Pumpkin Pie (18 page)

“So he gets upset! So what? It’s better than you having
bulimia!”

I admit that it is, but am doubtful whether I will have sufficient willpower to resist the temptation. Petal assures me that either she or Pip will always be there to watch over me. I say, “But you can’t
always
be there!”

“We can for the holidays,” said Petal. “By the time we go back to school you’ll have developed all new habits and will be safe to be left on your own.”

She gives me her promise. So does Pip. I begin to feel a bit more optimistic. I almost begin to feel
happy.
It is good to have a brother and sister to look after you! I tell Pip that in return me and Petal will help him behave more like a normal ten year old and less like a poor little boy genius with the weight of the world on his shoulders. And then I say, “But what about you?” looking rather hard at Petal.

Petal says I don’t have to worry about her.

“I’ll be so busy watching out for you and Pip I won’t have time to think about myself. In any case,” she adds, “I’m through with boys.”

Oh, ho ho! She needn’t think I believe
that.
Not for one moment!

When Mum gets home, about an hour later, we’re all sitting in a row on the sofa, watching telly. A thing we never do! Not all in a row. But it’s like we suddenly have this need to stay close. Mum is in one of her brisk moods. I mean, brisker-even-than-usual moods. She cries, “Come on, you lot! Have you eaten? Let’s go up the road, I can’t be bothered to cook.”

When does she ever? Cook, I mean.

“Well, come on!” Mum snaps off the television. She doesn’t bother asking us what we’re watching, or whether we want to go on watching. We probably don’t – I’m not even sure we know what channel we’re on. But that is Mum for you.

She hustles us out of the house. I exchange nervous glances with Petal. Well, my glance is nervous; Petal’s is reassuring. She clamps her arm through mine and hisses, “Stand firm. We’re with you!”

One of the waiters, Angelo (who is rather divine and has a bit of a thing about Petal) shows us to our usual table, the big round one in the corner. He then rushes off to the kitchen, where we hear him calling out to Dad.

“Eh! Franco!” (Dad’s name in Italian.) “Your
famiglia
is here!”

Dad bustles out to see us, in his chef’s apron and hat. Beaming, he says that he has just prepared some fresh pasta. One of his specials. I gulp. I adore Dad’s pastas! Petal squeezes my hand.

“We’ll just have salads,” she says.

“What?” Dad looks from me to Petal in bewilderment. Obviously can’t believe he’s heard right. “Pumpkin’s not having salad!”

“She is,” says Petal. “We both are.”

“Rubbish!” says Dad. “You can eat like a rabbit if you want. I’m not having Pumpkin infected by the bug!”

Earnestly, I say that it’s not a bug. “It’s healthy eating!”

It’s a bit of a feeble protest, but I can’t leave it all to Petal. Pip obviously feels the same, because he pipes up in support.

“Give us salad! We want salad!” And then he adds,
“Green.”

“Green for him, mixed for us,” says Petal.

Poor Dad is looking more and more confused. Even Mum seems to realise that something isn’t quite as it should be. Little Podgy Plumpkin eating
salad!
Since when?

“Now, look,” says Dad, “this is ridiculous! You can’t just eat a few lettuce leaves, young lady. You’ll have a nice plate of pasta, with salad on the side. Right?” And he turns away, as if the matter is now settled. Which, if it had been me on my own, with Petal making eyes at the waiters and Pip solving puzzles in his head, it probably would have been. I would never find the strength to hold out against Dad! But Petal has a lot of what I would call
backbone.
She definitely has a stubborn streak. Luckily for me!

“Dad,” she says, “we’re having salads. We don’t want pasta.”

Mum suddenly wakes up and rushes in to Dad’s support. “Pasta’s good for you!”

“Now and again,” says Petal. “Not every day. Not in the quantities Dad dishes it up!”

“Not with that horrid red sauce,” says Pip. “Ugh!
Glug”

Not really very helpful, but at least he is trying.

“Maybe tomorrow,” says Petal. “Tomorrow she can have pasta… but just a
small
helping.”

Oh, dear! It is so embarrassing. I feel that everyone in the restaurant is watching us, waiting to see what will happen.

Somewhat crossly, Mum says to Petal, “You’ve become very bossy all of a sudden!”

“One of us has to be,” says Petal.

Dad now decides that the time has come to make a stand.

“See here,” he says, “I won’t have you bullying your sister! You keep your food fads to yourself. Plumpkin’s got more sense. She’s a foodie, aren’t you, poppet? Same as her dad!”

“Not any more,” says Petal.

“No!” Pip bangs triumphantly on the table with the salt cellar. “Not any more! This is the start of a new regime!” He uses words like that. I suppose it’s what comes of being a boy genius. “We’re in charge now!”

“That’s
right”
says Petal. “We’ve taken over.”

“Taken over what?” says Mum.

“Well, Pump’s intake, for one thing,” says Petal. “We’re monitoring it.”

“What for?” Mum now seems every bit as bewildered as Dad. “She’s not fat! In fact—” She narrows her eyes, studying me across the table. It’s like she’s seeing me for the first time. I want to dive beneath the red check tablecloth and hide. I feel like some kind of exhibit. “Have you lost weight?” says Mum.

Petal rolls her eyes. I mean, she hadn’t noticed either, until today, but then she is only my sister. Pip, growing excited, bangs again with the salt cellar and cries, “Hooray! Mum gets a gold star!”

By now, you can see that both Mum and Dad are completely at a loss. They haven’t the faintest idea what’s going on! Petal, taking pity on them, says kindly that there’s no need for them to worry.

“Just leave it to us. We’re quite capable of looking after ourselves.”

There’s a silence; then Dad shakes his head, as if it’s all just got too much, and goes trundling back to the kitchen to prepare one plate of pasta and three salads. Poor Dad! He can’t work out what’s hit him.

“There you are,” says Petal. She nods at me, and pats my hand. “That was quite painless, wasn’t it?”

Pip yells, “Kids unite!” and beats a tattoo with his knife and fork. Almost like a normal ten year old! Maybe there is hope for us all.

Mum is still studying me with this puzzled expression on her face, like she’s trying to decide whether I’ve always looked like I do now, or whether her eyes are deceiving her.

“I hope you’re not getting anorexic,” she says.

“Mum, she is not getting anorexic,” says Petal. “She
might
have been – but we’ve put a stop to it. Now she’s going to eat sensibly. Aren’t you?”

I nod, meekly.

“We’re going to help her,” says Petal.

Mum says, “But—” And then she stops, puts both hands on top of her head and closes her eyes. “All right,” she says. “We’re obviously going to have to talk.”

“We can,” says Petal, “if you like. There are certainly things to talk about.”

“That,” says Mum, “is becoming painfully clear.”

Poor Mum! I’ve never seen her so… chastened, I think, is the word. Like when someone tells you off and you know that you’ve deserved it. Not that anyone has told Mum off! But she seems to be having guilt feelings, as if maybe she hasn’t been a proper mum. I feel like telling her that it’s not her fault. I like having a mum who’s a high flyer! I’m proud of her! She can’t be expected to go out every day doing an important job like hers
and
take notice of all the little banal things going on around her. How was she to know I wasn’t eating properly? Or that Petal was tearing herself to pieces over ratlike Andy, and Pip wearing his brain to a frazzle?

Petal, kindly, says, “Don’t worry! It’ll all get sorted out.”

Mum just gives her this look. The sort of look I imagine a plant might give before you brutally wrench it out of the earth.

“I don’t know,” she says, wearily. “I just don’t know!”

It’s Dad who brings out our salads. (Angelo’s standing at the kitchen door, grinning.) Being Dad, of course, he can’t just do plain
salad.
On mine and Petal’s he’s added new potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, slices of salami (on mine, not Petal’s) and a sprinkling of parmesan. Humbly he asks if that is all right.

“Everything except the salami,” says Petal. “She can’t have that.”

Dad opens his mouth to protest, but Petal cuts firmly over the top of him.

“You don’t want to eat
animal,”
she says. “Do you?”

I don’t particularly want to eat animals; but I do like salami!

“Do
you?” says Petal.

I go, “W—”

“Apart from anything else,” says my remorseless sister, “such as for instance being disgusting and cruel and utterly repulsive, it is
chock full of fat.
”

Pip goes, “Ugh!”

“Yes. Ugh!” says Petal.

Very meekly, Dad removes the salami from my plate and puts it into his mouth. Someone in the restaurant starts a round of applause. Angelo, over by the kitchen door, thrusts a clenched fist into the air. We watch, as Dad chews and swallows.

“Is that better?” he says.

“Yes! Thank you.” Petal gives him one of her dazzling smiles (the ones she uses to get gorge males). “That is
healthy!”

In weak tones, quite unlike her normal up-front self, Mum says, “Why do I get the feeling we’re being ganged up against?”

“Because you are!” squeals Pip. “We’re the Gang of Three and we are
YEW
nited!”

It’s funny, we’ve never been that close, the three of us. We’ve all tended to do our own thing, go our separate ways. Now, suddenly, we’re like a proper family. We’re all going to pull together! It makes me feel warm and safe. I’m so glad I have a brother and sister! I haven’t always been. There have been times when I would cheerfully have drowned them both in buckets of water. I expect there may be more times like that in the future. But just right now, I love them both to bits!

“W
ELL.
I
SUPPOSE
really that I have reached the end, at least of this particular bit of my life. My struggle with fat!