A Doll's House

I feel like a cheap gift rattling about inside an expensive cracker on the train home from the centre of the capital. I have art materials for the artist and have just paid our rent. Now I am sitting at the red-covered round table in our living room. The artist herself returns from dropping off our daughter at a nearby friend's house and as she shuts the door her cheeks are flush with cold. I hand her a plate of food and watch as she slowly eats. She offers sympathy for a friend whose marriage is not so much on the rocks as scattered in small pieces on the sand. A few more tides and it will be washed away completely. It has been an inter-faith disaster as it happens. Marriage is a challenge at the best of times but when religion competes, as well, you are doomed are you not? Even those of us who rise to the challenge do not always win. Our son meanwhile is sitting on the bright red sofa like a comfortable plus, thankfully. He has been allowed to watch an art programme for 5-year-olds. Handmade flamingos occupy centre-screen. As he rubs his eyes, I ask some questions.
Do you like it when your sister's at a sleepover party and you're on your own?
Yeah.
Why?
You get to watch anything you want.
Do you want to be an artist when you grow up?
No.
Why not?
Don't know.
There must be a reason.
There's not a reason.
Why?
Oh dad, I like this.
But why don't you want to be an artist?
Dad, I like this programme.
What's the programme?
This. (pointing.) Look.
When the programme ends, our son collapses into his mother's arms. He has a yellow toy in one hand, a gift from me, for being on his own tonight, and a channel-changer in the other. Actually, I am thinking, it is unfair of me to interrogate him. So I will stop. Besides, he is not in the mood and would rather inspect his new toy, or contemplate toys in general. The artist rises from the sofa, leaving him to it, and sits at the table with me. I must show her the travel piece written by a friend of mine in which he describes with gentle attendance a profound encounter with someone in an oasis town parked in the middle of a famous desert. Just as I am about to hand it to her, she in fact hands me a tiny framed picture - oh, it must be only 3 centimetres wide. It is of a boat on a lake by mountains and is part of a gift for someone's daughter who has a doll's house. I look at it and wonder if the doll will realise quite how lucky it is. Our son looks up.
Do you think the doll will like them?
Yeah.