Fat

by Rob Grant

  A scoop of peas, perhaps?

  No.

  Couldn't face the peas just yet. They were so sweet, it was hard not to imagine you were chewing down on nuggets of pure sugar. You have to surprise yourself with the peas, and you can't actually chew them at all. You have to mime chewing, and swallow them whole. Not for the first mouthful.

  Better get on with it. She cut into the deep-fried batter, trying not to shudder, and lifted it clear of the white fish inside. Hot and pungent steam blasted up from it, and Hayleigh tried not to smell it, but she was too late. She fought against her natural reaction, which was, quite frankly, to hurl the entire contents of the tray at her mother, then race her wheelchair out of the room, down the corridor and not stop till she reached Bolivia, where she would seek political asylum. She didn't react at all. Just kept her head pointing down at the plate and looking out of the top of her eyes at Mum, who had cut into her own batter, and was now waiting to mimic Hayleigh's next move.

  God, woman. Get a life!

  Hayleigh lifted a flaky chunk of the fish and set it down on another bit of the plate, away from the killer batter.

  It was extremely tiring, this whole business. She felt like lying down and sleeping for a month. She took a sip of the poisoned water, and stared down at the fish. OK. Nothing else for it. Might as well get it over with.

  She dug into the fish with her fork and lifted it clear of the plate. She raised it towards her mouth, but when she saw it close up, she realised it was far too big, so she put it back on her plate, and cut it in half.

  'Hayleigh, darling, please. I'm starving.'

  Then eat, woman, eat. Who's stopping you?

  She raised the loaded fork to her mouth and put the fish inside. That act was quite exhausting enough, thank you, and she didn't have the energy just yet to chew, much less swallow, so she had to let it lie there on her tongue for a little bit while she gathered her resources.

  And plop! A big tear rolled out of her downcast eye and onto the plate. Marvellous. Now, under regulations, presumably she'd have to eat that, too. Brilliant.

  Just how long could she put up with this insanity?

  Not much longer, that was for sure.

  Not much longer.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Grenville sped along Friern Barnet Road in a natty little sports car. It was fairly cold and sharp out, but it was bright and dry, and he had the roof down and sunglasses on, and he was feeling good. Nothing like the wind blowing through the remnants of your hair and the roar of a straining engine to give you a sense of freedom.

  On the seat beside him, riding shotgun, was a slim, hardback copy of Caging Your Furies -- Seven Simple Steps To Managing Your Anger, by a Dr Alan Roth. He hadn't had chance to do more than skim through it, as yet, but he'd already picked up some techniques that sounded like they might be useful. Grenville didn't really think he had an anger problem, but looking back on the events of the previous day he had to admit he could perhaps have handled one or two things slightly better, possibly. Rage was quite a commonplace emotion in a professional kitchen. You couldn't really be a head chef and a shrinking violet. But sometimes it could get out of hand. Tom Aikens, when he was a wunderkind cooking at Pied-A-Terre in Charlotte Street (his signature dish, then, was pig's head: to die for) supposedly got sent home for pressing a commis' hand on a hot plate, and, since he refused to accept he'd done anything to apologise for, he never went back. Grenville had never done anything quite so outrageous, but he'd had his strops, that was for sure. Still, he no longer worked in a professional kitchen, and he had no intention of ever doing so again, so it was probably time he put that side of his nature behind him.

  He checked the speedo and raised his foot slightly off the accelerator. That was one of the techniques from the book. Always go five miles per hour slower than you have to. If you're in a rush, you're in a rage. He'd hired the car. His own was a write-off, it goes without saying. He'd have to buy a new one, but he wouldn't have time until the weekend at the earliest, and instead of a bog-standard saloon, he'd decided to treat himself to something with a bit of zip and glamour. Plus, with the roof down, a convertible is much easier to get into. You don't have to bend almost double and crush each and every one of your internal organs just to cram yourself behind the damned steering wheel.

  He wasn't quite sure how he'd managed to wind up with that joke of a hatchback in the first place. That had been his wife's runaround, but, thanks to the sterling skills of his ruthless legal team, he'd got that in the divorce settlement and his wife had wound up with his Jag. She'd also kept the house and half the shares in his restaurant, the business he'd built up with the sweat of his own brow, by the way, but that had counted for nothing. Grenville had been forced to sell his half just to get somewhere to live, so, effectively, his wife had come away with everything they'd owned together: the house, the Jag, the restaurant, and he'd come away with a crappy six-year-old hatchback and a poky little flat in North London. He still found it hard to wrap his head around quite how all that had happened. It's not as if the divorce had been his fault. It was his ex who'd done the extramaritals -- with his sommelier, the Frog bastard. She was the one who'd been boffing the help.

  There was the Law, and there was Justice. It would be nice if they got to meet once in a while.

  Grenville thought the whole car park business would probably never have happened if he'd been in the Jag. People respect a Jag. The crone would have thought twice before double parking an XK8.

  So he needed a new car, and he might even splash out on a decent one. He couldn't really afford it, what with the fines and everything, but his career was going reasonably well. He had a book, or at least a third of a book, out, and that was selling. There was talk of another book for next Christmas. His agent was making noises about getting his own series, all to himself, on a mainstream channel. So he could probably push the boat out just a little bit. Nothing too extreme: certainly not a Jag. Maybe an MG. Were they still making them? Otherwise, if he just replaced the hatchback with a similar model, he'd be forking out about fifteen, sixteen grand in total just to be in exactly the same position he'd started in the previous morning, and that seemed unpalatable.

  This little Toyota wasn't bad, as a matter of fact. Might check out the second-hand prices on one of these.

  He swung in through the entrance to Elstree Studios, and had a small delay at the security barrier -- here, amazingly, they had a security barrier that stopped people getting into the car park -- because he didn't have his official sticker, which was on the windscreen of his other car, which was now scattered to the four corners of the Earth. But the guard was a decent human being, who recognised him, on top of which Grenville had his laminated studio pass, so the barrier was raised and he parked in his usual spot, the whole endeavour concluded without so much as an angry gesture. Thank you, Dr Roth.

  He got out, easily, and looked up at the sky. Didn't look like rain, so he decided to leave the roof down. Then he'd be able just to leap straight in after the show, like Patrick McGoohan in Danger Man, and whiz off. He picked up the book and popped it in his recipe folder -- didn't want anyone catching sight of that, thank you very much -- then he locked the car with its electronic key fob and walked jauntily over to the production offices.

  He hadn't phoned ahead. Given the tabloid reports, he couldn't face making such a phone call. They'd probably tried calling him, probably tried several times, in fact, but the digital tape, or whatever it was, on his answering machine had been completely used up by his own diatribe from the police station. He'd had a good giggle at that. He'd decided it would be best to brazen it out. He could make light of the whole affair in front of everyone, play it down, and any gossipy nonsense would probably be over and done with by the time the cameras started rolling. He might take a bit of a ribbing from the other presenters, but that was to be expected. He could live with that.

  He poked his head around the door of the Cook It, Change It, Dig it! office and said 'hello',
just to see The Girl, really, but The Girl wasn't there, just the production accountant, who barely lifted her eyes from the log books to acknowledge him.

  He sauntered off towards make-up, and there She was, La Femme, the vision of loveliness, coffee mug in hand, emerging from the kitchen area. Grenville smiled and nodded 'Morning' at her, but she was looking at him very strangely indeed, and she kept on looking at him strangely even when he'd passed her, and that was worrying. That was not a good thing. There was always some flirtatious banter between them. Always. There was something very disturbing about that look she'd given him. Almost as if...

  Almost as if she hadn't expected to see him.

  He popped into make-up, and there was something even more worrying. Because sitting there, in the make-up chair, being worked on by Liz, the ancient make-up girl, was Bob Constable of Ready, Steady, Fuck It Up fame.

  Now, why would they need another celebrity chef on the show?

  Constable saw him in the mirror and grinned warmly. 'Grenville. How you doing, mate?'

  'I'm good,' Grenville said. 'Yourself?'

  'I'm champion, lad. Let's catch up when I'm finished in the chair.'

  'Yes,' Grenville said. 'Let's do that.'

  And he went off to look for a producer to kill.

  THIRTY

  The John Snow seemed to have got very hot and crowded all of a sudden. Jeremy leaned in closer and lowered his voice. 'The Government got you fired?'

  Jemma thinned her smile. 'It's the only thing that makes sense. I mean, out on my ear, no names, no pack drill. Someone must have been leaning on the department. Someone with a lot of clout. I've tried calling a couple of people I thought were my friends there, but no one will talk to me. I'm a non-person. I've been Photoshopped out of the picture.'

  'Jesus! Why?'

  'I think it was Stone.'

  'Peter Stone?'

  'I think they had the cameras on us all the time.'

  'The cameras?' Jeremy almost gagged, and then said, 'Jesus!' again.

  'And I think the cameras must have been miked, which is pretty unusual, don't you think?'

  And all Jeremy could do was break the third Commandment again.

  'I need another drink,' Jemma said, fishing a purse from her bag and rising. 'Same again?'

  'No, no. Let me get it. You're out of work.'

  'Don't be so daft. I'm not a pauper yet.'

  Left alone at the table, Jeremy began, rather selfishly, to worry about himself. What had the cameras and the microphones caught of him? He couldn't think of anything he'd done that was particularly subversive or offensive, with the possible exception of his one-man re-enactment of the Three Stooges stage show in the dormitory. He'd handed in his work on the Well Farms project on Monday, as he'd been asked, and it had been, in his humble opinion, good work; very good work. All his best people had pulled out all the stops and worked the weekend and burned the midnight oil with him, and they'd come up with a first-rate campaign plan. A winner, no question. But he hadn't got any feedback, yet, and this was Wednesday, and he had expected something by now.

  He rewound and replayed their Nature Walk conversation, but no, as far as he could recall, it was Jemma who'd done all the talking, which seemed to be the norm in this relationship, and he'd just nodded politely and chipped in now and then.

  He jumped when Jemma came back with their drinks.

  'Sorry.' She grinned. 'Didn't mean to startle you.'

  'I don't know what you're so bloody chirpy about. Of all the things you want to do before you're thirty, getting on the Government's shit list does not rank highly.'

  Jemma shrugged. 'Not a lot I can do about it, is there?'

  'But why? What did you say that would cause them to--?'

  'I was off-message, Jeremy. That's all it takes with this bloody lot, isn't it? With the "my way or the highway" brigade.'

  'So what are you going to do?'

  Jemma tapped the Standard. 'I'm going to get another job. I've got an odd feeling I'll find it quite hard to get another research position at any university. At least at any university this side of Kuala Lumpur. You got any positions going, Jeremy, in the conceptuological industry?'

  'Come on, even if they did get you fired, they're not going to blackball you. That's crazy.'

  'Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm being paranoid. I just think, if they were behind my dismissal, and I can't come up with anything else that makes sense, they're not going to want me anywhere I might spout my poisonous treachery and get listened to. In any event, methinks I should be polishing up my bartending skills, just in case.'

  Jeremy shook his head. 'I'm not buying it, Jemma. There's got to be another explanation.'

  'I'm open to suggestions.'

  'But it doesn't make sense. Well Farms... it's a benign programme. At least, it's intended to be benign.'

  'I don't know. I've been thinking about it, and I'm not sure I believe that any more.'

  'Come on, Jemma: they're only trying to improve people's lives. To save lives, for crying out loud. They might be misguided...' and the instant that left his lips, Jeremy regretted saying it. He doubted they were being bugged in there, but Jemma's paranoia was contagious. A lot of faces in the pub crowd were starting to look oddly out of place to him, and that man at the table opposite hadn't touched his pint or turned the page on his newspaper since he'd sat down, as far as Jeremy could work out. Perhaps they should think about going somewhere else. Like the planet Mars, perhaps.

  And, naturally, Jemma chose this particular moment to launch into another one. 'If they really wanted to save lives, they could do a lot of things that would be easier and cheaper and would actually have a chance of working. They could easily do it in hospitals, just by forcing the staff to wash their bloody hands. One hundred thousand people a year contract infections just by being in hospital. Really. Just by lying in a hospital bed, you have a one-in-ten chance of getting seriously ill, because the standards of hygiene are now at about the same levels as they were in the Crimean fucking War. Why? Because the cleaning of the wards is farmed out to the lowest bidder. We have higher levels of MRSA and other antibiotic-resistant super bugs than anywhere else in Europe. We are killing five thousand people a year just by admitting them to hospital, and contributing to another fifteen thousand deaths, mostly because of bad fucking laundry practices. Now, even by the Government's own pathetically inept reckoning, passive smoking is supposed to be responsible for one thousand deaths a year -- it isn't, by the way, and there is not one shred of non-dubious evidence that it's responsible for so much as a cough -- but, even by their own reckoning, it doesn't get close to the devastation being wreaked by MRSA, yet they spend billions on advertising and force draconian laws through parliament to combat the one, and do absolutely bloody nothing about the other. Can you even begin to explain to me how that could possibly make sense? It's so bizarre, even Lewis Carroll wouldn't use it.'

  Jeremy was looking around the pub nervously throughout most of this latest harangue. What did that man at the table opposite find so bloody engrossing on that particular page of that particular newspaper? Was he committing it to memory? And why had he bought that bloody pint if he didn't want to bloody drink it? 'Jemma, you really don't know when to stop, do you?' he said, trying to lighten up her mood.

  'No. No, I don't. And I think that's one of my most beguiling features, don't you?'

  Jeremy had to smile. She certainly was a feisty one, he'd give her that.

  She leaned in closer and lowered her voice. Jeremy could smell the liquorice aroma of the red wine on her breath. 'Jeremy, you're the only person I know who's still on this project that I can even remotely trust.'

  'If I'm still on the project.'

  'Of course you're still on the project. I'm the stupid bitch who can't keep her mouth shut. I want you to watch out.'

  'Watch out for what?'

  'I don't even know. I don't think these farms will wither and die, like I imagined. I think they'll go on. I think they
'll mutate, in some way.'

  'Mutate? Into what?'

  'Into something bad. Something very bad indeed.'

  THIRTY-ONE

  Extract from Caging Your Furies -- Seven Simple Steps To Managing Your Anger, by Dr Alan Roth.

  We all of us get angry. Anger is a natural, healthy emotion, which spurs us on to react against injustices. Even Jesus Christ got angry. Remember the banishing of the merchants from the temple steps? (John, 2:13-25.)

  But while anger is valid, temper is not. The techniques in this book are devised to help you harness your anger and channel it positively, without ever losing your temper.

  This is an overview, and all of these techniques outlined below are explained and expanded later in the book. I urge you to read it thoroughly. These are powerful techniques, and must be used properly. However, it is my intention to set out my stall in such a way that by the end of this introduction, you will already have grasped the fundamentals that will enable you to grab back control of your temper gremlin, and, therefore, your life.

  Ask Yourself: Is It Anger I'm Feeling?

  When you find yourself in a situation where your gorge is rising, ask yourself if you are right to be feeling anger, or is anger in this situation an unreasonable and inappropriate response?