Pear Shaped (27 page)

‘Would that be deliberate or subconscious?’ I ask.

She shrugs. ‘Might be unconscious. I don’t know this man.’

For some reason in the following session, I become obsessed with quantifying exactly what level of badness has taken place. Is James an utter fuckface, or a sadist, a bit of a shit or just a coward, immature or just weak, maybe just human or all of the above? Was there an overlap between me and Noushka? If so, how many days, how many hours? Was she in the Cayman Islands with him over New Year’s? This blame game I blame (yes) on my mother. If my mother in California stubs her toe on the sun lounger, it is somehow my fault back in London. When she mislaid her square Japanese omelette pan, she
spent a year blaming the builders. I explained to her in many languages (including Japanese) that if the builders were going to steal any of her kitchenware, they wouldn’t take the novelty egg pan, they’d go straight for the Le Creuset. She is having none of it. When she eventually finds the pan she convinces herself that the builders have broken into the house to replace it. She wonders if she should call the police. My mother is nuts. I am officially my mother’s daughter.

‘Can’t you just see it as he couldn’t meet your needs?’ says the shrink. Where’s the fun in that, I ask.

In the fourth session we talk about anger. She feels that I took the body blows during the relationship and am now having a very delayed response to them. The truth is I am furious: furious that I took him back, furious that I didn’t pick him up on all the comments about my weight, furious that I didn’t assert myself more, furious that I shagged him in the car when he was almost definitely seeing Noushka, furious that I put his value above mine, furious that I believed his version of me.

‘You should be angry at James, not at yourself,’ says the shrink. But I’m too scared to show him my anger, in the same way that when we went to France I was too scared to walk around naked all the time. Like cellulite, I’ve been conditioned to think of anger as ugly, ugly, ugly.

So, I put all the anger where it is least helpful – into the heart of me.

After four sessions, my counsellor says she’s not sure what she can do to help me. I’m not her ‘normal type’.

I ask her to please not use that phrase ever, ever again.

She apologises and goes on to say that she thinks I’ll resist CBT and argue with its principles.

I argue that I wouldn’t be paying for help if I didn’t want help.

She smiles gently, and says that she believes I am holding on to the thought of James in my head because I don’t want the relationship to be over.

Yes! Of course! And I need her to wave a wand and fix me; or better still, help me get him back. I’ll pay her double for that.

‘You can show up here every week but ultimately I’m afraid you’re going to have to do the work yourself,’ she says.

She is
so
fired.

On the bus home from my ex-shrink, I decide it would be a marvellous idea to call my ex-fiancé and meet for a coffee, share some of the enlightening things I’ve learned in therapy. They’d be helpful for him too. Then he can fix himself and everything will be better and I’ll be free from this pain.

I know everyone says don’t call, but honestly, I feel fine at this precise millisecond and so I dial, feeling an aching sickness as I press the green button on my phone.

It rings and rings. I’m about to hang up when he picks up, sounding surprised.

‘Soph?’

The manically cheery tone I was going to use doesn’t make it out of my mouth.

‘… I need to see you,’ I say.

‘It’s not a good time.’

‘Just for half an hour, for a coffee. It won’t take long.’

‘Not today, next week?’

‘It’s important.’

‘I can’t now.’

‘Okay, later?’ Stop talking, Sophie.

‘Today’s not good.’

‘Tomorrow?’ Stop it now, Sophie.

‘My cab’s just pulling up at Heathrow …’

‘Where are you going?’

‘On business.’

‘Where?’

There is silence on the line.

‘James? Where are you going?’

‘Moscow …’

I smile. That’s fine, of course.

‘Soph, I can see you next week …’

‘No. It’s better if you don’t.’

I remember when I was five, playing in the ocean a few metres further out than my parents had said was safe. I saw the next wave coming and realised too late that it was big. Bigger than me.

I knew that whether I turned sideways, turned my back, crouched down or stood and faced that wave, I was going to go under.

It feels as if that wave is in my head.

On Monday morning I take the train up to Sheffield to brief Appletree on the new spinster custards.

Will is waiting for me at the station with a millefeuille. Of all the desserts in all the world … I politely refuse.

‘You’re quiet today, Soph,’ he says, as I stare out of the window.

‘Thinking,’ I mumble.

‘Never a good idea!’

In his office, we talk through the new brief in more detail.

‘So – single portions, under 200 calories, custard based, and cheap …’ I say. ‘Do you think there’s anything you can do with all the work you’ve done already?’

‘We’ll try our best, Soph …’

‘I’m most worried about the low-cal part,’ I say. ‘I’ve never had a low-cal product that tasted as good as the real thing.’

‘It’s tricky,’ says Will. ‘You lose the fat, you lose the texture and flavour. We’ll look at skimmed milk, soy, and whey …’

I shake my head. ‘I don’t want to make desserts like that … it’s like eating in black and white …’

‘I know what you mean,’ he says. ‘Let’s have a stab at it, and if it doesn’t work … Come on, let’s go to the canteen and I’ll buy us some lunch.’

We scrub up, put our uniforms on and head through the factory.

In the fruit room I notice a large puddle of scarlet-black cherry juice that looks like a pool of blood.

‘Depositor’s malfunctioning. Oh, but I’ve got a brand new robot I think you’ll like,’ he says, as we walk into the vanilla sugar air of the cake room.

We head over to the Madeira line and as the cakes roll past on the conveyor belt a robot arm suddenly punches one of the cakes off the line onto a smaller belt running parallel. Another robot arm slams a large red ‘REJECT’ sticker down on to the cake, which then falls through a trap door into a large plastic bin.

‘Isn’t that great?’ he says. ‘The scales on the line automatically detect if the cake weighs too much. Anything too heavy goes straight to the dump.’

‘Harsh,’ I say.

We walk through the wedding cake room, past huge stacks of folded peachy-pink sugar icing. The vast sheets look like flesh, the aftermath of a giant’s tummy-tuck.

‘Will, I’m really sorry but I think I’m going to take an earlier train. I don’t feel good.’

‘I thought you didn’t seem like your normal bubbly self. Is everything okay?’ he says, resting his hand on my shoulder.

I nod, scared that if I try to speak, I’ll cry.

‘Let me take you to the station.’

‘I’ll call for a cab.’

‘I insist.’

‘Thank you for the lift.’

‘I’ll wait with you,’ says Will, pulling into a space in the car park.

‘The train will be here at twenty past. I’m fine …’

‘I know you are. To be honest, I could do with a break from the office,’ he says, smiling gently.

We walk slowly to the station and find a bench. We sit side by side in silence.

It should feel awkward, this sitting so close saying nothing. To passers-by it must look weird, like we’ve had a fight. With anyone else I didn’t know very well, I’d feel self-conscious.

But for these fifteen minutes until my train arrives, sitting here next to Will, I feel entirely at peace.

Later that night Laura drags me to the pub.

If it weren’t for Laura, I’d still be with James now. I’d
have taken him back, or worse, begged for him back. I owe her my remaining sanity, but a part of me blames her for cutting me off from my chance of happiness. It’s alright for her – she’s been with Dave for ten years. She’s forgotten how tough it is out there. For some reason, men in London think they’re buyers in a buyers’ market, and a 34-year-old single woman is like an overpriced studio flat in Zone 5. An overpriced studio flat that’s desperate for sperm.

‘You need to move on,’ she says.

‘I just want to understand it. There are only ever two people who know what really happened in any relationship, but I don’t feel like one of them,’ I say.

‘Stop wasting your energy on him. Put it into yourself,’ she says.

She might as well have asked me to reconstruct the Hadron Collider in my front room out of Iced Gems.

‘You only remember the highs, Soph, but you need to remember what a weasel he was too. And this whole Noushka fixation is crazy. Me and Dave googled her – she’s got a bigger chin than Jimmy Hill! What did Dave say … she’s a total prawn – ignore the head, it’s all about the body.’

I smile weakly.

‘Look, every time you think about James, just picture a big fat weasel in mid-life crisis jeans and a too-tight shirt, driving a Maserati down Bond Street with a giant prawn sitting next to him dressed in suspenders and stockings.’

‘Fishnet?’

‘Naturally,’ she says, clinking my glass.

‘Is the prawn wearing suspenders on all her legs?’ I ask.

‘No, just four. On the others she’s wearing Hellmans …’

I laugh, and Laura gives me a long hug.

‘You know what you need?’ she says.

‘A photoshop picture of a weasel and a prawn as my screensaver?’

‘Forget him. You need to get out there and meet a decent man. There must be someone knocking around.’

I think immediately of Will, and how comfortable I felt with him earlier. He’s so sweet, so kind. But he’s just too nice. Plus, he has the baggage of a divorce, he lives in another city, and I work with him.

I guess there’s Jack, my granny’s neighbour. He texted a month ago asking me out and I never replied.

‘Anyone?’ she says.

‘This guy Jack, maybe …’

And before I can stop her she’s grabbed my phone and typed: ‘Fancy a drink next week?’

‘Don’t, Laura. DON’T.’

But she’s already pressed send.

The following day I’m in a one-to-one with Devron. I’ve been up since 5am – I don’t sleep well at the moment – and I am super-fucking-irritable.

‘Special one-off “Value” project for you. Go and spend
£100 at M&S on puddings, do hot and cold, and work out how we can make ’em all cheaper,’ he says. He can barely make eye contact with me these days; just as well, as I’m usually pink-eyed, puffy-eyed or panda-eyed.

I will not, I think. That’s just wrong.

‘Can’t be done, Devron, M&S are all about quality. They don’t cheapskate on ingredients.’

At the word ‘cheapskate’, Devron shudders.

‘Sophie – this fiscal’s all about budget slashing. Maintain quality but make efficiencies where possible – that’s the route to the loot.’

A cackle slips out of me. ‘Did you just say route to the loot?’

‘JFDI,’ he says and walks away.

‘Eddie, what does JFDI mean?’

‘Let’s just say he didn’t learn it at Ashridge …’

I walk over to M&S on Oxford Street and take the escalator down to the food hall. I take a basket, then put it back and grab a trolley and head towards the pudding aisle. I buy 25 different desserts, from Kentish Apple Crumbles to New York Cheesecake Slices to Belgian Chocolate Soufflés, plus double cream and custard for good measure.

I have more bags than I can carry so I put them through car service, then pop upstairs to call Janelle and tell her I’m working from home on a ‘Special Project’ for the rest of the day. Devron is now off for a week, ‘visiting our European competitors,’ i.e. taking Mands on a trip to Paris and Venice
and billing it to Fletchers. If Janelle wants to snitch on me, let her. I am taking no prisoners.

I hail a taxi, picking up my six bags of puddings en route. The cabbie helps me up to my flat and asks, ‘When’s the party?’

‘All week,’ I say. I tip him well and give him a two pack of Berry Cheesecake slices for his troubles. ‘Try these, they’re delicious.’

‘You sure you’ll have enough for your guests?’

‘I’ll make them stretch,’ I say, waving him off.

I put the chain on my front door, the puddings in my fridge, and myself into bed.

On Wednesday, I set my alarm for 8am. Five puddings to try each day, minus the cabbie’s one: one every two hours, eminently doable.

If I eat one portion of each dessert, and the mean, or is it the median, of a portion is 400 calories, I’ll be consuming around 2000 calories a day. If I do a small amount of exercise, and don’t eat or drink anything else, I’ll be fine from a weight gain point of view, and so what if I feel crappy, it’s only five days of my long, long life.

I then file all the desserts by their ‘Use By’ date in my fridge, ones to eat first at the top. I’m feeling supremely on edge so I decide to go and lie down on my sofa, but
it’s far too bright in my living room, so I go and lie down on my bed.

I wake up when my phone rings: Jack.

‘You sound like you’re asleep!’ he says.

‘Of course I’m not … what time is it?’ I say.

‘4.30pm.’

Shit.

‘Listen, do you fancy that drink sometime this week?’ he says.

‘I’m busy …’

‘Next week better?’

‘Okay …’

‘Great! Tuesday? Do you know the Lansdowne in Primrose Hill?’

James’s local. ‘How about The Old White Bear in Hampstead?’ Maggie says their brownies are almost perfect.

‘Eight o’clock next Tuesday. It’s a date.’

I haul myself out of bed. I’m now behind schedule and I was meant to walk for an hour, or run for ten minutes, but now it’s raining so going outside is technically impossible. I put the kettle on, figuring I can offset the calories in the milk in my tea by having a bite less of the first pudding. Or not.

Have you even tried the Bakewell Cream Slice from M&S? Shortbread base, raspberry compôte, fresh cream, roasted flaked almonds. A classic with a twist; inspired design. Very Maggie, I think, as I work my way through half of the six slices. After slice three I am full and feel sick.