Pieces of My Heart (26 page)

‘Forget the clinic. We’ll sort you out, Ali.’ Paul put his arm around her. ‘You just need to get your appetite back.’

Mary took Ali’s blood pressure. It was very low. ‘Alison, you must rest as much as possible, no exercise at all, and try to eat small amounts of food regularly. OK?’

‘OK,’ Ali whispered.

‘Come on, let’s get you home.’ Paul walked Ali out to the car.

Mary handed me an information leaflet about the clinic. I took it and tried to say thank you, but a strange noise came out of my mouth. She put her hand on my shoulder. ‘You’ve had a shock today. It’s impossible to process all the information at once. Go home and think about your options. I’ll call you as soon as I have a bed for Alison in the clinic and you can decide what to do then. Stay strong, Ava.’

I walked to the car in silence. My hands were shaking violently and I couldn’t get my seatbelt on. Ali was crying silently in the back seat. ‘Why are you doing this to yourself? I don’t understand?’ I wailed. ‘Why do you want to starve yourself like this? Why, Ali? Why?’ I beat the dashboard with my fists.

‘I’m sorry, Mum. Please don’t send me away to that clinic. I’ll eat, I promise.’

‘Stop shouting at her. The poor girl’s in a state.’ Paul glared at me. ‘Don’t worry, Ali, you’re not going to any clinic.’

‘Are you deaf?’ I shouted. ‘She’s really bad. You can’t fix this with one bloody meal.’

‘Calm down, you’re upsetting Ali. I’ll sort this mess out.’

‘Thanks, Dad. I’ll eat now, I promise,’ Ali said.

‘See?’ Paul said to me. ‘There’s no need to panic.’

I gripped my bag and stared out of the window. There was no point arguing with him when he was like this. I knew Ali wouldn’t eat, but he had to see it for himself. I’d let him take charge of her meals for a day or two so he could see first hand that he was dealing with a serious illness.

When we got to the house, Charlie, Nadia and Sarah were in the lounge watching an old video of the kids that Charlie had taken years ago. In it, Ali was wearing a little nurse’s uniform and she was carefully wrapping a bandage around Sarah’s head. They were five and three and a half, so happy and carefree. My heart ached.

Charlie looked up and noticed my blotchy face. ‘What happened?’

Everyone turned to us.

‘Ali’s very sick. She’s lost more weight.’

Charlie went over to hug Ali, who was crying. Sarah sat open-mouthed on the couch with Nadia. Then she said, ‘How much more?’

‘Nearly a stone.’

‘Oh, my God!’ Sarah’s eyes welled up.

‘What did the psychologist say?’ Charlie asked.

‘Ali may need to go to a clinic for a while, to get help.’

‘No, she won’t, because we’re going to make her better here at home,’ Paul said. ‘If Ali puts on weight in the next few days, she’ll be staying with us.’

‘I’ll eat, I promise,’ Ali said.

‘Ali, I just want you to get the best help so you can get better quickly and put all this behind you,’ I explained.

‘But you’ll eat now, won’t you, Ali?’ Sarah said. ‘I mean, now that you understand you have anorexia and you’ve accepted it you can start eating. Right?’

‘You ate a bit more when we were in Tenerife, didn’t you?’ Charlie asked her.

‘Yeah, I did,’ Ali said.

‘It probably takes a few days for that weight to show up on the scales,’ said Paul, ‘so we all need to calm down.’

‘She not eating in Tenerife. I see her putting the food into the napkin when you no looking,’ Nadia announced.

‘What?’ I said.

‘Only once and it was because I didn’t like it,’ Ali tried to explain.

‘I saw her putting food into her napkin in Tenerife too and she was exercising in the bathroom every night,’ Sarah said.

‘Shut up, you bitch,’ Ali shouted.

‘I’m sorry, Ali.’ Sarah’s voice quivered. She looked at me. ‘Ali was doing star jumps in the toilet for hours – I could hear her – and when I told her to stop she wouldn’t and I could see it was hurting her to do them.’

Paul was staring at Ali. ‘Why did you do that?’ he asked.

‘Because she’s sick,’ I reminded him, for the millionth time.

‘I’m not
sick
,’ Ali screamed. ‘You’re all overreacting. It’s just a few pounds.’

My phone rang. It was Mary Boland. Ali had a place in the clinic, starting on Wednesday, or if we wanted to wait and see if she put on weight we could have a bed the following Monday.

I walked outside to speak to Mary. ‘Book us in for Wednesday.’

‘I think that’s wise,’ she said.

I knew Ali was beyond our help. I now had two days to convince my husband.

29

Later that day I tried talking to Paul alone to get him to consider the clinic. ‘It’s like this. If Ali had cancer, we’d send her to hospital for chemotherapy. If we don’t treat it, the anorexia could kill her. We’ve tried and failed miserably to help her. We need professionals – more importantly,
she
needs them. We don’t know what we’re dealing with. Look how bad it’s got in only a few months. I’ve been researching it on the Internet and the most important thing with anorexia is to treat it early with proper professional input. We have to make up for lost time. We have to act now.’

‘We are acting. We’ll continue taking her to doctors and psychologists and whoever else she needs to see, but I am
not
locking her up in a clinic and that’s final. She promised me she’d eat a good dinner tonight.’

‘Well, you can cook it and sit with her on your own and persuade her to eat it. And when you’ve succeeded, hell will have frozen over,’ I said, and stormed out of the room.

Paul went to Ali’s bedroom and told her to come down and have some dinner with him. They went into the kitchen and he cooked her a bacon sandwich. It had been one of her favourites.

I hovered outside, listening.

‘What are you doing?’ Charlie came up behind me.

‘Listening to see how Paul’s getting on.’

‘Is he having any luck?’

‘Not so far and he won’t either.’

‘You never know, he might get her to eat.’

‘No, Charlie, he won’t. Ali’s too far gone. He just doesn’t realize it yet. I’ve tried to explain it, but he is so stubborn.’

‘Go easy on him. Men like to fix things. It’s what we do – if something’s broken, we fix it. Paul just wants to make Ali better.’

‘But he can’t and we can’t waste any more time trying. She’s really bad, Charlie,’ my voice began to quiver, ‘and she needs to get into that clinic as soon as possible. I want to fix her too – I’m just more realistic about it.’

Charlie hugged me as I cried quietly into his shoulder. ‘I’ll talk to Paul later, pet, and see if I can convince him. Let him try this first. He needs to do it.’

‘Thanks, Charlie.’ I kissed him on the cheek.

‘I’m off out to meet George for a pint. I’ll be back at eleven and I’ll talk to Paul then.’

‘OK.’ I watched my father walk out of the house and then went back to listening at the kitchen door. I could hear Paul chatting to Ali, trying to cajole her into eating.

‘Listen, Ali, men like women with flesh on their bones. Why do you think Sophia Loren and Marilyn Monroe and Halle Berry and Eva Mendes are considered sex symbols? Because curvy is sexy. No guy finds skinny girls attractive. Now come on, eat up.’

Half an hour went by.

‘Is there something you want to talk about? You can tell me anything. If you’re in trouble or upset about something, I’ll help you. That’s what dads are here for. We fix things.’

Then an hour.

‘Ali, you have to eat up. If you don’t you’ll have to go to the clinic and I know you don’t want to go there and I don’t want to send you, but if you don’t eat I won’t be able to stop it happening. I’ll tell you what, if you have a few small bites, I’ll get you the new iPhone. Come on, Ali – for God’s sake, it’s just a bacon sandwich.’

An hour and a half. Suddenly I heard a raised voice.

‘Just eat the sandwich … Do you want to go to that place? … Well, then, put it in your bloody mouth. It’s just a sandwich … What’s the big deal? … You promised you’d eat … I don’t want to send you there, but you have to eat … Jesus, Ali, don’t do this … Please, Ali … Eat it or I swear I’ll shove it down your throat … EAT!’

The door swung open. Ali ran out and up the stairs. I went in and Paul was sitting with his head in his hands.

‘What happened?’ I asked, rushing over to him.

‘I hit her.’ He had tears in his eyes. ‘I spent nearly two hours trying to get her to eat one bite, but she just wouldn’t. I begged her, I pleaded with her – I even tried bribing her – and then I lost my temper and slapped her. I slapped my daughter.’ He buried his face in his hands. ‘I’ve never hit the girls. Ever. I just lost it. She was sitting there looking like a flaming skeleton and she wouldn’t eat even a tiny piece. It’s like trying to get through to a brick wall. Where’s our girl? Where’s my Ali?’

‘Look at me.’ I pulled his hands down from his face. ‘You’re a brilliant dad. Ali loves you. You just lost your temper because you’re scared. You’re terrified of what could happen. I’ve wanted to hit her loads of times lately. I’m not saying it’s a great idea, but it’s just fear, Paul.’

‘What’s wrong with her? Why the bloody hell can’t she eat?’

‘She’s sick, Paul. She’s very sick.’

‘But why?’

‘That’s what we need to find out. That’s what Mary and the other professionals are going to help us figure out.’

He took my hand and squeezed it. ‘I love you and I love our kids. This family is all I’ve ever wanted in life. I can’t let anything happen to her. She can’t die, Ava, she just can’t. I won’t let it happen.’

‘That’s why we’re going to get the best professional help we can. Ali needs proper care, Paul, and we can’t do it on our own. I’m devastated about the clinic too, but if it makes her better it’s worth it. I Googled it and it has hundreds of letters from former patients who are completely cured. She’s going to be fine.’

*

When I went to check on Ali she was in bed asleep – or pretending to be. I brushed her hair off her face, kissed her cheek and told her I loved her. She didn’t move.

Later that night, Sarah came into my room. I was sitting in bed with my laptop, going through websites on how to treat anorexia.

‘Where’s Dad?’ she asked, climbing up beside me.

‘He’s gone to work.’

‘Is Ali going to be OK?’

‘Yes, she is.’

‘Then why are you sending her to a nuthouse?’

‘Because she needs a lot of help and I can’t do it on my own. And it’s not a nuthouse, it’s a clinic that specializes in eating disorders.’

‘What if we all worked together to help her? I’ll watch her at school, and Charlie could watch her at the weekends when you’re working, and Dad could watch her on Mondays and we could do it that way so she wouldn’t have to go away.’

I shook my head. ‘It wouldn’t work. None of us is equipped to deal with this. We don’t have the tools. Look how bad it’s got already. I don’t want to send her away, Sarah, but I have to.’

‘How long will she be gone?’

‘Hopefully only a couple of weeks. We’ll have her home as soon as possible. Now, give me a hug – I need one.’

‘Oh, God, Mum, are you going all touchy-feely on me now? The odd hug is OK, but only if you’re really desperate. I’m sixteen and it’s just not cool to be hugging your mother.’

‘OK, just the odd one, then.’

30

The next afternoon while Ali was having a nap and Paul and I were working out our finances, trying to figure out how much the clinic was going to cost, the doorbell rang. Sarah came thundering down the stairs to answer it. A very orange Bobby sauntered in. ‘Hey, Mr and Mrs M,’ he said.

‘You’ve a better tan than any of us and we’re only just back from the sun,’ Paul noted.

‘I hit the tanning salon over the holidays,’ Bobby drawled. ‘Couldn’t have my girlfriend coming back browner than me.’

Sarah came in dragging Charlie behind her. ‘Mum, Dad, Charlie, I need you all to come into the lounge. Bobby and me are going to perform some of our play and we need your feedback. I want to see if we’re projecting our voices correctly. So you’ll have to sit right at the back of the room and then you can tell me if you can hear properly. No talking while we’re performing. I need you to concentrate so you can give us a proper review. It has to be perfect – who knows what this play could lead to?’

‘I’ve no doubt it’ll be entertaining anyway,’ whispered Paul, ‘and we could do with the distraction.’

Bobby didn’t look too pleased about having to perform in front of an audience. ‘Babe, we’re not ready. I’m not totally comfortable with anyone seeing it yet.’

‘We’re doing it and that’s that. Come on, we need the practice.’

Sarah rearranged the furniture, then dragged Bobby outside to get ready. Charlie grinned at me. ‘I’ve a feeling this is going to be classic. Relax and enjoy it – it’ll be good to get your mind off Ali.’

The door was thrown open and Sarah arrived, draped in a sheet, like a Roman emperor. She climbed up onto the couch, crouched and waited …

‘Bobby!’ she hissed. ‘Come on.’

The tangerine man came in, wearing a similar sheet over his jeans, Sarah’s pink beret on his head and carrying a wooden spoon as a sword. I think he was blushing, although it was hard to tell under all the fake tan.

Sarah popped up, and leant over the edge of the couch. ‘Ohmigod – aren’t you, like, Romeo Montague? How did you get in here? Did you, like, climb over the electric gates and get past the killer dogs?’

‘I jumped over the gate with, like, springs in my legs because of love and also the workouts I’ve been doing at the gym.’

‘Hold on, time out,’ Sarah announced. ‘Bobby, why did you add that bit in about the gym?’

‘Because I don’t want the guys to think I’m a fag, shouting about being in love and stuff.’

‘Hello! It’s a play.’

‘I know – it’s just some of the stuff is embarrassing.’

‘Can you please try to keep to the lines?’ Sarah huffed.

‘Fine.’

‘Romeo, if my old man finds you in here, you are seriously dead. Your family is our total enemy.’

‘A red card from you, Juliet, would be, like, way worse than death.’