“I’ll look after you,” he said, kissing her.
They still went out for dinner, but less often. Now, Barry liked to cook large, sumptuous meals at home and they ate them at the big oak dining room table. Barry gave Daphne second helpings, even if she didn’t ask for them. He fixed her large, sweet, sticky cocktails and bought her boxes of chocolates.
He came home one day to find her regarding herself disconsolately in the bedroom mirror.
“What’s wrong, sweet?” he said.
“Look at me,” said Daphne. She pinched at the soft rolls that cascaded down her front. “I’m enormous. I’ll have to go on a diet.”
“You don’t have to do that,” said Barry, feeling a jab of alarm in the pit of his stomach. He put his arm round her. “You’re beautiful. Anyway, you’re not fat. You’re just a strapping lass.”
Daphne shook her head miserably.
“I’ll have to do something,” she said. “I thought I could do the cooking for a change, make some light meals. You don’t have to eat them if you don’t want to. I’ll cook your meals too. I can freeze them if it’s too much. There’s that big freezer in the garage we never use…”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” said Barry, hastily. He must remember to check the padlock on the freezer – it had slipped his mind, lately. He didn’t think there was anything still … there, but you never knew. “Anyway, you’re beautiful to me. Let me make you a drink and let’s watch a bit of television.”
A couple of days after that, Daphne came down with a bad cold. She sat on the sofa in the living room, watching daytime soaps and sipping a hot lemon and honey drink, which Barry had prepared for her. He’d added five sugars to the steaming liquid and had stirred it in well. Daphne said no more about cooking meals or dieting, and Barry inwardly rejoiced. He waited on her hand and foot and took time off work to cook her special, tempting dishes. In the kitchen, he grated a block of extra cheese into the lasagne. He emptied two cans of coconut cream into the curry dish he was making for tomorrow.
A month later, Daphne hadn’t yet risen from the couch. Barry brought her giant boxes of popcorn, huge torpedo-shaped bottles of fizzy pop, endless boxes of greasy fried chicken, nachos, burgers. He washed her and cleaned her and told her how beautiful she was, as she swelled like dough before him. She looked at him with love, a warm glance from her blue eyes; sunk like tiny, twinkling sapphires in the vast moonlike expanse of her face.
Two months later, Barry was in the kitchen making preparations, when he heard Daphne calling him. Her voice was barely a wheeze but he was so attuned to it, he responded immediately. He picked up the bag of doughnuts he’d bought that morning and took them in to her. He looked at her proudly. What a beautiful sight she was, filling the sofa from one straining arm to the other, a marquee of a cotton dress falling in soft folds over the mounds of her body. Her arms rested at shoulder height on the gigantic swell of flesh that extended from her chin to her thighs.
“Hello darling,” he said. “I’ve brought you something to eat.”
Daphne smiled at him, or tried to.
“Thank you darling,” she said breathlessly. He thought of her lungs, tiny grey pockets inside her, pressed relentlessly on either side by a tsunami of fat. “You’re so good to me, I don’t know what I’d do without you. I’m such a useless fat lump.”
He sat down on the one of the arms and put his arm around her, as far as he could stretch.
“How many times?” he said. “You’re not fat. You’re just a strapping lass.” He smiled and thought of the knives in the kitchen, laid out in shining, expectant rows; the cleaver, the boning knife, the carver. He shivered with delicious anticipation. “Silly girl, you’re not fat. You look good enough to eat.”
~~~
The Mourning After
I can’t remember exactly what happened. All I know is that we’d done it and it was done and that we were there, waiting for the outcome. It was cold, I remember and there was this sort of mist surrounding everything. But at the time I didn’t care, ‘cos I had Mark to keep me warm.
It’s difficult to know where to start. I mean, I know what happened, and what I meant to happen and sometimes the two things fit and sometimes they don’t. But hey, nothing ever works out exactly how you want it, does it? I mean, that’s what Mark says. And he should know, I mean, he’s had about the worst life you can imagine and I for one believe him when he tell me why everything gets as bad as it does. I wouldn’t know, personally, ‘cos I have had quite a sheltered life but at least I can imagine what it must be like to be abused. You know. He looked at me when he told me, with these big haunted eyes and I just felt this kind of rage against his parents and the teachers and all the other people who had fucked - yeah, fucked him over from day one. It’s why he wore black. I did too, after I met him. It drove Mum and Dad up the wall. I looked like a ghost, they said. I liked it; it was the first time I’d ever felt different. My friends thought so too, the few I had left after Mark plunged into my life. I hid my skin behind white pan-stick and my burgeoning curves behind drapes of black velvet and only Mark was allowed past.
And he really went past. He went deeper than anyone had before. I mean, losing your virginity shouldn’t be a huge big deal in this day and age but for me, it was. I mean, I really wanted the flowers and fireworks. That was before Mark made me realise that something has to be painful before it’s worthwhile. I remember the first time; the real, white-hot pain of it and how I had to grit my teeth to get through it, but just remembering his gasps and the way he looked at me when he was on top, well, I’d do it all again in a second.
It’s still cold and grey here. I’m holding Mark’s hand while I remember the first date we ever had. My parents didn’t actually know I was going out with a boy. I mean, they would’ve freaked, I’m only fourteen. I think I’m still only fourteen. It’s a bit difficult to tell here. There’s a few others that look like my age but everyone looks so wasted, I can’t tell. And I feel awkward about asking, everyone’s so sad. I’m glad I’ve got Mark, even though he frowns most of the time. At least I’m not on my own.
But our first date…we went to the cinema. We saw an ‘18’ film; I was so nervous, ‘cos obviously, I’m so underage. But Mark said I could do anything, if I had the courage, and I didn’t want to look like I didn’t, so I just held my head up and we passed, no problem. In the back seat, he pushed his hand up my skirt and moved his hand skillfully and I thought that was it, that the whole building was going to come crashing down around me as I came. It was then I knew I loved him.
Mum and Dad didn’t. They hated him. They hated his looks, his background and jeez, when they found out he’d been on a course of anti-depressants and had therapy, well, goodbye! But they couldn’t sway me. Courage was something I’d learnt going out with Mark and I wasn’t about to give it up now.
Real Romeo and Juliet stuff. I’d sneak out to see him, saying I was going to see Tammy. I hadn’t actually seen her for over a month, since she said Mark was a weirdo and a psycho. I didn’t mind too much – I mean, you grow out of people, don’t you? I mean, Tammy and I had been friends since nursery. And I knew for a fact she was a virgin, so how could she even begin to understand how special Mark and I were?