Jemima J Page 2

  Their diet, such as it is, seems to consist of bottles of champagne fueled by lines of cocaine provided by the men they meet. The fridge at home is always empty, unless I’ve been shopping, and in the eight months I’ve lived here I have never seen them eat a proper meal.

  Occasionally I’ve seen one of them come in announcing “I’m starving!,” and then Sophie, or Lisa, will pull open the door of the fridge and walk into the living room munching on a tomato, or half a slice of pita bread with the thinnest spreading of hummus I’ve ever seen.

  You doubtless think we make an odd trio. You’re probably right. The Italian man in the deli at the end of the road was flabbergasted to discover we lived together. The two beauties he flirts with at every opportunity, and the sad, overweight girl who probably reminds him of his fat mother always dressed in black.

  But Mr. Galizzi has got it wrong, because for all my faults I’m not sad. Miserable a lot of the time, yes, but those who bother to get under the layers of fat know that not only does there beat a heart of gold, I’m also bloody good fun to be around, providing I’m in the right mood. But nobody really bothers to look for that, nobody really bothers to look beneath the surface appearance.

  I stand in the kitchen, dropping three teabags into three oversized mugs. I pour in the water, add skim milk from the fridge, and out of habit drop in two heaped teaspoons of powdered sweetener for myself. Good girl, I tell myself, good girl for resisting the sugar, nestling quietly yet ominously in the cupboard above the kettle.

  I bring the tea into the living room, and Sophie and Lisa cry their thanks, but the lazy cows don’t move from the sofas, don’t clear a space for me to sit down, so what else can I do but hover in the doorway, clasping my burning hot mug and wondering how soon I can go up to my room.

  “How was today?” I eventually venture, as the girls stare at the television set, watching some sitcom featuring perfect-looking people with perfect white teeth and perfect figures.

  “Hmm?” says Sophie, eyes never leaving the screen, even while I sip my tea.

  “We’re in love,” offers Lisa, looking at me for the first time this evening. “We’ve got the most amazing new client.”

  Now Sophie looks interested, and I lower myself to the floor, sitting cross-legged and awkwardly in my role as agony aunt.

  “Honestly, Mimey, this guy was gorgeous, but we don’t know which one of us he fancies.”

  Sophie shoots a fake filthy look at Lisa, who smiles broadly.

  “He definitely fancied one of you then?” I don’t really need to ask the question, because who, after all, would not fancy one of these beautiful girls at first sight?

  “Oh yes,” said Lisa. “After his meeting he stood at the reception desk for ages chatting.”

  “I think he was chatting up Lisa,” says Sophie.

  “No,” says Lisa. “Don’t be ridiculous, sweetie. He was interested in you.” But it’s completely bloody obvious she doesn’t mean it, and even I can see that he was mesmerized by Lisa’s pouting lips and tumbling, just-out-of-bed locks.

  “So did he ask you out?” I ask, wishing for a fleeting second that some handsome stranger would stop at my desk and chat me up. Just once. Just to see what it feels like.

  “No,” Lisa says ruefully. “But he did ask if we’d both be there next week when he comes in for a meeting.”

  “We were sitting here before, planning what to wear,” says Sophie, turning to Lisa. “So, what about the red suit?”

  “I’m just going upstairs,” I say, feeling well and truly left out as I heave myself to my feet and edge out the door. I’m no longer needed, the courtesies of greeting have been dealt with, and I would never be asked an opinion on clothes, because as far as Sophie and Lisa are aware I haven’t got a clue.

  I climb slowly upstairs, stopping at the top to catch my breath, walk into my bedroom and lie on the bed, staring at the ceiling, until my breathing becomes slower, more regular.

  I lie there and spin out an elaborate fantasy about what I would wear if I were thin. I would have my hair cut into a super-trendy shaggy style, and perhaps, if I dared, would have a few blond highlights, just at the front.

  I would wear sunglasses a lot of the time. Occasionally they would be big Hollywood film-star tortoiseshell ones, but the rest of the time they would be cool, smart little round glasses, glasses that spelled sophistication, glamour.

  I would wear tight cream trousers, lycra crop tops, and the bits of flesh exposed would be taut and tanned. I would, I decide, even look fantastic in a bathrobe. I look at my old white bathrobe hanging on the back of the door, huge, voluminous. I love wrapping it around myself for comfort, trying desperately to ignore the fact that I resemble a balloon with legs.

  But when I’m slim I’ll keep that bathrobe. It will, being a man’s bathrobe, gather in folds of fabric around my athletic new body. The sleeves will hang down, obscuring my hands, and I will look cute and vulnerable.

  Even first thing in the morning I will look gorgeous. With no makeup and tousled hair, I imagine meeting Mr. Perfect, and curling up in an armchair with the bathrobe wrapped around me, exposing just my long, glowing legs, my bony knees, and naturally he will be head over heels in love with me.

  I think about this for a while, and then I remember my magazine. I draw it out of my bag and once again study the pictures, reaching into my bedside drawer to pull out the scissors and add the latest models to my collection.

  And as I put the scissors back I notice, at the very back of the drawer, a box of cookies. My God! I actually forgot about them, I actually forgot about food in the house.

  No. I won’t. I’m being good now. But then surely it’s better to eat them, make them disappear, so there’s no more bad food in the house. Surely it’s better to finish them in one go than to eat them slowly and steadily over the course of a week. That way there won’t be any left after tonight, and then I can really start my diet. The one that’s going to work. The one that’s going to fulfill my fantasies.

  Yes, I’ll eat them now and start again tomorrow.

  Chapter 2

  Can somebody turn the sunshine off? It’s shining directly in my eyes as I roll over in bed and groan. I can’t get up yet, it’s so warm, so comfortable, so I just lie here for a few minutes, waiting for the tinny pop music to start playing from my radio alarm clock, and I wish, oh God how I wish, that I could stay in bed forever.

  Look, Jemima, see how when you roll over on your back your stomach feels, well, not quite flat, but certainly not fat. See how your breasts roll over to either side, giving the distinct illusion of a vast expanse of flatness in the middle.

  Jemima lies there and rubs her stomach, half affectionately, half repellently, for there is something innately comforting in the bulk that is her body. But then she rolls over to her side, and tries to forget her stomach weighing down, sinking into the mattress. She tucks the duvet in tightly around her and wishes she never had to get up.

  But today is the class day. Today is the day she is, as the editor put it, going “on the line.” And, much as she is looking forward to the class, she cannot help but feel more than a little anxious because she will be breaking her daily routine.

  From Monday to Friday Jemima’s routine is as follows: she wakes up at 8:45 A.M., lies in bed and listens to Sophie and Lisa getting ready for work. Listens to the door slam as they clatter up the path at 9 A.M., and then hauls herself out of bed.

  Avoids the mirror in the bathroom, for it is full length and she really does not want to see herself in all her glory. Starts running a bath, and pours at least five capfuls of bubble bath in to hide her flesh.

  While the bath is running, goes to the kitchen and pours herself a bowl of cereal. Healthy cereal. Slimming cereal. (Except you’re not supposed to have quite as much as that, Jemima, the bowl is not supposed to be so full the cereal is slopping out over the sides.)

  Jemima eats the cereal in a hurry, comes back upstairs for the bath. Heads back to the bedroom and
gets dressed, and only then, when she’s covered in the comfort of her clothes, does she look in the mirror and quite like what she sees. She likes her intelligent green eyes, and she applies the tiniest bit of eyeliner and mascara, just to accentuate them.

  She likes her full pouting lips. But they tend to disappear in the round moon-ness of her face, so she paints them pale pink.

  She likes her glossy hair, and she brushes and brushes until it gleams back at her in the glass. She preens in the mirror, pouting her lips, sucking in her cheeks, pushing her neck forward until her chins almost, almost, disappear.

  I could be beautiful, she tells herself every morning. If I lost weight I would be beautiful. And as she looks in the mirror she tells herself firmly that today is the start of the rest of her life. Today is the start of her new diet.

  And what happens next, Jemima?

  Feeling virtuous, positive, excited at the prospect of your new life, you leave your flat at 9:25 A.M. and catch the bus to work. You stand at the bus stop with the same people you see every day and you don’t say a word to them, nor they to you.

  You find a seat on its own, and sit there, your thighs spreading on to the seat next to you, and you pray that no one will sit beside you, forcing you to hold your breath, squeeze in your thighs, suppress your resentment at their audacity.

  And then you alight at the corner of Kilburn High Road, a short walk from your office, and every morning as you walk up the road, just as you pass the shoe shop with its window display of rather nasty shoes, your nostrils start quivering.

  There is nothing in the world quite like the smell of bacon frying, I’m sure you will agree. Together with dill, fresh lavender, and Chanel No. 5, it is one of Jemima’s favorite smells. If it simply remained a favorite smell then all would be fine, but Jemima’s nostrils are stronger than her willpower.

  Your steps become slower as you approach the diner, and with each step the picture of a bacon sandwich, rashers of greasy bacon, awash with fat, oozing out of thick white sliced, becomes so vivid you can almost taste it.

  Every morning you battle with yourself, Jemima. You tell yourself that today you started your diet, but the smell becomes too much to bear, and every morning you find yourself at the counter requesting two bacon sandwiches.

  “He likes his bacon sandwich doesn’t he, love?” says the woman behind the counter, a woman called Marge whom Jemima Jones has got to know. Once upon a long time ago Jemima told Marge the bacon sandwiches were for her boss.

  Poor lass, thought Marge, I know they’re for her. But Marge, being a kindhearted soul, pretends to believe her.

  “Have a good day,” says Marge, handing the sandwiches to Jemima, who tucks them in her bag, continuing the charade, before walking up the street. A few yards away the bacon sandwiches start calling you.

  “Jemima,” they whisper from the depths of your bag. “We’re lovely and greasy, Jemima. Feel us. Taste us. Now.” And you plunge your hand in, the craving fast overtaking any anxiety about eating in public, and in one, two, three, four bites the sandwiches have gone.

  And then to the office, wiping your mouth with your sleeve and stopping at the newsstand to buy some sugar-free mints to hide the smell of bacon.

  Your mornings are spent sorting out letters, and watching the clock until 11:30 A.M., when it is time for tea. “I’m starving,” you say to Alison, the secretary who sits opposite you. “I haven’t had breakfast,” and it is your way of apologizing for the egg and bacon sandwich you bring up from the cafeteria together with a cup of tea and three sweeteners.

  And then at 1 P.M., every day, you head back down to the cafeteria for lunch. A salad is what you have, every day, except the salads you choose from the salad bar are as fattening as an eclair.

  Coleslaw, rice salad, pasta salad, slabs of cheese, and potato salad swimming in mayonnaise, you pile them on your plate and tell yourself you are being healthy. A whole wheat roll, covered in two slabs of butter, completes your meal, except you are not really full. You are never really full.

  The afternoon is spent writing up your Top Tips, before nipping down again at teatime. Sometimes you have a cake, sometimes french fries, sometimes cookies, and occasionally, well, around twice a week, you have another sandwich.

  And finally at 6 P.M. your day is over. Waiting for the bus home, you pop into the newsstand and buy a couple of bars of chocolate to sustain you on the journey, and then that familiar feeling of dread pours over you as you approach your house, and your two perfect roommates.

  And your evenings blend together into one. Alone again, a blessed relief as Sophie and Lisa are out partying, you eat your evenings into oblivion. You watch television, game shows, sitcoms, documentaries. There are few with such eclectic tastes as you, Jemima, and few with your knowledge.

  Or you might read, for you have hundreds of books to quench that thirst for knowledge. And a lot of the time you spend lying on your bed, daydreaming about romance, which is something you have little experience of.

  Don’t misunderstand me, Jemima isn’t a virgin, but her virginity was lost during a quick tumble in the dark with a boy who was so inconsequential he may as well stay anonymous.

  And since then she has had the odd fling with men who have a penchant for the larger lady. But she has never really enjoyed sex, has never tasted the pleasures of making love, but that doesn’t stop a girl from dreaming does it?

  But today, the day of the course, the day of learning how to surf the World Wide Web, is a break from that routine, and Jemima Jones hates breaking her routine. No bacon sandwiches for Jemima this morning, because the class is in the West End, many miles away from her familiar diner.

  But at least she will not have to go on her own, because Geraldine, Geraldine of the perfect figure and rich boyfriend, will be picking her up.

  “I’m not taking the bloody train,” said Geraldine yesterday afternoon, when I asked how she was getting to the class.

  “I’ve got a perfectly good car,” she added, fully aware that the entire office was envious of her shining new black BMW, the car paid for partly by her boyfriend and partly by her parents, although she doesn’t tell people about the parents’ contribution. She only told me because I wouldn’t let the subject drop and eventually she had to admit it.

  “What about you?” she asked. “Why don’t we go together?” I couldn’t believe it, going to the class with Geraldine! Walking in with someone else, for once not being on my own. “Are you sure?” I asked. “You wouldn’t mind?” Because why would Geraldine want to befriend someone like me? It’s not that I dislike her‌—she, after all, is one of the few to have always treated me like a human being‌—it’s just that I can’t help but be intimidated by her perfection.

  “ ’Course not,” said Geraldine. “The damn thing doesn’t start until ten-thirty, so I’ll pick you up at ten. How does that sound?”

  It sounded fantastic, and here I am now, sitting in the living room flicking through the pages of a book on container gardening but not really looking at the pictures, just waiting for the hum of Geraldine’s car.

  There is no hum, there are two short beeps of the horn, and pulling the curtain aside I can just about see Geraldine’s elbow resting on the door frame as she taps her fingers to the music I assume she must be playing.

  Geraldine and her car go together like apples and honey. They’re both sleek, chic, with glossy exteriors and purring engines. Geraldine, as usual, has done herself proud. She’s wearing a beautifully cut navy suit, the jacket just skimming her thighs, the lapels showing off a white silk T-shirt. On her head is a pair of large black sunglasses, keeping her highlights off her face, and she’s holding a cigarette languorously, sexily, out of the window.

  I feel like an ungainly oaf next to Geraldine, so I lumber into her car and just as I put the seat belt on‌—Geraldine, incidentally, isn’t wearing one‌—she offers me a cigarette, which I take. You didn’t know I smoked? Of course I smoke because way back when, in the murky teenage y
ears, all the cool people smoked, and even then I wanted so badly to be cool.

  Now admittedly, more often than not it’s a pain in the ass because everywhere I go I’m surrounded by virulent anti-smokers, but it still makes me feel, well, not quite cool, but certainly less awkward.

  Sitting here in Geraldine’s car, when I compare Geraldine’s seductive long drags to my short ones, I feel all wrong smoking. I look awkward, awkward fingers grasping the cigarette, exhaling all too quickly. I still, unfortunately, look like a fourteen-year-old trying out her first cigarette.

  “So how’s everything at work?” says Geraldine, flicking the butt out the window and checking in the rearview mirror that her lipstick is still perfectly applied.

  “Same really,” I say with a shrug. “I went to see the editor again and surprise surprise, there aren’t any vacancies at the moment.”

  “Oh poor you,” says Geraldine, but I think she’s probably relieved. Geraldine knows I can write, Geraldine wouldn’t be anywhere if it weren’t for me because whenever she has a deadline I’m the one she comes running to asking for help. At least once a week I sit in front of my computer reading Geraldine’s haphazard copy, before ripping it apart and putting it back together again so it makes sense. If I were promoted, who would help Geraldine?

  And I don’t mind, really, I don’t, and perhaps in a strange way this is why, sitting in her car, I’m feeling less bad, less intimidated by her, and I’m starting genuinely to like her. And perhaps it’s also because I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that when it comes to words I am infinitely more talented than Geraldine, however slim and beautiful she may be.

  “Oh well,” she continues, “never mind. Your time will come.” She lifts her hand and puts her sunglasses on, groaning. “God, what a hangover.”

  I look at her in amazement, for Geraldine obviously does not know the meaning of the word. A hangover means bloodshot eyes, pale skin with a hint of gray, lank hair, deep shadows under the eyes. Geraldine, as she always does, looks perfect.