How to Be Good (28 page)

‘Yes, but . . .' It's eleven o'clock in the morning. ‘I meant an evening meal. Some time.'

‘I'll wait. I won't get in the way.'

‘Brian, you can't wait in here. People won't want you in here if I ask them to get undressed.'

‘Oh. Yes. I never thought of that. I wouldn't want to see them undressed either. You've got fat people, haven't you? I don't like them very much. I'll wait outside.'

‘Brian . . . I'm not going to finish work until six.'

‘That's OK.'

So he waits for seven hours in the waiting area, and then comes home with me.

 

I have already called David to warn him, and when Brian and I get home there is a chicken in the oven, and several vegetables steaming away on the hotplates, and the table is laid, and there are even flowers. All my nearest and dearest know who Barmy Brian is, just as they know the names of every one of my heartsink patients, and
I have told David that if either of my children attach an adjective, any adjective, to his first name in his presence, then he or she will not be eating
en famille
for a statutory minimum two years, including Christmas Day and birthdays.

Brian takes off his coat, sits down and watches
Sabrina the Teenage Witch
with the children, while I make the gravy.

‘What's going on here, then?'

‘It's
Sabrina the Teenage Witch
,' Tom mumbles.

‘How d'you mean?'

Tom looks at me nervously.

‘That's the name of the programme,' I tell him.

‘Oh, I see. Say it again.'

‘
Sabrina the Teenage Witch
,' Tom enunciates.

Brian laughs, long and hard.

‘Haven't you ever heard of it?' I ask him.

‘Nooooo,' he says, as if even now he doubts whether such a programme really exists. ‘But she's only a teenager?'

‘Yes.'

‘And she's already a witch? Blimey.'

We all smile politely.

‘That's too young. Don't you think?'

‘That's sort of the point of the programme,' says Tom. ‘ 'Cos most witches aren't teenagers.'

‘How d'you mean?'

‘Let them watch the programme, Brian.'

‘I'm so sorry. Just wanted to get a couple of things straight in my head before I settle down to it.'

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.