Lilo is a fat cow

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Leila loved bed. She loved bed more than anything else in the world. She also loved sofa, and was quite attached to the plush seats at the back of her local cinema. Leila had once caused her parents great anguish by getting lost in a department store, at the tender age of four. They had gone shopping for a sledge, so that they could have happy family days out in the crisp snows of winter. The outdoor department had been positioned – strangely, one might think – next to the bedding department, and Leila had been transfixed by the sight of all those beautiful beds. There were little cosy ones with bright cartoony covers, and teeny princess beds with magical floating silvery nets. There were sleek modern low-slung beds with oriental looking headboards, or cool Scandinavian lines, and elegant wrought-iron bedsteads with luscious plump quilts piled high. But best – oh, very best of all – there was a four poster bed.

The four poster bed had beautiful wooden posts, carved with mythical beasts and vines, and the thickest, deepest mattress in the world. It also had curtains made of golden brocade, which were tied back with the plumpest golden tassels you could imagine. There were pillows piled invitingly high, and the crisp white sheet was turned back … waiting for Leila. Her parents were deep in discussion about the merits of differing sledges, and they didn’t see Leila as she clambered up the side of the four poster bed. They didn’t see Leila as she fumbled with the tassels and the golden brocade swept across the bed. They didn’t see Leila curl up with a deep sigh of pleasure.

It was two hours before the search was over, and a flustered young assistant peered round the brocade to find Leila. She simply couldn’t understand what the fuss was about. She’d had a lovely afternoon and felt very warm and safe.

As Leila grew older, her parents grew increasingly worried about her. Leila’s parents were of the achieving type, those worthy people to be found waiting on the touchline, outside the hall, in the car, ready to cheer their child on at whatever activity she was currently being forced to do. Leila had regularly been delivered to teachers of the recorder, tap dancing, judo (that lasted two weeks), horse riding, French, piano, acting, pottery and several other things that she didn’t care to remember. None of them had lasted more than a term, as Leila simply wanted to snuggle on the sofa with a book, or to wrap herself in her duvet and daydream.

“Leila, darling, shall we go and play tennis? Look, the sun’s shining!”

“Leila, darling, let’s take the dog for a lovely long walk, shall we?”

“Leila, darling, don’t you think a bit of exercise would do you good?”

“Leila, darling, are those trousers getting a little tight?”

“Leila, will you get up off that sofa?”

“LEILA, MOVE YOUR FAT BACKSIDE!”

By the age of eighteen, Leila had gained reasonable passes in her exams – you could revise passably well wrapped in a duvet. She had also gained three stone in weight. She was not a greedy girl. You wouldn’t walk into Leila’s room and find it carpeted with empty crisp packets, old takeaway dishes, ripped wrappers of calorie and carb. Oh no. Leila was a neat and precise girl, who liked her room to be just so.

She liked to lie on her bed and gaze around methodically at her favourite possessions. She would commune for a moment with her poster of a Greek beach (the sand did look very warm and comfortable), and then allow her gaze to travel on to her collection of snowstorms. She would remember where each had come from and who had given it to her, and then move on to the big photo montage above her desk. She would give a mental nod to all the members of her family in turn, and then lie back, contented. Leila’s room – Leila’s world – was at peace.

The reason that Leila had gained so much weight was because she did literally nothing. Her mother had driven her, grudgingly, to school and back each day, because she simply couldn’t get Leila to walk there in the morning. At school, she had become adept at forging letters of excuse from her mother for PE:

Leila has her period, and should not swim today.

Leila has pulled a muscle in her leg and should not run today.

Leila has stomach cramps and should be excused from PE today.

Leila has snuck into the toilets and has hidden there until everybody has jogged past in their little shorts.

Leila had also become adept at the gentle art of passive resistance. When her father asked her to do something, she would look up from her book, smile sweetly, and tell him that of course she would do it. Later, when she had a moment. When he asked her again, in increasingly strident tones, she would continue to smile sweetly and assure him that yes, it would be done. It wouldn’t and Leila knew it and her parents knew it. But Leila’s calm and steady inertia wore her parents down with the persistence of a Japanese water torturer. They fumed and they shouted, they cajoled and they insisted, but Leila stayed immovable.

At night, Leila’s mother lay beside her husband and wept. Where did we go wrong? What will become of her? What will become of us? (The majority of over-achieving parents will never admit, even to themselves, that the pinnacle of parental achievement is to produce a child that will be so effortlessly competent in all walks of life that their roles will eventually be reversed and the child will take them over and become, in effect, their parent. Honestly, think about it. It’s definitely covered by Freud, or one of them.)

Leila’s father would wrap his wife in his tennis-toned arms and sigh deeply. He didn’t know what would become of any of them either.

Life moved on, as it is wont to do. Leila spent much time in her room considering what she should do. She was a clever girl, she knew that. She knew that she was capable of many things as long as they didn’t include physical exertion. She was a self sufficient girl, her few friends having long ago left her for more active pastures, and she was a well-read girl. Books and beds made good partners, in Leila’s opinion.

Leila decided that proof-reading was the life for her. It combined the two sources of her happiness – a stationary position and a book. She could stay in her room, and she would get paid for it. She could even proof-read in bed, joy of joys. There couldn’t be too many jobs you could say that about. Leila’s well honed stubbornness leapt to the fore (although leapt is not a word normally to be associated with Leila, suggesting rapid activity as it does). Day after day, and week after week, she sent off letters and made phone calls; she scrolled down websites and pored over newspapers. And her persistence paid off.

One day the letterbox clattered with an extra burst of enthusiasm, the thud on the mat suggesting something of vital weight and portent. Naturally, Leila didn’t go downstairs to see what the post had brought; her mother would bring it upstairs to her room. She did, in long-suffering silence. The years of Leila’s inertia had brought her to a state of gloomy resignation where it was just much easier to do things for Leila before it became an issue. Her figure had become correspondingly leaner as Leila’s had spread, as she grimly carried trays of food up and downstairs. She had learnt not to plead or to shout, but to bite her lip instead. Her lip was very, very bitten and she wore an awful lot of lipstick to cover it up. Her friends thought she wore too much lipstick. Her husband kissed it off at night as he tried to comfort her.

Leila was sitting up in bed, sipping a cup of coffee. A coffeemaker had long been installed beside her bed so that she needn’t get up unnecessarily. Longlife milk didn’t go off, and if she drank every drop and ran a tissue around the cup, it didn’t need washing after. She smiled sweetly as her mother came in. Leila had a very sweet smile, even though she hadn’t been to the dentist for several years now. His surgery was two floors up.

“Three letters, Leila. Here’s your breakfast tray.”

“Thanks, Mum.”

The first letter was a standard two line letter of rejection to Miss L. Warburton. The second letter was a standard four line letter of rejection which began, breezily, ‘Dear Lulu …’. Leila thought that this was not a good sign for a company whose currency was the use of words. The third letter was sheathed in a thick, creamy, textured envelope and before she had even opened it, Leila knew that this was the letter. This was the letter that contained Miss Leila Warburton’s future, resplendent with terms and conditions and a starting date in three weeks time.

If Leila was the sort of girl who could turn cartwheels, she would have. Instead, she clapped her chubby hands together, the folds of flesh under her arms wobbling in time. She’d done it, she’d got herself a job.

Mrs Warburton’s consumption of lipstick dropped a little, at the realisation that Leila could maybe run her own life after all.

As time passed, it became apparent that Leila was an excellent proof-reader, and her employers came to depend on her more and more. With Leila, they were guaranteed a faultless piece of work every time, and she showed no signs of straying to another company, no sign of any movement at all in fact. Of course, they were not aware that Leila did not move anyway, unless it was absolutely necessary. After a year, it was decided that Leila should be given not only a pay-rise, but a substantial bonus in recognition of her good work.

Leila tapped into her bank account. Really, her computer was her lifeline. She did all her work on it, and of course internet banking was a godsend. Her bank account was entirely satisfactory. She had so few expenses, as she never went out. Any new clothes she bought on the internet – there was a particularly good website she had found which did outsize nightwear in really very pretty styles and colours, and it was very comfortable to wear for working.

She had a little joke with herself that she wore a certain colour of nightie for certain types of book. There was a rather naughty scarlet lace-edged one that she’d worn for one particular book, which added quite an edge to some of the descriptive passages. She had an oyster satin nightie that was definitely for biographies, and a grey brushed cotton one that was really best for any non-fiction. She had one pair of pyjamas, which were white broderie anglaise, and they were for anything historical, but she wasn’t really comfortable with pyjamas. The implication that she should have a waistline somewhere made her feel vaguely guilty. Luckily, her employers didn’t do much in the way of history. In fact, Leila was considering getting herself something else in scarlet, or pink, or possibly blush. Those sort of books seemed to be on the increase.

She certainly had the money to buy a few new nighties. In fact, as Leila contemplated the figures on her screen, she had the money to do many things now. She could buy a car. Only she had never passed a driving test and was not sure that she could sit comfortably behind the wheel now anyway. She could take a holiday to somewhere exotic. But who with? And a holiday sounded rather … active. What other things did people her age do?

They bought their own flats and houses.

She could do it. She had enough to put a deposit on a little one bedroomed flat. But is that what she wanted? Leila reached behind her and plumped up her pillows. She settled back again to give this thought the consideration it deserved. She was a working adult, who had gone out (well, figuratively) and got her own job, and was considered a valuable member of her employer’s staff. She was earning a good salary. But … who would bring her post to her? Who would cook her meals? Could Leila live on her own, without the grudging ministrations of her lipsticked mother?

Then she thought how much she disliked that pursed red mouth, and how she had had to train herself to close her ears to all the querulous snips and digs that came out of it. She thought of a cool, pale room filled with silence, peopled with her own snowstorms and thoughts. She thought that would be a good thing. She logged on to a furniture website, she had found, that had the deepest and softest looking sofas. There was one she particularly liked, a soft brown leather one, that could double as a bed. Leather would be best, because, as Leila had to admit, she did tend to spill crumbs and it would be easier to sweep the crumbs off onto the floor. They’d get stuck in fabric. Brown would be best as the crumbs would be less likely to show up. You had to consider these things when you followed the sort of lifestyle that Leila had.

Leila spent the next few nights logging onto a succession of websites that offered houses, flats, televisions, furniture … she considered every angle. It must be a ground floor flat. Obviously. A small flat would be best, with a combined kitchen and living room. Obviously. A bath, not a shower (standing up in the shower was really rather tiring). Baths were surprisingly difficult to find in small modern flats, but they were there. As few windows as possible (very tiring to clean, windows). No garden. Obviously.

Eventually, Leila found it. Her flat. It had actually been modified for a disabled lady and had lovely wide doors for a wheelchair (or a large person), and extremely strong and capable handles all over the bathroom. It was remarkably good value, as the disabled lady had died in rather unfortunate circumstances, which put a lot of people off. Her carer had gone on holiday and the council had failed to notify her replacement. When she had crashed off the toilet and knocked her head off the strong and capable handle beside it, she lay there for three days with her knickers round her poor swollen ankles before anybody found her body.

Leila chuckled to herself. It amused her to think that she – young, self-sufficient, hard-working Leila Warburton – was going to live in a disabled flat. But it really did suit her purposes admirably. Leila’s flesh wobbled unattractively as she chuckled.

Some weeks later, Mr. and Mrs. Warburton unpacked the last of Leila’s boxes and turned to her as she sat enthroned on her new brown leather sofa in her new flat.

“Are you quite sure, Leila, darling? You’re sure you can manage?”

“I’m sure. I’ll phone you.”

And Leila did manage. She left her door open, and other people in the flats around her popped in to say hello. Tiffany, who was eight, was particularly intrigued by Leila’s snowstorm collection, and often came in after school. She was a willing child, and didn’t mind taking out the rubbish, or bringing Leila’s letters over to her. Leila did all her food shopping on the internet, and the delivery man quickly got used to coming in and putting things away for her. He liked Leila’s sweet smile, and the fact she was happy to stop and chat for five minutes. They made very good ready-made meals, and for a change, the Indian takeaway round the corner would also deliver. No washing up either.

Maggie, from Number 5, got into the habit of dropping in and as it turned out, she was a cleaner, so it seemed natural that Leila should pay her a few pounds to clean the flat every now and again. After all, Leila was busy working.

Time passed, and Leila felt secure and happy in her little flat, with Tiffany and Maggie and Tesco and the Taj Mahal Takeaway to look after her. Every weekend Mr and Mrs Warburton would come round for tea and ask anxiously if she was managing. Leila always celebrated their leaving with a little glass of something. She had a little fridge that actually fitted underneath the sofa, and she kept a few little treats in it – a little bottle of something, and a little box of chocolates.

One day Leila realised that she had only moved once since the day before – a quick pee in the bathroom. Oh well, the sofa was really very comfortable. She pulled a snack out of the fridge and considered the book she was currently working on. It was an oyster satin job, and rather heavy going. It had taken longer than it should have done, and she was conscious that the oyster satin needed changing. She really needed a pee now, she’d had two cups of coffee earlier. She sighed. It was such an effort to get up and make her way to the bathroom. Then she thought, well, the oyster satin needed changing anyway, and the sofa was very easy to clean. And before she was conscious of making a decision, she let go where she sat. It really was a great relief. She pulled off the nightie and tucked it into the basket behind the sofa, then struggled into another from the clothes basket under the sofa. She wiped the sofa down with a cloth and tossed that after the oyster satin. There, really quite easy.

Tiffany complained later that the room smelt funny. Leila asked her to just pop the washing machine on for her.

Leila was at the top of the slippery slope and her descent was rapid. Tiffany popped in less and less as Leila asked her to do more and more. Maggie didn’t come back after Leila couldn’t be bothered to clean up properly after one rather uncomfortable Indian takeaway had made its way through her system and onto the sofa. Mr and Mrs Warburton had gone on a month’s cruise, fortified at the thought of Leila’s independence.

Leila was really quite annoyed that everybody had deserted her. She had come to feel that the little services her friends did were hers by right, and if people didn’t come in to see her, life was really a little difficult. She was now a very large Leila indeed, and moving anywhere made her breathless. She didn’t like to feel her heart racing, so she stayed where she was. She’d never even seen the graffiti painted on her door – LILO IS A FAT COW.

The bedsores on her thighs and buttocks gradually swelled and burst as she shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. Over the months, the soft leather had moulded itself to the weight of her buttocks, and she was now sitting in a permanent pool of foul smelling and acidic pee, which chafed her sore skin horribly. As the sores burst, new skin struggled to grow. It wasn’t at all clear which skin it should be bonding to, the soft brown skin below or the irritable red skin above. So it did both.

Leila proof-read, ate, slept and peed, whilst grumbling to herself about her faithless friends and family.

Then she discovered that the little fridge was empty. The coffee-maker was dry. There were no more clean nighties. Leila thought perhaps she should do something. Should she stand up and go for help? She forced herself to move, for the first time in – how long? But nothing happened. She had grown as one with her beautiful sofa. If anybody had passed and looked in through the door, they would have been appalled at the scene. A monolithic woman with unkempt hair and wild eyes, anchored to the filthy sofa like an Easter Island statue, with food and drink stains all over what had once been a beautiful oyster satin nightie, and a pervasive smell throughout …

Three days later, she was discovered, much as her disabled predecessor had been.

Although Leila had not worn knickers for some time.