A Perfectly Good Family Read Online Free PDF

hapless side, as he cheerfully admitted. He subbed for the Daily Mail and the Evening Standard for a month at a time, but often lost the job for mitching his morning slot, hung over. He was frequently late with his rent, but it was hard to get angry
with him; that Peter was unreliable was at the heart of his appeal. While Andrew’s jokes were contrived around esoteric puns or the latest cabinet scandal, Peter’s humour was bawdy, his laughter salacious and inclusive. Besides, he was handsome, a footballer only recently gone to seed, with a square jaw and strong stomach muscles that would bear up under years more abuse. I knew how he’d end up: a potbellied, pasty would-have-been blustering through tall tales to avoid paying his round, but foresight inspired me to make the most of his company before he declined to welcher and nuisance.
    Since Peter would vanish for days on end, on benders or fast-burn romances he’d never say, I spent a lot more time with Andrew. The younger man was light enough to share my scooter, on which the two of us would top-heavily weave to Stop ‘n’ Shop for provisions, to return flapping with plastic bags. His hands resting deftly on my hips sent a warm glow up the back of my neck. Though I might have dismounted grateful to have made it home without capsizing, I’d feel doleful when our mission was accomplished, already chafing to run out of Marmite—his favourite late snack with cold, burnt toast.
    An atavistic socialist and paid-up member of Greenpeace, Andrew would wag his slender double-jointed fingers by the hour, lecturing on the betrayals of the Labour Party; I only half-listened. Our more frolicsome times were spent hunched over sticky oilcloth at the kitchen table, where he taught me the conventions of British crossword puzzles. The Independent ’s clues were oblique in comparison with the Herald Tribune ’s, a distinction which would tempt Andrew to extemporize on how Americans had no sense of irony. I’d retort that the British were selfregarding and coy. Andrew hailed from Bath; his l s converted to w s, his th s to f s and v s. I’d mimic his reading of clues—‘Boat of bwuverwy wuv’; he’d caricature my inattentive lapses into a southern accent—‘Keeyun-sheeyup’.
    I liked to think it inevitable that, as we haggled over 19 across, his hand would eventually drop the pen for mine.
I liked to think it equally inevitable that, on a later night, Andrew off to bed, Peter would burst into the flat when I was only wearing a kimono, let the cup of coffee I fixed him cool as he poured the last of his White Horse for me, until at 4a.m. the flaps of my kimono would fall open.
Improbably, this went on for months. I counselled each of them in turn that to keep our household amicable it was paramount they neither blurted to the other about any indiscreet flatmating. Though the two had little in common, they liked each other, and agreed. Andrew said he could see how Peter might feel left out; Peter said, that poor lad’s not getting any crumpet, no reason to shove our sheets under his nose. I doubt two women would have been capable of it, but judging from the ease and hilarity of that period those chaps must have kept their traps shut.
About that time I feel wistful, though I know I shouldn’t—playing double-footsie under the oilcloth; rushing to throw on my jeans when Andrew and I heard a key in the door; pretending wakefulness so that Andrew would lumber off to bed before Peter stumbled jovially in after last call. I knew our trio couldn’t last, but somehow neither man encroached emotionally on the other in my head. Peter was rambunctious and liked to wrestle; he spent no time analysing ‘our relationship’ and he still didn’t tell me where he went on holidays from our flat. Peter would slam-bam; Andrew was tender, solicitous and adventurous in bed. While Peter was oblivious to the crudest details of my existence, Andrew made meticulous enquiry into my past and grilled