2001 - How to be good by Nick Hornby

Author:Nick Hornby
Format: epub

NINE

The party invitations have been sent out, and most evenings now David and GoodNews lock themselves away in David’s study to finesse their plan of attack. I attempted to use that phrase humorously the other day, but the generals concerned just looked at me blankly — not just because they react to most attempts at humour in that way, but because they really do see this as a military campaign, a crusade in the original, eleventh-century sense. Our neighbours have become infidels, barbarians; GoodNews and David are going to batter their doors down with the heads of the homeless.

“Can’t you just enjoy it as a party?” David says at breakfast, when I have complained once too often. “You like parties. Ignore the other bit.”

“Ignore the bit where you harangue our friends and neighbours in my kitchen about the homeless?”

“First, it’s our kitchen. Second, I’m not haranguing them — I’m talking to them, making suggestions about how we can create a better society in our street. And third, I’m going to do it in the living room, standing on a chair.”

“You’ve completely turned me around,” I say. “What can I do to help?”

“We’re making cheese straws,” says Molly. “You could do the sandwiches.”

“I’m not making cheese straws,” says Tom.

“Why not?” Molly is genuinely amazed that anyone could be this truculent when there is so much fun to be had.

“Stupid.”

“What do you want to make, then?”

“I don’t want to make anything. I don’t want this party.”

“Dad, Tom says he doesn’t want this party.” She adds a little incredulous chuckle to the end of her report.

“Not all of us feel the same way about things, Molly,” says David.

“You going to give anyone any more of my stuff?”

“This thing isn’t about that,” says David, somehow managing to imply that there might be another thing, later on, which is.

GoodNews comes in just as we’re all about to leave for work and school. He gets up at fivethirty but never comes downstairs until after half-past eight; I don’t know what he does up there for three hours, but I suspect that it’s something that even the most spiritual of us wouldn’t do for more than a few minutes. Molly and David greet him warmly, I nod, Tom glowers at him.

“What’s up? What’s the word?”

“Yeah, good,” says David.

“I’m going to make cheese straws,” says Molly.

“That’s great,” says GoodNews, to whom everything is good news. “I’ve been thinking. What about some kind of medal? For those who volunteer on the spot?”

I don’t want to hear about medals. I don’t want to hear about parties or cheese straws, and I fantasize about spending the evening of the party in a cocktail bar with a girlfriend, drinking Slow Comfortable Screws or some other equally vulgar and anti-homeless concoction, hopefully at seven pounds a throw. I say goodbye to my children, but not to my husband or to GoodNews, and go to work. As I’m walking down the path a woman I don’t know — mid-forties, slightly stroppy-looking, too much lipstick,

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