Fat Chance

by Nick Spalding

  While the diet is straightforward and pretty much under my control, my new-found local celebrity is anything but.

  The first time I saw my face on a billboard in town was so exquisitely dreadful that it almost reduced me to tears. I knew they’d be using our likenesses for advertising and promotion when I signed the contract to be part of the show, but I thought it would be largely confined to the website and some of the local papers. I clearly wasn’t prepared for the scale of this enterprise. No event that I’ve been involved in at the station has been on this scale before, so I guess I lulled myself into a false sense of security. More fool me.

  They’ve really gone to town on this bugger, though. It feels like they’ve thrown more cash at it than a Hollywood movie company would at a blockbuster.

  Everywhere I look I seem to see billboards, advertising banners, flyers, posters, and cardboard standees—a majority of which feature my ugly mug.

  I don’t know if I’ll be able to cope with this kind of local celebrity. I know damn well that Greg won’t.

  I know one other thing for certain. If I hated Mondays before Elise convinced me to take part in Fat Chance, I loathe them with a passion that’s almost holy now.

  Quick side note: Who thought the title Fat Chance would be a good idea? I’m willing to bet all the money in my bank account that it was a thin person. They probably thought it sounded extremely clever, without taking into account the fact that it sounds pretty fucking unkind to those of us taking part.

  Anyway, Monday is ‘check in’ day at the radio station, where we go all on the Elise and Will morning show and chat about how our weight loss programmes are going. If it wasn’t bad enough that I have to spill my guts in this diary all the time, I also have to stammer my way through a mini-interview with my so called best friend and her effeminate co-host at the start of each week.

  And while Elise is a lovely person off air, once you stick a microphone in her hand she turns into the kind of door-stopping aggressive journalist that cheating politicians have come to know and fear.

  A good case in point was yesterday’s show.

  It was our third appearance on the radio, and by now Greg and I are getting to know the rest of the couples engaged in this madness. Before every on-air conversation with Will and Elise, we get to sit in the green room together, drinking poor-quality instant coffee and trying to pretend we’re not nervous.

  Here’s a rundown of our fellow contestants. I’ll largely skip the physical descriptions as there’s only so many adjectives I can use to describe someone who’s overweight without descending into insult (and obligatory self-loathing).

  Valerie and George look like they should be running a tea shop somewhere. A successful one, no doubt. Both in their early sixties, they look like the sort of kindly rotund grandparents we all wish we’d had when we were kids. George has the variety of bushy moustache that milk must stick to like a magnet every time he consumes it. Val wears a tiny pair of round spectacles that she hangs around her neck on a silver chain when she’s not using them to peer into her copy of the latest Mills & Boon. You can just tell that these two homely, avuncular folk owe their weight gain to a lot of foodstuffs containing cream. I doubt they’ve ever looked a Big Mac in the eye, but are entirely at home around clotted cream and scones.

  Angela and Dominica are a lesbian couple, who look completely bewildered most of the time. It’s as if they were convinced they’d be firmly rejected for the show given their sexual orientation, were dumbfounded to discover that they weren’t, and are actually now part of this madness. I love the pair of them, though. Even in the few brief conversations we’ve had, they seem like friendly, open people. Angela is a bit of an old hippy, quietly spoken and calm of manner, while Dominica is a loud, flamboyant Spaniard, who throws her arms around in an animated fashion even when she’s talking about the most mundane of subjects. Neither wears dungarees, which is rather disappointing, but Angela does favour a headscarf most of the time, which conforms to at least some of the hideously outdated imagery of the average lesbian I carry round in my twentieth-century brain.

  Then there is—and I kid you not when I say this—Frankie and Benny. I don’t know whether Stream FM have got some kind of sponsorship campaign running with the well-known restaurant chain, but if they have, these two folk of Jamaican extraction would have to owe their place in the competition to it. I like Frankie; she’s a friendly, happy sort with a big booming voice, and a laugh you can probably hear in Paris. Benny looks like he’d rather be anywhere else than right here, given the tormented expression on his face most of the time. I would be critical of his attitude, but then I can look round and see the exact same expression emanating from Gregory Milton’s face next to me, so I’d better not judge the man too harshly. The cynic in me would think that these two had been included in Fat Chance just to fill out a quota of some kind, but I’m sure Elise wouldn’t have anything to do with that kind of discrimination, so I guess Frankie and Benny are happily here on their own merits (unless I’m right about that sponsorship deal).

  The biggest couple out of the six of us are Shane and Theresa. Theresa outweighs me by a good three stone and poor old Shane looks like the Grim Reaper is perched on his shoulder, waiting for him to make a sudden movement and over-exert his vital organs. The man must be over thirty stone. He makes my portly husband look positively anorexic. Shane’s face has that unhealthy pallor of the morbidly obese and you can tell that just living day-to-day life is a struggle for him. Theresa isn’t that far behind, either. I know damn well that she is who I’ll become in the next few years if I don’t do something about my life. I asked her how old she was last week and was distraught when she revealed that she was three years younger than me. The woman looks in her late forties, such is the strain being put on her body by all that extra fat. If anyone needs the impetus to lose weight that this stupid competition provides, it’s these two.

  At the bottom of the heap are Lea and Pete. I’ve barely managed to engage them in conversation so far, as when they’re not outside chain-smoking cigarettes—having dumped their enormously fat three-year-old offspring named Ashton onto an unsuspecting production assistant—they’re sitting on their iPhones in the corner, ignoring the rest of us. He’s always playing Candy Crush and she’s always leaving Facebook status updates about how wasted they got last weekend, or how wasted they’re going to get this weekend. Pete has five teeth from what I can count (I can’t look at his mouth for longer than a few moments without feeling nauseous) and Lea has a hairstyle that suggests some sort of horrific and violent encounter with a malfunctioning blender full of red food colouring. You can tell they’ve been hired for their shock value by Elise and her cronies. You can’t do a reality show without at least a couple of people who look like they’ve barely made it through the early stages of human evolution.

  . . . and there you have it. Along with Greg and me, these are your contestants, competitors, guinea pigs, and objects of mild public interest for the next few months. A broad cross-section of modern society, designed to appeal to as much of the listening demographic as is humanly possible. Stream FM is injecting an awful lot of cash into this project, so it’s understandable that they’d want to get as big an audience as they can, but I can’t help thinking that the obvious pigeonholing going on here creates an air of artificiality that—

  What the hell am I saying? This entire process is one thousand percent artificial.

  I need to remember that the people who will be benefitting most from this process are not any of us fatties, but the radio station executives who dreamt the whole thing up in the first place. The number of promotional deals the station has struck in the past few weeks with the local gym chain and health food stores is testament to the fact that Fat Chance is all about dragging in the profits for a bunch of rich, well-tailored people who I’ll never meet. Oh sure, I get to use the gym facilities for free and get a decent percentage off all my
health food purchases, but that’s about as far as it goes. The real money is most definitely going elsewhere.

  If successful, the competition will do no harm to Elise Bailey’s career prospects. Already a rising star of local radio, if Fat Chance is popular, Elise will have the chance to go national—which has been her aim for the past three years. This doesn’t bother me. The girl’s been a good friend for many years, so if my debasement in front of the masses will help her out a bit, I won’t complain an enormous amount.

  Having said that, Elise did manage to push my buttons good and proper this morning, by bringing something up on the radio that I would have preferred to stay between us . . .

  ‘Got a fag?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Got a fag, love?’

  Lea and her abnormal haircut are staring at me.

  ‘No, I don’t smoke, I’m afraid.’

  I can almost see her synapses firing behind her eyes as she digests this information. ‘Oh fuck,’ she says and shuffles off. I can’t be entirely sure, but I think she might be wearing slippers under that tracksuit.

  Lottie, one of the plethora of production assistants that seem to be strewn randomly all over the Stream FM office, appears at the door to the green room. ‘Okay, gang. We’ll take you through to the studio now.’

  ‘Here we go again, then,’ Greg mutters next to me.

  ‘It’ll be fine, ‘ I try to convince him.

  ‘As long as she doesn’t ask me any questions about what my favourite takeaway food is again.’

  ‘Yes. The drool on the microphone was a bit unpleasant,’ I tease.

  We get out of our seats and shuffle reluctantly through the office block with the rest of our fellow contestants. In my job with Regency I’m normally stuck in the back of the complex of buildings that make up the station, so I’d never actually ventured into the production area before Fat Chance started. It’s a hive of young, desperate-looking individuals all running around with bits of paper in their hands, trying to look important. I also get the impression that there’s very little real work going on, despite the level of frenetic activity.

  Eventually we reach the actual studio, and are led into a sound booth opposite the one Elise and Will host the show from. Needless to say it’s the largest booth in the studio. Shane’s size alone would probably dictate its use, let alone the rest of us.

  Lottie shuffles us into place. I notice she always keeps Lea and Pete away from the microphones as much as possible. I gather from Elise that the producers like to keep them away from the live broadcasts, given that the use of the word cunt is rather frowned upon during early-morning breakfast shows. My friend is terrified of people swearing on air anyway, so I’m sure she’s more than happy to minimise the chances of letting Lea or Pete turn the air blue.

  Lottie leaves us and shuts the soundproof door. This is when I begin to feel the claustrophobia set in. It’s not so much the confined space, as it is the notion that we’re like a herd of wild animals that have been penned up in a cage, awaiting the attention of a crowd of tourists.

  ‘Woo! It’s bloody hot in here,’ Frankie says, and wafts her hand across her face.

  ‘Of course it is, woman,’ Benny replies. ‘You get enough sweaty fat people in one place and what do you expect?’

  I’m sure somebody once told Benny about the concept of tact when he was young. He just chose to ignore them.

  ‘Morning, guys!’ I hear Elise’s happy disembodied voice coming at me from all angles. Peering through the glass dividing window, I can see her and Will across the way, prepping for the next section of the show.

  We all mumble a half-hearted ‘Good morning’ back to her. There’s something about being crowded into a small room with other people that stops you from being too demonstrative.

  ‘We’re just in a break,’ she continues, ‘but when we come back we’ll get on with today’s chat. How’s everybody feeling?’

  This is again greeted with mumbling, which Elise either doesn’t register or chooses to ignore. ‘Great! I’ve got a few questions lined up for some of you, but if I don’t ask you one directly, feel free to chip in on somebody else’s answer if you like.’ Elise has said this every time we’ve stood in here, but so far, no one has felt much of a desire to break free of the pack and offer up information without it being forcibly teased out of them by the two DJs sitting in the booth beyond.

  This has created a severe problem for me, as, without much input from the other couples, Elise keeps retreating to me for questions as I’m her friend, and someone with experience of working in local radio. So far I’ve easily done the most talking in the previous two weeks on the show—including having to recount a sanitised version of the M&S changing room farce.

  ‘Can you at least try to leave me alone this week?’ I said to Elise on the phone last night.

  ‘I’ll try my best, chick,’ was her rather noncommittal answer.

  The ad break has ended and we’re about to kick off another update on how Fat Chance is going.

  ‘Welcome back, everyone,’ Elise says into her microphone in that smooth DJ voice she’s spent years perfecting. ‘It’s 8.36 and you’re listening to the Elise & Will Breakfast Show here on Stream FM. We’re here once again with all six of the lovely couples who are involved in Fat Chance, the fantastic weight loss competition we’re running here at Stream.’

  ‘That’s right, Elise,’ Will takes over. ‘And what a pleasure it is to have them back here once again. Can’t believe it’s only been a week since we saw them last, can you?’

  ‘No, it only seems like yesterday since we spoke to them,’ Elise replies cheerfully.

  ‘Looking forward to hearing what updates they’ve got on their progress, though!’ Will adds.

  ‘Me too. Should be interesting to hear how the weight loss is going.’

  ‘Exactly. Especially with only a week to go until the first weigh-in, eh?’

  ‘That’s right. Just seven days until we see which couple has lost the highest percentage of body fat since we started the competition in March!’

  These are the kinds of conversations only DJs can have. What you or I may say in two words, these buggers can say in umpteen dozen sentences, with scarcely a pause for breath.

  ‘I wonder which of our couples will be in the lead after the first few weeks,’ Will says, feigning interest like a fucking champion.

  ‘Well, why don’t we go over to them and ask them what they think?’ Elise suggests, as if the idea has just popped into her head, and as if this conversation hadn’t been rehearsed three times before coming on air.

  ‘Great idea!’ Will exclaims, like his on-air partner has suggested a clever new way to cure cancer.

  I really hate local radio.

  And so our congenial hosts engage us in painfully stilted conversation.

  Elise first tries Valerie and George, asking them who they think is doing the best so far. This is a fairly silly question, as neither has met the rest of us more than three times.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Valerie says, eyeing the rest of the crowd. ‘Maybe Angela and Dominica?’

  ‘How about it, guys?’ Will asks them. ‘Is Valerie right?’

  ‘Not really,’ Angela hesitantly answers. ‘I’ve lost nothing, and Dommy has put on a pound.’

  ‘Angela!’

  ‘Sorry, sweetheart.’

  I see Elise grit her teeth and force a smile. ‘How about Shane and Theresa? Who do you guys think is doing the best out of you two?’

  Shane has missed the question completely as he’s spent the last five minutes staring up at the microphone near his head, occasionally poking it to watch it spring around on its metal arm. This leaves Theresa to answer. ‘I don’t really know. We still look pretty bloody fat from what I can see, Elsie.’

  My friend’s eyes bulge a bit. ‘It’s Elise, actually,�
�� she corrects. I have to stifle a laugh. I must remember to call her Elsie at every available opportunity.

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ Theresa says and pokes Shane in the side before he can bugger about with the low-hanging microphone again.

  Will looks a bit desperate and tries another couple. Unfortunately he turns his attention on Lea and Pete, much to Elise’s horror.

  ‘Over to Lea and Pete then,’ Will says, forcing a low, almost inaudible squeak from his co-host. ‘Who do you think is doing well in the competition so far?’

  ‘Dunno, mate,’ Pete answers. ‘We ain’t met none of them much. Like that bird said, we’re all still fat bastards, ain’t we?’

  ‘I lost an ounce,’ Lea adds. ‘Though our scales is shit ones from Asda, so they don’t work right.’

  Excellent.

  At least two potential fines for swearing are now heading Stream FM’s way from the regulators.

  Will and Elise both look like a live electrical current has somehow been connected to their headphones. There’s a brief pause while they come to terms with such flagrant use of bad language on air.

  This interview is going absolutely brilliantly so far.

  Then the inevitable happens.

  Elise, looking for a way to salvage this situation, turns her gaze on me. I lock eyes with her and shake my head vigorously. I know what’s about to happen. ‘Don’t you bloody dare,’ I whisper under my breath.

  ‘Over to Greg and Zoe now,’ Elise says, an apologetic look on her face. ‘Who do you guys think is doing the best so far?’

  Greg looks at my red face and decides to jump in before I explode. ‘I think Frankie’s lost some weight,’ he says.

  ‘Aww, thank you honey!’ the Jamaican lady replies with a smile.

  ‘My pleasure,’ my husband replies with a smile.