Goodness by Tim Parks Read Free Book Online

huge milestone this was. I had never sworn in front of my mother before.
    Collecting herself, she said: ‘There wasn’t any need for that, George.’ And after a few moments walking, she said quietly: ‘I hope you don’t use that language often. It’s so horrible.’ But the time had come; I said firmly: ‘Mum, you live in a different world, okay? A different world, another planet. The planet Goodness. And maybe that’s fine for you. But I live here and now. Okay? Everybody says that stuff, you know, everybody, it’s even tame.’ She said: ‘Perhaps they do, I just hoped you wouldn’t.’ As of old, she had her grating, meek-shall-inherit-the-earth tone. But I had absolutely no intention of excusing myself as I might have done five years ago. The terms of our relationship had changed. I offered the treats. Very soon I would be offering the financial protection too. And she couldn’t expect to criticise me about my language or any other perfectly normal behaviour.

Contemporary Civilisation
    Those good years. I see myself bolting down my muesli, buttering my toast, showing variously-coloured season tickets to variously-coloured conductors, the 260, the 12, learning to leave the carcinogenic dregs at the bottom of tuppenny coffees at the office, staring and staring at the green Hew-Pack screen, exploring strings, sprites, double trip codes (my own invention), glancing up at the frenzied chase of polished metal on the North Circ, brushing lunchtime sandwich crumbs from the keyboard, studying on the bus on the way home (never a headache then), catching the nine o’clock news and the business programmes, studying and calculating away on my little IBM till midnight and gone, while Shirley maybe did the dishes, prepared lessons, read her art books, phoned friends, picked up the comedies she liked on the box. The neighbours across the hall invited us over for drinks sometimes, but we discouraged it; they were a sweet couple, Mark and Sylvia, both cheerful and very attractive physically, but hopelessly dumb. There was no future in it. You see that more or less immediately with some people. They felt they’d arrived in their two-bedroom Finchley flat, while we were only beginning our way up. No point in doing much more than waving to each other.
    More willingly we went to parties, dances, when we got to hear of them. We still loved each other’s company, still shone in groups and enjoyed making a show of our happy relationship. Shirley would come and sit on my lap. We would get involved in friendly little tussles. You could sense people watching, envying. We had that off to a T. Or occasionally she cooked the most beautiful meals from Frenchrecipes to surprise dinner guests: Jill and Gregory, now resident in Hornsey, both in commercial insurance; Peggy, pregnant again (I didn’t even bother offering advice this time, you learn to recognise someone’s destiny after a while); and just every now and then Shirley’s younger brother Charles, one of your pink champagne lefties (Cambridge third in Philosophy) of uncertain sexual orientation and extraordinary belligerence; despite Daddy’s huge salary he had somehow wangled himself a council flat off the Goldhawk Road, which he referred to as ‘my pad’ and rarely slept in.
    So we had these little treats, the odd evening in company. But mainly our life was just the glorious, as yet unsoured routine: the busy days, bus and office, the Mars bars, lager, Rothmans and Evening Standards , the steeply rising curve of my career, weekend purchases of consumer goods, Shirley’s teaching, parents’ evenings and school plays, on and on, day in day out, but brightly peppered with our always successful lovemaking, the pleasure at gloomy weekends of leafing through brochures to choose Mediterranean holidays we could now easily afford. Surely this was the good life, a triumph really of contemporary civilisation, busy young urban people, working hard, living well, faithful to each other,