The Year I Went Pear-Shaped (19 page)

Chapter 42: ‘Just an inch of the sides thanks’

“Ms Manners?” said a woman in a voice of brandied honey and silk.

“Yes.”

“Hello, I’m Nurse Deirdra, I’ll be the one looking after you while you’re with us and I’ll be taking you through to see Dr Ferguson soon but if you don’t mind, I’ll just get you to fill out this little questionnaire before you go in, ok?”

Deirdra was a plump, attractive woman somewhere in her early thirties. She had a slight Scottish lilt to her voice, sparkling blue eyes and absurdly long black lashes, her skin was as smooth and white as cream and her lips were dark red cushions that even had me wondering what they’d be like to kiss. In contrast, her hair was thin and mousy and pulled back into a short ponytail that brought attention to the fact her ears stuck out a bit. I wondered why she hadn’t asked Dr Ferguson to sort those out for her and hoped it wasn’t like when someone worked in a restaurant and wouldn’t eat the food because they’d seen what went on behind the scenes.

Nurse Deirdra was wearing a dark blue nurse’s uniform, sensible black shoes over brown pantyhose and a white cardigan. Even though she was probably a year or two younger than me, I warmed to her in a maternal way, her chest was the kind that you wanted to call a ‘bosom’ and may as well have had a sign on it saying, ‘och, ye poor wee lamb, rest ye weary head here on me generous bosom, I’ll tek good care o’ ye’.

“Sure, thanks,” I said taking the five pages of questionnaire and clipboard from her extended hand. Twenty minutes later I had answered questions on everything from the date of my last period, childhood illnesses and the causes of death for my deceased grandparents. Nurse Deirdra came silently over on her sensible shoes just seconds after I’d put my pen down and begun looking around the room for the obligatory pile of magazines with a shyly smiling Princess Di on the cover from 1983. They weren’t there though; instead I could take my pick from any one of about 30 of the very latest quality glossy magazines, which were beautifully displayed on a long, glass table.

“Have you finished those questions Darla? That’s great, I’ll take that off you then,” she said, reaching for the questionnaire while I nodded dumbly.

She quickly checked through to see that I hadn’t missed anything.

“Lovely! Ok, would you like to follow me?”

With more dumb nodding, I picked up my bag and followed her out of the waiting room and down a carpeted corridor into a large room with a huge ornate oak desk in the centre. Behind the desk was a floor to ceiling bookshelf built into the wall, which was stuffed with medical texts. Covering all the other walls in the room were medical diagrams featuring various parts of the human body.

Pointing to the padded, leather chair in front of the desk, Deirdra asked me to sit down and relax because ‘Dr Ferguson would be along shortly’. She explained that she would be right with me throughout the whole thing and would stay in the room now while Dr Ferguson went through the various planned procedures with me. Just as I was once again nodding that I understood, a brisk, friendly bear of a man burst into the room smiling at us both as though nothing in the world could have given him more pleasure than finding two such treasures waiting in his office.

“Ms Manners!” He said with delight, stepping over to swallow my hand with his two giant paws and shake it vigorously up and down. “A pleasure to meet you! I’m Dr Ferguson, but please call me Hugh. I trust the lovely Nurse Deirdra has been looking after you?” He turned to her with a wink as he sat down in the leather upholstered chair behind the ocean of a desk.

“Yes, hi, thank you. Deirdra’s been great because, um, I’m quite, ah, nervous really...”

“Of course you are!” He said, throwing his hands briefly into the air before resting his forearms on the desk and leaning intently towards me.

“Nerves are only natural. This is a major operation Darla and should not be taken lightly. I’d have been concerned if you weren’t worried. But please, be reassured, I haven’t been sued yet and I’ve been in the business for 15 years so I’ve managed to get in plenty of practise at this stuff on other people so that I was ready for you,” he joked, beaming at me.

“Mmm. Yes, of course, right then,” I blathered.

Getting more serious, he said, “Now, I know we’re hurrying this whole thing along at the request of your bosses back at the magazine Darla but I want you to know that you can still talk to any of my recent clients if it would make you happier, you could call them tonight for a chat. I can give you the contact details for a number of women who’ve had similar work to you in the past six months. I will give you the details of one woman who was delighted with the results as well as at least one woman who was not so happy and who suffered complications. I do not want to give you the impression that what you’re about to do is risk free or guaranteed, ok?”

He looked at me waiting for a response and suddenly the seriousness of what I was getting into hit me like a speeding car into a brick wall. I was going to be wheeled into surgery in a shower cap and ugly gown with no back in it, rendered unconscious and cut open. The kindly man with the big eyebrows sitting in front of me would literally slice into my breasts, face, stomach and thighs; he would tug and pull at my skin and layers of muscle, cut away pieces of fat, place silicon sacs under by breasts, rearrange everything then sew me back together.

My stomach felt as though a writhing ball of vipers had somehow got in there. I tried to speak but my mouth was too dry for words to come out. I nodded yet again and licked my lips before giving speech another crack.

“Um, thanks Dr Ferguson, ah, I mean, Hugh. I will take those phone numbers off you and I’ll call those women to-tonight,” I stuttered then swallowed before continuing. “I know what you’re saying about how serious the procedure is and I can assure you that I am suitably terrified,” I pushed my face into what I hoped was a smile.

It must’ve worked. Dierdra and Hugh gave me full wattage smiles right back.

“Good. So long as you realise,” said Hugh. “Now! There’s a lot more for us to do before tomorrow. I need to examine you thoroughly and will need you to get undressed in a minute and you need to tell me exactly the kind of result you are after. As we go through, I’ll explain exactly what I’m going to be doing and I’ll tell you the kind of things that can go wrong. Also, you need to understand that you won’t be jumping out of bed in a day or so. Total recovery can take months and in the first couple of weeks you’ll be spending a lot of time in bed and in pain. Although of course we’ll alleviate the pain as much as possible with plenty of drugs.”

I took a deep breath and nodded again. Lots of drugs were fine by me. New me, here I come.

“Marvellous! Lets get started then.”

And over the next two hours, Hugh and Deirdra scrutinised every inch of my body as I told them where I wanted to be thinner, firmer and higher. When it was finally time to get in the cab and go home I was exhausted, scared and excited.

The one upshot to being beside myself over the surgery thing was that I’d had no time to be beside myself over the whole Gordon/psychobitch/possible jail term thing.

‘At least I’d be an attractive inmate,’ I thought as the cab bolted up Oxford St but then it dawned on me just how unfortunate being an attractive woman in a women’s prison could be.

Chapter 43: Getting In

The woman was totally focused on what she was doing. Standing on a ladder outside a second storey window at the back of the terrace house, she was firmly cutting a circle in the windowpane. Then, wrapping a thick towel around her fist, she pushed on the glass circle until it fell almost noiselessly onto the carpet of the room on the other side.

Smiling, she unwrapped her fist and reached through the hole to undo the latch before raising the window as far as it would go. With the window open, the woman threw the glasscutter and the towel into the room, aiming for the middle of the double bed, which was positioned just a few inches away from the wall to the right of the window. Both objects landed in the middle of the thick blue doona. Next, carefully taking her right foot off the ladder, she put her leg through the window and pulled herself onto the window ledge. Jiggling herself round so that she was straddling the ledge, she pushed her head down to squeeze under the window then let herself fall through and onto the carpet. It hadn’t been far to fall but it still hurt a bit and she lay there to let the pain subside

After a couple of minutes, she picked herself up and rubbed her lower back while she looked around the room. It was meticulously tidy and whoever’s bedroom it was obviously had a thing for antiques. On top of an old wooden tallboy with porcelain handles were a collection of framed photos. The woman walked over for a closer look, her eyes skimming over all the happy faces staring back at her. The biggest photo in an ornate wooden frame was of a beautiful young woman and an old lady. The younger woman was hugging the older one very tightly and kissing her cheek.

Probably the grandmother, the woman thought, given the similarities in their features. After one more quick look around, the woman left the room and headed downstairs to the front door. Waiting for her on the other side was an obese young man. He smiled eagerly and passed her a backpack.

“Everything’s in there Andy,” he said.

“Excellent, thanks Harry, you’re great, I couldn’t do this without you.”

He blushed and shuffled his big feet. “Sokay, no problem.”

“And you’re clear about what happens next aren’t you Harry?”

“Yep. I go and sit in the car outside and watch the house for a few hours and if I see anything strange, or if anyone comes to the house, I send you a message. Then, when you page me, I come into the house and bring the methylated spirits.” His hand went to the bleeper attached to his belt.

“Perfect!” She gave him her biggest smile and touched his arm.

“Ok, off you go now, I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“’Kay, see you later Andy an’ good luck!”

The young man turned round and manoeuvred his bulk up the path and out onto the street. Looking up and down the sleepy suburban road, he turned back to the woman and raised his thumb to indicate that there was no one in sight.

She nodded, gave him a wave, and shut the front door to go back inside. There was a lot to do before she was ready.

Chapter 44: First base

The cab turned the corner into our street and I’d never been so happy to get home in my life. I couldn’t wait to get inside and slam the door on the world; hide from everyone and everything for just a few hours.

It had been a hell of a day. I’d been called a evil psycho cat killer by the man I was ready to lay down my ovaries for; I’d been grilled by the police on suspicion of stalking, killing and generally being a tragic obsessive no-life; and the fat bits on my body had been prodded and poked like the prize turkey in a Christmas raffle.

Thanking the driver, I got out of the cab and half ran up the path to my front door then dropped the key as I fumbled to get it in the lock.

The effort required to bend over and pick it up almost broke me. I was exhausted. Completely and utterly spent.

‘I’ve got nothing left to give, damn you!’ I yelled at the sky, realising as I did so that yelling at the sky was a pretty sure sign that some time out was overdue.

But finally I was in. And ahead of me was a whole evening of fluffy pyjamas, sheepskin slippers, hot chocolates, chain-smoking, Milo eaten from the tin with a spoon, and marathon dvd box set sessions.

If the urge took hold, I thought, I might even put on my Bananarama CD and do the boobie-jiggle dance in front of the mirror in the living room. Whatever. The evening was mine, dammit. Mine! Hours and hours of beautiful ‘Me’ time stretched out ahead. It was enough to make a grown woman cry. Instead, I started singing, ‘I’m your Venus, I’m your fire, your dee-zi-ah...’ and headed towards the kitchen.

Top of the agenda was getting changed into the pyjamas and slippers. But first, out of habit, I put the kettle on. I always headed straight for the kettle when I got home even though half the time I never made a drink when it had boiled. There was just something comforting about it.

With the kettle on, I picked up the phone to call the pizza delivery place on the corner and order a large seafood pizza, garlic bread, a strawberry sundae and a chocolate cheesecake ‘for my little niece Holly’. At least that’s what I told the man on the other end of the phone. God knows why. As if he gave a shit how much dessert I ate. And why did I care whether some pizza delivery guy thought I was a pig? Ah yes, the subterfuge us fooddicts practise to hide our dirty food secrets.

Once my pyjamas were on, the serious slobbing about would begin. The kind of lounging about that met professional standards because, if there was one thing I could do well when I really applied myself, it was sloth.

So, dragging my soon-to-be lipo-ed and lasered body upstairs, shoes in hand and bag over one shoulder, I went to my bedroom. It seemed like a lifetime ago that I’d woken up there, it was hard to believe it was just this morning. Sighing, I threw my shoes in the closet and not the laundry basket. Goodness, I thought, when I realised what I’d done, is this a sign of new found maturity?

My bag got dumped on the edge of the bed. Where it stayed for about 30 seconds before falling off and landing upside down on the floor, throwing up the contents like a bulimic at Easter.

‘Bugger.’ I mumbled and for a second I considered picking up my wallet and mobile phone at least.

‘Nah, later,’ it wasn’t like they’d be going anywhere.

Stripping off down to my knickers and undies, I pulled on the pyjamas, then added thick socks, slippers and a huge jumper that was left at our house by one of Anita’s more affluent, meaningless shags. A football player if memory served.

With my slobbing ensemble complete, the world was looking better already. For a few hours I was going to let myself forget that tomorrow I had a date with a sharp knife and a fat-sucking machine and give myself over to simple pleasures like telly and junk food. Not to mention the odd simple vice for good measure.