You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me (58 page)

Then Gustav didn’t say anything. He didn’t shout or berate her. Or, worse, say that he was disappointed; he just put his tape measure back in its drawer, his features, as ever, cast in granite. But he didn’t need to say anything, because Neve was more than happy to fill the silence.

‘OK, I ate some things I shouldn’t have, I admit it, but there have been days when I’ve eaten hardly anything.’

‘What happens when you skip meals?’ Gustav asked in a steady voice.

‘My body goes into starvation mode and it clings to my fat and won’t let go,’ Neve parroted back.

‘And what are these things you shouldn’t have been eating?’

Neve wished that she’d never blurted that out, but Gustav would have forced the truth out of her eventually. Hips don’t lie. ‘Bread,’ she muttered. ‘Lots of bread, sometimes at two in the morning, and spaghetti hoops and … and … pizza.’ Neve collapsed on the spare chair. ‘It’s not fair! Other girls eat that stuff and skip meals and their weight stays exactly the same. You should see what Celia packs away and she never eats vegetables unless I shove them down her throat.’

‘You’re not other girls,’ Gustav said gravely. ‘You can’t be the weight you were and expect your metabolism to correct itself after all those years of over-eating.’ He patted Neve’s knee in a manner that wasn’t the least bit consoling. ‘It’s all right. I don’t blame you.’

‘Well, I blame me.’

‘I see this happen time and time again when my clients let personal attachments come between them and their fitness goals,’ Gustav said, as Neve knew he would sooner or later. He leaned forward so he could speak in a whisper, in case anyone heard him break the personal trainer/unfit slob confidentiality oath. ‘Take Vaughn …’

‘Vaughn?’ Neve queried.

‘He trains before you on Mondays and Wednesdays,’ Gustav reminded her impatiently. ‘Apart from you, he was my most obedient client, then he falls in love with this girl …’ Gustav shook his head. ‘She’s a fat skinny person. Always with the puddings and the pies and the home baking and he puts on weight. Then they have a row and he doesn’t just lose weight; he loses muscle tone as well.’

‘It’s not Max’s fault,’ Neve said, until her mind drifted back to the night before when she’d asked for two pieces of toast with low fat spread and Max had presented her with a heaped plate of high-fat badness. And he’d made her eat chips and crème brûlée and drink lots and lots of wine, and one time he’d even made pancakes … well, he hadn’t stood over her and clamped her mouth open, but he’d always been very persuasive with the, ‘It won’t hurt you just this once,’ and, ‘It’s almost Treat Sunday,’ and even, ‘By the time I’m done with you, you’ll have easily burned a day’s calories.’ Max wasn’t a feeder, but he was an enabler and that was almost as bad.

‘Are you still committed to losing weight?’ Gustav asked.

Neve stared at him in amazement. ‘Of course I am!’

‘Because we could work on a maintenance programme rather than a weight-loss regime,’ Gustav continued.

Neve flailed on the chair in sheer, ineffectual disbelief. ‘I’m nearly twelve stone. I’m still medically overweight. I want it off! I want
this
gone!’ She pinched one of her thighs so Gustav could see the rolls of fat that she was never going to shift at this rate.

‘This five pounds, it’s nothing. You go back to your diet and exercise plan and pfft! It’s gone in a fortnight.’

Neve put her head in her hands. ‘William will be back in London in two and a half weeks.’

‘William? I cannot keep track of all your men,’ Gustav tutted.

‘There’s only two men and I absolutely cannot see Max any more,’ Neve said because the 165 pounds on Gustav’s scale had made the decision for her. ‘Before Max, there was William and the goal that I’d be in a size ten dress by the time he got back from California and, quite frankly, the only way I’m going to get into a size ten is if I have intense, hardcore liposuction.’

‘Neve!’ Gustav moaned in protest. ‘I’ve been clear about this from the start. You do this for you, not for a man. Any decent man should love you for who you are, not how much you weigh.’

‘I’m not doing it for a man,’ Neve said, though to her ears it sounded hollow because Neve knew decent men, and instead of loving her in all her rotund glory, they’d always gone for the skinny boho girls at Oxford who wrote really, really bad poetry. And then there was Max who had his pick of model-thin, beautiful girls to go home with every night, but he hadn’t loved Neve for who she was, rather than how little she weighed, because he didn’t love her at all. But when she took William and Max out of the equation, then the truth was that she could never expect any man to love her despite her weight, when she didn’t love herself. ‘I didn’t start
this
because of William, you know that, but yes, his return coincides with a desperate need to hit at least one hundred and forty pounds on the scales. Do you think I could weigh ten stone and still get into a size ten?’

Gustav didn’t look convinced. ‘If this William is the one, he’ll wait and you can concentrate on your diet and exer—’

‘It’s been six bloody years already!’ Neve realised she was almost shouting and tried to lower her voice. ‘What about that extreme diet for really obese people before they have major surgery so they don’t die from complications with the anaesthetic? Can I do that for a few weeks?’

‘You’re not listening to a single word I’m saying,’ Gustav rapped back. He was perilously close to shouting too. ‘If you dare even think about some fad diet or laxatives or surgical intervention, because I will know, Neevy, then you’ll be looking for a new personal trainer.’

‘You wouldn’t!’

‘Oh, I would. I will strike you off and I will warn all the other personal trainers in north London not to work with you. I have contacts,’ Gustav added grimly and normally Neve would have laughed and told him that he was sounding a little too ’
Allo ’Allo
to be taken seriously, but she was so busy glaring, and hating Gustav and Max and her metabolism and yes, herself, that she got up, snatched her stinky trainers from the floor and stalked out of the room.

‘Max, it’s over. William will be back in two and a half weeks and we both knew that this was going to end sooner or later. Besides which, you’ve set my health and fitness regime back by months, and even if William wasn’t coming back, I’d have to finish with you,’ Neve said sternly.

She looked at Celia. ‘How do you think that sounds?’

‘Bloody terrible!’ Celia exclaimed, scrunching up her face in disapproval. ‘Christ, Neevy, let the bloke down gently.’

‘Breaking up with someone is really hard,’ Neve muttered, sinking down on her ancient swivel chair, which creaked in protest, because she was five pounds heavier and it couldn’t take the strain. ‘Could I write a letter instead?’

‘No! What is wrong with you?’

‘You know what’s wrong with me.’

Celia knew because five minutes after leaving the gym, Neve had phoned her close to tears and spitting with fury until Celia had promised that she’d come round to the Archive in her lunch-hour even though she always said that she didn’t like being surrounded by dead people’s things.

Now she was perched uncomfortably on a hard-backed chair trying not to breathe in too deeply because she also insisted that the basement reeked of mildew, which wasn’t true, and if Mr Freemont had overheard her, he’d have washed her mouth out with liquid hand soap. Mildew was every archivist’s worst nightmare.

‘Look, I know you’re upset about the weight thing,’ Celia mouthed the last two words, ‘but you can’t dump Max when you’re like this. You have to calm down. And stop being so mean! We’re talking about
Max.
’

‘I know exactly who we’re talking about and don’t say his name like that, all reproachfully as if I’m being completely unreasonable.’ But now that the shock of the unexpected weight gain was levelling off, the petulant tone of her voice was starting to sound a little unreasonable to Neve’s ears.

‘It hasn’t been all bad. You’ve seemed really happy and he’s been sexing you up 24/7 and also, not to make this all about me, but he’s one of my superiors at
Skirt
. You go all psycho on him, then one word in Grace’s ear and she’ll have me colour-coding hair slides for the next six months. Do you have any idea just how many hair slides there are in the fashion cupboard? I don’t deserve that.’

‘Well, I suppose not,’ Neve agreed slowly. ‘He did make me happy, but I think he made me
too
happy so I let my guard down and now look at me.’ She opened her arms wide so Celia could get a good look at the spread of her hips. ‘Getting a pretend boyfriend was hard enough and now I don’t have a clue how to get shot of one.’

Celia had been surveying the stacks of yellowing paper on Neve’s desk with a moue of distaste, but now she turned her full attention back to her sister. ‘He knew Willy McWordy was coming back, so lead with that, then bang on for a bit about how great it was but you both knew it couldn’t last and you hope you can still be friends, blah, blah, blah. Lather, rinse, repeat. How does that sound?’

‘I don’t actually do the “blah blah blah” bit, I take it?’ Neve asked, as she scribbled down what Celia had just said. Celia didn’t reply, but gave Neve a long-suffering look. ‘OK, so I’ll let Max down gently – but what am I going to do about this?’ She pointed at her thighs, encased in denim and straining the seams way more than they had yesterday.

‘How do you feel about colonic irrigation?’

‘Er, I don’t really have an opinion one way or the other,’ Neve replied, though she was already considering it. Having a rubber hose up her bottom was a small price to pay if she could lose five pounds in one sitting. Not that she would be sitting if she had a rubber hose up her bum.

‘And you love all those raw juice drinks, don’t you?’ Celia continued. ‘Like, with wheatgrass and wheatgerm and little Japanese berries.’

‘Well, I suppose …’

‘Then I can help you with the weight loss,’ Celia said proudly. ‘You can go on the Hardcore Cleanse for our Health Editor.’

Neve could feel the tiny flame of hope begin to flicker; it was either that or her tummy rumbling because she’d done a full workout on an empty stomach. ‘What’s a Hardcore Cleanse?’

The Hardcore Cleanse was the latest New York diet craze being trialled in London. Cleansees signed up to have fresh juice delivered by courier every three days so they could drink juice for breakfast, lunch and dinner, along with herbal tea, raw vegetables and a medicine chest full of vitamin supplements. ‘The publicist says it’s great for weight loss, detox and also you’ll feel more energised and mentally alert,’ Celia explained. ‘Everyone in the office wanted to try it, even though you have to have a colonic the day before you start and sign a medical waiver.’

Signing a medical waiver wasn’t the deterrent it should have been. These were desperate times. ‘Why doesn’t anyone in your office want to do it?’

‘No one could actually get the juice down without heaving,’ Celia admitted ruefully. ‘All three drinks taste pretty rancid. Even smelling the orange lunch juice made me retch.’

‘I’ll do it!’ Neve said eagerly, because she’d always had a cast-iron constitution. Their mother had once made a casserole with some diced chicken two days past its use-by date and Neve had been the only Slater who hadn’t spent the next twenty-four hours either puking or pooing. ‘Sign me up, sister!’

‘It would only be to reboot your metabolism,’ Celia warned. ‘Even the publicist said you should only do it for two weeks maximum, then you have to start reintroducing solids.’

‘Fine! Call your Health Editor right now and book me in for the colonic. This afternoon, if possible.’

Celia already had her phone held aloft. ‘And you promise you’ll be nice to Max when you tell him he’s history?’

Neve flushed guiltily. ‘That stuff I said before? I didn’t really mean it. I was just lashing out. He’s been so sweet to me and I … I still want him to be part of my life. I mean, we weren’t so emotionally attached that his heart’s going to be broken. We’ll still be able to be friends, won’t we?’

‘Yeah, sure, course you will,’ Celia said soothingly. ‘Being pals with your ex, what’s the harm in that?’

It was easy to remember Max’s favourite things. Neve wore a green dress that Max said made her eyes change colour. She roasted a chicken, even though she wouldn’t be eating it because the Hardcore Cleanse publicist had told her she could only eat raw vegetables until she started her Cleanse. There were four bottles of fancy imported lager chilling in the fridge, and as Max and Keith walked through the door, Neve was just sliding the Clash’s
Greatest Hits
into her CD player.

‘There you are,’ she said shrilly as she walked into the hall.

‘There I am,’ Max agreed with a smile and he leaned forward to give her a kiss. Neve ducked awkwardly so his lips just grazed her cheek, because it felt wrong to get all smoochy when she knew what was coming. ‘You OK? You seem a bit twitchy.’

The twitchiness wasn’t just nerves. Neve hadn’t eaten anything all day except two carrots, and the smell of the chicken was making all the moisture in her body migrate to her mouth. She knew exactly how Keith felt as he sat there, his tongue lolling as two slobbery lines of drool hung from his slavering mouth.

‘I’m fine,’ Neve assured him with a tight smile. She stared at the toes of his Converses because dumping Max wasn’t something she could rehearse any more. Not when he was taking up her narrow hall with his long, lean limbs and the clean, sweet smell of hair gloop and his grapefruit-scented bodywash and looking adoringly rumpled in his saggiest jeans and a faded red T-shirt. ‘I made roast chicken and there’s lager in the fridge.’