The Fat Woman's Joke by Fay Weldon Weldon Read Free Book Online Page B

accepted a biscuit. “You’ll have to go on a diet again, Esther,” she said, nibbling.
    â€œBut what’s the point? What’s the point?” Esther had stopped eating for the moment, and despair now rose up her gullet. “There is only one virtue these days, and that is to be young. Everything is forgiven to the young—even fatness, and that is saying something. And I am no longer young. Nothing will be forgiven me. All I can hope is not to be noticed any more.”
    â€œYou’re talking nonsense,” said Phyllis. “You’re just depressed. I know some very pretty and very elegant elderly ladies indeed. Most charming.”
    â€œHar, har, har,” said Esther. “And men laugh at them behind their backs, because they’re old, in just the same spirit as men will laugh at girls with no ankles, and girls with spots, and girls with bad breath, because for all their efforts they fail to please. There’s more dignity, if one is neither young nor beautiful, in simply giving up. Which is what, being middle-aged, I am finally allowed to do.”
    â€œI think the way you sit and stuff yourself is most undignified. I think you should have more pride in yourself. It’s your own opinion of yourself that counts, not other people’s.”
    â€œOh, Miss Smarmy,” said Esther. “I was telling you a story. If you don’t want to hear it, go away.”
    â€œOh, please go on. You haven’t told me anything yet, really.”
    â€œThere are many things I want you to understand first. One of the terrible things about marriage is the dread of change that goes with it, as perhaps even you are aware in your own relationship with Gerry. Any change, and you begin to worry. Either Alan wanted me to be thin because he was fancying his secretary, or he wanted me to be thin because he was ashamed of me the way I was. Either way, he wanted me to be different from what I was, and this to me seemed the most devastating insult.”
    â€œHe’d had secretaries before. Why were you worrying about this one?”
    â€œHer name was Susan. I’ve never liked girls called Susan. I don’t trust them. My mother’s name is Susan.”
    â€œWhat does your mother say about your not being at home? She adores Alan.”
    â€œI’ll come to that later. She’s been down here, you know, prying and spying.” Her voice, as always when Esther talked about her mother, became smaller and meaner, like her eyes.
    â€œYou’re awful about your mother. She’s such a wonderful person.”
    â€œOh, yes. Of course. Any woman who gets past sixty is wonderful. I look forward to it, I’m sure. I hope to be dead by then.”
    â€œAnd to suspect Alan of carrying on with his secretary because her name’s the same as your mother’s is just plain silly.”
    â€œWell, that’s the way it goes, doesn’t it? I didn’t ask you to come down here, making me talk. I’m beginning to feel very upset. I was quite peaceful before. Now I’m all stirred up. I feel sick. I’m getting indigestion.”
    â€œIt’s jealousy that gives me a pain,” said Phyllis, taking another biscuit. “First I get the pain, and from that I know I’m jealous. It’s down here.”
    â€œDown here! Down here! In your womb, you silly barren bitch.”
    â€œWhat a horrible thing to say! It’s not in my womb, anyway. I know where my womb is. It’s higher. I am not barren. Gerry and I simply can’t decide whether or not we want children. Or rather, Gerry can’t. And you’ve only got one child; why do you try to make out you’re so fertile?”
    â€œI don’t. I’m not. I am wounded, through and through. Marriage is such a falling away. It hurts. When you go to the pictures you remember a time you used to hold hands. You go to bed in your curlers and remember a time you used to sleep in