Fat Chance (23 page)

The real heroes are Shane and Theresa, though, as is right and proper. The DJs and reporters can see how much of an effort they put in to finish and are extracting all the human interest they can get out of it for their airwaves and column inches.

I spot Frankie and Benny standing over in one corner looking a little disgruntled, and feel a fair bit of pity for them. They won the race, after all, and yet the guy who came in last is getting all the attention.

Sorry . . . the guy who came second to last. The honour of the wooden spoon falls to yours truly and his blisters.

‘I bet Shane and Terrie will be the ones featured in the paper tomorrow,’ I point out to Zoe in the taxi back home a little later.

‘Probably. I’m sure they’ll get a shot of him crossing the line with his arms up. It was like something out of
Chariots of Fire
. Only with more wobbling.’

When I do see the paper the next day, though, I am amazed to see that the image they’ve gone with to illustrate the dramatic end of the fun run isn’t one of Shane crossing the line. Instead, it’s a shot of me and Shane just before the finish with our wives alongside us. My arm is tucked under his, and the strain and effort is writ large across both our faces.

The caption that goes with the story is
He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.

You couldn’t ask for a better cliché than that, could you?

Cliché or not, I can’t help but feel a bit proud of myself.

Zoe was
certainly
proud of me, as by the end of the day she’d already got the cutting from the paper framed and on the kitchen wall. She also had the kind of sex with me that night that most men only dream about, or watch late at night on the Sky channels near the top end.

The blisters on my feet still haven’t completely healed and I think a trip to the doctor’s is in order for my left heel, but I’m still extremely glad I saw the fun run out.

If nothing else, I got the chance to help another man lift his arms above his head and cry triumphantly into the sky.

I also learned a valuable lesson.

Sometimes, you really do get what you pay for . . . especially when it comes to footwear.

ZOE’S WEIGHT LOSS DIARY

Tuesday, July 8th

11 stone, 4 pounds (3 stone, 3 pounds lost)

M
y life has become very peculiar.

I would even go so far as to say quite bizarre.

One minute I’m boring old Zoe Milton, sales
co-ordinator
and wife of eighteen years; the next, I’m a local celebrity.

In the past four months, since the beginning of Fat Chance, I’ve had to get used to seeing my face on a variety of billboards, posters, websites and leaflets. This was initially the worst thing to ever happen in the history of the universe, given that the last thing a
self-conscious
fat person wants is for her grisly visage to be plastered up all around town. When it’s hard to look in the mirror every morning, it’s downright impossible to walk past a poster of you
posing
like one of the special kids without breaking down and
crying
like a little girl right there and then in the street.

After a few weeks I got to a point where I could block out all the pictures mentally, in the same way really rich people block out the homeless folk they walk past every day on their way to their six-figure-salary jobs. Where once I would see my fat face and all its chins staring down at me as I drove past on the dual carriageway, now there would merely be a large hole in the fabric of the universe, an area of dull negativity with absolutely nothing worth looking at in it.

This happy state of affairs continued until a couple of weeks ago, when my relationship with all those awful pictures underwent an interesting and unexpected change. Where once I would look up at them and feel self-loathing and despair, I now looked at them and felt a strange mixture of pity and pride. Pity for that poor obese girl staring back down at me, and pride because I wasn’t that poor obese girl any more.

I am a whole three stone lighter than I was when those pictures were taken, and if I ever needed proof of the difference that makes in the way you look, all I need to do is look in the mirror, then look at that billboard on the dual carriageway on the way in to the office.

Of course dealing with inanimate objects like billboards (or cardboard stands in a gym reception area—that bloody thing is still there and taunting me every time I go in for a workout) is one thing. Coping with the unwanted attention of my fellow human beings is entirely another.

Be they family, friends, work colleagues, or complete strangers, everyone’s attitude towards me is coloured by Fat Chance.

The competition has become a massive hit, much to my
disgust
.

Listening figures have skyrocketed at Stream FM,
visits
to the website to watch the videos have gone up over one
hundred
percent
, and the Breakfast Show now attracts the biggest
audience
of any local radio morning programme. This is
especially
true every Monday when we all troop into the show for the weekly check-in.

These have become an unlovely constant in my life.

Monday mornings are never much fun, but when you add the joy of speaking to several thousand people over the radio, they become ever so much
worse
. I am not by nature the type who likes to perform on any kind of stage, even one where nobody can see my face—so trying to be entertaining and interesting on a weekly basis is about as easy as pulling somebody else’s teeth. Thankfully a lot of the other contestants have warmed to the job now and are ‘g
iving go
od radio.’ This means that Elise no longer has to bully me into saying something interesting, as she constantly had to do in the first few weeks of the show.

In fact, the Monday morning chats have exposed a couple of real entertainers in our midst. Dominica is a hoot to listen to when she talks in her broad Spanish accent about her dieting and exercise programmes, getting more and more animated with every passing week. George and Valerie have formed a mild-mannered comedy double act that I could see them taking to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe if they so desired. It’s not so much what they say, just the way they say it—in a laconic, dry style of humour that everyone gets a kick out of. You only need to hear the routine about a visit to the funfair that ended with George trapped in a seat on the teacup ride to get a good idea of how they bounce off each other.

‘It was rather bloody uncomfortable,’ George tells us.

‘And him in his new trousers,’ Val adds.

‘Yes indeed. Nice ones, too. Burton’s they were. Seemed a pity to rip them.’

‘That lovely young fireman was very insistent, though.’

‘Indeed he was. Reminded me of Gareth.’

‘Gareth?’

‘Yes. Boy from up the road. Big lad. Shoulders like a side of ham.’

‘You mean Grant.’

‘Do I?’

‘Yes. Gareth was Paul’s best friend in school. Had a squint and the kind of haircut your mother warned you about.’

‘Ahh. You’re right, of course. Fruity lad, he was. I can’t see him being much of a fireman.’

‘No. His hands were too floppy.’

‘Without a doubt . . . Er, sorry Elise, what were we talking about again?’

I can’t decide whether the absent-minded back and forth is natural or deliberately executed. Either way it’s highly entertaining.

If the weekly check-ins are a ratings hit, then the monthly wei
gh-ins
are the kind of audience bonanza that the station
executives
must be having kittens about.

One weekend in every month people huddle round their radios and wait to hear who’s leading the competition.

. . . at least they would if this was 1952. I know that most
people
listen to the radio now on their smartphones but I’m a romantic at heart, and I like the mental image of a family gathered round a big box in the corner of the living room. It helps to visualise all those people taking an unhealthy interest in how many pounds I’ve lost recently, and I choose to do it in a way that’s appealing to me. There’s nothing romantic about a bloody iPod.

The weigh-ins may be great entertainment for the listening public, but they’re nerve-wracking experiences if you’re actually
taking
part. Partly because you have to strip down (more or less) in front of a crowd to do it, and partly because the weigh-ins are the one time when you get to find out how well you’re doing compared to the other couples.

Lest we forget, there are fifty thousand pounds up for grabs here, and the monthly weigh-in gives you a great idea of how near you are to getting your grubby mitts on them.

Greg and I have never actually been in the lead as yet, but we’ve been in either second place or third place every time we’ve stepped off the scales and the scoreboard has tallied up our combined weight loss. Frankie and Benny have consistently been at the top of the leader board, with only one weigh-in not being won by them. This went to George and Val, who were having a particularly good month thanks to a weeklong visit to a weight loss spa arranged for them by their son Paul.

We have the next weigh-in coming up next week and I’m really hoping that Greg and I will have closed the gap to Frankie and Benny enough to keep us in the competition as we head into the last few weeks.

I find myself in a period of my life where at least one major aspect of it is a matter of great local public interest. Never has one woman had so much attention paid to her waistline. Not since Kate Middleton fell pregnant, anyway.

My weight loss is now the main topic of conversation whenever I’m with my friends and family. I hear the same old questions over and over.
‘How much have you lost this week
?’
‘Do you think you’ve lost more than that nice black couple?
’
‘Do you have to wear those bright red outfits? Only they make you look like a tomato.
’ . . . and so on, and so forth.

My mother and father are extremely proud of me, I’m pleased to say. ‘It’s lovely to see you blossom like this,’ Mum said to me a few days ago, making me sound like a tulip.

Dad’s contribution has been more blunt. ‘Just bloody glad to see you lose weight, darling. You were a coronary waiting to
happen
.’ His words would have held more meaning if he hadn’t been
smoking
a Marlboro at the time.

The strangest change in my life thanks to my newfound local fame has been the relationship I have with my co-workers. The dynamic among us has shifted . . . and unfortunately not for the better in some cases.

Zoe Milton has always been something of an ‘under the radar’ kind of girl at work. I like to think I’ve always done my job well, but I’ve never tried to stand out from the crowd, or bully my way into positions of power and influence. I’m the first to admit I don’t take all that well to confrontational situations, so have never done anything risky to climb the corporate ladder. I’m happy being a sales co-ordinator, and as long as no one tries to take it away from me, I’m equally happy not to make a fuss.

However, it’s a little hard to maintain your flight path under the radar when you’re part of a highly successful competition and
promotional
campaign being run—at least in part—out of the same bloody office as the one you work in.

Of course I’ve been kept away from any of the actual promotional and marketing work for Fat Chance. That’s being handled purely by Stream FM’s dedicated communications team, so there’s no conflict of interest. This doesn’t stop them annoying me on a regular basis for feedback and ideas, though. While I try to get on with my job selling advertising space, I keep getting interrupted by people asking me if I’d mind giving them a sound bite about how great it is to use one of the four-thousand-pound treadmills at Fitness4All, or what my thoughts are on the new poster going up in Asda.

Since March I’ve gone from mild-mannered marketing type who wouldn’t say boo to a goose, to front-and-centre valued member of the team and mascot for the radio station’s success.

Most in my office are happy to support me and have no
problem
with my new-found celebrity.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for my boss.

Caitlin Marks has never liked me that much anyway.

From the first day I met her in the interview panel for my job, I got the distinct impression she wasn’t keen on me in the slightest. If the decision to hire me had been purely down to her, I would never have set foot in the building again. I have no idea why she took such a dislike to me. I can only imagine it was because she either didn’t like the skirt I was wearing or didn’t like the flippant jokes I made during the interview. Caitlin has the sense of humour of a bag of pig manure, so the latter is more likely.

Over the years, though, our relationship has thawed a little, mainly because I’ve got on with my job and done everything she’s asked me to on time and with a minimum of fuss. Caitlin is the kind of person who likes people when they know their place, and up until a few months ago I knew my place very well:
under her
.

Then Fat Chance started, and it all went to shit.

You see, not only does Caitlin Marks not like it when other people get ideas above their station, she is also pretty damn fat. Not quite as big as I was, but she’s definitely a size eighteen—and not a particularly attractive one at that. Some plus-sized ladies carry it very well. They’re all sexy curves and sass. They stride through the world proud of being a larger woman and will make every effort to let you know that.

Caitlin, however, is lumpy. Lumpy, uncoordinated, and sporting a complexion that can only be described as sallow.

All the time that meek and mild Zoe Milton was fatter than her everything was fine, but once I dropped below her dress size
and
became the office talking point, her attitude towards me plummeted.

The phrase
‘You’re late again
’ has become her catchphrase whenever I’m around these days.

It doesn’t matter that the reason I’m late is always because of Fat bloody Chance, of course!

The situation came to a head last Monday when I turned up at nearly eleven thirty, thanks to the radio show over running by a good twenty minutes. Val and George were in the middle of a smashing anecdote about their week in the health spa and nobody wanted to stop them before they’d finished describing what it was like to be covered in mud and have pebbles balanced on your forehead. This was all very well, but it led me into a confrontation with Caitlin that the fatter, less confident version of myself would have run screaming from a mere four months ago.

‘Morning, Maz. Has Pigdog been prowling around?’ I say to Maz (real name Mary), one of the admin assistants who works alongside me in the office.

Pigdog
is a name Mary came up with to describe Caitlin a few months back.

There’s always somebody like Mary in an office
environment
—the one who gives nicknames to everyone, the kind that are
invariably
funny or clever enough to stick with their recipient through the rest of their working lives.
Pigdog
is probably the least clever of Mary’s efforts, to be honest, but it does capture the essence of Caitlin’s personality well enough for it to have stuck in my mind, if nobody else’s.