Cravings (Two)

Rice and Peas                                                                                                                              

          I can’t believe that I’m going to do this here, I think, clutching onto the cool sides of the sink. I try to talk myself out of doing it – You’re working in Ibiza, having a great time, so what if you’ve put on weight? But I can’t shake the gnawing feeling inside of me; I’m fat. I’m a waste of space. Just wait till people really get to know me. I think of the yellow family sized bag of paprika crisps which was nestled on my tummy, on my lounger, outside of Café Del Mar earlier today. As Morcheeba gently filled the air-

     It’s all part of the process…we all love looking down…all we want is some success…but the chance is never around…

- frothy waves crashed on some nearby rocks and I had my arm in deep almost up to my elbow greedily grabbing and licking the last scraggily bits of crisps off my fingers. I think of the melting chocolate bar I then ate on the way back to the hostel. Then the rice and pea dinner my friend Becky had left out for me, I’d wolfed that down with a plastic fork. I don’t remember tasting any of it. Tears line my eyes as I lean over the sink, Morcheeba still singing in my head,

             …Left my soul thereown by the sea…         

I stick my fingers roughly down my throat.

         I dry my mouth on a grubby towel. I’m ok now, I’m ok now, I think. Standing at the wide sink which is in our bedroom I look up into the mirror, I hardly recognising the girl looking back at me. I’m plumper and a deep mahogany tan makes my freckles look all joined up across my nose. My long hair has become lighter, tangled; a bit unkempt. I pull at my short stretchy maroon skirt, and notice the slightly red sunburn marks lining my white bikini top. There is a little pull light above the mirror. I clunk it on, as the sun is starting to fade, casting shadows around the room. The greying muslin curtains start to billow out in the breeze as I hear scooters whine past sounding like erratic wasps. I feel my feet cool on the marble floor.

         A little later, the door swings open and Becky bustles in grinning with her big toothy smile. I flop down onto my tummy on my bed, facing her with my chin in my hands, swinging my legs happily, as we chat and giggle. A flickering of guilt tickles me in stomach. She ties her hair up into a top knot and starts to clean her face at the mirror. Why am I hiding this from her?                                                                                                       

She suddenly swivels round, ‘I made you that Ellen,’ she shrieks.        

What? I  p a n i c  eyes wide. She jabs to the sink. I get up to look, my legs wobbling.  

I’ll not be doing that again, what a bloomin waste!’ she rages grabbing the plastic fork to unblock the drain from peas and rice.

I hang my head; I thought I’d washed it all away. I promise myself not to do that again here.

The Highlander’s

           Today’s the day the teddy bears have their pic-nic.

         ‘The money is on the worktop,’ Mum says in her quavery voice that has grown to annoy me.

 The music seems to have woken her up from her zombie state. She shuffles her bottom in the black sagging sofa, re-adjusting her hot water bottle which is wrapped in a towel, onto her tummy. Then she drops her slippered feet back into their lifeless, feeble position.

           ‘Fine,’ I sigh, getting up from the sofa and grabbing the coins off the worktop, and stack them chink, chink, chink, in my hand.

           ‘Get yourself something,’ I hear her shout faintly as I go out the back door.

     I stomp down the back stairs in my fluffy white slippers to the van. The ice-cream man has his back to me when I go out, pulling three bags of Highlander sea crisps out of the oval hole in the box. He slides open his little window and I clunk, clunk, clunk, the money into a little tower on his counter. I don’t meet his eye. He knows.

          Back inside I try to watch Men Behaving Badly over the crunching noises coming from mum and her crisps. I’ve worked out what they mean;

         ‘Kerrrrunch’ - the noise she makes when she bites off dad’s head (or maybe his new girlfriend head)                                                                                                                                 

         ‘Uuuuunchh’ - the noise she makes when she is sad.

         ‘Runch, runch, runch’ - the noise she makes to show that she here.

        Mum’s friend once bought her a box of Highlander crisps; she probably thought she was doing her a favour. Like when she said to my sister and I; you’ll have to look out for your Mum now. She didn’t know what it was like for us since dad left. We had to call the doctor out a few weeks ago because the smell of searing rubber meant that Mum was burning herself again with hot water bottles. The doctor was a little small wiry man with round glasses, rolled up shirt sleeves and a briefcase which looked too big for him. He had got mum to take off her worn dressing gown, and lift up her slept- in top. Deep red welts and sores scored her mid-drift. Mum looked a bit embarrassed and we didn’t know where to look.

           ‘If you carry on like this Kathleen, he said to her, ‘I’ll need to get you sectioned.’             

 Aperitivo                            

         She sits poking her pipe with a little stick whilst asking me the usual questions; did Alessia eat an egg at lunch, a beefsteak? No? Ah she must eat an egg and a beefsteak every day and spinacci of course. A puff of smoke swirls past me and I close my eyes breathing in the familiar sweet smell; it’s like vanilla. I open my eyes and look at Arianna; I’m slightly in awe of her as she sits seductively blowing smoke out from her pipe, her lean legs crossed over, on top of the balcony railings.

        I remember when she took me for an aperitivo to the local bar. We had stood sipping the strong red liqueur out of little cocktail glasses. It tasted a bit like nail polish remover to me, but I smiled at her over the rim of my glass and sipped gratefully. She smiled back at me, her green eyes rimmed with navy kohl.  

     She has gone out now to a tennis lesson with Gian Maria. She says it’s important for them to have a night alone, without the kids every Thursday. So I’ve put the children, Alessia and Claudio to bed after telling them their favourite story; Crocodillo. I snapped my arms together making them think the crocodile was going to eat them, and they shrieked and laughed. Alessia shouted angora, angora! (again, again!) Now they are asleep, I go through to the kitchen. I need something. I open one of the long sleek cupboard doors. Rummaging around, I find some salty rosemary crackers which I eat from the box, crunching faster and faster. I stop realising my face is wet. I don’t understand.  Why am I sad? Why am I doing this? I can’t blame mum now. I spoke with her on the phone last night and she sounds better, stronger. She said that she is proud of me coming to work in Milan as an Au Pair; I would never have done that when I was 20.                                                                                                                                      

      Closing the bathroom door, I see the pine covered walls, set at a diagonal angle. I feel Lonely. Alone. But I’ve nothing to go back home for. I pick up a navy ribbed hand towel and wipe my face dry then walk to the toilet at the end of the long narrow bathroom. Breathing in a damp woody smell, I lift the lid; I can’t help myself from doing it. I stick my fingers down my throat tasting grainy salt. Just then, for some reason Alessia pops into my head. 

         ‘Lei sempre in la banio,’ I’d heard her say the other day in a little sing song voice.

 Arianna had hushed her as they walked past the bathroom, giggling like it was a little joke between them. I’m always in the bathroom, she’d said.

Slowly I pull my fingers back out my mouth and lean my hand on the cool cistern. I exhale. Not anymore, I think, as I clunk the toilet lid down. Pushing the stainless steel lever, I hear the empty toilet fill and swoosh with water. It’s then I realise; if I stop doing this, I’ll need something else to fill that swirling gap deep inside of me.