Bite Sized Read online

  Bite Sized

  Fiona Hamilton

  Jessica Kingsley Publishers

  London and Philadelphia

  Author’s Note

  Bite Sized is a story from my experience, a personal story. It is not the whole story, but I hope this little book with its few words and plenty of space is enough.

  My daughter has given permission for some of her experience to be included. One day she may decide to tell her own story; for now, she is engaged with other creative work. I hope that readers will respond in their own ways and not feel they need to ask for more.

  The story is also ‘ours’. It is shared by many people. I have met some of them, and I know there are many others all over the world. People affected by eating disorders and by other mental health issues. People navigating the complexity of growing up, or caring for others. Perhaps you will find your own connection with the themes in a different way.

  This book comes with a heartfelt thank you to my dear family and friends and to all the many who in different ways have been kind, bold, practical, funny, loving and prepared to learn, change, keep going, not judge, and stay alongside.

  Bite Sized is also an offering to many people I don’t know, who share in the story in their own ways.

  Fiona Hamilton

  Foreword

  by Philip Gross, author of The Wasting Game

  There is a poet’s accuracy and tact in these short utterances that sometimes look so slight, so isolated in the white space of the page. The art is in the fact that we might scarcely think (till afterwards) that they are poetry. Any reader whose family has been through a similar experience will recognise the tentative, sometimes faltering, untidy truth of them.

  I am one of those readers. Page after page brought back little shocks of memory – yes, I’ve been there – often in response to tiny details. But I suspect there are few readers who will not catch a resonance somewhere in their circles of family or friends. The dark wing that has brushed them might not be an eating disorder. Many kinds of addiction or obsession seep into the fabric of a family in this way; when this happens, no one is untouched, and all need care. To speak with clarity and sensitivity, in a language so free of the too-available response of guilt or blame, is in itself a kind of care.

  This account is not a case history; it is not a family therapy session. This is one person using the disciplines of writing to set down their own journey through the new and suddenly strange landscape into which such an illness pitches the whole family. This writing does not put words into the daughter’s and anyone else’s mouth ... though those others might well feel enabled to speak for themselves through its example.

  By speaking sparely, honestly and proffering no pat answers, Bite Sized offers anyone going though such challenges the chance to see their own experiences with new clarity – almost literally to inscribe them in the wide spaces on the page. At a key moment in the story, a consultant confides the uncomfortable truth that medical science does not have the answers to the problem. Rather than being dismayed, the mother is grateful, is braced by this humility and says ‘I trust her more / not less / for telling me / how little we know’. The way these pieces reach for provisional hope at the end is all the more moving for its not quite understanding where it comes from, or why the balance has tipped a little towards life. Meanwhile, as a working principle, we might share Fiona Hamilton’s humble apprehension here – that ‘love’ might be the place to begin.

  Bite Sized

  One day our daughter got anorexia

  Of course, it wasn’t that simple

  What I remember

  is her standing by the window

  with her back to me

  crying

  Was that the beginning?

  I remember

  she was the only one

  who said she didn’t want an ice cream

  in the half term holiday

  a few weeks before

  Was that the beginning?

  I remember

  her infectious giggles

  climbing trees right to the top

  sucking lemons

  singing

  That was before the beginning

  Maybe the beginning was at primary school

  when her best friends stopped being Best

  or were only some days

  - and she never knew which

  Maybe it began with girls in the playground

  comparing their weight

  and one girl puffing up with pride:

  I’m only four stone

  Maybe it began singing solo

  in the school concert I Walk Alone

  applause that left a bitter taste

  Maybe it began with a game

  of piggyback rides with boys

  that depended on lightness

  Maybe it began with a lie

  We can’t lift you

  in the dance class

  Maybe it began with a morsel

  Maybe it began with a bite

  Maybe it began with things being too much

  Maybe it began with being fed up

  Maybe it began with a gut feeling

  Maybe it began with something

  she couldn’t stomach

  Maybe it began with a gene

  Maybe it began long ago

  Maybe it began with ashes on the tongue

  Maybe it began with a lump in the throat

  Maybe it began with ordinary sadness

  Maybe it began with wanting something

  to be beautifully, perfectly small

  or so light it could float away

  Our daughter started losing weight

  invisibly

  then visibly

  I watched her eat

  I asked her teachers to check she finished her lunch

  They said She is, she’s having everything

  just like everyone else

  I took her to the doctor

  The doctor asked some questions

  plotted her weight on her baby chart

  did blood tests

  The blood test results came through

  showing nothing

  We went back to the doctor

  who did more tests

  and sent us home

  It was dark

  and cold

  Christmas was coming

  Midwinter:

  a phone call in the evening

  She’s probably got coeliac disease

  She’ll need an investigation

  It’ll have to be after the holiday weekend

  Time was heavy

  Our daughter grew lighter

  We got through Saturday and Sunday

  but Christmas morning was too much

  This can’t be right

  We carried her in a blanket to A&E

  A windowless room

  Our daughter on a bed

  Tests

  Nothing obvious

  They sent us home

  with build-up drinks

  After Christmas she had an operation

  to check her intestine

  Was this it?

  She has coeliac disease

  She mustn’t eat gluten

  They sent us home for the new school term

  but she wasn’t well enough

  to go to school

  We brought her meals on a tray

  clambering stairs like cumbersome giants

  in a shrinking world

  Her Dad and I cut up portions

  offering bite sized helpings

  elfin portions

  and sips of water

  as if from a thimble

  in a desert

  Each tiny portion

  weighed a ton

  It was backbreaking work

&n
bsp; like heaving stones

  in sweltering midday sun

  And then everything stopped

  We were back in hospital

  hearing the words

  She’s got anorexia

  Maybe that was the beginning

  but it felt like the end

  anorexia

  What an ugly word

  anorex rex rex rexia

  It wrecks ya, it wrecks ya

  anorexia

  It means ‘loss of appetite’

  which is odd

  because anorexia

  is the hungriest thing in the world

  It can eat you alive

  And when everything starts again

  everything has changed

  Our daughter has turned ferocious

  she’s shouting and swearing

  thrashing her arms and legs

  with superhuman strength

  I swear her eyes have changed

  from blue

  to cold granite grey

  She is refusing to eat or drink anything

  not even her saliva

  she spits it out

  into a plastic cup

  over and over

  spits it out

  There is only one way to keep her alive

  Brave girl, says a nurse

  threading a tube down her nose

  The tube is attached to a machine

  that beeps and whirrs

  pumping creamy liquid

  into her stomach

  I dab some from the bottle

  onto my tongue

  Our daughter gazes at the digital numbers

  to calculate how much they are giving her

  it has become vital for her to know

  it’s the most important thing in her world

  She keeps trying to pull the tube out

  and pinch it closed

  The pump is not going to work

  so they abandon it

  and pour the liquid down the tube

  holding it up high to make use of gravity

  The young nurse looks miserable

  holding the plastic umbilicus

  tethering her to my child

  I wonder what she thinks of me

  as I watch her struggle

  to feed my child

  Doctors come and go

  asking questions

  writing things down

  Piles of magazines on the ward

  scream headlines

  about size zero celebrities

  and clever ways to get rid of the kilos

  Ballooning celebrities

  Skinny celebrities

  Lose a stone a month!

  How I got back into shape super-quick

  after my baby

  My baby undernourished

  My baby starving

  My baby I can’t feed

  Who else feels like me?

  Early mornings dash to the hospital

  regular as clockwork

  in the cold dark

  polite greetings

  strangers watching over her

  sleeping under a too-thin

  hospital blanket

  endless grey days

  timetabled feeds

  meals reduced to sickly liquids

  poured through tubes

  timed by the clock

  measured out in mls

  Voices in my head:

  This doesn’t happen

  to babies whose mothers

  look after them well

  and feed them

  it doesn’t happen to babies

  with mothers who love them

  this doesn’t happen

  it says in the books

  everyone knows

  this doesn’t happen

  everyone knows

  so what I did, I didn’t

  oh, what did you do?

  what did you?

  what didn’t you do?

  and what I knew

  I don’t

  and who I am

  I am no more

  Small acts of kindness

  fall like rain in the desert

  One nurse plays tunes on an accordion

  Another brings a book of origami birds

  Another lets our daughter try on his boots

  which are far too big

  Look! we say

  You’re small and they are big

  You’re small and they are big

  Look!

  But it isn’t about seeing

  It’s about believing

  and anorexia has taken her beliefs

  and twisted them inside out

  Minutes

  and hours

  and days

  and weeks

  and months

  in hospital

  Children with broken legs

  Children who take their medicine

  Children who arrive in wheelchairs

  Children who smile at nurses

  Children who get better

  Children who come

  Children who go

  Our daughter stays

  She shouts and swears at the nurses

  She doesn’t want their help

  She doesn’t want their medicine

  She doesn’t want build-up drinks

  She doesn’t, doesn’t, doesn’t

  The doctor tells us

  Your daughter has to go to a specialist unit

  in a hospital 120 miles away

  I can’t compute this

  They are going to put 120 miles between us

  They say I have to help her

  but they are putting all those miles between us

  At the far-away hospital

  we are invited to a white-walled room

  They ask us to draw a family tree

  in coloured pens on big sheets of paper

  while they watch

  We aren’t sure why, so we draw in silence

  Mum, Dad, son, older daughter

  younger daughter

  then the names

  of aunts and uncles

  cousins and second cousins

  grandparents, close friends

  people alive and dead

  drawn on straggly waving branches

  Our tree is quite big

  but some of the people on it

  have no idea what’s happening

  This tree could come down in a storm, I think

  and it has already been struck by lightning

  Then the meeting is over

  Thank you, they say

  We’ll keep it safe

  Someone rolls up our tree

  and takes it away

  We never see it again

  Every few days

  we go to see our daughter

  My husband and I travel this way and that

  passing each other in perpetual motion

  leaving our son and younger daughter at home

  Sometimes I feel paper thin

  stretched out across the miles

  On the specialist unit there are

  set times

  set meals

  set amounts

  set days

  set weighs

  set walks

  set talks

  set places

  anorexia likes repetition

  it takes the rhythm of life

  removes the music

  and gives you back a beep

  or a whirr

  and the clink of cutlery

  on an untouched plate

  We have to eat family meals

  with other parents

  and our children who don’t want to eat

  Come on, have that little bit

  Just that bit there

  we urge and cajole

  Some parents try to chit-chat

  while they encourage and urge

  Come on, you can do it

  You need to have it

  Come on

  Somewhere betwee
n the Mad Hatter’s tea party

  and a last meal on Death Row

  I find my place at the table

  Every bite is a grenade of pain

  every morsel a heavy boulder

  that takes the efforts of several people

  to shift from one side of the plate to the other

  and if it reaches a mouth

  and is swallowed

  you can’t cheer or whoop

  you have to keep your exultation silent

  you have to keep quiet

  and carry on

  Our daughter didn’t think in calories

  when she arrived at the specialist unit

  but now she’s the Einstein of calories

  They are written on all the meal plans

  Eating is a military campaign

  that has to be calculated precisely

  So is not eating

  Mealtime conversations eddy

  round and round

  before draining away

  She asks

  Do I have to eat this?

  Do I look different?

  We don’t want to set her back

  by saying the wrong thing

  We pick our words sparingly