'A thousand?' said Tom, incredulously. 'But I thought you needed two thousand just to survive.'
I looked at him nonplussed. I realized that I have spent so many years being on a diet that the idea that you might actually need calories to survive has been completely wiped out of my conscious– ness. Have reached point where believe nutritional ideal is to eat nothing at all and that the only reason people eat is because they are so greedy they cannot stop themselves from breaking out and ruining their diets.
'How many calories in a boiled egg?' said Tom.
'Seventy-five.'
'Banana?'
'Large or small?'
'Small.'
'Peeled?'
'Yes.'
'Eighty,' I said, confidently.
'Olive?'
'Black or green?'
'Black.'
'Nine.'
'Chocolate biscuit?'
'A hundred and twenty-one.'
'Box of Milk Tray?'
'Ten thousand eight hundred and ninety-six.'
'How do you know all this?'
I thought about it. 'I just do, as one knows one's alphabet or times tables.'
'OK. Nine eights,' said Tom.
'Sixty-four. No, fifty-six. Seventy-two.'
'What letter comes before J? Quick.'
'P. L, I mean.'
Tom says I am sick but I happen to know for a fact that I am normal and no different from everyone else, i.e., Sharon and Jude. Frankly, I am quite worried about Tom. I think taking part in a beauty contest has started to make him crack under the pressures we women have long been subjected to and he is becoming insecure, appearance obsessed and borderline anorexic.
Evening climaxed with Tom cheering himself up letting off rockets from the roof terrace into the garden of the people below who Tom says are homophobic.
Thursday 9 November
8st 13 (better without Smoothies), alcohol units 5 (better than having huge stomach full of pureed fruit), cigarettes 12, calories 1456 (excellent).
V. excited about the dinner party. Fixed for a week on Tuesday. This is the guest list:
Jude Vile Richard