The Colour of Covid

By Calvin Cordle

As Melbourne endures some of the planet’s longest pandemic lockdowns, three disconnected lives spiral toward intersecting turmoil. Family man John Clark fights to hold career and relationships intact while opinionated libertarian Jimmy Bulwark rages alone against heavy-handed government restraints. By chance these childhood acquaintances reunite just as forthright executive Nicky Chan gets callously downsized.

United in outrage over Nicky’s mistreatment, John and Jimmy impulsively intervene despite clashing worldviews that once kept them estranged. But social tensions run high and resources grow scarce as the crisis persists year after chaotic year. Personal principles get tested as the trio bonds through tribulation, forced to reconsider their stances on virus safety versus freedom and civil duty.

Follow the tumultuous trajectories of three complex personalities as isolating upheaval strains relationships and erodes security. With compassion and humour, this revealing drama bears witness to everyday people persevering through a surreal epoch of ominous viral threats, social polarization, economic devastation, and uncertainty plaguing our planet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Apr 26, 2024
• ISBN: 9781035833375

Calvin Cordle

Born in the UK, Calvin has worked in financial services for over 20 years, living in both London and Sydney before settling in Melbourne. The experience of Covid lockdowns throughout 2020 not only gifted him the time and space to start writing, but it also inspired him to overcome the fear of that first blank page. Calvin has a 1st Class Honours Degree in Psychology and his interest in human behaviour and the psyche informs this story. Calvin is married to Amy and has two children.

Book preview

The Colour of Covid

Calvin Cordle

Austin Macauley Publishers

The Colour of Covid

About the Author

Dedication

Copyright Information ©

Prologue

Part 1 Twenty-Twenty: Iridescent Black

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Part 2 Twenty-Twenty-One: Hi-Vis Yellow

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Part 3 Twenty-Twenty-Two: Gunmetal Grey

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

About the Author

Born in the UK, Calvin has worked in financial services for over 20 years, living in both London and Sydney before settling in Melbourne. The experience of Covid lockdowns throughout 2020 not only gifted him the time and space to start writing, but it also inspired him to overcome the fear of that first blank page. Calvin has a 1st Class Honours Degree in Psychology and his interest in human behaviour and the psyche informs this story. Calvin is married to Amy and has two children.

Dedication

To Amy, Neroli and Orin, this story is for you.

And to Francis who inspired me to start writing.

Copyright Information ©

Calvin Cordle 2024

The right of Calvin Cordle to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035833351 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035833375 (ePub e-book)

ISBN 9781035833368 (Audiobook)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

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E14 5AA

Prologue

The basement bar of the Windsor Hotel buzzed with the chatter of the post-work office crowd; the interesting, the inspiring and the ignoble combining to form a rich, incomprehensible cascade of sound which reverberated off the discoloured, dark-cream wallpaper and was absorbed into the faded upholstery, the worn, paisley carpet and the growing number of bodies gradually and inexorably filling every available inch.

It was just after five p.m. on a Friday afternoon and most of the chairs were taken, a good crowd already waiting at the bar to shout their first round and wave smart phones at payment terminals or, in the case of a few of the older demographic, dig wallets out of pockets to find cards or, God forbid, even cash.

Groups of drinkers were coming into the bar, mostly in twos and threes, but also lone individuals pausing at the bottom of the stairs to survey the crowded, dimly-lit bar for the group of friends who had gone on ahead and who, they were sure, should be here somewhere. New arrivals were greeted with handshakes, back slaps and the occasional embrace. Ties were loosened and already creased jackets thrown over the backs of chairs or piled into a corner. The majority of the clientele was male; it was that sort of venue, the array of beers available on tap being somewhat more extensive than the sparse wine and cocktail list. There were certainly no groups of women although there were several mixed groups, the occasional female co-worker having been persuaded to join her colleagues for a drink.

Soon the babbling drone would become a roar as those planning to settle in for the night became more boisterous and those with families to get home to faded away and were replaced by groups who had planned an evening out as opposed to just a few drinks straight after work. But for now, and for the next couple of hours, there was a chance to debrief the events of the day, to repeat those juicy rumours with barely concealed glee and to re-tell those work stories, invariably apocryphal, with an ever-increasing sense of the dramatic. In short, it was a typical early Friday evening towards the beginning of 2020 in a city bar almost anywhere in the world.

Our story begins with one such group of five or six (or, if you must have accuracy, five with one more just arriving) who were gathered around a table towards the farthest corner, the advance party of the group having arrived an hour ago to secure a good table. A recent arrival to the group has rather decently just inquired as to anyone’s need of another drink. She has subsequently been taken aback with the opportunism of some of the group who placed an order with our newcomer despite having obviously only recently acquired their current beverage. As our newcomer is about to depart for the bar with her disappointingly fulsome list, she is asked whether John would be joining them this evening. She replies in the affirmative, then notes by way of addendum that although John is her boss, she isn’t his keeper, although as they are all aware, when he says he’s going to do something, he generally does it. Then she pushes her way towards the scrum at the bar. This is why, when she finally returns to the table with a colleague co-opted for the purpose of helping to carry the drinks, the group is well advanced in re-telling some of the more interesting stories about John.

Yeah, that was legendary. No-one else could have closed that deal, except John.

He’s a bit full of himself though, I reckon.

What do you expect, they’re all like that, aren’t they, on the exec leadership team. He’ll be the next CEO, no doubt about it, when Pete says he’s had enough.

I hope so—we could do with someone like John. He’d make things happen for once.

Nah, he seems like a good guy, but I don’t know exactly what he does all day, while the rest of us are working hard actually getting things done. He’s happy to take the credit for stuff though, isn’t he?

I was in a meeting once when finance was trying to implement a new expense policy and take away our corporate expense cards. I mean, how were we supposed to entertain clients? Anyway, John shot it down. He did it so calmly, like there was no way there would be further discussion, it was just not going to happen. Half the exec leadership team was there. The poor lady from finance—she had her PowerPoint presentation and everything, all ready to go. He just closed the discussion down, no fuss, no argument, just move on and no-one questioned it. Amazing to watch.

Yeah, I’ve seen him do a similar thing with the risk team…he has that natural authority, keeps his cool.

He always asks me how Jenny and the kids are doing—asks after them by name. Don’t know how he remembers their names.

That’s nothing more than a memory trick. Don’t tell me he really cares about them. John’s not the worst of them, but they’re all of a type, these execs…

Whichever side of the debate you stood on, it was notable, presumably to John’s credit, that everyone had a view, one way or another. The discussion dissecting John’s merits, achievements and failures as a leader and a human gradually returned to the topic which had previously been dominating the group’s conversation; the apparent proliferation of a new respiratory disease variously called Coronavirus or COVID-19 by the non-scientific community. Not yet officially a pandemic, it’s spread had already been precipitous enough to warrant restrictions on travel and social activity in many parts of the world.

Our initial scene fades, the curtain falls momentarily, to be raised again, perhaps more fairly, when we have the benefit of John’s presence, the focus of much conversation already this evening, and the subject of our cautionary tale. Both major topics of discussion this evening will find their fortunes much entwined over the coming months and years, albeit one wholly indifferent to the fate and future of the other. The coming pandemic would have inextricable consequences for John, and for those within his orbit.

Part 1

Twenty-Twenty: Iridescent Black

Chapter 1

There are few things more stimulating for a certain kind of individual than holding forth with authority for a group of enthralled listeners. Many avoid it, or do not enjoy it, but John had gotten used to it. Perhaps even come to expect it.

We just need to let it run its natural course. Let it roll through society. Its harsh I know but I’m happy to take my chances. The economic cost of lockdown far outweighs the health impact, let alone the effect on mental health, domestic violence and suicide rates.

It wasn’t the opinions themselves. They were second hand, probably wrong, and not especially interesting on their own. But John had a natural flair for oratory. Not in the old-fashioned, pompous sense. But he tended to dominate discussions in pubs or parties in a way nobody seemed to mind. He had a firm voice, not especially deep, not like those radio presenters or ageing actors who now made a living by reading audio books, but John’s voice had a definitive edge, like a cabinet politician in a safe seat. He was confident, calm and easy to listen to. In his late 40s, he was just the wrong side of good looking. He had a firm set jaw and prominent chin, the combined package of which was a little too large for his face but did bless him with a broad smile, his best feature. His aquiline nose was just a touch too beaky. He had long since gotten over the vanity of wearing contact lenses, and in any event, he couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of fitting them, wearing them and losing them so he wore a pair of dark rimmed glasses most of the time.

Well-chosen or not, they didn’t particularly suit him although in the estimation of some observers they bestowed an air of authority. His hair was receding but retained its dark colour and formed a reasonably pleasing widow’s peak. If it must recede, at least let it do so with dignity, he thought. He always dressed well, perhaps a little fastidious, usually expensive but not too showy. He had learnt how to carry himself over the years of navigating corporate life so that now he had what many would call gravitas. He was known to be calm under pressure and intimidating in a negotiation. This is how he had made his name. In fact, though, John had merely learnt the trick of self-confidently holding a silence and letting others talk themselves into agreeing. His critics, of whom there were a healthy but not oppressive contingent, thought him rather too self-serving and aloof. He was a senior executive at an IT company, neither impressively large nor interestingly small. Not global, nor a start-up, but it was publicly listed and he was occasionally touted as the next CEO. He ran their sales team.

You’re right John. My mate’s brother had it. Bit of a cough, laid up for a couple of days then fine. No issues. Load of rubbish, I reckon. This was from Tony, one of the old timers, agreeing as usual. Crew cut grey hair, overweight, slightly scruffy and twice divorced. John should probably have moved him on years ago but sometimes it felt nice to be in an echo chamber.

The group of work colleagues sitting around the table, mostly guys and mostly in John’s team, either nodded sagely or raised their eyebrows, lips drawn tight together, and looked carefully, deep into their beer.

Not like that Spanish flu a hundred years ago, Tony continued, seemingly encouraged by the group’s silence. That was a real bad one. Killed fifty million people that did. Now that was enough to kill a brown dog on a chain. This one’ll be like SARS or Swine flu…nothing to worry about.

It was enough to kill what, Tony? One of the group looked up, a wry smile on his face. Tony gazed around the table at the quizzical faces.

A brown dog…on a chain…you know, that old saying, Tony attempted to dismiss the sudden interest in his colloquialism.

I have never heard of that saying in my life. What does it even mean? the other replied.

Erm, it just means something really nasty, doesn’t it…because, you know, big old brown dogs are tough aren’t they, sitting out there in all weather…

But why does it have to be on a chain?

Oh, I don’t know, it’s just one of those stupid old sayings, isn’t it?

My neighbour’s got a brown dog. Fluffy, bouncy little thing. It’s one of those Cavoodles. Doesn’t seem very tough to me. Made a mess of my lawn though…

Unable to endure more, John changed the subject. Anyway team. No matter how bad it gets we will do whatever we need to do. Stage 3 lockdown starts tomorrow so stay at home. Make sure you’ve all got your laptops with you. We’ll be working from home next week until further notice. No travel to the office unless you absolutely have to. Make sure you call all your clients next week. That’s the key. Stay in touch with our clients through this. It’ll be a tough few weeks for us all but if we play this right, we’ll come out of it stronger than we went in. Anyway, my round. What’re you all having?

It was a Friday evening in the basement of the Windsor, an ageing, wood-panelled, flock-wall-papered boozer in one of the city’s colonial era stone buildings. Twenty years ago, tobacco made pubs like this somehow timeless, as if Samuel Pepys might be at the next table, as if the knowledge of the ages hung with the tobacco smoke in the warm air and seeped into the oak panels and creaking chairs. As if the patron’s recycled opinions on the weekend’s footy games rivalled the wisdom of Solomon. But ban smoking and the patches of beige wallpaper and paisley carpet feel more tired than timeless. And the contemporary chatter of the drinkers produces a hollow echo which clashes with the clinking of glasses to grate on the senses by the end of the evening. Not that most of the crowd here could conceive that a person would be able to smoke in a crowded public place, let alone a basement bar, thought John looking around the room at the young faces and feeling old.

Back in his twenties, when he’d started out in sales, John was a smoker and had a drink or two with colleagues most evenings. It was exciting. How many sales had you made? Did you get a date with that receptionist? It was fun being suddenly grown up, talking about grown up things and hoping you were doing it right. It was exciting what might be ahead. Now he would usually have a glass of wine at home but rarely went to the pub with colleagues. But tonight, was a special occasion, with lockdown at home coming from next week he had agreed to have a drink with some of the team. They had asked him and he had said yes, reasonably sure that they had meant it.

When he brought the next round back to the table, a couple of the group had gone outside for a smoke and some of the younger guys were stirring Tony, getting him wound up about climate change for the fun of it (Tony inevitably being a sceptic). John ignored this conversation and tried to tune in to the other discussion around the table which had been going on while he was at the bar. It was clearly about office politics but Nicky, one of his more capable team members and the only female present, deftly changed the subject as he arrived.

So, what’s news from the leadership team, John?

This was deft because Nicky knew it would attract the tables attention, which would encourage John to talk and guide the conversation away from whatever gossip they had been enjoying. John knew how to pick up a question like this and be reasonably interesting for a few minutes. It was part of his role in the group, until he left and then everyone could relax a little and talk more freely. He was circumspect not to reveal any real secrets (his career was too important for that and his need for popularity not over-whelming) but he wove a few interesting stories in just the right way to make his audience feel trusted, part of the inner circle. Like they’d heard some drama without having anything especially meaningful to repeat on a Monday morning.

John worked hard at achieving that balance of contemporary leadership, according to all the management books and Harvard Business Review articles, of which he was an avid reader. He was supposed to be at the same time authentic, approachable and able to hold his team accountable. He liked to think he could inspire both the enthusiastic idealist who’d consider smoking in a pub anachronistic as well as he could the ageing cynic who believes smoking bans are the very peak of the nanny state. Whether he actually could or not was another question. Not that selling software is something to be particularly inspired about, but John did have a knack of understanding an individual’s motivations and that gets you pretty far in life, especially in contemporary corporate politics. But whatever the books say, any real-life leader will tell you that the most important knack of leadership is knowing the right moment to leave the party.

Right team, that’s me done, he said, draining his beer. Remember, most important of all take care of your health and your family. None of us will ever forget this time so let’s do our best to make the most of it. Less time commuting, more time with the kids. And don’t forget to stay connected with each other. We’re a team and we need to stick together. Usual weekly sales call, Monday morning at 9am.

It was twilight as he emerged from the gloom of the Windsor. The fading pink sunlight was chilly and the city had a strange air of anticipation, as if something had just finished and no-one was quite sure what was going to happen next. The roads were relatively quiet and the few pedestrians on the pavement mostly carried bags of groceries. John tried to keep count of the packs of toilet rolls he saw poking out of reusable shopping bags or stuffed under the arms of hurrying passers-by.

John shook his head gently, with a wry smile on his face. He’d had this conversation with Karen yesterday. You’ve bought enough toilet roll to last the year, Karen. It’s not Mad Max you know.

She had just ignored him. He had said it with a smile on his face. He was never nasty, rarely lost his temper, but that was the habit they were in after twenty years of marriage; he occasionally had a gentle, rather superior dig, and she just ignored him.

Sorry mate, muttered a young man in an ill-fitting suit as he bumped into John’s shoulder then pivoted sideways to avoid the next pedestrian. The lad was carrying a heavy looking, black canvass laptop bag under one arm, cables poking out the top, zip bursting at the seams and a flat screen monitor under the other. When the lad had pirouetted across the pavement a dongle had fallen unnoticed out of the laptop bag. John picked it up, called him back and stuffed it into the bag for him, even managing to zip it up tightly to save further inconvenience.

Thanks mate, lifesaver… chirped the flustered young man, a grateful smile on his face.

No problem. Good luck…and hey, slow down a bit. All will be well. The kid nodded, smiled and hurried away.

As far as John could tell, working from home prior to COVID for most people consisted of doing a few emails on your laptop first thing in the morning and towards the end of the day, taking a few calls, doing the school run, a bit of TV and an hour at the driving range or the nail bar, depending on your preference. Not that he actually knew, given his experience of working from home was catching up on emails in the evenings and weekends. John loved being in the office. That’s where the fun was. Being with people, playing the work politics game, the adrenaline of the deal, solving problems, reading the play, having a laugh. But now everyone realised working from home was going to be a long-term thing, so home offices needed to be created. Convert the spare room, set up a monitor and a keyboard, boost the Wi-Fi, buy some pot plants, get a proper chair, figure out how Zoom works.

As he slid into the leather seats of the Audi (just the right amount of class without being showy) and pulled out of the monstrously modern, multi-storey concrete carpark and headed home, he hoped this COVID thing wouldn’t last too long. At this stage, it was starting to feel like an unwelcome intrusion into his carefully managed career. He figured he had another ten years to see how far he could get and he meant to make them count.

The drive home was possibly the best part of John’s day. Twenty-eight minutes of time to himself. Sometimes he made work calls, but usually he put on some music and replayed the interesting or significant events of the day in his mind.

This morning they had had an executive leadership team meeting. Generally, he found these frustrating, and today had been no different. Not that he was alone in this. He got the feeling that most of the leadership team found them this way and some, like him, were desperately trying to make them more productive, but somehow it was the combination of these individual efforts that had the effect of amplifying collective dissatisfaction. Self-interest played a part but he had read in his latest management book that the tension of opposing perspectives can be productive if harnessed effectively by the team. One thing was for sure: this leadership team’s opposing perspectives where certainly not harnessed effectively. It was easy to blame Pete, the CEO and founder, but John knew they all carried a responsibility for taking the company forward and he for one took that responsibility seriously. Yes, he was ambitious but he also liked Pete, and he liked the company.

Perhaps the only person on the leadership team who rarely displayed any frustration was Carol, the erstwhile Financial Officer. Bespectacled, with mousey hair and a distinct preference for tweed, Carol rarely displayed any emotion, frustration or otherwise. At this particular meeting, she had recommended implementation of a consequence management framework for employees found removing company assets for the purpose of home working. She pointed to the value of these assets, the likelihood of them never being returned and had calculated the cost to the company. A brief debate about this topic had run for a while with different departments urging alternate approaches centred around either minimising financial cost or supporting staff morale. With the inevitable compromise outcome looking likely, John had stepped in to argue for supporting and trusting staff. He had aimed to acknowledge all the perspectives in the room while rallying everyone to his view, which was essentially to do nothing and trust staff.

Certainly, in the end, they had done nothing, but this probably had more to do with a gathering boredom of the topic, the ensuing lunch break and the realisation of those arguing for consequence management that one of them would actually have to take an action on top of an already full to do list, and on a Friday afternoon to boot. Looking back on the whole day John wasn’t sure that they had actually decided to do anything at all. Even the decision to have all employees work from home from next week for the foreseeable future had been made by Pete and the tech teams a few days before.

John also wasn’t sure whether it was a win to argue doing nothing with a team whose approach to decision-making meant that doing nothing was a natural consequence. Perhaps it was an effective strategy for being on the winning side most of the time, but hardly satisfying for somebody who wants to look back on having achieved something meaningful from their day at work.

Still, a good outcome for his team and one less crappy thing to put on their plate on a Friday afternoon when most of them are worried about paying the mortgage and whether the kids are going to be allowed to go to school on Monday.

He thought about what might be waiting for him at home. He thought about what kind of mood the kids would be in, what drama or disaster had occurred at school this week. Karen would no doubt expect them to spend some quality time together tonight. This was one of her constant themes, that they didn’t spend enough time together and that she didn’t feel connected enough to him. The problem was that community gossip, the minutiae of school activities and even the current favourite topic of detailed planning for the next family holiday he found boring and wholly exhausting.

A long, aggressive blast of a car horn interrupted his reflections. He had been vaguely aware of pulling out from a junction a little close to an oncoming vehicle, causing it to slow, but given the heavy and relatively slow-moving traffic he didn’t feel it was the most aggressive manoeuvre he had ever made. The other driver clearly thought otherwise. After leaning on his horn, the other driver pulled his expensive, black Range Rover Sport into the lane alongside John, driving aggressively and swerving close to John’s Audi. Having wound down his passenger side window the other driver was shouting a stream of invective. He looked about ten years younger than John. He was ostentatiously dressed and was wearing expensive looking jewellery including a huge watch sitting just below his raised middle finger.

When faced with a situation like this, it is typical for the human brain to do a number of things; firstly, to judge the character of the individual in an instant; secondly to react in either a very defensive or, all too often when behind the wheel, a very aggressive way. Thus, road rage incidents occur. The lights ahead of them changed to red and so both vehicles slowed to a stop next to each other. Things were now on a knife edge. John was not perfect in situations like this, but he prided himself on being better than most. He took a breath as he wound down his own window and turned to look the other individual in the eye. With an open, earnest expression on his face and calm tone to his voice, he said clearly:

I’m sorry, Sir. My mistake.

Simply that and no more. The guy looked back at John for a moment, the wind somewhat taken out of his sails. He said nothing more, but faced forward, shaking his head as his window wound back up. When the lights eventually changed, the Range Rover pulled away very quickly and John let it go, stifling a vaguely self-satisfied smirk.

A few minutes later the gravel crunched satisfyingly under the wheels of the Audi as he pulled into the driveway. The garage door slid up and then down, welcoming man and machine home to the bosom of family, swallowing them both like the sub-conscious absorbs a fading dream. John gathered his papers, laptop and work paraphernalia from the passenger seat, grasped the car door handle then paused for a few seconds, looking out of the front windscreen at the blank wall of the garage. Then he entered the house.

Chapter 2

Hi honey, I’m home.

A lame attempt at joviality. A wan smile from Karen and a cursory kiss on the cheek.

Good day?

Yeah fine. Sorry I’m a little late, had a couple of drinks with the team.

John poured himself a glass of red from the open bottle on the kitchen island. It looked like Karen was on her second glass. He leaned against the worktop looking at his wife as she stirred the pan. Karen was in her active wear.

How was Pilates this morning? He asked.

Didn’t make it up in time. Went for a walk with Val instead.

Didn’t make it up for a 9am Pilates session? The kitchen was a mess as usual. He’d clean it up after dinner. Stack the dishwasher, wipe down the work surfaces. He liked things clean and tidy at home. Not that Karen was messy, but she was able to leave washing up in the sink and he couldn’t. Most evenings when he came home the kitchen was a mess. It was another habit they’d got into after all these years.

He wondered, almost involuntarily, what she’d been doing all day, aside from a walk with Val, that meant she’d had no time to clean away the breakfast plates. A leisurely coffee of course, maybe a lunch with friends. But what else? She didn’t work and the kids were at school. Nowadays the kids were pretty self-sufficient so she didn’t even need to do the school run. He felt no real resentment at her leisurely life. He felt proud that they could afford it but curious about how she could stand the boredom.

I’m about to serve up. It’s just a bolognaise. Can you shout the kids down.

Rather than calling them he walked upstairs to hunt for his teenage off-spring. He remembered the time, not so long ago, when they’d come running to greet him as he came home from work. There would usually be a bear hug and a rambling story about something trivial from their day that for them was the drama of the century. He tried to listen to these stories solemnly, doing his best to express the right degree of surprise, shock, joy or excitement as the occasion demanded. But that all faded a few years ago. They were good kids but they were teenagers so they’d be in their rooms, almost certainly on one kind of device or another.

John loved his house. They’d lived there nearly fifteen years and done a lot of work on it. They’d also spent a fortune on interior designers, even though, in John’s opinion, Karen had a great eye. Having met the designer he realised he was paying not for the design ideas but the unwavering confidence with which the ideas are presented. Downstairs was oak floor boards, rendered walls, textured cabinets in moody, earthy colours, and expensive art tastefully lit. Upstairs was comfortable, carpeted and had what the real estate agent described as ‘zones’ to allow children and adults to satisfactorily separate themselves. What a wonderfully contemporary western phenomenon, that a relatively ordinary family could be so wealthy as to expect to live in a house large enough to have their own zones. Why would they ever need such space, such separation, such distance?

As a child John had shared a bedroom with his younger brother and the walls of the house were paper thin. There was no privacy to speak off, let alone zones. The worst thing was when people visited and you could hear them use the bathroom. Very little was left to the imagination.

They weren’t a poor family though. His dad had worked for the local council all his life, doing John wasn’t quite sure what exactly. When he had occasion to, his dad would describe himself as a Civil Servant and that usually ended the conversation. His dad never had any interest in talking about his work and John never had any intention of asking. And then he died a couple of years ago of cancer so no-one would ever properly know what his dad had spent his life doing. How had this man spent eight hours a day for forty-five years?

At the funeral, he’d tried asking Mum and his brother and sister but they were either as clueless as him or lacked the interest. Now he was gone it seemed like such an irrelevant life. What exactly had been the point of his dad’s life? How could he have lived with so little purpose, such limited relevance? His mum had made an effort, saying it was something to do with organising local facilities and recreation areas but it soon became clear, as her sentences trailed towards indefinite conclusions and the pauses lengthened while she searched for the right words, that she was mildly shocked to discover that she had very little insight. How his dad had gone gentle into that good night.

John reached the top of the stairs and turned right towards the kid’s ‘zone’. As he neared Nick’s room, he heard the muffled sound effects of Call of Duty behind the closed door. They’d probably made the wrong decision, allowing him to play computer games in his bedroom but it was too late to change the rules now. John told himself that he was a solid kid so it didn’t seem to be doing him any harm. At least, the gaming noises meant he wouldn’t need to knock nervously wondering what his fourteen-year-old son was doing in his room on his own. As he slowly opened the door and poked his head in, leaning his shoulder against the door jamb, he could smell the stale odour of adolescent boy.

Hey buddy.

Hi Dad.

How was school?

Fine.

Dinner’s ready.

Hmm…OK.

John paused with his hand on the door, half in the room and half out. He looked at his son as Nick stared intently at the screen, his dark hair short around the back and sides, long on top, flowing in a sweep down the left side of his face covering one of his dark eyes but not, despite his intention, covering the traces of acne on his prominent cheekbones.

Come down now and wash your hands.

OK.

John backed out and walked down the corridor towards the next room as the sounds of the game continued. He knocked at Millie’s room. He didn’t want to have to knock before going into her room but she’d asked him to do so a few years back and he’d read somewhere in a parenting book that respecting your daughter’s private space was important. He wondered how almost every other teenage girl in the history of the world, prior to the twenty first century, had managed to survive with minimal private space.

Come in…oh, hey Dad, she said without looking up