Read Online How to Be Good by Nick Hornby - Free Book Online

cause minimal disruption, whereas if he left, I don’t know how we would manage. I’m the man. I’m the daddy. Not because I have a job, but because David doesn’t, not really, and is therefore the primary carer. That is why it is so easy for me to imagine moving out – because fathers always move out. And that’s why it’s so easy to imagine Molly not talking to me – she would never choose me over David, and in any case, a daughter always refuses to speak to her father after she has discovered he’s been having an affair. There’s all that stuff that goes on, the wholeFreudian thing. Is it too much to suggest that Molly is actually sexually jealous of me?
    â€˜Tom?’
    â€˜Yo.’
    â€˜Do you think of me as your mum or your dad?’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Don’t even think about it, just say the first thing that comes into your head.’
    â€˜Mum.’
    â€˜Are you sure? You didn’t have to think for a couple of seconds because you were confused?’
    â€˜No. I think of you as my mum, and Dad as my dad.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜Mum, I’m really busy, OK?’ And he shakes his head sadly.
    Â 
    Molly has always suffered from eczema, ever since she was very little. She gets it everywhere – hands, arms, legs, stomach – and no amount of creams or diets or homeopathic remedies have managed to affect it. This morning, before she went to school, I applied a very powerful and probably harmful steroid cream to her hands, which were covered in painful-looking cracks. But when she comes home, she runs down the hall and thrusts her hands at me, and there’s not a trace of it anywhere. I lift up her fleece, and it’s the same story on her stomach; she shows me the backs of her legs, and there’s nothing there either. And of course my stomach turns over when I hear Molly and David come in, and of course I’m terrified about what this evening might hold; but all any of us can talk about is what has happened to Molly’s ugly red sores. (And if Molly’s eczema is more important than my adultery, then what is the point of adultery in the first place?)
    â€˜That’s amazing,’ I say.
    â€˜He just touched it and it went away,’ says Molly. ‘I could see it go.’
    â€˜He didn’t just touch it,’ says David. ‘He used a cream.’
    â€˜He didn’t, Daddy. I was watching. He didn’t do anything. He just touched it.’
    â€˜With the cream.’
    â€˜He just touched it, Mummy.’
    â€˜Who just touched it?’
    â€˜DJ GoodNews.’
    â€˜Ah. DJ GoodNews. I should have known. Is there nothing DJ GoodNews can’t do?’
    â€˜He happened to mention that he was good with eczema,’ says David. ‘So I thought it was worth a try.’
    â€˜Backs and eczema. That’s quite an unusual combination of specialisms.’
    â€˜He did Daddy’s headache as well,’ says Molly.
    â€˜What headache?’ I ask David.
    â€˜Just a . . . just a normal headache. I just happened to mention that I had one, and he . . . massaged my temples. It was good.’
    â€˜So, head, eczema, back. He’s a real wizard, isn’t he? Another two hundred quid?’
    â€˜And you don’t think this is worth it?’
    I snort, although I don’t know what the snort is intended to convey. I don’t know why I’m being like this. I would have paid double that to make Molly better, but the opportunity to snipe is always irresistible, whatever the circumstances.
    â€˜You should go, Tom,’ says Molly. ‘It’s great. You go all warm.’
    â€˜That’s the cream,’ says David. ‘He did that with my back.’
    â€˜He didn’t use any cream. Daddy, why do you keep saying he used cream when he didn’t?’
    â€˜You couldn’t see what he was doing.’
    â€˜I could. Anyway, I know what