LAST WORD

ROSS CHAMPION

Iknow you’re interested in beer,” said my partner’s brother. This was a mystery. Why does he think that? What’s interesting about beer? The hops? I don’t know what a hop is. I wouldn’t be able to identify a hop if I found one sitting on my sofa.

“Maybe because you’re always drinking it,” said my partner.

This is not true. I only drink beer during the day and on summer evenings and sometimes for breakfast in airports, but it seemed churlish to say so.

Grinning like a village idiot, he handed me my birthday present. It was a weird-shaped package.

“Open it!” he said, “I think you’ll really like it!”

It was some sort of sack with a pressure-release valve on one end and a kind of spigot on the other, and when you shook it you could tell there were some assorted dry ingredients inside.

“It’s a kit for brewing your own beer!” he said proudly. “You put water in, and you leave it in a dark room for, like, a month, and it makes beer!”

Even if I were as interested in beer as he imagines, this would be an odd gift. If you know someone likes watching Formula One, do you bring a pile of metal and rubber and sprockets and dump it all on his driveway and say, “Look! A build-it-yourself car.”? I also like watching television – does that mean I would like to build one? It does not.

“Oh,” I said, trying to sound polite. “This is great.”

“If you start it now,” he said, looking at his watch, “we’ll be able to have a glass of your home brew on my birthday!”

I did not know whether this was true or not, since I have no idea when his birthday is, but I dutifully filled up the sack and placed it in the back of a kitchen cupboard to ferment, or whatever beer does. At least, I thought, it’s low maintenance.

“Don’t forget,” said my wife’s brother, who had read the instructions, “you have to release the pressure every week or so.”

“I won’t forget,” I said, and even as I said it, I guess some part of me knew what was going to happen.

Some months later there was an explosion in the middle of the night. I lay in bed, having flashbacks to Vietnam, when I was staying in a hotel and a maid woke me early one morning by dropping a tray in the corridor outside my room.

“Your damn brother,” I said. “This is his fault.”

“Don’t you understand?” said my partner. “He’s just trying to bond with you.”

“Why?”

“Because he likes you,” she said. That surprised me.

“And he gets nervous around you because you think he’s an idiot.”

“I’ve never said that aloud.”

“He is an idiot,” she said. “But he’s not such a bad guy, is he?”

I thought about that. Maybe he isn’t such a bad guy. He once helped me carry a full gas canister home from the shop and didn’t even comment on how weak I am. For a year after we met I had his name slightly wrong and he didn’t correct me once. He gives me a birthday present every year, even though I never give him one.

“What’s your brother’s phone number?” I asked.

She looked at me suspiciously. “Why?”

And I didn’t reply, because I don’t want her to think she has managed to convince me of anything, but I think maybe I’ll call him up and ask him out for a beer. *