Fat Chance

by Nick Spalding

  Now things have reached the level of farce usually reserved for amateur theatrics.

  If I keep thrashing around as I have been, I’m likely to pull the curtain off its rail and go stumbling out into the shop looking like the most uncoordinated ghost in human history. Small children will run screaming from the bulky, swearing monstrosity. The shop staff will be on the phone to the Ghostbusters before I can say a damn thing in my defence.

  Time for a cooler head to prevail.

  I force myself to stand still and take a few deep breaths. If I can just calm down a bit, I’m sure I can work out a simple and easy way of extricating myself from this double-layered cloth prison with the minimum of further fuss and—

  ‘Are you alright, madam?’

  Oh for God’s sake, it’s Little Miss Bony-Arse.

  I choose not to respond immediately, feeling that any explanation I try to give will be completely inadequate.

  ‘Do you need some help?’ the girl eventually says.

  ‘No love, I’m absolutely fine,’ I reply. The sarcasm manages to get past the curtain and the corset with no problem at all. ‘I often like to wrap a curtain around my head in the middle of a shop. I find it soothing.’

  ‘Really?’

  Good grief.

  ‘Yes. If you could go and brew me up a chai tea and pour it through the hole in the top, that’d be just super.’

  ‘Ah . . . I think you should probably come out of there.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Yes I do, really. The manager won’t like it.’

  ‘Ah well, we wouldn’t want to annoy the manager, now, would we?’

  ‘No. Mister Morris is very strict about this kind of thing.’

  ‘You get a lot of fat women wrapping themselves up in curtains, do you?’

  ‘No, but customers do act up from time to time.’

  ‘I see. In that case, perhaps you could pull the thing off me?’

  ‘Okay.’

  The sales girl successfully manages to unwrap me from the curtain, leaving only the issue of the dress.

  I can’t see her face, but I know the expression she’s making.

  ‘Um . . . Do you need any help with the dress?’ she asks tentatively.

  ‘What? Are you saying I’m not wearing it right?’

  ‘No, madam. It shouldn’t be that high up.’

  ‘Really? Because I was watching a programme about London Fashion Week recently and you wouldn’t believe how many models were walking down the catwalk with their arms up like someone was pointing a gun at them, showing their Primark knickers to everyone.’

  This is met with stony silence.

  ‘Just pull the bloody thing off my head, will you?’ I ask in a weary voice.

  With Little Miss Bony-Arse helping out, it takes only two tugs to free me from my bondage. As the dress comes off I can feel it sliding painfully up against the rolls of fat on my arms and back. It reminds me, sickeningly, of how a sausage is made.

  This is so embarrassing. I feel like I could throw up.

  Then I remember that I’m now standing in my massive Primark knickers and bra in the middle of the changing room corridor, and my embarrassment levels rocket to hitherto unknown levels of stratospheric humiliation. This couldn’t possibly get any worse.

  ‘Er, can we use the changing rooms?’ I hear a voice say from behind the bony shop girl.

  I crane my head around to see no less than four women standing at the end of the corridor clutching a variety of garments. Two of them are thin and are therefore trying their best not to look at me with a combination of guilt and smug superiority. The third seems to be, like me, no stranger to the occasional late-night binge, and is looking at me with both pity and a certain degree of recognition. The fourth member of the party is a twelve-year-old girl, whom I’ve probably traumatised for the rest of her life. Not least because I’m about to swear at the top of my voice.

  ‘Thanks a lot!’ I wail at the shop girl. ‘You could’ve warned me there were people waiting!’

  She gives me the look of a kicked puppy.

  I sigh, straighten my shoulders, and attempt to collect what is left of my dignity as I step back into the cubicle. The curtain is thrown across the rail with a growl.

  On my own inside, anger gives way to misery. I slump onto the stool and feel the tears welling up. This isn’t the first time I’ve felt like this recently, but at least on every other occasion I’ve been able to have a good weep in the privacy of my own home.

  I have a little silent cry to myself on the stool for about a minute, before managing to pull myself together and get dressed.

  I look in the full-length mirror once I’m back in my clothes and take in the hectic, blotchy red face staring back at me. I look an absolute state.

  Great stuff.

  Now I just have to get out of Marks & Spencer without another person seeing me—and hold myself together long enough to reach my front door.

  With a leaden sigh, I pull the curtain back slowly and step out into the corridor. I walk down to the end and back out into the shop, where I see my friend the bony shop girl standing next to a rail of colourful t-shirts. She sees me coming and has the sheer audacity to give me a sympathetic look.

  How bloody dare she.

  It’s one thing to look down your nose at me because I’m a fatty; it’s entirely another to feel sorry for me.

  I don’t want you to feel sorry for me! I just want you to treat me like anybody else! Alright, I may need a bit more room than most people . . . and don’t ask me to run the four hundred metres any time soon, but other than that I’m normal, so please give me a break, okay?

  I want to say all of this to her narrow face, but being British, chubby, and horrifically embarrassed, I instead give her a little nod and a wet smile, before swiftly walking towards the exit.

  By the time I do get home, I can barely lift my head, thanks to the curtain of self-loathing I’ve now wrapped myself in. It feels much heavier and more shameful than the shop curtain I was wrapped in less than an hour earlier. Unfortunately there are no skinny shop assistants around to help pull me out of this one, and Greg is off out with his mates, so I’ll get no husbandly support until he gets home. I therefore spend the next hour sitting disconsolately in front of a blank TV screen, before going to the fridge and eating the rest of the black forest gateaux.

  This bleak frame of mind persisted right through the weekend and into Monday, so I was feeling very vulnerable when I met up with Elise at the Costa Coffee near the radio station for our regular mid-afternoon natter. Both being Stream FM employees, this daily time-out is much needed, and as far as I’m concerned, the only thing that keeps me sane. Working in local radio is rather like trying to herd cats, while someone pokes you in the eyeball every four seconds.

  ‘I’ve got something I think you might be interested in,’ Elise says as she takes a sip of her eggnog cappuccino.

  ‘What’s that?’ I say, and grimace as I also take a swallow of my skinny latte.

  ‘Please don’t be offended,’ she continues. This means she’s about to say something related to my weight. People only ever start a sentence with ‘please don’t be offended’ when they’re about to tell me how fat they think I am. This usually pisses me off no end, but I’m pretty sure Elise doesn’t have a nasty bone in her toned and tanned body, so I effect a pleasant smile that doesn’t quite reach my eyes.

  ‘Go on, Elise. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Okay. We’re running a new competition early next year.’

  . . . Oh, this is something to do with work. I’ve not read the signs right at all.

  I feel strangely uneasy. When the most popular DJ at the station tells you to not be offended and then mentions a new project, it can only mean she’s about to say something bad concerning your job.

  ‘Th
is is the first I’ve heard of it,’ I say defensively. ‘We can’t turn around a good promo campaign in the marketing department if we’re not given enough notice, you know.’

  Elise shakes her head. ‘No, no! It’s nothing like that, Zoe! The higher-ups will sort all that stuff out in the New Year. I’m mentioning it to you now because you might be interested in taking part.’

  ‘Taking part in what?’

  ‘The competition.’

  ‘What competition?’

  Elise then spends five minutes laying out all the details of Fat Chance.

  ‘You and Greg would be perfect for it,’ she says when she’s done. ‘I’m sure if you put your name forward, you’d be in strong contention to be one of the six couples.’

  ‘Elise . . . I work for the station. There’s no way I could enter even if I wanted to.’

  ‘Nope. You can! I asked Pete from legal about it. You’re employed by Regency Marketing, right? Not Stream?’

  ‘Yeah, but I still work in the same offices.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. It’s another company on a long-term contract. You can enter!’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to enter.’ I take another sip of the disgusting skinny latte and try not to gag.

  ‘Why not?’ Elise’s beautiful face scrunches up in a look of total incomprehension. Someone who spends as much time in the limelight as she does probably has no idea why I wouldn’t want to be a part of a major event in the station’s calendar.

  ‘Because it’ll be embarrassing,’ I say in a low voice.

  ‘Why?’

  Because I’m fat, you gorgeous idiot.

  ‘Because I’m . . . heavy, Elise.’

  ‘Well, yes. That’s the point though, isn’t it?’ The girl has always been blunt, I’ll give her that. I first realised it two years ago on the day we met, when she told me my highlights made me look like a tart.

  ‘I don’t want to parade the fact that I’m overweight in front of thousands of people, though!’ I point out to her.

  ‘It’s on the radio, Zoe.’

  ‘You know what I mean. There’ll be stuff on the website, at the road shows . . . it’ll be horrible.’

  Then Elise reminds me of the one thing that counterbalances my argument. ‘It’s for fifty grand, Zoe. Fifty bloody grand!’

  I stir the hideous skinny latte with a spoon, staring down into its bland beige contents. ‘That is a lot of money.’

  ‘It is! And how many times have you said you need an incentive to lose weight?’

  ‘Greg will never go for it.’

  ‘He will if you make him. He dotes on you.’ Elise flashes me one of her copyright dazzling DJ smiles. ‘He’ll do anything you tell him to . . . within reason.’

  ‘You really think you could get us in?’ I can’t believe I’m even contemplating this, but fifty grand is an awful lot of money. I also don’t want to find myself trapped in a dress again anytime soon. These two things are combining to make Elise’s madcap idea seem almost sensible.

  ‘Oh yes! Me, Will, and Danny will be making the final decision on who’s picked. I’ve already spoken to them, and they think you’d make a great contestant as well.’

  Well, that sews it up then. Will does whatever Elise tells him to, as he knows damn well that he’s part of the most successful breakfast show in local radio history thanks to her, and Dan, the station controller, would cheerfully cut off one of his legs for a chance to have sex with her.

  ‘I’ll have to speak to Greg about it,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, no problem.’ Elise waves this off like it’s inconsequential. She may think I have my husband wrapped around my little finger, but I’m not so sure. ‘So you’ll do it, then?’ she asks expectantly.

  ‘Er . . . if Greg’s up for it, I suppose so.’

  Elise gleefully claps her hands together. ‘Brilliant!’ Her excitement is palpable.

  I, however, am not excited.

  What I am is a combination of terrified and deeply apprehensive. This may be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.

  But . . . is that a faint glimmer of hope I sense under all that negativity?

  Why yes, Zoe, I do believe it is.

  This might just be the kick up the arse I need to finally drop some of this weight and start living life again.

  If only I can convince my husband to do it with me.

  GREG’S WEIGHT LOSS DIARY

  Friday, March 7th

  20 stone, 2 pounds

  This is the single dumbest idea in history. I can’t believe I’m sitting here at 7.30 on a Friday evening writing this.

  I would get up and turn the laptop off, but Zoe is sitting on the couch watching ‘EastEnders’ and if I stop typing I’ll never hear the end of it.

  Why the hell does the radio station need us to keep a diary like this anyway? Can’t they just interview us? Or send some menial dogsbody over here to write down everything we say? I spend enough of my day chained to a desk at work; I don’t particularly want to spend my evenings chained to another one writing about how fat I am.

  I know I’m fat.

  I’ve been fat for years.

  Twenty stone looks back at me every time I get on the scales (which isn’t often).

  I can hear how much I wheeze when I walk up the stairs, and the number of extra notches I’ve had to cut into my belt doesn’t bear thinking about.

  My size has stopped me enjoying the things I love like rugby and energetic sex.

  I wish I was thinner . . . but if wishes were horses then beggars would ride them.

  Until they were made into burgers.

  Which I would then eat.

  I don’t feel the need to put all this down on paper, but Zoe and Elise say I have to, so here I am on a Friday night—when I could be down the pub—writing about how fat I am. How colossally, massively, stupendously fat I am.

  Elise says these diaries are supposed to be the ‘windows into our lives’ during the course of the competition, so the audience will get to know us and understand what we’re going to go through in the next six months.

  This is a complete waste of time, as I can tell them what we’re going to be going through in one word: misery.

  Dieting is bloody miserable.

  It’s really no fun at all.

  I know: I tried it once and really didn’t get on with it.

  There’s only so many times you can eat salad and walk five miles on a treadmill before your will to live starts to dribble out of your ears.

  But here I am . . . on a fucking diet.

  I’ve agreed to do it for two reasons. One, fifty grand would pay off a big chunk of the mortgage and we could finally have that holiday in the Seychelles I’ve always wanted. And two, Zoe won’t give me a blow job ever again if I don’t do it.

  ‘That’s not bloody fair!’ I moaned at her when she threatened this punishment the first time this ridiculous idea came up.

  ‘I mean it, Greg. I want to do this. We both need to do this. If you’re not going to go along with it, my mouth is staying closed for the foreseeable future.’

  See?

  It’s just not bloody fair, is it?

  Mind you, the blow job threat wasn’t really necessary. Zoe knows there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her. It’s irritating in the extreme, but we’ve been married for so long now that there’s no way I can hide it. I love her to pieces and she uses that fact at every opportunity to manipulate me into doing things I would otherwise avoid like the plague.

  For instance, there was the time she made me go with her to see ‘Cats’ in London.

  What self-respecting straight man would go near a musical about bloody cats, were it not for the love of his other half? By the time the Magical Mister Mistoffelees started singing about how magical he was, I was ready to open a vein.

  Then th
ere was the holiday to Egypt.

  I hate cruises, I don’t like the heat, and history bores me, so you can imagine how delighted I was to spend a week on the Nile in forty degrees, looking at a never-ending series of beige ruins while my skin cooked slowly in the scorching sun.

  Finally, I can’t help but remember the salmon-pink jumper she made me buy in Burton’s. I wore it to the Rugby Club annual ball, and didn’t hear the end of it for months. My nickname became Fancy Doris.

  It’s the smile on Zoe’s face, damn it. I just can’t get enough of seeing the look of pure happiness. The one that makes her eyes twinkle.

  When she’s really happy, the smile gets even wider and her top lip curls up a bit, showing off her teeth. This may sound like I’m describing a horse about to get a sugar lump, but trust me, it’s a lot more adorable to look at than it is to describe on the page. Even when you’re being forced into a fucking pink jumper.

  I’d put up with pretty much anything to see that smile.

  Even being entered into a weight loss competition. A competition that will probably encourage the resurrection of ‘Fancy Doris’ as far as my rugby club mates are concerned.

  I don’t even care that I’m a bit chunkier than I used to be. Not that much, anyway.

  Sure, the lads at work have started calling me Porkins in the past few months, and I haven’t played rugby for years thanks to that wheezing when I walk up stairs, but I’m pretty happy with myself, all things considered. I certainly get to eat all the food I like, anyway.

  I may get the piss taken out of me, and I might not be able to take part in much sport, but frankly I don’t care as long as I can have Kung Po chilli chicken with rice, a Domino’s Texas BBQ pizza, or a Big Mac whenever I like.

  It’s my body, after all; I’ll do what I want with it!

  But then Zoe comes home from work one day before Christmas and tells me all about this idiotic competition Elise has cooked up in that bleached blonde barnet of hers (yes, I know you’ll read this, Elise. I just don’t care) and now I’m not allowed to eat anything brown and fried any more.

  For poor old Gregory Milton, the foreseeable future consists of heavy sweating, starving to death, and feeling astronomically miserable.