Uplifting

I was dressed in a completely inappropriate shade of pink. I was, however, desperate to wear this particular outfit. These were the clothes I hadn’t been able to wear for three whole years up until this point. They were a size 6. I had been a size 14. It was, after all, helpful to the people on my course for me to showcase how thin I had gotten. As the leader, it was important for me to act as a role model to those who wanted to achieve something similar.

The week’s meeting drew to a close and I headed home after what seemed like an endless spew of weighing and pretending to be impressed with what everyone had achieved. They looked no different to when they started the course, but they paid me to run it so I nodded approvingly. That evening’s class had been dominated by discussions of how it was technology which had led to such high levels of obesity. They all seemed keen to blame it for their own weight issues, and I suggested that perhaps they should get rid of all their own technology if they really felt that it was causing them such problems.

‘Can you come down for tea now?’ I shouted up to my daughter, Anna. She was 16, and fantastically good-looking. This is not just the opinion of her own mother either – she’s constantly fighting off the advances of boys in her year and even I often have to encourage her to give them a chance. Anna was born through the use of IVF. I had a miscarriage around three years ago, and beyond that my husband Jon and I found ourselves struggling to conceive, so we chose to go down that route. Having and raising a child had always been my dream, and Anna was the most precious thing in the world to me. ‘Your father should be home by now.’ I grumbled, annoyed that Jon had yet again not called to tell me that he would be late in. That was the fourth night this week – and he was never late for tea.

Anna looked up from her plate. ‘Looks like you’ll have to drive me to practice again tonight.’ She said with a half laugh.

‘Let’s not make a habit of it.’ We were planning to buy Anna a car for her 17^th birthday as a surprise. ‘Hopefully we won’t have to be doing that much longer.’ I hinted as subtly as I could.

Later on, having taken Anna to her practice in the centre of the city, I was relaxing with a cold glass of wine in one hand and an Agatha Christie in the other as the door opened quietly and I heard creeping and quiet footsteps along the lobby floor. ‘What was it this time?’ I shouted out to Jon.

‘Work.’ He said secretively.

‘I figured that.’ I snapped back, frustrated that he wouldn’t let me in. ‘What exactly was it at work?’

‘Just some new stuff.’ His voice was croaking as though he’d been shouting, and as he spoke he rushed his hands through his hair, his eyes looking exhausted.

In the background, the 10 o’clock news again revealed a story of a teenage death. This was the fourth to have happened that week – all in the same area of London. By the time of the third, it was being treated as more than simply coincidence. They had all been hit by vehicles in the middle of the road, with every one of them found with their phone in their hand. It had prompted me to go into Anna’s room later that night and give her a short lecture on never being on her phone whilst crossing a road. She had looked back at me with ‘don’t patronize me’ eyes, and rolled back over on her bed, closing her eyes and, evidently, her ears.

I decided to cut Jon some slack that time, pointing through to the kitchen. ‘Your tea is in the oven.’

Anna was very good at ballet. We had invested a huge amount of time, effort and money into fostering her career and ensuring that she took it as far as she could. She absolutely adored doing it, and we loved going to watch her. In just over a week’s time, she would take part in the regional finals. She was one step away from the chance to fight for U17 British Champion. She was practising every single day now, and was intent on achieving nothing less than qualification for the Nationals.

Another week went on, and still Jon hadn’t once been home on time. One of those nights I decided it was time to confront him. My class had finished early that evening, purely because I had become bored of forcing overweight people to shed unrealistic amounts of their body fat. Jon promised me he would be home early that evening, and had given me a ‘definite’ time for his arrival. I opened the front door and called out his name, waiting for him to reply. I heard nothing.

‘He’s not back yet.’ Anna shouted back from upstairs. She emerged and walked towards me in the lobby, finalising the assembly of her ballet attire. She did this with a smartphone in one hand and a ballet shoe in the other. How she didn’t fall was beyond me.

When Jon finally did get home, I was waiting for him on the other side of the front door. There were great bags under his eyes and his tie was pulled almost down to his waist, whilst he smelt as though he’d brought the whole of London back with him. ‘What time do you think it’s reasonable to come home?’ I demanded.

His eyes darted first to the ground and then solemnly up at me. ‘I’m sorry.’ He whimpered back.

‘Answer my question.’ I hadn’t even let him into the house yet.

‘Its –‘

‘What? What is it?’ He looked behind him and over his shoulder, as though he were checking for someone. ‘You’ve got to tell me these things, Jon.’ I calmed my tone.

He touched my hand, looking longingly into my eyes. ‘I can’t. You know the score with the Department. The new minister is big on confidentiality.’

I left it. It was like trying to get blood out of a stone when you asked Jon about his job or what was on his mind. The best thing to do was to distract him. That night I forced him to relax. We watched a film and then the news. The headlines flashed up, and once again, another teenager had been killed in a road accident, with a phone again found in her hand.

‘This is harrowing.’ I commented.

Jon gave a nod. He looked a little unsettled, and told me he was going up to bed, and that he would be home for tea the next evening, kissing me on the forehead and leaving the room.

I went up myself after around half an hour later, and went up the stairs towards our room. I checked on Anna, who was fast asleep before her big day tomorrow. Tomorrow was the day she would compete to reach the national finals. Perhaps it was my own perception, but I felt I could make out a smile across her face as she slept - there were no prizes for guessing what she dreamed of that night. Continuing on to our room, I overheard Jon talking on the phone, partaking in a whispered row with someone, and as I listened in I got the words ‘I want out’ and ‘We’ve got to stop this’. He saw me come into the room, hung up the call and forced a smile toward me. I opened my mouth to question him, but he stopped me. ‘Just this new policy the Secretary of State is keen on.’ He tried to shrug it off with a small laugh. I thought nothing of it.

The breakfast news the following morning featured Jon’s boss, the Education Secretary. He was making a speech in parliament that day on the need to encourage more street safety in the light of the recent deaths of the now seven teenagers in road accidents within just a fortnight. He was pushing through a new bill which would see more time in the classroom devoted to discouraging the use of technology so constantly, quoting policemen on the scene of each incident over the fact that they all had their heads fixed on their phones when they were hit. He was an old fashioned man, with a distinctive voice that seemed to persuade the masses that he was right.

‘It’s time youngsters didn’t have their heads in their phones. The events of the past week have shown not just the physical danger of this, but also the social issues this obsession with technology is causing. You may call our party’s methods old-fashioned, but what ever happened to good old conversation?’ He bellowed in front of the national media that morning, holding his umbrella above him under the Westminster rain, Big Ben in the background as he spoke.

Anna came bounding down the stairs, having swapped her school uniform for her ballet clothing that morning. She didn’t have to go to school today. We were to drive to the city centre, where she would fulfil her biggest dream. I had no doubt she was to do it, so much so that I had booked train tickets for the national finals in Manchester for later that month. I had booked 2, presuming Jon wouldn’t get the time off work. Time seemed to slow down as she came darting into the breakfast room, sitting herself down and looking up at me. She looked stunning, and I saw so many of my own dreams being lived out by her every single day. We smiled at each other.

I parked up the car just across the street from where Anna was to spend the day impressing the judges. They didn’t let parents watch, so I would go home and wait for her to call me and tell me she needed me to pick her up when she had finished. I held her hand, told her how proud I was of her, holding back the tears in my eyes as I did so, and wished her all the luck I could. She got out of the car, and I drove off down the road, leaving her behind.

At around 5 o’clock that evening, as I was coming back from another painfully boring weight loss session, I sat down on the sofa and flicked through the channels. The news flashed up, and the death of yet another teenager was reported. She had been hit whilst texting on her phone, though her name hadn’t been reported. I sipped the tea which I had made myself, and waited eagerly to hear news from Anna on how she had got on.

I noticed that Jon had left his phone on the coffee table, and evidently hadn’t taken it with him to work that day. I pressed the start button, and a text from Anna flashed up on the screen. The text was entirely in capitals, and Anna’s excitement was palpable through the phone. She had won the regional finals and had qualified for the Nationals. I was ecstatic, and ran straight up the stairs to get my phone so that I could call her and ask her where she wanted to be picked up. I went to get my phone from my bedside table, picked it up and started to leave the room. I stopped. Something caught my eye in Jon’s coat, which hung on the back of our bedroom door. It was a folded up document. It had the words ‘Project Uplifting’ stamped in red ink on the front of it, and a warning that only senior members of his Department were to read it. A marriage is about sharing, and I felt that Jon should keep nothing from me, so I unfolded it and read it. It detailed the policy which the Education Secretary had outlined that morning, with a strong emphasis on an anti-technology attitude. I turned over the page, and found a list of names. There were 8 names, and 7 had been crossed out. I scanned through the list, and cast my eye directly to the one which didn’t have a line through it. Anna.