How to Be Good by Nick Hornby Read Free Book Online

me is complete now, and I’m pretty sure neither of us likes it much; I want to rip the page out and start again on a fresh sheet, just like I used to do when I was a kid and had messed a drawing up. It doesn’t even matter who the fresh sheet is, really, so it’s beside the point whether I like Stephen, or whether he knows what to do with me in bed, or anything like that. I just want his rapt attention when I tell him that my favourite book is Middlemarch , and I just want that feeling, the feeling I get with him, of having not gone wrong yet.
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    I decide to tell my brother about Stephen. My brother is younger than me, no kids, no relationship at the moment; I’m almost sure that he won’t judge me, even though he loves Molly and Tom and has even been out for a drink and the odd meal with David when I haven’t been around. We’re close, Mark and I, and I vow to trust what he says, respect his instincts.
    What he says is, ‘You’re off your fucking head.’ We’re in a Thai restaurant in Muswell Hill, around the corner from where he lives,and the starters haven’t even arrived yet; I wish I’d saved the difficult part of the evening for later. (Except I didn’t think it would be difficult. How come I got that wrong? Why did I think my brother would shrug all this off? I’d imagined this whispery, jokey, conspiratorial chat over a cold beer and some satay sticks, but now I can see that this was a bit off the mark, and that my brother would be no sort of brother at all if he smiled and shook his head fondly.)
    I look at him and smile feebly. ‘I know that’s what it must look like,’ I say. ‘But you don’t really understand.’
    â€˜OK. Explain.’
    â€˜I’ve been so depressed,’ I say. He understands depression. He’s what passes for a black sheep in the Carr family: a chequered employment history, unmarried, pills, therapy.
    â€˜So write yourself a prescription. Go and talk to someone. I don’t see how an affair is going to help. And a divorce certainly won’t.’
    â€˜You’re not going to listen, are you?’
    â€˜Course I’ll listen. Listening isn’t the same as cheering you on, though, is it? You can get one of your girlfriends to do that.’
    I think of Becca, and I snort.
    â€˜Who else have you told?’
    â€˜No one. Well, someone. But she didn’t seem to hear.’
    Mark shakes his head impatiently, as if I am speaking in feminine metaphors.
    â€˜What does that mean?’
    I gesture helplessly. Mark has always envied my relationships with people like Becca; he would find it hard to believe that she simply smiled at me indulgently, as if I were a stroke victim babbling nonsense.
    â€˜Jesus, Kate. David’s a friend of mine.’
    â€˜Is he?’
    â€˜Well, all right, not, like, my best friend. But he’s, you know, he’s family.’
    â€˜And that means he’s got to stay family for ever. Because he’s your brother-in-law and you went out for a curry a couple of times. No matter what he does to me.’
    â€˜What has he done to you?’
    â€˜It’s not . . . what he’s done. Nobody we know does things. He’s just . . . He’s always down on me.’
    â€˜Diddums.’
    â€˜Jesus, Mark. You sound like him.’
    â€˜Maybe you should divorce me, too, then. You can run away from everyone who doesn’t thoroughly approve of you every second of the day.’
    â€˜He’s breaking my spirit. He’s grinding me down. Nothing’s ever right, I don’t make him happy . . .’
    â€˜Have you thought about counselling?’
    I snort, and Mark realizes that this is David we are talking about, and makes a Homer Simpson ‘Doh!’-type noise, and for a moment we are brother and sister again.
    â€˜OK, OK,’ he says. ‘Bad idea. Shall I talk to