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RedDoor Publishing - Anita Cassidy

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263 pages

English

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Because everyone hungers for something...Food and Sex: two appetites the modern world stimulates, but also the ones we are expected to keep under control. But what happens when you don't? Embarking on an affair, lonely wife and mother Naomi blossoms sexually in a false spring while David, the fattest boy at the local comprehensive and best friend of her son, struggles to overcome bullying and the apathy of his divorced mother. David finally starts to learn about the mechanisms of appetite through a science project set by his intelligent but jaded teacher, Matthew. David's brave efforts to change himself open Matthew's eyes to his activist girlfriend's dangerous plans - to blow up VitSip, a local energy-drink company where Naomi works. At the mercy of their appetites, this exciting debut novel shows how some hungers can never be satisfied...

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Publié par	RedDoor Publishing
Date de parution	01 septembre 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781913062194
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0180€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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APPETITE
APPETITE
ANITA CASSIDY
Published by RedDoor www.reddoorpublishing.com
© 2018 Anita Cassidy
The right of Anita Cassidy to be identified as the author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
ISBN 978-1-912317-75-2
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the author
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover designer: Clare Connie Shepherd www.clareconnieshepherd.com
Typesetting: WatchWord Editorial Services www.watchwordeditorial.co.uk
For Marc
Chapter One
Monday 7th January
David
Looking down, resting awkwardly against a lamp post, David kept out of sight of the school for a little longer. He always did this. And he always spent the time hoping, after each blink, that his eyes would open to find the buildings blown up or the pavement underneath him bathed in a strange, pale light before it fell away, his body being sucked up into a spaceship full of friendly, intelligent (female) aliens. But the bomb never fell, the UFO never came. With appalling consistency, it always got to 8.45, the bell always began to ring and he always had to walk over the road and through the gates.
Even while he had been enjoying the coloured lights and comforts of the recent Christmas holidays, this had been on the edge of his mind, causing the same lingering sense of unease as a receding nightmare. When he wasn’t imagining the destruction of the school or the convenient abduction of himself, he was watching. Watching grey trousers and grey jackets against grey concrete. A parade of uniform and uniformity marching steadily towards black gates holding black bags. And there, with blazers stretched across their backs, bunching up under the armpits and pulled taut across the hips, were the fat kids. Winter coats hung open loosely. They rarely fitted properly anyway, but after Christmas? Well, you could just forget about buttons then. They were, as always, bringing up the rear, looking only at the ground as they lumbered towards the looming metal gates, some of them quickly finishing chocolate bars and bags of crisps as they walked, the actual cause of and the imagined cure for their misery scrunched up and tossed on to the pavement before they entered the playground.
I hate fat kids, thought David. Everyone hates fat kids. Or pities them. Which is even worse.
Watching them as they went through the school gates was like watching a grinding-machine at work. Hard cogs relentlessly turning, breaking things down, chewing them up. Once he stepped inside he was trapped: as far from home and its comforts as he would ever be.
Today, he thought, should be a good day. Today, I am feeling unusually angry. These days, the days when he felt this rage, were the easy ones. It was the sad days he found the hardest to bear. Days when the sadness was there when he woke up in the morning and followed him until nightfall like a weary shadow. The sadness was viscous, a tar pool that pulled at him, wanting to drag him under.
But today he was angry, and the edge that gave him made what lay ahead seem more tolerable.
The bell rang.
Crossing the invisible line that traced across the tarmac, he felt his back go rigid.
‘Hey, fat fuck!’
‘Who ate all the mince pies? Pretty bloody obvious from here…’
‘I didn’t think it was possible for you to get fatter, but Jesus…’
And it wasn’t just the older kids. The younger ones taunted him too. Taunted and laughed.
Automatically and unconsciously, David’s shoulders hunched and his head went down. It was an attempt, no matter how futile, to minimise the space he filled. The rage, though it formed a hard carapace around his mind, was as ineffectual at protecting him from the verbal assault course he was enduring as the rounding of his shoulders was at disguising a simple fact. The simple fact that, of all the fat kids, he, David, was the fattest.
Three years ago, when David had started at the Rivenoak Academy, the existing group of fat kids had tried to welcome him into their ample arms. It hadn’t taken long for their warmth to be frozen by his expansive cold shoulder. But it had taken David a while to figure out why they were so surprised that he hadn’t wanted to join them. Surely, he had thought, on that first day, surely they understand how much I hate myself? How I can’t bear to be around those who remind me of what I am?
But, after a few weeks, he had realised that they were even less self-aware than the other kids at this lower-end secondary school, and so he did a rare thing, and copied them by actively ignoring the fat ones.
Not that the other kids were worth giving the time of day to, either. Obsessed with themselves (and their selfies), the Diet Coke Crew were the same hard, shiny girls who had ignored him in the last year of prep school, and the Uncool remained as oblivious to their low status as they were aware of the latest tech developments. There were the BJ Boys, those already porn-addicted lads who hassled every girl within a three-mile radius for a blow job, and there were the Too Cool for School kids, those who were already tuned into the alleged appeal of adult life, just about hanging on until they could drop out.
There were various other sub-cliques, built around the standard riffs of emo and tech – and then there was David-and-James. The fattest and skinniest kids at the school, they had been at the same prep school, a small co-ed in a nearby village. The f-word formed the latter part of both of their secondary school monikers. As James had observed in that first term: ‘The names don’t demonstrate much in the way of imagination, but they are evidence of at least average observational skills.’
‘And,’ David had added, a rare smile on his face, ‘unlike the interchangeable plastic girls and nerdy boys, at least we never get mistaken for one another!’
This first morning, with form time over, David hung back. This was something else he always did. As the other pupils left the science room that served as their form classroom this year, David glanced at his watch and, once everyone else had filed out, he went down the pale corridor and ducked into the nearby toilets. Stepping sideways into the cubicle like a crab, he unzipped the front pocket of his bag. Taking out the chocolate bar, he opened it: three big bites and it was gone. Perched awkwardly on the seat, he stared at the back of the toilet door, eyes glazed over as his mouth was filled with smooth chocolate and caramel. The toffee glued his tongue to the top of his mouth. Using the tip of it, he cleaned the thick sweet paste out of his teeth and gums. Then, he pulled a half-empty bottle of Coke out of his bag. Swigging back the lukewarm sugary liquid, he swirled it round his mouth like mouthwash, the acid and the bubbles helping to rinse away the chocolate. Then, with a sigh and lots of effort, he got up and manoeuvred awkwardly back out of the cubicle, leaving the toilets and going to join his first class of the day.
The history lesson was well under way.
‘Nice of you to join us, Mr Wallace…!’
Sitting down, he pulled his books out and tried to tune in to what the teacher was saying, but he was really only focusing on one thing: break-time.
*
It was the in-between places that were dangerous. The corridors as well as the toilets between classes. This was one of the reasons why David always avoided them, even if it meant being late. These unsupervised spaces and times were when David felt most vulnerable. Here, he could be insulted, jostled, jeered at or even, sometimes, just plain ignored. But, given his size, ignoring him was a very conscious and strangely aggressive act. David had found it was mostly the girls who did that.
Like an elephant approaching a watering hole, on edge and anxious but driven by hunger and thirst, David walked along the corridor towards the dinner hall as quickly as he could: head down, eyes scanning from side to side, warily alert, shoulders hunched, trying not to be noticed.
And, just as an elephant must experience relief when it sees a giraffe drinking at the edge of the lake, long neck stretched out, knees bent – another animal also taking a risk, leaving itself vulnerable – so did David when he saw James waiting for him outside the double doors. Nodding at each other by way of a greeting, they walked side by side into the already noisy hall.
‘I’m starving,’ James said, glancing back at his friend before he turned to scrutinise the school dinner counter.
David nodded in reply. One of the unspoken rules of being fat was that you never expressed any enthusiasm for food or eating.
The brushed aluminium gleamed dully under the hotplate lights. They were among the first in the queue today, so the food still looked appealing, having not yet begun to congeal beneath the heat.
David pushed his tray along the counter, and then, using the little steel shovel, he filled half of his plate with fat yellow chips. Chips: the cornerstone of almost every pupil’s meal. He smiled a little as James chattered away about the day’s options. This running commentary was one of the things that David loved about his friend. There was also the small fact that, having known David since he was five, James was the only kid at the school who gave him the time of day.
‘I see we have pizza on offer today, our tasty Monday staple, as well as the ever-popular pasta bake with tuna. Good for those who want a side helping of dead dolphin on their conscience along with their luncheon. I think the broccoli looks great today, but – oh, sorry, Mrs Bevan…’ James glanced up and gave the freckled lunchtime assistant his broadest of broad grins ‘…I think someone really has overdone the carrots today!’ Reaching over,