Girls Under Pressure Read online

  “Just once, Ellie. Please. Pretty please.”

  So I say I will. Just once.

  I spend most of the evening peering at myself in my awful old swimming costume, convinced I cannot possibly expose myself in all my horrible wobbliness. Plus, what should I do about all my hairy bits? I try shaving under my arms, snaffling Anna’s razor, and cut myself, which smarts terribly.

  I phone Magda to call the whole thing off. She tells me that swimming tautens all your muscles, and points out that even the biggest beefiest serious swimmer has a washboard stomach, tight bum and taut thighs. I miserably feel my flabby flesh as she speaks. I agree to go after all.

  I feel like death getting up at quarter past six but the cold air revives me a little. I jog-shuffle most of the way to the leisure center, deciding I might as well get in a little extra exercise on the way. I make good progress and get there at three minutes to seven, before the doors are even open. There’s a little group of fitness freaks waiting, huddled into the hoods of their track tops. Magda isn’t here yet. There’s no dark dishy hunk that could be Mick, either. I stand in my school uniform, clutching my duffel bag, feeling horribly out of place. People will be wondering what on earth this squat blobby schoolgirl is doing at a fitness center—fatness center, more like. There’s an enviably thin girl in a green tracksuit staring at me right at this minute.

  “Ellie?”

  I stare back, startled. The thin girl is smiling. It’s Zoë Patterson!

  Zoë is famous at our school. She’s a real brainbox. She should be in Year Ten but she’s been put up a year to take all her university entrance exams a year early. God knows how many she’s doing—ten, eleven, maybe even twelve. I bet she gets As in all of them. Zoë wins her class prize every year. And the art prize too.

  That’s how I know her. We both spend a lot of time in the art room doing all sorts of stuff, and when Mrs. Lilley, the art teacher, wanted a special mural to brighten the room up she asked Zoë and me to work on it together during our lunch hour.

  We hardly spoke to each other at first. I thought it was because Zoë was older than me and might be a bit snobby, but then I realized she’s actually even shyer than I am. So I got up the nerve to start talking to her and she soon got ever so friendly and funny. By the time we’d finished our mural (a crazy summer camp scene of all different creative women through time: we had Virginia Woolf with her skirts tucked in her drawers paddling in the stream, Jane Austen in an apron peeling potatoes, all the Brontë sisters with their sleeves rolled up sizzling sausages on the barbecue, Florence Nightingale pitching a tent, Billie Holiday picking flowers, Marilyn Monroe hanging out the washing, Frida Kahlo painting pictures on her welly boots) it seemed like we were firm friends.

  But this school year Zoë hasn’t been coming to the art room and whenever I’ve bumped into her in the corridors or the cloakroom we’ve just said hi and hurried on. I wondered if she’d gone off me or thought me too babyish or was maybe just too busy to be friendly when she was swotting for all those scary exams.

  “Hi, Zoë. I never expected to see you here,” I say.

  I assumed Zoë thought along the same lines as me when it came to sport.

  “I come here every day,” says Zoë. “Are you here to swim too?”

  “Yes. I said I’d come with Magda. You know, my friend. The blond one. Though goodness knows when she’s going to get here. I bet she’s slept in.”

  The doors open. I say I’d better wait for Magda so Zoë goes hurrying down to the changing room. She didn’t used to be anywhere near as thin. She’s got amazing cheekbones now. Her tracksuit bottom is all baggy. Zoë was never fat—not like me—but she used to be a bit pear-shaped with a biggish bum. Hey, maybe swimming really works!

  I think I might start going every day too. Though not with Magda. She doesn’t arrive until twenty past.

  “Hi, Ellie. God, isn’t it awful getting up this early,” she mumbles.

  “You’re not early, Magda, you’re late.”

  She’s not taking any notice, peering all over the place as we go into the center and pay for our swim.

  “Have you seen anyone that looks like Mick, Ellie? You know, dark and truly dishy.”

  “I don’t know. Heaps of people have gone in. I didn’t see anyone that fantastic—but we’ve got different taste when it comes to boys.”

  “You’re telling me,” says Magda. “You’ve got Dan for a boyfriend.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I say.

  “Well, what is he, then?” says Magda.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  Dan was so keen on me it was embarrassing. We’ve fooled around a bit together in a totally chaste sort of way, but it’s not been the Love Match of the Century. Or the year, month, week, day, minute. Scarcely Love Match of the Second. Though Dan’s always insisted he loves me. I’ve never worked out whether he was totally serious. I’m even less sure now. He hasn’t written to me recently. And he hasn’t phoned me back since that time I phoned him and he was watching some stupid rugby match.

  Maybe I need a new boyfriend.

  Ha. Who would ever want to go out with me?

  Plenty of boys want to go out with Magda. I can see why she was so late getting here. She’s fully made up and her hair’s freshly washed and styled. She wriggles into a new slinky scarlet Lycra costume. It’s so tight it must feel like wearing a full-size elastic band—but she looks incredible.

  I turn my back to take off my clothes, embarrassed to strip off even in front of Magda. My hair sticks up in a giant bush, my face is all blotchy from the cold and yet in the sudden heat inside my glasses steam up so I can’t see. It feels better when I take them off and shove them in my locker. If I can’t see anyone clearly I can kid myself that maybe they can’t see me.

  I grope my way to the poolside and slide in as quickly as possible so that I’m hidden, up to my neck in sparkling turquoise water. It’s beautifully warm, but Magda takes forever to get in, standing on the side of the pool, dipping her toes in and squealing. It’s obviously just to show herself off. It works. I swim two fast and furious laps and when I get back to the shallow end there are five boys surrounding Magda, laughing and jostling and offering her advice.

  I swim off again. I’m trying not to mind. I’m not here to get off with boys, anyway. I’m here to lose weight.

  So I plow backward and forward, ten lengths breaststroke, ten lengths freestyle, ten lengths backstroke. Then repeat. Thank goodness I’m quite good at swimming so I don’t look too stupid. Some of the boys are faster than me but I’m quicker than all the women—apart from Zoë.

  We’re about even-steven and find we can’t help racing each other. First she steams ahead so I concentrate fiercely and push myself that little bit harder so that I’m gasping every time I take a breath. I draw closer, closer—and then I’m suddenly in front, and I whiz off even faster, but it’s hard to keep it up. I’m slower the next lap, floating a little, and Zoë suddenly flashes past.

  We carry on this mad competition and end up neck and neck, laughing at each other.

  “We’d better get out now or we’ll be late for school,” says Zoë.

  “Right,” I say, scarcely able to draw breath.

  Magda got out ages ago. She was barely in. She swam about ten measly lengths, keeping her head artificially high out of the water so that her hair wouldn’t get messed up, and then she was off back to the changing room to replenish her makeup.

  She’s hogging the mirror now, applying the finishing touches.

  “Right, Ellie. See you in the café, OK?” she says. “I don’t want to miss Mick—if he’s actually here.”

  Zoë and I take a shower. We’re very modest, looking away from each other as we soap ourselves under the streaming water, but once we’re toweling dry and stuffing damp bodies into underwear I take a quick glance at her when I’ve put my glasses on. I stare.

  Zoë is thin. Not just slender. Not even skinny. Her ribs are sticking out of her skin, he
r pelvis juts alarmingly, her arms and legs look as if they’re about to snap.

  “Zoë!” I wonder if she’s ill. I’ve never seen anyone this thin before. She looks awful.

  “What?” she says, looking anxious.

  “You’ve lost so much weight!”

  “Not really. Not enough. Not yet,” says Zoë.

  turkey girl

  I’m not stupid. I know Zoë’s sick. She’s obviously anorexic. She’s not thin and beautiful. She’s thin and sad. Thin and mad. She’s starving herself. She looks like a living skeleton. There’s nothing desirable about her gaunt body, her jutting bones, her beaky features.

  I don’t want to end up like Zoë.

  I eat chicken and broccoli and baked potatoes for supper. I even put butter inside my potatoes and follow my first course with chocolate ice cream and extra chocolate sauce.

  “Thank God,” says Dad. “I was so sick of that stupid diet. Have you seriously seen sense at last, Ellie?”

  “You bet,” I say, running to the fridge and getting out a second carton of chocolate ice cream.

  “Me too,” says Anna, getting her own bowl.

  It feels so wonderful to eat my meal slowly, savoring every mouthful. I feel full and warm and peaceful. I chat to Anna, I chat to Dad, I even chat to Eggs. I don’t shut myself away in my bedroom after supper. I curl up on the sofa in the living room. Dad brings out his all-time favorite video, the one he loves us all to watch together when we’re playing happy families. The Wizard of Oz.

  I get a little tense watching Judy Garland at first. Is she too fat or is she just fine? She’s thin compared to me. But when she steps out of her little gray house into the color of Oz I step with her and stop worrying. I just sit back and enjoy the movie.

  I take Eggs up to bed, singing, “Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the purple stair cord,” and we do a little Munchkin dance on the landing. His arms wind tight round my neck as I tuck him up in bed.

  “I love you, Ellie,” he whispers.

  “I love you too, Eggs,” I whisper back.

  I wonder why I’m usually so mean to him. I don’t feel like being mean to anyone now. I even give myself a grin in the mirror when I go into my bedroom. I have a tiny panic when I get undressed. My full tummy looks so big. I stand sideways and peer in the mirror to see just how much it’s sticking out. But then I pull my nightie on quick and jump into bed. I think about the film. I click my bare heels in their invisible ruby slippers over and over again.

  I try to cling to this new common sense next day at school. It’s not easy. I feel so dumpy in my tight uniform. Nadine’s skirt hangs so gracefully on her, in real folds. Mine is so taut it feels like my knees are tied together. Nadine’s sweater is so loose. Mine is strained over the jutting shelf of my chest. I stare at everyone. They all look much thinner than me. I can’t seem to help myself. I even start staring at poor huge Alison Smith and wonder if we’re of similar size.

  I try to calm down in art. Mrs. Lilley says we can paint any kind of Christmas scene we fancy—and offers us a chocolate Father Christmas as a prize for the most amusing and original effort.

  Magda does a glamorous male stripper wearing a few sprigs of holly in strategic places and a silly Santa beard. Nadine paints a fashion-model fairy on top of a Christmas tree. I do an extremely anxious turkey, eyes bulging, wattle quivering, beak wedged open while a farmer shovels great scoopfuls of food down its throat. It’s already so fat it can barely waddle. The turkey’s tail is a great fuzz of feathers. It’s starting to look uncomfortably like a self-portrait. Lithe little sparrows fly happily about the turkey’s head, free as the wind. I can’t seem to make it funny. It’s sad.

  “Oh, dear, Ellie,” says Mrs. Lilley. “Have you joined an animal rights group?”

  I don’t win the chocolate Father Christmas. I don’t know why I mind so much. It’s not as if I’d necessarily eat the chocolate anyway, not at 529 terrible calories per three and a half ounces. I have gloomily inspected every kind of chocolate bar for its calorific value and then shoved every one back on the shelf quickly, as if even handling them could make you fat.

  Mrs. Lilley is looking a little tubby lately, come to think of it. She’s always been quite skinny but now she’s getting a bit of a tummy and her waist is thicker too. Yet she looks OK in her denim shirt and waistcoat and long black skirt. She’s wearing a big chunk of dark amber on a long black cord round her neck. Her eyes glow the same color. She’s looking great even though she’s definitely put on a good ten pounds, maybe more, during this term. She doesn’t seem to care. She looks really happy.

  I think of pale sick skinny Zoë. I don’t really wish I looked like her, do I? Maybe I could go in for the Mrs. Lilley look, plumpish but still pretty in lovely loose clothes. Artistic.

  I wish I’d won the chocolate Father Christmas.

  Mrs. Lilley calls me over to her desk at the end of the lesson.

  “I’m sorry you didn’t get the prize, Ellie,” she says.

  “That’s OK.”

  “You know I think you’re really gifted at art, don’t you?”

  “Thank you.” I know I’m going red.

  “I do hope I can come back long before you do your standardized art exam.”

  “Come back?”

  “I’m leaving at the end of this term.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Lilley, why?”

  She smiles at me.

  “I thought you’d guessed! I saw you staring at my tummy today.” She pats it gently. “I’m going to have a baby.”

  “Ooh!”

  “Yes, I didn’t show for a while, but now I’m fast approaching the waddling stage. I feel like your poor Christmas turkey.”

  I feel like bursting into tears.

  “Cheer up, Ellie. Maybe you can come and see me sometime after I’ve had the baby.”

  “Mm, maybe. Well. Congratulations.”

  I have to rush away. Mrs. Lilley isn’t fat. She is pregnant. My role model for a reasonable figure—still thinner than me—is probably six months pregnant.

  Oh, God.

  Anna is preparing a huge spaghetti bolognese when I get home from school.

  “I can’t eat that!” I say, appalled.

  I eat half a small tub of cottage cheese garnished with chopped cucumber and carrots. It looks and tastes disgusting, as if someone else has already eaten it and thrown it up. The smell of spaghetti bolognese makes me feel faint but I manage to hold out. Somehow. If only I could seal my lips with Super Glue, then I’d feel really safe.

  I even dream about it at night and wake up sucking my own hand. I curl up tight and clasp myself. I mustn’t creep down to the kitchen and raid the fridge. I daren’t have another stuff-my-face session because Anna might hear if I make myself sick.

  I’m scared of getting really bulimic. I read an article in Nadine’s Spicy magazine (she’s its most avid reader now) and it says if you keep throwing up, the acid rots your teeth. This famous model went through a six-month spell of being sick to keep in trim for her fashion work and now she’s had to have a full set of false teeth fitted.

  “Thank goodness I’m naturally slim,” Nadine says smugly, reading over my shoulder.

  I make sick noises myself. Nadine isn’t half getting on my nerves at the moment. I ask her privately what she thinks of Zoë, pointing her out in Assembly.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, don’t you think she’s sort of weird now?” I don’t want to prompt Nadine in any way, I want her honest opinion.

  “Zoë’s always been weird. She’s such a swot. All those prizes every year. Why doesn’t she get a life?” Nadine says heartlessly.

  “Yes, but don’t you think she looks weird now?” I say. “Haven’t you noticed she’s got a lot thinner?”

  Nadine glances at Zoë again. She’s bunched up in her baggy school uniform. Her skirt’s much longer than anyone else’s and she’s wearing very thick woolly tights. There isn’t really much of her on show.

  “I
suppose she’s got a bit skinny, yeah,” says Nadine, as if it’s no big deal.

  Maybe it isn’t. Maybe Zoë is a perfect size now. After all, she really did have a biggish bum before. But now she’s worked as hard as always and she’s won the slimming stakes too.

  I struggle to remember exactly what she looks like without her clothes. Different-sized Zoës dance in my head like reflections in a crazy mirror show. I can’t work out which is the right one. I need to know.

  “Coming swimming tomorrow, Magda?” I say.

  “There’s not much point. Mick wasn’t there, was he?” says Magda.

  “Still, look at all those other boys who started chatting you up.”

  “They were OK, I suppose. Larry, the fair one, asked me out, as a matter of fact. I said I might meet up with him this weekend.”

  “When?” says Nadine. “Oh, Mags, you’ve got to help me with my hair and my makeup and everything. It’s the Spicy heat!”

  “You still like Mick best, don’t you?” I persist. “Come swimming tomorrow. You come too, Nadine—you want to be in good shape for Saturday.”

  “Yes, but I don’t want my hair all mucked up with chlorine,” says Nadine. “And I’m trying to get eight hours’ sleep every night this week. I don’t want bags under my eyes. I can’t get up ultra-early.”

  Magda can’t get up ultra-early either. She keeps me hanging around outside the pool for ages. Zoë arrives when I do, jogging along the path, her face screwed up with concentration. She carries on jogging on the spot while she’s in the queue, as if her trainers are fitted with springs.

  “How can you be so energetic so early in the morning, Zoë?” I say.

  “I’ve been up since five,” says Zoë, panting a little.

  “What?”

  “I have to, to get everything done. I do some stretching and some sit-ups, and then an hour’s studying. I’m desperate to get my own exercise bike at home and then I could set up my books so I could read and work out. It’s mad, my mum and dad are forking out a fortune to spend Christmas in this posh hotel in Portugal and I’ve begged them to let me stay at home and with the money they save on my fare they could buy me the bike, but they won’t listen.” Zoë talks faster than she used to, as if her thoughts have speeded up. “My dad’s just doing this to spite me. He’s admitted it. He wants to fatten me up. He’s sick.”