The Fat And The Thin Of It

THE FAT AND

THE THIN OF IT

Julie Croft

Copyright 2013 Julie Croft

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Contents

THE FAT OF IT: JACKIE

THE THIN OF IT: JILL

Jackie

Jill

Jackie

Jill

Jackie

Jill

THE CRUX OF IT

For Mum

And

For Ms Chislet, who chisled ‘The Thinker’

from my blank slab of brain

The Fat Of It:

JACKIE

The phone rang while I was driving to Sainsbury’s and that always annoys me. I have Bluetooth in the car so I can talk without having to tuck the phone under my chin and risk a fine, but it still annoys me. Still, thought I ought to answer it, just in case it was something important. It could even be Bob, which would be nice.

I pressed the ‘answer’ button. Hello?

Hi, Jackie. It’s me

Well, that was a surprise. Jill never phones from work. Hi, love. What’s up?

Um, I was wondering what you were doing.

I sighed, feigning boredom. "Well, I’ve got a coffee appointment with George Clooney then I thought I’d drop by Dior and pick up a few outfits. I was thinking of going to Gordon Ramsey’s place for lunch, afterwards. You know; same old, same old."

There was pause instead of a giggle. What about you? I probed.

Jill sighed, feigning nothing. Well, I got to the office about eight-thirty, Harriet summoned me to her office at nine and told me I was fired, and I’ve just finished clearing out my desk. You know, she was trying to sound casual, but it wasn’t working. Same old, same old.

Well, that was a shock, and I was lost for words. Oh, love. What on earth happened?

Jill’s second sigh was a little shaky. Invite me for coffee instead of George, and I’ll tell you all about it.

Okay. I had nothing to do after Sainsbury’s, apart from housework, and an excuse to not do that was always welcome. Could you come by in about an hour? I should have finished shopping by then.

Jill agreed as I pulled into the parking lot, and I hung up quickly to concentrate on manoeuvring the car into a parking space. The tarmac was icy as it hadn’t been used over the weekend, and not many people had yet braved the cold to do shopping, and I could feel the wheels gliding over the surface like Torvel and Dean. I parked then jumped out the car and gingerly trotted towards the trolleys.

I revised my shopping list, searching for the most important items, then headed for the frozen section. In a way, I was glad I had to shop on the hop, as it didn’t give me much time to fall into temptation. I’d started dieting, again, three days ago and was feeling the cold turkey-type syndromes of carbohydrate deficiency; light-headedness and lethargy. Nonetheless, I was determined to lose three stone this year and most definitely not put it back on again. I was genuinely, really going to do it this time. I’d had a bowl of porridge before coming out – good, slow-burning GI stuff – to help curb the usual tendency to end up with a packet of something naughty in the trolley under the pretext it was for Mark. I knew Jill wouldn’t want to suffocate her sorrows in food, as she hardly ate much at the best of times. I marvelled at her ability to pick like a bird at her food, although sometimes she’d eat with what I called a healthy appetite, but the occasions were rare.

As Bob wouldn’t be home until next Sunday, the shop was pretty basic; meat, vegetables, a couple of pizzas for a quick tea for Mark, skimmed milk and low-fat yoghurt. Mark would whinge, but if he wanted what he called ‘proper food’ then he’d have to beg a place at the table of a friend’s kitchen.

After a gratefully quick check-out, I piled the bags into the boot, skated out of the parking lot and made it home before Jill. Before I’d even pulled into the driveway, I heard the chest-trembling thump of rap music.

Mark! I yelled as I opened the door. Nothing. I went to the bottom of the stairs and yelled again. "Ma-a-ark!"

The music faded slightly and a door was opened. Wassup?

Come down here and help me with the shopping, please.

Mark tutted loudly and ambled down the stairs. He unloaded the boot without a word, dropped the bags in the hallway and ambled back upstairs. The door was slammed and the music back up to full blast.

Thank you, son. I whispered and struggled with the four bags into the kitchen. The shopping was put a little haphazardly in the fridge, then I checked the time: five minutes to Jill’s arrival. I decided to get the kettle on as Jill was always punctual, and just as I’d brewed the tea, the doorbell chimed. I placed the two mugs on the kitchen table and went to open the door.

I gave her a silent hug and ushered her into the kitchen. She shrugged off a very nice, camel-coloured wool coat and dropped her very expensive-looking crocodile-skin bag on the floor and placed her mobile on the table. She looked a little red around the eyes, but in all, more relaxed and in control than I’d anticipated. Her mobile buzzed a quick fairy-like chime, but she took no notice. That was unusual as she’s always got that darn thing in her hand and continually checking messages, tweets and whatever what-not. But at that moment, she sat staring into the mug as I smiled my best encouraging smile, but it looked like I’d have to break the silence.

Come on. Get it off your chest, you fat cow.

She chuckled sadly. I’d called her ‘fat cow’ and she in turn called me ‘skinny bitch’ since we’d mutually admitted to an unhealthy preoccupation with our weight somewhere in our teens. I’d silently envied her figure since we became friends in secondary school, and apparently she’d silently admired and desired my face. Jill was far from plain, but she’d had a vicious bout of chicken pocks as a child and her face was a little scarred, but not as ‘terribly’ and ‘frighteningly’, as she put it. We’d joked that if we could transplant my head on her neck, we’d rule the world. Maybe even marry Donny Osmond, but as it would have been my head doing all the work, it would have been David Cassidy. Still, I’d never fully understood why on earth she had a problem with her weight.

That stupid bitch the Hairy-it told me that the agency was going through a crisis and that they had to dispose of unnecessary personnel. There was that fairy chime again.

Her tone was sarcastic, understandably. She’d worked at Catwalk for nearly ten years, and I wouldn’t have thought that Jill’s almost thirty years of working in the fashion business would deem her as ‘unnecessary personnel’.

She voiced what I suspected to be the only possible reason. In other words; the old, over-the-hill and behind the times personnel. Another chime, and she tutted but didn’t pick it up.

You’re not old, Jill. Not really, anyway, but I suppose fifty-two was old for a business that was overrun with anorexic schoolgirls and hysterical designers practically embalmed in Botox. "Besides, they were the ones who head-hunted you because of your cache of professionals. They’ll lose them now they’ve got rid of you. I said, trying to be encouraging. It’s their loss, not yours."

Jill winced. "I signed an agreement with Catwalk stating that, if I left, they kept hold of the cache."

But you haven’t left; they fired you. That’s a different kettle of fish, surely.

I needed something to eat if Jill didn’t. I got up from the table and rummaged in the pantry for some rice cakes. "Anyway, I’m sure that if you called those people and explained what had happened, they’d drop Catwalk like a hot potato."

Jackie, my ‘people’ are interested in work, not loyalty. she said. "And, as long as they’re getting the best work in London they don’t care who gives it to them. And, she emphasised. There’s no other agency worth working for, not now Catwalk has all the best designers and fashion houses so used to working with them, regardless if I was somewhere else or not." She sighed dejectedly. The fairy chime seemed to agree.

I went back to the table and offered her a rice cake, which she waved away like she would a big, fat, hairy spider. I munched hungrily, but the rice cake stuck to the roof of my mouth like powdery cardboard, so I took a long gulp of tea and tried to speak. Shtill, you could fish about and shee if any of your peepooh would follow you if they had the opshion, couldn’ choo? it was an effort not to spit out dry rice while talking, but I took another bite anyway and followed it with a chaser of tea to see if it would stop the sticking. It w’dn’t hurt t’ g’v’ it a chry. I hoped she understood the last sentence, as I sounded like I had a mouthful of big, fat, hairy spiders.

Anyway, she got up from the table and picked up her phone. I need to pee.

Just check the toilet seat before you sit down, I warned her back after forcing the rice cake down my throat. Mark is in da house and his aim sucks, dude.

She gave me a spiky-fingered rap salute round the toilet doorframe before closing the door.

I felt sorry for her, really I did. Jill had hardly spent a day without working since she left university, working until the contractions with Penny were five minutes apart then breast-feeding her cradled in one arm while she shouted instructions to her assistant down the phone held by the free hand. She was definitely a workaholic, and although I admired her energy, sometimes I felt she put her work before everything else, Terry and Penny included, and it certainly wasn’t a life I would have chosen. My situation was very different, anyway.

I’d worked as a hairdresser until I got married to Bob, and at his suggestion became a full-time housewife. He didn’t have to insist too hard, actually, as I’d never been that happy setting perms and washing out blue rinses. Bob worked with his brother in their estate agency and, although things fluctuated, they did quite well. We had a nice, four-bedroom house in Surrey, although it needed some modernisation now. I was content, he was content, and things only went a teeny bit pear-shape when he decided to branch out in southern Spain hardly a year after we’d married.

That was twenty-four years ago, and the business is so good over there that he’s still spending ten days there and a week here. It was tough at first, what with a new-born baby and all, and Mark was a shock conception six years later as Bob had only been home once that particular month. We’d practically decided to move out to Spain before Mark was conceived and I was devastated, but Bob simply laughed and said he’d claim damages from the condom factory. Still, he said that we’d have to put our plans on hold as he didn’t trust the hospitals over there and besides, he preferred the children to have a British education. As it stands, I got used to bringing the children up practically single-handed and now think that it adds a little spice to our marriage. When Bob comes home he can hardly keep his hands off me, and he brings me a present every time and takes me out for dinner at least once in the week he’s here. I sometimes wonder what he sees in me, being so fat, but he reassures me I’m his one in a million girl and to him I’m more delectable than Cindy Crawford. Silly man, but I love him to bits, and thanks to him I got to like myself better. I could see myself through his eyes instead of my own, because I usually tried not to look too close at what was going on from my neck down. In his arms, though, I felt adored for who I was on the inside, and if he was okay with what was on the outside, that was just dandy.

Once both kids are independent, we will move out to Marbella permanently. When that will actually happen is a mystery and a worry, unfortunately. Chloe moved out to Bath last summer to a really good job in marketing, but Mark simply can’t get his act together. He dropped out of school saying he needed a gap year to ‘sort his head out’. You take a gap year after your A Levels, Mark. Bob had said, but he let the boy leave school, anyway. He’s spent the last six months in practically total hibernation in his room, emerging like a sloth to slouch on the sofa and zap at the telly, leave piles of clothes strewn all over the place and eat me out of house and home. When he’s not slouching, strewing or chewing, he’s ‘hanging’ somewhere with his mates. Just as well I’ve known his mates since primary school, or I could worry more than I do. My main preoccupation these days is getting his head sorted, start him ‘hanging’ in a job and moving out ASAP before I lose my patience and we have a serious fall-out.

So far, I’ve tried going on strike and not doing his washing, but he went and borrowed his mates’ stuff and then left that all over the place. I tried hiding everything he left where it shouldn’t have been, but when Bob came home Mark claimed something he needed was broken or lost and his father instantly whipped out his wallet. I even had a stint of only preparing fish and steamed spinach when we were on our own, but even I couldn’t cope with that one. I did lose a stone that month, though.

Anyway, with patience and perhaps a little more parental cooperation from Bob, I live in hope Mark will turn out okay. There’s time before we decide to move out to Spain, and I’d have to find us a different place to live before anything else. The one-bedroom apartment Bob lives in now is very basic, and the poor man works so hard that he hasn’t had the chance to make it look like a home in all the eight years he’s been living in that particular place. It’s the main reason I don’t go there more often, but to be honest, I wouldn’t trust Mark in the house on his own for too long. It looks like a carnival’s paraded through the place every time I leave him for just a week.

The sound of the chain being pulled broke my train of thought, and Jill sauntered down the short passageway to the kitchen. You couldn’t help but watch her when she walked. She had a model-ish glide, hips slightly forward which made her look a little off-balance, and she was wearing a pencil-skirt I would have donated my liver to be able to wear.

There was a brown girl left in the ring, but the landing strip was dry. She smiled.

I rolled my eyes. Oh, for goodness’ sake. I’ll have to have a word with him about pulling the ruddy chain… again.

Jill stood in the doorway, one hand on her hip and staring at the phone which was in the other hand, her head was bowed as she considered things. Right… she whispered.

‘Right’ was good. She usually said that when she was fomenting a plan, gathering her thoughts. She’d obviously been working on something while she peed. I sat, smiling encouragingly, waiting for her to speak.

"I’ll call my people and say that I wanted them to hear from me that I’ve left Catwalk. I’ll say that I’m going to start working independently again, and if they’d be so kind as to pass on the word to others. She raised her head and gave me a little smile. I wouldn’t actually be asking them to collaborate with me, would I? It would be entirely up to them what they did, wouldn’t it?" the phone chimed again but she ignored it.

Exactly. I answered with a light slap on the table.

She stood biting her lip for a while, nodding in thought. Right…

She shrugged her jacket into place to button it, then she shrugged on her coat and picked up her handbag while she was still holding the phone – and I thought she was quite clever to be able to do that – she drained her mug and said,. Jackie, my love. You always give me such a boost. She bent and kissed me on the cheek. I’ll leave you now. You just might have time for lunch at Gordon Ramsey’s.

I accompanied Jill to the door and waited, shivering, to wave her off as she pulled out of the drive. I hadn’t noticed the bass thud of Mark’s music while Jill had been there, but now I did and it was very annoying. I marched to the bottom of the stairs and craned my neck up the stair-well. "Ma-a-ark!"

It took a while for him to heave himself to the door, but he eventually opened it and shouted back. "Wassup!"

Turn that infernal racket down, or I’ll be up there with a hammer to pound that ruddy sound system to smithereens!

Mark tutted and groaned. God, Mum! You’re like such a knob sometimes!

He slammed the door and the volume dipped a couple of decibels. Ingrate! I shouted back. And learn to pull the ruddy chain after you’ve taken a dump, son!

I marched back to the kitchen and put the tea mugs in the dishwasher, then took out the ironing board to begin tackling the pile of Mark’s tent-sized t-shirts. Whilst I ironed and folded, I was racking my brain as to how Bob’s gene pool, coupled with mine, could have produced two kids who were poles apart from each other, and what I could do with that ruddy boy.

The Thin Of It:

JILL

I honestly have no idea what came over me.

Of course, I was upset; extremely upset as it came completely out of the blue. As far as I was concerned, everything was going really well. I’d begun work on the February fashion season as soon as the Christmas holidays were over – before, in fact, making sure that the models’ schedules wouldn’t overlap with our regular fashion houses during the two weeks of shows and presentations. Therefore, when Harriet called me into her office, I automatically presumed that she wanted to talk about the order of the presentations. I even took my laptop into her office.

Good morning, Harriet. How was Aspen? I smiled. She’d taken a two-week break when we were supposed to be getting down to business, but that hadn’t bothered me. She usually left most of the arrangements in my hands, simply occupying herself with calling the clients and sending them the models’ photos and details by fax.

Useless. She replied. The snow was far too soft. She looked up at me with a stern face, as if I’d personally gone over to Aspen and fluffed the snow up with a rake.

Do you have any dates as yet? I decided to ignore her gruff manner and continue with business.

Harriet leaned back in her chair and her stern gaze didn’t waver. Jill, we have a problem.

Oh, I was sure I could help. How can I help?

We have to let you go.

That simple, that plain. However, I didn’t quite understand. Let me go where, Harriet?

Harriet sighed. Home, Jill. We’re having a few economic issues and we have to drop some staff.

Staff? she couldn’t have meant me. I wasn’t just ‘staff’.

Harriet was getting impatient. We’ll pay you the customary forty-five days per year of the time you’ve been with us, and the board has decided to boost that up to a pretty healthy six-figure sum.

What? I know it sounds strange, but I really didn’t understand what she was going on about.

Harriet sighed again. Look, Jill. You’ve been a wonderful asset to the agency during these past ten years, but what you do here can easily be done by me. We employed you in the beginning because, she gave a lazy laugh. I wanted a little more time on my hands. But, in these economic times, the board has told me that I shall have to get my hands a little more dirty than is customary. She spread her hands and shrugged a ‘what can I do?’ shrug.

There must have been a time-lapse, as Harriet looked at me for a while, then began typing at her computer. I had finally digested what she’d said to me, and although I understood that she was firing me, I didn’t comprehend her explanation.

"You can do easily what I do, Harriet? she took no notice, so I approached her desk. You can convene half a dozen venues, with their respective lighting, music, sets and seating arrangements? The pre-show finger-food and cocktails, the press, the fittings and schedules for the models; you can do all of that easily, without me?"

I have to admit that my voice had got a little shrill by the time I’d finished. Harriet, however, appeared not to hear me.

"And, may I remind you that I came here with my cache of professionals, which is the reason this agency head-hunted me in the first place…"

"And, may I remind you, Jill, that you signed a contract that ceded to this agency your cache of professionals; which means, Jill, that those professionals remain with this agency with or without you! Harriet’s voice was now booming and drowning out my shrill. She was a small lady, but her voice was large and loud and her demeanour intimidating. What you do, Jill, I can do perfectly well, she waved her hand dismissingly, as if she were talking about organising a fifth birthday party. And it will be done without having to pay your extortionate wage. She jabbed a very rude finger at me. That is where we’ve decided to make the cuts. She tossed her head and carried on tapping at the keys of her computer. Now, if you would be so kind as to clear out your office before lunch. Afterwards, you can go down to Thomas and he’ll sort out your severance pay."

And that was that.

I remember leaving Harriet’s office and going back to mine. Someone must have gone in there while I was with Harriet, because I saw a pile of flat-packed cardboard boxes on my desk.

Oh, my goodness! That was when the whole terrible truth hit me! I really had been fired!

I felt as if I was going to vomit. My head was light and my breathing shallow and I could feel cold sweat breaking out under my blouse, making it stick to my back. I have a memory of collapsing into my chair and resting my head on my forearms across my desk, and I believe I stayed there for quite some time until the sickness eased. When I raised my head and looked through the glass walls that separated me from the office floor, I could see the rest of the workers were very agitated. Most kept their gaze away from my office, but some couldn’t help a sadistic peek at me. They tried to carry on with their duties as per usual, but their attitude was acutely sombre. They surely had heard Harriet and me shouting at each other! Oh, the shame, the embarrassment! That I most definitely remember feeling!

I know I collected myself sufficiently together to pack my belongings, and I did so with a systematic precision. If not, I would have burst into tears with every photo I took down from the wall, every paper I filed