My 75-year-old dad raised himself from his sickbed in Surbiton last week to tell me Nick had better hurry up and marry me, because if Nick didn’t, then he might have to. Not necessarily the sort of thing one wants to hear from one’s own father. But therein, perhaps, lies the key to why I have to be dragged kicking and screaming into middle age, why I’m the bakku-shan (as a lady who looks 16 from behind and 61 from the front is called in Japan) that I am. In other words, it doesn’t matter if you’re so old your thingie’s webbed over, if you’re a daddy’s girl, you will always think of yourself in pretty much the same way as you did when your mittens were sewn into your coat on a piece of elastic.
Oh gosh. There are so many things I know I’m never ever going to let go of until the day I die. Like thinking I’m fat. Like the silly, childish belief that dieting works, that there is no worse feeling in the world than having one’s thighs chafe, that moderation sucks. Words cannot describe what a relief it is, after all that horrid eating one does over the holiday period, to be back on the Müller Light lifestyle, surrounded by raw carrots.
If right now is anything to go by, I bet I’ll be a vicarious eater until the day I die, too. My friend Emily calls it being a feeder, but it all boils down to the same thing: gaining pleasure through the force-feeding of others.
So that’s what I do: shovel sweeties down the kids’ throats when the nanny’s not looking, sneak whole packs of butter and cartons of double cream into Nick’s mashed potato, accidentally-on-purpose pour three times more than I’m supposed to into the dog’s bowl. Well, it’s not exactly as though I have to nail any of their feet to the floor. And besides, the fatter the people around you are, the thinner you look, right?
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If my family are tolerant of this dirty secret of mine, my friends are less so. As Emily says, if I think people actually believe me when I say I couldn’t possibly have anything other than salad with no dressing because I’ve just polished off both children’s teas, if I think nobody notices when I order a big fat pudding and don’t touch any of it, then I’m severely mistaken. There is no woman over the age of 12 who does not know this pathetically transparent trick. Oh, the fantasy world I live in. When exactly will I allow reality to penetrate?
Never, if I stick to my current trajectory. When I’m the same age my dad is now, I’ll be in an old people’s home (unmarried, because I always fancied myself as too interesting for marriage, and deserted by my children for making them clinically obese), dribbling uncontrollably, unable to go to the lavatory unassisted. My only pleasure will be the micro-mini I think my legs can still take and having the nurses eat Cadbury Roses in front of me. That’s 30 short years away. Better make hay while it lasts.