| Crisps
and cottage cheese
by Val Wilson
‘I’m sure I must be pregnant,’ Samantha said.
Micky, looking up from her book noticed Sam’s forlorn expression,
and that certain air of confusion she wore so well. Not again, she
thought, not another crisis, Samantha had more big issues than a
Big Issue seller.
‘Come and sit down Sam and tell me all about it.’ she
said.’You know how often you worry about nothing’ Samantha
gave her a hurt look as Micky tried to justify herself. ‘Well
there was the time you thought you had some blood disorder and it
was only beetroot stained fingers… and there was the time
you thought someone was breaking in when really it was the cat in
the airing cupboard, going demented because you‘d locked her
in… and’
‘Alright, alright, but all my clothes feel tight and tape
measures never lie do they? I’m sure I must be pregnant. What
am I going to do?’
‘Well based on those two facts, tight clothes and a dishonest
tape, your diagnosis may not be totally conclusive.’
‘Pardon,’ Samantha said.
Micky looked around the room for inspiration, she and Samantha had
been flat mates for such a short time, this role of mother confessor,
counsellor and crisis manager had been thrust upon her. Help, her
brain shrieked. If I give the wrong advice I may be responsible
for bringing a child into the world, whose mother’s life has
more twists than Nemesis at Alton Towers. Alternatively the other
options were not great: adoption, abortion, marriage.
‘Or I may just be fat,’ Sam conceded. Micky longed for
the familiarity of her book, a straightforward murder mystery. ‘You’re
right though, before I do anything I need to be sure. I need to
do a pregnancy test,’ Sam said, somehow looking decisive as
she transformed from a huddled wreck to a well postured, composed
being. Micky almost exploded,
‘You mean you haven’t? I thought it was a definite,
I was nearly rushing out to buy wool for booties. So what exactly
is it that makes you think you are pregnant?’
‘I told you, my jeans are tight and my waist is at least two
inches more than it was.’
‘That could be anything,’ Micky said, though relieved
that at least there might be a possibility that she was not shortly
to have the flat invaded by a shrieking, bawling babe whose noise
would stop her ever finishing her book. ‘It could be too hot
a laundry wash or eating too much newly baked bread. When did this
all happen?’
‘When did I measure,’ Samantha asked?
‘No. When was your waist smaller than Kate Moss? When did
you last know your waist measurement?’ Micky just had to get
to the bottom of this paranoia.
Samantha thought about it, staring off into space. Micky even thought
there could be time for her to read another chapter of her book,
find out if the ex-ex-lover was in on it.
‘When I was 18 I guess. Mummy bought me this wonderful long
skirt for my party, red satin and tight fitting and a corseted top
to match, and I was so thin then,’ Samantha replied fighting
back tears. ‘I can’t get into that either.’ She
looked paler and more forlorn at that news than she had at the possibility
of being pregnant.
‘So, you’ve put on weight. In four years you’ve
put on a few inches, it happens, it’s not the end of the world.
It does not mean you’re pregnant. If all the fat women out
there were really pregnant then, well, we’d need more midwives
than even Patricia Hewitt could promise.’ Micky could hear
herself loosing it. Samantha looked confused.
‘Yes, but I’ve measured since we lived here, two inches
in a few months is not acceptable. If I keep on like this then by
the time I’m 26 I won’t have a thing to wear and I won’t
be able to get through the front door.’ That was beginning
to sound appealing to Micky, as long as they were on opposite sides
of that front door, but hey, she was the clever one she really had
to convince Samantha that she was neither fat nor pregnant.
‘Maybe we should go out, find a chemist, buy a kit, watch
the blue line or the pink line or whatever it is you do,’
Micky said, ‘that way we would know what we were dealing with.’
Where had the ‘we’ pronoun come from, Micky wondered
?
‘Would you do that for me? I don’t understand those
things, but even if I’m not pregnant I’m still fat.’
Samantha said with a huge sigh.
How could she compare the two Micky thought, it was true one often
led to the other but fat didn’t have to be forever whereas
up the duff was a life sentence.
‘Well maybe, if you aren’t pregnant, and I’m not
knitting booties of an evening, we could do keep fit together, loose
those inches.’ Micky was trying to be upbeat, positive and
supportive.
‘Well it wouldn’t hurt you to fight the flab,’
Samantha responded. Micky bit her lip, fighting back a verbal volley
was the only battle she intended. ‘Aerobics or jogging, get
you out of that chair, always reading and what’s this?’
Sam lifted an empty crisp packet. ‘They’ll have to go
if we’re losing weight. I’ll get my coat.’
Micky watched in amazement, first she was stopped from reading her
book, then she was suddenly banned from eating crisps and now she
was going to be forced to get fit, what a cheek. All because she
wanted to be a friend to her new flat mate.
Samantha was transformed once outside on the high street as she
strode purposefully toward the chemist. Micky following up the rear
was aware that really Samantha didn’t have much rear. She
was slim and slight, her jeans appeared to fit like Vaseline, if
she was pregnant it had happened very recently and the words ‘food
cravings’ as yet were not in Sam’s vocabulary.
‘You are definitely not fat Sam,’ Micky said as she
caught her up.’
‘You said fat, I said pregnant. We’ll buy a kit thingy
and bathroom scales and maybe some milk-shake slimmers’ meals.’
Sam said
‘Not a good idea if you’re pregnant,’ Micky replied
and wished she hadn’t.
‘You said I wasn’t.’
‘I said you weren’t fat.’
‘I’ll prove it to you, when we get back you can measure
me and weigh me and you’ll see.’
‘You can’t compare with when you were eighteen Samantha.’
‘I’m not, this is in the last few months, since you
moved in.’
Great Micky thought, now it’s my fault.
‘Let’s just track our weight and measurements for the
future, make sure things don’t get out of hand,’ Micky
said trying to calm the situation.
‘That’s a stupid idea.’ Sam snapped, juggling
purchases in her wire basket. She was definitely a new woman when
in shopping mode. ‘I need action now. If I’m pregnant
it would explain everything, women get fat when they’re pregnant
don’t they?’
‘Well I don’t think it’s compulsory, and anyway
that’s like in the last few months, not the minute of conception.’
Micky said.
Back at the flat Micky’s arm chair looked so inviting and
her book tantalising but she had to help unwrap the shopping. Why
couldn’t Samantha get fat quietly and leave her to read in
peace, to finish her who-done-it? The only current option was to
console Samantha over gained inches, record in a book their current
weights and be supportive if Samantha’s little stick turned
sky blue pink. She would then either knit booties or consume cottage
cheese, whatever was required of her for a quiet life.
‘Here I bought you one too,’ Samantha proffered a plastic
wand and for a second Micky was touched at her generosity.
‘How ridiculous, I don’t need a pregnancy test,’
Micky responded. Samantha glared at her and she remembered the quiet
life.
‘Go on, be a laugh. Now the tape measure.’
Micky was slowly winding up the tape having circled Sam’s
non-existent waist. ‘I know I like a mystery story but I don’t
understand how you really are two inches more than you were, when
weirdly, the scales say you haven’t put on weight,”
she said.
‘Told you, I’m fat or pregnant,’ Samantha said.
‘You are not fat, you are not overweight,’ Micky replied
in frustration.
‘Well you are. The scales and your measurements are up,’
Samantha said with a huge grin. ‘Considerably.’
‘That’s a different mystery,’ Micky conceded.
‘Not really, too much sitting, reading and crisp eating,’
Sam said.
They were sat on the sofa in their dressing gowns, waiting the required
minutes to unveil the pregnancy detectors. Micky continued to twirl
the tape measure through her hand considering the unlikely event
that Sam had put on two inches in just a few months.
Then suddenly she saw it and suddenly she remembered.
‘Sam its okay, its fine, you really haven’t put on inches,
you really aren’t fat. Do you remember when we moved in and
the curtains were too long and I sat on the floor to cut the bottom
off and it was so awkward that,’ she held up the end of the
tape triumphantly, ‘I cut two inches off the tape instead
of off the curtain.’ Micky was thrilled she had solved it,
they cuddled up in laughter and relief. Sam beamed her delight and
held aloft her stick,
‘As well as not being fat I am happy to report I am not pregnant
either,’ she said.
Micky was so pleased it was all turning out well, she glanced at
her pregnancy kit, a lump formed in her throat,
‘What colour did you say the line should be?’
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