Fat Chance (5 page)

‘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 t
ell 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 b
roken corner of the gazebo, his Bananaman cape fluttering i
n th
e 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 fro
m t
he 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 o
ver.

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.