News Where You Are

18. Francis,1975

Douglas works long hours at the office. In the evening Francis sits waiting for his father’s return, listening for the key in the door. When Douglas enters, Francis always pretends to be busy with his homework, sitting with his school books open and arrayed on the floor around him in the hope that something there might catch his father’s eye and engage his attention. Sometimes it works. Douglas will pick up Francis’s maths book and talk animatedly about some concept that Francis doesn’t understand but pretends he does and nods his head appreciatively. Francis sees it as a weakness in himself that he prefers English to maths.

He’s never visited his father’s office and has no clear idea of exactly what goes on there. Douglas always reeks of cigarettes when he returns from work and Francis pictures him spending his days in a room full of serious-looking men, smoking and wearing hats, whilst his father tells them very important things about streets and houses. He imagines his father visible only in silhouette, his voice issuing clearly through the blue smog.

Over dinner Douglas asks Francis how his day at school has been, and Francis can never think of anything to say beyond, ‘Fine.’ His father never asks him about things on which he has interesting observations to make — like cars or vampires. Francis listens to the conversation between his parents. His mother uses more words, but she too often seems at a loss to respond to Douglas’s polite enquiries about her day, and he in turn seems not to listen to her answers. Francis hides his peas under his mashed potato and wonders when he might be allowed to turn the television on.

After dinner his father retires to his study to continue his work. Francis can’t imagine how there is so much work to do, or why his father never seems to finish. Sometimes he worries that maybe his father is a bit of a slow coach — like Simon Harris at school. He imagines his father frowning and chewing his lip over piles of exercise books in his smoke-filled office and feels a pang of sympathy for him.

He isn’t allowed in his father’s study on his own. The only time he gets to see the room is when his mother sends him in with a cup of tea. On such occasions he’s under strict instructions to create no disturbance. He is to knock, enter when summoned, place the cup and saucer on the desk and then leave. Sometimes his father is too engrossed to notice Francis. At others, he might engage him in conversation. Francis likes it when his father tells him something about whatever project he happens to be working on, but he lives in fear of being asked questions about it. His father sometimes holds up two sketches and asks him which aspect he prefers. Francis studies the images closely, hoping that an opinion will form in his head, and that it might be the right one. He can rarely tell the difference — they are just pictures of buildings.

He has been told that his father will be very busy for some time. He is working on designs for a new town. Before that he was very busy because he was working on Rhombus House and before that Worcester House and before that somewhere else that Francis can’t remember now. Sometimes at dinner his father speaks about the new town. He talks about gyratory road systems and enclosed shopping precincts; he talks about pedestrian bridges and shared recreation space. He has taken Francis to see the stretch of Worcestershire countryside where the new town will be built, but Francis finds it hard to imagine. There are no roads or streets, no green studded plastic Lego base board — just grass and mud. The idea that a town can appear fully formed in the middle of fields and trees is strange to him. He thinks of the dead leaves and the bones of animals lying buried in the soil underneath the pavements and playgrounds and it makes him shiver. There are no houses for miles around and he wonders who will live there. He imagines his father designing the inhabitants. Making them the right size and shape. He wonders what his father’s ideal citizen would look like and he wonders if he could ever be one.