Simply Divine by Wendy Holden

forgot his credit card in restaurants; the way he always had his ear clamped to his mobile when the taxi needed to be paid for; the day he had claimed to have no money to pay the window-cleaner and Jane had subsequently found his wallet stuffed with notes. But far worse than any of this was the fact that he had not dumped her earlier.
    If she got home in time, might Tom still be there? It was a vain hope, but Jane pressed the accelerator further down anyway. As she parked outside Nick's flat, now her own, she looked up. On the first floor, Tom's crumbling bay windows were in darkness. He had emphatically, definitely, undoubtedly gone.
    So that was that then. No point in thinking about him any more. It was time to pick herself up, dust herself down and start a lover again. And her newly single state held certain compensations, Jane tried to tell herself as she let
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    herself into the flat. For a start, she could run herself a bath since Nick was no longer around to take all the hot water. His dirty underpants would no longer litter the floor. The tide of foamy scurf encirling the basin each morning would be a ring of the past. John Humphrys would no longer shatter the early morning silence. But it was silent. Absolutely, ominously silent. When, later, she turned the squeaking bathroom taps on, the thunder of water sounded like Niagara Falls.
    Lowering herself into the hot embrace of the tub, Jane was shocked to see the bathwater rise further up the sides than usual. She'd got fatter lately, there was no doubt about it. She stared down the length - or was it the width - of her body, plump, white and slick with moisture under the electric bathroom light. Little, shining, blancmange-like islands of tummy, breast and thigh rose above the foaming water line. I look like the Loch Ness monster, Jane thought in panic.
    Her breasts lay along her torso, white and pointed like a couple of squid heads. Her waistline, never a strong point, lay conclusively buried under layers of spare tyre and water. All waste, no line. Jane stretched a leg out of the water and scrutinised her cellulite as calmly as possible, before despairingly concluding there was more orange peel there than an orchard in Seville. Somewhere inside me, determined Jane, there is a thin woman waiting to get out. She dared not contemplate the possibility that somewhere outside her was an even fatter woman trying to muscle in.
    She stared at her face in the mirror in the bath rack. The overhead lighting minimised the blue of her eyes and emphasised the bags beneath them. They looked bigger and blacker than a Prada tote. Her lips were dry and
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    looked thinner than ever and the spots on her forehead seemed of Himalayan proportions. Her crows feet were at least size ten.
    No wonder Nick had left her. Tom was probably glad to see the back of her as well. Which is more than I am, thought Jane, catching sight of her reflected rear in the mirrored cabinet as she heaved herself, pink and steaming as a fresh-cooked prawn, out of the bath.
    Wrapped in a towel, she felt like a sausage roll, a stuffing of soft pink meat. She felt disgusted with herself. She was too fat to live. She could just stick her head in the oven and it would all be over. Easy. Except for the disgusting thought of all that gluey takeaway pizza cheese which had stuck to the oven bottom. She pulled a face, imagining the stench from the ancient slop of the pineapple and peperonis Nick had been so fond of. No, she wouldn't put her head in the oven.
    She'd put it in the fridge instead.
    It's at times like this that a girl needs her sense of hummus, Jane decided, shovelling in the remains of a Marks and Spencer's Greek dip selection that wasn't too far past its sell-by date.
    She wandered through into the gloomy living room and switched the lamps on. One bulb pinged defiantly back at her and conked out. Jane slumped on the sofa and stared at the very rug where, barely twenty-four hours before, Tom had done all those