Mid-morning, my wife calls me into the sitting room with an urgency that automatically slows my response time: whatever this is, I think, I probably don’t want to see it.
This is what it is: an adolescent fox in the road outside the house, eating from a ruptured food waste sack. He has the contents nicely spread out so he can pick and choose.
“He’s very relaxed,” my wife says. “Is that from our bin?”
“Half a lemon,” I say. “Looks like us.”
“I think you’ll find other people in this street use lemons,” she says.
“I’m new to your game,” I say. “Guess the bin owner from the contents. This is a practice round.”
My wife leaves me at the window. I watch the fox poke through the sack hoping for more definitive evidence – maybe an avocado husk with the barcode sticker still on it.
That afternoon the oldest one arrives for lunch, to my wife’s surprise.
“I didn’t know you were coming,” she says. “There’s no food.”
“What?” he says. “I was invited.”
“That’s not how we left it,” she says.
“Actually I heard the phone conversation,” I say. “And that is exactly how you left it.”
“Nonsense,” my wife says.
“We can have a takeaway for supper, but you’ll have to hang around.”
“In that case,” says the youngest, “shall we play this?” He is pointing to a box containing a complicated board game to do with medieval dynasties.
“Yeah, all right,” says the oldest.
“And Dad,” says the youngest, “you’re definitely playing.”
When this box was first opened a few weeks ago, I wrote about two fears: that it may be one of the last times I watched my grown sons sit down to play a board game in our house; and that I had accidentally raised three nerds.
At the time I did not realise the board game would become a Sunday fixture, and that I would be roped into playing against my will. I still don’t know which outcome is preferable.
“I’m new to this,” I say, sitting down. “So this is a practice round.”
“It’s easier if we just play,” says the middle one. “You’ll pick it up.”
I am supplied with a character, Fernando; some territory – the Iberian peninsula; and a number of plastic knights. I am then obliged to select an abiding trait at random.
“Chaste,” I say.
“Chaste is good,” says the middle one, “but it makes it hard to marry.”
He’s not kidding. By the start of the Second Era the middle one has launched a sustained attack on the Papal States – much to the consternation of the youngest one, who reigns there – but, critically, I have still not found a spouse.
“No wife, no kids,” says the oldest. “No one to inherit your kingdom.”
“What am I supposed to do?” I say.
“You can marry my daughter,” says the youngest.
“But she’s Deceitful,” I say. “And an Imbecile.”
“It’s not like you have a lot of options,” he says.
“Can I marry that horse?” I say, pointing to a card.
“Actually you can,” he says. “But it won’t solve your problem.”
The rest of the Second Era is marked by ruthless counterattacking, but I am never threatened, because it’s no fun to pick on an old man who is strategically inept and slow to grasp the rules. With no heir to succeed Fernando the Chaste, my kingdom drifts aimlessly, beset by endless misfortunes, each one written on a little counter drawn from a sack.
“Crop failure?” I say. “And now Unrest? Why am I so cursed?”
“You can still bounce back,” says the middle one.
“Can I?”
“No, probably not at this point,” he says. My wife comes in.
“I’m starving,” she says. “When can we order?”
“There’s one more era left,” says the oldest.
“Oh my God, is there?” I say, promising myself I will never play this game again.
Next Sunday, I think, we will play a game that only I am good at – perhaps one where I can examine the partial date stamp on a piece of brown eggshell and say: yes, gentlemen – this is definitely from our bin.
“Dad,” says the youngest one. “It’s your go.”
I draw a counter from the proffered bag. It says: Plague.
