Thin by Grace Bowman Read Free Book Online

Things were shivery inside and I felt a bit hollow but I didn’t feel scared, not like the fear that I felt on Thursday night when people from the office took me to the pub. I ordered a jacket potato withtuna and probably butter and mayonnaise. I ate it all too, because with strange people it is harder to get away with it. Strangers make inappropriate comments and I want to make sure that they like me, so I go along with what they are doing. Also, I was starving and my tummy was hurting so I think I had to eat it. Other people in the pub had chips and greasy fried food. Then we were drinking, and at least I lost myself a bit there and felt a little bit less icy. The boy that I fancied said he fancied me back. He walked me to the bus stop and kissed me. It felt so strange, like I was floating off the ground, but not in a romantic way, more in a suspended, hovering, bodiless one. It’s like the back of my eyes have melted into my head and I feel a bit more distant. That is the way it is now. No bread roll, just soupy liquid and a glass of water. I’m afraid I just can’t eat much else.
    [The light is taken away from the pub table and towards a woman talking to a girl. The woman is Grace’s mum. The girl is Grace’s best friend. Grace joins them.]
    MUM : So, did you have a good day?
    GRACE (OUTSIDE VOICE ): Yep. Great. Fine. We just stayed in, watched videos and went into town.
    MUM [
turning to Best Friend
]: And have you eaten dinner? Did Grace eat some dinner at your house?
    GRACE (INSIDE VOICE ):
Don’t ask her that. I’m not a little girl.
    BEST FRIEND : Yes, we did … she did actually. Don’t worry.
We had tea at my house. I’m keeping an eye on her!
    GRACE (INSIDE VOICE ):
Don’t talk about me. It’s so demeaning, having your little secret chats in the kitchen, conspiring behind my back.
    BEST FRIEND : Well, I have to go, but I’ll see you tomorrow.
Are you OK?
    GRACE (OUTSIDE VOICE ): I’m fine. I wish you wouldn’t talkabout things like that. I’m OK, you know. Bye-bye. See you tomorrow.
    GRACE (INSIDE VOICE ):
Better alone. Be quiet. Don’t give anything away. I am not a little girl any more!
    [Curtain closes.]

Four
    It is a hot, slow September Saturday. Grace’s head is fuzzy and empty through hunger. She has only eaten an apple today. Mum is eating lunch with her friend in the cathedral café. Grace joins them. She stares at the food and orders a large Diet Coke. She eats some green salad too. Normal enough. There is numbness in the room. Everything is at a distance removed from her body. There are conversations flying off the walls and there is noisy cutlery and an intense smell of coffee. She feels her body pulse and her head throb. She walks to the car with Mum and they start driving. They are going to buy some things for university – a suitcase, some pots and pans and plates. Grace has picked out self-catering accommodation so that she doesn’t have to eat the university food. The thought of being fed, like school dinners, is too terrifying.
    Grace tells Mum that she is feeling tired. Mum implies that maybe it is because she isn’t eating enough and suggests that she makes her some food when they get home – some chicken and some potatoes. Grace chokes. There is a silence and a stiffening of her throat. The words get trapped. The throat won’t open to breathe or speak for fear that it might ingest something impossible. Food is now an impossibility.
    There are two words. Two small words, which open up a crevice of pain in the car.
    ‘I can’t.’
    Perhaps if the second word had been different, the blackness/whiteness of the controlling and the not-eating would have stayed, and the game would have carried on.Perhaps if she had said, ‘I don’t’, ‘I refuse’, ‘I won’t’, then it might have sounded like there was someone in there fighting, someone with confidence and energy, someone on a determined drive, at least someone recognizable. But now there was an admission. An