I know all this, because he tells me.  He tells me when he wakes me, and he tells me again as he breaks eggs into a jug for pancakes.  He tells me again over gammon loaf at lunch and paella at dinner.  And during all the meals we sample inbetween he tells me.  Today will be no different.

I am sick of food.  I open the fridge door and the lobster claws force me to shrink back. The crab layer salad bleeds over delicate truffle fingers stacked up on the shelf underneath.   Strawberry shortcake looks like a menstrual accident: jam dripping onto uncooked mutton.

“Help yourself,” he says, coming up behind me.  His stomach nudges me, like a cake, too big for its tin.  The apron covering his stomach is smudged with red and brown splashes.  It stinks of chocolate and blood.

“I’m not hungry,” I explain.

The smile melts off his face.  “You’re getting too thin,” he complains.  “It’s not what people want.”

What he means is when I say, “it was my mother who taught me how to cook.  I’ve been cooking since I was knee high to a rolling pin,” I’ve got to look like I mean it.  I’ve got to look like I enjoy steak and roasts and toffee meringues.

I used to enjoy food.  A long time ago.  I fell in love with him because he was a brilliant cook.  He seduced me with prawn-stuffed sole and vanilla oatcakes.  He ate jellied eels off my nipples, melting moments off my tongue.  I licked rhubarb trifle out of his belly button, caramel surprise from his armpits.  My friends envied our out-size freezer imported from America.  Every meal preserved in ice.  I loved eating as much as I loved him.  What I didn’t enjoy was the food preparation.  That was his department: thinking up recipes, talking to old ladies at bustops about the best method for making short crust pastry.  He wanted to sell his recipes, write books, make a TV series.  But his agent, Sylvia, said he had the wrong face for it.

It was their idea, his and Sylvia’s.   People would eat food if my smile was behind it.  They guessed right.  ‘Dishes Like Mother Made Them’ shifted more copies than any other cook book in the last decade.  The truth is, my mother didn’t know how to boil pasta.  

Now, standing in the shower, water drenches my skeleton until it appears shiny, translucent, like rice paper.  Maybe one day I’ll disappear.  Already my body is the same as when I was twelve years old.  Another month or two, I’ll resemble a six year old.  These days my friends envy my bones, but Sylvia and him, they look at me like they could kill me. Would they use one of the shiny sharp knives?  Would they cook me and eat me to remove the evidence?  Would he make gravy?

I hear him thumping up the stairs.  “You’re flooding the kitchen,” he yells.  He bangs on the door but I have locked it.  I don’t want him near me.   I like flooding the kitchen.  I want the ceiling to swell up like a fat woman and then split open, all over the pine wood cupboards and work surfaces.  He is shaking the door.  The lock is half off.  The door opens.

“What are you thinking of?”

“I’m thinking of me,” I say.

“If you were really thinking of you, then you’d eat.”

“No.  I’d eat, if I was thinking of you.”

This is a new outfit: a blue short-sleeved blouse, a red pencil skirt.  I buy everything twice: one outfit to practice in, one to wear in the studio.

“At least TV makes you ten pounds heavier,” he remarks.

“What’s on the menu?” I ask, deliberately standing beneath where the ceiling is leaking.

          For a moment he forgets I’m not interested.  “Sparerib pie, Spanish rice, lamb kebabs, yoghurt honey cakes.”  Absent-mindedly he runs his tongue around his lips.  But then he looks mournful.  “If only I could make it taste as good as in my dreams…I’ve tried but…”

          “But you’ve failed,” I finish for him, glancing at the notes he’s fixed to one of the cupboard doors, memorising them.  I turn back to him, a half-grin on my face.

          “Good evening.  Tonight we’re making pork pie...”

          His face contorts angrily, as if it’s being microwaved.  “Sparerib pie,” he hisses.

          “Delicious,” I sneer.

          “It is actually.  Some in the fridge if you’d like to try a bit.”

          I shake my head.  “So tonight we’re making sparerib pie.  Delicious.”

          “There’s some in our fridge at home,” I add, talking to the camera.  “And the Spanish rice to go with it.  Lovely when it’s been heated up a few times.  That bacteria does you the world of good.”

          Sylvia and him exchange annoyed looks.  My contract is being discussed later this evening over dinner at some posh restaurant.  So Sylvia’s here to watch my performance.  She’s going to convince the men who hold the purse strings that they must re-new my series for another year. 

          “Cut,” sighs the director.

          “You’ll get it right next time,” Sylvia smiles encouragingly.

          “Tonight we’re making sparerib pie and Spanish rice to go with it,” I say.  “Lovely.  Let’s start with the pie.  First you’ll need…”

          My voice disappears, like food down the waste disposal unit.  “First you’ll need…”

          “Cut,” sighs the director.

          Maybe I’m imagining it, but I’m sure I see Sylvia mouth “you bitch.”

          “Anything wrong?” the director asks, shuffling over to me, putting an arm around me, all professional concern.

          “I’m just very, very hungry,” I say.

          The director looks at me like I’m his least favourite food. 

          “I’ll do it okay this time,” I say.

Trendy London restaurant: white tablecloths, black waiters.  White plates, black caviar.  The lighting is odd.  Makes it look as if everything is over-cooked somehow.

          “We’re sorry,” one of the suits is saying.  “Think of this as a farewell dinner.”

That’s when I feel it hot and sour in the back of my throat.  I don’t try to stop it.  I want it.  Maybe I want this to happen.  Maybe the woman inside me is protesting because the little girl can’t.  Won’t.   Then it’s over.  All over my shiny black caviar.  A clear pool of sauce.  I stare at it for a few seconds.  Then I dip my spoon into the vomit and stir it around a little, like it’s some kind of specialist soup.

My husband doesn’t say anything, but his face twitches angrily at the interest I’m showing in my vomit.  He’s probably wondering why I didn’t shown this much enthusiasm in his cooking.  I would tell him, if he asked, that it was because his cooking belonged to him, not to me.

The men in suits who hold the purse strings all look the same: jaws hanging open in disbelief.  Maybe they can already see the headlines.  After all, a top TV chef puking up water and tissue paper (not a trace of food, please note) all over the white linen tablecloth of the trendy new London restaurant has got to be tasty news.     Once I’ve finished puking I stand up.  My legs are trembling.  I wonder if Sylvia let them tell me here because she knew I’d make a scene: a dramatic exit.  I know what she’s thinking: this woman will never work on TV again.  She isn’t quite smiling, but I can see she wants to, and her hand is crawling like a fly onto my husband’ s leg.  So this is what you get for being a bad girl who can’t cook, I think.  My mother flashes through my mind.  What would she do now?  More bile churns in my throat.  This time when I puke it’s into Sylvia’s lap.  And she’s definitely not smiling.

I dream of food: of smooth pink frosted butterfly cakes, and vanilla loaves light enough to float into your mouth of their own accord.  I chew  greedily on huge slabs of raw bread dough and thick, sweet bars of chocolate.  I sip banana and orange milkshakes.  I bathe in vanilla flavoured cream, which streams from crystallised taps.  I’m dripping in food.  I’m rolling in food.  I am food.  And when I wake, I’m more hungry than I’ve ever been before.