W) Fear The Banquet No More!

It didn't take her long to realise that she'd been duped, this
skinny child who wore the stench of neglect like a dog in heat wears
the aroma of readiness. The one person in the world who she believed
she could entrust her fragile hope to had deceived her and now she was
lost. When she had 'agreed' to go into the care home-for it had been
spun to her in such a way that she was conned into thinking she had a
choice-she had been told by her social worker there were stables. Her
love of horses was the only thing she had in her life to trust in, it
didn't matter what hell the place might take her to as long as they had
horses that she could spend time with.

There were no stables.

In all fairness the Social worker had hit the end of the line with this
one. Foster home after foster home had given her back in days, weeks
and in the case of the last one hours. Jean Bradley had run out of
options and a care home was the kid's last chance.

The place was Hell; at least it was worse than any hell that the girl
could imagine. The other kids were rough and unfriendly spotting
instantly an already beaten victim to torture. Eight to a dorm she
settled to a routine of bullying, teasing, and spite.

Meal times were the worst. A boy and a girl from every year were seated
at each table. Ten to a table made up equally of boys and girls. She
was shy, uncomfortable, and unhappy, but she quickly became used to the
regime, to the routine of boarding life. She would go up and queue with
all the others, stand in line, say yes please or no thank-you to
whatever was offered. She always said Yes to the foods that she
disliked and no to the ones she loved. She had no idea why she did this
because she had no desire to eat, so loading her plate with good food
would not have tempted her. She would take her food back to the table
and push it around with a fork. It took time and observation to butter
a slice of bread or piece of toast and then she'd pretend to eat, all
the while watching the others, waiting for just the right second to
grab the toast and slide it under the table. Then there was another
wait as she took her aim; it had to be perfect. If she mis-cued the
toast it would hit one of the others on the leg and then she'd be for
it. The tables allowed only the minimal leg room needed for one person.
To fire the toast smoothly down the line of absent-mindedly swinging
legs and feet took skill but she got the hang of it. She would pretend
to chew while stuffing a sausage down her sock, or would casually
scratch at an itch on her neck while releasing a handful of mashed
vegetables down her school blouse. Invariably her plate would be empty
by the time she left the table.

Amazingly she got away with this for almost the entire seven days and
nights of the first week. At T-time on the sixth day she fainted as
they were filing quietly out of the dining room. Her tiny body slumped
softly to the ground and the group of goulish kids gathered in a tight
circle to watch.

Frost the housemaster, strode through the gawpers cutting them back
like reeds to a scythe. He knelt beside the girl simultaneously turning
her wasted body to the recovery position and loosening her pink and
white check blouse. His fingers came into contact with something
slightly warm and moist. The last of the stragglers in the dining room
were cleared and a female teacher called over. She undid the top few
buttons to reveal a fried egg, two scoops of mashed potato and a bent
chicken drumstick. Heads were shaken, tuts were tutted and eyes were
rolled.

The girl was taken to sickbay, she was weighed, doctors were called and
diagnosis dealt. Eating Disorder proclaimed the doctor as the sickbay
nurse looked on in stern disapproval. He didn't go so far as to say
Anorexia Nervosa, not yet, tests would have to be carried out of course
gastric examination, and stomach gasses assessed, laperoscopies and
endless stocking feeted steps onto various sets of weighing
scales.

The other kids at her table were questioned.

"No Sir. We never saw nothing Sir. Fort she was eatin` Sir didn't we?
That's what we fort."

The boy and girl from the fifth year were appointed as table heads to
keep an eye on her. 'make sure she was eating like' Eating like what
exactly was never determined just eating like. She was moved from her
place right at the bottom of the table to sit beside the fifth year
girl. That meant the girl from the fourth year lost her rightful place
at the table, she wasn't at all happy and vowed to 'get the skinny
bitch later'. One thing that is important above all else at residential
schools is hierarchy. It was unseemly for the fourth year girl to have
to sit in the third year girl's seat, but she wasn't alone in her
disgust because both the third and second year girls had to shuffle
down a seat too. It upset the natural order of things in the dining
room. It meant that the fourth year girl was sitting opposite the third
year boy. It just wasn't right. It wasn't the way things were
done.

From the next meal time life became intolerable for her. She had an
eating disorder, she knew that, but it had nothing to do with control.
It was merely because she was painfully shy and couldn't face the
thought of eating in front of all these people who were hostile
strangers to her. That's what she tried to convince herself
anyway.

She refused to eat. Suddenly the very anonymity she wanted to gain by
not having people looking at her as she ate crumbled away. Now she was
the focus of the entire school. Everyone in the dining room strained to
watch as the fifth year girl tried to coax her to eat 'just a little'.
She didn't want to eat just a little, had no intention of doing so and
cringed in shame as she picked up the serving bowl of porridge and
threw it over the fifth year girl's head.

They had a way of dealing with bad mannered children at the school.
They were sent for the rest of the half term to sit facing the wall at
the side of the room by the door. This was her punishment; she was
forced to wear a tabard with the picture of a pig on it. In the history
of the school very few people had ever had to sit at the pig's table.
As the children filed out of each meal they would snort and grunt as
they left the room. She was the last to be allowed to leave. Charts
were made and each mouthful of food measured and monitored. It was a
little easier for her to eat now that she was seated alone and facing
the wall. But still she ate little-nothing when she could get away with
it.

Somehow she survived five years in that place. Food was always an
issue. When she was separated from the other's and allowed to eat alone
facing the wall she ate a little, when she was seated with her peers
she fasted. Starved they called it, but she didn't like that word. It
was ugly. Fasted was a much nicer word, it made her feel like a martyr
to her cause. Misunderstood by the masses, but fighting her own little
war in her own little way.

She left school underweight and malnourished. She thought she would
fear the banquet no more. Out in the world on her own, she bought her
tiny amount of food and brought it to her bedsit room to eat in
private. She gradually put on a little weight, filled out. Her periods
started for the first time when she was just turned seventeen, and her
bust grew and swelled.

The scrawny weirdo blossomed into a good-looking girl. Her social
worker, no longer assigned to her case, but still taking an interest,
persuaded her to take a nursing course, and so she went for the first
time to nursing school. She kept up her own bedsit so that she wouldn't
have to share her quarters with other girls. She couldn't face the
thought of eating in front of anyone. Not ever, eating was like
toileting; it should be done in private. It was shameful, it was what
pigs do, eat together, delving into a communal trough. She thought of
the collage canteen like that and avoided it.

She made friends, sort of. Whenever it came to the point of doing
anything that involved putting so much as a crips in her mouth, she
cooled the friendship. She did gain some self-confidence, people liked
her. She discovered for the first time a surging keenness to learn.
Little food passed her lips, but she found that she couldn't feed her
brain enough. She saw in herself a sense of humour that she had no idea
she possessed. It amused her that people wanted to spend time talking
to her. And she was okay as long as she didn't have to eat.

She'd seen him lots of times, usually in the library when she studied.
She looked up and there he'd be with his soft brown eyes watching
her.

One day the library was busy and he asked her if he could share her
table. They blushed, and eventually talked quietly, finding that they
shared much in common. He had a love of horses and before the hour was
through he had persuaded her to join him that weekend in a hack across
the bay.

It wasn't the most conventional first date ever, but while looking
through the big bay horse's ears she fell in love. First love is always
heady and filled with awe and a passion that a young spirit can't
contain. She made her excuses when he offered her a 'bite to eat' after
their gallop on the sands. She made her excuses for several months
every time that food was mentioned. Or else she adopted some of her
old-time-sleight-of hand. It was harder now though and she had to hone
her food-hiding skills, until she was confident that her food hoarding
wouldn't be noticed.

They made love long into the night, and if he knew about the messy
lasagne hastily stuffed into her pockets while he went for more wine,
he never said. For months they skirted and danced daintily round the
food problem.

It was when he started to nag and chide her about eating that her
feelings for him changed. Surprisingly it wasn't a gradual thing. She
went from love to loathing by the time he had finished saying he was
worried about her. The next sentence brought about mind searing fury.
She was an adult wasn't she? How dare he question her about her eating
habits? Did he own her? She smiled sweetly and reassured him between
tender kisses that of course she was all right and that he was
imagining things.

The following night she went to great time and trouble to make him a
feast. She watched him eat, and even managed to force down a little
food herself, just enough to keep him quiet. After all eating in front
of him didn't matter any more after this meal. They ate tender veal, he
said it was delicious. He said he was happy and held her hand in the
candlelight. He said he loved her.

She never saw him after that.

She moved to a different town and met the musician. One night they ate
stroganoff on a patio by the light of the moon.

With the Man who fixed motorbikes she ate vegetable risotto under a
foreign sun. He was a vegan. She understood his right to choose what
food he ate. He was nice and she was sorry. But eventually they all
said that they were worried about her. If only they wouldn't
worry.

When she ate Spaghetti Bolognaise she was tired of running. His dark
eyes were warm and his breath held no waft garlic fumes on the day she
ate with him. Their lips met softly and they decided to leave the
dishes until the following morning. With this dark man flowing with
passionate Italian blood, she was sorry that they hadn't been able to
make love one last time. He was a good and fulfilling lover and she
would miss his attentions.

She smiled at the table and it's debris as she snuck out of her flat
with a small suitcase in the early hours of the following
morning.

She left the box of warfarin this time, it was almost empty. There
would be another town, another country, another chemist before she met
another man to love.