barriers and let Tom love me and take more risks. It's time to let go.” Yes, it's time to let go. Time to risk my own emotions, to learn to live in the real world, to open up to other people, to allow myself to take part. The scan, the real possibility of having a baby together, and then my conversation with my aunt, brings
this sharply into focus. I've been putting it off for months, but it's time to move in with Tom.

Why is this such a big deal? For years I've watched from the sidelines as friends and colleagues move in with their “other halves”—sometimes successfully, sometimes not, but they give it a go. Apparently it's normal for human beings to seek life partners and to cohabit. We are social animals, naturally designed to gather in pairs or family units, to live together.

After years of therapy, reading, and weekends alone just thinking, I've come to understand more about why I've been isolating myself. It's simple: I got hurt and so I withdrew. First the breakup with Laurence, then Greg's suicide—different forms of abandonment but abandonment nonetheless. I had gotten too close to the flames and they burned me badly. Rather than risk further rejection it seemed safer to be self-sufficient. Nothing much can damage you if you don't really care. So in my twenties I reinvented myself: by way of isolation and anorexia, I became detached from things. I had plenty of boyfriends but I didn't fall in love again: when it came to emotional involvement, I'd put up barriers. Living alone was a part of this fortress mentality; my flat became my sanctuary.

Then along came Tom. It's inconvenient, falling in love and wanting a baby, when you're a confirmed one-person household. It means that I have to rejoin the outside world.

I remember when Dr. Robinson first suggested anorexia might represent something more than just an eating disorder for me; something deeper, some need for purity and control. I'd confessed an element of distaste for flesh-and-blood femaleness, the voluptuousness of pregnancy, the unpredictability of childbirth and motherhood. My private world, my pristine flat, my runner's body—all controllable, contained, and neat. I think Dr. Robinson has a point. Over the last seven years I've watched my big sister go from single career girl to married mother-of-three, and the
chaos is unbelievable. Mostly it's happy chaos, I can see that—she and Charlie are fantastic parents—but it frightens me too. When Katie brings the children around they wreck my flat: they jump up and down on the bed and leave footprints all over my cream duvet and pull everything out of the kitchen cupboards and splash orange soda on the kitchen counters and leave bits of regurgitated food behind the sofa and traces of milk and baby puke on my white shirt. It's havoc. What about my freshly painted walls and gleaming wooden floors, the simple salad and crisp glass of white wine, the early morning swim? When I think of babies, it threatens my ordered life.

And yet, for Tom, it means everything that we should live together and start a family. So why haven't I moved in; what is my resistance about? It's about everything I've described above—the chaos, the compromise of communal living (even the word “communal” makes me shudder), the fear that it might all go wrong. My friend Jules, who is currently three months pregnant, emailed me last week.
I really think you should give it a try with Tom—making a home together is one of the loveliest feelings in the world. I remember when Nick and I first moved in; I used to delight in washing his dirty pants! That soon faded, but the thrill of living together never does. Now, the best thing about going away is coming back to him and our home together. I know you worry about losing your independence, but there are ways to have your personal space in Tom's flat
.

I think it's more than just a question of “personal space.” I actually crave being alone. I guard my privacy as if the barbarians were at the gates. I find being with other people for extended periods of time exceedingly stressful. I like silence and order. I like my flat to be cool and empty. I have nothing on the walls (except a few photographs in simple silver frames) and I don't like people lolling on my sofa or sharing my bed. I don't like comings and
goings, or washing-up in the sink, or piles of drying laundry. I don't like strange food in the fridge.

There's a paradox here, because Tom isn't the slobby, messy, male stereotype—far from it. He would never leave dirty clothes on the floor or unwashed plates in the kitchen. His bathrooms are spotless, the garden is neat. And I love his flat—it's spacious, airy, filled with sunlight. Like me, he's addicted to books, music and films. He has beautiful art on the walls and his flat is big enough for two (even three). More than that, he understands what a home needs to be. The way I feel about my flat—my refuge from the big bad world—is exactly what Tom longs to provide for me. He doesn't want all-night parties or endless house guests either. We both love nothing more than closing the front door, putting on a warm sweater and “flat jeans” (i.e. clean jeans not worn on public transport) and pottering around in privacy.

My only practical objection to Tom's flat is that it's in South-West London, eleven miles from where I grew up, but it's an idyllic setting, green and leafy, nestled in a bend of the river Thames. A few months after we met, Tom (secretly) converted his spare room, where he used to keep golf clubs and sports clutter, into a study for me with fresh white paint, a new wooden floor, and installed bookshelves. I didn't find out about it for ages—I never went in that room—but I remember the day he showed me the transformation . . . I stood in the doorway of “my” new study, sunshine streaming in the windows, genuinely lost for words. It was one of the most romantic gestures I've ever known, because it was done
for me
. That's Tom all over: dogged, generous, imaginative—showing his commitment to my writing through wood and paint. Creating a place in his home for me to follow my dreams. So why, two years on, have I still not moved in?