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Molly nods smugly, Tom’s face becomes a picture of smouldering hate—the kind of picture that a newspaper could use to illustrate an article on ethnic division in the former Yugoslavia—and I know that DJ GoodNews has made himself an enemy.
For the rest of the meal, we manage to avoid flashpoints; GoodNews asks politely about our jobs and our schools and our maths teachers, and we all answer politely (if, in some cases, tersely), and we pass the time in this way until the last mouthful has been eaten and it is time to clear away.
‘I’ll wash up,’ says GoodNews.
‘We have a dishwasher,’ I tell him, and GoodNews looks anxiously at David. It is not difficult to anticipate what is coming, and so I do.
‘You don’t hold with dishwashers,’ I say, with a weariness exaggerated to convey the idea that GoodNews’s various antipathies might at some point become grating.
‘No,’ says GoodNews.
‘You don’t hold with a lot of things that a lot of people don’t have a problem with,’ I observe.
‘No,’ he agrees. ‘But just because a lot of people don’t have a problem with something, it doesn’t mean they’re right, does it? I mean, a lot of people used to think that… I don’t know… slavery was OK, but, you know. They were wrong, weren’t they? They were so wrong it was unreal. Because it wasn’t OK, was it? It was really bad, man. Slaves. No way.’
‘Do you think that slavery and dishwashers are the same thing, GoodNews? Or not quite the same, really?’
‘Maybe to me they’re the same thing.’
‘Maybe to you all sorts of things are the same thing. Maybe paedophilia is the same thing as… as… soap. Maybe fascism is the same thing as toilets. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to make my children pee in the garden, just because your peculiar moral code would prefer it.’ Maybe fascism is the same thing as toilets… I really said that, just now. This is the world I suddenly inhabit, a world where this might pass for a coherent line of argument.
‘You’re being silly. And sarcastic,’ David says.
Sarcasm—my terrible indulgence. ‘Oh, so it’s me being silly, is it? Not the man who won’t sleep on a bed because it’s not, like, real?’ I feel bad. I should be able to handle the slavery versus dishwashers argument without recourse to childish insult.
‘I try to survive without things that not everybody has,’ says GoodNews. ‘I’m not joining in until everyone’s got everything. When, like, the last peasant in the Brazilian rainforest has a dishwasher, or a, you know, like, a cappuccino maker, or one of those TVs that’s the size of a house, then count me in, yeah? But until then, I’m making a stand.’
‘That’s very noble of you,’ I say. Nutter, I think, with an enormous sense of relief. There is, after all, nothing to learn from this person, no way he can make me feel small or wrong or ignoble or self-indulgent: he is simply a crank, and I can ignore him with impunity.
‘Everybody in the world’s got a dishwasher,’ Molly says, clearly puzzled, and all the times I feel I have failed as a mother are as nothing compared to this one, humiliating moment.
‘That’s not true, Molly,’ I say quickly and sharply. ‘And you know it.’
‘Who hasn’t, then?’ She’s not being cheeky. She just can’t think of anyone.
‘Don’t be silly,’ I say, but I’m just buying myself time while I dredge up someone in her universe who does their own washing-up. ‘What about Da
‘They’ve got everything,’ says Molly.
‘They’ve got DVD and OnDigital,’ says Tom.
‘OK, OK. What about the children Daddy gave Tom’s computer to?’
‘They don’t count,’ says Molly. ‘They’ve got nothing. They haven’t even got homes. And I don’t know any of them. I wouldn’t want to know them, thank you very much, because they sound a bit too rough for my liking. Even though I feel sorry for them and I’m happy they’ve got Tom’s computer.’
This is my daughter?
The moral education of my children has always been important to me. I have talked to them about the Health Service, and about the importance of Nelson Mandela; we’ve discussed the homeless, of course, and racism, and sexism, and poverty, and money, and fairness. David and I have explained, as best we can, why anyone who votes Conservative will never be entirely welcome in our house, although we have to make special arrangements for Gra
‘You see,’ says GoodNews. ‘This is why I don’t want to play the game. The possessions game. Because I think people become lazy and spoiled and uncaring.’
I look at my lazy and uncaring and spoiled daughter, and then I tell GoodNews that my children would love to help him with the dishes.
7
I have about twelve hundred patients. There are some patients that I see a lot, and some I hardly see at all, and there are some I can help, and some I can’t, and the patients that distress me the most are the ones I see a lot who I can’t help. We call them heartsink patients, for obvious reasons, and someone once reckoned that most partners in a practice have about fifty heartsinks on their books. They come in, and sit down, and they look at me, and both of us know it’s hopeless, and I feel guilty and sad and fraudulent, and, if the truth be told, a little persecuted. These people don’t see anyone else who can’t help them, who fail them on such a regular basis. The TV repairman who can’t fix your picture, the plumber who can’t stop a leak, the electrician who can’t get your lights back on… Your relationship with these people ceases, after a while, because they ca
I know and, I hope, Mrs Cortenza knows that I ca
The morning after GoodNews’s arrival Mrs Cortenza shuffles in, grey with age and effort, and slumps into the chair, and shakes her head, and my heart does what it is supposed to do. We are silent for a couple of minutes while she recovers her breath; during this silence she points at the picture of Molly and Tom that I have pi