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Miss Thinne didn’t by any means feel herself to be the more unfortunate of the two. Tearscame to her eyes as she observed how ugly Miss Fatt was becoming. Her eyes were piggy, her mouth a puffy rosebud marooned in an expanse of mottled pink. The dowdy lace and wire of a huge bra from a charity shop peeped out above the folds of her birthday sarong which, unbelievably, was now too small. She seemed condemned to exude a morbid sexual grossness while Miss Thinne, naked as she was, seemed utterly sexless. Even so, the nursing staff found it in their hearts to say about her:
    ‘Isn’t she creepy?’
    And about Miss Fatt:
    ‘What a slug. ’
Seventh Month
    By October 25th Miss Fatt was no longer playing fat ladies in commercials.
    She had, in fact, been removed from the books of Carp & Bravitt. Striving for a tact so impossible to achieve that he soon abandoned the struggle, Bravitt told her, at first, that it wasn’t worth her while to be kept on the books, given how rarely the firm would be able to find work for her. Then, when Miss Fatt made the mistake of pleading with him, he told her she was not the sort of person, physically speaking, that Carp & Bravitt wanted themselves associated with.
    Thus ushered into the ranks of the jobless, Miss Fatt waddled to the employment office, which was located (luckily) only a few doors along from Carp & Bravitt’s office building, so that she didn’t have far to travel in order to get the news that she was no good to anyone.
    Riding home on the bus, the stamp UNEMPLOYABLE burning on her forehead, she was far too hungry to feel as awful as she should.
    Limping with a stick and still in plaster, Miss Thinne was allowed to go home on the understanding that she would rest up, subsisting on sick pay.
    Unfortunately, this was out of the question. She just couldn’t do without her overtime and penalty rates – if anything, she needed a raise to fund Miss Fatt’s ever-growing appetite. So, impressively sprightly in her slimline plaster cast, she returned to work, shocking her old colleagues.
    ‘Lovely to have you back, Eleanor,’ they winced.
    The Eleanor they had back was a startling bird of prey, with teeth advancing as the flesh of the face retreated, ears like curls of pink wire, and pop-eyes.
    Soon enough reports were brought back of Eleanor’s inability to nurse owing to her frailty and, more damningly, to her appearance frightening the people she was supposed to be caring for. With the utmost sensitivity and goodwill she was therefore relieved of her duties.
Eighth Month
    By November, Miss Fatt and Miss Thinne were practically fugitives (if such a word can be applied to people who rarely move) from the ant-eater snout of hospitalisation. They lived in fear of some officious social worker calling on them and ‘assessing’ them as unfit to stay at home.
    Their metamorphosis having advanced swiftly, they were now utterly dependent on one another for simple survival. Miss Thinne had to be fed when she was asleep, or she would retch convulsively at the prospect of eating. Lukewarm vegetable soup poured carefully into her mouth in the middle of the night smuggled enough nutrients into her body to keep her alive, though she would wake up coughing and spluttering, glaring at her ministering companion in fear and outrage before coming to her senses.
    Lately, she had the bewildering sensation that there were only a few thousand proteins, vitamins, minerals and whatever else floating about in her body, and that she could actually feel these being consumed and extinguished one by one.
    In the daytime she would go out to the corner grocer to buy food. Unemployment benefits were hardly enough to cover this expense, but extra money had been raised through selling off everything except the bed, the cushions and the cooking equipment. Even so, they had to be disciplined in their budget: only powdered soup, potatoes, rice and oats were worth buying these days, as anything else was eaten too