by Chris Birch
The line went dead. I put the phone down, pushed the last pieces of washing into the tumble dryer and turned it on. As the hum of the machine rung out the severity of what had happened began to dawn on me.
Shit. I thought. How can I fix it?
But at the same time, there was a slight relief, it felt like my whole life was spent arguing with Lauren, it would be nice to have a rest.
We just need a bit of space, as soon as we miss each other things will go back to normal, I reasoned. It’s probably for the best, we’ll be stronger after a break.
It wasn’t just Lauren and I that had been busy recently. It seemed like all of my friends were starting to step up in the world. There was an unspoken competition between us, who had the best phone, car, job, even girlfriend. So, just like my Dad had always taught me, I was working hard, getting to work early, leaving a little later, in the hope it would help me get a promotion.
Dad had always been a stickler for teaching Simon and I a good work ethic. I can still remember the speech he gave me one day, before handing over my pocket money, when I was a child.
'This doesn’t grow on trees you know,' he had said before placing a pound coin in my hand.
Then eight-years-old, I looked up at Dad, he was standing in the kitchen and had his wallet open, I could see the notes peeking out of the top and thought he must be loaded.
'You have to work for your money Son,' he said.
I had just had to clean the bathroom to get the coin and so I assumed Dad had to do the same.
'Do you have to do chores to get money Dad?' I asked.
He smiled.
'Yeah, I suppose I do.’
'I do my job, sometimes I like doing it, sometimes I don’t but the point is, I do an honest day’s work. Hard work is good for you,' he said, before patting me on the back.
Dad’s attitude had stayed with me and wanting to impress him, when I was just fourteen I got a job in a local grocery shop and had kept a job ever since. When I got the position at the bank I knew if I just kept my head down I would get a good pension and enough money to create a comfortable enough life for me and Lauren. It seemed as if my plan to work my way up had paid off when one Monday I was called into the office.
'We want to fast-track you for the business-manager programme Chris,' my boss
declared cheerfully after she had called me into her office.
I sat back in my seat, this is great, I thought, I can’t wait to tell Dad.
'Once you’ve trained for the role you’ll get a company car and a company phone.’
A grin spread across my face, I tried to stop the edges of my mouth from smiling, I wanted to look professional but was dying to call my friends and tell them.
I imagined driving my company car and immediately began to wonder what it would be. I had seen one of the managers driving a Jaguar, blimey, I thought, what if it’s one of those? Imagine the boys’ faces when I pull up in a Jag.
Some people mark their success by their job title, their pay packet, or, even their home, for me, it was cars. Like the rest of the lads, I was obsessed with motors, we would spend hours watching reruns of old Top Gear episodes, getting excited when the presenter got to drive a Bugatti, or, a Porsche.
When I imagined winning the lottery and how I would spend the money, it nearly always started with blowing hundreds of thousands of pounds on Italian sports cars.
'There is a public facing element to being a business manager,' my boss’ voice broke me from my thoughts.
I gulped.
'So, you will need to go out and meet with different clients, it will be chance to get you out of this dark, old office,' she said enthusiastically.
I instantly felt nervous. I didn’t want to leave the office, I liked it in there and the idea of trying to impress business people seemed intimidating. In my current job I was hidden away, above the bank, in a small office. I would spend most of the day on my own just typing information into a computer. Every now and then a manger would drop off some more files, or, send me an enquiry but apart from that, I didn’t really have to speak to anyone. That suited me fine. It wasn’t that I didn’t like being with other people, I spent every spare moment I got with my friends, out in town, or, at the rugby club but I knew them. I wasn’t keen on spending time with strangers. Without my liquid courage I found introductions and speaking to new people painfully awkward.
I began to wonder if the promotion was such a good thing after all.
So, Chris, you just let us know when you are ready to start the programme,' my boss said.
'Yeah,' I nodded.
I knew that day would never come.
After Lauren and I broke up I quickly fell back into my old routine of spending all my time in the pub with my mates. One night, sat around a pub table, like we had done every Tuesday before I had met Lauren, the lads tried to cheer me up.
'Don’t worry mate, plenty more fish in the sea,' Ben offered, before taking a sip of his pint.
'I don’t want any more fish, Ben.’
The waitress brought over a black tray of food, the sizzling sound of the sauce still cooking followed her and she plonked the plate in front of me. Steam hit my eyes and made them sore.
'You aren’t going to cry are you mate?' Paul worried.
'It’s the steam.’
If anything could take my mind off Lauren it was, 'the sizzler,' the mixed-meat feast which I always ordered at the local pub. In fact, the gap that Lauren had left in my life was mostly being filled with food and alcohol. Every weekend I would go to Blackwood and Newport for a night out. I wasn’t trying to meet girls, instead my highlight came after we left the nightclub. Steaming drunk, we would cue up at the local kebab house and get as much food as we could carry.
'Mixed kebab, extra burger sauce, two portions of chips…' I started ordering and already felt myself salivating.
'That all for you?' the lady behind the counter asked.
She knew it was, she served me every week, I realised she was poking fun at me.
On the walk home from the chip shop, I guiltily consumed my kebab like a fox picking through scraps from a bin. By the time I got home there was nothing left but the stabbing feeling of guilt. I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth, the pungent garlic of the kebab was like an unwelcome reminder of how much I had eaten. When I turned the light on, my podgy face stared back at me in the mirror over the basin, I looked at myself properly for the first time in months. I was huge. My neck was thicker, the slight shadow of chubby man boobs protruded from my t-shirt, the pattern of the material was stretched around my flabby belly where it had been forced out of shape.
On the other side of the mirror I noticed the reflection of Mum’s scales. Before I could give it a second thought I stepped on to them and nervously stared down, waiting for the verdict. The digital numbers spelt out 19.
Nineteen? What stone? That can’t be right.
I checked the measurement, it was stone. Nineteen stone?
Blimey. I thought back to the last time I had weighed myself, it was when I was seventeen and the doctor’s needed to update their records on me.
I was eleven stone then, I recalled.
So, I’ve put on eight stone in two years? Eight stone. That’s another human being.
I instantly regretted eating the kebab and chips I had wolfed down.
How had I got so fat?
That question followed me into bed but as I tried to settle myself to sleep the answer slowly dawned on me. I had McDonalds for lunch most days. I liked to alternate different burgers, you know, try different things, my favourite was a double quarter-pounder with chips and a super-sized milkshake.
The burger has lettuce in and I do have to walk down the high street to McDonalds, so that’s exercise, I reasoned.
Then there was the vending machine next to my desk, every time I finished a piece of work I would dive into my pocket of change and get a chocolate bar, or, packet of crisps.
A little snack, that c
an’t hurt, I thought.
Then I remembered all the restaurants I visited with Lauren when we were together. We would eat out a few times a week and then share a huge takeaway pizza, snuggled up on the sofa at the weekend.
As I struggled to sleep, the realisation of how just how big I was kept shaking me awake.
When I woke up the next morning the slight prickle of a hangover wasn’t the only thing that was bothering me. It was if I had noticed my reflection for the first time in years and without the confidence of having a girlfriend, I felt self-conscious about my extra weight. When we were together, it was easy to ignore my size. We loved to go out for meals together and Lauren hadn’t been bothered that I had gained an extra layer of wobbly skin since we had first met. I didn’t even think much of it when I outgrew my uniform at the bank. Their standard-issue trousers only went up to a 40-inch waist so I had gone to a special plus-sized suit-makers in Cardiff and ordered a pair of new, 43-inch-waisted trousers. You would thought that would have been the warning sign that I was porky but I had just thought it was cool that they were being made specially for me. Lauren loved me the way I was, so at the time it didn’t matter. But now I was single being overweight no longer seemed acceptable.
I had noticed that Dad had shifted a few stone on the heartbreak diet, after his break-up with Mum he had been going to the gym every day. So, I decided to ask him for some advice, as with most important conversations with Dad it had happened in his shed at his new house. Walking into the shed for that particular Father–Son conversation, I found Dad fiddling with a box of nails. He looked up and I took a few seconds to study his face; he looked at me and laughed.
'You’re still getting used to it, aren’t you?' he chuckled.
Dad stroked the now-shaven patch of skin where his auburn moustache had once sat. Another change. Despite having a moustache for most of my life, after Mum and Dad had split he had immediately shaved it off.
'How are things with Lauren?' Dad asked.
'I’m sure we will get back together ... one day,' I said, taking a seat on a stool opposite Dad, trying to sound optimistic.
'Well, what will be, will be, Son,' he sighed, before taking a long drag on his cigarette.
The smoke lingered in the dank musty shed, almost settling in mid-air.
Behind my happy pretence, I was actually feeling pretty confused; Mum and Dad’s break-up had hit me hard and now Lauren and I had split too. I had suddenly lost all stability; everything around me was shifting when I just wanted it to stay exactly the same.
'I don’t want to be a forty-something obese singleton, still living with my mum,' I sighed.
Dad laughed.
'Well, there’s no way that’s gonna happen. Your mum would kick you out.'
He winked.
I didn’t smile back, and Dad took pity on me.
'The best advice I can give you is, go and do some exercise,' he suggested, whilst stubbing out his cigarette in an old pub ashtray
Prickling with embarrassment, I looked at the floor. Dad had obviously noticed my weight gain. He was no Arnold Schwarzenegger but it was blindingly clear to me that I was fatter than my dad and that was pretty embarrassing.
Suddenly the years of cuddling up on the sofa eating takeaways with my ex-fiancée didn’t seem such a good idea. No one would fancy me now I was chubby.
Dad noticed my silence and realised that my feelings could have been hurt.
'You’re fine as you are,' he reassured me.
'I just think exercise is good for the mind. It will help you to focus on what you want and it will get you out of the house.' He smiled, patting me on the shoulder.
Without knowing it, with that advice, Dad unwittingly set in motion a series of events that would change my life forever.
Chapter Five: The Fall
There was an earthquake in my head. A pounding sensation coming from my skull that seemed to shake my whole body.
‘Ow,' I moaned, unaware if anyone was there to hear me.
Suddenly, as if someone had turned up the volume on the world around me, I heard a chorus of birds tweeting.
I must be outside. Am I laying down? I wondered. I could feel my horizontal body
twitching against something scratchy, maybe grass. Then a thought hit me, I’m not on my own.
It was only a matter of seconds, but in a moment that felt like minutes I wondered if I were alive, or, dead. As the hot tingle of pain seared through my skull, I tried to collect my disorientated thoughts despite the heavy fog that was settling in my mind.
Where am I? What’s happened to me?
Perhaps it’s the church where you got married, the bar where you met your partner for the first time, or the hospital where you lost a loved one, everybody has a certain place that holds a significant memory for them. My special place is a little unusual. It’s a muddy patch of grass in the unassuming local park in Bargoed, South Wales, where an innocent roll down a small hill killed the man I was and made me reborn.
Looking back now, the day I had the accident is full of what if’s. Something as simple as a bit of rain could have completely changed my actions on that day and therefore altered the course of the rest of my life. But like most monumental moments, it’s only become significant with hindsight. That Sunday, in July 2005, started off as routinely as any other.
Like most weekends, I woke in the morning to the sound of my brother Simon, then fourteen, and his friend Nathan playing James Bond GoldenEye on the Nintendo 64 in Simon’s room.
Our three-bedroom, mid-terraced house in Bargoed had what seemed like paper-thin walls, so no matter where you were in the house you couldn’t escape each other. I pulled myself out of bed, reached for my dressing gown and then padded towards Simon’s room. His door opened with a creak and I spotted a pillow of messy brown hair, not dissimilar to my own, and then two brown eyes peeking out from under a duvet. The only other sign that a human was under it was Simon’s tanned arms holding his controller in front of him. I’d always envied his tanned skin, I’d inherited the pasty-white gene like the rest of the family, but Simon resembled a sun-kissed Spaniard.
'Morning!' he said, gruffly.
He was furiously pushing the buttons on his controller and his eyes were still fixed on the screen in front of him. Nathan, similarly transfixed with the game, was more polite and looked up briefly to give me a quick wave.
'Fancy a game of squash in a bit?' I suggested.
I had been on a health kick since I had broken up with Lauren and squash was my new passion. I started going for a run some mornings at 5.30 a.m., lapping the park until I was completely out of breath and then having a quick shower before going to work. With no girlfriend and more free time on my hands, I also started having a few games of squash with my younger brother, Simon, at the local leisure centre in Bargoed Park. We hadn’t played together since he had accidentally hit me over the head with a squash racket when we were kids, but we had a new-found enjoyment in putting each other through our paces. It wasn’t making a dent on my flabby belly and my poor diet of kebabs and beer cancelled out any exercise I was doing but it was giving me some much-needed distraction.
So, that is what led me to be at the squash court with Simon and Nathan on that hot and humid Sunday morning. The leisure centre wasn’t too busy that day, but when I looked up to the roof of the inside court, faces peered back at me from the balcony level. Knowing people were watching added another level of pressure. I had always been a competitive person. I sometimes even cheated when I played Monopoly. So, I couldn’t lose a game of squash, to my little brother, in front of people. Although I was six years older, I had never let Simon win, not even when he was a little boy. I wanted him to learn that he had to work hard to succeed, that’s what I told myself anyway.
Focusing on the hard wall in front of me, I got myself in position to serve before fiddling with my special blue-tinted glasses. I had bought them after I read somewhere that they helped players to focus on the ball. My brother
was sidling from side to side, anticipating my serve, his thin frame swaying like one of the tennis players at Wimbledon. Lingering over my serve a few seconds longer than usual, to try and psych him out, I finally reached up and swooped the racket onto the ball with all the force I could muster. Simon stretched desperately but couldn’t quite reach the ball and it flew past him.
'Point to me,' I announced loudly, the edges of my mouth turning up into a smug smile.
My brother said nothing.
'Ahh, you’ve got to try harder, Sime,' I teased.
'You’re cheating.’
I rolled my eyes.
'You’re a sore loser’.
Simon shook his head at my gloating and looked over at Nathan for sympathy, but he was staying well out of the sibling rivalry. After an hour and a half of games, I was declared the winner.
'Wiped the floor with both of you.’
'Yeah, yeah,' Simon sighed, 'I let you win’.
Looking down at my watch, I saw it was midday.
'We better get back, Simon, Nan’s expecting us.’
Our nan was in hospital. After having her gallbladder removed, she hadn’t recovered as the doctors had expected and so she was being monitored. I was really close to my nan, my mum’s mum, and although I had only been in to visit her a few days before, I had offered to drive Simon to the hospital so we could both see her.
'Let’s hit the showers then,' Simon suggested.
The cool water revived me, but when we left the leisure centre and hit the wall of heat waiting for us outside, it was like walking into a wall of steam, like when you first get off the plane in a hot country. But a little sweat wasn’t going to dampen my spirits and after my triumphant game of squash I was still feeling pretty cocky.
The quickest route home was to walk through Bargoed Park, which was next to the leisure centre and connected to my old High School. The green grass, football pitches and tennis courts went on forever. It was the largest part of Bargoed and the park was central to our lives, like the beating heart of the town. It held pretty much every significant memory of the past twenty years of my life. The park was the background to games of football, birthdays at the leisure centre and even trudging through the fields on my way to and from school, every day. I had seen every blade of grass a hundred times, looked up at the dull, 1970s-style leisure centre every single day. I knew the park and its contents inside out. At weekends we watched rugby and played football there, and when I was six I had learnt to swim at the pool in the leisure centre. As it was only a five-minute walk from my house my family used to have picnics there when we were kids and we took our dog, Suzy, there for walks. For whatever reason, I was at that park almost every single day.