I felt better now that I had a plan. I didn’t have to feel like such a loser, I could focus on something else: on a future in which things would work out for the best. On the way home, I pulled over at a servo, where I bought a Diet Coke, a pack of smokes, and a big fistful of Freddo Frogs. Every time I stopped at a red light, I either lit a cigarette, or cracked open a Freddo with my teeth. Last supper eating, I told myself. Tomorrow, my new life would begin.
The next day, I woke up angry, and on fire. I was going to get out of this shithole, out of this town, this job, this horrible feeling. I was going to grow the fuck up. I was leaving.
There was just one small problem with this plan; not enough money. So I took on a second job at a second call centre. I’d leave Martin Dawes at five o’clock and start at the second call centre at seven. I’d wake early in the morning and go to the gym. I tried not to eat, but always failed. I would start my diet as soon as I got on the plane, I said. I hardly slept. The loud voice in my head got louder, urging me ever onwards.
No more being pathetic, Clare. No more. Come on, you fat fuck: show the world what you’re made of. Show him you don’t need him. Don’t look back. Forward only.
Joffa called, but I did not call him back.
Once, at the end of a long day, when I hadn’t slept much or eaten much, the bad feeling came on so strong I was sure that something terrible had happened or was about to happen. My hands started shaking. I was sweating everywhere. My heart felt like it was going to fly out of my chest. I knew this feeling—it was the same one I had had on the day Rowena died. What if that feeling was a clue that something equally terrible had happened? What if it was Mum, or Dad? What if it was Joffa?
I didn’t know the feeling had a name. I didn’t know this was a panic attack.
I would call Mum, in tears, asking if she and Dad were okay.
They were fine, said Mum. Everything was fine.
Joffa. What if it was Joffa?
I rang him. He answered. As soon as I heard his voice, I hung up. I just needed to know he was alive, that was all.
Everyone was fine; absolutely fine.
But the feeling seemed to lodge itself in me then. I kept telling myself I would be in London soon and things would be better. I would feel all right once I lost the weight.
I gave notice at Martin Dawes. My friends threw me a going-away party, gave me an oversized novelty card and a stuffed bear with well wishes written in black texta on its body. I was going to miss them something terrible.
I had my plane ticket now. I was on my way. I was never going to feel this bad again, I said. I was never going to let anyone dismiss me the way Joffa had. I was going to do something that mattered. I was going to be someone. And, I reminded myself, I was not coming home until I was thin. Thin as a willow, thin as a pancake, thin as a rake. Thin.
I did have other dreams, you know, besides getting thin.
My diaries weren’t just full of diets.
I also wrote about other things, like exercise. Lots and lots of exercise that I planned to do, but never really got around to.
And also, occasionally, I wrote about grander things. Like the dream I’d had since I was four, the dream that one day, when I grew up, just like Miss Piggy, I would be a famous sing—Don’t even say it! scolded the voice in my head. Don’t! Fat girls don’t get to be famous singers! Shut up, lose the weight, then we can talk about the singing.
That was the story I had told myself for most of my life: that I was too big to be a famous singer. Don’t even think about it.
But that night, the night before I left for London, I sat down and wrote a list, a long true list, about all the things I wanted to do with my life and who I wanted to be, and how I was not going to live a little life. I was going to a live a big life. An amazing life! That’s what I called my list, in fact:
My Amazing Life.
In my neatest possible handwriting, I wrote down that one day, I would:
– write a novel
– make an album
– act in the theatre
– learn a language
– run fast
– do something that meant something, something that made people feel included, something that helped people
– travel everywhere
– make a million dollars (minimum)
– and if I was lucky, one day, I was going to love, and be loved. I was going to meet the man of my dreams, we were going to have a house in the hills with a garden and a fireplace, and we were going to make music and soup and drink wine and read each other poetry and it was going to be just like a Joni Mitchell song, only happy.
And then, if I was really, really lucky, I was going to:
– be a mother
– and then a grandmother too—one of those really cool ones, who still stood up and did the lambada at family parties, even when she was ninety.
Then I closed my diary, tucked it into my backpack, blew out my candle, and fell asleep in my childhood bed for the last time in … maybe ever.
I was going
