News Where You Are

38. Francis, 1975

He tiptoes down the stairs carrying a box filled with Matchbox cars and an eclectic selection of plastic figures: cowboys, Indians, German and British infantry, assorted farmyard animals. He is sneaking into his father’s study for the sixth Saturday in a row. His father is at work; his mother is in the garden ferociously tearing up some bamboo stalks. He’s not sure that he really needs to creep about.

In his bedroom he often tries to construct roadways for his cars to race along, or battlegrounds for his soldiers to fight upon. He uses opened books for tunnels and pillows for hills but the results are always unconvincing. The model town, however, is perfect. What it lacks in colour it makes up for in detail.

He knocks before entering, just in case, and he quickly closes the door behind him. He heads straight for the model, trying not to catch a glimpse of any of the Future People on the drawings around the room. He places his cars and figures about the town, trying as best as he can to put them exactly where they ended up last time so that the story can continue.

The roads aren’t quite wide enough to allow for two-way traffic, but one Matchbox car can just about fit on the carriageway. The big circular road that surrounds the town is soon clogged with an exotic mix of sports cars and emergency-service vehicles all needing to get to different destinations. Some of the drivers become short-tempered and occasionally one car pushes another right off the road and Francis has to try and arbitrate and alleviate the problem. He isn’t able to place his men inside the buildings, but he can position them on the pavements, in the empty squares, on the elevated pedestrian walkways and even on the rooftops. Each character has a name and a story. Colin waits for a taxi that’s caught in the gridlock. Fingers and Johnny plan a robbery outside a bank. Martin lies shot dead in a side street. One lone Apache scout called Little Cloud stands on top of the tallest building and looks out at the baffling universe beyond the protective perimeter of the ring road.

Francis calls the town San Francisco. This is partly because the name serves as shorthand for every exciting American city he has ever seen on television — with skyscrapers and guns and children who can drive — and partly because it has his name in it. His role in the town is a combination of mayor, sheriff and God. On interminable dark winter afternoons at school, while the teacher works out simultaneous equations on the board, Francis thinks about San Francisco and all that is happening there.

He always clears out of the study before his father’s return. He hears his mother moving around in the kitchen preparing lunch and he reluctantly begins to disassemble the town. He imagines the panic in the streets as his hand descends and plucks the citizens out one by one. He returns the people and the cars to the box, placing them tenderly on top of one another. When they are all put away, he checks the model over one last time. San Francisco is depopulated, the pavements deserted, but he is sure that he still hears the voices echoing in the empty streets.

Today, though, he is caught up in a difficult situation. An outsize Friesian cow is causing chaos in the shopping precinct. Francis had thought that this was surely the very kind of job the cowboys would be able to deal with, but they have shown themselves to be incompetent and cowardly, terrified by the sheer scale of the animal. They huddle at the entrance to a pedestrian subway. A British infantryman has taken the extraordinary decision to release a lion into the crowded precinct to capture the cow. His colleagues call for assistance, but everyone knows there is no direct vehicular access to the precinct. It looks as if Little Cloud will have to save the day with a well-aimed arrow from his rooftop perch. The British, the Germans, the cowboys and the Indians are all looking up at Little Cloud waiting for him to draw back his bow when a breeze sweeps across San Francisco, followed by:

‘What on earth …?’ And Francis turns to see his father standing in the doorway. For some reason his first reaction is to reach out and remove the cow from the shopping precinct, as if that one detail is simply too much for his father to take.

His father speaks quietly.

‘What exactly do you think you’re doing?’ Francis finds he can’t speak. His father stares at him. ‘I asked you a question.’

Francis looks down at his feet. ‘Playing a game.’ He hates that his voice wobbles when he answers.

‘Does it say “playroom” on the door?’

‘No.’

‘Does it say anywhere upon that handmade, extremely delicate and intricate model “toy”?’

‘No.’

‘Are you ever permitted to come in here alone?’

Francis just shakes his head.

‘No. Well, I’m glad we agree. I thought perhaps I was mistaken. I thought, when I walked in and saw you clumsily throwing your toys around the architectural model and showing no regard either for property or for the rules of this house, that something must have changed.’

Francis stands with his head down waiting for his father to shout. He has never seen his father lose his temper. He has a strange desire to hear him shout, just once. Instead his father sighs.

‘What disappoints me, Francis, is that a boy of your age looks at a model like this and sees only the potential for childish games. You see only a toy and I think that’s really most disappointing. If I were you, I should be very excited indeed at the idea of building a new town, about looking to the future and providing better lives for people.’

Francis thinks his father is right and that there is something wrong with him. He doesn’t find the simple subject of buildings and roads and roundabouts, unadorned with Friesian cows and cowardly cowboys, as interesting as he should. He vows to try harder.

His father is still talking. ‘Our cities are overcrowded and insanitary. There are parts of Birmingham where people are living in appalling slum conditions. Yes, we can redevelop our cities and I’ve played a part in that, but new babies are being born every minute and new cities need to be born too to house those citizens of tomorrow.’ He has the sense that his father has forgotten he’s still in the room. He is speaking in the same strange tone of voice he often uses when speaking of his work, as if to a room full of people.

‘We have to focus on the future. We have to move on. You should remember that, Francis. When you finish something, don’t slap yourself on the back; don’t waste time telling yourself what a good job you’ve done. That’s what the other fellow does. Your job is to move on to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. We push forward and we find new and bigger challenges. I started off designing tiny details of buildings, I worked my way up to designing whole buildings and now that I’ve done all I feel I can do with those I am moving on to designing a new town. A new challenge: that’s what gets us out of bed in the morning.’

Francis has stopped listening. He is fixed instead on his father’s mention of the ‘citizens of tomorrow’. He waits for his father to stop speaking before he asks, ‘Dad, are you working for the Future People?’

His father looks at him. ‘Well, yes, that’s what I’m saying. Of course I am. That’s what we all must do.’

Francis realizes that he had suspected it all along. His father is a slave to the faceless figures. He is building them office blocks and new towns even though he has no idea what they look like, or what they will say. Francis suddenly feels sorry for him.