One's A Wish

© James Thompson 2006

"One's a wish Dad !"

I glanced around the side of my morning paper at the blond haired six year old on the other side of the breakfast table. It was an old rhyme his grandmother had taught him for whenever someone sneezed : 'One's a wish...Two's a kiss...'

"Well go on and make a wish then Chris, but think about it very hard before you do, and don't tell me what it is."

ÔAnd try and stay quiet until after I finish the racing section', I murmured to myself from behind the paper.

If I had to take a day off with him, I thought - 'He's snuffly and chesty and I simply can't take the day off' - his Mum - well I may as well try to catch up with what's going on in the world, find something in the 2.30 at Redcar, and enjoy the luxury of a second cup of coffee in the morning; that, and a peaceful day, was my wish just at that moment.

I scanned the paper for something other than this bird-flu business. Just how many pages did they need to tell you that that no one really knows what they're talking about ? How many graphs, photos and pictures of dead chickens ? And 'experts' from every point of the compass - "Panic", "Don't Panic". I gave up trying to make sense of it all and turned to the racing pages; some things in life you're just better off not knowing. My parent's radar pinged loudly.

"Here we go, " I thought, folding the paper and tossing it onto the table.

Chris was squeezing the last of his eight crusts of toast - it seemed he didn't want curly hair after all - into the all but empty pot of jam in some surreal sort of flower arrangement, head on one side, his tongue sticking out in concentration and just about to receive a slippery green delivery from his left nostril.

"Wipe your nose Chris....NO! not on your sleeve ! Get some kitchen roll from over there then come and have a good blow."

He walked back towards me, running his left sleeve across his face with an air of deep satisfaction and absently proffering a yard and a half of paper towel vaguely in my direction. He sneezed again, producing two enormous bubbles of snot which collapsed and instantly covered him in slime from chin to eyebrows. This was highly amusing, apparently.

I wiped his face - "Come on, one big blow" - and his muffled voice said:

"Two's a kiss, Dad !"

Beaming, he drew his puffy, red-eyed, rough-nosed face from the folds of tissue and looked up at me with a somehow too innocent look. I told him he must be joking, but hoisting him onto my lap, pecked him on top of his head anyway. For luck.

"So what do you want to do today ?"

Any belief I may have had in the power of wishes was inevitably dashed by his reply.

Not, as it might have been, 'Well actually Dad I'm a bit peaky and would you mind if I lay down for a bit while you put your feet up ?'; not even, more realistically, 'Could I watch a DVD in my room ?, but:

"Can we go and feed the ducks again ?"

I groaned, remembering my Mother's oft repeated mantra about wrapping up warm and plenty of fresh air being the best thing for children and colds. In my mind's eye I saw my testy six year old self: Hot, sniffly, bundled up like the Michelin man, hardly able to breathe under five layers of clothing, waddling stiffly to the park on a wintry day for some mangy ducks that swam off the minute you went near them, and me for all the world looking like someone recovering from months in traction, not a two day head cold.

I started to wonder what was wrong with the boy, but then suddenly found myself quite taken with the restorative powers of warm clothes and fresh air: Taking Chris out was bound to earn some Brownie points with his Mum when she got home from work. Throw in a proper cooked meal and a bottle of wine and who know's what I could parley that into once he was safely tucked up in bed ? It'd been a while since we'd had an 'early night'. Another wish.

"Ducks it is then," I said, my enthusiasm uncharacteristically genuine.

I ignored his suspicious look, and patting his backside for encouragement, pointed towards the door: "Go on then soldier. Get your hat and coat and put your shoes on," - I marvelled again at the benign conjunction of Velcro and children's shoes - " and I'll get some bread for the ducks."

As I cleared away the breakfast things I heard another sneeze from the bedroom upstairs, followed by a faint: "Three's a letter..."

"That'll be the postman, then, " I shouted back, not expecting him to get the joke, and at just that moment I heard the letterbox go.

Sucking the last of the jammy crusts from my fingers - I'm glad I didn't tell him off for that - I extracted the post from where it was stuck half-in and half-out the letterbox, tearing only a few letters in the process: The usual stuff mostly...Bill, bill, another offer of a bank loan, bill - a red one, oops - and "Avian Flu - The Facts", a glossy leaflet from the Government. I threw the lot on the hall table and called for Chris to come down.

Five minutes later I had my own little Michelin man bundled before me and ready to go. Hat, scarf, gloves, duffel coat - I refrained from any comparison with Paddington Bear in case he went into a huff like last time - track suit bottoms and waterproof ski-pants over them.

"Have you been to the loo Chris ?"

Ten minutes later he was bundled up again, ready to go, and we stepped out onto the front path, squinting into a bright Spring day, a low sun casting long shadows from the front-hedge towards the house. Frost glistened on the path where the sun hadn't reached, where it wouldn't reach for some time yet. As I pulled the front door to, Chris sneezed again.

"Four's something better, Dad"

I turned and knelt to wipe his face with a scrap of soggy tissue, and standing again, felt the twinge in my knee. I took the upheld woolly hand I knew would be waiting patiently for mine and considered the words 'Something Better';

'Can't wait for Summer eh, Chris ?'

Not understanding, he frowned, ignored me, and tugged at my hand in a gesture of six-year old impatience instead.

"Come on Dad ... the ducks."

Later, when it was all over, when we'd struggled back to what some would call a normal life, years of morning frosts come and gone, I'd sit for hours at that breakfast table, alone, barely noticed summer days ebbing away, still wishing.