The Curvy Girls Club Read online

  Whenever Ellie, Pixie and I chastised her about her latest fad diet, Jane reminded us of that period, and all the diets she’d tried. She was trying to demonstrate how relatively far she’d come from the crazy old days. But she just reminded us how despondent she must have been, because it took desperation to drink cider vinegar as an appetite suppressant or eat cotton wool to feel full. Jane had done both. She’d also spent a few happy weeks on the cookie diet, until she realised she wasn’t supposed to eat regular cookies. After tearing through a few dozen packets of chocolate digestives, she had to drink cider vinegar again to lose the extra dough around her middle.

  It was a common pattern. She’d shift a few pounds on some nutty diet, only to gain it all back when she ate normally again. After more than a year of trying, she’d lost and gained back her baby weight several times over.

  And it was having consequences for her marriage, but by the time she noticed how fed up Andy was getting with her moods yo-yoing along with her weight, he’d been pissed off for months. Things came to a head one night just after they’d put the children to bed.

  ‘Do you want a glass of wine?’ Andy asked.

  ‘You know I can’t have wine on my diet!’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, Jane. I can’t keep up with what you can and can’t have these days. Do you mind if I have a glass?’ He knew that sometimes she needed to feel the solidarity of him being miserable too.

  ‘Do what you want.’

  ‘I want to have a relaxing evening, but it looks like that’s not going to happen,’ he muttered.

  ‘If you’re so unhappy, why don’t you just go somewhere else then? You don’t have to be around me if it pains you so much.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Jane. For better or worse, we’re in this together.’ He slumped in the chair across the room.

  Jane sensed something that made her insides freeze. ‘Andy? What is it? Something’s wrong, I can tell.’

  Instead of laughing off her question like she’d hoped, he just stared at her. ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘Tell me. Andy. Tell me.’ It was hard to utter those words. She couldn’t unhear whatever he was about to say.

  ‘It’s just that lately things have been … I don’t know. I guess I’ve been less happy lately. I love you, Jane, but you’ve been so obsessed with your diets. It hasn’t been fun.’

  ‘Marriage isn’t always fun.’

  ‘I know. I know that. I guess I didn’t realise that it was affecting me.’

  ‘Do you think I enjoy starving myself?’ She laughed bitterly. ‘It’s not all about you, you know.’

  He nodded. ‘I know … Jane, I need to tell you about something. I don’t know what to think about it. I don’t want to hurt you. That’s why I’m telling you now.’

  Jane hardly let him finish the sentence. ‘Are you having an affair?’

  ‘No, Jane, no. It’s not an affair. I promise.’

  ‘But it’s something.’

  He nodded. ‘Lately, I’ve found myself attracted to someone.’

  She held her breath as his words punched her in the solar plexus. ‘Who is she?’

  ‘You don’t know her. She’s another programmer who started about a year ago. Nothing has happened between us, Jane, I swear, I haven’t cheated. But I can’t keep the fact that I’ve been attracted to her from you. We’ve always been completely honest with each other, and I can’t keep things from you now. Jane? Please say something. Anything. I can’t stand it when you just stare at me like that.’

  ‘What should I say, Andy? That it’s okay for you to lust after another woman? Or maybe that you should follow your penis wherever it takes you? I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. You may not have cheated, but you’ve broken my trust. I’m sorry that I’m so disgusting that I’ve driven you into someone else’s arms.’

  Andy protested, of course, but no matter what he said, and he said quite a lot as they talked into the early hours, Jane knew that their marriage was in serious jeopardy.

  So many thoughts and emotions hit Jane when Andy told her he fancied his colleague that soon she wasn’t sure which ones were new and which were repeats. She knew one thing though. She had to fix things.

  Andy was no less distraught. He might have relieved the guilt he’d dragged around for months, but that was overwhelmed by the impact his confession had on Jane. He’d truly believed it was the right thing to do, but Jane said she wasn’t so sure.

  ‘If he knew he’d never act on it then what was the point of telling me?’ she’d fumed when she’d recalled it over drinks one night about a year after we all met. ‘Honesty in the relationship, blah blah blah. To me, it smacked of selfishness. He may have felt better, but I didn’t. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and imagining how perfect she must be. I was miserable thinking about them together every day. Even though he promised he was completely ignoring her, just knowing they were in the same office drove me mad. He’d made everything worse.’

  Andy knew he had to fix what he’d broken. No matter how often he told Jane that she had nothing to worry about, knowing how he’d felt about his colleague was eating her up. He couldn’t ask the woman to quit. It wasn’t her fault he’d lusted after her or told Jane about it. And with a family to support he couldn’t leave his job either. So he tried the next best thing.

  ‘I’ve asked for a transfer,’ he’d announced one night. ‘Jane, I can’t stand seeing you like this, and knowing it’s because of me. I’ve been so stupid, and I’ll spend the rest of my life apologising for that. But we need to be able to move forward and if that means me taking another job, then it’s worth it for us to be happy again.’

  A smile slowly crept across Jane’s face. ‘You’re doing that for me?’

  He nodded. ‘For us. There’s just one thing. The only open position is in Bristol.’

  ‘Bristol!’

  ‘I know. I wish there was something in another London office, but there just isn’t right now. Hopefully it won’t be for more than a year; then I can apply for a transfer back to London, to another office.’ He took Jane’s hands. ‘I know it’s not ideal but I hope it will make you happy again. I’ll be able to leave early on Friday afternoons so I can be home by dinner.’

  It took Jane a minute to understand what he was saying. ‘Of course we’re coming with you.’

  ‘I can’t ask you to leave your job, Jane. Fucking things up between us was bad enough.’

  ‘But you can’t think that being apart five days a week is going to help.’ Jane felt even more panicky at that idea.

  ‘Won’t my being in Bristol make you feel better?’

  ‘No!’ Tears sprang to Jane’s eyes. Why couldn’t she just be an adult about this? Married people probably had crushes all the time. If she hadn’t fallen to pieces over it, her husband wouldn’t be proposing to move away. ‘Andy, I’d do anything to get over how I feel and get our life back the way it was. But I can’t, and banishing you to Bristol doesn’t sound like the answer. We’re coming with you. I can see about taking a year off, but if they won’t let me then that’s fine too. I’ll find something else, either in Bristol or when we come back to London. I just want us to make a new start. Together. Now don’t start crying, you silly man,’ she said as he hiccupped back his tears. ‘One of us bawling is bad enough. When do we go?’

  ‘We can go as soon as you want to. I love you so much, Jane.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘And I love you too.’ She felt lighter than she had in months.

  Her producer, Karen, seemed more relieved than sad to see her go. She met her replacement a few weeks before she left, and helped transition her into the role. She was no bigger than a size six.

  Then they moved to Bristol, and things were good. They settled in quickly and thought the smaller city suited them. Andy’s colleagues were friendly and he sometimes went out with them for a quick drink after work. He made sure they were all men.

  As the children weren’t yet in school though, it didn’t take long for Jane t
o grow lonely. But at least, she reasoned, she wasn’t tempted off her diet by invitations for afternoon tea or lunches or dinners. Because there weren’t any invitations.

  Not that dieting in Bristol was any easier than it was in London, and it was about this time that she first tried the pills. It wouldn’t be the last.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Jane sent The Great British Makeover pitch off to her contacts, and we waited. Days went by, then two weeks. I did my best to get some perspective. Fat chance of that. I got excited when Ben & Jerry’s came out with a new flavour. I had no chance of remaining calm about this. I knew it was a long-shot, and yet I couldn’t keep my breath from hitching in my throat whenever a text pinged. You’d think I was seventeen again, waiting to hear from Rory.

  And then finally, a text from Jane. Are you free to talk?

  I called her straight back. ‘Is it good news?!’

  ‘You can’t even imagine,’ she said. ‘Remember you asked me to send PR out to the news outlets and such? I sent emails off to loads of editors at the nationals, and all the relevant TV programmes. And one just emailed back.’

  So it wasn’t about Channel 4. It took me a moment to digest what she’d said. Nationals? As in newspapers?

  ‘Who?’ If it was the Telegraph my parents were going to have strokes. When Granddad’s death announcement got in there they told everyone, including the neighbours and the man who sometimes fixed Dad’s work van.

  ‘It’s from the producer of On the Couch.’

  ‘THE On the Couch? As in the national television programme?’ I was a huge fan of the current affairs chat show, along with most of the rest of the country. ‘But how are they going to feature the press release on telly?’

  She hesitated. ‘They’re not featuring the press release. They’ve invited you on to the show.’

  ‘WHAT?! Why me?’ My heart began hammering in my chest.

  Again she hesitated, making me wish we were face-to-face. ‘It’s standard procedure in PR to say we’re available for interviews.’

  ‘Uh huh. So how did we become me? Can’t you do it?’

  ‘No way,’ she said. ‘My days in front of the camera are over.’

  Her tone made me feel guilty for suggesting it.

  Jane didn’t go back to the BBC when she and Andy came back from Bristol. Instead she went to work for Channel 4. She said she was happy in her job behind the cameras instead of in front of them and it did let her work flexible hours mostly from home. But I had the feeling that if she was a size ten again, she’d have different career aspirations.

  ‘Besides,’ Jane continued. ‘It makes sense for you to do it, since you’re really our leader. You’ve been the driving force from the start. Just think about the exposure for the club.’

  All I could think of was my own exposure. The very thought made me feel ill. ‘Can’t we draw straws or something?’

  ‘Sweetheart, you do remember that we’ve got a pitch out to Channel 4 in which you’ve agreed to be naked on national television. At least you’ll have your clothes on for this.’

  I couldn’t argue with her logic. ‘Can I think about it?’

  ‘Of course, but I need to know in the next hour. They want you on for tomorrow.’

  Oh god oh god oh god.

  My trousers were too tight. I was about to go on live telly looking like an overstuffed sausage. My glands stained ever-widening rings under the arms of my silk blouse. I bet Mila Kunis didn’t have crises like these.

  At least my face wasn’t beading up. The makeup artist had applied some kind of sealant. Dad had used a similar filler on the lounge walls when he helped me repaint my flat last year. I’d got a leak in the kitchen within a week. Dad promised they were unrelated events, but I wasn’t so sure. Did that mean my sweat would pop out elsewhere in a few minutes? Was I about to fill my shoes with perspiration?

  The Green Room was small, stifling and not green. Boxy red faux-leather chairs lined the white walls on three sides. A battered blonde-wood coffee table was ringed with scars from hot tea cups, placed there by the nervous guests who’d gone before. It was about as calming as my GP’s waiting room. I shifted in my chair, eliciting a faux-leathery fart from the cushion. Lovely. My arse was sweating.

  The door flew open. ‘We’re ready for you,’ announced the painfully thin young intern who spoke as if her words were missing a deadline. Her jaw clenched every few seconds as she scanned her notes. ‘We’ve just gone to break. Are you ready?’ She eyed the half-eaten doughnut in my hand. ‘You’ve got a bit of, er …’ She pointed to my lip.

  I quickly wiped away the sticky glaze. ‘Oh no,’ I said, staring at the bright streak on my hand. ‘I’m so sorry. I forgot about the lipstick. I don’t usually wear it.’ They’d lacquered me in orangey-pink. I looked like I was smiling through raw salmon fillets.

  The girl sighed, her jaw working overtime. ‘That’s all right. Nadia,’ she barked into the hallway. ‘We need you in here now!’

  The makeup artist smiled as she approached with her brushes. ‘No worries, pet, it’ll just take a second to fix.’

  ‘Walk while you work, please,’ said the intern. ‘We’ve got less than two minutes.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. I’ll fix it when she sits. Are you ready for national telly?’ she asked me.

  I nodded, feeling faint as I followed them into the studio, where Nadia repainted my lipstick, telling me again how unusually dark blue my eyes were. I heard that a lot from strangers who were stuck for compliments below the neckline.

  The hot lights blazed overhead as I tried to keep my armpits under cover. There was an odds-on chance that my tummy was about to reintroduce the doughnut to a live television audience.

  The women of On the Couch smiled warmly in greeting, and I relaxed a tiny bit. They weren’t there to make a fool of me, I told myself. It was a friendly chat, not Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight.

  ‘Ready?’ Lorraine asked as she waved the hovering intern away.

  Friendly chat or not, I was not ready.

  The presenters’ demeanours changed as the audience began to clap. Lorraine flashed her perfect Hollywood-by-way-of-Manchester smile straight into the camera. ‘We’re back with our next guest, and she’s one I’ve been dying to talk to. Please welcome the co-founder of the Curvy Girls Club, Katie Winterbottom!’ She waited for the applause to subside. ‘Katie, we are so excited to have you on the programme today. Your club is single-handedly striking a blow for all of us with expanding waistlines. With two-thirds of us now curvy, how does it feel to be the spokesperson for a nation?’

  Four pairs of eyes were on me. I tried not to think of the other one-point-four million watching from home.

  ‘It feels weird, actually,’ I said with a wavering voice. ‘I never expected this to happen. We started with just four of us at the back of a slimming class.’

  Lorraine nodded for me to continue the story.

  ‘It was my friend Pixie’s idea,’ I said, avoiding eye contact with the camera and, by extension, the rest of the UK. ‘We just wanted something to look forward to every week. Something other than the slimming meetings, because they can get a little disheartening after a while.’

  As I told the women how the Curvy Girls Club was born I started to relax. I always did when thinking about it. In fact it more than relaxed me. It sustained me.

  By the time I finished telling Lorraine about the fateful night we saw Thriller, the cameras and audience no longer seemed as intimidating. I was even starting to enjoy myself.

  ‘We wanted to do the same fun things that everyone else does. But we have to be realistic. Sometimes there are limitations for the waistband-challenged. It seemed like a good idea to keep those in mind as we made our plans. That way nobody feels self-conscious or embarrassed. We have gone to the theatre again, but we choose venues with roomier seats. We always make sure there’ll be no ugly surprises.’

  ‘So you vet the events to make sure they’re appropriate,’ said Lorraine.

&n
bsp; ‘That’s right. At first we just did it for ourselves and a few people who wanted to come along, but it’s really taken off in the last six months, so we’ve had to scale up as the demand has increased. We charge a small administrative fee to cover our overheads.’

  ‘You aren’t still working at your job, are you?’ asked Ruby, the grand dame of the Couch ladies. I was in the midst of chat-show royalty!

  ‘Oh yes, still working. I’m a sales rep for Nutritious. I work there three days a week.’

  ‘They must be thrilled to have you to represent them.’

  ‘Erm, yes, I guess they are.’ That was a lie, but I wasn’t about to gripe about them on national telly. ‘The other two days I work for the club as the events coordinator. We all work according to how much time we can devote to it. Pixie, Jane and Ellie are all on the board of directors with me.’

  ‘How wonderful to do something you’re so passionate about,’ Lorraine said. ‘And to be a role model for other curvy people out there. Thank you so much, Katie, for spending time with us on the couch today.’ When the clapping died down she turned to camera. ‘Stay with us after the break, when we’ll continue the discussion of this weighty issue.’

  The presenters relaxed again and I knew we were off-air. The intern swooped in to lead me from the set.

  ‘Thanks, Katie,’ said Lorraine. ‘That was great.’ She turned to the intern. ‘Please make sure Katie gets some lunch.’ She fixed her with a stern look. ‘And try eating something yourself. You look like a famine victim.’

  I chuckled at that. Even in the midst of my panic earlier in the Green Room, when I’d looked at the intern all I could think was that she needed a sandwich.

  By the time I got to the office I was a legend in my own imagination. Get me, on national TV! My phone had chirped steadily with congratulations texts. Honestly, it was easy to see how film stars got swollen egos. I was one chat show away from demanding green M&Ms and bathing in Evian. When the intern asked whether I wanted to be driven to work, I felt like a proper star.

  Of course I wasn’t a star. I was just the only one daft enough to agree to be on TV. Besides, stars didn’t get driven to work. Being stars was their work. I could be ridiculous sometimes.