Eating Bacon

Happy Fathers Day.

Was there a Sad Fathers Day?

A Tired Fathers Day? An Overworked one, or a Pleasantly Proud of One’s Achievement Fathers Day? A Fathers Day Where the Minute Detail of the Job of Being a Father Has Largely Gone Unnoticed, But Has Been Effective and Still Continues (Even If the Daily Obligations of Fatherhood Receded Somewhat as the Kids Grew Up)?

Yesterday she sat next to him holding a cup of tea, and said, ‘Tell me again why you love me.’ Her smile was a mask of childlike anticipation, that thinly veiled the need for reassurance. She had wanted to bask in the cumulus of love.

He had thought, I don’t love you. That sounds harsh, and dangerous, but often truth is. But it is truth that threatens to much unravelling, too much pain. I am however grateful for your company, your partnership, your mothering (of the children and yes, me too in that different-from-childrearing way) and your forbearance, of my habits and oddities. Grateful we have built this life and family, and the yearning that what looks so far like success will prove to be so in the long term.

He had said, ‘Your beauty for a start.’ That was true too. He had always thought she was beautiful, when they first met and as they aged together. ‘You are a beautiful woman,’ he said. ‘Your presence in my life, your persistence, with me, and the kids. You are good for me, you hold me accountable, you are a fantastic mother, the kids are better for your involvement in their lives.’

But he thought, you do not excite me, I am not excited by you. I don’t leap up and declare a Great Joy.

She had smiled at his words, and sipped her tea. It seemed to have satisfied her. Or maybe she was playing the same game too, hoping for a vibrancy of love, an intimate concord, that might have ignited their souls. But not finding it, and relying on the familiarity of their lives together.

On the morning of Fathers Day she had offered to make him eggs for breakfast, and had asked him how he would like them done.

However he had been lying in bed reading and patting the dog beside him and needed to get up and move, so had said he would make them.

‘You sure? It’s Fathers Day, let me make them for you.’

But he reassured her he would be content to do so himself. He asked her if she wanted any, but she replied that it was too early for her to eat.

Along with the two eggs from the fridge he had taken four slices of bacon. Just the eye pieces; he liked the rashers less as they had too much fat.

He selected four slices, because it was Fathers Day: it was a day of indulgence. Besides, the dogs will get most of them.

As he cooked, he became aware of his movements, and his choice of movement. His footfall on the kitchen lino, the force of opening the fridge door and the open whisper it made as he pulled the handle, the tap of the spoon on the saucepan and how vigorously he stirred the simmering water before cracking the eggs into it. How deeply he knocked them on the saucepan rim, to avoid the whites running down the outside on to the stove. He watched them turn and slow the gyrating momentum of the water. The sizzle of bacon in the pan next to the eggs. He placed a generous dob of tomato relish on the side of the plate and went to collect the toast.

His focus on the task of cooking his breakfast was rewarded. The eggs timed perfectly with the toast, the bacon moist but crisp at the edges.

The two dogs gathered as he placed his meal on the table, their ears pricked with anticipation.

He cut into the eggs and the yolks spilled golden and wet across the toast and on to the plate. This was good. The four slices of bacon were piled to one side.

He had initially thought he would not want tea, but realised he would need it to counter the richness of the eggs. He worried that making tea now might take too long and leave the eggs and bacon cold while he cooked it. This would ruin his pleasure in the morning. Not in a significant way, but he relished the warm syrupiness of the runny eggs.

Luckily, he realised there was enough tea in the pot to half fill a mug. He could microwave it, add milk and be done in ten seconds. He did not need more than half a mug. And the eggs and bacon would still be warm.

He had a slice of egg and toast and thought, ‘This is good. This simplicity is good.’ He spiked an entire roundel of bacon and thought, ‘I’m not going to cut this, I’m going to have the whole piece in one go,’ and folded it into his mouth. It was lavish, a little excess in the morning.

He used to joke that bacon was proof of God’s existence. A food as tasty as bacon could only have been created by a God. QED. But, he’d add, it was not an Abrahamic God, as they shunned pork products.

The dogs watched on.

As he ate, and sipped his tea, the yolks and relish and bits of bread merged on the plate. He cut off a piece of bacon and fed it to the older dog. The younger one tapped her claws in complaint.

He thought, ‘I am grateful for this breakfast. I am grateful for the blue sky. I am grateful for the spring sun and its warmth, the tops of the trees I can see, and the bird chirping in the branches, although I have no idea what kind of bird it is and what it is saying. I am grateful for these two dogs who, by the simple act of wanting food, bring so much joy to my life. I am grateful for the house I live in, the table I am eating off, the fact that I can feed myself – not that I am anywhere nearing the age when that will be an issue – but I have my health, physically and mentally, as measured by my capacity to cook perfectly runny eggs and crisp bacon. I am grateful even for the chunks of pepper I have ground on to my eggs, so black and crisp on the soft egg white.

And I have the capacity to feel gratitude. That is something to be thankful for: the ability to be thankful.

He cut a slice of bacon in two and gave a piece to each dog. They had learnt how to take food without snapping his fingers.

As he did so, his wife put her arms about him from behind and pulled her head down to his cheek.

‘Lucky dogs,’ she whispered, ‘it must be Fathers Day.’

He smelled her perfume, and felt the softness of her skin. He registered the gentle weight of her body on his back. Strands of hair drifted across his cheek. He held his knife and fork in closed fists, much like a teenager might, and closed his eyes. He revelled in the tenderness of her, her touch, her airs, her breath, the brush of her kiss on his cheek.

A wave of love coursed through him, her kindness inspiring kindness in him, giving him freedom, the freedom to be kind. He thought, ‘That is what the world needs, that is what freedom means, the freedom to be kind.’

And he thought, ‘And the joy of being loved and loving in return.’

They paused for a while, her arms about his neck, her body resting on his shoulders, her breathing warm and almost concupiscent in his nostrils. He loved her then, and thought, ‘As I always have done.’

He told her so and she said, “Yes, knew it.’ She released her grasp and for a moment massaged his shoulders. Then she kissed the crown of his balding head and moved away.

He placed an egg muddied plate on the floor for one of the dogs and turned to watch her walk away. Her ponytail swung behind her, her frame was small – she was diminishing a little as she aged, but so was he, she had once observed. He observed her gait, her shapeliness – still her shapeliness in her older years, as shapely as he had always thought her. He thought not only of beauty, her continuing beauty in his eyes, but also of her presence in his life, her continuity and joint participation in their life, her capability as a mother, her effect on her family, and was filled with love and adoration.

Beneath him, he heard the plate clatter on the floor as it slid beneath his seat, pushed by the ardent licking of the dog.