My Big Fat Low-Fat Wedding (27 page)

“No, Cal.” I think he hears the tremor in my voice, because my stinky-footed fiancé stops swiping his boot against the grass and looks up at me. “I don’t like the way that cow is looking at me.”

A brown and white cow is getting awfully close.

“Why are they all walking toward us, Cal?” I’m suddenly very worried.

“I don’t know. You’re the one who wanted to walk across this bloody field full of angry cows.”

Oh so now they’re angry cows and not just quietly grazing cows? “I think you’ve been playing Angry Birds on your phone app too much — oh my god look out!”

“Jesus, Em, run!”

My fiancé and I make a beeline for the opposite fence just as every cow in the field decides to stamped towards us.

“Why are they chasing us? AAARRRGGGHHH!”

Splat.

I trip up, fall, and land face first into a mouth filling cowpat.

“MMMPAAHH!” I moan, spitting and spitting out crap in order to save myself from choking on poo.

“Oh my god honey get up!” Callum wrenches me under the arms, gets me to my feet and practically throws us both bodily over the low stepping fence. We’re both lying on the ground staring up at all the cows who have stopped just beyond the fence.

“What are you looking at? You stupid fucking cows! Make them stop staring at me, Cal!”

It’s true, the cows are no longer charging, they’re all just standing there staring at my faeces covered face.

I hear snickering and I turn to look at my hero of the moment. After all, my fiancé did just save me from a face full of cow pie, which is not the ingestible sort. Although, I’m not inclined to hold any heroic awards over his head for long, because I think he’s actually laughing at my expense, and not at the cows like I’d thought.

“Are you laughing at me?”

Callum purses his lips together, but I can tell he’s still trying not to giggle. “You’d better wipe that shit off your face, honey. It’s really going to smell once we get home.”

The man who is no longer a hero in my rapidly tear filling eyes, leans back and bursts into laughter at my face full of poopy expense.

***

We aren’t going home. At least not until this misunderstanding is cleared up. And when I say misunderstanding, I mean my fiancé doesn’t understand the peril he’s in for having even giggled at my current poo-faced predicament. One things for certain, my soon-to-be-husband will never again make fun of his betrothed having a her face covered in crap. No one laughs in this girl’s poo infested features and gets away with such a thing scot free. Firstly, Callum is made painfully aware that he will not be having any cuisine meals made for him in the foreseeable future, by me. When I nearly add “no more sex ever” to my list of ultimate payback, my fiancé picks me up off the ground and carries me on foot all the way towards civilization.

“Even if it was my feet covered in shit, I could still walk.”

Callum puts me down at my request, but in no way does he dare utter a single word in retort. He hails a couple of taxis, but when the drivers get one whiff of my face and Callum’s boot, they speed off with a, “no way in hell are you two stinkers getting into my taxi,” wave of hand.

Instead, we both walk all the way around the base of the Worcester Beacon to our terraced home on Court Road. I’m ready to collapse from exhaustion, so I do just that in the back garden. Callum hoses my face off with cold spraying water before spritzing his boot.

“There now. That’s so much better.” I mumble into the patio concrete. “Now carry me upstairs so that you can give me a shower and brush my teeth for me.”

This bit of revenge I’m enjoying might not turn out to be such a bad thing after all. Callum still hasn’t said a word to me, he’s just doing everything I say, no qualms asked.

After an hour of scrubbing down together in the walk-in shower, my fiancé finally breaks his silence. “I’m taking you to hospital.”

“You what?” I’m towelling myself dry after kicking our wet clothes aside into a corner of the bathroom. We’d gotten into the shower fully clothed, before stripping off, and I’m thinking of having my hiking wear burned rather than try to wash it out any time soon.

“You might need antibiotics, honey.” Callum frowns and looks at my mouth. He’s standing behind me so I can see his expression in the mirror.

“I brushed my teeth, flossed, brushed again twice with bar soap, and mouth washed three times. I think my insides are officially free of faeces.”

But Callum isn’t having any of it, and I think I know why. He never wants to kiss me again. Well that’s just fine because after enduring his laughter at my crap stained face, I’m not sure I ever want to give him the privilege of smooching with me ever again either.

My bottom lip starts to tremble with sadness. Callum spots this and lifts me into his arms once again. “What are you doing?” I squeal.

“I told you, I’m taking you to hospital.”

There’s nothing for it. Callum won’t budge on this one. He’s adamant that I get seen by a doctor. And not just any doctor, an emergency doctor. When we enter the small Malvern hospital thirty minutes later, my fiancé is adamant with the medical staff too. He’s ranting and raving all over the place that I need to be put on an antibiotic drip. He’s also being quite loud about the fact that I’ve just had my face plastered full of cow shit, to the amusement of all the patients in the waiting area.

“Cal,” I whisper sheepishly. I’m about to ask him to please calm himself, but the look of thunder on his face suggests that I’m the one who should keep my mouth shut at this point.

I’m starting to get that hero-worship feeling from earlier. My fiancé truly must be worried about my health. Perhaps I was a bit hasty in my decision to absolutely never cook for him again. Looking back I suppose I could find the shit-face incident funny, but at the moment it’s way too soon for that.

Eventually I do get seen by a doctor, alone. Callum isn’t allowed to join me as I’m examined.

“I don’t need an antibiotic drip, honey.” I show my fiancé a pack of medication in the waiting room after I’m finished with the doctor. “But they did give me these just in case.”

“Hooray! Antibiotics in pill form.” Callum jumps up from his seat and kisses me full on the mouth. He comes away smacking his lips. “That’s not half bad.”

“What’s not?”

“Imperial Leather bar soap could catch on as a new mouth-wash flavour.”

I shake my head and grin at the same time. “You’re either very brave or very stupid, mister Stephenson.” How daring of him to crack wise so soon.

“Brave?” He asks sheepishly.

I nod slowly.

“Hooray again!”

“You’re not entirely in the clear though.” I’m about to retort with a joke of my own that will keep up this light-hearted mood, but suddenly I just can’t find the energy.

I collapse into my fiancé’s arms.

Callum takes me home and helps me straight into bed. He tells me to rest while he pops out to bring back dinner.

“Hey babe, wake up. I made you a potato.”

Sitting up, I feel like I hardly slept a wink before my fiancé returned. “You made me a potato?” I have to ask him this dubiously. Perhaps I should tell him that I’ve already lifted the ban on cooking for him in future. I’m wondering if this sudden burst of culinary overload from my fiancé is his way of apologizing.

“I did.”

“Does that mean you baked me a potato?”

Callum puts his hands behind his back. “Just come to the kitchen. There are other ways to make a potato, you know.”

Wiping sleep from my eyes, I yawn and look incredulously up at him. “There are indeed other ways, and which of them did you use?”

“Oh, just come on downstairs and try it.”

“No, I’d prefer to know how it was made.”

Callum starts pacing the carpeted floor and I feel that a ludicrous rant from him is in order. I find I’m not wrong when he starts speaking. “Probably a farmer put a seed in the ground… I mean, I guess that’s how potatoes are made. They are vegetables, right? Is there such a thing as potato seed?”

I’m getting a little irritated now. Does my dear and darling fiancé not recall the literal shittiness I’ve been through today? “I don’t care.” I demand. “What did you do to my food?”

“I prepared it, come with me and try a bite.”

“Did you scallop it?”

“No, I… how the hell does one scallop a potato anyway?”

“Did you mash it?”

“Huh uh.”

“Fry it?”

“French fry?”

“Sure.”

“Nope.”

“Any sort of frying?”

“No, madam.”

This is getting ridiculous. “Did you boil it?”

“Oh no, you know my rule, no boiling without pants.”

I’m tempted to smile at this point, but I hold back. “You weren’t wearing pants when you made my potato?”

“No, I was, I just like reminding you of my rule. It’s a fun rule isn’t it?”

I throw off the duvet. “I’m ordering pizza.” Picking up my phone off the bedside table, I start to dial.

“All right, okay, I’ll tell you.” Callum stops pacing. “But you have to promise me you’ll at least try it.”

I look at him as though he’s lost his mind. “I’m not making that promise. Hi, I’d like to order a large vegetarian…”

“I cooked it on the manifold of my car. I had to drive back and forth from town twice just now while you were sleeping.”

“Yeah, I’ll need that to be delivery,” I tell the pizza guy on the phone. “Something tells me I’m low on petrol.”

***

My soon-to-be-husband certainly got his message across about my unwillingness to ever cook for him again. It’s blissful night time now and all is forgiven as we tumble about in bed.

“You’re losing too much weight.” Callum tells me flatly.

“Shut up and stop complimenting me so we can finish.”

“I’m not complimenting you, Em. I want you to stop dieting and over exercising.”

The bed tumbling ceases completely. “But surely me being thinner is a good thing.” I sit up and turn on the bedside table lamp.

“Thinner is one thing.” Callum traces his finger along my tummy. “Having pokey hip bones is another.”

“They’re not pokey.” I scoff. “They’re actually just visible for the first time in like… forever.”

“I can see your collar bones too.”

“Shut up, I’ve always had collar bones. Besides, what if I were naturally becoming stick thin now? Are you saying you wouldn’t love me if my metabolism changed?”

My dastardly fiancé takes ages to reply, so I give him a prompting jab in the ribs with my elbow.

“Ow!” He complains. “Your bony elbow really gouges now.”

“You’re such a chump! There’s just no pleasing you!”

Callum laughs and hugs me around my middle. “I’m only teasing, honey. It doesn’t matter what size you are, I love you for you.

“That’s the right answer.” I harrumph loudly. “But how do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“I have an idea.”

I look down at him suspiciously.

“Why don’t you let me make more car bonnet cooked potatoes for you until you’re of a size that confines you too bed. Then you’ll see how far my love for you spreads.”

Laughing at his foolishness, I shake my head. “Will your love spread to my fat that would end up hanging over the sides of the bed?”

Kiss on my belly button. “Yes.”

“And would your love spread to feeding me so many car bonnet baked potatoes that I’d explode?”

Kiss on my arm. “No. If you exploded you’d be dead and I’m not into necrophilia.”

I snort a grunt of disgust. “Why are we even having this conversation? I’m not going to let you force feed me while I lie around in bed all day.”

“Perhaps not, but you’re going to have to let Lara feed you wedding meals over the next few days.”