JOJO: Piss off, you lot! Let the boy fart in peace.

ARTY: Mum!

JOJO: They’ve gone, pet, go ahead.

ARTY glares at his mother.

What?

PRODUCER: A man sitting in shadow

His face blurred and voice digitally altered

Super

Food Industry Executive

EXECUTIVE: Fat, sugar, salt—the three points of the compass—that’s what we try and hit with every eatertainment product. We’ve done studies that show rats will work almost as hard for fat, sugar and salt, as they will for cocaine. When in doubt, add bacon and cheese.

201 DAYS

DOCUMENTARY VOICE-OVER: No surgeon will operate on Arthur until he loses weight. But breaking the habits of a lifetime is not easy.

JOJO: Whatta you want for lunch, love?

ARTY: Not that hungry.

JOJO: Hotdogs alright then?

ARTY: Alright.

JOJO: Four or five?

ARTY: Just four. You got the low-fat cheese?

JOJO: Like you told me. And I’ll fix you a ham and mayo sandwich for later.

ARTY: Don’t want it.

JOJO: You will as soon as I sit down so I’m fixing it now.

ARTY: Don’t want it.

JOJO: Don’t ask me later.

Beat.

Moon?

ARTY: Just a small one then.

JOJO: [to camera] I knew he was different, I mean he had a big appetite, y’know? The first three years I didn’t bother wearing a bra ’cause as soon as I popped my dinners away he was crying so I had to pop ’em out again.

PRODUCER: Cut to

Photo of Arty at three. Close up of his chubby face, his eyes like pins in a cushion of flab, his mouth a gleeful gaping hole into which his fat fist is stuffing Wizz Fizz

JOJO: When I cut the crusts off or do the mustard just so—it’s ’cause I love him. Like the time Rita Rodriguez, this little slut, invited the whole class except my Art-Art to her eighth birthday. It took a whole chocolate cake but my boy smiled again. I just want him happy. And food makes Moon happy.

PRODUCER: Cut to

Photo of Arty at 15 and nearly 270 kilos. And that same nervous smile, trying to hide behind Doreen from next door’s brilliant henna-red hair, trying to shrink himself, be shorter, be smaller, be invisible

199 DAYS

LOUISE is conducting a personality test with ARTY.

LOUISE: If I were a garden, I would most resemble:

A wildflower garden: carefree, easy-going, and enthusiastic; or An English garden: accurate, organised, and detail-oriented

ARTY: Um… English?

LOUISE: I enjoy entertaining people:

Not so often

Occasionally

Fairly often

Regularly

ARTY: I don’t really have any friends.

LOUISE: Not so often then?

ARTY: But if I did have friends I prob’ly would enjoy—

LOUISE: We’ll say not so often.

When I look at the stars, I wonder:

Where they came from; or—