Fat

by Rob Grant

  Justine didn't even look fazed. She stood up and said: 'Sure?'

  'I'm disappointed, but I'm sure.'

  'Cos, if we're not your flavour, Jase'll sort you. Won't you, Jase?'

  Jason, who was currently on the receiving end of a very slurpy blow job from Amy, grinned and said, 'No worries, mate. I'll blow you, if that's your cuppa.'

  Jeremy thanked them all, but assured them that was definitely not his cup of tea.

  And while Amy worked away on Jason, the other two girls engaged in a snogging session themselves, in their underwear. La Perla, it was, too. Whether it was for Jeremy's benefit, or whether that was really their cup of tea, was unclear. Certainly Jeremy was beginning to regret his noble stand, and it was a relief when Jason finished his business with a noisy yell of, 'He doesn't want that one back!', zipped himself up, grabbed Jeremy's Amex card and said: 'Top-up, anyone?'

  Jeremy had to hang around until they'd worked their way through the mound, just so he could get his Amex card and his money back -- these superstars of pop didn't have a credit card or a note of the realm between the lot of them.

  There was much raucous fun. The four of them did a rendition of Three Dog Night's 'Joy to the World' in his honour, though most of them didn't know the words, or, it would appear, the tune. The notion that these people made their living from singing was very hard to swallow. Either the recording engineers were geniuses, or someone else did the singing for them.

  Jeremy made his excuses, they all swapped mobile numbers and he left them in the loo singing, for about the fifteenth time, 'Jeremiah was a Bullfrog'. It wasn't getting any more melodious with practice. He thought about leaving them the rest of his stash, but the truth is, the idiots might very well have killed themselves with it. They didn't seem to be capable of wrapping their juvenile minds around the concept of 'enough'. He took the box with him. He'd probably flush it away when he got home.

  He left the club and stepped out into the sharp night. Some waiting paparazzi debated whether or not to snap him, but decided not to waste the space on their compact flash cards. It had been one hell of a day. He signalled one of the waiting cabs.

  So that was sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll then, was it? As far as Jeremy was concerned, they could keep it.

  PART THREE:

  March 21st

  menu Du Jour

  Pan-fried foie Gras with Sauternes Jelly

  Lobster Thermidor

  --o0o--

  Chicken nuggets with Chips and Broccoli

  --o0o--

  Absolutely nothing At All

  'There is nothing conventional about wisdom.

  There is nothing common about sense.'

  (Rob Grant: Fat, 2006)

  FIFTY-TWO

  Something was afoot. Something was definitely awry.

  In the bleak wasteland that Hayleigh's life had become since the failed finale -- a limbo land where you weren't actually dead, but you couldn't say you were actually living, either -- the dull, endless routines were constant and never changing. There wasn't even a weekend to look forward to, there was just a featureless nothing, with the days all melting together into one giant, congealed, ugly lump. She had given up the whole euthanasia business altogether, for the duration of her imprisonment, at least. She just could not, when it came right down to it, face the sheer violence required. When she'd planned it, the final act had seemed clean, almost serene, and dignified. But it was not. It was actually a slasher horror movie. It was Scream, which she wasn't supposed to have seen, but, in the days when she'd been allowed sleepovers, there was always somebody's brother who had a forbidden DVD, or more lax parents who didn't seem to care about a movie's certification. And, given the opportunity, how could you not watch a movie with diet goddess Courteney Cox Arquette in it, gruesome as it was?

  Compliance was the watchword. Hayleigh was complying. She had quite simply run out of struggle. She did what was asked of her in a switched-off, distant kind of way. She resumed her visits to the nut doctor. She listened to him. She even answered his questions, and responded to his probes in a polite, if detached way. She ate her meals, joylessly and without appetite, but she ate them. She'd stopped worrying about what was on her plate. She simply pretended it was all astronaut mulch. Sausages, potatoes, custard: it was all the same to Hayleigh. They could have fed her cowpats dipped in rat poison and she wouldn't have noticed. The first few days on this compliance regime, she had thrown up after every meal, involuntarily, and that had caused great consternation and gnashing of teeth, but then she'd settled into it, and what went down her gullet now had the good manners to stay down.

  And she felt like an astronaut, too: floating in zero gravity slow motion through a featureless fug of infinite space; waking, eating, eating, eating and then sleeping. She was no longer on Talk Strike, but she hardly ever spoke, anyway, outside of the nut doc's office. What was there to say? Mum, of course, chitter-chatted away to her, but she might as well have been talking to a coma victim. Hayleigh was, she had no doubt whatsoever, going slowly, inexorably insane.

  But now, something was happening. Something that might actually be, lawks a'mercy, interesting.

  First, this fella had come into her room. He was really quite lush, although Hayleigh didn't normally go for older men, and he was ancient. He must have been pushing twenty-seven at the very least. He had a very nice suit on, and the best haircut she'd ever seen in real life. Most of the male hospital staff seemed to get their coiffures from the same barber stroke butcher's shop that must clearly have been caught in some kind of time warp and could only provide haircuts directly copied from her Gran's 1954 Gratton catalogue. He'd smiled at her (fab smile, fab teeth) and asked her about her Jason wall. She'd blushed (silly cow) and answered him, and then he'd beckoned Mum, and they'd gone out of the room.

  Hayleigh hadn't been able to catch the full gist of their conspiratorial whisperings, but Mum had come back into the room trying very hard not to look excited at all, but Hayleigh knew her better than that. They were, after all -- don't vomit, now -- roomies. Hayleigh asked her what it was all about, but she'd just said she wasn't sure, and it would probably turn out to be nothing at all, but then El Lusho had popped his head in the door, nodded and gave Mum the thumbs up, and she really started trying not to look excited.

  And now, the strangeness was being compounded. Mum had wheeled her to the bathroom and washed her hair, with actual shampoo. The mirror, mercifully, had been repaired by now, and she wasn't sure Mum had even been told about the incident. Certainly, it had never been mentioned since.

  Then, curiouser and curiouser, Mum had wheeled Hayleigh back to her room and blow-dried her hair for her. She hadn't had her hair blow-dried since she'd been carried in through the hospital doors, almost three weeks ago.

  And then Mum had helped her get dressed. In clothes. She'd been so used to wearing the standard-issue white hospital gown with a humiliating slit up the back, she'd forgotten what clothes felt like.

  And then lush mush had come back with a Boots the Chemists bag which had actual grown-up make-up in it, which is normally the sole province of the sleepover because Dad doesn't approve of you wearing make-up in case it somehow turns you into a woman, and Mum had started putting it on for her.

  All the while, Hayleigh was badgering her, trying to wheedle out of her just exactly what was going on, and all Mum could say, when she managed to stop grinning like a lunatic, was that it was a surprise, and she'd find out soon enough.

  And when Mum had finished with the slap: foundation, blusher, eyeshadow, lip gloss, the full monty, and even some Chanel eau de toilette, she stood back and admired her work, and declared that Hayleigh looked absolutely beautiful, which, unless one of the surgeons from Nip/Tuck had somehow sneaked into the room without her noticing and secretly performed major facial reconstructive surgery, Hayleigh seriously doubted.

  And then it happened.

  As long as you live, you will never guess who came bounding into the room.


  Seriously, you would have a heart attack and die right there and then.

  FIFTY-THREE

  Jeremy was wandering randomly along the corridors of the London Royal Hospital. He'd been taken on several official tours of several institutions, but he knew better than to believe the dog and pony shows those bullshit artists put on for him. He was, after all, king of the bullshit artists. So he'd done some research of his own. It wasn't difficult. Security in most hospitals was close to non-existent, except on a few post-natal wards. And what he'd found, quite frankly, appalled him. There were endless corridors lined with trolleys that had been redesignated as 'beds' in order to hit Government targets, and many of them had very sick people on them. The staff morale was just about flatlining, from the surgical consultants to the Eastern European cleaning staff, who had one half-hour break for their lunch, without pay, of course, and nowhere to eat it: nowhere to sit down, even, and they were paid like Dickensian chimney sweeps. The whole edifice of the National Health Service was crumbling visibly, and here he was with instructions to paper over the cracks.

  Well, it wasn't his job to be winkling out the truth. He wasn't a scientist, he wasn't a journalist. His job was to make his employers look good. His job was spin. Although you didn't call it that any more, the word 'spin' having acquired negative associations. What you did was: you realigned perceptions. You didn't lie -- you wouldn't last long in the industry if you actually out and out lied -- you adopted the... what had Jemma called it? Dean Martin? No, you adopted the Bing Crosby approach. You accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative, and don't mess with Mr In-Between. He smiled at the memory of her singing that in her scarily convincing baritone, with her face all contorted.

  What the NHS needed was billions of pounds. What the NHS needed was to put doctors back in charge and hurl the budget-leeching administrators out of their high office windows. What the NHS was getting was Jeremy Slank, some plaster and paint, a flash new logo and a few million for advertising.

  It didn't make him feel good, but it was his job, and he would do it, and do it well. After all, with his new partnership slice of the action, and his own ridiculous fees, this contract alone would make him very comfortably a millionaire before the end of the year. On top of which, he just might be able to slip in some positive changes. They needed to stop farming out the cleaning contracts and bring that particular service back in house. That wouldn't cost an arm and a leg, and it would actually save lives. Maybe, if he did a good enough job, he could have a decent shot at selling that option.

  And then he'd seen her. The wraith. This young girl -- it was impossible to tell her age accurately -- so thin and frail it looked like a strong wind would snap her in two. Her eyes were sunk in her head in dark hollows. She looked for all the world like one of the children sheltering under the robe of the Ghost of Christmas Present in the cartoon version of A Christmas Carol: the girl named 'Hunger'. She was in a wheelchair, and someone who loved her had painstakingly coloured in the plaster cast around her leg in purple felt-tip. Of course, she looked very poorly, but it wasn't that that broke Jeremy's heart when he looked at her. It was her eyes. They looked so fierce and proud and defiant. As if she was a healthy kid trapped in the body of a frail one. It was as if she needed someone to rescue her. As if -- and Jeremy had no idea why this word popped into his head -- as if she needed a hero.

  Then he'd seen the montage on her wall, and recognised that idiot from the launch party. Maybe he could do something for her, after all. Not be her hero, exactly. Just organise a little something to brighten her day.

  He made the phone call.

  'Jase?'

  'What up, dude?'

  'It's Jeremy. Jeremy Slank?' Confused silence. 'We met at the Well Farm launch party last week, remember?'

  'Sorry, man, I was well wasted, innit?'

  'I introduced you to my friend, Charlie?'

  'Oh, right. With you. The Bullfrog, innit? How's it hangin', mate?'

  'Good. Look, are you around? In London, I mean?'

  'Yeah. I is chillin' with me posse, innit?'

  'Look, I know it's a big thing to ask: could you possibly get over to the London Royal Hospital?'

  'I dunno 'bout that, mate. I is well busy, innit. We is writing a song, innit.'

  Jeremy smiled. This bloke couldn't have written his name in the ground with a stick with someone else guiding it for him. He could hear the sound of a PlayStation game in the background. 'I appreciate that, Jase. It's just, there's this girl here, and she's pretty sick and all, and I think a visit from you might--'

  'You want me to do her?'

  'Do her? No. She's just a kid. And she's pretty ill.'

  'You know me, mate, I'll fuck anything.' There was raucous laughter from the posse.

  'I hate asking for a favour, but it'll only take half an hour, and it would mean the world... If you could just see her, you'd be here in a flash.'

  'You got any of that good gak?'

  'Jesus. This is a cellphone, dude.'

  'Sorry, innit.' And he adopted what Jeremy could only imagine was Jason Black's interpretation of how a normal human being with an actual IQ might speak: 'Would your delightful friend Charles be in attendance, Jeremiah, what ho?'

  Jeremy shook his head. He'd have to get a cab back to his pad. Lucky he hadn't remembered to flush the bloody stuff away. 'Yes, Jase. Charlie will be here.'

  'That is bear good, amigo.'

  Jeremy assumed this was some kind of positive response. 'You'll come over, then?'

  'I am out of the door as we is speaking.'

  'Top man. Meet you at the lifts on the fifth floor in an hour.'

  'Sorted.'

  Jeremy met Jason at the lift. He was flirting with a nurse when the doors opened, and not too successfully if the nurse's expression was any guide. Jason gave Jeremy a big smile and offered his hand, palm down, for a handshake.

  'Bullfrog, ma man. You is looking cooking.'

  'You too, Jase,' Jeremy lied. The bloke looked and smelled like he hadn't washed in a week, or changed his clothes in twice that time. It could well be so: he was probably on a constant 24/7 party. In fact, wasn't that...? Yes. He was still wearing the same shirt he'd worn at the launch party: a neat, fitted pale yellow shirt with blue and red vertical stripes. Didn't they have an entourage, these people? Surely they had someone looking after their wardrobe, at least? Or did that only happen higher up the pop food chain? He was, naturally, sporting the obligatory wannabe rock star shades, though the hospital lighting was dim at best. 'She's just down here.'

  'Whoa, whoa, whoa. What about the naughty salt?'

  'Well, I thought you'd want to see her straight.'

  'I ain't been straight in five years, mate. I hate straight. I need the naughty salt to get me straight.'

  Jeremy looked around, then dug into his left-hand pocket and discreetly palmed over the silver box.

  Jason shook his head. 'No, no, no, man. You always give with the right hand, and receive with the left, innit.'

  What? Bloody druggy nonsense. Jeremy swapped hands, thereby doubling his risk of detection and passed the case over.

  'Wicked.' Jason pocketed the box deftly. He licked his lips. The prospect of the drugs was literally making him drool. 'Where's the nearest, ah, facility?'

  Jeremy nodded in the direction of the loos.

  'Want to come with?'

  'Not right now, thanks.'

  'Your loss.'

  Jason swaggered off like he was holding a watermelon between his thighs. Was that how the cool kids walked now, or was he just recovering from pile surgery?

  Jeremy waited. And though the lavatories were a good twenty yards down the corridor, he could actually hear Jason snort, followed by an unintelligible yell, a 'fuck me sideways' and a cowboy 'Yippee!'.

  Jason emerged seconds later, looking considerably happier. He took a few regular steps towards Jeremy before he remembered how he was supposed to walk, and resumed his swagger.

  '
That is some serious blow, Jeremiah. That is uncut and straight from the coca plant.' He held out his right hand, palm down, to return the box.

  Jeremy shook his head. 'Keep it, mate.'

  'Seriously?'

  'It's yours.'

  'Fuck off! This must be worth, like, a grand, man, innit.'

  'You're doing me a favour.'

  'You is my number one go-to guy, Bullfrog.'

  'Don't mention it.'

  'Listen, if I call you, can you get me--'

  'I'm not a dealer, Jase.'

  'No offence, innit.'

  'None taken.'

  Jason looked at the box, then slipped it into his pocket. He rubbed his hands. 'Right then, where's the ho?'

  Jeremy tried not to wince. 'Down here. Her name is Hayleigh.'

  'Right. Like the motorbike, innit.'

  'No, that's Harley.'

  'Whatever.'

  'This way.' Jeremy nodded down the corridor and turned.

  'Hang on, mate.' Jason opened his mouth into a big 'O' shape and started making a series of bizarre choking noises deep in his throat. 'Kukkrrrrrk, kukkrrrrrrk...'

  'Are you all right?'

  Jason nodded but kept on making the choking noises anyway. Jeremy looked round, worried, to see if there was a doctor or a nurse nearby who might rush to the rescue if Jason had a fit or something.

  Jason spoke, but his voice rattled from somewhere down low in his windpipe. 'Shit, man, I think I anaesthetised me throat.' He put his hand on Jeremy's shoulder for support and bent his head. He kept on making the choking noises, 'Kukkrrrrrk, kukkrrrrrrk, kukkrrrrrrk,' as if someone was trying to throttle the life out of him. What if he choked to death? What if he OD'd? What if he dropped down dead right there on the spot with Jeremy's drug stash on him?

  But he finally stopped choking, gave a massive snort and straightened up. 'Like I said, mate. That is good blow.' His face was red and he was sweating, and none too fragrantly, either. Jeremy offered him some cologne, but Jason said he was 'chill' and they moved off towards Hayleigh's room. There were white specks on Jason's shirt, but Jeremy couldn't tell if they were renegade grains of coke or just common or garden dandruff. Hopefully, the kid would be too blown away at meeting Jason to scrutinise too closely.