Fragile

They wander out through the electric gates, a Sunday morning walk. He tells the child, bundle of pink clad energy, that they need to buy some eggs for breakfast. It is an excuse to escape from his houseful of guests. Still fragile from the previous evenings red wine and blue stories of the under graduates they hardly recognised, carefree dinner party myths. All grown up now, his wife is the youngest of the group, soon to turn forty.

They were the ordinary kids with more causes than rebellion; upstart beneficiaries of progressive education policies. Son of shopkeepers made good, now the host of country casual, commuter belt collectives. Pretending to each other that they haven’t changed a bit, this is how they like their weekends now; cosy, re-assuring, lacking in drama. The realisation came as news to all of them.

Wind speed zero, flat landscape, long, straight lane. He can see their destination from the outset, but he dare not tell the child for fear she will be frightened by her own perception of distance; at the furthest horizon of her microcosm. Her experiences of the world are created from the questions thrown up in her own dream sequences.
He watches a plane circle over the featureless line of the horizon, and admires the parachutists, distant jewels of charity fundraisers descending through the soulless sky. Idly he wonders which causes will benefit from their adrenaline rush.

Matched with his wife in aspiration and over achievement, he is anxious about his daughter being raised by her nanny; carefully chosen, and expensive though she is. Daily he catches the London train before daybreak and rushes home to spend a few precious minutes with the child before her bedtime. Ambition comes at a cost.

The child bites into a juicy apple picked for her from the community orchard on the lane. She points at the door in the village school, through which she meets her teacher and the friends of her small class. The little girl holds her daddy’s hand as they stand aside and let the horse riders pass. Parent acknowledges riders; the child says “Hello horse-y.”

The country smells hang in the thin, still air, on the boundary of pleasant and unpleasant to his desensitised city nostrils. This insipid, non-entity, bloodless version of paradise; emptiness just beyond the suburbs. Gripped by paranoia that London will stop spinning, such is its gravitational pull, holding both that world and this one together. Timid farewell drinks, happening with alarming frequency. No obvious logic to who is being sent packing.

He is caught between the fear of failure and the fear of success, powerless that only the criterion for the former is set by him. Far from the city, where he is not defined by the title on a business card, he tries to shake off the passionless routine of post ambition, hoping that the hard work will start to pay off. Motivation comes at a cost.

They arrive at a farm gate. Dogs bark territorially from the lawn in front of the farm house. The little girl is not frightened but enamoured by these gentle country dogs. To her their barks are a welcome, not a warning. The chickens roam free in the field opposite. Unlike her father raised in urban hostility, this is her reality, her understanding of the world. An innocence that her parents have worked hard to protect.
Two metal boxes, the larger about a cubic metre, its lid just below the four year olds eye line. She peers in and points, choosing eggs for her father to lift out and store in cardboard. The smaller box has a slot and a sign. “Eggs, £1.80 a dozen.”

Just a jangle of coins in his pockets, the collection of cards for credit, travel and security access not needed until tomorrow.

She says, “Daddy can I put the money in?” He reaches out a handful of coins to her and watches her pick out more than enough to cover the value of her purchase.
She tires of walking and is hoisted onto her father’s shoulders in one graceful sweep. This balletic lift from someone not known for his dance moves. How fatherhood changes a man.

They turn for home, retracing steps along their straight, narrow route. Carrying his fragile cargoes he begins to feel his mood improve. He tries to see his daughter’s small simple world, reconnecting it to his own. His hangover slackens letting him assess the differences between cause and effect. Carrying his daughter lets him to take stock of means and ends. This is all the justification he requires. Satisfaction comes at a cost.

“Let’s pick some apples for our guests.” he says.