‘Ed? Honey? Valentine’s Day tomorrow. Did you get me chocolate to show you love me?’
‘Yeah,’ Ed said warily. ‘You said it was okay.’
Poor Ed. He had no understanding of the civil war that raged inside her. Again and again she issued blanket bans on any sugar in the house. Sometimes she’d make Ed round everything up and throw it all out – it was too painful to do it herself. But maybe a day or a week later, she’d be pleading with him to give her whatever he’d saved because he’d learnt by now always to save something.
One time, when Ed was out, she’d gone into Vinnie’s room and raided his stash. Her behaviour had horrified her: she was behaving like a drug addict, powerless to stop.
But she’d green-lit a Valentine’s Day blow-out. Ed had been instructed to buy a big box of fancy chocolates, which she intended to devour without guilt. The plan had been to get right back up on the starvation horse on 15 February, but she’d found she couldn’t.
The last eight weeks had been a series of lost battles. Every day had started full of resolve, but at some stage she’d have a narky customer or a moment of happiness that deserved to be celebrated and she’d eat something nice. Then she’d write the day off as a failure, deciding she might as well go wild and start again tomorrow.
But she had to be thin for the Easter weekend with Ed’s family – there would be swimming, fancy dinners, lots of socializing. However, control eluded her and it was only five days ago that she’d finally managed a single sugar-free twenty-four hours.
It was too late. All the weight she’d lost in those quiet, cold January days she’d put back on. She was now almost a stone heavier than she’d been on that February night. She was horribly ashamed of herself. She’d have given her left leg to get out of this weekend – an illness, a migraine, anything would do.
There had even been a brief, insane moment when she wondered how a person broke their own ankle – it lasted an instant, barely a flash – but the flood of relief at the thought of hiding at home while everyone else went to Kerry was glorious.
‘Time to go downstairs,’ Ed said.
‘I just need to …’ She jiggled a mascara wand on her lashes.
‘Honey, no need for any of that grooming.’ Ed was in high spirits. ‘This weekend is family. Relaxed.’
‘I need to distract attention from my size.’
‘Don’t say that. You’re beautiful.’
‘You need your eyes examined.’
‘And you need your head examined. Seeing as you’re getting gussied up, should I make an effort?’
She laughed. Ed always looked messy, from his tangled curls to his five-year-old trainers. ‘You’ve found your look, you’re working it, you’re grand.’
Out in the corridor, she said, ‘We’ll take the stairs.’ It would make no difference to her size, she knew that, but surely every little helps.
‘No!’ Vinnie and Tom clamoured. ‘We want to go in the lift.’
‘Mum,’ Tom was suddenly anxious, ‘what if they put tomato on my burger?’
‘We’ll tell them not to, honeybun. We’ll tell them two times.’
‘Three times?’
‘Three times.’ And now fresh shame was in the mix. She worried about the lads being infected by her torment around food. Tom was finicky and small for his age, while Vinnie was far too fond of his grub and starting to look it.
In the restaurant, lots of Caseys were already milling around the long table. Cara found herself doing the Scan, where she automatically checked out the weight of every woman there. She wished she didn’t.
Jessie looked the same as always. The thing about Jessie was, she was tall, and weight was always easier for tall people. Even so, you could tell she never gave her size a moment’s notice.
And there was Saoirse. Seventeen years of age, the lucky girl had the same body-type as her mum: healthy and sporty but a long way from being skin and bone.
Paige, Liam’s ex-wife, now she’d been skin and bone. Not scrawny, nothing as tacky as that, but fine-boned and elegantly narrow. The first time Cara had seen her tiny ribcage, prominent clavicles and pretty little face, she’d felt queasy with jealousy. But that had passed quickly. Despite her Very Important Job, repositioning the Irish arm of ParcelFast, Paige was touchingly open about her social anxiety. ‘I’m no good at this,’ she’d once confessed to Cara, at a party Jessie had forced them both to attend.
‘But you’re the woman who is “aggressively going after the DHL/Fedex market-share”,’ Cara had quoted at her. ‘“A force to be reckoned with”.’
‘I’m just a nerd. I do okay in work situations. But when I have to be me? Not so much.’
It had long been a mystery to Cara how Paige and Liam had lasted any time at all as a couple. Okay, they were both extremely good-looking, but Liam had lived an unconventional life and Paige was entirely by-the-book.
When they’d finally divorced, two years ago, Jessie had tried to keep Paige in the Casey orbit.
But Paige was so keen to consign Liam to her past that she’d found a new job in her native Atlanta shortly after, taking their two daughters with her. Jessie had been up in arms but forced to stand down when she discovered that Liam had agreed to this arrangement, in exchange for a rent-free apartment in Dublin.
Cara missed Paige – they all did, but Cara’s sadness had been laced with a hefty dose of anxiety about what kind of woman Liam would produce next. What with Liam being so sexy, his new girl was bound to be a prestige version and prestige always meant thin. But Nell had surprised everyone. She was fresh and fun, and in no way glamorous. Nor was she a wisp: her hips and chest were curvy and she was almost as tall as Liam. Mind you, she also had a flat stomach, toned biceps and not a hint of cellulite …
‘Jesus, Cara, your hair!’ Jessie said. ‘It’s so sexy! You look great. And don’t say that your dress hides a multitude. Just for once?’
‘Ha-ha-ha. But this dress does hide a multitude.’
Saoirse had been listening to this exchange. Earnestly she said, ‘I think you’re beautiful.’
Cara tended to be intimidated by teenage girls – so shiny and Insta-ready. But Saoirse was sweet, with an innocence that made Cara suspect she was probably sniggered about by the more sophisticated girls in her class.
‘Cara, you have dimples!’ Saoirse declared. ‘Who doesn’t want dimples?’
‘I’d prefer hip bones.’ They shared a laugh.
‘Wait till the menopause kicks in for me,’ Jessie said. ‘I’ll be ginormous.’
Cara rolled her eyes. ‘The menopause will be far too scared of you. You’ll sail through it.’ She sat and immediately Tom attached himself to her.
‘Tom!’ Jessie said. ‘Hello, honey. You look so grown-up in your new glasses. What’s that you’re reading?’
‘Harry Potter.’
‘But you’re only eight! You’re so clever.’
‘I’m bookish,’ Tom said. ‘That’s just another word for “bad at hurling”, but it’s okay.’
‘You’re adorable,’ Jessie said.