You can have your cake and eat it!

It is a grey Sunday morning when Simon Farquhar steps out for a run.  He always runs on Sunday mornings when he is not in London.  Simon thinks it is important to keep fit.  Sitting in committee meetings and sessions during the week doesn’t do much for his blood pressure.

 Neither does the cake sitting on the top step outside his front door.  Simon blinks and looks again.  A cake.  By the look of it, it is a plain sponge.  But what is it doing here?  He closes the door, reluctant to leave it open or to step over the cake.  Upstairs, Diane is fast asleep but he shakes her awake.  She yawns, shudders and removes her eye mask.

 ‘Do you know why there is a cake at our front door?’

 ‘Cake?  Outside? No.’ Diane turns back to sleep.

 ‘Wake up honey.  It is important.  What if it is not a cake?’ That is enough to rouse Diane.

 ‘What do you mean by “perhaps it is not a cake.”? Have you been drinking again?’  She is sitting up; removing her hairnet and the shield she keeps in her mouth against teeth-grinding.

 ‘Well, I thought, well, what if it is a little more sinister than a cake?’

 ‘Don’t be stupid, Simon.  Who would put something on our doorstep that looks like a cake but isn’t?’

 Simon is an MP.  He isn’t particularly liked, neither is he loathed.  His speciality is education; Diane has been a primary school teacher before Simon became an MP so he feels quite an expert.   Last week the House was briefed on security; it seemed that even a middling MP in a provincial Scottish town should be alert in these dangerous times.  Simon thinks that perhaps the next time he will be a little bit more careful when discussing terrorism in public.

 ‘What if… it is an attack of some sort?’ he says.

 Diane is fully awake.  She removes the splints she wears against Carpal Tunnel Syndrom.

 ‘Call the police,’ she says.  ‘Call 999.’

 ‘Do you think…,’ Simon doesn’t get the chance to finish his sentence.  Diane presses the bedside phone in his hand.  ‘Call!’

 ‘There is a cake on my doorstep’, he explains.  He hears a muffled sound at the other end of the line. ‘I am not joking and I am not drunk.’  He explains about being an MP, about the briefing they had and that they were to report to the police anything that seems out of the ordinary.  A cake on the doorstep is out of the ordinary.  The officer on the line is all business.

 ‘We’ll take it from here, sir.  You move your family to the safest space in the house, downstairs, away from glass and the furthest away from the front door if you can.  Take your mobile with you and keep off the line, so we can reach you.  Stay indoors. We’ll be as quick as we can.’

 In the time it takes Simon to finish the call, Diane has slipped some clothes on.  She rummages in the cupboard and takes out the passports and her jewellery case.

 ‘Where will we go?’ she asks.

 ‘The police said to go to the back of the house but to stay indoors.  I suppose if we are targeted, someone could be waiting for us at the back.  Let’s wake up Kelly and move to the kitchen.’

 Kelly is their teenage daughter, with the emphasis on teenage.  She is their last child left in the house and complains often and ferociously how unfair it is to her to be stuck in this house with such uncool parents who never ever listen to her.   It is as if she has singlehandedly invented the concept of a grumpy teenager.  For a few moments Simon looks at his sleeping daughter.  A fleeting tenderness tugs at his heart.

 ‘Kelly, love, wake up,’ he says softly.  Kelly is having none of it. 

 ‘Dad’, she says, opening her eyes, rolling them in exasperation; she turns away from Simon, determined not to give him any more attention than strictly needed.  Whatever tenderness there had been moments ago has vanished quickly.  Simon has no patience.  He snatches her duvet off her, throws the remains of a glass of water in her face and tells her to get dressed PDQ; this is an emergency.  She starts to say something but he silences her, explains what was happening and tells her to get dressed and come down to the kitchen.

 ‘Dad,’ she starts again, but Simon is already out the door.

 The three of them move to the kitchen.  Diane puts the kettle on and makes coffee for herself and Simon and hot chocolate for Kelly.

 ‘Can I say something?’ says Kelly.

 ‘Not now, darling.’  Diane and Simon reply almost in perfect unison.  Kelly sits at the table, sulking.

The wait seems long.   Simon thinks that perhaps the next time he will vote against deeper cuts to the police force.  They hear the sirens coming closer. Simon’s mobile rings; the sound too loud for the kitchen and the state they are in. 

 ‘Mr Farquhar?  Chief Inspector McClutchy here.  How are you sir?  Are all the members of your family with you?  We are setting up road blocks and an exclusion zone.  As soon as we have covered the back we will be getting you out of the house.’  Simon thanks him.

 He hears a helicopter above the house.  The press?  Or police? He dreads to think the expense of the operation.  And all this for a cake.  He can already see the press: ‘defeated by a cake’ and other lurid descriptions of what is happening. He’ll be the laughing stock of the House.   Simon has been toying with the idea of retiring before the next elections.  The way things are going politically, there is precious little chance of him retaining his seat after the elections.  Besides, he has been promised a peerage.  The attendance allowance will be a welcome addition to the retirement fund and it will enable him to keep his flat in London.  But first they have to get out of here alive.

 ‘Can I say something now, please?’ says Kelly.  ‘’Bout that cake?’ Just then the phone rings again and Simon motions to her to shut up.

 ‘Sir? We are ready to get you out of the house.  Please open the back door when we are there.  We have officers to escort you to a nearby facility.’

 They hear knocking at the back door.  Six officers, in full combat gear and with arms at hand shield the Farquhars with their bodies and bundle them in a van waiting for them outside their garden.  They drive off and park just out of the exclusion zone in full view of their front door. It is a chaotic scene.  In addition to all the emergency services, the press has also descended on the normally quiet neighbourhood. 

 In the van, they get tea and sympathy.  In typical teenager style, Kelly gets her phone out and starts to tap away. 

 Chief Inspector McClutchy enters and shakes hands with Simon, nods at Diane and Kelly.  ‘Nasty business, Sir,’ he says.  ‘Any moment now we will send the dogs in to find out what this suspicious thing is.  We’ll take it away for testing and as soon as everything is safe, we will bring you back to your house.  Can you think of anyone who bears a grudge?’

 Just then Simon’s phone pings for an incoming message.  He reads it quickly.

 ‘Excuse me please, Chief Inspector.  I need to have a word with my daughter.’

 He turns to Kelly.

 ‘What do you mean by: ‘that effing cake is mine?’

 ‘Dad, I’ve tried to tell you umpteen times now.  That cake was made by Leanne- we are going to a birthday party later on today and she made the cake for it.  I was going to decorate it.  But when did you and mum ever listen to me?  And now look at this mess!’

 And with this, Kelly throws the door of the van wide open.  She marches outside and to the stunned silence of all the assembled services and the press, she walks up to her house, up the steps and picks up the cake.  She turns around and smiles widely.  The cameras go crazy.

 ‘Sometimes,’ she shouts, ‘a cake is just a cake.’

 

 

 

(revised 5/4/23)