Friday 31 March 9st 5lbs,
cigarettes 20, alcohol units 0, calories 1500. How
can I have put on 3lbs since the middle of the night? I was 9st 4 when I
went to bed, 9st 2 at 4am and 9st 5 when I got up. I can understand
weight coming off - it could have evaporated or been passed out of the
body into the toilet - but how could it be put on? Could food react
chemically with other food to double its density and volume, solidifying
into ever heavier hard fat? I don't look fatter. I can fasten the button
though not, alas, the zip on my '89 jeans. So maybe my whole body is
getting smaller but denser. The whole thing smacks of female
bodybuilders and makes me feel strangely sick. I
look wistfully at my colleague Perpetua, her vast bulbous bottom swathed
in a tight red skirt with a bizarre three-quarter length striped
waistcoat strapped across it. What a blessing to be born with such
Sloaney arrogance. Perpetua could be the size of a Renault Espace and
not give it a thought. I have never heard her so much as enunciate the
words "fat unit". How many hours, months, years have I spent
worrying about weight while Perpetua has been happily looking for lamps
with porcelain cats as bases around the Fulham Road? She is missing out
on a source of happiness, anyway. It is proved by surveys that happiness
does not come from love, wealth or power but the pursuit of attainable
goals, and what is a diet if not that? I
call up Tom, who says write down everything you've eaten, honestly, and
see if you stuck to the diet: Breakfast:
hot-cross bun (Scarsdale Diet - mild variation on specified piece of
wholemeal toast); Mars Bar (Scarsdale Diet - mild variation on specified
half grapefruit). Snack:
two bananas, two pears (switched to F-plan as starving and cannot face
Scarsdale carrot snacks). Carton orange juice (Anti-Cellulite Raw- Food
Diet). Lunch:
jacket potato (Scarsdale Vegetarian Diet) and hummus (Hay Diet - fine
with jacket spud as all starch, and breakfast and snack were all
alkaline-forming with exception of hot-cross bun and Mars - minor
aberration). Dinner:
four glasses of wine, char-grilled tuna with polenta crust (Scarsdale
Protein Diet, and also Hay Diet - protein-forming); portion tiramisu;
Peppermint Aero (pissed). I
realise it is has become too easy to find a diet to fit in with whatever
you happen to feel like and that diets are not there to be pick and
mixed but picked and stuck to, which is exactly what I shall begin to
do, once I've eaten this croissant. Saturday 1 April On
the way to meet Sharon and Tina for shopping, an old couple, plainly up
from the country for a new jar of marmalade, got on the Tube and two
young girls wearing flared jeans and Doc Martens gave them their seats.
Well! The girls didn't know what to do with their mouths and no one in
the carriage knew where to put themselves. It felt as though someone
should shout, "OH FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE", or everyone should turn
and shake hands with each other like in church. Next
thing I found myself fantasising about men giving ladies their seats,
especially, say, on a Friday night after work. We would feel so
cherished and they would feel kind, strong and good about themselves. Naturally,
I brought the worrying fantasy up with the girls. "Of course they
should bloody well give up their seats," exploded Sharon.
"They sit there surrounded by seatless girls carrying eight Tesco
Metro carrier bags each, and it has been proved by surveys that they
will go home and have supper cooked and washed up by some woman who's
been working just as hard all week and stood up on the Tube all the way
home carrying shopping. It's positively third world. We learned how to
go out and earn our own livings and still carried on making the supper
and cleaning behind the toilet and they didn't learn how to cook, forgot
how to put shelves up and mend cars, and abandoned giving up their
seats." "We're
a doomed sub-species, doomed," I said. "No,"
said Sharon. "We're going to take over the world while they sit
watching football in their vests throwing beer cans at the television.
We'll just kind of keep them as pets. For sex." "In
your dreams," said Tina. When
I got home there was a message from my Dad asking if I would meet him
for lunch on Sunday. I went hot and cold. My Dad does not leave messages
for me. My Mum leaves messages for me. My Dad does not come up to London
to have lunch with me on Sundays. He has roast beef or salmon and new
potatoes at home with Mum. "Don't ring back," he said,
"I'll just see you tomorrow." But I'm seeing Daniel tonight
and we won't even be up by... Sometimes
I realise how vile and selfish I have become, almost like Cruella De Vil
in 101 Dalmatians. Poor kind, sad, uncommunicative Dad. I go out to for
cigarettes and try to work out what the hell is going on, get used to
the idea of looking after my parents instead of them looking after me
and fight off existential despair. When
I get back, the light is flashing on the answerphone. It is Mum, saying she is coming to see me for lunch tomorrow. She will bring a piece of salmon with her and will be here about 1 o'clock. |