by Nick Hornby
And settle down to it he does, with enormous if occasionally addled appreciation. Unfortunately the programme only lasts another thirty minutes, and then it is time to eat.
GoodNews joins us just as we are serving up.
‘Hi,’ he says to Brian. ‘I’m GoodNews.’
‘How d’you mean?’ Brian asks nervously.
‘How do you mean?’ says GoodNews with great formality, and he shakes Brian’s hand. GoodNews, who has also been informed that he will be spending the evening with an eccentric, is clearly under the misapprehension that ‘How d’you mean?’ is Brian’s eccentric salutation, a weirdo’s version of ‘How do you do?’
‘No!’ Tom shouts. ‘He doesn’t understand your name!’
‘He doesn’t understand it?’
‘You’ve got to have a name like Tom or Brian or David or Dr Carr,’ says Brian. ‘What’s your name like that?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘What is your name like that?’
‘It doesn’t really matter,’ GoodNews tells Brian. ‘GoodNews is my name now. Because that’s what I want to bring, see.’
‘Well, I want to bring Brian,’ says Brian firmly. ‘So Brian can have his dinner.’
‘Good for you,’ says David.
We eat in silence, and, in Brian’s case, with enormous speed. I have just finished pouring my gravy when he puts his knife and fork together on an empty plate.
‘That’, he says, ‘was the best meal I’ve ever had in my whole life.’
‘Really?’ says Molly.
‘Yeah. Course. How could I have ever had a better meal than that? My mum couldn’t have cooked that.’
‘What about you?’
‘No. See, I don’t know what should be cooked and what shouldn’t. I get muddled.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh, yeah. Muddled as anything.’
‘Can I test you?’ Molly asks.
‘If you want, but I won’t know the answer.’
‘Just eat your dinner, Mol,’ I tell her. ‘Do you want some more, Brian?’
‘There isn’t usually any more.’
‘There is here, so you can have some if you like.’
‘And it doesn’t cost any extra?’
I look at him, forgetting for a moment that Brian is incapable of pulling legs.
‘You know you won’t have to pay for this, don’t you, Brian?’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘We’re not like a restaurant. You’re our guest.’
‘Well, I . . . I don’t know what to say. You told me that I had to drink that stuff, and I had to pay for that, and then you said to eat a curry, and I had to pay for that. And then you said I had to come round for dinner with you, and I thought I had to pay for that, too. I brought five pounds with me. The curry was five pounds. £4.95.’
‘We don’t want your money, Brian.’
‘That’s amazing. So it’s on the NHS?’
‘It’s on the NHS.’
Molly is fascinated by Brian, and begins to ask him question after question – where does he live? What does he do all day? Who are his friends? Has he got any family?
And each answer is like a hammer driving the heads of the adults further and further down towards the table, until at the end of Molly’s inquisition our noses are almost touching our roast potatoes. Brian doesn’t really do anything all day, apart from the days he has to see me; he has no friends (he thinks that he used to have a couple when he went to school, but he doesn’t know where they are now); he has a sister, but his sister calls him Barmy Brian and won’t have anything to do with him. (This reply is followed by a particularly tense silence, and I am pleased and amazed to say that both of my children ignore the enormous juicy worm dangled in front of them.)
‘Wouldn’t you like to live with somebody?’ Molly asks.
‘I’d love to,’ says Brian. ‘I thought I was going to live with my wife. But then I couldn’t find one.’
‘Mum,’ says Molly. I start to cough frantically, and get up to pour myself a glass of water.
‘Mum,’ says Molly, after I have finished with the water, and also a long explanation as to what I think it might have been that caused me to cough in that way.
‘Do you want some more?’ I ask her. She ignores me.
‘Mu-um.’
‘How about you, Tom? David? GoodNews?’ Sooner or later, I know, I will have to let my daughter speak. One day there will be no more delaying tactics left, but hopefully that day will not arrive for several years yet. ‘Do you want to get down, kids?’
‘Mu-u-um.’
‘Molly. It’s rude to speak when . . . when . . . no one wants to listen to you.’
‘Mum, can Brian come to live with us?’
‘Thank you,’ says Brian. ‘I’d love that. It’s very lonely, where I am, because I don’t know anybody, and I don’t have anything to do. You could be my family. You could look after me like my mum used to do.’
‘What happened to your mum?’ Molly asks.
‘Nothing,’ I snap, although even as I am snapping I realize that this is an inadequate answer, almost certainly provoked by panic.
‘She died,’ says Brian. ‘She said she wouldn’t, but she did.’
‘That’s really sad,’ says Molly. ‘Isn’t it, Mum?’
‘It is,’ I admit. ‘It’s very sad.’
‘That’s why Brian should live here.’
‘Thank you,’ says Brian. ‘I shall enjoy that.’
‘Molly, Brian can’t live here.’
‘He can, can’t he, Dad?’ says Molly. ‘We had Monkey living here for a while, Brian. So if we can have Monkey, we can have you.’
‘I couldn’t live here just for a while,’ says Brian helpfully. ‘It would have to be for ever.’
‘That’s OK,’ says Molly. ‘Isn’t it, Dad? For ever? That’s what we do here,’ says Molly. ‘It’s great. We look after poor people. We’re very good. Everyone thinks so.’
‘I’m not poor,’ says Brian. ‘I’ve got some money.’
‘You’re a different sort of poor,’ says Molly.
Tom, who has been ominously quiet, stands up violently. The movement of his lower lip presages an explosion.
‘If he comes to live here . . .’
‘Sit down, Tom,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll deal with it.’
‘You won’t. Because Dad’ll tell you what to do and then you’ll do it. And Dad’ll say . . .’
‘Go and watch TV. Go on. Scram.’
I am dimly aware that this is a defining moment in our family’s history. Not just because Barmy Brian might live with us until the day I die and possibly well beyond – and that would define us all right, rather like a chalk outline defines a murder victim – but because if we go the other way, if I tell Brian that he cannot live with us, then things might be different for us afterwards.
‘Molly, Brian . . . You can’t come to live here.’
‘Why not?’ Molly asks.
‘Yes, why not?’ Brian asks. ‘How come you’re allowed a family and I’m not?’
‘Yeah,’ says Molly. ‘That’s not fair.’
She’s right, of course. It’s not fair. Love, it turns out, is as undemocratic as money, so it accumulates around people who have plenty of it already: the sane, the healthy, the lovable. I am loved by my children, my parents, my brother, my spouse, I suppose, my friends; Brian has none of these people, and never will, and much as we would like to spread it all around a little, we can’t. If ever anyone needed looking after in a household, it’s Brian, and if Brian only knows one household and it happens to be ours, then we, surely, are the people who should offer him hospitality. I catch David’s eye: he knows that the path I am on is slippery, glacial, and that no one can step on it without sliding all the way to the bottom.
‘Molly, that’s enough. We’re not going to have this conversation in front of Brian. It’s rude. And it’s not something we can decide in two minutes.’
‘I’ll wait,’ says Brian. ‘I’ve got nothing to
do this evening.’
But he goes, in the end, after a cup of tea and a fun-sized Mars Bar; I drive him back to his new home (or, rather, to the corner of the street – now that we are alone again, he has regained much of his old suspicion, and refuses to let me see where he lives).
‘Thank you,’ he says, as he is getting out of the car. ‘And you’ll tell me about the other thing tomorrow? Because if I’m going to move I’ll have to tell them here. And I’ve got to pack.’
‘Brian . . . You can’t come to live with us.’
‘I thought you were going to talk about it?’
‘We will, but I know what we’re going to decide.’
‘Oh.’
‘Are you disappointed?’
‘Yes. Very. I was really looking forward to it. I liked that programme, that teenager programme.’
‘You can get that on your TV.’
‘Can I?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you sure? I’ve never seen it before.’
‘It’s on ITV, I think.’
‘Oh. Well. I don’t watch that one so much. What number’s that? On my remote thing?’
‘Three, I expect. It is on ours.’
‘That’s not so bad, then.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘No. What about the chicken? Can I have some of that again?’
‘Of course you can. Every time we have roast chicken you can come round for supper.’
‘And you’re not saying that because you know you’ll never have it again? Because that’s what I’d say. To trick you.’
‘I’m not tricking you.’
‘OK then. Bye.’
And he wanders off down the street.
I have just invited one of my heartsink patients round to eat with us once every couple of weeks for ever. A few months ago this would have been a surefire indication of my own barminess, and yet now it signifies only a cold-hearted and pragmatic sanity. I feel like getting out of the car and dancing on the roof. Molly will take the news much harder than Brian, but then, that’s the thing with this brand of charity. It’s all about what it does for us, not for people like Brian.
Some of us – Tom has not yet moved from in front of the TV – are waiting for me when I get back.
‘We’re going to talk,’ says Molly seriously. ‘We’re going to talk about whether Brian is coming to live with us.’
‘OK.’ I sit down at the table. ‘Can I talk first?’
‘If you want.’
‘He’s not. And I’ve told him.’
‘That’s not fair!’
I am not going to say that life is unfair. I refuse.
‘I know. I’m sorry. I’ve promised him that he can have roast chicken with us the next time we have it.’
‘I bet you didn’t even mean that.’
‘I did mean it. I meant it with all my heart. But that’s as far as it goes. The outer limits of our hospitality.’
‘But you said . . .’
‘Molly. There was nothing to talk about. Brian couldn’t come to live here. He’s not our family.’
‘But he could be.’
‘No. He couldn’t.’ I look at David, who looks right back at me. He’s not about to help me out.
‘Molly, this is our family. You, me, Daddy, Tom. That’s it. Not GoodNews, not Brian, not Monkey, nobody else. Tough. There’s nothing you can do about it. These are the people we have to worry about first.’
‘Why?’ Finally, a contribution from my husband. Not a helpful contribution, but a contribution nevertheless.
‘Why? Why? David, we’re barely able to look after ourselves. We’re almost broke, partly because you refuse to work. Tom’s been stealing things from people at school . . .’ I can feel a hot torrent of words building up inside me, and could no more prevent this torrent from coming out of my mouth than I could stop myself from vomiting if I were ill. ‘Molly’s turning into a prig, I’ve had an affair . . .’
‘What’s a prig? What’s an affair?’
‘It means Mummy’s had a boyfriend,’ says Tom, without missing a second of the television programme he is watching.
‘You and I have been on the verge of divorce for months, although now we’ve made the decision to lock ourselves in and throw away the key, thus condemning each other to what might be a lifetime of frustration and mutual loathing. And you ask why we have to look after each other first? Because life’s fucking hard enough as it is, that’s why, and . . .’
‘Katie, stop. You’re upsetting the kids.’
‘Good. Maybe they should be upset. Maybe they shouldn’t go through life thinking that everything’s OK, everything’s great, everything’s so great, in fact, that it doesn’t matter who we give money to or who we take in, because it does matter. I wish it didn’t. I wish we were competent enough to handle lives other than our own, but we’re not. And I’ll tell you something for nothing. All my life I have wanted to help people. That’s why I wanted to be a doctor. And because of that I work ten-hour days and I get threatened by junkies and I constantly let people down because I promise them hospital appointments that never come and I give them drugs that never work. And having failed at that, I come home and fail at being a wife and a mother. Well, I haven’t got the energy to fail at anything else. And if that means that Brian goes on living in sheltered accommodation, or Monkey has to sleep rough, well, so be it. Too bad. If in twenty years’ time, we’re all still speaking, and Molly’s not an anorexic, and Tom’s not inside, and I’m not hooked on tranquillizers, and you’re not an alcoholic, and you and I are still together, well, that’ll be a bloody miracle in itself. I’m not asking for any more than that. And if on top of all that we manage to buy a few copies of the Big Issue, and take them to the recycling centre, then hurrah for us. Haven’t we done well? Hurrah for us. Hur-rah-for-us! Hur-rah-for-us. Come on! Join in!’
Nobody does.
It’s over, now. I’ve emptied the contents of my throat all over the family, and there’s nothing left.
‘You’re not really going to get divorced, are you?’ Molly asks. She’s crying, but then, that was the idea.
‘Not if you’re good,’ I tell her. It’s a terrible thing to say, I know that. But it’s weirdly appropriate too.
15
For the first time in months and months I have to go to a bookshop, to buy a birthday present for my father. I don’t know what to get him, and he doesn’t know what he wants, so I wander around aimlessly. I used to spend a lot of time in bookshops; I used to know what most of the books were, what they meant, but now I’m simply perplexed and vaguely panicky. I pick up a novel by a young woman writer and read the blurb: perhaps I would like this, I think. I was halfway through Captain Corelli’s Mandolin when I moved out of Janet’s, and even though no further progress has been made, there is a possibility that I may well wish to have another go at reading a novel some time in the new Millennium. But when I try to decide whether this might be the book for me, I realize that I no longer have the capability to do so. How am I supposed to know whether I would enjoy it or not? How does one tell? I would enjoy a shoulder massage. I would enjoy a week lying by a swimming pool in the sun, sleeping. I would enjoy a large gin and tonic, as long as I didn’t have to do anything after I had drunk it. I would enjoy some chocolate. But a book . . . This one is about a girl who, after being forced by political persecution to leave her African homeland, comes to live in Bromley, where she meets and falls in love with a young white racist skinhead ballet dancer. ‘It is as if Billy Elliott had mated with Wild Swans to produce Romeo and Juliet,’ says a review on the back. I put the book down again – not because it sounds like tosh, but because I have not been forced to leave my African homeland, and I do not live in Bromley. Really! Really and truly! That is the logic I use to help me make up my mind! This means, of course, that there is very little to separate me from Poppy, the family cat that was found in the road – although I have managed to remain three- rather than two-dimensional, and I still have
my own viscera. Poppy liked being stroked, just as I enjoy shoulder massages; Poppy enjoyed fish, just as I enjoy chocolate. Poppy also loved sleeping in the sun, and she would have put this novel down if she had picked it up in a bookshop, for exactly the same reasons. I become so alarmed by the comparison that I buy the book immediately, even before I have found anything for Dad. I will not turn into a pet. I will not.
Biographies. Would he like a biography? Hitler? Montgomery? Dickens? Jack Nicklaus? The woman out of Eastenders who ran the pub? But Dad’s not much of a pub man, I think, so he’s not likely to . . . Jesus, Katie. It wasn’t a real pub. The point of this book is that the woman used to be in Eastenders. Dad doesn’t watch Eastenders. That’s why you’re not going to buy him this book. I find a reassuringly present-sized biography of God on the ‘Staff Picks’ table, and just as I am about to take it to the till, I see the book about Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf’s artist sister, the woman who, according to the book review I read, lived a rich and beautiful life. So I buy that, too, to see how it’s done. And when David and GoodNews have finished ‘How to be Good’, we can sit down and compare notes.
David has gone back to writing company brochures. He is no longer interested in his novel, and even if he were angry any more – which he isn’t – he would not be able to vent his spleen in the local paper, because he has been displaced, dethroned, out-raged: there is a new, and even angrier, Angriest Man in Holloway now – which is as it should be, I suppose. If the new columnist were not angrier than David at his angriest, then he would be the Second Angriest Man in Holloway, and that would look a bit feeble on the page. And anyway, people get angrier all the time. It was inevitable that David’s anger levels would end up looking a bit late 90s. He was never going to hang on to the title for ever, just like Martina was never going to remain Wimbledon champion for ever. Younger, meaner people come along. The new chap has just called for the closure of all public parks, on the grounds that they are magnets for gays, dogs, alcoholics and children; we have to hold up our hands in defeat. The better man has won.
In the old days, David’s failure to have remained angry enough to keep his job would have made him furious – furious enough to become angry enough to keep his job. This David, though, just shrinks back into himself a little more. He has offered the paper a different sort of column, one based on the book he is writing with GoodNews, but no one was interested. He is properly depressed now, I think, and if he were to come to see me in the surgery I would prescribe something. But he won’t. He still spends all his spare time with GoodNews, scribbling notes for ‘How to be Good’, although spare time is much harder to find now – there are a lot of brochures to be written.
