Not a chance – Not a Chance!

For my job I had to visit a factory up in Penrith. I went up there with a contractor who was a big heap of a mess of a man (had better not mentioned his name.) On the drive we stopped at the motorway services for a fry-up. With a sun tan and a covering of dirt he looked darker as if he was sitting in a shady alcove. I asked him if he had been dipped in gravy and he said he had returned from a week in Alicante with this wife.

Was it a nice holiday? Definitely not: on the second day they had argued and were not talking. For the rest of the week they went out separately to avoid one another. Over the next few days he latched onto a group of lads also on holiday and there were swimming pools to belly flop into and swimming pools of booze to drink.

One afternoon the lads spent hours on the beach messing about with a football.  There was much showing off and roistering. Mr X had his eye on a woman lying on the beach reading a book. The other lads kept persuading him to make a move on her.  Eventually, swollen with beer and bravado, he walked over to her. Before he even drew breath to ask what she was doing that night she swivelled her head in his direction, and said, “Don’t bother, mate - not a chance  - not a chance!” He said he did a U turn without saying one word and walked away defeated and embarrassed.

I’m sure this didn’t surprise him: his gruff voice, sandpaper skin, greasy-hair and double-chin all packed on top of a mammoth Alfred Hitchcock shaped barrel body would not favour him well when seeking female companionship. Before the holiday ended he said he reluctantly made amends with “the screaming gargoyle” (his wife.)

Later I found out these lapses of silences were nothing new. Once I went to his home to fix his computer and he told me, “We aren’t talking at the moment.” Another time I went to get some money off him and he and his wife were sat in separate rooms - not talking again. I guessed his casual grasp on money was the root of the silences as he thought nothing of betting £100 on a horse race every alternate day. I don’t know him know but I hope he doesn’t read this.

So here he is in this painting - approaching the woman on the beach but I’ve disguised him as a chubby Benny Hill type of character. I was watching some footage of Benny on You Tube and paused a scene where he’s wearing one of those Victorian bathing customs (and about to be besieged by a stampede of hot chicks.) As you can see I just printed it off and put him in the painting. What a hunky chunk of sex-on-legs eye food. I just had to put some writing on this vest.

I tried to give the woman an air of nonchalance as though the approaching man is nothing but an irritation. She’s wasting as little energy as possible on him - turning her head without moving any other part of her body.

I’ve shown the man’s wife looking out to sea (that big girl holding her hat on.) Those nutcracker thighs look pretty lethal don’t they?