The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl (2 page)

After the weigh-in, they’d assemble in a circle of clunky metal chairs. Some would crow about losing a pound, some would tell how they’d fashioned a lasagna out of cottage cheese and tinned soup. Some tearfully confessed to scoffing their children’s leftovers or the broken biscuits in the bottom of the tin. I began to understand that what you ate and what you weighed was a very big deal.

Sometimes after class Rhiannon and I pretended we were Weight Watching too. We’d take turns on the scale while Mum and her assistant Carol stacked the chairs.

“You’ve had a great week, pet!” I mimicked as Rhiannon jumped on.

“I switched to Weight Watchers margarine!”

Then we swapped places. I weighed in at seventy-seven pounds.

“Looks like a small gain, dearie.”

“Maybe it’s That Time of the Month?” I said. And I had no idea what that meant.

Suddenly Carol appeared behind me and frowned at the scale. “My God! She’s big!” She spoke to my mother in outraged tones like I wasn’t even there. “She nearly weighs as much as I do!”

I was never a skinny child but I wasn’t exactly fat either. Until that moment I’d hoped my greatest liability was my ginger hair. I did have round, rosy cheeks and rather chubby legs; but it was nothing that I wouldn’t have grown out of when I hit puberty. And at nine years old I already towered over Carol, who was a dainty dame of just four-foot-ten.

But I couldn’t apply that logic at the time. I finally had confirmation of my darkest fears. I had been labeled. From that moment on her words clanged in my ears and began to take over my life. “She’s big! She’s big!”

Not long after that incident Mum put me on my first diet.

One day my sister was given a sandwich for lunch and I got a plate of cottage cheese and vegetable crudités instead.

My stomach ached with shame and hunger as I gagged down the lumpy cheese. I’d learned from the Weight Watchers ladies that food was divided into good and bad. In the “good” camp were vegetables, fruit, and rice cakes. Chocolate, cakes, and anything remotely sweet and pleasurable were “bad.” So to be presented with a plate of Good meant there was something Bad about me. You didn’t eat Good food because it was wholesome and healthy; you ate it because you didn’t want to be fat. So at that moment I knew I’d found yet another way to disappoint.

The more I was forced to eat the Good foods, the more the Bad stuff took on an irresistible, forbidden allure. Throughout primary school I’d covet other people’s lunchboxes. My best friend Katie was a rare creature whose mother packed her delicious sweet things for lunch, but she seldom wanted to eat them. How could she not be interested in a Wagon Wheel or a Milky Way? Didn’t her whole body ache to rip them open?

Eventually my hunger would triumph over my shame.
“Umm … are you going to eat that?”

“Nah, I don’t want it. Do you?”

“Well, only if you’re sure?”

One time Katie gave me some Nutella. It was one of those snack packs with a foil lid and a tiny plastic spoon. I peeled back the foil and the chocolate perfume punched me in the nose. The Nutella looked so smooth and calm in its little box, it seemed a shame to disturb it. But five minutes later it was gone, and I felt the tension in my body ease. I wedged my tongue into the little grooves in the bottom of the tray, making sure I didn’t miss anything.

I was always trying to find ways to escape. I spent hours writing plays and “novels” about faraway places. I read books by flashlight in the bottom of my wardrobe. I was a big fan of Enid Blyton and all her talk of treacle, chocolate cake, and midnight feasts at boarding schools.

I devoured Roald Dahl too.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
was an obvious favorite, but I loved
Fantastic Mr. Fox
and his network of tunnels underneath the farmers’ store sheds. I dreamed of digging my own secret tunnel into a cake factory, and there’d be nothing Mum could do about it.

When I ran out of books, I’d read the fridge and freezer pages of appliance catalogues. I’d stare longingly at the carefully styled shelves, trying to pick my Dream Fridge based on its contents. I loved the rows of condiments and posh, bottled water, the celery lounging in the bottom drawer, the watermelon wedge smiling on a platter. And there were always elaborate sundaes in tall glasses. I wanted a family who had a fridge full of sundaes! And a freezer full of ice cream too. There was always ice cream! We had half a cow and a stack of sugar-free stewed fruit in our boring freezer.

I began to notice how food was a weapon in my parents’ never-ending war. My stepfather started complaining about Mum’s Weight Watchers meetings, saying that they took up far too much of her time. At first she protested that she needed the support and accountability to maintain her weight, but eventually she caved in and quit. And then she gave up being leader of our Brownie pack, until all she had left was her teaching job. But that still seemed too much for my stepfather’s liking, so he attacked in other ways. We would come home with the weekly grocery shopping and he’d tear through the bags, finding fault with every purchase. He criticized the way she dressed, the way she spent money, the “lazy” way she dared to spend five minutes drinking a cup of tea when she got home from work.

When my mother started to regain weight, the onslaught was even more relentless. He presided over the contents of her dinner plate, passing judgment on every morsel. Of course, he was naturally skinny, so this was an easy way to assert his superiority. I watched my mother trying to steel herself; at first she was angry and defiant, but as the years passed she seemed to get worn down. She’d eat perfectly in front of him, so as not to give him any ammunition, but then I noticed that she’d do the opposite when he wasn’t around. One time I hid behind her bedroom door and watched her lift a pile of clothes out of her dresser and retrieve a bar of chocolate. She sat on the bed and put one square after another into her mouth, slowly and mechanically, as if in a dream.

The more my stepfather kept on at my mother about her weight, the more she began to do the same to me. Every summer started with a new diet. Maybe she was trying to stop me from turning out like her, or maybe she thought she could protect me from the same kind of suffering. But to me it just drummed in the message that I was deeply flawed, useless and out of control. I was afraid to eat so much as a lettuce leaf in front of my parents. I started to mimic Mum’s secretive behavior, stealing food and lugging it back to my wardrobe hideout. Stray cookies, hunks of bread, a plastic-wrapped slice of cheese—I’d cram them into my mouth and feel ashamed, comforted, and rebellious all at the same time.

The situation was awash with contradictions. Mum would give me salad one day then treat me to an ice cream cone the next. We’d cook a healthy Weight Watchers recipe for dinner, but then I’d see her dig out a bag of crisps from a secret stash. Then some days Mum would send Rhiannon and me to the take-away shop for fries, and we’d stuff them down as we drove home from school, winding down the windows to let out the greasy smell. We’d stop at a roadside bin to dispose of the wrappers so my stepfather wouldn’t find out. I was confused, but reveled in the feeling that the three of us were united in a wonderful conspiracy.

I felt like a secret agent leading a double life. At school I strove to be outgoing and likable and not give any hint of the madness at home. That was fairly easy to conceal, but there was nothing I could do to hide my body, so I tried to make up for it by being funny. I wasn’t one for self-deprecating fat jokes; I couldn’t understand why anyone should deliberately draw attention to their flaws. I aimed for general wit and wisecracks, hoping that people would remember me for my punch lines rather than my paunch.

I was an eager scholar too. My studies were an escape, and topping my classes made me feel there was something I could control. School was the only place I could get things right, and that gave me a way to make my parents happy. Of course, I took great pains to be modest about my achievements, not wanting to be seen as too clever. I was desperate to please my teachers but couldn’t risk alienating my peers.

I was amazed that I managed to accumulate so many friends when I got to high school. They’d invite me to their slumber parties, and each time I’d have to beg my parents to let me go. I’d run from the car when Mum dropped me off, so scared that she’d change her mind.

Once through the door, I was delirious with freedom. My friends laughed at the way I apologetically asked for a glass of water, for permission to sit on that chair, and would they mind terribly if I used the bathroom? But their lives were so foreign to me, so light and ordinary, with no need to sleep with your head jammed underneath the pillows.

I’d panic when the food came out, frightened and excited by the array of crisps and pizza and cake. My friends’ parents urged me to eat and remarked how strange it was that someone so young was so anxious about food. But I was already caught in the cycle of public dieting and secret eating. I was 126 pounds and five feet seven inches tall by the age of fourteen, which in hindsight was healthy, but my sprouting boobs and hips made me even more convinced I was hideous. Why couldn’t my friends see that? I was fat. My family were always telling me, so it had to be true.

There are small moments that stand out, seemingly offhand remarks that stuck under my skin and rotted away for years and years.

On a beach holiday when I was fourteen, my mother looked up from her book and said casually, “You know, you have a lovely figure; if you could just make it a little smaller.”

Another time I was heading off to a party in a new dress. I felt almost beautiful, especially having lost fifteen pounds doing Weight Watchers by Mail.

“What do you think?” I asked my parents.

“You’ll be prettier when you lose a bit more weight,” said my stepfather.

I just nodded in agreement.

I stockpiled those idle comments and criticisms in my mind, magnifying and multiplying and turning them into fact. I’d lie in bed and dig my fingernails into my stomach, wanting to tear off my flesh.

It wasn’t until I was fifteen that my body really began to match my fat thoughts. Mum insisted I get an after-school job to help with my “confidence issues.” Somehow, standing behind the counter at KFC with a spotty face and a hot pink visor didn’t seem to boost my self-esteem, it just felt as if I was displaying my loathsome body to a wider audience.

I still curse myself for not finding a job at the supermarket or drugstore. At least then I’d have been stuck behind a till and out of harm’s way. But KFC was like waving a deep-fried red flag in front of a bull.

Fast food was a rare treat in our household. We had it maybe once or twice a year on holidays, if Mum hadn’t already packed sensible sandwiches on brown bread. But now I had endless access to the Colonel’s fine and oily wares. It started with a stray chip here and a Pepsi there, but soon I was eating a full meal during my breaks and then eating dinner when I got home.

They’d give us huge bags of leftovers too. I’d sit on the veranda after a shift, telling Mum I was going to give the dog a chicken nugget, but it was one for the dog and two for me. Or sometimes all for me, while the poor hound sniffed at my greasy shoes. Even as my trousers grew tight I felt brazen and defiant.

My minimum wage finally gave me the means to indulge in all those forbidden foods. By then I’d outgrown the bottom of my wardrobe, so I’d eat my chocolate bars under the covers in the middle of the night, my hands shaking with anticipation and fear. I’d smuggle the wrappers to school the next day, but sometimes I’d forget and stuff them under my mattress. Every now and then Mum would raid my room and lay her findings on the bed like bags of cocaine. She’d stare at me with grim disappointment as I pathetically proclaimed my innocence. All that was missing were sirens and a slobbering sniffer dog on a leash.

By my final year of high school things had completely deteriorated between my mother and stepfather. I studied obsessively, determined to ace my exams. My favorite subject was Modern History, especially the Russian Revolutions. A revolt was conflict I could understand. It had clear origins, crazy characters, and confrontation. Nothing made sense at home, but I could shape Russia into neat little essays with logical arguments and a definite ending.

So I holed up in my room, forcing information into my brain and chocolate bars into my mouth. I wanted spectacular results to make my parents and teachers proud, and to prove to myself that I could do something right. Most of all I wanted to earn my escape to university.

Two nights before my trial exams they had the worst argument I could remember. They were outside on the veranda, right beneath my window. I was reading about Stalin and the words swam on the page.

Around midnight Mum came into my room to find me still buried in the books. “Are you all right?”

I burst into tears. “I can’t do this, Mum.”

“I know, darling.”

“I’m trying to block it out but it’s hard.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” She was crying too. “I’ll think of something.”

We sat in silence for twenty minutes before she finally said, “I’ll take you to Angela’s house.” Angela was one of her closest friends. “You can stay there until your exams are done.”

“You promise?”

“Yes. Pack up your things and I’ll take you into town in the morning.” She squeezed my hand and I wanted to believe her.

I threw all my textbooks and folders and notes into a laundry basket. I packed my school uniforms, hiding a few chocolate bars inside my socks. I could barely sleep, giddy at the prospect of getting away even for a few days.

The next morning the house was strangely quiet. Mum was drinking tea at the kitchen table.

“What time are we going to Angela’s?” I whispered.

“We’re not.”

“Mum, you promised.”

“Look, you don’t have to worry, everything’s fine now. Just forget about it, please.”

I shook my head and stormed back to my room. I would have slammed the door shut but we weren’t allowed to shut our doors. I left the smallest chink of space open so technically I wasn’t breaking the rule. I kicked over the laundry basket packed with my stuff and felt disgusted with myself for getting my hopes up. I wanted to scream, but I remembered there was carrot cake hidden in my desk drawer, a whole family-size carrot cake with cream cheese icing that I’d bought from the in-store bakery at Woolworth’s. I ripped open the plastic box and scooped out a handful, icing and all. I kept scooping and scooping until it was all gone and I was too sick to feel anything.