Copyright
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PUBLISHED INTERNATIONALLY by Gold Medals Media Ltd:
Bernice Bloom 2018
Terms and Conditions:
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THE PURCHASER OF THIS book is subject to the condition that he/she shall in no way resell it, nor any part of it, nor make copies of it to distribute freely.
All Persons Fictitious Disclaimer:
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and coincidental.
Welcome to the world of Mary Brown
Thank you so much for buying the opening story in the Adorable Fat Girl series about the delicious, larger-than-life Mary Brown. There is now a range of stories about Mary - mysteries, holiday books, weight loss books and many more. This is the first step on her incredible adventure.
If you want to look through all the books on offer, see my website: bernicebloom
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Lots of love, Bernice xx
Meeting Mary
FOR THE LOVE OF ALL that is holy, what on earth was I doing? It was pouring down with rain on a miserable Thursday evening and I was standing alone in the semi-darkness, sheltering under a tree outside a run-down community centre in one of the less salubrious parts of Surrey. Icy cold raindrops rolled across the leaves on the branches above me before dripping onto the top of my neck and crawling slowly down my back.
And all because I was fat.
Sorry, I should explain – I was lingering outside waiting to go in for my first night at Fat Club. Not that they called it Fat Club, of course; Fat Club was my own special name for it. The course was called ‘New You’ and it was for very overweight people who didn’t want to be quite so overweight any more. There was a battered sign hanging off the railing next to me declaring ‘Six weeks to a NEW YOU. Register here.’
Oh God.
I didn’t want to go in, of course. Who would? If your choice was to spend the evening in the pub having a few glasses of wine with your mates or sit around with fat people, crying about how enormous you all are, which one are you going to choose? That’s right – you’d be on your third glass of Sauvignon by now, wouldn’t you?
But there I was. And it was a good thing, because an hour earlier, when I’d been sitting in my little flat thinking about the pizza and the bottle of wine that were taunting me from the fridge, it was touch and go whether I’d come at all. I could think of a million reasons not to venture out, but I’d managed to drag my large bottom off the sagging sofa, grab my coat and get on the bus.
Now all I had to do was force myself to go inside. I walked towards the door, stumbling on exposed roots and slipping on soggy leaves in the semi-darkness. The broken street light directly outside the centre made the experience particularly dismal. I felt around for the cold, wet handle. Finally, I found it and the door creaked as I turned it. It was like I was in some low-budget, 1950s horror film.
Inside, things were considerably brighter. In fact, the fluorescent lighting strips were so overpowering you could perform major heart surgery in there. I narrowed my eyes, squinting as I adjusted to the brightness, like a small woodland creature coming up from its burrow into daylight.
“Hello, welcome, welcome, welcome,” said a woman with a wide, smiling face and ears that stuck out through a plethora of unruly curls. She introduced herself as Liz, explaining that she was the course tutor as she reached out a large hand and pulled me into her, hugging me warmly. “Sorry if my outfit’s a bit bright, I love colourful clothes.”
She wasn’t joking. If I were being very unkind, I’d say she was dressed in the manner of a four-year-old who’d been told she can choose what she wants to wear to a party. She was wearing a very tight (I mean – so tight, you could see the outline of her major internal organs) pink dress, with red tights and a red cardigan, and had lashings of vibrant green eyeshadow thickly painted onto her eyelids. She wore a pink lipstick but most of that appeared to be on her teeth and chin rather than her lips so she looked like she’d been eating raspberries straight from the bush without using her hands. She even had glitter on her temples. She was a pair of butterfly wings away from winning the prize for best dressed little girl at the party.
The childlike nature of her makeup was in contrast to her stature. She was a tall and sturdy woman, carrying quite a few extra pounds. “I’m glad you’ve decided to join us,” she said. “I hope this class will help you change your life for the better. You know, I’ve lost 13 stone since I first came to the group.”
“Wow, well done,” I said. The generous side of me thought – that is really impressive. The less generous side thought – blimey, how fat were you before? I decided not to share the more ungenerous thought. In fact, I decided not to share any of the ungenerous thoughts I was having about her. I was being a real bitch. Sorry if you think me offensive. I’m not normally like this, but I was stressed as hell – I wanted to be at home with pizza and wine, not discussing my food issues with random strangers.
“Take a seat,” said Liz, leading me to a circle of chairs, and making the compulsory British observations about the weather. We agreed it was miserable and much colder than it normally was for the time of year (I don’t know how people remember that sort of thing. Do they keep notes or something? I can’t remember what the weather was like last week, let alone last year. I guess she was right though, so I nodded and smiled, raising my eyebrows in agreement with her). There were only two other people in the room – an older man and woman who barely looked up. They were tucked into a corner, wearing matching navy blue anoraks and trying to sink into the background. I tried to smile at them but they didn’t smile back. Liz saw me trying to make a connection with them and gave me an enormous grin, revealing just how much lipstick she had smeared across her teeth. I’d rather have been anywhere else on earth.
“My name’s Mary,” I said, eventually, when the weight of the silence became too much for me to bear. I walked over and shook hands with the two older people. They didn’t offer their names, so I returned to my seat, slightly cross that they didn’t have the decency to pretend to be interested in me, but also happy that I’d done my bit for group relations. I’ve never liked to see people looking sad, and those two looked nigh on suicidal. I discovered later that their names were Phil and Philippa.
The Phils and I were sitting down with chairs between us, and as other people filtered in they took the free chairs. A woman called Janice sat to the left of me. She clutched her handbag and whimpered, “I want to go home,” which endeared me to her.
“Me too, sister,” I said.
What she also had in her favour, as far as our future friendship was concerned, was that she was a lot larger than me. This gave me a strange sense of confidence and happiness. I know that was selfish, and very uncharitable, but I really didn’t want to be the fattest person at Fat Club. I mean – no one wants to be the fattest person at Fat Club.
“What on earth is that woman wearing?” she said, after Liz had been over to give her a welcome hug. “I didn’t realise it was fancy dress.”
Opposite me there was a very beautiful woman taking a seat next to the Phils. She was tall and quite big but nothing like as fat as the rest of us: size 16, at a guess. Unnervingly elegant in cream, three-quarter length trousers and a white shirt, she also had a treasure trove of gold accessories to bring the outfit to life. She looked exactly like Kelly Brook. She had no place at a Fat Club, and I longed for bouncers to appear clutching scales and a tape measure and throw her out for not reaching the required obesity level.
Liz wandered over to her, and for one insane moment I thought she was going to do exactly that – chuck the poor woman out because her stomach was too small and her thighs didn’t rub together. But, instead, she told her she was very welcome, hugged her, and invited her to sit down. I watched the alarm spread across the woman’s face as she released herself from the compulsory hug she’d just endured and took in Liz’s outfit. “My name’s Veronica,” she said. “I don’t know whether I should be here. I used to be a model.”
“Everyone’s welcome, regardless of who they are or who they used to be. We’re simply here to support one another. Why don’t you stay and see how you feel,” said Liz.
“OK,” said Veronica. Liz moved away and the glamourpuss smiled at me, revealing perfect teeth. I smiled back, making sure I didn’t show mine.
The club was quite a long way from my home. I couldn’t risk going to a club near to my house in case someone saw me. It’s bad enough being fat without advertising it to all your friends and family. I’d never have lived it down if my boss at the garden centre had seen me walking into a local club. Keith’s always been a bit of a clown and would have found it very amusing to mock my efforts to lose weight.
“While we’re waiting for the others to get here, does anyone have any questions?” said Liz. “I know you must be wondering about the course and how it works.”
“Yes, I’d like to know that.” I raised my hand a little, like a child in school. “How does it work? What do we do? How are we all going to lose tonnes of weight? And how quickly will we lose it?” I could hear the urgency and desperation in my own voice. It didn’t sound pretty.
“We will obviously go into that in great detail later.” Liz gave a warm smile. “But – briefly – this course is about dealing with your issues psychologically, not physically. When you’re ready to diet and exercise, you will.”
“OK.” I was trying to stay positive but this sounded like a load of New Age bullshit. “I’m really ready to lose the weight, now. I’m sick of being fat. I’d like to get thinner as quickly as possible.”
“Amen, sister,” said Janice, and I treated her to the biggest smile I could muster.
“OK. I get it, I really do. You desperately want to lose weight, but let’s look at the facts,” she said calmly, perhaps sensing that I wasn’t entirely sold on all this. “You know what you have to do to lose weight, don’t you? You know that by increasing exercise and cutting back on your calorie intake you will lose weight. Right?”
“Right,” I said.
“But you’re not doing it.”
“No, I think we can all agree on that.” I rubbed my fat stomach and let the ripples provide the evidence.
“Why not?” she asked.
“Um. I don’t know.” I felt myself go scarlet and wished I’d never asked a bloody question in the first place. I wished I was at home with a bottle of wine.
“Look, I don’t want to embarrass you at all, I’m just trying to explain that losing weight is actually quite a complicated psychological shift, if you want to keep it off, so that takes a bit of time.”
She looked at me and I was sure she could sense the disappointment and frustration emanating from me.
“There must be a reason you’re not cutting back on your calories and losing weight, mustn’t there? Or you’d do it. Something’s stopping you, and it’s not something physical – no one’s standing in your way at the gym and not allowing you onto the treadmill, or forcing you to eat cake. It’s something psychological, and that’s what we have to sort out.
“This course is to try and understand all the mental processes that we go through as overeaters. It will involve working out why you eat too much in the first place. This is a gentle, kind environment and within it we’ll explore your emotions and learn to understand them.”
What she said made perfect sense, of course, but I still didn’t get it...not really. How would I be filled with positive energy and never eat anything but celery ever again merely by chatting about how fat I was?
“Will you just trust me?” said Liz. “Stay with this and I can help you.”
“OK,” I said, though I had my reservations about trusting her. I didn’t trust anyone, not really. My ability to trust had deserted me along with my innocence all those years ago.
I looked up to see a man walk in; he was one of those very jolly fat guy types – all smiles and laughter and cracking jokes. He didn’t seem to fit into this rather dull group. He sat down to the right of me and I sighed inwardly. I was starting to think I might get an empty seat next to me, which I’d have liked. I hoped he wasn’t going to try and jolly me up...no sing-alongs or hand holding or anything nasty like that.
“Am I in the right place?” His voice was barely a whisper. “I am looking for Overeaters Anonymous. How will I know when I find it? You’re too thin to be in the group I’m looking for.”
It was a valiant attempt at humour in the face of embarrassment, and I did appreciate the compliment, so I smiled at him as he sat down. He took off his glasses that had steamed up when he came into the warm building, and wiped them on his checked shirt. He had odd facial hair – not just a simple beard, but a sort of complicated moustache/beard combo that had been shaved into place. Like topiary.
There were six of us in the room when Liz decided to start the session. She was expecting 10, she said, but it was already 10 minutes late and she didn’t want to keep us waiting.
“I bet they’ve only got the hall booked for 90 minutes,” whispered the man. “Then the ‘Under-Eaters Anonymous’ group arrive, and they can’t risk us all being in the same room at the same time.”
I smiled at him. He was ever so slightly bonkers which cheered me up.
I heard Janice giggling to herself at the man’s joke. “That’s right; the under-eaters are terrified of the overeaters,” she said. “They’re worried we might eat them.”
Liz began by talking about the importance of us working together as group, and how we must contact one another during the week. She said she’d give out a list of numbers and we should send a text to the person on our left during the week, just to encourage them.
The very smiley, happy, red-faced man with the steamed-up glasses and odd facial hair arrangement gave me a smile. “I’m Ted. I’ll text you to check you’re OK. Just call me if you need to talk or anything,” he said in a kind voice.
“Thank you,” I replied, and I instantly regretted judging him on the beard thing.
“I’ll text you,” I said to Janice.
“OK, but will I have to put my bag of chips down to reply?” she said. I assured her that there was no need of that. “Let’s not take this too seriously, Janice. She gave me a lovely big smile.
I guess Janice was about mid-40s...certainly older than me. I’d only just turned 30. She was quite plain-looking, with short brown hair and very little makeup, but she had such mischief in her eyes that I could imagine men really being attracted to her. At a guess, I would say she was a size 24, but she wore it well.
“Ted, why don’t you lead us off by telling the group something about yourself and why you’re here today,” said Liz.
“Oh, OK,” he said with an embarrassed shrug. He had turned the colour of ham.
We were all watching him and thinking ‘Thank God I don’t have to go first.’
Liz sensed his concern, or perhaps she was just worried about the strange colour he’d turned. Either way, she stepped in.
“Look, you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I want everyone in the group to understand one another and be aware of each other’s problems. I think it will help you when you’re away from the sessions, in terms of offering support to one another, if you have an understanding of each other’s issues.”
“Sure,” he said in a voice which suggested he’d never been less sure of anything in his life. He stood up.
“OK, here we go then. I never used to have problems. In fact I used to be a very good sportsman,” he said, and I immediately looked up. I’d been a good sportswoman myself many years ago, but I certainly wasn’t going to tell them anything about that. I’d never told anyone about the awful things that had happened to me when I was younger.
Ted continued to explain that his life had involved playing county rugby, having trials with a range of top English clubs, and being thought of as a future international.
“It was my life,” he said. “All I could think of was that first England cap. I’d dream about it and build it up into a colourful scenario in my mind. It was like playing for England was the only thing worth doing. Nothing else mattered.”
But a call-up to the national squad never happened. A freak injury ended his career just when he was on the verge of greatness. Ted told us about the moment a scrum collapsed on him and he lay on the floor unable to move.
“Do you all know what a scrum is?” he asked. “Without being too technical, it’s when the biggest players on the pitch all pile in together to get the ball. The opposition sides push against one another, ramming their shoulders in against their opposition number. It’s quite OK if it’s done properly, but I was pushing at an awkward angle and I twisted, and ended dumped down on the ground neck first. We all winced in support.
“I was only 22,” he said. “I fell into a great depression afterwards about not being able to play any more. I knew I should be grateful to be alive. Certainly when they took me off the pitch, the doctors were very concerned about whether I’d ever walk again, or lead a normal life. My mum said no one knew whether I’d live or die. I was grateful to the doctors for everything they did. I’m grateful to them today – 10 years on since the accident – and will be forever more. But I was also desperately sad, and felt like my world had collapsed. I couldn’t cope without playing the sport that had defined me, and was creating a future for me. All I’d ever wanted to be was an international rugby player. I felt as if my past, my present and future had all been snatched away.
“I became useless. Everything felt futile when I couldn’t play sport any more. I tried to eat my way out of sadness, but that didn’t work. We all know that doesn’t work. I ate more and felt sadder and ate more, and felt sadder still, now I’m morbidly obese and I look at the pictures of me playing rugby and that feels like another person. I can’t play rugby again, but I’d like to be more like the person in the pictures.”
Ted stopped and I reached up to touch his arm, to express sympathy and display solidarity. I knew nothing about rugby, but I knew about the pressures of sport and I knew about overeating. I understood exactly how food could wrap you in its alluring but dangerous arms, and refuse to let you go.
There was a big round of applause when Ted had finished...the sort of clapping that said: ‘We’re with you, we totally understand.’ I looked over at him and smiled; he blushed a little, then gave me the biggest smile ever.
Next came Janice. She stood up. “I have a similar story,” she said, before correcting herself quickly. “Well, not similar – I wasn’t a brilliant rugby player or anything like that. What I mean is that I was OK until something major happened. Things were good, life was ticking along, then my mum died.”
Janice took a deep breath. She was finding it hard. “Sorry,” she kept saying as she stuttered and breathed heavily, attempting to tell her story. “It was years ago that it happened, just after my 40th birthday, so I don’t know why it still affects me so badly today, you’d think I’d be used to it by now, but you never really get used to it. I’m not sure the pain of missing her has got any easier, I’ve just got used to the pain being there. This is bringing it all back to the surface. It’s difficult.”
“Of course it’s difficult, and you’re doing really well,” said Liz. “You’re in the best, most supportive company here today.” As Liz said that, I realised what pressure there was on the rest of us to look after one another.
“Mum died and I lost all control,” she continued. “I mean – all control – I just ate and ate and ate, and then I ate some more.”
Janice dissolved into tears.
“You’ve done really well,” said Liz, stroking Janice’s shaking back. “Could you go next please, Mary?”
“Me?”
“Yes please, Mary, if you don’t mind? I think Janice needs to sit down now.”
“Right. Um. I don’t know what to say,” I said, standing up and looking down at the scuffed wooden floor that reminded me so much of school. “I’m embarrassed and ashamed to be this size, and I wish this wasn’t me here in a church hall talking about how fat I am. I wish I was out with my friends having a lovely time, or flirting with the guy who lives in the flat underneath mine, because he’s bloody gorgeous. You should see him – honestly, he’s lovely. Way too lovely for me. Christ, you should see the lovely women he brings back with him. But, anyway. Um. Where was I?”
“Just talk us through your issues with food,” Liz said gently.
“I guess I’m fat because whenever I feel low or vulnerable, I eat.”
“OK,” said Liz. “So you’re using food to comfort you? You’re convincing yourself that food is the answer to emotions that are stirred up, even when those emotions aren’t hunger?”
“Yes. That’s right. I know deep down that I’m not hungry when someone gets cross with me or laughs at me or makes me feel horrible, but eating sure makes whatever the real feelings are go away.”
“Does it though?” asked Liz. “Or is eating just a temporary relief, and then the next time you feel low, you do the same thing?”
“Every time I feel low I eat.”
“So it’s not really solving any problems then?”
“No,” I said. “None at all.”
“OK, Mary. You’re doing really well. Is there anything else you’d like to share? Perhaps about your past, and when the overeating started?”
“I did sport when I was younger like Ted. I was a gymnast. You wouldn’t believe that now, would you? Gymnastics was a hard sport. I don’t want to blame the way I am now on it or anything, but it’s tough to spend your whole adolescence running around in a leotard and having to perform and then be marked out of 10. I guess it leaves you feeling like you’re always being judged.
“Also some things happened when I was younger. I mean – one thing in particular happened. I guess it’s always haunted me a bit. I haven’t always been fat. I started putting on weight when I was about 20, years after stopping gymnastics but probably because of the thing that happened, but maybe not. I don’t know really.
“Before that, things were different... I was always the successful one... I know it’s hard to believe it now, but I was always the prettiest girl, the fittest girl, the best at school. I was the pretty blonde gymnast who all the boys fancied, then I put on a bit of weight and I was the curvaceous blonde ex-gymnast who’d retired rather suddenly, then in my early 20s I became the fat blonde, now I’m just a morbidly obese lump on legs and I’d be amazed if anyone even noticed my hair colour.”
“Don’t be daft,” said Ted, sounding genuinely moved. “You’re beautiful. Everyone can see that.” There were general murmurings of approval for Ted’s kind words and I smiled at him before carrying on.
“I guess I put enormous pressure on myself to be perfect, and every time things go wrong I turn to food. That’s what we all do, isn’t it? As you get older more things go wrong so you eat more. Then being fat becomes a problem in its own right, so you eat even more because you feel awful about being fat and you need comforting, and the problem exacerbates, and you feel like a complete idiot because your reaction to a problem is feeding the problem and making it worse every day.
“Now I’m standing here in front of you and I seem to have eaten myself into a life I don’t want to be in any more, and I don’t really know how to get out of it. I feel very ashamed a lot of the time. I’m so ugly and fat I hate to go out, but it’s depressing to stay in when all your friends are out. So you eat. You eat because somewhere inside it feels like the answer to everything...and the problems just grow. Sorry, I’m repeating myself...but that’s what happens.”
“Well done, Mary,” said Liz. “You mentioned that something had happened that you thought might be the cause of your overeating. Something when you were a gymnast, was it? Would you like to share that?”
“No, no,” I said. “The only thing is that I eat too much. That’s the only ‘thing’. That’s all I wanted to say.”
“OK,” said Liz. “Don’t worry. Another time, perhaps.”
I sat down and Ted leaned over and lightly touched my hands that were resting in my lap, it was a warm gesture and surprisingly touching after the stress of having to talk to everyone. “You’re going to do this,” he said. “And – please believe me – you are not ugly at all, you’re very pretty.”
I smiled at him and squeezed his hand a little. No one had said anything like that to me for about a decade.
They were the sort of words that I’d always fantasised about Dave, my gorgeous neighbour, saying to me but all Dave wanted to do was fondle my tits. Sorry, I know that’s crude, but it’s the truth. More of that later.
After me came Phil, the older man opposite. Phil was huge – he must have been six foot six inches and about 25 stone (I’m guessing here – I find it very difficult to guess what men weigh – all I know is that he was super-enormous). He had receding white hair and he scratched his bald patch nervously. I think he was the one I felt most sorry for. His shyness was crippling and he really didn’t want to talk. He still had his anorak on, zipped up to his neck, when he stood up and mumbled about how difficult he was finding everything, then how he didn’t like to talk in front of strangers.
“Just tell us about something you like. Anything at all,” tried Liz.
“I like Star Wars,” he said, before turning and heading back to his chair.
I felt myself shift a little in my seat. My heart beat a little faster.
“You OK?” asked Ted.
“Sure,” I replied.
“You’ve gone pale,” he said.
“It’s nothing. It’s just that I absolutely hate the theme from Star Wars. HATE it.”
“Right,” he replied, uncomprehendingly. “I’ll remember never to play it at Fat Club.”
“Philippa, would you like to go next?” asked Liz, smiling warmly at the woman who I assumed was Phil’s wife.
“I won’t, thanks,” she said, blushing to the roots of her tightly permed, grey hair. It seemed a shame. None of us wanted to share our innermost fears and complexities with a group of overweight strangers and I confess I held back on a lot of my story, but the point of all this was to allow us to bond with one another, support one another and identify with one another so it was important to say something, if not everything. With every story I heard, I was feeling less of a ‘freak’. Not totally unfreaky – I wouldn’t go that far – but definitely less freaky. That had to be something, surely?
Next came Veronica. She stood up to reveal a body that was so far from fat that it was ridiculous. It was the body we all wanted. Not tiny, by any means, but these things are relative – she certainly wasn’t fat like the rest of us.
“I know I’m not huge,” she said, clearing her throat as she looked around the room. Her long, wavy dark hair tumbled over her shoulders. “I appreciate there are a lot of people here who are much larger.” I’m sure she looked at me as she said that. “But I’m a lot fatter than I’ve ever been in my life before and I feel totally out of control around food. It doesn’t matter what size you are if you feel uncomfortable and hate your body.
“I was a model for seven years. You consume nothing but Diet Coke some days, and an apple if you’re lucky. I spent the best part of a decade feeling starving all the time, and eating cotton wool to curb the worst of the hunger pangs. I gave up modelling at 22 when the work started drying up and realised that I didn’t know how to eat. I don’t understand how to control myself because I never had to when I wasn’t eating. The weight piled on. I’ve put on six stone since I gave up. Six stone. Can you imagine that?”
I can’t have been alone in thinking that she must have been painfully thin before.
“We can help you. We can help you all.” Liz looked around at her six chicks with maternal pride. “Now then, everybody up.” She clapped her hands loudly, making Phil jump out of his seat. Either he was particularly sensitive or he was half-asleep. I couldn’t rule out either option, to be honest.
“Into pairs please, and I want you to talk about why you decided to come here today.”
I turned to Ted and asked him whether he’d like to be my partner. He looked remarkably pleased, smiling and glowing red.
“Why did you come here?” he asked.
“Because I realised I couldn’t cross my legs properly,” I replied, and I watched his eyebrows raise and a look of confusion spread across his face.
It sounded very silly, but it was the truth. When I realised I couldn’t cross my legs, I knew that I wasn’t just a few pounds over fighting weight but I was seriously, undeniably and horribly fat. It wasn’t a pleasant realisation.
There had been plenty of other unpleasant developments over the years, as I’d piled on the pounds. Moments when I was driven to consuming nothing but shakes for a week or proteins for a fortnight, or eating a lemon every morning – wincing and gagging as the bitterness swamped my mouth. Lots of times when I’d not been able to look in the mirror in the changing room because the sight of myself struggling into a pair of size 20 trousers, when all the evidence was that a 22 would be ambitious, was too much to bear. Every fat girl has cried in a changing room.
But the leg crossing thing was different. The fact that I couldn’t sit in a comfortable position made me feel like I was deformed in some way – or to put it a different way: I had deformed myself in some way. I’d shoved so much food into my mouth that I was unable to function normally – I couldn’t sit down properly. Who would do that to herself? I was young, fit, healthy and moderately attractive. I had all the advantages that life could throw at me, but I’d put so much food into my mouth that I’d turned myself into a creature unable to walk any distance without panting like an elderly, chain-smoking marathon runner, and now I couldn’t sit down properly either. What was I supposed to do – lie down all day? No – I know what you’re thinking – what I was supposed to do was get out there and lose some weight.
And I tried. My God, I tried. I tried to exercise more, but my thighs rubbed together when I walked, leaving me so bloody sore and tender that only the application of a bag of frozen peas would calm the redness. No one tells you these things when they’re serving you cakes, do they?
Why don’t they tell you that a simple walk anywhere will give you such chaffing that it will feel as if someone had taken to your inner thighs with a cheese grater? And that’s the trouble with getting fat. The very act of being fat presents, in itself, a whole host of side effects which make losing the fat wildly difficult.
Let’s look at the evidence:
1. Walk more.
Not possible: your ankles get sore and your thighs rub together causing the sort of rash that would only normally achieved by rubbish them frantically with sandpaper.
2. Join a gym.
Oh yeah, right. Join a gym and wobble around for two minutes on the treadmill before collapsing in an indecorous heap and lying there crying as all the perfect-bodied people step over me? You need to be fit to join a gym – everyone knows that.
3. Go swimming.
Are you insane? Really – are you? In the interests of public decency it’s impossible for me to wear a swimming costume in public. Christ, no one deserves to have that sight thrust upon them. It’s probably illegal for me to be seen in a swimming costume.
Before too long, the only exercise available to me would be rolling.
Eating less would have been one way of solving the problem, of course, but that didn’t work. I don’t say that flippantly – everyone who has an eating disorder knows that they can’t eat less like they can’t breathe less or shiver less when cold. You have no control over it. Or you think you have no control over it, which is exactly the same thing.
I went to talk to my GP on the off-chance that he would have a miracle cure tucked up his sleeve.
“I need to lose weight,” I told him.
It turned out he agreed wholeheartedly. He even measured me and weighed me and yes, confirmed that, indeed, I did need to lose weight. Quite a lot of weight, as it happens. But he had no exciting pills to give me that would help. “Eat less; exercise more,” he said. Thanks, doc, revolutionary advice.
“You OK?” asked Ted.
“Yes,” I said. “Just thinking – it’s all really weird this, isn’t it? I mean – thinking about why we are here? Trying to articulate it beyond saying ‘because I want to lose weight’.”
“My dear, it’s because we are so dreadfully, dreadfully fat,” he replied in a funny voice that made me laugh quite a lot.
“Well, yes, there certainly is that,” I replied.
“It would be wrong of you to deny it.” He rubbed his stomach so it all shook like a giant jelly. “We’re fat and we can’t hide it, so we need to change it.”
He was right that you can’t hide it. The horrible thing about eating too much is that everybody knows you have a problem. You can’t deny that you’re a food addict. You could be a drug addict without people necessarily knowing, certainly until you did yourself real damage, no one would know. The same with alcoholics. It doesn’t show until you’re really badly affected by it. That’s not the same with overeaters, we get fatter and fatter and fatter and everyone knows that we are eating too much, and everyone is wondering why we don’t just cut down.
There’s so much judgement of fat people because we’re completely out of control around something that everybody else can manage. From the littlest babies to the oldest pensioners, we all eat. But there are some of us who can’t control how and when we eat. It seems ridiculous. Of all the problems in the world, all the big things going on, we idiots in the room couldn’t stop putting food into our mouths even though it was killing us.
At least now we had each other. It was us against the world – we were valiant, fat, fighting soldiers. And we would stick together and help each other.
I left the meeting feeling pretty bloody wonderful. Really good. I thought the six-week course might get me on track, I could lose a stone in that time, and start moving more. I vowed to get off the bus a stop early, drink more water, and make the small changes that would create a real difference. Christ, I was on top of this. I could sort it out.
But the journey home was quite long, and the more I sat there, the more my mind dwelled on things. It was desperate: why did I have to eat nothing but lettuce for the next two years? Why had I got this fat in the first place? I’d never lose it; who was I kidding, thinking that I could? I’d tried so many times and it hadn’t worked, what was so different this time? I watched the world go past from the lower deck of the R49 and felt increasingly sorry for myself. Why did I have this problem and others didn’t? Happy, smiley, slim men and women got on and off the bus. It seemed so unfair. They were the sort of people who could open a packet of biscuits and just have one. Why could they do that and I couldn’t? I was never going to lose weight, why was I even kidding myself?
I stepped off the bus, close to my house, and passed the fish and chip shop on the corner. The waft of vinegar flew out on the night air, its rapacious claws grabbing me around the throat. This is what happens; what always happens. Food has talons...even the smell of food has talons that tear, scratch, seize, and pull at me so I can’t escape. The thought of the warmth and comfort of food is so much more powerful than the thought of being thin. Vanity’s tentacles are much less sharp than those attached to the comforts of eating.
“Hi, can I get two large portions of chips, please? For me and the kids.”
“Sure.”
“Actually, you better make it three – my husband will be home soon.”
Except there was no husband, no children at home waiting for their chips – just a small, empty flat for me to trundle into and gorge myself until I felt like crying. God, I’m lonely. I’m really lonely. I wish someone loved me.
“Actually, could you add on a portion of chips and curry sauce?”
This is the thing with being an overeater. I didn’t go into the chip shop because I fancied a couple of chips. If that were the case I’d have eaten a couple of chips and gone on my merry way and all would have been fine. No – it was different from that – it was like something switched in my brain when I was around food and I had to keep eating and filling myself until I was so full that I really hurt. It was like I was mentally unwell around food. Like I hated myself through food, but I didn’t really know why. I was hoping I’d find out on the course, but that night all I was finding out was that things hadn’t changed at all – I needed to feel full up to cover the pain inside...the pain that I could tell no one about. The pain that was caused by the thing that happened so long ago and still hurt so much.
The shop next door sold bottles of wine that went so nicely with chips, then it was off up the street, already tearing the chip paper off and feeling the warmth of the steam rise to bite my hand. I took the chips and fed them into my mouth even though they were piping hot and burnt my tongue as I strode towards my flat. They were also slimy and hot to the touch so I was moving them between my cupped hands to cool them down, then shoving them into my mouth. I was covered in grease, had a mouth full of piping hot chips and oil all over my face.
That was when Dave from the flat below pulled up and walked to the gate next to me. He was with a very beautiful girlfriend who didn’t look like she’d ever had a chip in her life. She was wearing a stunning white mini dress. I never wear white, and I never wear minis. I looked down at my dowdy, old-lady clothes, wondering where I could dump the chips before she saw them.
“OK?” asked Dave.
“Sure,” I said, spitting bits of fried potato out as I spoke.
“This is Felicity.” I looked over at the vision of feminine beauty and smiled. I couldn’t offer her my hand because it was full of chips, so I just looked wistfully as she put out her tiny little hand, then withdrew it when she realised I wouldn’t be shaking it. Meanwhile Dave wiped bits of chip off the side of his face.
Eventually, he looked from the bag of chips to my handful of chips to my mouth and smiled.
“Enjoy your supper. See you soon.”
His girlfriend wiggled into his flat and I waddled into mine.
Fuck it. Fuck all of it.
CHAPTER TWO
Week two at Fat Club
––––––––
I USED TO BE ELEGANT, you know. Properly nice, with cheekbones and ankles and things. I used to wear my hair up. That’s a tell-tale sign of a woman with confidence – when she’ll happily pull her fringe back into a clip, or twist the back of her hair up into a chignon. You know what these women are saying? These women are crying, ‘I can pull my hair back and let you see more of my face because I’m not deeply ashamed of what my face looks like.’
Me? I pull it all forward over my face, hoping to hide my puffy cheeks and jowly jawline as much as possible. If I could wear it pulled forward over my face covering it entirely, I would. But then I wouldn’t be able to see and I’d bump into people. Nobody wants a fat woman with hair all over her face bumping into them. So I don’t pull it forward, but I don’t tie it back either. Do you see how complicated this all is? It’s hard being fat. Don’t get fat. It’s a pain.
It was quite difficult persuading myself to go back to Fat Club for the second week.
I had left there the week before feeling so inspired, but after my chip disaster, I’d woken up feeling terrible. This is the trouble with reaching out for help – if you make the effort and it doesn’t work, you feel worse than ever. I felt crushed; like I’d tried and failed; like nothing could help me. Before I made the effort to ask for help, I could relax in the knowledge that there might be a solution out there. Now it felt as if I’d proven to myself that there was no solution: no help, no hope and no point in trying to convince myself otherwise.
After that dreadful night, the rest of the week did get better, but I certainly didn’t feel any different as a result of the course. Going into my job in Fosters DIY & Garden Centre, I was as aware as ever of people around me eating food: food in shops and food on posters. Food made me feel nice. Why couldn’t I have food?
Then I’d go through the process of reminding myself why: because my face was slowly drowning in a pool of fat; all my clothes had gone up six sizes and even my shoes. Shoes! What was that all about? Feet don’t get fat. Except mine did. I didn’t know whether they were fatter, or whether the pressure exerted on them by the weight of my heavy torso flattened them out. Either way – not good. Not to be recommended.
I’d remind myself that I couldn’t bend over since I got fat...not really. That’s a horrible thing. The feeling you get when you reach down to tie up your shoes is horrific. Your stomach is in the way and pushes back on your internal organs. You can’t breathe. You feel light-headed, as if you’re about to faint or be sick. As if, to be honest, you’re going to die. I’d come up from a basic shoe tie or sock on-put with my face the colour of sun-dried tomato, whining and puffing like I’d just run a marathon dressed as a polar bear.
The day before the second session, Ted sent me a text saying how much he was looking forward to seeing me at Fat Club. “Well this week it’s been an absolute bloody disaster for me,” he said. “If you want to see what a very fat man looks like when he eats marshmallows all week and gets even fatter, I suggest you come on Tuesday night. Looking forward to seeing you X.”
I laughed out loud when I read it and replied to say I was looking forward to seeing him too. I decided to send a text to Janice.
“Looking forward to seeing you on Tuesday night,” I wrote. “I’ll be the really fat one who hasn’t managed to stop eating chips all week.”
Janice replied: “Your chips are nothing compare to my chocolate cake. See you Tuesday.”
They call it gallows humour, don’t they? That grim and ironic humour you find in a desperate or hopeless situation. I suggest we call this Marshmallows Humour: witticisms born out of the desperation of trying to lose weight. Still, at least by replying to everyone I was now committed to going to back to Fat Club.
When I walked in, I saw Ted straight away. He gave me a cheery smile and a wave, and came over to me.
“Thank you for your text,” I said. “It really made me laugh.”
“You have to laugh about these things, don’t you?” he said. “Hard to know what else to do.”
“Have you been OK this week?” I asked.
“Kind of terrible,” he said. “I just don’t seem to be able to sort myself out. I rang Liz in the end because I kept bingeing. Liz said it was only natural, after we’d bared our souls in class we would probably want comforting and our choice of comforting would be food. Today she’s going to talk about other ways to comfort ourselves.”
“That makes sense. I couldn’t stop eating either,” I said. “Especially straight after the class, which didn’t make me feel great. In fact it made me feel as if this whole thing was such a hopeless battle. I wasn’t going to come back until I got your text.”
Ted blushed. “Wow. Then I’m so glad I sent it.”
All six of us were there for the second session. Liz looked at us proudly, as if we were all four-year-olds who had just completed our 50m swimming badges. She was wearing a dress with more flowers on it than there are in the whole of Kew Gardens. Her shoes were red.
“You have all come back,” she said. “That’s a very good start. Mary, how have you got on this week?”
I really wish she hadn’t started with me. I didn’t want to kick the whole thing off with such negativity.
“I’ve been fine,” I lied. I looked at Ted out the corner of my eye and I could see him smiling at me.
“Talk us through how you’ve been fine?” said Liz.
“Well, nothing terrible has happened... No major disasters,” I said. “I’m still alive and all that.”
“How have you got on with your eating?”
“Oh that? No, that’s been terrible,” I said, and heard a laugh go around the room.
“Don’t worry. Tell me why it’s been terrible.”
“I just feel like such a failure all the time,” I said. “I find myself eating without really knowing I’m doing it, and without meaning to, and I feel such an idiot that I am unable to control myself. After coming here last week I thought things would be different, then on the bus home I started to get so depressed about what an uphill task it was, and how much weight I had to lose, that I lost all my motivation in one second.”
“And how did this manifest itself?”
“I bought everything in the chip shop and started eating it all before I’d even walked through the front door, then felt guilty about it, and disgusted with myself. I don’t know – I felt horrible all week. The only way I could stop myself from feeling horrible was to eat. It wasn’t great, really.”
“Thank you for being so honest,” said Liz. “What’s happened to you last week is very typical and I promise you we can sort it out, so don’t worry. You were scuppered by the voices in your head telling you that it was too complicated to try to lose weight. The voices said that you could never do it and it was pointless trying. Am I right?”
“Yes,” I said. I hate it when people talk about voices in your head, as if you’re some psycho maniac who is about to kill everybody, but she was right about the feeling I had...that this was all pointless and I was wasting my time.
“One key thing we are going to work on today is controlling the negative voices in your head. You can’t let them decide your actions out of fear. You have to make choices out of confidence and positivity have to own them, understand them, be bigger than them and louder than them, then you CAN be in control of them. That’s something we’ll work on later. We’ll also look at why you are all eating when you need comforting, rather than doing something more constructive. Why food? We’ll discuss that. For now, though, thank you, Mary, please don’t worry and think it’s all hopeless and helpless. It isn’t. Not by a long way. You’ve only just started – just trust that you’ll get there. We are all here to help you and we will.”
I felt a tear run down my face as she spoke. It was astonishing how emotional all this was becoming. It was lovely to have someone who cared. Really cared. Cared so much they were trying to help. I know it was her job but she still seemed to care rather than criticise, and that was nice.
It also helped that not many in the group had had a particularly wonderful week (I know that sounds really selfish, but I’ve got to be honest – if they’d all arrived having lost half a stone each, the voices in my head would have been telling me to murder them).
I left the session feeling confident, understanding why I was reaching for food, and determined not to be undone by the voices. I just needed to get myself home without going via the chip shop.
“Fancy a drink?” said Ted.
“Oh I’d like that too,” said Janice, overhearing Ted’s question to me.
Once Janice said she’d like to go, I was in. I wouldn’t have fancied going for a drink on my own with Ted. I mean, he was very nice and everything, but a bit too jolly and happy ALL THE TIME.
We retired to the Shipmate’s Arms, just down the road from the centre, all of us waddling in a line. I wondered whether people were looking at us, and thinking that we must have come from Fat Club. I wondered whether it was a fun thing to do locally – to look for the Fat Club people trooping into the pub.
Ted went to the bar, and I sat down next to Janice.
“It’s depressing, isn’t it?” she said. “I hate being fat. I wish I had a gambling problem or an overspending problem, then at least it wouldn’t be blatantly obvious to everyone in the world.”
“Unless you gambled away all your money and ended up living in a cardboard box somewhere. Then it would be obvious,” I said, but I knew what she meant. On a daily basis I felt stupid for being so overweight.
“I’m just fed up of being a fat fuck,” said Janice. “Fed up of the insults and the way it dominates my life. Fed up with looking dreadful, feeling dreadful and people treating me like I’m dreadful. I’m fed up of all of it. Nothing is nice when you’re as fat as I am...nothing at all.”
“Here we go” said Ted, returning to the table and putting my drink in front of me before I had the chance to reply to Janice. Ted had a pint, I had a spritzer and Janice had gone for a sparkling water. As soon as I saw Janice’s drink, I realised that I should have done the same.
“You’ve done well...having water. Good self-control.” I hoped to cheer her up a little, as I swirled my drink around, and listened to the ice clinking against the inside of the glass.
“I need to do something,” said Janice. “Maybe I should try and get a gastric band?”
“No,” said Ted. “Why would you maim yourself like that? Why would you have major bloody surgery when you’re on a course that will help you lose it naturally, without some bloody surgeon sticking a knife in you?”
“Ted’s right,” I said. “I like Liz. I think she’s going to be really good for us all.”
“I didn’t expect to like her much,” said Ted. “Especially given the weird outfits she wears, but she’s very good at identifying what the problem is and getting to the nub of it, and not letting you wallow in it. I think that’s good.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do it,” said Janice. “I really don’t. As I said last week, I started eating heavily when my mum died, and I can’t sort out the eating without talking about my feelings around Mum’s death, which I find difficult. I can’t see that changing anytime soon. At least you managed to bring some humour into it, Mary, I just seem to be in floods of tears the whole time.”
“Yes, but then she tells me that I’m using humour to hide my anxiety and feelings.”
“I think we all do that a bit,” said Ted. “I noticed that last week you didn’t want to dwell on what you thought had caused your eating problems, and used jokes and quips to avoid talking about it.”
“That’ what I do,” I said, raising my glass.
“If you want to talk about it at any stage. You only have to call.”
“OK,” I said, but I knew there was no way I could talk about it. “I think it’s great that we’re all here for one another.”
“Amen to that.” Ted raised his pint and clinked my wine glass.
“I loved your story about the guy in the flat below seeing you shovelling chips into your mouth, while you were covered in grease,” said Janice, with a smile. “That made me laugh a lot. Such bad timing that he came along. What did you say his name was?”
“David,” said Ted.
Janice and I both looked at him, impressed that he was able to remember Dave’s name.
“Yes, Dave,” I said. “What a good memory you have, Ted.”
Ted nodded. “So what’s the story with this Dave then?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I’ve had a few dalliances with him but always end up feeling horrible afterwards. He makes me leave before it’s light so that no one sees me coming out of his flat...you know...things like that. All very horrible. I always think that if I was slim it would be different. He wouldn’t be ashamed.”
“He sounds like an absolute dick,” said Ted. “Sorry if that’s blunt, but – Christ – no one in the world should be ashamed of being seen with you. You’re...well...you’re lovely, Mary. He’s just using you. Tell him to piss off...you deserve more than that. If he upsets you again I’ll go and sit on him, that’ll teach him.”
“Thank you.” I tried to think through the scenario of Ted turning up and sitting on Dave. “But I know he really likes me. I just need to lose weight and everything will be OK.”
“I’m with Ted.” Janice had returned from the bar with our second drink of the evening. This is the problem with being in a round. You can’t go out for one drink, you have to have the number of drinks as there are people around the table.
“You are both really kind, but I know he really likes me. I just need to lose weight.” I was aware I was repeating myself and that they both thought I was nuts.
“Nobody needs to lose weight for someone to love them,” said Ted. “Lose weight for yourself, for your children or for your future, but not because some dick with an over-inflated view of himself is embarrassed to be seen with you. Tell him to jog on, honestly.”
“OK, OK,” I said. “Let’s leave it with the relationship advice. Janice, are you going to go and get extra help with looking back and understanding how you felt when your mum died, like Liz suggested? Or was that all a bit too much?”
Janice looked down at the table. “I don’t know. The truth is that I don’t want to think about it or talk about it, and the idea of digging through it and trying to understand it fills me with absolute horror. What do you think?”
“It’s a difficult call. You don’t want to make yourself feel worse, but I think talking it through with an expert would help in the long-term.”
“Did you see a psychologist when you were younger, Mary?” she asked.
“No, I didn’t,” I replied, as lightly as I could.
It was my turn to go to the bar, so I used the opportunity to escape from the unwelcome conversation. Despite the awkwardness of the last interaction, I was quite enjoying the evening. I could see the boxes of crisps sitting behind the bar staff, but didn’t even feel moved to buy some.
Progress, surely?
chapter three
The third session at Fat Club
Well, there was good news and bad news to report before returning to Fat Club: I lost six pounds. I know! Huge achievement. I’d been really focused and thinking about the importance of eating healthily and exercising wherever I could. It was amazing.
The bad news... I slept with Dave. I know I shouldn’t have; I know I should have tried and persuade him to make some sort of commitment to me before throwing myself under his duvet, but it doesn’t work like that, does it? I thought if I spent a lot of time with him, and showed him it was enormous fun having me around, and how amazing I was in bed, he’d like me regardless of my weight.
So I trouped off to spend the evening with him, and we had an amazing time. He said he really liked me, then at 5am his alarm went off, and he suggested I might like to leave because he was going to have to get into work early. He stood over me as I scrambled into my clothes, trying to arrange my hair and look as dignified as a woman possibly can while climbing into yesterday’s knickers.
He didn’t even give me a kiss on the cheek. “I guess you’ll know how to get home,” he said as I scrambled out of the door, fussing and falling over the complicated locking system before spilling out onto the pavement with my shoes on the wrong feet.
I ambled up the steps to my front door, opened it and burst into tears. I cried quite a lot that day, and it was my day off work, so I had a lot of time on my hands in which to cry, which wasn’t helpful. What also wasn’t helpful was the fact that I saw Dave leave for work at 8am. He threw me out at five, having set him alarm clock to go off at that hour, but he didn’t leave till eight. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what was happening there.
But the good news was, I didn’t fall into a fried breakfast, or eat my bodyweight in crisp sandwiches. I didn’t feel the need to fall into food when my mad emotions fell about me. For the first time. It might not sound like much of an achievement, but – honestly – it was one of the greatest achievements of my life.
I had quite a lot of communication from Ted and Janice through the week, we phoned each other regularly which was nice and, to be fair, knowing I had got those two on the end of the phone helped a lot with the fight not to eat rubbish all the time. I phoned Ted one night when I’d walked past the chip shop and really wanted to go in. “You need to tell me not to turn round and go back there,” I said.
“Don’t turn round and go back there,” he said, in a very stern voice. “Give me your address and I’ll come round now with an apple instead.”
We both laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. Why did I have to ring someone and ask them to tell me not to go to the chip shop?
The lovely thing was that I didn’t feel as if the battier part of me was being judged by Janice and Ted. My great friends at work, and my oldest friends – Sue and Charlie – were brilliant, but they were super slim and couldn’t understand what I was going through. They didn’t get it at all.
With Ted and Janice was like they were exactly the same as me. I think that’s why this whole group therapy thing works. You stop feeling like a freak who is out of control and needs to just keep eating, and you start to feel like member of a community that understands you have a simple problem that can be easily sorted.
The only issue on which I continued to disagree with Ted and Janice was Dave. Every time his name came up in conversation, Janice would sigh and Ted would bristle.
“Why would anyone treat another human being like that?” he’d ask. Then he’d add, “Actually, scrub that, why would any human being allow herself to be treated like that? That’s what you need to ask yourself, young lady.”
I knew he was right, but it didn’t stop me hanging out of the window, watching Dave go to work, and trying to appear as alluring as possible on the steps of my flat as he returned, in the hope that he would invite me in again.
I
arrived at the third session of Fat Club before Janice and Ted. Phil was sitting there on his own because his wife, and ever-present companion, had gone to the loo.
“Hello,” I said as warmly as I could, but he just nodded and looked as if he wanted nothing on earth as much as he wanted me to leave him alone. When Philippa came back in, I retired graciously.
“Hello, trouble, where’s Janice today?” said Ted, striding into the room and sitting next to me.
“No sign of her yet,” I said.
“Janice said she was definitely coming,” chipped in Liz, who was looking vibrant in a dress the colour of bananas. “I talked to her during the week and she was in good spirits.”
“Oh good.” Janice had seemed very depressed last week when we were sitting in the pub. I was glad she was coming.
“How are you doing? Good week?” I asked Ted.
“Pretty good,” said Ted. “You probably noticed that I’m eight pounds lighter and looking very fly.” He was relishing the small weight loss, as we all relished every development, however small, on the road to thinness. “I think I might leave the club now – my body is perfect,” he added.
“Indeed,” I said. “You don’t want to lose any more, you might become anorexic, then you’ll have to go to an entirely different support group.”
“Yes, good point.” He kissed me on the cheek. It was a lovely friendly gesture, but he went scarlet as soon as he’d done it. “Gosh, I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
Janice never turned up for the meeting which left me slightly anxious. I kept glancing at my phone to see if she had sent a text but there was nothing from her. As the time wore on, the silence from her started to worry me.
In the end I sent her a note: “Oy, where are you? I can’t do this fat girl stuff on my own, you know.”
No reply.
The news from within the group was good – people were starting to feel more ‘empowered’ (sorry, such a horrible word) and were making decisions not to resort to eating all the time.
The meeting finished on a positive note with lots of clapping and smiles and a huge grin of delight from Liz. In fact, the only thing missing from the whole evening was Janice.
“I can’t get over how odd it is that she hasn’t shown up,” I told Liz, as Ted stood by my side, nodding to suggest that he agreed with me.
“I’ll text Janice and tell her to meet us for a drink in our regular spot,” he said.
“I wasn’t thinking of going for a drink tonight, actually,” I said. “I’ve got quite a lot that I need to do.” I saw Ted’s face fall.
It was a complete lie. I had nothing I needed to do. The reason I wanted to go home was to see whether I could bump into Dave. I was aware he came back from work at around this time on a Tuesday (I wasn’t a stalker...just observant). I hadn’t seen him since our drunken fumble and my early exit from his flat, and having lost a bit of weight, and feeling ever so slightly more confident, I thought it would be good to bump into him.
“Just one then.” Ted took my arm and led me towards the Shipmate’s Arms. I was too weak to refuse, so we sat in the corner of the pub exactly where we’d sat the last time. We left a couple more messages for Janice, and Ted managed to calm me down a bit, reminding me that she was older, and probably had other commitments. It wasn’t as easy for her to nip out to Fat Club. He was sure she was OK. He seemed convinced we would have heard from her if there was any problem.
The nice thing about being with Ted was that we were so similar...like brother and sister sometimes – exactly the same stupid sense of humour. There was something warm and reassuring about him. Always lovely and greatly entertaining.
When we left, Ted opened the door for me in a very gentlemanly fashion. He managed to tread that thin line between always treating me like an equal which I loved, while managing to do all the charming, gentlemanly stuff that made me feel special.
His behaviour was a reminder of how long it had been since any man had treated me properly. Men don’t open doors for fat girls. Sorry, it might sound like a horrible thing to say, but when I was sweet and pretty and slim, men opened doors. Since I became fat they take one look at me bulldozing my way down the street and think ‘well that one can clearly open the door herself – blimey she might take the whole thing off its hinges.’
I’m joking – sort of – but it’s also true that men are more gentlemanly the more delicate and feminine you are, and 18 stone of fat is not considered remotely feminine to most men. The day you can’t squeeze into your size 18 jeans is the day you learn to open doors for yourself.
chapter four
The visit
I was lounging in the bath when the call came through. It was Saturday morning and in traditional fashion I’d watched all the morning cookery programmes while salivating and fantasising about pies and cakes, and was now examining the rolls of fat banded around my waist and wishing I could lift them off to reveal a slimmer me underneath.
Ted’s number popped up and I answered as cheerily as I could, trying not to splash and reveal that I was in the bath (something a little inappropriate about a man knowing you’re wearing nothing but water and bubbles when he talks to you).
“Hello, fellow fatty, how you doing?”
“Not good,” he said, and I sat up sharply.
“What’s wrong? You sound dreadful.” It was very unlike Ted to sound so downcast. He probably had just as many miserable days as the rest of us, but he always seemed to hide any angst and always be upbeat and cheery.
“It’s Janice.”
“Oh no, what happened?”
“I’m outside your apartment. I’d rather talk to you about it.”
“Sure. How did you find out where I live?”
“Liz told me. Look, I’m sorry to disturb you, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important.”
“No, that’s fine. Just give me a minute.”
Rather than tell him I was in the bath, and that I would be 10 minutes, I jumped out of the bath water at top speed, and frantically dried myself while climbing into the plain pyjama bottoms lying on the floor. They could pass for casual trousers – it was fine. I’d been outside in worse. I teamed them with an over-large, long-sleeved t-shirt with a horrible, unflattering picture of Mickey Mouse on the front. It didn’t make for an elegant look. If I’d known what information I was about to receive from Ted I might have rethought the decision to wear a novelty t-shirt.
Ted couldn’t hide his surprise when I answered the door. He was used to seeing an extraordinarily large woman once a week when she was wrapped in a voluminous black coat. I suspect that seeing me braless and wet and wearing a t-shirt with a Disney character on it was altogether too much.
“Oh, have I disturbed you?” he asked, bending to look past me into the hallway, as if I might have men gathered there, just waiting for my attention.
“No, not at all. Just out of the bath, no problem. Come in.”
As he walked through to the sitting room, I shouted, “I hope you don’t mind mess.” Most people say things like: “I hope you don’t mind dogs.” I’m forced to warn people about the utterly chaotic state in which I live. As I walked through, I grabbed the clothes scattered around the place and shoved them into a corner, wiping the table down with the sleeve of my t-shirt to make it look better.
I could see Ted looking at me with a gentle smile on his lips, either this was because he recognised my behaviour in himself, or he had never seen anything so ludicrous in his life. I was erring towards the latter.
I made coffee while Ted sat in silence – there were no chirpy asides about the horrendous state of the apartment, nor any mention of the biscuit barrel on the table.
“I put eight sugars in yours, I hope that’s OK,” I said when I returned with the drinks, but Ted wasn’t listening.
“It’s bad news,” he said.
“No, I didn’t really put eight sugars in – only joking.”
“No, not the sugars, nutcase, the news I’m about to tell you.”
I sat next to Ted on the sofa. Together we completely filled a settee which boldly claimed to be able to seat four.
“I called Janice on her mobile,” said Ted. “And a guy answered.”
“Ooooo...lucky Janice,” I said.
“The guy was a nurse. Janice is in hospital.”
“Oh no, is she OK?”
“Yes, she’s fine now. She took an overdose.”
Ted stopped for a while to allow this to sink in. “Mary, she tried to kill herself.”
“Shit.”
“Apparently she’d just had enough of it all... The catcalls, the ‘oy fatty’ every time she left the house. The fight to be dignified when squeezing into bus seats and the fact that no one wanted to sit next to her on the train.”
I could feel the tears stinging in the backs of my eyes. We’d all been there, and I knew how upset it made Janice. Those of us struggling to control our weight have all been given the sort of abuse that would see the perpetrator locked up if they said it to someone black, disabled or mentally impaired.
“I can’t believe she was feeling that low,” I said, as Ted stared down at the brown and cream carpet on the floor under the coffee table. “She was miserable at Fat Club last week, but – Christ – not that miserable.”
“We all seem OK on the outside,” said Ted. “Don’t we? I mean – that’s what we do. We all seem not that miserable.”
G
oing to hospital to visit someone who tried to kill themselves because they couldn’t stand being fat any more is not a pleasant thing for anyone to do. I’d suggest it’s infinitely harder to do, and more emotionally crucifying when you yourself are obese. We asked which ward she was on, and I’m sure the nurse looked down at my stomach, and the way my t shirt rounded it.
Janice was sitting up in bed when we found her, and looked embarrassed when we walked up to her. “Gosh, you didn’t have to come,” she said, looking at me and then at Ted. “You must have a million things to do. You really didn’t have to come out here and see me.”
I wanted to reach out and hug her, to hold her close and tell her never, ever to hurt herself again. But I didn’t. I’m too British for all that. I just reassured her, told her there was nowhere I’d rather be, and sat on the small wooden chair near the bed, handing her a bunch of flowers we had picked up on the way.
“How are you feeling?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I feel much better, thank you for coming.”
“Janice I’m so sorry, I don’t know what to say. You should have rung one of us, or talked to us, perhaps we could have helped?”
“No one could’ve helped. I was too low to reach out to anyone,” she replied.
“But, I wish you’d said something...anything. We could have tried to help.”
“Mary you’re lovely, and I really cherish your friendship, but there are some things that no one can help with.”
“Just as long as you know we’re here, and we care about you,” said Ted. He leaned over and kissed Janice on the head in such a tender way that I felt my heart shift a little inside me. What good people they were. Really good people.
Since Ted had driven me to the hospital, he drove me back home, the mood having lifted considerably since confirmation that Janice was OK, she was out of danger and was going to be fine. She even talked about coming to the next Fat Club session. We’d both been shaken considerably by the realisation that she had got so low, and how desperate she’d felt. We vowed to make sure we talked to one another if we ever felt bad.
“Promise me you’ll call,” said Ted. “You know...if you ever feel really low.”
“I promise I will,” I replied. “Do you want to come in for coffee?” We had arrived at my flat. Ted nodded appreciatively.
“Or we could nip out for something to eat?” he said. “Let me buy you a late lunch, or early dinner. I haven’t eaten...most unlike me.”
“Neither have I,” I lied, hoping he didn’t remember the cookie jar on the coffee table and the plates discarded on the side in the kitchen.
“Then, this evening, if you fancy it, we could go to a party at a pub not far from here. It’s just a leaving do for a friend who’s moving away, but it’ll be fun. Come with me. I’ll drive, and I’ll make sure you get home safely afterwards. Anyway, see how you feel after lunch.”
“Sure.” I wasn’t at all sure about the drinks party but I definitely fancied lunch. “Let me go in and get changed quickly. I won’t be long.”
“You look absolutely fine like that,” he said, as I struggled to open the door. I hadn’t even tried to fasten the seat belt. Fat ladies and seat belts are a very unhappy combination.
“No, I have to get changed,” I said. I’m not the most fashionable girl around, but even I would think it inappropriate to go out for lunch with a man while dressed in pyjama bottoms and a hideous t-shirt, while wearing no underwear at all. Even fat girls have standards, you know.
“No problem,” said Ted.
I clambered out of the car, half stepping, half rolling my body out of the door. Ted followed me and the two of us waddled across the road. As I approached the little gate I saw Dave coming out of his flat. He looked like he was off to the gym. He was stubbly, unkempt and looked absolutely gorgeous. Dave glanced at me, at Ted, and back again.
“Hello, what have we got here then?” he said.
“This is Ted,” I muttered, while Dave’s handsome face looked at mine. “Ted’s just a friend, you know. Just someone I met, not a boyfriend or anything. Just someone I know.”
“Oh I see.” Dave gave a smile. “Well then, Ted, you won’t mind if I ask Mary whether she fancies coming round for pizza later. Perhaps to watch a film or something?”
“Sure, I’d love to.” I didn’t stop for even half a second to consider my words.
“Actually, we’ve got plans,” said Ted. He was right, of course, we did have plans, but in that moment, rather shamefully, I just wanted him to go away.
“We’ll do that another time,” I said, my voice ringing with irritation. I couldn’t look Ted in the eye. His shoulders were slouched over and his face was full of confusion. “You might as well head off now. I’ll see you on Tuesday at the club, OK?”
“What club’s that?” asked Dave.
“Fat Club,” I responded.
“Ha ha, perfect,” said Dave. “That’s hysterical. The two tubbies from Fat Club.”
Ted looked from me to Dave and back again, then he walked back out of the gate, across the road and got into his car. My insides felt crushed. What the hell had I done?
Dave watched Ted waddle away from us, smiling victoriously. “That’s funny: Fat Club!” he said. “See you around 4pm, OK?”
“Looking forward to it,” I said seductively, as I let myself into my flat. I knew I had treated Ted abysmally, but I had such a thing about Dave and I desperately wanted to spend the evening with him. I’d lost 10lb. Ten pounds! Dave needed to see my new body. Also, I convinced myself, I needed cheering up after the day I’d just endured. A lazy evening on Dave’s sofa, with the prospect of a bit of physical action later was everything I needed. I did feel terrible about Ted though...really bad.
My hot date with Dave
By the time 4pm arrived, I was dressed up in the best lingerie you can get in a size 42GG, and feeling good. It was a peculiar time to meet for pizza – it wasn’t lunch and it wasn’t dinner. Still, it was an invitation from Dave, so I wasn’t going to question it or analyse it too closely.
I wandered down to his flat in my best black trousers which were now very loose around my waist. Yes! I could have put smaller ones on, but I decided to go for the bigger pair which were both smarter and gave me the lovely warm feeling of being loose, and thus reminding me of the weight I’d lost. I knocked on Dave’s door; there was no reply. The lights were off inside and the flat gave the impression of being entirely empty. I waited for about 20 minutes (I know what you’re thinking – who would wait for 20 minutes? Christ, woman, get a grip) and then went back upstairs, got a pen and paper and made a note which I pushed underneath his door. I was just retreating when Dave arrived back from the gym. He looked at me blankly.
“You told me to come down for pizza and video?” I said.
“Oh, OK then, yes – sure, you can you come in.” He didn’t sound overly excited about the prospect.
His flat was in a state of chaos, much like mine, but for some reason – perhaps because I’m female – I admonished him lightly and offered to help clear it up.
“Sure,” he said with a smile, removing his t-shirt to display his quite spectacularly gorgeous torso.
“I’m going to have a quick shower, tidy if you want.”
I’d meant that we could tidy up together in a kind of flirting foreplay sort of fashion. I wasn’t offering to become his cleaner.
Still, I wanted to get into his good books, so while he showered, I started rounding up all the old packaging, cans and other assorted rubbish that had been thrown around the place. I shoved them into a bin bag. Dave was in his bedroom by now, presumably getting dressed.
“The Hoover is in the cupboard under the stairs,” he said.
I knew it was ridiculous to get the Hoover out and clean his flat, but I was also madly happy to be there, and thought he would be so grateful, it would make everything good between us. I pulled out the Hoover and ran it round the flat, polishing the surfaces as I went, making it look lovely. Dave walked out with his jeans on...no shirt. Yes.
“You’re an angel.” He kissed me on the tip of my nose. “One other thing – you aren’t any good at ironing, are you?”
“Um, I guess, why?”
“I have no shirts to wear.”
I put up the ironing board and plugged in the iron and I know what you’re thinking – you’re thinking – this woman is a bloody moron. Well, yes, perhaps you’re right. Dave stood there shirtless (a happy moment in the whole unedifying, desperate mess), and I ironed the shirt he handed to me, taking care to make sure it was perfect. Because somehow, somewhere, in the deep recesses of my soul I thought he might glance at himself and see how good he looked and feel great, and associate me with that feeling. It was a long shot, but my ‘relationship’ with Dishy Dave was built on long shots.
I handed him the still warm shirt and put away the ironing accoutrements.
“The flat looks great,” he said. “Emma’s coming round later, she’ll be very impressed.”
“Emma?”
I felt a dagger tear into my heart. Not that I thought he didn’t have girlfriends, I knew damn well he had girlfriends – bloody dozens of them – but I thought tonight would just be about me, I also thought that seeing how I was getting slimmer and looking better, this would prompt him to dump all those other idiots, and the two of us would be together, forever.
“Do you mind if we don’t get pizza?” he said. “I’m straight from the gym; I might just have a power shake or something.”
“No, that’s fine by me.” It was fine – I didn’t want to eat pizza. I’d said yes to pizza because I wanted us to spend the evening together. I fiddled with my hands in my lap and tried to think of something to say...something that would please him.
“I
’ve lost some weight,” I said, flinching as I heard the words and the way they rang with desperation.
“Well done,” he said. “Where have you lost it from?”
“I mean – I’ve just lost weight generally, I’ve been going to this club, and I’m determined to lose loads of weight,” I said.
“Of course...Fat Club.” Dave collapsed with laughter. “Oh my God, that’s hysterical,” he said, wide-eyed with excitement. “You and that fat bloke from earlier. Just the funniest thing ever. Do they round up all the fatties and put them in one room to talk about food?”
I’d never seen him look so animated or laugh so much, so I joked along with him for a while, trying to smile and giggle at something that was actually quite serious. Then I thought about Janice and stopped abruptly. Then thoughts of Ted came into my mind; lovely, sweet, kind and funny Ted.
“God that must be hysterical,” said Dave, falling into the recently plumped-up cushions on his sofa and laughing out loud. “Just a whole load of really fat people talking about why they can’t stop eating. Honestly that must be so funny. Can you tape it for me?”
“Look, if you’ve got plans, I’ll head off,” I said.
“Why?” said Dave. “She is not coming for another hour... We can do that thing I like when you get your enormous titties out and I cum on them.”
“I’ve got stuff on.” I moved towards the door, and opened it, while he stayed on the sofa.
“Well, thanks for tidying up,” he said, as I left, pulling the door behind me.
What the hell on earth was wrong with me? Why had I given up a lovely night with a genuinely decent, nice man, to go there and be humiliated by that moron? I let myself into my flat and called Ted’s number, it rang out and then went to answer phone. He didn’t want to talk to me, who could blame him?
Next I went onto Facebook, and I don’t know why but I started looking for him on there. I found Ted’s profile fairly easily, and smiled as I read his updates. He was really funny. Self-deprecating. Witty. Popular.
There were pictures of him as a sportsman and he looked bloody gorgeous...much better than Downstairs Dave has ever looked. Then pictures of him having his facial hair shaved into its current state. He’d done it for charity. Three of them had let children at a cancer hospital design their facial hair arrangements in order to raise money for charity. Oh God, I’d been mocking that daft facial hair but it was all for charity. He was such a nice guy.
Then it suddenly dawned on me how many female friends he had on there. All the comments after his jokes were from women...all telling him how wonderful he was and what fun he was. They all hoped to bump into him soon.
Bloody hell.
Shit.
He was kind and popular and obviously had female attention coming out of his ears.
There was a reference to a drinks party in a pub tonight. I wondered whether that was the one he’d asked me to go to with him? Bugger – it looked great. His friends had posted funny messages about how much they were looking forward to it, and daft pictures of the group altogether. The party looked like it would be brilliant. Ted was at the centre of all the pictures, being silly and having a laugh.
Bollocks. What an idiot I was.
I went into the kitchen and looked around. I took out two cream crackers and nibbled on them, absently, falling onto the sofa and flicking through Google on my phone as I did. I found lots of pictures of Ted as an aspiring rugby player and many articles about him.
Why hadn’t I looked him up before? Presumably because I wasn’t interested in him before. Now I was though. Quite suddenly I realised I really liked him and was overwhelmed by fascination. I had Google Fever. Nothing could stop me.
Saturday night TV was rubbish. I sat in front of a couple of game shows without really watching them – I was too intent on checking out pictures of Ted on my phone. Then the National Lottery results came on and I spent a lot of time imagining what I’d do if I won the millions. Perhaps I’d buy the whole house, and throw DD out from his flat below. I fantasised for quite a long time about him lying on the pavement, begging me to throw him crumbs.
Every so often I’d phone Ted but my calls all went unanswered. I’d cocked everything up.
Then, it occurred to me. Why didn’t I go to the party?
Directions to get there were fairly simple, I just had to take two buses and I would be partying with Ted and his friends. Sod it, I was wearing my wonderful (if large) lacy lingerie, and my trousers were loose, what did I have to lose? I picked up my handbag, grabbed my lipstick and covered my lips in scarlet gunk.
As I stepped out of my door, I was greeted by someone who looked like they’d stepped off the pages of a magazine teetering into Dave’s flat.
“Hi, are you Emma?” I asked. “Are you heading into Dave’s place?”
“Yes,” she said, with one of those high-pitched Marilyn Monroe style voices the men seem to find so appealing.
“I’d give it a few minutes,” I said. “His husband has only just left. He asked me to tell you.”
B
arbie Doll looked at me with eyes as wide as they were blue.
“He still wants to see you, but you should be aware that he’s married to a man.”
I headed off with a cheery wave, leaving the woman standing on the steps, wondering what on earth to do.
Ha. I felt strong, I felt powerful and I felt magnificent. Now all I had to do was get myself to Wimbledon. I was quite excited. In fact I was very excited, this was a lovely thing – there was a man there who genuinely liked me for me. He had never asked me to iron a shirt or clean his flat. He didn’t seem to want anything from me other than my company.
As I thought about the fun times we’d had sitting at Fat Club, laughing our heads off, I started to feel more and more excited. He was a really nice man. Why hadn’t I seen that before? What was I doing messing around with Dodgy Dave when I should’ve been with Super Ted? I changed buses and began getting even more excited. I’d be there in 15 minutes. I checked my makeup in a hand mirror, preening my eyebrows and playing with my hair while adding yet more lipstick, oblivious to the stares of interest from those gathered on seats around me. Nothing mattered but looking as good as I possibly could for Ted.
I stepped off the bus. There was the pub right in front of me. Ted would be in there and I would be joining him. I had butterflies. When was the last time I’d had butterflies? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so excited. My hands were sticky so I wiped them against my coat, walking towards the door and forcing myself to go inside.
I was so nervous.
I walked in and couldn’t see Ted, or anyone I recognised from the pictures on Facebook. I walked up to the bar and ordered a large glass of white wine. I’d just sit and drink it calmly, looking around until I saw someone who looked familiar, then I’d stroll over and see whether I could see Ted. I hadn’t yet worked out whether to pretend I was here having a drink and bumped into him, or confess I’d seen this on Facebook and wanted to come and see him. I guess I thought I might judge his reaction to my presence before revealing to him why I was there.
It was odd, but there was no large gathering of people in the pub. It was packed, all the tables and chairs were taken up, but no sign of a group that looked anything like a big group. I decided to call him again, but once again there was no answer.
This was becoming a bit of a nightmare, and I had no idea what to do.
“Excuse me,” I said to the barman. “Are there any private parties here today?”
“Yes,” he said, pointing to the far door. “Just go through there, up the stairs, push the door on your left and that’s the function room, there’s a party going on in there.”
Ahhhhhh! That made sense. Finally I would get to see Ted.
“Thank you so much,” I said, feeling those butterflies all over again. I stood up, downed the rest of my drink, and headed off. I went up the stairs and into the door on the left, and there was a party in full swing. Brilliant. This was it. All the people seemed about the right age. Still, it was quite odd walking into a party in full swing when you were on your own, especially when you hadn’t been invited.
I tried to look as confident as possible and sat at the bar, ordering a drink. I went to my purse to find the money, but the barman stopped me. “It’s a free bar,” he said. That made me feel all the more awkward and embarrassed. I didn’t want to steal drinks off these people; I just wanted to see Ted. Luckily, everyone had had such a good time at the free bar that they didn’t seem to notice there was an intruder in their midst.
I sat and drank my drink, playing on my phone, pretending to text someone, laughing to myself and looking as if I was having a jolly good time at the strange party with these people I didn’t know. I was fairly sure Ted wasn’t in the room, but perhaps he was and I couldn’t see him? Perhaps he was in the loo?
I had another drink, my awkwardness and embarrassment growing even further because this time I was ordering a drink when I knew it would be free. It was all too ridiculous, but to insist to the barman that I wanted to pay because I didn’t know the person whose party it was, or indeed any of the guests at the party, would be more ridiculous still.
I took a walk around the circumference of the room as groups of drunk friends jostled and took pictures of the partygoers enjoying the night. One guy tried to grab me into a group shot, but I managed to wriggle away. Everyone was drunk and having a great time, pictures were being taken and jokes were being told. It was a lovely party, but Ted wasn’t at it. I called his mobile again; no answer.
I had walked around the room three times, stared at everyone until they felt uncomfortable, and avoided about 20 photographs. It was time to go home.
chapter six
The fourth session at Fat Club
I was excited, but quite nervous, about seeing Ted at Fat Club. He had not responded to any of my calls, or replied to any of my texts so this felt like the only way to talk to him. I’d really pissed him off. I just wanted everything to be OK between us again. I wanted him back in my life.
Janice wasn’t going this week so there was no chance of us having our Three Musketeers gathering in the pub afterwards. Perhaps just Ted and I could go? That would be nice. In tribute to that thought, I had dispensed with my usual big black, cover-everything coat, and wore a cherry red cardigan instead. I then put the black coat on top, of course, because I’m not an idiot.
I’d been in communication with Janice many times over the week and had met her for a coffee. She was feeling better all the time, and had started seeing a psychiatrist which she said was helping her a lot.
When we’d met, I’d sworn her to secrecy and told her that I really liked Ted. I hadn’t realised how much I liked him at first, but now I did. I also told her about the night from hell when I’d traipsed all the way over to Wimbledon to see him.
Janice laughed at that bit. She loved the idea of me at the party, not knowing anyone, but pretending that I did. “My God, woman, you’ve cheered me up,” she said.
“This is the sad bit,” I said. “What part of this is cheering you up?”
In truth, though, it was so bloody farcical that it was funny.
“You sitting there, drinking free drinks,” she said. “If I’d been well I would have come with you.”
Ted was already at Fat Club when I walked in, but there were people sitting either side of him, so I couldn’t get right next to him. Instead, I waved and smiled at him from my seat, and he just looked down at his notes. I’d tried to call him so many times and sent dozens of friendly texts, apologising. I’d left a message saying that I couldn’t wait to see him on Tuesday night. He didn’t reply to anything until this morning when he sent a simple one saying: “See you tonight.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement of our friendship, but at least he was communicating with me.
The other thing I should tell you is that I lost some more weight, bringing my total weight lost to 14lbs. Fourteen pounds! Can you believe that? That’s a stone, that is...a bloody stone!
“Come on, Mary,” said Liz, running her hands through the new green streaks in her hair and pulling her pink cardigan around her. “Your turn to talk. Tell us how your week went.”
Ted had spoken before me, and updated everyone on Janice, so I added that she sent her love and was feeling much better now. Everyone clapped and their murmurs of support filled the room.
“How has your week been apart from that?” asked Liz. “Tell us about your eating.”
“OK. I’m managing not to shovel down lots of food, I’ve lost some weight and I feel much better. I’m genuinely feeling like I might be able to do it this time. You know, shift a load of weight and get myself healthier and fitter.”
“That’s wonderful news,” said Liz. “And how is it all making you feel?”
“Good,” I said, preparing to sit down.
“Sometimes when people have been using food as a crutch for a long time, they really feel the absence of it when it’s taken away, and they need something else... Have you been drinking more? Walking more? Gambling, buying clothes or doing anything else in an obsessive way?” she asked. “Try to share everything so we can all really help one another.”
“No, I’m OK,” I said.
“Good. That’s really great to hear. You haven’t shared with the group quite as much as the others have about your reasons for overeating in the first place. You hinted, right at the beginning of the course, that something had happened to you when you were younger. If you decide that you want to talk about that, we’re all here for you.”
“Thanks. I’m OK, thanks,” I said.
“Right, well let’s end it there for this week,” said Liz.
I turned around to talk to Ted, but he’d jumped up and headed out of the room. No goodbye. Not a word.
“Mary, if you want to talk, but don’t necessarily want to share your feelings with the group you can always call me,” she said. “Don’t ever feel like you’re alone, will you.”
“No,” I said, still watching the door that had slammed shut after Ted’s hasty departure. “I won’t. Thank you.”
chapter seven
One week later, session five of Fat Club
––––––––
“HELLO, ANYONE THERE?” I was standing round by the bins, shouting up at the window. “Hello.”
Silence. Not a whisper.
How odd. Luckily, I was in plenty of time for Fat Club. It didn’t start for another half hour, so there was no panic, but it would be useful to get some sort of response. I wandered onto the street and looked up and down it, then sat on the wall and checked through my messages.
“Hi, it’s me,” I typed in. “I’m outside your flat – am shouting up at your window like some sort of loony but you can’t hear me. Please come down soon before someone calls the police and they arrest me.” I put a smiley face after the message, to indicate that I was only joking about the police coming, but I was very serious about wanting her to come out soon.
This is the problem when someone you know has tried to harm herself...you’re forever worried that she might do it again. Every time Janice hadn’t replied to a text or not taken my call, I’d been thrown into a blind panic about where she was and what she was doing. Like now. Janice’s house was in darkness in front of me, bar one lit window. I’d spent 15 minutes shouting up at that solitary light and there had been no response.
I rang the doorbell again, while simultaneously calling her. She knew I was coming to meet her so we could travel to Fat Club together. We’d spoken only this morning. Shit, what should I do if she didn’t answer? Who should I call?
“Janice, it’s me again. Look – no problem if you don’t want to come tonight – no pressure at all. I just need to know you’re OK. PLEASE send me a text to tell me that everything is alright x.”
Nothing.
It was 10 minutes till Fat Club was due to start and 20 minutes after the time I had arranged to be at Janice’s house. This was now odd. Bollocks. I couldn’t sit there all evening and miss Fat Club – what would be the point of that? But I had to check that Janice was OK. I couldn’t go anywhere until I’d heard from her.
Every part of me wanted to ring Ted. I knew he’d be able to help; he’d know what to do. But I also knew that the last thing he wanted was to get a call from me.
I banged on the door again, shouting up at the window, “Hi, Janice, it’s me – Mary – I’ve come to walk to Fat Club with you. Are you there?”
Nothing.
Perhaps if I texted Ted? That wouldn’t be so awful, would it?
“Hi, I’m outside Janice’s house. I arranged to meet her here 20 minutes ago but there’s no sign of her. Not sure what to do...” I wrote.
He called straight away.
“Ted, I’m really worried,” I said. “There’s no sign of her, I’ve shouted and texted but no one’s come to the door.”
“OK, don’t worry. I’m just pulling up outside the community centre; I’ll come over there now. What’s the address?”
I gave him the address and it took about a minute for his car to come screeching down the road. He jumped out, running towards me – a superhero in loose-fitting jogging bottoms.
“I just can’t get any answer from her,” I said.
Ted banged on the door in a very manly fashion, and eventually we heard a shout from a lady at the window above. “Will you just go away,” she said in an old-sounding voice. I stepped back so I could see. She was, indeed, very elderly and looked quite scared.
“Is Janice there?” I said.
“No. There’s no one called Janice here,” she replied. “Stop screeching at my door, will you.”
“Are you sure we’re at the right place?” asked Ted.
“Yes.” I opened my phone and looked at the text Janice sent with her address in it.
“Yes, this is it,” I said triumphantly. “It says 10a Bath Avenue.”
“No, this is Bath Road,” said Ted. “We’re in the wrong place, you numpty.”
We waddled at high speed down the steps, jumped into Ted’s car, and whizzed round to Bath Road. There – sure enough – standing outside 10a was Janice, her coat wrapped around her against the cold, looking slightly miffed.
“Sorry, sorry,” I said, as we pulled to a halt next to her. “I went to the wrong address. I’m an idiot. But why haven’t you got your phone turned on?”
“Oh shit.” Janice looked at her phone and saw the messages I’d left and the calls I tried to make. “I left it on mute from when I was in the hospital earlier. Sorry.”
“Hospital?” Ted and I cried, in unison, glancing at each other.
“Just a check-up, nothing to worry about.”
All three of us bombed down to the community centre, running through the doors 15 minutes after the class had started.
“I’m so sorry we’re late,” I said, as Liz’s face lit up at the sight of us. “It’s completely my fault.”
“She doesn’t know her avenues from her roads,” said Ted.
I looked at him and smiled. Ted smiled back. YES!
It was a moving session in which Janice tried to explain to a group of overweight people why she’d tried to take her own life...without saying that it was because she was overweight. She talked about the misery and anger she’d felt and how she felt judged, rejected and horrible. Everyone listened intently. She was preaching to the converted, but every one of us was wondering how she got so low. We’d all had moments of frustration, anger and despair. What had happened to Janice to make her think that death was an alternative to dieting?
Afterwards we headed for the pub. Janice was emotionally drained after speaking out about her attempted suicide so stayed quiet for most of the time. Ted seemed relaxed and happy as he downed his pint and flicked through some messages on his phone. It wasn’t quite the same as it had been in the past – with Ted and me laughing and joking constantly – but it was a step in the right direction. At least we could get along together.
“Does it help to talk about it like that?” I asked Janice. “You know – share the details of it? I find it really, really hard to go into all the details about emotions and feelings. I’m happy to tell people about my food intake and my weight, but as soon as the questions start about how I felt, or what emotions it brought up, I clam up straight away.”
“We’ve noticed.” Janice touched my leg affectionately. “I agree with you – it’s horrible to talk about it, and you feel very vulnerable and a bit silly at the time, but it does make you feel better afterwards.”
“Good,” I said. “I’m so glad you’re feeling better.”
I looked up and Ted was staring at me with narrowed eyes. “The weirdest thing,” he said.
“What?” Janice and I chorused.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What doesn’t matter?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing, it’s not important.”
“I’m intrigued now,” said Janice. “You have to tell us what’s on your mind.”
“Well, I was just scrolling through Facebook and some friends have put up pictures from a drinks party they had a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t go to it, but there’s a woman who seems to be kind of sneaking around in the background, but seems to be in every picture. My friends have all circled her and written ‘Anyone know who this is?’ And the odd thing is it looks exactly like you, Mary.”
chapter eight
Session six, the final session at Fat Club
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IN TOTAL, OVER THE six weeks that the Fat Club sessions had been running, I’d lost 19lbs. I was comfortably down a dress size, I felt better than ever and I’d met a man I really liked: that was the good news.
The less good news was that I still had about 60lbs to lose, and the man I liked was aware that I may have gate-crashed a party of all his friends that I wasn’t invited to and had crept around in the background like some sort of lunatic.
I denied everything when Ted mentioned it last week, of course, despite the fact that Janice was sitting there and she knew it to be true.
“But it looks just like you,” he’d said, while I tried to change the conversation by asking them both whether they liked my boots. It was only when I realised that the boots I was trying to distract them with were the same ones I was wearing in the picture that I took my foot off the table and downed my wine. “More drinks anyone?”
Eventually Ted let it go, though I could see him looking from my handbag to my coat and thinking ‘the woman in the picture has exactly the same stuff as you...’ He had every right to be confused but I couldn’t offer any sort of explanation that would reassure him about my sanity. So I’d just stayed silent.
That was last week, now we were back in our run-down community centre for the last session of what had been an amazing course. Everyone was there except for Liz. This was the first time that she hadn’t been there before us, grinning warmly, while dressed in some peculiar outfit, and waiting to greet us all like toddlers on our first day at nursery.
“I’m sorry,” she said, bowling in dressed in a canary yellow coat, clutching piles of literature and folders, looking windswept and unkempt. “I have so many bits of paper to give you and I just went and left them all at home. I had to turn back and the traffic was terrible. All OK now though. Right, how’s everyone feeling?”
There were mutters of general happiness from people as Liz took off her coat to reveal a bright purple jumper, black trousers and pea green shoes. It was a fairly moderate outfit for her, but the shoe choice was remarkable to say the least.
“Let’s go round the room one final time, and then I want to tell you about the next stage in the overeaters programme,” said Liz. “Janice, let’s start with you, if that’s OK. I know we spoke a little bit during the week, but I’m sure everyone in the room is keen to find out how you’re feeling.”
“I’m fine, honestly – no one needs to worry,” said Janice. “You’ve all been so incredibly kind and supportive... I can’t tell you what a difference it’s made. I – um – sorry, this is all very emotional for me to talk about, but I hit a real low point a few weeks ago... I don’t know what happened to tip me over the edge, but I had this blinding moment when I just didn’t want to be here. Now I look back and I can’t quite understand what happened in my head. I don’t recognise the person who was so low that she couldn’t face the future.
“I made a promise to Liz that if anything like that ever happens again, I will talk to someone. Talk to you guys, to be honest, because what I’ve learned from all your kind messages and sympathetic calls is that I’ve met some friends for life on this course. I’m so grateful to you all.”
Janice spoke about the psychological help she had been getting and how much she was benefitting from talking through her feelings, worries and concerns. “I know it sounds odd, this whole therapy thing... I mean – how can just talking about an issue make it better? In some ways you might think it would make things worse. Talking about things might make them bigger in your mind. But it’s not like that. I genuinely feel as if the problems and the pressure they exert on me are lifted by talking them through. It’s as if you’re getting them out of your mind when you share them. And you know what it’s like when you have negative thoughts left festering in your mind – they grow and distort and become like little monsters in there. The help you’ve all given me, coupled with the psychological help I’ve been getting have made me happier and more content than I’ve felt for years. Thanks so much, everyone.”
There was an enormous round of applause when she finished. I stood up and started clapping above my head, but people looked at me as if I was nuts, so I sat back down again.
Veronica spoke next. I still wasn’t sure about her, which was probably a bit mean of me because I didn’t know her. I mean, she was probably lovely, but there was something unattractive about the way she seemed to want to talk about her modelling career all the time. I was a really good gymnast when I was younger...I mean – really good. I competed all over the world, but I wouldn’t mention that every time I opened my mouth. Somehow it felt wrong, too self-indulgent to be appropriate. You don’t stand up and tell everyone how great you were. This was Fat Club, for God’s sake, we were all morbidly obese, did we need to hear about her life as a size six model?
“One of the things I find really hard is letting go of the fact that I used to be a model,” she said, and I must admit I thought straight away ‘here we go again, Veronica, do tell us all about your modelling career. We’re all desperate to hear everything about it.’ But she surprised me. “I’m not saying that being a model is important... Gosh, it’s not like you’re trying to find a cure for cancer, or help dying kids, but it’s one of those professions that, because it affects you away from work, starts to seep into your life. If you work in a shop, once that shop’s closed, you don’t have to work in the shop – it’s as simple and straightforward as that. If you want to go out and have a huge takeaway and get drunk, it’s not going to have any impact on your job at all. But if you’re a model, you still have to live like a model. Even if the catwalk shows are weeks away and you’re not earning a penny from the profession, you can’t go out for dinner and stuff yourself. You can’t do anything that’s going to make your skin look bad, make you fat or make you in any way unattractive.
“I’d go on holiday and still be eating cotton wool instead of food and drinking loads of water, and panicking like mad about whether the sun would damage my skin, or the salt water affect my hair. If you’re a model, you’re a model every minute of every day, not just when the shop’s open.
“Can you imagine what sort of pressure this creates? No one can live like that, which is why so many models go off the rails and end up taking tonnes of drugs or mainlining whisky to cope with the hunger and the pain. The truth is that you can’t live a life when you’re always on show and constantly being judged, without having something to lean on.
“Hardly ever eating and being permanently exhausted is a rubbish way to live.
“I coped with it all by binge eating, and because of this I developed bulimia. Not very good bulimia because I put on a load of weight, as you can see from the state of me, but bulimia nonetheless. I’d binge and binge, usually late at night when everyone else was asleep, then make myself sick and cry myself to sleep. Then I’d have a shower, eat half an apple and head back to the studio to do more modelling. It was rubbish and it affected me deeply and now I don’t have any idea how to eat properly. I never learned that. Food for me was always a comfort, a warm blanket to wrap around myself when the world felt nasty and cruel.
“I know I can be a bit stand-offish at times, and I don’t find it that easy to socialise and meet new people, but it’s been lovely to be here, and to meet everyone and to realise not only that I’m not alone, but that it’s all going to be OK. Because that’s how it feels, you know. It feels like it’s all going to be OK. I know that with hard work I can get rid of the demons and I’ve got some brilliant new friends, so thank you everyone.”
I applauded Veronica wildly when she finished, then it was my turn. I really wasn’t sure what to say. I felt so drained after the last two talks. It had been so moving listening to them but I knew that I wasn’t able to share my past with people in the same way. I decided, instead, to share my present and my future.
“These sessions have changed my life,” I said. “I came here wanting to lose weight, and I have lost quite a lot, to be fair. I’ve gone down almost two dress sizes and feel about a million times better. But I have also gained more than I have lost. I’ve gained confidence, and I have realised that I’m not alone. There are other people struggling too, and they – that’s you guys – are very inspiring. There are two people who I’ve become particularly friendly with – and that’s Janice and Ted – and I’d like to thank them for their friendship.
“I’d also like to make a bit of a confession – we all make mistakes, as we go through life, and I’ve made a few recently. One massive one. A guy I really like – let’s call him, um, Tarzan – asked me out and I said yes, then another guy, a rather vain and idiotic guy – let’s call him ‘the wanker’ – suggested I meet up with him on the same night.
“For reasons I can’t possibly explain, I changed my plans and went out with the wanker instead, and I dumped Tarzan. Can you imagine anything more ridiculous? Dumping Tarzan and going out with a wanker?
“Anyway, so I went out with the wanker, and realised he was just using me, and I was bonkers, and really liked the first guy – Tarzan. So I rushed out of the wanker’s house and I tried calling Tarzan loads and loads, but he didn’t return my calls. I even went out that evening to the party he was supposed to be at, but he wasn’t there, and all his friends were looking at me and trying to work out what on earth I was doing there.”
I looked over at Ted and saw him smile as he realised that it had been me in those photos – skulking around at the back of the drinks party.
“Anyway, I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,” I continued. “I just want you to know that a kind and lovely, genuinely nice guy is better than an arsehole in a nice suit.”
I sat down to confused looks and half-claps. No one really knew who Tarzan was. Liz was nodding, but I could see that she had no idea why I’d shared my bizarre dating story with the group either. Ted was looking down at the floor. I might never see him again, but at least he knew the truth – that I liked him and deeply regretted behaving the way I had.
Liz handed out lots of information for us to keep, including the details about the next stage – a 12-week course, starting in two months.
I would definitely go, I thought, as I gathered my things together and gave Janice a big hug. It turned out Janice was going as well, so that was good – at least I’d know someone. I said goodbye to everyone and went to the coat stand to collect my coat. Ted was standing there.
“You OK, Jane?” he said.
“Jane? No, I’m Mary.”
“Oh for God’s sake, woman. Me – Tarzan; you – Jane.”
There was a gasp of understanding from all the others in the group. Now they knew why I’d told the story. “Oh, yes, I’m fine.” I felt my cheeks scorch and turn an unflattering shade of scarlet.
“If that nickname sticks, I’ll never forgive you,” said Ted, giving me a little hug that told me everything would be OK. “Look, I have to go away for a few days for work. Do you fancy catching up when I get back? We could go out to dinner or for a drink or something?”
“I’d love that,” I said.
“Good.” He winked at me and made my insides somersault with joy.
Ted left and I looked round the room. Veronica was smiling at me.
“He’s lovely; you two make a fab couple,” she said.
“I know. I’m so excited. We’re going to go for a drink when he’s back. Is that – like – a date, do you think?”
“God, yes,” said Veronica. “You have got yourself a date, young lady. What are you going to wear?”
“I don’t know. I might buy something new. I haven’t been shopping for ages. I might buy a new dress. What do you think?”
“I think you should definitely do that,” said Veronica. “Why don’t I come with you? It would be a great chance to get to know one another better, and I do know a bit about fashion after all those years of modelling. What do you think?”
“I’d love that.”
“Just text me, OK. Let me know when you’re free and we’ll meet up and get you the most knockout dress imaginable. We’ll make it a fun day with wine as well as shopping.”
“But of course,” I said. “It’s not a shopping trip if it doesn’t involve wine.”
I hadn’t felt so happy for years . But, little did I know, as I smiled and waved goodbye to my new friends, that I was about to get myself into the most extraordinary amount of trouble with them. I would be hit by a roller-coaster of emotions as I pursued a relationship with Ted, then would land myself in a whole world of problems in Amsterdam with Veronica. And that’s before being videoed while stuck up a tree in Africa wearing nothing but my knickers. And way before befriending a mad Spanish dancer on a cruise after almost joining a topless dancing troupe.
Buckle up, readers, it promises to be one hell of a ride...
THE NEXT BOOK: Adventures of an Adorable Fat Girl
OUT NOW!
Mary can’t get into any of the dresses in Zara (she tries and fails. It’s messy!). Still, what does she care? She’s got a lovely new boyfriend whose thighs are bigger than hers (yes!!!) and all is looking well...except when she accidentally gets herself into several thousand pounds worth of trouble at a silent auction, has to eat her lunch under the table in the pub because Ted’s workmates have spotted them, and suffers the indignity of having a young man’s testicles dangled into her face on a party boat to Amsterdam. Oh, and then there are all the issues with the hash-cakes and the sex museum. Besides all those things – everything’s fine...just fine!
More books...
There are simply loads of Adorable Fat Girl books for you to try, as our curvy heroine goes off on holidays, receives a mysterious invitation and tries online dating (among other things). There’s also a romance series and a ‘Wags’ series.
You can find out more about all the books by clicking onto my website.
My website is: www.bernicebloom.com
Here I am on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/BerniceBloombooks/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
Tweet me! @bernice1bloom
Thank you so much,
BB xxx
BOOK ONE:
Diary of an Adorable Fat Girl
Mary Brown is funny, gorgeous and bonkers. She’s also about six stone overweight. When she realises she can’t cross her legs, has trouble bending over to tie her shoelaces without wheezing like an elderly chain-smoker, and discovers that even her hands and feet look fat, it’s time to take action. But what action? She’s tried every diet under the sun. This is the story of what happens when Mary joins ‘Fat Club’ where she meets a cast of funny characters and one particular man who catches her eye.
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BOOK TWO:
Adventures of an Adorable Fat Girl
Mary can’t get into any of the dresses in Zara (she tries and fails. It’s messy!). Still, what does she care? She’s got a lovely new boyfriend whose thighs are bigger than hers (yes!!!) and all is looking well...except when she accidentally gets herself into several thousand pounds worth of trouble at a silent auction, has to eat her lunch under the table in the pub because Ted’s workmates have spotted them, and suffers the indignity of having a young man’s testicles dangled into her face on a party boat to Amsterdam. Oh, and then there are all the issues with the hash-cakes and the sex museum. Besides all those things – everything’s fine...just fine!
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BOOK THREE:
Crazy Life of an Adorable Fat Girl
The second course of ‘Fat Club’ starts and Mary reunites with the cast of funny characters who graced the first book. But this time there’s a new Fat Club member...a glamorous blonde who Mary takes against. We also see Mary facing troubles in her relationship with the wonderful Ted, and we discover why she has been suffering from an eating disorder for most of her life. What traumatic incident in Mary’s past has caused her all these problems?
The story is tender and warm, but also laugh-out-loud funny. It will resonate with anyone who has dieted, tried to keep up with any sort of exercise programme or spent 10 minutes in a changing room trying to extricate herself from a way-too-small garment that she ambitiously tried on and became completely stuck in.
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BOOK FOUR:
The first three books combined
This is the first three Fat Girl books altogether in one fantastic, funny package
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BOOK FIVE:
Christmas with Adorable Fat Girl
It’s the Adorable Fat Girl’s favourite time of year and she embraces it with the sort of thrill and excitement normally reserved for toddlers seeing Jelly Tots. Our funny, gorgeous and bonkers heroine finds herself dancing from party to party, covered in tinsel, decorating the Beckhams’ Christmas tree, dressing up as Father Christmas, declaring live on This Morning that she’s a drug addict, and enjoying two Christmas lunches in quick succession. She’s the party queen as she stumbles wildly from disaster to disaster. A funny little treasure to see you smiling through the festive period.
BOOK SIX:
Adorable Fat Girl Shares her Weight-Loss Tips
As well as having a crazy amount of fun at Fat Club, Mary also loses weight: a massive 40 lbs!! How does she do it? Here in this mini book – for the first time – she describes the rules that helped her. Also included are the stories of readers who have written in to share their weight-loss stories. This is a kind approach to weight loss. It’s about learning to love yourself as you shift the pounds. It worked for Mary Brown and everyone at Fat Club (even Ted who can’t go a day without a bag of chips and thinks a pint isn’t a pint without a bag of pork scratchings). I hope it works for you, and I hope you enjoy it.
BOOK SEVEN:
Adorable Fat Girl on Safari
Mary Brown, our fabulous, full-figured heroine, is off on safari with an old school friend. What could possibly go wrong? Lots of things, it turns out. Mary starts off on the wrong foot by turning up dressed in a ribbon-bedecked bonnet, having channelled Meryl Streep in Out of Africa. She falls in lust with a khaki-clad ranger half her age and ends up stuck in a tree wearing nothing but her knickers, while sandwiched between two inquisitive baboons. It’s never dull.
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BOOK EIGHT:
Cruise with an Adorable Fat Girl
Mary is off on a cruise. It’s the trip of a lifetime...featuring eat-all-you-can buffets and a trek through Europe with a 96-year-old widower called Frank and a flamboyant Spanish dancer called Juan Pedro. Then there’s the desperately handsome captain, the appearance of an ex-boyfriend on the ship, the time she’s mistaken for a Hollywood film star in Lisbon, and tons of clothes shopping all over Europe.
BOOK NINE:
Adorable Fat Girl Takes up Yoga
The Adorable Fat Girl needs to do something to get fit. What about yoga? I mean – really – how hard can that be? A bit of chanting, some toe touching and a new leotard. Easy! She signs up for a weekend retreat, packs up assorted snacks and heads for the countryside to get in touch with her chi and her third eye. And that’s when it all goes wrong. Featuring frantic chickens, an unexpected mud bath, men in loose-fitting shorts and no pants, calamitous headstands, a new bizarre friendship with a yoga guru, and a quick hospital trip.
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BOOK TEN:
The first three holiday books combined
This is a combination book containing three of the books in my holiday series: Adorable Fat Girl on Safari, Cruise with an Adorable Fat Girl and Adorable Fat Girl takes up Yoga.
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BOOK ELEVEN:
Adorable Fat Girl and the Mysterious Invitation
Mary Brown receives an invitation to a funeral. The only problem is: she has absolutely no idea who the guy who’s died is. She’s told that the deceased invited her on his deathbed, and he’s very keen for her to attend, so she heads off to a dilapidated old farm house in a remote part of Wales. When she gets there, she discovers that only five other people have been invited to the funeral. None of them knows who he is either. NO ONE GOING TO THIS FUNERAL HAS EVER HEARD OF THE DECEASED. Then they are told they have 20 hours to work out why they have been invited, in order to inherit a million pounds.
Who is this guy and why are they there? And what of the ghostly goings on in the ancient old building?
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BOOK TWELVE
Adorable Fat Girl goes to Weight-Loss Camp
Mary Brown heads to Portugal for a weight-loss camp and discovers it’s nothing like she expected. “I thought it would be Slimming World in the sunshine, but this is bloody torture,” she says, after boxing, running, sand training (sand training?), more running, more star jumps and eating nothing but carrots. Mary wants to hide from the instructors and cheat the system. The trouble is, her mum is with her, and won’t leave her alone for a second. Then there’s the angry instructor with the deep, dark secret about why he left the army; and the mysterious woman who sneaks into their pool and does synchronised swimming every night. Who the hell is she? Why’s she in their pool? And what about Yvonne – the slim, attractive lady who disappears every night after dinner. Where’s she going? And what unearthly difficulties will Mary get herself into when she decides to follow her to find out?
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BOOK THIRTEEN:
The first two weight-loss books:
This is Weight-Loss Tips and Weight-Loss Camp together.
BOOK FOURTEEN:
Adorable Fat Girl goes Online Dating
She’s big, beautiful and bonkers, and now she’s going online dating. Buckle up and prepare for trouble, laughter and total chaos. Mary Brown is gorgeous, curvaceous and wants to find a boyfriend. But where’s she going to meet someone new? She doesn’t want to hang around pubs all evening (actually that bit’s not true), and she doesn’t want to have to get out of her pyjamas unless really necessary (that bit’s true). There’s only one thing for it – she will launch herself majestically onto the dating scene. Aided and abetted by her friends, including Juan Pedro and best friend Charlie, Mary heads out on NINE DATES IN NINE DAYS.
She meets an interesting collection of men, including those she nicknames: Usain Bolt, Harry the Hoarder, and Dead Wife Darren. Then just when she thinks things can’t get any worse, Juan organises a huge, entirely inadvisable party at the end. It’s internet dating like you’ve never known it before.
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BOOK FIFTEEN: ADORABLE Fat Girl and the Six-Week Transformation
Can Mary Brown lose weight, smarten up and look fabulous enough to win back the love of her life? And can she do it in just six weeks?
In this romantic comedy from the award-winning, best-selling, Adorable Fat Girl series, our luscious heroine goes all out to try and win back the affections of Ted, her lovely ex-boyfriend. She becomes convinced that the way to do it is by putting herself through a six-week transformation plan in time for her friend’s 30th birthday party that Ted is coming to. But, like most things in Mary Brown’s life, things don’t go exactly according to plan.
Featuring drunk winter Olympics, an amorous fitness instructor, a crazy psychic, spying, dieting, exercising and a trip to hospital with a Polish man called Lech.
BOOK SIXTEEN: Adorable Fat Girl in lockdown
Mary Brown is in lockdown. She’s worn nothing but pyjamas for weeks, and is living on a diet of cake and wine. She’s rarely up before midday and spends her time watching every box set that she can get her hands on.
Then, she has an idea: instead of just eating the cake, why doesn’t she judge it?
She should organise a World Cup of Cakes. With Juan, her trusty sidekick, she sets up the competition with meticulous detail, and the whole thing goes viral.
Featuring: home dyed hair, talking to potatoes, Piers Morgan, internet shopping, an amorous neighbour, an angry ex-boyfriend and birdwatching. Oh, and loads of cake.
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BOOK SEVENTEEN: ADORABLE Fat Girl and the Reunion
The book opens at an exciting time. Our gorgeous, generously proportioned heroine is about to be reunited with Ted – her lovely, kind, thoughtful, wonderful ex-boyfriend. She is still madly in love with him, but how does he feel about her? Will love blossom once more? Or has Ted moved on and met someone else?
Featuring river boats, a wild psychic, lots of gossip, fun, silliness and a huge, glorious love story...but is the love story about Ted and Mary or someone else entirely?