Fat Chance

by Nick Spalding

  ‘And what are you supposed to be?’ I ask him, raising a suspicious eyebrow.

  He looks disgusted. ‘Don’t any of you wankers watch movies? I’m a bloody thuggee!’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A thuggee! From Indiana Jones 2, you know . . .’

  ‘That’s not a British children’s TV character Ali,’ I point out.

  ‘Bollocks. It’s from the eighties and kids watched it; that’s good enough for me. Besides, I can double up as a genie.’ He puts down his beer, crosses both arms, and stares us down. ‘I will give you three wishes!’ he says in the worst Arabic accent I’ve ever heard. ‘Then I will eat a camel and put a jihad on your head.’

  ‘Ali!’ Zoe cries. ‘Don’t be so racist!’

  ‘Racist? I’m a bloody Indian!’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I’m allowed! They’re my people.’

  ‘Ali, you were born in Chepstow,’ I point out. ‘Not to mention the fact your family is from Mumbai, which isn’t in the Middle East.’

  ‘Oh fuck off, we’re all in it together, you imperialist bastard.’

  ‘Can I have everyone’s attention!’ Roger shouts from over by the barbecue.

  ‘Heads up! Bananaman’s about to dole out some fruity justice,’ Ali yells.

  My friend might be right, but the import of Roger’s words may be ruined by the pink pinny he’s now sporting over his costume in order to protect it from the fat spitting aggressively from the cooking meat.

  ‘The food’s ready, everyone!’ Roger announces proudly. ‘The meat’s in these trays here on the side of the barbie, and Eileen has laid out all the plates and other food in the dining room. Help yourselves!’

  ‘Great stuff!’ Ali exclaims and wanders over to the mountain of food Roger and Eileen have prepared.

  In unspoken agreement, Zoe and I don’t budge. We’ll just let everyone else get the food before we venture over. As hungry as I am, I really don’t want to feed the already engorged stereotype of the starving fatty being the first one to the buffet at every party.

  ‘Shall we get a drink?’ Zoe says, purposefully turning away from the food.

  ‘Yeah, I think I need one,’ I reply and we make our way over to the alcoholic’s sanctuary laid out on the patio table at the back of the gazebo.

  I take my time selecting my drink of choice, weighing up the different brands on offer. I’m driving tonight, so I can have a couple of beers maximum. I spot Ali’s stash of Tiger bottles and grab one. If the bastard’s going to insult me, he can pay for it with alcohol.

  Zoe pours herself a Malibu and Coke and we stand there for a good ten minutes chatting about nothing in particular while everybody else gets food.

  I’m not going to lie: this takes a superhuman amount of self-control on my part. My stomach is rumbling like crazy, and I can feel a faintly pulsating headache coming on due to my lack of sustenance.

  I eventually concede defeat. ‘Sod it, I’m getting some grub,’ I tell Zoe, and march towards the dining room.

  Inside, what was formerly a mountain of meat now resembles a slightly steep hill—a geological shift that Ali has been mainly responsible for, I don’t doubt. Thankfully, there’s more than enough left for us, and I select two particularly juicy-looking burgers.

  Then add a couple more.

  . . . along with two sausages, a pork chop and a chicken leg. I’m comfort eating, and couldn’t give a shit.

  ‘Add something green, Greg, for Christ’s sakes,’ Zoe admonishes as she scoops coleslaw onto her plate, next to the pork chop and burger she’s selected for her meal.

  ‘Alright,’ I say and throw a handful of salad in the remaining space I have left. Its green healthiness offends me, though, so I smother it in ketchup and dressing before returning to the party.

  There are a couple of plastic patio chairs still free, so we won’t have to eat standing up and risk indigestion. Sadly, they are the two closest to one of the patio heaters and there’s no room to put them anywhere else, so we’re going to have to endure sub-Saharan heat blowing on the backs of our necks while we eat.

  Furthermore, the nearest guests to us are a right couple of middle-class stiffs that Roger knows from his clay pigeon shooting club. His name is Anthony. I can’t quite remember hers, but ‘Pruneface’ really leaps out at me as an appropriate substitute until I do.

  ‘Gregory, isn’t it?’ Anthony says as I lower myself into the patio chair. I feel its plastic arms grasp my love handles in their firm embrace, and I know that I’m going to have to use a considerable amount of leverage to get back out of the thing again.

  ‘Yeah, that’s me,’ I say. ‘We met at Roger and Eileen’s twentieth, didn’t we?’

  ‘That’s right! Lovely bash that was.’

  ‘Yep. You remember my wife Zoe?’

  ‘I do indeed! Delighted to see you again, my dear. You look positively radiant tonight!’ This makes Zoe giggle. She’s always been a sucker for a bit of old-school charm.

  We both wait for Anthony to introduce us to Pruneface, who is looking off into the middle distance while she munches demurely on a pickled onion.

  The introduction never comes. ‘Lovely grub!’ Anthony remarks and bites into a sausage.

  ‘Looks like it,’ I agree and take a big bite out of my own pork-based product.

  The next ten minutes go by in light conversation with Anthony, including an invite to his country manor and the next pheasant shoot in April—which I have no intention of attending.

  Still, my belly is now full of meat and I’m enjoying the last of Ali’s beer, so for the first time that evening I feel myself relaxing and actually having something vaguely approximating a good time.

  That is, until I hear and feel the back legs of the patio chair I’m sitting on start to buckle.

  It’s only a slight feeling, but I can definitely hear a worrying scraping sound coming from below me as the chair legs move on the concrete flagstones under my feet.

  ‘. . . and that’s when I thought why not?’ Anthony says. ‘You only live once and there aren’t many of them left, so I went for a look.’

  I know he’s talking about going to see some rare animal across the other side of the planet, but I couldn’t tell you which one. All my thoughts are concentrated on the quiet sounds of distress emanating from below me.

  I daren’t shift in the chair too much. Any sudden movement may tip the balance in favour of disaster and I seriously don’t think I could take the embarrassment.

  Here I am, squeezed into a patio chair, wearing a suit that’s too small for me, with a bowler hat perched on my head like a Christmas pudding. If the chair collapses from under me, I might as well charge Roger and the rest of the guests a fee for my entertaining clown act.

  As Anthony waffles on about the rare Siberian Lynx, I sit still and tense, waiting for the inevitable.

  However, another five minutes go by and, miraculously, there’s no sign of the collapse occurring.

  ‘Greg and I want to go to the Seychelles, don’t we Greg?’ Zoe says to Anthony.

  ‘What? Oh, yes. One day, anyway,’ I reply in a distracted fashion.

  ‘Ah! Wonderful place. Went there myself twenty years ago, before it became all commercialised and horrific,’ Anthony tells us.

  I can actually listen to what he has to say now as the chair seems to have ceased its protest.

  I breathe a sigh of deep relief and feel comfortable enough to pick up what’s left of my pork chop and have a nibble.

  As I munch contentedly on it, I think about the best way I can yank myself out of the chair and make a beeline for the dining room to grab another chop before they’re all gone. The barbecue sauce covering them is particu—

  Both of the patio chair’s back legs give way in sudden, catastrophic fashion. This pitches me backwards at a terrifying rate of knots
.

  My plate of half-eaten food flies into the air as my arms pinwheel in an attempt to prevent the inevitable.

  ‘Awwggle!’ I screech. The cry of terror is somewhat muffled by the remnants of pork chop still in my mouth.

  ‘Good grief!’ cries Anthony.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ shouts Zoe.

  Time seems to slow, as it does in all situations like this. The utter bastard wants you to live through every glorious detail of your downfall, and decides to temporarily break the immutable laws of physics so it can really stick the boot in.

  I see Zoe’s left arm fly out and grab my shoulder.

  Bless her.

  Her first reaction is to try and save me, but it will be for naught, I fear. I am over 20 stone, while she is only 14. The same laws of physics that time likes to flaunt are sadly unbreakable for us human beings.

  This is proved conclusively when, instead of stopping my descent by grabbing hold of me, Zoe merely joins me in my backwards plummet towards disgrace and mild injury.

  What Zoe’s actions do accomplish is to halt our combined fall for a couple of seconds—more than long enough for the majority of the people at the barbecue to realise something is going on, look over in our direction, and get a good eyeful.

  I continue to fall backwards, but now thanks to Zoe’s intervention, I’m also swinging slightly to the left. This puts me in the path of the patio heater standing right behind me.

  For her part, my wife achieves a more straightforward downward trajectory and is on course to make friends with the cold, wet grass of Roger and Eileen’s landscaped garden in about half a second.

  No such luck for yours truly.

  No easy fall into soft grass for Greg Milton this evening.

  My left shoulder and the back of my head hit the metal heater, producing a noise that can only be described on the page as GLOING!

  Those irritating laws of physics come into play again at this point, as the full force of twenty-stone Greg Milton meets all five stone of portable patio heater, and sends it tilting backwards like a felled beech tree.

  The heater smacks into one of the gazebo’s legs, causing it snap in half and send one corner of the enormous party tent crashing in on itself.

  People scream and start acting like extras in The Poseidon Adventure. Plates and tables are strewn across the patio as the victims try to flee the scene of destruction.

  Hitting the patio heater once again changes my trajectory in favour of a grass-based landing, and I topple onto the ground, winding myself painfully as I finally make contact with the ground.

  I find myself laid out on the grass right next to Zoe, watching the gazebo collapse from my prone position and trying to desperately force some air back into my lungs.

  ‘Bloody hell, Greg!’ I hear Roger shout as he leaps over to the broken corner of the gazebo, his Bananaman cape fluttering in the cool night air. He looks every inch the superhero . . . other than the pinny and the look of horror on his face.

  ‘I’m sorry, Roger! I’m sorry, everyone!’ I squeal breathlessly, and attempt to get up.

  Then the final, crowning insult of the evening rears its ugly head. I can’t get out of the broken patio chair. Its arms are still wedged firmly around my ample hips.

  Do you know how hard it is to stand upright when there’s a plastic chair stuck on your arse?

  No. No, you don’t.

  Let’s not pretend that anyone else in this planet’s history has ever been at the centre of an incident as mortifying as this. I flail my arms and legs around in an attempt to extricate myself from the broken chair’s seemingly vice-like grip around my love handles.

  Now I look like an abandoned baby turtle.

  ‘Zoe!’ I wail. ‘Give me a hand out of this thing!’

  My wife disentangles herself from her own chair and stands up, surveying the scene. ‘You’ll have to roll over, Greg,’ she tells me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can’t pull the chair off without you rolling over.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake. Alright.’

  I rock back and forth a couple of times before throwing myself over.

  Now I’m stuck with my arse in the air, waving the patio chair around like I’m conducting some kind of mating ritual. I have no idea what creature I think I’m going to attract with this display, but I’m pretty sure it’d be gigantic, moronic, and possibly blind.

  Zoe takes hold of the chair leg and pulls. This scrapes a square inch of skin off my left love handle, but does very little else.

  ‘I can’t do it, Greg. I’m not strong enough. I’ll have to get some butter.’

  Oh God, how can this get any worse?

  ‘You twats need help?’ I hear Ali say from behind me.

  ‘No! We’re fine!’ I shout and wave him away.

  ‘Don’t be such a pillock, Milton. You’re obviously not in a good way. Here, let me have a go, Zoe.’

  I feel Ali’s enormous hands grip the two broken chair legs and yank as hard as he can.

  My hips buck and I almost feel myself leave the ground. ‘Owww!’ I scream in pain as more skin is flayed from my sides.

  ‘Don’t be such a baby,’ Ali snaps and yanks again, making my hips buck upwards once more.

  Now it just looks like he’s raping me with a plastic chair.

  I grab two handfuls of grass, clamping down to stop myself being lifted in the air again. This seems to do the trick as the chair’s death grip is finally released on Ali’s third yank.

  ‘There you go!’ Ali exclaims and offers me a hand. I take it and he pulls me to my feet.

  I become horribly aware that everyone is looking at me. Even Roger, who is still holding up the fallen end of the gazebo, is staring through his superhero mask.

  ‘Sorry, everyone,’ I repeat, hands held up.

  Eileen bustles over. ‘Don’t worry, Greg!’ she says. ‘Those chairs were cheap from B&Q. I’m surprised one of them hasn’t collapsed under anyone else!’

  Except it didn’t, did it? It happened to me.

  The fat one.

  I’m no heavier than Ali, but because most of my weight is blubber and his is still muscle, everyone will think that the chair only broke because I’d squeezed my enormous bulk into it.

  That’s the way it goes. Fat people are always the heaviest ones in the room. Even when they aren’t.

  I turn to my wife. ‘I think I hurt my shoulder, sweetheart. I’d like to go home.’

  My shoulder is fine, but Zoe gets the point instantly. ‘Okay, honey. That’s fine.’

  As Roger reassembles the gazebo as best he can, and puts everything back where it should be, my wife and I make our excuses to everyone. Most people look like they believe the bad shoulder story, but I’m sure they know the real reason we’re leaving with such haste. The permanent red flush of embarrassment on my face is a dead giveaway.

  ‘You sure know how to fuck up a party!’ Ali comments as I grab our coats.

  ‘Thanks, mate,’ I say, not entirely keeping the hurt out of my voice.

  ‘Ah, don’t worry about it,’ he adds. ‘I got so drunk at a party once I threw up over the record player. People were ducking to avoid the sick as it spun off the turntable.’

  ‘Lovely.’

  ‘Bloody hilarious, it was.’ Ali grins and slaps me on the back. ‘I’ll see you in the pub Sunday, you big dickhead.’

  And with that, he turns and hurries back to the alcohol table, no doubt to take advantage of the fact that everyone else is distracted.

  ‘So sorry to see you leave,’ Eileen says by the front door, with a grimace.

  ‘Yeah, hope that shoulder is alright,’ Roger adds, having come away from his repairs to see us off.

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ I tell them. ‘Thank you for having us . . . and apologies once again.’

&nb
sp; Roger waves his hand. ‘Don’t worry about it. It’ll make a great story in the future!’

  Oh yes. I can’t wait to hear you telling everyone at work, Roger.

  Zoe says her goodbyes as well, and we make our way back to the car in silence.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I say as she opens her mouth.

  ‘Okay, baby,’ Zoe replies and strokes my arm as I start the engine.

  I feel such a combination of shame, regret, and humiliation as we drive home. It is a wonder I don’t crash the car into the nearest wall.

  So there you go.

  That’s why I’ve agreed to do this stupid competition.

  I just can’t keep living like this.

  If doing what Zoe wants means I can go to a party without destroying half the furniture, then I’ll be a happy man.

  Besides, it might put that smile back on her face, and I haven’t seen it in such a long time.

  Nonetheless, I still have deep, deep reservations about the whole thing.

  I guess only time will tell.

  ZOE’S WEIGHT LOSS DIARY

  Tuesday, April 8th

  13 stone, 10 pounds (11 pounds lost)

  I’m starting to think this was a really bad idea.

  We’ve had a month to get used to being on our diets, and in the glare of the local media. If the rest of the competition goes the way these first few weeks have, I may need to check into the nearest psychiatric hospital imminently. I’m all for dropping five stone, but not at the expense of my mental health, thank you very much.

  The actual diet bit of the competition is relatively straightforward. I was expecting to be under the constant watchful eye of some kind of horrendous personal trainer, but Stream want our weight loss programmes to be similar to the type an average audience member would be able to manage, which means going it alone to a large extent. Of course, we have the carrot of fifty grand dangled in front of us. I’m pretty sure most people would stick to a diet better if they had that kind of motivation. I’ll trade an extended stomach for an extended house any day of the week.

  I was slightly disconcerted by the amount of paperwork we had to sign at the start of the whole process. Lots of indemnities and contractual stuff I probably should have read more closely before putting down my signature. I have no doubt that at least some of it stipulated that Stream could not be held responsible if I starve myself to death or if blow an artery during exercise.