When my run is over, even though I actually enjoyed it for the first time, I feel light-headed, as if I am about to faint. I hobble back to my flat and collapse on my bed. I fall into a deep sleep and dream.
My dream is so sharp. So clear. I’m in my muddy blue tracksuit, my pain has disappeared and I am running effortlessly, wearing gold Lycra and shiny purple trainers, which cushion my feet. People turn their heads as I pass, wanting to admire my fitness. My surreal body is perfect for a sportswear advert. I dream that Nike have asked me to model for them next week. I am running to pick Tamsin up from school. She steps from the classroom door and her face lights up as soon as she sees me; blue eyes with a sapphire shine. She runs into my arms. I hold her against me, wanting to protect her for ever. Tamsin, my heart sings, Tamsin my love.
Then I wake up in my cold damp flat. I look down at my body, my heavy arms and thighs, my baggy clothing that needs washing. Tamsin is not my girl. The dream was so beautiful that when I realise it was only a dream I almost cry.
My iPhone beeps. Twelve o’clock. Mouse has invited me for lunch. Time to go for beans on toast. Am I allowed beans on toast? I suppose so. Just one slice. I drag my exhausted body out of bed, swallow to push back my tears, and pull my hoodie on to go upstairs.
As I climb the stairs feeling as if I am walking through mercury, I know I am going to crack this. I am going to get fit and look like you, Faye. Then I am going to take both of your children away, one at a time, and be a surrogate mum. A far better mother than you.
I am going to watch you from a distance whilst I finalise my plan to tempt you away from Phillip. You didn’t see me this morning, did you? I didn’t park outside the school. I hovered outside the Anytime Leisure Club. I know you go there every day. There are so many cars stuck in traffic along the road by the station, you didn’t notice mine. But I saw you, your creamy body striding along the pavement, pushing Georgia along in her buggy. Lycra clothing tracing the cleft between your buttocks.
I arrive at the small side room to the church hall where the slimming group hold their meetings and step inside. It feels as if the temperature barely changes, and like my flat, this room is musty and damp. A small three-barred electric heater is plugged in and burning brightly, but I take one look at it and sigh. It will be completely inadequate in this challenging environment. The room smells of stale air and wet sawdust.
An elfin woman steps forward to greet me. Bony. Pointy. Smiley.
‘Welcome,’ she says with a broad-stretched smile. ‘I’m Julia, the group leader.’
‘Erica Sullivan,’ I reply.
She ticks my name off a list she is holding.
‘Do sit down,’ she invites. ‘The others will be here soon.’
I sit on one of the small wooden chairs pushed close to the electric fire. The chairs look as if they have been removed from a 1950s primary school. While Julia hovers at the back of the room flicking through a thick red manual, I sit looking at the electric fire waiting for the others to arrive. They arrive one at a time and every time someone comes Julia abandons her manual and ticks the person’s name off the list.
They smile at me. Friendly smiles irradiate from pretty faces, figures distorted by body fat. Their eyes do not follow their smiles. I see in their eyes that, like me, they are desperate about their size.
‘Is this your first session?’ a short blonde woman asks.
‘Yes,’ I reply.
Julia’s footsteps echo across the parquet flooring, as she walks towards us carrying a set of digital scales.
‘This is a new class. It’s everyone’s first time.’ She puts the scales on the floor in front of us. ‘Who wants to be weighed first?’ she asks.
I put my hand up.
‘Come on then, Erica, step forwards.’
I stand up and feel eyes watching me. It makes me squirm with embarrassment. But I know I must improve the way I look. I know I must do this. I step towards the elfin woman. I hold my head high and stand on the scales. I know I cannot win a battle if I can’t even face it.
Julia announces my weight, eyes holding mine.
My insides feel as if they are collapsing, I am so embarrassed. I am far heavier than I thought. Three stone to lose. A long way to go. Julia’s eyes are shining into mine. Telling me that I can do it. Telling me to believe in myself. She smiles, a slow hesitant smile, and nods. I turn around and face the class. A woman at the front who looks to be a similar size to me begins to clap. Everyone joins in. I walk back to my chair surrounded by applause.
You can do this, Erica, I tell myself. You really can do this.
Lunchtime. I walk out of my office past the bank, turn right past the doctor’s surgery, then right again. The road curves into a cul-de-sac of 1930s semis. I slip down a cut-through passageway full of tree roots and cigarette butts, along a wider street lined with red brick Victoriana; to number 133 – the house at the end of the road. Beautifully kept. Garden manicured. I walk, the soles of my shoes resonating on slate, up the tiled pathway and ring the doorbell.
Anna must have been waiting for me because the door opens immediately. As I step into the red-carpeted hallway, she gives me a tired smile.
‘Sally is ready. You can go straight upstairs.’
Sally invites me into her bedroom with an artificial smile, and a thick Brummie drawl. She is wearing a silk dressing gown that is too busy; duck egg blue with birds flying across it. Too many beaks and feathers.
‘Welcome,’ she says taking my coat and hanging it up behind the door.
‘Did Anna tell you I want you to wear a wig?’ I ask, looking into her pale green eyes.
‘Yes.’
I rummage in my briefcase and pull it out, black tresses freshly washed and styled.
‘If you sit at the dressing table I’ll help you put it on.’
She walks towards the dressing table, continuing to smile. I step behind her. She sits down and shakes her shoulders a little to relax them. I lift the wig carefully in my fingers, holding its crown wide open and gently, gently, starting at her forehead, coax it onto her head.
‘What do you think?’ she asks, standing up and shaking her head so that the bottom of the wig vibrates lifelessly against her shoulders.
‘Not bad. But your eyes are the wrong colour. They need to be violet.’
‘Next time I’ll wear coloured contacts,’ she says as she walks towards me, and starts to undress me. When I am naked she pushes me onto her bed, onto her floral counterpane that has seen better days,