Leaving Jetty Road (12 page)

“Lise,”
Mrs. Jordan says again. “There’s something I have to tell you.” She leans back in her chair, arms folded across her chest. “If you won’t do anything yourself, I’m going to have to speak to your parents. Not today. Not tomorrow. But soon
.
You’re not well, my dear. I have no choice.” She nods firmly. “You need help.”

Something creaks then, in the laundry room or up on the roof. I struggle to speak, to say
Please don’t,
or
You can’t,
or
At least not my MOTHER. PLEASE not my mother.
Again, no words come out.

And it’s then that we both become aware of someone standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

“Lise!”
Nat exclaims, coming in. “What’re you doing here?”

I push back my chair hastily. My cheeks are burning. How long was she standing there in the laundry room? How much of our conversation did she hear?

“I came over . . . I forgot that you’d be at Josh’s . . . I’ve just had a cup of tea . . .,” I stammer.

“I should’ve been back ages ago,” she admits ruefully. She glances curiously back and forth, from her mother to me. Then she says awkwardly to me, “How
are
you, anyway?”

“All right,” I say stiffly.

I can feel that I’m still blushing. The conversation between us feels heavy and stilted, as if we haven’t spoken to each other for months. Actually, we probably haven’t—not properly, anyway. Not as best
friends.

“How’s Josh?” Nat’s mother asks her quickly.

Nat turns to answer her.

“Okay.” She pulls a face. “I had to tell him I can’t see him for a while. He’s stopping me from getting any studying done. I can’t concentrate when I know I’m going to see him.”

Mrs. Jordan smiles knowingly.

Nat colors. “It’s just—the exams’re getting so
close.
”

And this is the cue I have been looking for. Thank God, thank
God,
a cue. I scramble up from my chair.

Nat looks surprised. “You off already? Don’t you want to stay?”

“I can’t,” I say, with what I hope is a convincingly apologetic look on my face. “I’ve got that math assignment still to do . . .”

“Not even for a second cup of tea?” says Mrs. Jordan.

They are both facing me now, waiting.

“I
can’t,
” I repeat frantically. “I’ve got so much to do . . .”

Neither of them moves to follow me out. In my haste, I let the screen door bang loudly behind me as I leave, but I ignore it and don’t look back. As I hurry up the driveway, a stray branch from a creeper brushes against my face. The feel of it on my skin startles me: its leaves are rain-wet, heavy, fat with luxuriant growth. I think longingly of my mother’s barren lawn.

Back in the safety of my own bedroom, I sit at my desk, staring at the studying schedule pinned up on the corkboard above it.

I lied to Mrs. Jordan. In her way, my mother
has
spoken to me. When I lost those first few pounds, she praised me:
See what a little cutting back can do?
Now, though, at dinner, she says things like
Have a little more, Lise. You make me feel guilty.
As if
her
struggle with chocolate bars is
my
fault.
That’s
what my mother says to me.

Sometimes, as we eat, I look in the mirror on the wall opposite the stainless steel countertop, see her eyes flicking between Terri and me, measuring, weighing up,
comparing.
This is nothing new: she’s done it all my life. If she’s worried, as Mrs. Jordan seems to think she should be, it doesn’t show.
I weigh less than Terri now,
I whisper silently each night to my mother’s reflection in the mirror.
I know it doesn’t LOOK like it, but I DO.

But her eyes are down on her scraped-clean plate. Her fingers drum their cigarette cravings out on the stainless steel, and she doesn’t look up.

And this is proof to me that I haven’t gotten there yet: that despite all this weight I’ve lost, I’m still. Not.
Thin.

Will Nat’s mother ring my parents? After all these years, after all those promises, I can’t believe that’s all she had to offer me. It doesn’t make sense. Hunger is the least of my problems.

And if
she
can’t help, who can? Let’s face it, the next time the Fear hits, I’m all on my own.

Again . . .

chapter twenty-two

Suspended

O
ne Monday morning, three weeks before the pre-exam study week, Sofia turns up at Assembly with her nose pierced.

The school, of course, goes into immediate uproar. You’re not allowed to get your nose pierced; you’re not allowed to get
anything
pierced, really, except your ears. And even with earrings, you’re only supposed to wear one on each side.

“They’ll make you take it out, you know,” Nat warns her as we file out of Assembly.

Sofia rolls her eyes. “There’s only three weeks until we leave this place. And anyway, I can’t
possibly
take it out, because the hole will close up.”

“Does Nick like it?”

Sofia pushes her ponytail impatiently behind her shoulder. “Don’t know. Haven’t asked.”

“What about your mum?” I ask curiously.

Sofia shrugs. “Mum’s cool. She doesn’t hassle me about stuff like that.”

But if her mother doesn’t hassle her, Miss George, the headmistress, does. Halfway through the first lesson, Sofia receives a message to report immediately to the front office. And at recess, when I next see her, she’s kneeling at her locker, packing her schoolbag, a truculent expression on her face.

“I’m suspended,” she says tersely, before I can ask. “Until I take it out.”

At these words, a crowd gathers quickly around her in the locker room.

“Suspended?”

“For a
nose ring
?”

“That is just
so
typical.”

Ignoring everyone else, Sofia stands up. She slings her bag over her shoulder, starts walking toward the door. As she reaches the entrance, someone calls out brightly, “Why didn’t you get your belly button done instead?”

Sofia swings around, glaring. “What for? I like
nose
rings.”

“Yeah, but no one’d be able to
see
a belly-button ring.”

Sofia groans and turns away again. “What kind of Nazi place
is
this, anyway? It’s
my
body and
my
choice.”

And she walks out of the locker room.

Nat and I exchange glances. We run hastily after her, out into the schoolyard.

“
Sofe.
You’re not
really
going to let yourself get suspended now.”

“There’s only four weeks left till the exams . . .”

“Oh, piss
off,
the pair of you,” Sofia says irritably. She stops walking. “Listen, I’ll be back in a couple of days, all right?
Minus
the nose ring. I’m not that stupid. I just thought . . .” And here a slow, cheeky grin starts to spread across her face. “I just thought I might as well make the most of it. I don’t think I’ve ever actually been offered a couple of days off school before.”

She starts to walk off again, then stops, swings back around, comes over to me. Standing in front of me, feet firmly planted on the ground, she reaches out, prods me in the stomach. She looks at me, hard.

“Oy. You.
Eat.
”

Then she strolls casually out of the yard, nose ring glinting triumphantly in the sun.

chapter twenty-three

Afternoon tea at the Mawsons’

T
hat same week, summer hits. The sun glares on the pages of our textbooks during lessons, and flies buzz thickly at the classroom windows. Sometimes they drop onto our desks out of midair, landing heavily, legs up, having died in midflight.

I stare out the windows, shading my forehead with my hand from the light, unable to concentrate. Has Mrs. Jordan rung yet? What will she say? What will my parents say? Light trickles through the gaps between my fingers, hostile and hot on my skin. I turn back to my notebook, eyes dazzled, burning.

Starting from that week, I begin walking home instead of catching the bus. Partly, I’ve decided to do this to get more exercise; partly, to avoid the company of Nat. Ever since that day we went shopping together—ever since the strange, silent bus trip home—she’s been difficult to be with, asking constant, awkward questions like “Is everything all right, Lise? You look so
pale.
” Or else looking at me strangely and saying nothing at all.

Sometimes, these days, I’d almost rather be with Sofia than Nat. I used to be so afraid of Sofe: of not being able to think of anything to say to her; of feeling hopeless,
inadequate,
in front of her. But since I’ve lost weight, that’s changed. It’s not that I’ve got more to say to her, because I haven’t: I still feel tongue-tied in her company. It’s just, I don’t know—I don’t
care
so much. Despite what she said to me that dreadful morning at Nat’s house on my birthday, I’ve done something she can’t: I’ve gotten fit, gotten (well,
almost
) slim. I’ve gotten
disciplined.
And that’s something she can’t take away from me. No matter how many times she tells me to eat.

There’s usually no one home when I turn in at the front gate and crunch my way down the gravel drive. Mum and Dad don’t tend to leave work until well after five, and it would tarnish Terri’s “cool uni student” image if she got home before dark. So the house is empty, and I rattle around in the kitchen, enjoying the sound of my feet echoing on the wooden floorboards. My latest ritual is to open all the cupboard doors and check the fridge, gaze longingly at the containers of leftovers and Terri’s jar of Nutella.

There has been no repeat of that midnight binge. Now, on out-of-control days, I pull out the block of cheese, put it on the countertop, cut myself the tiniest shaving. The sharp, rich taste makes me dream of toasted sandwiches, cheeseburgers, my mother’s homemade lasagna . . .

Then I make myself a cup of green tea (good for the digestion, apparently—and, of course, it has no calories) and wander up the stairs to my room to study. All the time I’m settling down at my desk, opening my books, checking my studying schedule, there’s this little panicked whisper inside my head:
I’ve got to study more. I’m going to fail.

But one afternoon, when I get home from school, Mum’s sleek silver car and Dad’s BMW are parked at the end of the driveway. My heart sinks, and I walk through the kitchen door slowly, practicing
Smile, Lise, smile.

“How about some afternoon tea?” Mum suggests brightly, pecking me on the cheek. “I’ve just made a banana cake.”

Imagine: Mum
baking.
What’s gotten into her? I wonder. She stopped doing that when I was in kindergarten. I inspect her closely: there’s a spot of bare skin on her chin where she must have missed her foundation, and the mascara on her eyelashes is clumpy. Mum
never
botches her makeup.

Has Mrs. Jordan finally rung? Is that what she’s so upset about?

Dad’s perched on a barstool at the countertop, buried in a medical journal. He smiles up at me as I put my schoolbag down.

“Jen made the cake specially, Lisey.”

Specially for
what
? To make me fat? I shake my head at the cake (imagine:
me
eating cake. I stopped doing that
months
ago) and head instead to the kettle. While I wait for it to boil, I fidget around in the cupboards, getting out a cup, cutting a slice of lemon. All the time I’m doing this, I try not to breathe in too deeply: the kettle sits next to the oven, from which the most incredible, sweet warm-cake smells are drifting out.

Hastily, I pick my cup up, ready to take it back to my room with me to study.

“Lise . . . ,” says Mum.

I stop.
Here it comes . . .

“You know how you told me you’ve been having trouble sleeping?”

I nod, cautiously. I mentioned it to her the other day, when she told me off at the dinner table for yawning all the time.

“Well . . . I got something. To help.” She looks at me worriedly. “I know you’re into herbal things, so I bought it from the health food shop.”

“
Health
food shop,” my father mutters scornfully, going back to his journal.

She ignores him pointedly and hands me a brown paper bag. I put down my cup again, relieved: if that’s all she’s going to say, I can handle it. Maybe Nat’s mother kept quiet after all. Calmly, I open the bag. Inside, there’s a packet of valerian tea bags and a CD—one of those do-it-yourself meditation/relaxation CDs.

Oh, Mum.
I stare down at the brown paper bag, breath suddenly catching, unable to speak. The gesture is so unlike my mother (who couldn’t relax if you paid her to), and so close to the bone, that I’m overwhelmed. For one long, insane moment, all I want to do is curl up on my mother’s lap and bawl my eyes out.
If she only knew . . .

Because the truth is, every night now I struggle to sleep. It’s become the time of day I most dread: a time when the Fear hits and there is no one to talk to, nothing to distract myself with. I try everything: listening to the radio, playing solitaire, reading recipes. Nothing works. Sometimes I have to get up and pace my room, fighting my way through bout after bout of it.

And when the Fear has finally run its course and I do eventually get to sleep, I dream about food: Nat’s chocolate cake, iced with dark, thick, glossy icing, smothered with cream; bread spread with butter an inch thick; hot chips, salty and sharp and fragrant with vinegar. I wake up in the morning, stomach growling, the memory of food guilty on my tongue.

Mum, Mum, I can’t sleep, and I can’t eat, and I can’t talk to boys, and I can’t talk to my best friend anymore, and I feel so goddamn LONELY . . .

I look up at her, heart brimming. But then, just as I’m about to speak, I notice the way her stomach, tightly corseted by her short, narrow skirt, bulges underneath the waistband. Instantly I am diverted.
How can she LIVE with herself ?
I wonder.
How can she handle the way her stomach sticks out like that? Why can’t she show some self-control?

Dad’s no better, either. His belly sags over his trousers, and his chin is receding into his neck. In the mornings, when he scoots back from the bathroom to the bedroom after a shower, towel wrapped around his waist, you can see the way the skin on his back hangs slack and his hips, above the folded-over top of the towel, are loose with middle-aged midriff flab.

And they’re not the only ones. Lately I’ve been seeing fat people everywhere I look: people with cellulite-hatched thighs, droopy breasts, swollen stomachs. It doesn’t seem to matter whether I’m looking at strangers or at friends. The other day I even checked out Sofia—yes, Sofia, the
ultimate
boy magnet—and realized what a big butt she has. The whole world seems suddenly to be full of people who have too much flesh, people who spend the day stuffing themselves with food. Why didn’t I ever notice this before?

Dad’s still reading, but Mum’s eyes are fixed anxiously on me, as if she’s waiting
—hoping,
even—for me to spill the magic beans, confess my dreaded secret so she can make it all better. But the moment of weakness has passed, and I’m strong again. I am
not
going to confide in my overweight, dimply-thighed, sweaty-cleavaged mother.

“Thanks for the CD, Mum,” I say quickly, heading toward the kitchen door, toward sweet, beckoning escape. “It’s really nice of you.”

For a moment, I think I might get there. But I don’t even make it past the oven.

“Your father and I need to talk to you, Lise,” says Mum abruptly.

I lean against the oven door, cup in hand, suddenly trapped.

“What about?” I say quietly, knowing already. So Mrs. Jordan
did
ring. I should have known she wouldn’t let me go.

Mum turns to Dad expectantly. He gazes back at her, not saying anything, a page of his medical journal between his fingers.

“Rob.”

“What?”

“
You’re
the doctor.”

He doesn’t answer.

“You
promised—
”

Dad sighs, exasperated. He lets the page of his journal drop.

“I didn’t promise anything. I said I’d
be
here—”

Mum goes red in the face with anger. She swings back to me.

“I had a call from Natalie’s mother last night.” Her voice is harsh, offended: she and Nat’s mother have never gotten on. “She said—”

“This has nothing to do with Nell Jordan,” Dad says.

They glare at each other. Antagonism—heavy, unbidden—hangs suddenly in the air. I watch them, feeling the warmth of the oven door against my back, pushing myself farther into it. I
hate
the way they argue like this.

Mum faces me again, the anger still red in her face.

“It’s time you stopped losing weight, Lise,” she says brusquely. “You’ve lost enough already.”

I don’t speak. I am starting to sweat, a warm, moist patch forming under the back of my sweater, where I’m leaning against the oven. Is this all anyone’s
ever
going to talk to me about?

“You’re too thin,” Mum goes on. Her voice rises, on the lower rung of hysteria. “
Look
at you! You look unhealthy.”

“I’m not!” I protest hotly. “I
don’t.
” I turn to my father, appealing to his better—his more reasonable—nature. “Dad?”

“Rob,”
says Mum. This time it is a command.

His eyes on me are apologetic. “You
do
look a bit thin, Lisey. Enough is enough.”

I go over to the sink, put my cup of cold green tea down on the draining board. My hands are shaking. Part of me is exultant
—Yes,
I’m
thin
! They
said
I’m thin!—but the other part feels suddenly afraid. What if they make me gain weight? What if they make me get
fat
?

“I’m okay. Honestly. It’s just the exams.”

“Terri never got like this about the exams,” Mum snaps.

Oh, yes:
the old Terri trick. But Terri’s
smart
! I think. Terri’s brainy. And Terri’s never
needed
to lose weight. I mean, look at her: she’s even got part-time modeling work now.

Mum folds her arms, determined now. “I’m going to book an appointment with a doctor—”

“But Dad’s a doctor!” I protest. “
He
didn’t say I look unhealthy.”

And he didn’t: he just said I looked a little
thin.
There’s nothing wrong with
thin.

Dad looks puzzled, out of his depth. “I wouldn’t go as far as ‘unhealthy’ Lisey. Not
medically
speaking—”

“You see?” I say triumphantly to my mother.

Just then, the alarm on the oven goes off. It beeps insistently into the silence between us. Mum rushes over to it. She switches it off and opens the oven door. Instantly we are bathed in the warm, loving smell of freshly baked cake. Despite myself, I breathe in deeply, savoring the smell, tasting its sweetness at the back of my throat.

Mum and Dad, too, have stopped. Their faces soften; Dad is on the verge of a smile.

“That smells great, Jen.”

“Does it?” Her shoulders drop, the tension gone, and she gives him a silly, pleased look. “It’s my normal recipe—you know, the one with the cardamom in it. I was going to put some cream-cheese icing on it when it’s cooled.”

“Can’t we have it now?” Suddenly he sounds almost boyish, mischievous. “Come on, Jen. Let’s have some
now.
”

“Well . . .” She hesitates.

Dad turns to me. “Lise? You’ll have some, won’t you? If we cut it now?”

I glance at the cake. It smells so good. But I can’t; I
can’t—

And that’s when I think of it. The answer to everything, the perfect solution . . .

Upstairs, I sit at my bedroom desk. The cake I’ve just eaten lies heavy in my stomach.
It doesn’t matter,
I tell myself over and over, trying to rid myself of the old, familiar guilt.
It was only this once. And it was worth it to get my parents off my back. I’ll just have to run extra hard tomorrow morning to make up for it.

“If I have some now,” I said to them back there in the kitchen, “will you forget about the appointment you were going to make with the doctor?”

I can still see their faces when I suggested it: searching, trying to figure me out, not coming up with anything concrete. Finally, they had to agree. They had no reason to disbelieve me. And besides, I even made a promise.

“I’ll have a piece every afternoon. When I come home from school. If you leave some cake out for me, I’ll have it, I swear.”

What could they say? They pulled their stools up to the countertop, gestured to me to join them. I can still see it now: Mum cutting the cake—slowly, reverently; Dad looking at Mum in the mirror, stupid with
I-told-you-so
relief. Both of them watching me eat.

The cake was sticky. I could taste the bananas in it, overripe and cloyingly sweet. A lump of it sat in the back of my throat, making it hard to swallow. And there was something else clotting my throat, too: something akin to anger, to tears. I could have eaten the whole
thing.
In one sitting, I could have eaten that cake.

“Thanks, Mum. That was delicious. Thank you
both
for coming home for afternoon tea today.”

They won’t be home tomorrow afternoon, of course. Not tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that. Today was a one-off—a day sneaked from the office in the name of their daughter’s health. Tomorrow they will be back at work, making up for lost time—lost sales, abandoned patients—and I will be alone in the house. Me and my slice of banana cake, crumbling, crumbling, into the rubbish bin.