Unbelievable.
A friendship potentially thrown out of the window for the sake of entertaining the listeners.
‘I suppose I have,’ I say flatly. I can feel my face flushing redder and redder. ‘I haven’t been able to get pregnant.’
‘Because you’re overweight?’
That’s what the doctors have been telling me for a long time, Elise. You know that, you utter cow.
‘Yes. That’s why.’
I fold my arms across my chest and stare down my ex-best friend through the thick studio glass, daring her to carry on this line of questioning. I’m this close to calling Elise some very unpleasant names, which would no doubt force the station to make an on-air apology for explicit language.
Elise has the good sense to realise this. ‘Well, thanks for that Zoe. Hopefully this competition may help you with that problem over the coming months.’
‘And that’s about all we’ve got time for on Fat Chance today,’ Will interjects, clearly sensing the need to swiftly wrap things up.
‘You okay, sweetheart?’ Greg says in a half-whisper, knowing full well what the answer will be.
‘I want to go home. Now,’ I reply, pushing my way past the other couples and out through the door to the sound booth.
With Greg in tow, I barge my way past Lottie and the rest of the production minions.
‘Er, we need you to stay for the post-show briefing! There’s a schedule for the next few weeks we need to give you!’ Lottie shouts after us.
‘Post the fucking thing!’ I shout back over my shoulder.
I have no intention of sticking around to look at a room of sympathetic faces for the next half an hour, so I storm through the building with Greg in tow. Within seconds we’re emerging into the morning sunlight through the main doors.
‘Um, baby, where are you going?’ Greg asks me.
‘Home!’
‘But this is where you work?’
Shit.
He’s right.
I can’t even leave this bloody radio station, as I now have to walk round to the back of the building and do a day’s work.
No doubt everyone will have heard Elise’s little question and answer session. The sympathetic faces will follow me around for the entire day.
I look up at the lovely spring sun and make a decision. ‘I’m taking the day off,’ I tell him with my hands on my hips. ‘I’ll blame it on stress.’
‘Stress?’
‘Yes Greg! Stress! Telling thousands of people on their morning fucking commute that I’m barren is stressful !’
‘Fair enough. I’ll get the car,’ he replies as quickly as possible, and scuttles off to the car park, leaving me to seethe on my own for a moment.
Elise comes rushing out from the building, a combined look of guilt and fear on her face. ‘I’m sorry, chick!’
‘Why did you do that?’ I shout at her.
‘I’m sorry! The segment was going badly and I needed something to spice it up.’
‘And my inability to have children was spicy enough, was it, you bitch?’
‘Please Zoe, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done it.’
‘No, you bloody shouldn’t!’
‘Let me make it up to you.’
‘How are you going to do that?’ I snap my fingers. ‘I know, how about we go back on air now and we tell everyone about that drunken fuck you had with Will’s supposedly gay roommate two years ago?’
Elise’s head whips round to see if anyone caught that. ‘God, Zoe, keep your voice down,’ she whisper-shouts.
‘Oh! Oh! You’d like me to keep my voice down, would you? I guess that means you don’t want me to march back in there and tell all your listeners about how he tried to stick it in your arsehole, then?’
I shouldn’t be, but I’m taking huge pleasure in the way Elise is cowering like a spanked puppy. ‘Please Zoe, shut up!’
I take a deep breath. ‘Not so much fun when it’s your dirty laundry being aired in public, is it?’
Greg has pulled up in the car and is watching developments with a wince on his face.
Elise looks at me with doe eyes. ‘Are you going to stay in the competition?’
The word ‘no’ forms on my lips, but then I swallow it down. Much as I’d like to have nothing more to do with Elise and this silly competition right now, I know that if I quit I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. If I have to put up with a bit of embarrassment in order to lose weight, then so be it. I guess I’d just prefer to have a flaming red face thanks to severe public humiliation, rather than a flaming red face thanks to a severe heart attack.
I sigh. ‘I’ve started it, so I’ll finish it.’ I stab a finger at Elise. ‘But if you ever do anything like that again, I will let everyone know how painful it was for you to sit down for a week.’
Feeling a bit better about myself, I climb into the car.
‘See you tomorrow?’ Elise asks from the kerbside.
My eyes narrow. ‘Drive,’ I order my husband, who doesn’t need telling twice.
So now I have to deal with the fact that my inability to get pregnant is in the public domain.
Whether I like it or not, it will become the defining aspect of my character to everyone who listens to the show. That’s just how these things work.
Zoe Milton is now ‘the one who can’t have a baby.’
Elise may have deeply embarrassed me live on air today, but at least I know she won’t be doing it again.
The aborted anal sex with a confused gay man isn’t the only anecdote I’ve got squirreled away in my brain about Elise Bailey.
The next time she decides to dredge up my unwashed linen in public, I’ll counter by telling everyone in earshot about how she suffers from occasional vaginal discharge.
That should do it.
GREG’S WEIGHT LOSS DIARY
Sunday, April 20th
18 stone, 13 pounds (1 stone, 3 pounds lost)
Oh God.
Oh dear sweet God in Heaven.
Every part of my body aches.
Even my eyeballs.
And hair.
Merely sitting in this chair and writing is a monumental effort. Each hand movement across the keyboard is agony, and every look up at the monitor sends a fresh wave of pain down my back.
If I close my eyes and concentrate very hard, I think there’s an area just above my left elbow that isn’t suffering. Mind you, this could be caused by the breakdown of my nervous system, following what can only be described as a week spent in the company of Lucifer.
Getting a personal trainer sounded like a good idea.
Even if I could only afford a week’s worth, I could at least take a note of the exercise plan the trainer would have me on for seven days . . . and just repeat until thin.
‘That’s a great idea,’ Zoe says to me over another one of her bowls of snot soup. I may not be all that keen on strenuous exercise, but given the choice between that and eating that green, foul-smelling shit, I’ll take the press-ups any day.
‘I’ll go on Google and see if there are any local trainers in the area,’ I tell her and turn away before I start to gag.
It turns out there are three personal fitness trainers close to home and affordable enough for my wallet. I try Darren Bouchard first, as he’s the closest and has been a trainer for eight years.
Sadly, Darren (who sounds a wee bit too effeminate over the phone to be a personal trainer anyway) is so popular that he’s booked up until the middle of summer. I give him my email for his mailing list and put the phone down.
Next up is Mike McPartlin. Mike is an ex-Olympic coach and sounds ideal.
He also speaks in a Scottish accent more impenetrable than the Amazon basin. Mike would love to train me, but he’s currently suffering from a bad Achilles tendon injury
and won’t be back to fighting fit for at least another two months.
This leaves my third and final choice—and it’s the worst of the three.
Alice Pithering.
Yep, that’s right, her name is Alice Pithering.
According to the photos on her website, Alice is all of five foot two, as skinny as a rake, and blessed with a set of the bulgiest eyeballs I’ve ever seen in my life.
She’s apparently ex-Army.
Salvation Army possibly, judging by her diminutive stature.
Her thin, reedy voice over the phone doesn’t do much to dispel the impression that Alice is as fragile as a Ming vase.
‘Yes, I have free slots coming up in the next couple of weeks, Greg,’ she tells me. I’m not surprised in the slightest. It’s a wonder this woman gets any work at all.
‘That’s great.’
I’m lying. It’s not.
I was hoping she’d be booked up solid so I could just put the phone down and forget the entire thing.
‘Are you sure you want the week-long intensive course?’ she asks. ‘It is quite difficult, and if you’re not used to exercise it might be a better idea to go with something a bit less strenuous.’
Strenuous? I used to play rugby four times a month and train for it five days a week. I hardly think this little woman can tax me too much, even if it has been a little while since I was at my optimum.
My self-delusion at this point is so rock-solid you could climb up it and plant a flag. The last time I played rugby four times a week was actually a decade ago. My ego has conveniently forgotten about the intervening years, all the late-night kebabs and pints of beer, and complete lack of exercise, in an effort to sound like I’m capable of coping with bulgy-eyed Miss Pithering and her fitness regime.
‘No, the week-long course will be fine,’ I reply confidently—and stupidly.
‘Okay then. We’ll start Sunday if you like, in the city park, and we’ll do two hours every day until Saturday.’
‘That sounds perfect.’
With the course arranged I put the phone down on the reedy-voiced Alice and turn to my wife. ‘All sorted,’ I tell her. ‘Should be a better way to lose a few pounds than eating that slop,’ I add, unable to keep an unpleasant smug tone out of my voice.
Zoe arches one eyebrow. ‘We’ll see, dear. We’ll just see.’
I don’t like the way she peers at me over the bowl of snot. It’s disconcerting. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I think you’re underestimating how hard it’s going to be.’
I wave a hand. ‘Nah. It’ll be okay. I’m used to aching a bit from exercise.’
‘Okay, honey. I’m sure you know what you’re doing,’ she replies in that irritating sing-song way people adopt when they’re obviously humouring you.
‘The timing is good as well,’ I point out. ‘I’ll get her to do our last session first thing Saturday morning, and I can go straight from training to the radio station for the weigh-in.’
The following Saturday marks the first of many regular weigh-in sessions live on air at Stream FM. Each couple will be weighed, and the twosome with the highest percentage of fat loss since the start of the competition will be rewarded with a bottle of low-calorie champagne (which looks like horse piss as far as I can tell) and two tickets to the fitness expo happening at Earl’s Court next month.
A combination of Zoe’s bizarre cabbage diet and my week-long intensive training should give us a good crack at winning, even if I don’t want to drink horse piss and can think of nothing worse than attending a fitness expo in London.
So Sunday morning I walk over to the park in the spring sunshine, ready to see what Alice Pithering has in store for me.
To decide on an appropriate regime, she’d already asked me to email her my vital statistics, exercise and medical history, and what I hoped to achieve from our week-long session. She also had me pay her the three hundred quid for the course up front, which I was a bit dubious about doing, but that was the way she wanted it so I had no choice.
I’m certainly wearing the right clothes for someone about to embark on a glorious programme of uplifting exercise.
Brand-new running shoes adorn my feet, and my expensive Nike tracksuit has been brought out of mothballs. Well, the bottom half, anyway. I tried to squeeze the zip-up top on as well, but my tits just weren’t having any of it. I’ve instead had to settle for my England rugby jersey, which still looks pretty sporty when you get right down to it.
Alice Pithering is waiting for me by the bench at the top of the hill in the middle of the park. She’s decked out much as you’d expect for a personal trainer—in black spandex shorts and a purple spandex shirt. I note that the woman is as flat-chested as a twelve-year-old. I know I shouldn’t be looking at such things in these circumstances, but spandex is a material designed to highlight every curve and bulge—or lack thereof.
If I tried to wear it I’d look like a badly made sausage.
‘Good morning, Greg!’ Alice says to me as I saunter up the hill to meet her.
‘Morning,’ I reply and stifle a yawn.
‘Looks like we could do with waking you up a bit!’ she exclaims and her eyes protrude even further.
They really are quite disconcerting. I want to cup my hands under her face to catch them every time she wobbles her head.
‘Shall we start with some warm-up exercises?’
‘Why not?’ I tell her and smile as the sun bathes us both in its spring warmth.
Alice starts me off with some stretches to get the blood flowing. This all seems fine and I can feel a light sweat beginning to surface. By the time ten minutes have passed I feel ever so slightly out of breath, but otherwise content.
‘Right, then!’ Alice claps her hands together. ‘I thought we’d begin with a jog round the park. How does that sound?’
‘Great.’
‘Excellent! I’ll increase the pace as we go, so just try to keep up with me.’
And with that she’s gone, bouncing along the path with her skinny heels kicking up gravel as she goes.
I set off in pursuit, and find it quite easy to keep up with her for the first three hundred yards or so. I’m comfortable, breathing evenly, and feeling good about myself.
Then Alice starts to jog a bit faster. I adjust my speed to compensate.
For another fifty yards I’m alright, but then my lungs start to protest.
As do my feet.
And my thighs.
And my ankles.
Have you ever owned a car for more than a few years? Perhaps quite an old one?
You know how they can run and run for ages with no problems, but once one thing goes wrong, everything starts to fall apart on the bugger?
My body is now going through much the same process, only in a mere matter of minutes.
‘Just going to go a bit faster now, Greg,’ Alice says . . . and bolts off like a scalded cat.
The woman obviously has no comprehension of the term ‘gentle increment.’ One minute she’s jogging along next to me; the next she’s doing her best impression of Usain Bolt with a firework up his arse.
In my defence I try my hardest to match her speed, for about twenty feet. Then my body essentially tells me to go fuck myself in no uncertain terms.
It does this by tangling my legs together.
This has never happened to me before.
In all my years on this planet I’ve always been able to work my legs in a proper, co-ordinated fashion. Not once have my lower limbs ever decided to clash at the knees and send me sprawling onto the ground, no matter how drunk/high/exhausted/all of the above I happen to have been at the time.
Today, though, it’s like they have magnets strapped to them.
As Alice rockets away from me and I try my best to catch up, I feel my left ankle clip t
he right painfully. This makes me wince and start to stumble. My forward momentum keeps me upright just long enough for my knees to whack into one another and for my legs to go completely out from under me.
‘Aliiiiice!’ I cry forlornly with one hand outstretched as gravity does its job, sending me sprawling onto the gravel path.
Falling onto gravel while running in a park is more painful than falling off a chair at a barbecue. The embarrassment factor is less, though, given there aren’t so many spectators around to witness it.
I haul myself into a sitting position and grab one scraped knee as Alice trots back to me.
I look up at her face, expecting her to commiserate with my misfortune. A few words of comfort from that reedy little voice will go down very well at this point.
‘What are you doing?’ she says in a perfunctory manner and puts her hands on her hips.
‘I fell over,’ I tell her and rub my knee by way of further explanation.
‘What do you want, a medal?’
‘I’m sorry?’
This is most unexpected. I would have thought old Bulgy-Eyes would have been full of sympathy, judging from her demeanour so far, but not so, it appears.
‘I said, what do you want? A fucking medal?’
I look up at her, not quite knowing how to react.
She holds out an arm. ‘Come on, Greg. Get up. We’ve still got the rest of the park to run round yet before we get going properly.’
She expects me to carry on?
‘I don’t think I can,’ I say. ‘I’ve hurt myself.’
‘You scraped your knee, Greg. Just get up and shake it off.’
‘It hurts.’
‘Are you a poof?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You heard. Are you a poof?’
‘Er . . . no?’
‘Well, get up and stop acting like one, then.’ She shakes her hand at me. I take it, still somewhat shell-shocked by her aggressive use of such a politically incorrect term.
Alice’s grip is like steel.
She hauls me to my feet with seemingly no effort whatsoever.
‘Ready then?’ she says.
Fat Chance Page 7