Chapter Twelve - Park Life

Sunday 12^th November

‘Malala!  Come here!’

Martin sprinted across the green in hot pursuit of his eldest daughter.  The nimble three-year-old stayed ahead of him almost to the miniature railway – the hazard he had raced to save her from – but her father apprehended her before she could reach the tracks.  She squealed with laughter.

‘It’s not funny!’ Martin insisted.  ‘There’s a road, there are trains.  If Daddy says not to run away, what mustn’t you do?’

‘Run away.’

‘And what did you do?’

‘I runned away.’

‘So, what do you say?’

‘Sorry, Daddy.’

‘How about “Sorry, Daddy.  I won’t do it again”?’

‘Sorrydaddiwondoitagain,’ went Malala.  

Her bottom lip stuck out and she seemed about to burst into tears, so Martin hugged her and held her hand as they walked back across the green towards the shore.

‘Let’s get back to Mummy and Tas.’

Martin and Parveen tried to take the girls out for a walk most weekends.  Not that the baby walked anywhere yet.  She always had an easy ride, slung across either Martin or Parveen’s chest.  Malala seemed to have two settings, either turbo-boosted toddler, charging wildly across open spaces heedless of any danger, or rag doll girl, slumped in her pushchair stubbornly refusing to move any muscles except those needed to open packets of yogurt-covered raisins, spill half and munch the remainder.  She could switch between the two without warning.  By the time Martin was half way across the green to where Parveen was waiting with the pushchair, Malala was dragging behind him.

‘Carry me, Daddy!’

He scooped her up and sat her on his shoulders.  She was a tall child but quite lean and he could lift her without difficulty, although he pretended she was a huge weight he was struggling to carry, for her amusement.  She giggled and grabbed his ears.

'Ow!  Don't pull Daddy's ears!' Martin protested.  'They stick out enough already!'

'You said it,' teased Parveen.  'And you'll have to start running seriously again, if you're going to keep up with her soon.'

'She's inherited your turn of speed, all right,' Martin agreed.  'We'll have to wait a bit to see if Tas is a sprinter too.'  He swung Malala back down from his shoulders and dropped her into the pushchair.  'Feed the ducks or ride on the train?' he asked her.

'Feed ducks!' she cheered.

Martin pushed her along with Malala chanting 'Feed ducks! Feed ducks!' all the way past the old chapel and visitor centre, under restoration again, past the cricket pavilion and across the sports field.  On their way to the duck pond, with Malala preoccupied with her next task and the baby sound asleep, Martin and Parveen finally had time to talk to each other.

'I know they want you to go back now,' Martin said.  'But is that what you want?'

'You know I love being at home with the girls,' Parveen began, answering a question Martin hadn't consciously asked.  'But six months is a long time to be away.  Any longer and I'll be right out of the loop.  You know how quickly the law changes.  It's got to be the beginning of next month but I can do three days.'

'Do you want three - or more?'

'Three will do, at least until Tas is sleeping better!  What time was that last night..?'

'Two-forty-five.'

'Damn!  Yet here she is, sleeping like a...'

'Baby?'

'Whoever dreamt up that stupid expression?'

'Someone with no kids,' Martin suggested ruefully.  'So, if you do three days, I could do three as well, but that would still mean putting Tas in nursery for one day a week,'

'They might let me work from home for a day, or at least a half,' Parveen suggested.  'I don't suppose you could do a half day at home?'

'Doubtful,' said Martin.  'It's not that sort of work.'

'It's the same sort of work as mine, only without Legal Aid!' Parveen argued.  'You should ask.  I don't really want to put Tas into nursery yet.  It's too young.  Mali hated it to start with.'

'Okay, I'll ask.'

Martin wasn't sure he would be a very productive homeworker.  Apart from the fact that he liked to share ideas and seek opinions from his colleagues, there was no Lego to distract him in the office, while there was a crate of it at home.

They had parked the car outside the gates of the Country Park, across the road from the duck pond and facing across Southampton Water. There had been plenty of space when they arrived, so Martin hadn't felt guilty about taking a free space with a good view and saving the fee to stop inside the park.  Now, all the spaces were taken.

'There must be a liner due to sail,' said Parveen.  'Do you want to see the big boat, Mali?'

'Feed ducks!'  Malala tugged at her safety belt in a determined effort to escape from the pushchair, then tried to wriggle out under it.

'Have we got some food?' Martin asked Parveen.

'There's a bag of seeds under the seat.'

There was much more than a bag of seeds.  There were wipes and nappies and drinks and snacks and countless other odds and ends essential to modern child-rearing.  Martin crouch by the pushchair and rummaged.

'Feed ducks now, Daddy!'

Martin found the duck food.  He stood up, ready to release Malala.

'Remember to hold Daddy's hand tight and... oh fu...'  He stopped.  'Are you sure you don't want to see the big ships, Mali?'

'Feed ducks!'

'What's wrong?' asked Parveen.

'That bloke over there.  I know him,' whispered Martin.

'Which one?'

'The tall one in the high vis jacket.'

'He's a client?'  Parveen asked.  

'No.  He used to work at the DWP, then the Council.'

'Feed ducks, Daddy!'

'What's he doing here, Community Service?'

'I don't know.  I don't think so.  I think he's a ranger.'

'What's the problem, then?'

'Feed ducks now, Daddy!'

'He might want to talk to me about the job.'

'Daddy!'

'You've appointed to it.  Didn't Hilary speak to the unsuccessful candidates?'

'Daddy!  Daddy!'

'Okay, Malala...'

'The ducks, Daddy.  They're getting hungry!'

'He might not even recognise you,' Parveen insisted.  'You know what it's like when you meet someone from work out of context.'

Martin took Malala over to distribute humanitarian aid to the ducks.

'Hi, Martin!'  Andy Burrows, wearing waterproof waders and wielding a huge wooden mallet, was repairing the boardwalk next to the duck-feeding platform.

'Hello, Andy.  How's things?' said Martin, which offered an opening to exactly the conversation her had hoped to avoid.

'So-so,' said Andy.  'I was disappointed not to be joining you, but Hilary explained why.'

'Yeah, she did.'  Martin had no wish to explain again.

'Win some, loose some...'

'Yeah, that's right.'  Martin stooped to slow the rate at which his daughter was catapulting seeds at the ducks.  'I'm sure something will turn up, mate.'

'It already has!'

'Terrific,' Martin said, genuinely pleased for someone he had always thought of as a basically good bloke, if promoted beyond his abilities.  'What is it?'

'This!' said Andy, brandishing the mallet.

'Eh?'

'I'm deputy ranger here.  As of Friday.'

'Well done,' said Martin.  He wasn't sure if that was the right reaction.  Andy had been a fairly senior officer at the Council and, if Martin remembered rightly, had quite large family to support.  'It's a bit of a departure from your old line of work!'

'I know, but it's what I've always wanted to do.  I finally got the chance to get some experience volunteering here through the summer and, when the job came up...'  He waved a long arm across the pond.  'Right place, right time!'

Andy did look happier and more cheerful than Martin could ever remember seeing him.

'Does it pay well?' he asked.

'Pay well?  You're having a laugh, aren't you?'  Andy shrugged.  'The pay's crap.  But Jayne's doing a few hours violin tuition a week, now the kids are all in school and we get Tax Credits, so we can manage.'

'Won't you get bounced onto UC now you're in full-time work?'  Martin wondered how that would work out for them.

'Not with four kids, matey.'

'It must still be hard going.'  Martin and Parveen seemed to struggle, even though his pay wasn't bad and hers, when she went back to legal practice, was well above average.

'It depends what you want out of life,' Andy answered.  He watched the little girl feeding the ducks.  'I missed mine at that age, working late in the office, on stakeouts with Gary, putting strategy papers together for the Council.  Stuff that for a game of soldiers.  Now I go home on time, leave work at the door and wake up looking forward to the day.  Jayne and the kids have all noticed a difference - as they say, it's not a dress rehearsal!' 

‘I suppose not.’  Martin wondered if the difference would still be a good thing when Andy’s kids started to want iPhones and tablets, and everything else their friends had that a park ranger’s salary and Tax Credits wouldn’t stretch to.

‘I was terrified when they made me redundant, of course,’ Andy admitted.  ‘I’d spent the previous four years helping Richard tell the Council how diabolical Universal Credit was going to be.  We’d put together case studies showing how disabled people would get robbed, self-employed workers would be shafted, people retiring early would be worse off – basically, how the whole making work pay thing was a con, based on making everyone out of work worse off to create the illusion of helping working people.  And then, just as it rolled out, it looked like I’d have to claim it.  Luckily, I had four kids, so when I went on to contributory JSA, we got to stay on Tax Credits.  Dodged a bullet there, mate!  I never thought I’d be glad to be on Tax Credits!’

Martin couldn’t imagine anyone being glad to be on Tax Credits.  He had seen more messed up claims and confusing overpayments connected with Tax Credits than any of the means-tested benefits.  They seemed to work for Andy but he always had been something of an oddity.

‘I don’t think I could have carried on much longer where I was,’ Andy continued.  ‘It was hopeless, trying to allocate DHP money to those in greatest need.  How do you choose between a sixty-year-old woman, living in the house where she raised her kids, trying to plug a hole in her Housing Benefit thanks to the Bedroom Tax, and a young family where one parent’s seriously ill, the other is their carer, they’re hoping for PIP and some jerk’s put them in the work-related activity group?  Imagine that, day after day.’

‘It must have been grim,’ said Martin, watching his daughter laughing at the ducks scrabbling at her feet for the remaining seeds.  He didn’t tend to think of the people at the other end of his applications for discretionary payments or, if he did, he thought of them as unfeeling suits, going through the motions of decision-making, ticking boxes and using systems to dehumanise the process.  Even though he knew Andy had been the person at the Council, he had never pictured him reading the application Martin had made for his client, approving it and, as a direct consequence, having to deny someone else support. 

‘My main worry is Council cuts, of course,’ Andy added.

‘We’ve had them,’ Martin reminded him.

‘They’re trying to get volunteers to pick up more and more of the slack.  So far, we’ve managed to hang on to a core of paid staff and -luckily for me – replace a few, but I can’t see it lasting.  The libraries have lost scores of people.’

‘There are probably more people happy to stamp books voluntarily than wade about in slime,’ Martin said by way of reassurance.

‘You’d be surprised.’  Andy set to work with his mallet again, driving in another wooden pile to support the path edge.

‘More seed, Daddy!’ ordered Malala, who had run out but was still besieged by mallards.

‘That’s enough seeds for them today, little one,’ Andy said.  ‘They ought to eat some pond weed too, just like you have to eat your vegetables.’

‘Yuk!  Pond weed!  Poor ducks!’

‘They aren’t poor ducks,’ Andy said.  ‘They’re very lucky ducks.  They’ve got a nice island the foxes can’t get to with little houses for their nests, they’ve got a nice big pond and they’ve got little girls and boys bringing them seeds every day.’

‘Every day?’  Malala looked up at Martin.  ‘Can we bring them seeds again tomorrow, Daddy?’

‘I’ve got to go to work tomorrow and you’ve got nursery.’

‘But I want to feed the ducks!’

‘You can’t always do what you want,’ Martin told her.

‘We tell them that, don’t we?’ Andy said.  He grinned at Martin.  ‘I wonder what the world would be like if we told them they could do what they liked?’

‘You’d have much fatter ducks and you’d have to make the doors to their little houses wider,’ Martin said.  He was still trying to square the anarchist in the waders with the twitchy fraud officer he had once been.  ‘See you, mate.  Come on, Mali - Mummy’s waiting.’

Martin marshalled his daughter back to the car.  Parveen was standing with the rest of a small crowd, watching a huge cruise liner glide down the estuary.  It was just starting to get dark; the ship’s lights shimmered through frosty air and their reflection was shattered into glittering splinters by a succession of low waves.

‘You had a good long chat,’ she said.  ‘How’s he doing?’

‘Okay,’ Martin answered.

‘No hard feelings about the job?’

‘None.’  Martin could just hear the soft thump, thump of Andy’s mallet.  'He's going for a career change.'