On Chasing Brad Through Purgatory by Stephen Benatar

The good citizens of this plainly one-horse town. Besides. If you’d killed someone you’d know about it, you’d have to know about it. My instincts told me I couldn’t be a killer. Hadn’t got the guts.
    No—be fair to yourself—that wasn’t the reason.
    Thief?
    No.
    Oh yes sometimes when I’d thought I could get away with it I’d travelled on the train without a ticket and when I’d transported my TV set from home to Cricklewood I hadn’t taken out a licence but I don’t think I’d ever actually stolen from anyone, not even as a kid, not even later on from Price-As-You-Like-It when small amounts of pilfering were regarded almost as a part of one’s wage; and if I’d ever found anything of value in the street I’d immediately taken it to a police station. My parents had raised me to be honest.
    Con man then? Well only in the sense we all were. We tried to look confident when we weren’t, we projected an image, embroidered an anecdote: usually stories which redounded (ever so subtly) to our own credit. But I had never tried to take anybody in with mischievous intent, and the lies I’d told had only been the kind that made life easier for everyone. Again. My parents had aimed to make us all considerate.
    But still—
    â€œWhat’s your name?” I asked.
    â€œClem.”
    Well wouldn’t you just have known it: that his name would almost have to be Clem?
    â€œI’m Danny. Clem? Were you brought up to be considerate?”
    â€œWhat kid ain’t if he’s raised up in a good home?”
    â€œAnd were you raised up to be charitable?”
    â€œHow d’ya mean? Money to the poor and sichlike?”
    â€œNo I guess I’m thinking more about attitude: attitude towards the poor and suchlike. Giving money to them is the easy part.” Oh yeah? I was remembering that afternoon in Leicester Square—well naturally I was. “Not that I ever did. Give them much. Always told myself I couldn’t afford to. Another time maybe; when things got easier.”
    When things got easier … But even with Brad I’d tried as far as possible to contribute to household expenses; hadn’t aimed to be a kept man. My salary from The White Hart had mainly been spent, if not on necessities or keeping myself looking decent (though Brad had always paid our fees at the gym), then on various bits and pieces I’d hoped were going to give him pleasure.
    He’d probably have preferred me to spend it on the poor.
    The sheriff spat again; again there was a clearly relished sound effect.
    â€œCan’t say I ever thought a whole heap about it,” he remarked after a moment. “Can you be reared to feel them proper things you should towards the poor?”
    I didn’t see why not. Superficially at any rate. But how deep it was going to permeate plainly depended a great deal less on your parents and a great deal more on yourself. And the sad thing was for me—I had to face up to this—it so clearly hadn’t taken.
    â€œWith me it didn’t take,” I said.
    â€œDon’t follow you too well.”
    â€œWho would?” I struggled to explain it; for both our sakes. “I think I never walked a mile in another man’s shoes, never more than a yard or two at most. I think I never said, ‘There but for the grace of God …’ Not seriously that is, not more than as a thing to say. I suppose in fact I didn’t waste much time in thinking about them at all—the really poor, the dispossessed—other than as total losers who in the long term had only themselves to blame. I think more than anything I usually felt revulsion and contempt. No that isn’t true: more than anything I usually felt indifference.”
    â€œAnd is this then the charge you’re considering of?”
    â€œI suppose it is—basically. Because that’s what I had on my own doorstep and