Sweet Temptation (30 page)

‘Ooh,’ I said, my stomach doing back-flips at the thought. ‘Well, I’m not sure about that . . . I mean, it is only a first date . . .’ Sex with Joe. Much as I wanted it, I was also utterly terrified at the thought. I hadn’t got my kit off for anyone since Brendan – I hadn’t even snogged anyone. What if I’d forgotten what to do?

‘Of course,’ Maddie said quickly, putting a hand on mine. ‘Sorry, that’s me getting my kicks vicariously through you and your far more exciting love life, Lauren. I’m not seeing a lot of action under the duvet myself at the moment, so . . .’

‘What, even though you’re such a slinky mama these days?’ I asked in surprise. Maddie had lost another three pounds that week according to the FatBusters Scales of Truth. ‘I’d have thought your hubby would be chasing you around the bedroom every night.’

She pulled a face. ‘Fat chance,’ she moaned. ‘No pun intended. But you don’t want to hear about that. Go on, tell us more about this dashing prince you’ve got lined up. And what are you going to
wear
?’

What indeed? I needed something special, something beautiful, something knock-out. I needed to get my credit cards out. ‘Is anyone free on Saturday for a shopping mission?’ I asked.

Fortunately, they both were. Unfortunately, when we hit the city the following Saturday, everyone else seemed to have come out as well. It was mid-December and the centre was absolutely heaving with shoppers desperate to load up with Christmas presents, as well as all the tourists who’d flocked to see the German Christmas market in Victoria Square.

After several hours trying on dresses in every shade imaginable – long ones, short ones, plain ones, sparkly ones – I was just verging on despair when I found the perfect thing. It was a fairly simple black dress with tiny cap sleeves and a plunging V-shaped neckline. The material felt like velvet, but it was lighter and stretchier and had a delicate floral pattern which you could only see when you were close up. It was stylish but not boring, and would look fab with some silver earrings and my hair pinned up.

‘Hurrah,’ Maddie said as I handed over my credit card. ‘Does that mean we get lunch now?’

‘Bloody right it does,’ I told her.

The three of us walked up New Street and I felt a rush of joy. The Christmas lights twinkled above us, and the German market was in full swing, with stalls selling wooden toys and handmade candles, as well as iced German gingerbread and pastries. A vat of mulled wine steamed in the cold air on one stall, and the smell of grilling sausages wafted across from another. There was a helter-skelter on our left, and you could hear children screaming and laughing as they whizzed down it, as well as the cheerful music from the carousel further ahead. It was all so wonderfully Christmassy – I felt as if we were on a film set.

Last Christmas had been the most miserable of my life. I was torn up over Brendan leaving me and just wanted to bunker down with Eddie, the duvet and a whole tin of Quality Street while the rest of the world played happy families without me. In the end, my parents and brother came to rescue me on Christmas Eve and forced me to go home with them, but I still spent the whole of Christmas Day trying not to bawl my eyes out.

This Christmas was going to be different. I could almost taste it.

Chapter Seventeen

Sweet Temptation

Maddie

I was dreading Christmas. Absolutely dreading it. The thought of Christmas dinner without Mum at the table was just unbearable. Unthinkable.

Mum had always been a big Christmas person. She loved everything about it – choosing presents, taking us all to the panto at the Rep, decorating her house with armfuls of ivy and mistletoe, buying the most enormous tree and hanging it with the same silver baubles she’d had since the Seventies . . . and she was in her absolute element on Christmas Day. Well, it was a party, wasn’t it? A do. She’d always been good at that. She planned it like a woman possessed – the food, the music, the theme, the works. She’d have a different colour scheme every year – gold and purple, last time, I remembered. Never one for minimalism, my mum.

But this Christmas was going to be so different. Her absence would haunt me, would taint the whole day, I knew it. How could I laugh about a turkey disaster, pull crackers and wear a stupid hat if I couldn’t smile into her eyes across the table? How would I get through the day without crying over all those Christmases past, all those memories that came tumbling in so cruelly as the kids opened each new door of the Advent calendar?

As for the thought of January and a whole new year without her, stretching bleakly on the horizon like an empty diary . . . it was too awful to contemplate. Mum was in my head all the time, talking to me, reminding me of things we’d done together, conversations we’d had. I could hear her voice, her laugh, I could conjure up the smell of her perfume at will. Would she still be there by the end of next year, though, or would she have begun to fade, greying out of my memory? I couldn’t let that happen. I never wanted to let her slip away.

It was difficult, this grieving lark. I wasn’t doing very well with it at all. I felt that I was dragging the rest of the family down with my sadness, spreading my misery through the house like invisible smoke. I had all these good intentions about how I wanted to be the same brilliant mother to the kids that Mum had been to me, but I felt exhausted by my mourning – too exhausted, in fact, to give them the attention they deserved. It was an effort to get through each day, and I felt that with every block of time that passed – every day, week, month – I was further and further away from those last precious embraces with her.

So I was glad of an excuse to get out and do something normal, like help Lauren shop for a dress one Saturday, even though walking through Brum with the Christmas lights twinkling and the happy festive music pounding from every shop was a killer. I must admit, I felt slightly jealous of Lauren going off on her date that night. Not because I begrudged her – I didn’t, not for a single minute. It was lovely to see her so sparkly-eyed with excitement, and she looked absolutely stunning in the dress she bought in the end. It was more that I envied her the thrill of going on a first date with a gorgeous man – the flirting and the eye contact, maybe some fervent footsie-playing under the table . . . God, I missed those days sometimes.

Not really. Not much. I was a happily married woman, after all; Paul and I had celebrated our fourteenth wedding anniversary in September, and besides, I felt too drained emotionally to find the stamina for a rampant sex life just then. Still, it would have been nice to have felt desired once in a while. Flirted with, even . . .

It was funny how losing weight – two and a half stone by this point – had changed things. Back when I was at my fattest, Paul had always told me I was beautiful in his eyes. Now that I was slimmer and felt a million times better about my body, he wasn’t saying any such thing. There didn’t seem to be a lot of flirting and footsie-playing these days either.

A few weeks ago at FatBusters, one woman, Trish, had told us that she’d broken up with her boyfriend. She’d said that ever since she’d taken up running and started losing weight, he’d become more and more offhand with her, as if he wasn’t pleased for her. He’d tried to dissuade her, telling her that running would give her huge muscular calves and wreck her knees. ‘In the end,’ she said, ‘I realized he was put out by the whole thing. Jealous, even, because I was happy and feeling good about myself. I realized that he only liked me when I was fat and felt unattractive. That made him feel secure, because he knew other blokes wouldn’t fancy me.’

‘Ahhh, yes,’ Alison had said sagely. ‘It’s a classic reaction, I’m afraid. You might find it with friends, too, who become insecure with every dress size you drop. It’s sad, but the fact is, you’ve become that bit more threatening all of a sudden. You’re not the fat friend or partner they can look down on and feel better than any more. You’re an equal – and some people can’t handle that.’ She gave Trish a sympathetic smile. ‘I’m sorry to hear about your fella, my love. What a shame he wasn’t man enough to enjoy your success with you, rather than be made paranoid by it. Still – just goes to show. He wasn’t good enough for you, was he?’

This conversation had replayed itself in my head a number of times recently. Could this be what was happening with me and Paul? I wondered uneasily. It had even crossed my mind a few times that he was trying to sabotage my diet. Just the other week, for example, I’d needed to work late, and I’d asked him to sort out dinner for everyone. There had been chicken in the fridge and loads of vegetables, as well as rice, noodles and potatoes in the cupboard – and what had he done? He’d gone out to the chippy and bought four fish suppers.

I’d walked into the kitchen and breathed in that wonderful hot-chip smell and nearly keeled over with desire. He and the kids were already eating theirs – big fat chips sprinkled with salt, dripping with vinegar. My stomach rumbled and for a few moments I was seriously tempted. I hadn’t had a chip in months and was salivating at the thought of dipping one in ketchup and pushing it into my mouth . . .

Then I’d got a grip and become angry. More than that, I was livid. Absolutely bloody furious.

‘How long have I been on this flaming diet, Paul?’ I’d shouted at him, trying not to breathe in the delicious, eat-me smell of fried potato. ‘How long have I been saying I’m trying not to eat fatty foods? For crying out loud!’

His face had fallen but he’d said nothing.

‘Don’t shout at him, Mum,’ Emma had said. ‘It was meant to be a treat.’

‘Yeah, but a treat I’m not supposed to have,’ I’d snapped, pushing my still-wrapped dinner straight into the kitchen bin. The swing-top lid had tipped back like a broad smile, mocking me, and I’d felt like punching the wall. ‘For crying out loud, I’ll make my own bloody tea, then. Is it really so hard for you to chop a few veggies?’

Nicole had laughed when I’d told her the story the next day. ‘He’s just a man, that’s all,’ she’d said, pouring me a lime and soda as I sat there at her bar. ‘Bless him. Probably had his head full of more important stuff, like the football or the news or . . . or his willy, of course.’

I sniffed. ‘I doubt it,’ I said, swivelling on the bar stool. ‘He doesn’t seem interested in sex any more. Typical, isn’t it? Just as I’m starting to feel remotely attractive for the first time in years, he’s taken a vow of blooming celibacy. I’m beginning to think he preferred me when I was a great big fatty.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ Nicole said, passing me my drink. ‘He adores you – always has done. And you look great, Maddie. He probably doesn’t want you to get big-headed by complimenting you all the time, that’s what it is.’

‘Hmmm,’ I said, not swayed.

‘Maybe you should pull some seduction tricks out of the bag, see if that livens him up,’ she said with a glint in her eye. ‘Cook him something nice, break the diet for once with a glass of wine. Maybe treat yourself to some foxy new undies, give him a thrill . . .’

‘Hmmm,’ I said again. ‘I’m not sure the world is ready for the sight of my bum in a wisp of lace, but . . .’

She laughed. ‘I’m not talking about showing the
world
, you exhibitionist! You only have to show Paul!’

I mulled it over as she went to serve somebody else. It wasn’t a bad idea, really. Maybe if Paul
was
feeling a bit threatened by the new improved me, it was up to me to show him that I still wanted him . . .

Meanwhile, Paul wasn’t the only one who seemed bent on diet-sabotage tactics. Collette was trying her best to wreck my calorie-counting too. Since I’d been presenting my ‘Weigh to Go’ slot every week, I couldn’t help noticing that, coincidentally, she’d been bringing numerous calorific goodies into the office, and taking care to leave them in close proximity to my desk. One day it was a Yule log for the team to share. A big triple chocolate one from Waitrose with icing sugar dusted across its thick chocolate buttercream. Another time she left a huge jar of salted peanuts on Becky’s and my double desk and invited everyone to help themselves. She’d even brought in hot mince pies and whipped cream from the deli up the road last week. It was enough to drive a dieter insane, the delicious smells that wafted under my nose, the squelch of the cake knife plunging into the Yule log, the
mmm
,
yummy
noises she kept making.

Evil bitch, I thought, imagining tipping the peanuts over her head and stabbing the cake knife into her eyeballs. Not that I was struggling with temptation or anything.

Still, at least with Collette I knew where it was coming from. She really
was
jealous – jealous that I was getting such great feedback on my ‘Weigh to Go’ slot, furious that Andy had extended it to fifteen minutes now, and really pissed off that sometimes I got more emails than she did.

Dear Maddie, Thank you so much for your diet tips this week. You’re a legend!

Dear Maddie, Congrats on dropping another dress size! Go you – you’re an inspiration!

Dear Maddie, Loved your low-fat Christmas dinner ideas – you’re going to save me from my greed this year!

Dear Maddie, Really wish you had your own full-length show, I could listen to you all morning!

So yes, I knew Collette was desperate to make me fail, desperate for me to cave in and say yes to a mince pie and – oh, go on, then – lashings of cream on top. And then, of course, I’d have to admit, on air, that I’d strayed from the calorie-counting path, knowing that if I didn’t fess up to my crimes, she’d be all too willing to dob me in.

It was this insight that gave me the will power to resist all her stupid temptations, and I knew it was doing her head in. I took great pleasure in thinking,
Ha ha ha, Collette
– take your Yule log and shove it somewhere painful. I won’t be having a single crumb of it.