Fay Weldon - The Fat Woman’s Joke

FAY WELDON

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What Esther Sussman liked about Earls Court was that she didn’t know anyone who lived there. The legs which passed the bars of her basement window, day and night, belonged to nobody she had ever seen or would ever have to see again. Between four and six every morning the street would empty, and then the silence would disturb her, and she would wake, and get up, and make herself a cup of cocoa and eat a piece of chocolate cake, icing first. There is nothing, she would think, more delicious than the icing of bought chocolate cake, eaten in the silence and privacy of the night.

During the day she would read science fiction novels. In the evenings she watched television. And she ate, and ate, and drank, and ate.

She ate frozen chips and peas and hamburgers, and sliced bread with bought jam and fishpaste, and baked beans and instant puddings, and tinned porridge and tinned suet pudding, and cakes and biscuits from packets. She drank sweet coffee, sweet tea, sweet cocoa and sweet sherry.

This is the only proper holiday, she thought, that I have had for years; and then she thought, but this is not a holiday, this is my life until I die; and then she would eat a biscuit, or make a piece of toast, and melt some ready-sliced cheese on top of it, remembering that the act of cooking had once been almost as absorbing as the act of eating.

The flat was dark and damp, as was only right and fitting, and the furniture was nailed to the floor in case some passing tenant saw fit to sell or burn it. Esther, in fact, found it pleasant to have her whereabouts controlled by a dozen nails. The less freedom of choice she had the better. She had not felt so secure since she spent her days in a pram.

She lived in this manner for several weeks. From time to time she would put on an old black coat over her old black dress and go to Smith’s for more science fiction paperbacks, and to the supermarket for more food. When the cupboards were full of food she felt pleased. When her stocks ran low she became uneasy.

Phyllis was the last of Esther’s circle to seek her out. She came tripping prettily down the steps one afternoon; thirty-one and finely boned, beautifully dressed in a red tiny-flowered trouser suit with hat to match – neat, sexy and rich; invincibly lively and invincibly stupid.

She dusted off the seat of the armchair before she sat down. She took off her hat and laid it on the table. She stared sadly at Esther with her round silly eyes; Esther kept her own lowered, and sliced a round of hot buttered toast into fingers. When drops of butter fell on to her black dress she rubbed them in with her hand.

‘Oh Esther,’ said Phyllis, ‘why didn’t you tell me? If I had known you’d needed help, I would have been here at once. If you’d left your address –’

‘I don’t need help. What sort of help should I need?’

‘Going off like that without a word to anyone. I thought we were supposed to be friends? Now what are friends for if not for help at times like these?’

‘Times like what?’ Butter ran down Esther’s chin. She salvaged it with her tongue.

‘It took me weeks finding you, and you know how busy I am. I tried to make Alan tell me where you were but he just wouldn’t, and your lawyer didn’t know a thing, and your mother was fantastically evasive, and in the end I ran into Peter and he told me. Do you think that girlfriend of his is suitable? I mean, really suitable? She treats him like dirt. He’s too young to know how to cope. I wish you’d stop eating, Esther, you’ll be like a balloon.’

Esther surveyed her plump hands and wrists and laughed. It was a grimy flat, and the butter mingled with the dirt round her nails.

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like some toast, Phyllis? Toast is one of the triumphs of our civilisation. It must be made with very fresh bread, thickly cut; then toasted very quickly and buttered at once, so the butter is half-melted. Unsalted butter, of course; you sprinkle it with salt afterwards. Sea salt, preferably.’

Esther found to her surprise she was crying. She wiped her face with the back of her hand, smearing a streak of oily grime across her cheek, where the white fat lay thickly larded beneath the skin.

‘No thank you. No toast. And that lovely boy Peter. He needs you at this crisis of his life. If ever a boy needed his mother, it’s Peter at this moment. And what about poor Alan? It breaks my heart to see all this senseless misery. I don’t understand any of it. Your lovely marriage, all in ruins.’

‘Marriage is too strong an institution for me,’ said Esther. ‘It is altogether too heavy and powerful.’ And indeed at that moment she felt it to be a single steady crushing weight, on top of which bore down the entire human edifice of city and state, learning and religion, commerce and law; pomp, passion and reproduction besides. Beneath this mighty structure the little needles of feeling which flickered between Alan and her were dreadful in their implication. When she challenged her husband, she challenged her known universe.

‘What an odd thing to say. Marriage to me is a source of strength, not a weight upon me. I’m sure that’s how one ought to look at it. And you are going back to Alan, aren’t you? Please say you are.’

‘No. This is my home now. I like it. Nothing happens here. I know what to expect from one day to the next. I can control everything, and I can eat. I like eating. Were I attracted to men, or indeed attractive to them, I would perhaps find a similar pleasure in some form of sexual activity. But as it is, I just eat. When you eat, you get fat, and that’s all. There are no complications. But husbands, children – no, Phyllis, I am sorry. I am not strong enough for them.’

‘You are behaving so oddly. Have you seen a doctor? I know this divine man in Wimpole Street. He’s done marvels for me.’

‘I wish you would have something to eat, Phyllis. It makes me nervous, to see you just sitting there, not eating, staring, understanding only about a quarter of what I say.

‘I suppose you really do believe that your happiness is consequent upon your size? That an inch or two one way or the other would make you truly loved? Equating prettiness with sexuality, and sexuality with happiness? It is a very debased view of femininity you take, Phyllis. It would be excusable in a sixteen-year-old – if my nose were a different shape, if my bosom were larger, if my freckles were gone, then the whole world would be different. But in a woman of your age it is vulgar.’

‘I am sorry, but I see it differently. It is just common-sense to make the most of oneself. In any case, everything is different for you. You don’t seem to have to follow the rules, as the rest of us do. To be frank, you are an appalling sight at this very moment; you have let yourself go – but I have known you look quite ravishing. I think Gerry always rather fancied you. And I will say this for Gerry, he has good taste. Otherwise the humiliation would be unendurable. Yet it’s odd; they are always women of a totally different type from me. Why do you think that is?’

Esther rose from her chair, her flesh unfolding beneath the loose fabric of her dress. She crossed to the cupboard and presently selected a tin of condensed mushroom soup which she opened, poured into a saucepan, and heated on the stove. Phyllis talked to her friend’s broad back like a humming-bird chirping away at a rhinoceros.