My wife, the youngest one, the oldest and I are sitting down to the mean little supper I have made. My wife keeps calling it risotto, but it’s really our unloved Sunday night staple, spicey ricey, with some mushrooms in it.
Although the middle one is absent – possibly because he is absent – the oldest one is telling a story about hitting him in the temple with a fast-bowled satsuma.
“I peeled it first,” he says. “So it exploded.”
“When I was about 11,” I say, “I hit a stranger with a snowball on a dark night from 50 yards away. I saw it bounce off the back of his head just as he stepped into the cone of light from a street lamp.”
“Is that the worst thing you’ve done?” my wife says.
“No,” I say. “It’s the greatest thing I’ve done.”
“What’s the worst thing you’ve done?” she says, looking at the oldest and the youngest in turn. There is a long silence.
“Do you want to play Fifa?” says the oldest to the youngest.
“Yeah,” says the youngest to the oldest. They stand.
“No!” my wife shouts. “Sit down. Ten more minutes.”
“Once, when I was young and poor,” I say, “I found someone’s bag in a taxi.”
“Look,” my wife says. “Your father is making this about him.”
“But instead of turning it in,” I say, “I took it home.”
“Oh dear,” my wife says. “That is quite bad.”
“I felt awful as soon as I did it,” I say. “There was no money in it and I kept telling myself I would hand it in to the police the next day, but in the end I got so paranoid I threw it over a fence.”
“Whoa,” the youngest one says.
“I still feel shame thinking about it,” I say.
“I returned some guy’s wallet just the other day,” the oldest says. “I tracked him down on Facebook and went to his house.”
“That’s what I would do now,” I say.
“He was a professional gambler,” the oldest says. “He gave me 40 quid.”
“I found a purse stuffed with cash in a shopping trolley once,” my wife says. “I met the owner at the information desk and she bought me two bottles of champagne.”
“My honest story about bad behaviour,” I say, “wasn’t meant to elicit a load of other stories about people doing the right thing in similar circumstances.”
The youngest one recounts a recent incident when he came to the aid of a bar customer in distress. The oldest one tells a story about rescuing someone he found unconscious on the pavement.
“So everyone here’s basically a hero,” I say. “That’s great.”
“Just because you would never help anyone,” my wife says.
“What are you talking about?” I say. “I found someone lying in the road quite recently.”
“Where?” my wife says.
“Just down there,” I say, pointing my fork toward the shops. “He was lying on his back, and I said: ‘Are you OK?’”
“When was this?” the youngest one says.
“Two months ago,” I say. “He said he was fine, just drunk. And I was like: OK, but you’re in the road.”
“I’ve never heard this,” my wife says.
“So I got him up and on to the pavement and I put his hands on one of those green telephone exchange boxes, for balance. And he said: ‘That’s grand, thanks.’”
“And then what?” my wife says.
“I went to Sainsbury’s,” I say.
“You just left him there?” she says. “You didn’t call an ambulance?”
“He said he was grand!” I say.
“You didn’t even check on him?” she says.
“Of course I did, on my way back,” I say. “He was 40 yards down the road, cadging a cigarette off a teenager,” I say.
“And that,” my wife says, “is your father’s idea of a good samaritan story.”
“It takes a village, right?” I say. Another long silence follows this.
“Fifa?” says the oldest to the youngest.
“Yeah,” says the youngest to the oldest. They stand, plates in hand.
“Where are you going?” my wife says.
“I’m taking charge of the situation,” the oldest says.
