P. D. Clifton

It’s a weekday morning and I’m rushing to get the 7.58 train from nearby Honeybourne Station, in Worcestershire, to London Paddington.

This morning – disaster – we’ve run out of milk. I realise it when I’m in the kitchen, halfway through preparing a flask-full of coffee to take on the train.

I panic. This is a late train, I’m catching. One which won’t get me into the office until 10.05am at the very earliest. There simply won’t be time to grab myself a coffee on the way to work. And, as I’ll be in meetings for the first couple of hours of the day, it means I won’t be able to get myself a decent coffee until potentially MIDDAY.

Also, the coffees in the area of London where I’m working are expensive. And if I take in my own, of course, I won’t have to pay for it.

As I stand worrying about all of this in our kitchen at home, suddenly, I see it…

A glass of beautiful, gleaming milk. The last milk in the household. It’s right in front of Annie, who’s busy eating her morning cereal.

‘Annie,’ I say. ‘Is that your milk?’

Annie nods, slowly – her expression becoming suspicious.

‘Annie,’ I continue. ‘I’m afraid I need that milk.’

‘You can’t have it,’ replies Annie, gimlet-eyed. ‘It’s mine.’

‘Annie,’ I say, with increasing desperation. ‘I need that milk for my coffee. It’s an emergency! Please…’

Annie shakes her head.

‘If I don’t have that milk,’ I continue, my tone pleading, ‘it means I won’t have a decent coffee, at work, until midday!’

‘But if I don’t drink it,’ Annie counters, perfectly reasonably, ‘I might not get to drink any milk at all. And I’m a kid, so I need milk.’

‘They’ll have milk at your school!’ I insist.

‘They don’t always,’ Annie sniffs.

‘Annie,’ I say, my own tone now becoming harder, ‘this is urgent. In fact, I’m making an executive decision!’

And with that, I take the glass of milk from in front of Annie (who’s too aghast to stop me) and plop the liquid into the Nespresso machine.

Even as I do it, I’m thinking to myself what the fuck am I doing? Annie will remember this for weeks… months… years… maybe even decades! It might become one of her defining memories! The morning Daddy stole her milk!

The taste of the coffee on the train is bittersweet. Actually, in non-metaphorical terms, it’s delicious. But I know I’ll pay for it.

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