Timothy Lea - Confessions from a Health Farm

‘No, Sid! He was born like that.’ Honestly, you worry sometimes, don’t you? They say that there are over a million illiterates in the country and I reckon that they lie pretty thick around Scraggs Lane.

‘Oh,’ says Sid. ‘That explains a lot of things.’

‘What about the new idea?’ I say.

Saying that to Sid is like striking a match to find a gas leak, but somehow I can’t help myself. I have been stuck with Sid for so long that I cannot break away. Like a junkie begging for his fix I must know what half-baked scheme the Maestro of Muddle has come up with now.

Sidney leans back nonchalantly and rests his elbow in the frying pan that Mum has left on top of the cooker. Like everything on the cooker, including the rings, it is coated in half an inch of grease and is well equipped to become the first item of hardware to swim the Channel. Sid’s safari jacket therefore has to make a quick trip into the interior of the washing machine before the great white hunter can continue.

‘Do you know what is the biggest problem facing this country today?’ says Sid.

‘Inflation?’ I say. I mean, I listen to the party political broadcasts, don’t I? There is no bleeding alternative.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ says Sid, slightly downcast. ‘Obesity was the word I had in mind.’

Well, it is a free country, isn’t it? I can’t tell him what words to put in his mind, although they would have to be blooming small to fit into that tiny little space. I would have thought that you needed to fold ‘obesity’ in half to get it in without touching the sides.

‘Oh yes,’ I say.

‘You don’t know what obesity means, do you?’ says Sid, triumphantly.

‘No,’ I say. ‘That’s why you used it, isn’t it?’

‘It means being fat.’ Sidney looks me up and down critically. ‘About ninety percent of the people in this country weigh too much.’

‘That’s amazing,’ I say, stretching out my hand for another doughnut.

‘You for instance,’ says Sid. ‘It’s disgusting to see a bloke of your age falling apart at the seams.’

‘What are you rabbiting on about?’ I say. ‘I’m in perfect physical condition. I could run rings round you any day of the week.’

‘You must have put on a stone since you came out of the army,’ continues Sid. ‘You’ve got the beginnings of a paunch and there are rolls of fat building up round your waist. I can’t imagine how you do it. Living here I’d have thought that you had a bloody marvellous incentive not to eat.’

Sid is, of course, referring to Mum’s cooking. He has never had any time for her since she tried to boil a tin of sardines. Mind you, she is diabolical in the kitchen and maybe that is why I eat so much. I am forced to have a go at the nosh she dishes up and I also eat between meals to take away the taste and give myself a little reward.

‘You’re no oil painting,’ I say.

‘I’m fitter than you are, mate. Feel that.’

‘Sidney, please!’

‘I meant my stomach, didn’t I? Don’t take the piss.’

‘I don’t want to feel your stomach, Sid.’

‘Go on!’ Sid is speaking through clenched teeth as he tenses his muscles. Reluctantly, I stretch out a hand.

‘It feels like a pregnant moggy,’ I say.

Sid does not respond well to this suggestion. ‘Bollocks!’ he says. ‘Like ribs of steel, my stomach muscles. You try hitting them.’

‘Sidney, please! This is bloody stupid.’

‘Hard as you like. Go on!’ Sidney stands up and swells out his belly invitingly.

‘I don’t want to hurt you, Sid,’ I say.

‘You can’t hurt me! That’s what I’m trying to tell you, you berk! I’m in shape, I’m fit, I’m – uuuuuurgh!’

I give him a little tap in the stomach and he collapses on the floor, spluttering and groaning. Mum comes in.

‘He hasn’t been at the bread and butter pudding, has he?’ she says, alarmed.

‘No, Mum.’

‘Thank goodness for that. You were right, you know. Some of those sultanas were blue bottles. I think I’ll have to throw it away. It’s such a fiddling job picking them all out.’ She looks down at Sid. ‘What’s the matter with him?’

‘He was showing me how fit he is,’ I say.

‘He hit me when I wasn’t ready,’ wheezes Sid. ‘That’s what happened to Houdini.’

‘Oh dear,’ says Mum. ‘That doesn’t sound very nice. I wouldn’t stay down there if I was you. It’s not very clean.’

Sid drags himself to his feet and slumps into a chair. Mum was right. He looks like the inside of a carpet sweeper.

‘You did that on purpose,’ he grunts.

‘Of course I did,’ I say. ‘You told me to.’

‘You haven’t put anything in the washing machine, have you?’ says Mum.

I sense Sid stiffen. ‘What’s wrong with it?’ he says.

‘I don’t know,’ says Mum. ‘The man hasn’t been yet. I think it spins round too fast. Either that or there is a rough edge in there.’

Sid springs to the machine and presses the programme switch. He wrenches open the door and a couple of gallons of water thwack against the far wall.

‘I didn’t notice that was in there,’ I say. I am referring to the well-worn chammy leather with pockets.

Sid groans. ‘Eighteen quid that cost.’

‘Blimey! That’s your safari jacket, isn’t it?’ I say.

‘Don’t sound so bleeding cheerful,’ snarls Sid. ‘You ought to have put an “out of order” sign on it.’

‘I did,’ says Mum. ‘But I moved it to the bread and butter pudding.’

‘Gordon Bennett!’ Sid covers his face with his hands.

‘Sid has got a new idea,’ I say, deciding that it is time for another change of subject. ‘It’s something to do with fat people.’

‘I’m going to classes now,’ says Mum. ‘Do you think I look any different?’

‘You look a bit paler, Mum,’ I say.

‘Don’t say that! I was thinking how well I looked. I’ve lost half a stone, you know.’

‘Where did you lose it, Mum?’ I ask.

‘Round the bum, mostly,’ says Mum, with an honesty I could have done without.

‘I didn’t mean that,’ I say hurriedly before she can impart any more revelations. It’s not nice listening to your parents talk about their bodies, is it? It is bad enough having to look at them.

‘The Lady Beautiful Health Clinic,’ says Sid. ‘That’s what I’m on about. More and more people are becoming worried about the condition of their bodies. You mother is only following a trend.’

‘You want to be careful, Mum,’ I say. ‘You remember what happened when you tried that yoga.’ I have to suppress a shudder when I think about it. Everywhere you went in the house there would be Mum standing on her head against one of the walls. And often without any clothes on! Yoga Bare, that’s what Sid used to call her. Luckily she bombed out in the Padandgushtasana position and we did not hear any more about it.

Further discussion is interrupted by the sound of the front door bell.

‘Who’s that?’ says Sid whose reaction to the unexpected reveals a permanently guilty conscience.

‘Probably Dad’s lost his front door key,’ says Mum. She leaves the kitchen and pads off to have a peep through the front room curtains. A couple of minutes later she returns.

‘There’s a gorilla standing on the front door step,’ she says.

‘A stuffed one? With Dad?’ says Sid.

‘No, it’s carrying a briefcase,’ says Mum.

‘Probably something to do with one of those soap powder promotions. Have you got a packet of Tide in the house?’

‘No!’ says Mum, getting all agitated. ‘You keep him talking while I nip out and get one.’

I grab hold of her just before she disappears out of the back door.