This excerpt is taken from Chapter 2 of 'About a Boy', by Nick Hornby. It's one of my favourite books, and I especially love the scene below. Totally how I feel about children and friends with children (sorry!), and everytime I read this passage I laugh in guilty pleasure. And then feel terribly guilty. Enjoy!
Clutter! Will's friend John's house was full of it. John and Christine had two children - the second had been born the previous week, and Will had been summoned to look at it - and their place was, Will couldn't help thinking, a disgrace. Pieces of brightly coloured plastic were strewn all over the floor, videotapes lay out of their cases near the TV set, the white throw over the sofa looked as if it had been used as a piece of gigantic toilet paper, although Will preferred to think that the stains were chocolate... How could people live like this?
Christine came in holding the new baby while John was in the kitchen making him a cup of tea. 'This is Imogen,' she said.
'Oh,' said Will. 'Right.' What was he supposed to say next? He knew there was something, but he couldn't for the life of him remember what it was. 'She's ...' No. It had gone. He concentrated his conversational efforts on Christine. 'How are you, anyway, Chris?'
'Oh you know. A bit washed out.'
'Been burning the candle at both ends?'
'No. Just had a baby.'
'Oh. Right.' Everything came back to the sodding baby. 'That would make you pretty tired, I guess.' He'd deliberately waited a week so that he wouldn't have to talk about this sort of thing, but it hadn't done him any good. They were talking about it anyway.
John came in with a tray and three mugs of tea.
'Barney's gone to his grandma's today,' he said, for no reason at all that Will could see.
'How is Barney?' Barney was two, that was how Barney was, and therefore of no interest to anyone apart from his parents, but, again, for reasons he would never fathom, some comment seemed to be required of him.
'He's fine, thanks,' said John. 'He's a right little devil at the moment, mind you, and he's not too sure what to make of Imogen, but ... he's lovely.'
Will had met Barney before, and knew for a fact that he wasn't lovely, so he chose to ignore the non sequitur.
'What about you, anyway, Will?'
'I'm fine, thanks.'
'Any desire for a family of your own yet?'
I would rather eat one of Barney's dirty nappies, he thought. 'Not yet,' he said.
'You are a worry to us,' said Christine.
'I'm OK as I am, thanks.'
'Maybe,' said Christine smugly. These two were beginning to make him feel physically ill. It was bad enough that they had children in the first place; why did they wish to compound the original error by encouraging their friends to do the same? For some years now Will had been convinced that it was possible to get through life without having to make yourself unhappy in the way that John and Christine were making themselves unhappy (and he was sure they were unhappy, even if they had achieved some peculiar, brain-washed state that prevented them from recognising their own unhappiness).
...
Now John and Christine had taken the Jessica route to oblivion, he had no use for them whatsoever. He didn't want to meet Imogen, or know how Barney was, and he didn't want to hear about Christine's tiredness, and there wasn't anything else to them any more. He wouldn't be bothering with them again.
'We were wondering,' said John, 'whether you'd like to be Imogen's godfather?' The two of them sat there with an expectant smile on their faces, as if he were about to leap to his feet, burst into tears and wrestle them to the carpet in a euphoric embrace. Will laughed nervously.
'Godfather? Church and things? Birthday presents? Adoption if you're killed in an air crash?'
'Yeah.'
'You're kidding.'
'We've always thought you have hidden depths,' said John.
'Ah, but you see I haven't. I really am this shallow.'
They were still smiling. They weren't getting it.
'Listen. I'm touched that you asked. But I can't think of anything worse. Seriously. It's just not my sort of thing.'
He didn't stay much longer.
See why I love it?! See why it makes me feel guilty to love it?!?!
(If you want to read more of this great book you can
check it out here.)
