Father's Day

(This article originally appeared nowhere)

It was a typical suburban home. A comfortable semi-detached with a stony driveway, pebble dashed frontage and georgian window arches. The hallway was tidy and ordered and in the living room sat a typical family, arranged in a neat sequence around a linen clothed oval table. Father's seat was at the head of the table, nearest to the window, facing Mother's seat, with easy access to the kitchen. Between them fanned out the children, two girls facing two boys, sitting on padded stools and all fidgeting in anxious anticipation of the meal to come. Then there was Grandad, sitting patiently in a high chair and bib, reduced to ignoble dependence by the early stages of senility. The sound of a key in a lock heralded Father's (late) arrival. Thirty seconds later he had taken his seat. On cue, Mother busied herself ferrying plates of steaming lasagne then sat down in satisfaction at the sight of her latest composition, symphony for mouths and forks. Suddenly she cleared her throat and the domestic scene freeze-framed as if she had hit the pause button. Five and a half pairs of eyes (Grandad had an eye patch) looked up.

"And how was your day, Father?"

Father stopped in mid chew and cast his mind back over the day's events and pondered.

He had left the house dead on 7.05am, after the radio news report, which had featured the latest African famine, the tragedy in Rwanda, where thousands were starving in the aftermath of a savage war. "… all around me almost everything is slowly dying. In the fields all that can be seen are huge sheets of lifeless wheat and maize stalks, barely recognisable as crops …"

The streets were untidy on account of the binmen's strike, rubbish overspilling from neglected black sacks and scattered in the morning breeze. He almost slipped on a half eaten kebab on the pavement and, without thinking, kicked the offending detritus into the gutter. It started to rain and he cursed under his breath as he knew that it would add a few minutes to his overall journey. It was a short walk to the tube station, where he caught a Central line train, taking his seat for the twenty three minute trip into the City and his place of work. In fact he gave up his seat to a pregnant lady early in the journey and found himself swinging from the roof straps and gazing at the advertisements that lined the side of the carriage.

"… the annual rains had arrived too late to save the crops. A local farmer rubbed two sheaves of wheat together and the husks just turned to dust in his hand …"

The adverts troubled him, though he couldn't put a finger on it at the time. One featured the latest energy drink, promising to get you through the day regardless of any food or drink hangover. Another boasted of a new diet plan, promoted with all sincerity by a wafer thin celebrity. The third was for vitamin supplements. The journey was so uncomfortable he couldn't get into a good reading position, so his Daily Telegraph remained folded in his briefcase for the whole duration and he whiled away the time by making up anagrams from the wording of the adverts. By the end of the journey the adverts still troubled him, but it was an itch that, as yet, remained unscratched.

"... 'This is the worst it's ever been,' he said. 'As you can see the crop has nothing inside it. Unless food aid arrives soon we shall all die ..."

Father arrived at work six minutes late and drew a few disapproving glances. Although he worked for a firm, a small City dealer, for whom time was money, this rule was not necessarily so for the minor employees such as he. He was part of the support staff, unsung heroes, who oiled the big cogs that brought the money in.

Today was a day of celebrations, as he soon found out. At 11:12am one of the bigger cogs had made a killing in wheat futures and at 12:30pm the whole firm had invaded a posh restaurant, to celebrate the cash windfall. Lunchtime stretched to two hours. An indecent amount of food and wine was consumed at even more indecent prices. Spider crab and caviar, followed by breast of pigeon with sarawak pepper, followed by wild strawberries with saffron, washed down with Pomerol 1995 Chateaux La Croix St George. Total cost £195 a head, a mere pinprick out of the £2 million profit from the killing in wheat futures. A bit too rich for Father's palette, perhaps that was why there was a slight flutter in his stomach as he sampled from the feast set before him.

"… The situation has left mothers like Rahima, who has four children, in a desperate situation. 'Because the rains never came we lost everything that we planted. There is nothing in the fields to harvest and our animals are dead,' she said. 'I have nothing to give my children. I don't know what I am going to feed them."

The afternoon crawled by. Father pushed paper around and signed a few requisitions but the exotic lunch ensured that it was not a comfortable time. In fact, he was more pleased than usual to see the clock reach 17:30. His foot hit the pavement at 17:33, perfect time for stealing a march on fellow commuters in the adjoining office buildings. He was just about to reach the entrance to the station, when a slim girl blocked his path. She thrust a clipboard at him and fixed him with calming blue eyes and a smile.

" … I spoke to 8-year-old Fayo about the situation. 'I know I am going to die and so are my family because we are all so hungry,' he told me. Fayo said he had lost hope as his parents' cattle had died and their crops had failed so they had nothing to feed him. 'I would prefer to die rather than keeping waiting for food. I prefer to die,' he said …"

His instinct was to brush her aside, but eye contact had been made and the flutter had returned to his stomach. Against all instinct and totally against his nature he took her pen and added a name to the list. It wasn't his name, but a sudden irrational panic had gripped him, resulting in his mousy sour-faced PA joining the Oxfam mailing list. Commitment wasn't his thing, he never joined anything. Nothing must be allowed to disrupt his carefully planned daily routine. He was a grey nobody and proud of it.

"Your day? How did it go, Father?" repeated Mother.

Father looked up, stopped chewing and answered the question.

"Just a typical day, really, Mother". The others returned to their meal, not realizing that he hadn't finished speaking. He looked at Mother and added, "and then I went for a walk in the park."

There had been one less passenger than usual on the 17:45 to Hainault via Newbury Park.