Fat Chance Read Free

want to annoy the manager, now, would we ?’
    ‘No. Mister Morris is very strict about this kind of thing.’
    ‘You get a lot of fat women wrapping themselves up in curtains, do you?’
    ‘No, but customers do act up from time to time.’
    ‘I see. In that case, perhaps you could pull the thing off me?’
    ‘Okay.’
    The sales girl successfully manages to unwrap me from the curtain , leaving only the issue of the dress.
    I can’t see her face, but I know the expression she’s making.
    ‘Um . . . Do you need any help with the dress?’ she asks tentatively.
    ‘What? Are you saying I’m not wearing it right?’
    ‘No, madam. It shouldn’t be that high up.’
    ‘ Really? Because I was watching a programme about London Fashion Week recently and you wouldn’t believe how many models were walking down the catwalk with their arms up like someone was pointing a gun at them, showing their Primark knickers to everyone.’
    This is met with stony silence.
    ‘Just pull the bloody thing off my head, will you?’ I ask in a weary voice.
    With Little Miss Bony-Arse helping out, it takes only two tugs to free me from my bondage. As the dress comes off I can feel it sliding painfully up against the rolls of fat on my arms and back. It reminds me, sickeningly, of how a sausage is made.
    This is so embarrassing. I feel like I could throw up.
    Then I remember that I’m now standing in my massive Primark knickers and bra in the middle of the changing room corridor, and my embarrassment levels rocket to hitherto unknown levels of stratospheric humiliation. This couldn’t possibly get any worse.
    ‘Er, can we use the changing rooms?’ I hear a voice say from behind the bony shop girl.
    I crane my head around to see no less than four women standing at the end of the corridor clutching a variety of garments. Two of them are thin and are therefore trying their best not to look at me with a combination of guilt and smug superiority. The third seems to be, like me, no stranger to the occasional late-night binge, and is looking at me with both pity and a certain degree of recognition. The fourth member of the party is a twelve-year-old girl, whom I’ve probably traumatised for the rest of her life. Not least because I’m about to swear at the top of my voice.
    ‘Thanks a lot!’ I wail at the shop girl. ‘You could’ve warned me there were people waiting!’
    She gives me the look of a kicked puppy.
    I sigh, straighten my shoulders, and attempt to collect what is left of my dignity as I step back into the cubicle. The curtain is thrown across the rail with a growl.
    On my own inside, anger gives way to misery. I slump onto the stool and feel the tears welling up. This isn’t the first time I’ve felt like this recently, but at least on every other occasion I’ve been able to have a good weep in the privacy of my own home.
    I have a little silent cry to myself on the stool for about a minute , before managing to pull myself together and get dressed.
    I look in the full-length mirror once I’m back in my clothes and take in the hectic, blotchy red face staring back at me. I look an absolute state.
    Great stuff.
    Now I just have to get out of Marks & Spencer without another person seeing me—and hold myself together long enough to reach my front door.
    With a leaden sigh, I pull the curtain back slowly and step out into the corridor. I walk down to the end and back out into the shop, where I see my friend the bony shop girl standing next to a rail of colourful t-shirts. She sees me coming and has the sheer audacity to give me a sympathetic look.
    How bloody dare she.
    It’s one thing to look down your nose at me because I’m a fatty; it’s entirely another to feel sorry for me.
    I don’t want you to feel sorry for me! I just want you to treat me like anybody else! Alright, I may need a bit more room than most people . . . and don’t ask me to run the four hundred metres any time soon, but other than that I’m normal,