Idiopathy

might be of some help to the country. Because these are dark times.’ He nodded, as if he’d been unaware what he’d been about to say but, now that he’d said it, found himself happily in agreement. ‘Very dark times.’ He nodded again. Still in agreement. ‘And during times of difficulty or opposition or tragedy or …’ he shrugged the shrug of a man whose conclusions have reached such a level of profundity as to render mere words largely moot, ‘…
badness
, we can do one of three things.’ He held up his hand, counting them off, clearly coached to begin with the little finger so as to avoid any inadvertent embarrassing gestures that would then appear as screenshots across the web. ‘We can give in …’ Little finger. ‘We can battle on and survive …’ Ring finger. ‘Or …’ Middle finger. ‘… we can do better. We can take that negativity, that tragedy, that badness, and we can grow from it, we can prosper, we can blossom. Yes, it’s survival, but it’s also something more, something I like to call …’ he pointed down the barrel of the camera with both index fingers for emphasis, ‘… sur
thrival
.’ He nodded; brought his hands together; then gestured towards Nathan’s mother. ‘And let me tell you people, this woman who I have with me here today is surthrival personified. But hey, don’t take it from me, because she’s here to tell you all about it herself. Author of the forthcoming book
Mother Courage: One Woman’s Battle Against Maternal Blame
, founder of the internet support group Mothers Who Survive, ladies and gentlemen, Helen Coverley.’
    The camera cut to Nathan’s mother’s face in close-up. On cue, she beamed.
    ‘Thank you, Dr Dave,’ she said. ‘I’m so happy to be here.’
    ‘So happy to have you,’ said Dr Dave.
    ‘My pleasure,’ said Nathan’s mother.
    ‘Keep smiling, that’s the way,’ said Nathan’s father, precariously perched on the very edge of the sofa and slightly obsessively rubbing his thumbs and index fingers together.
    Dr Dave’s ability to transition between facial expressions was, Nathan noted, remarkably fluid. He was like a human lava lamp. The smile peaked, blossomed, dissipated, and a glowing bubble of sympathy rose up from beneath to replace it.
    ‘So, Helen,’ he said, nodding again. ‘For those at home who don’t know, just share your journey with us briefly.’
    ‘Well, I have to gently correct you there, Dr Dave, and say that I don’t actually think of it as my journey at all, but
our
journey, the journey of mothers everywhere.’
    Dr Dave nodded.
    ‘That’s my girl,’ said Nathan’s father.
    ‘And really,’ said Nathan’s mother, folding her legs and resting her hands in her lap, ‘it’s also our journey in that it’s a journey I’ve shared with my son, Harry, as I call him in the book.’
    Nathan had found a stray thread in the hem of the armchair cover and was now gently teasing it out.
    ‘Tell us about Harry,’ said Dr Dave.
    ‘Well, I love Harry. I want to say that very clearly. I love him dearly. He’s my darling boy. My only child. But the truth is, and I think a lot of mothers out there can relate to this, he has hurt me deeply. And it’s taken me years to be able to say that. I mean literally years. Years of asking myself: is this my fault? Years of being
told
it’s my fault. You know, at one stage, we had employed four separate counsellors to talk to my son, all at great expense, and all they ever did was listen to my son’s side of events. Would you credit it? It was almost as if … as if they weren’t interested in me at all. And that’s the balance I want to redress with my book, because I know for a fact there are hundreds of mothers out there going through the same thing, and feeling all the same feelings of shame and guilt as I felt.’
    ‘Your son had addiction issues,’ said Dr Dave, whose nodding by this point seemed to have reached the level of physiological necessity.
    ‘Oh, you name it,’ said Nathan’s mother. ‘Drugs, tattoos. At one point he was living in a squat, selling drugs, organising these …
raves
I suppose you would call them. I mean it was. Just. Absolutely. Hor.
Ren
dous.’
    The stray thread turned out to be quite long and Nathan now faced a choice between continuing to draw it out and simply snapping it off.
    ‘You know,’ said Dr Dave, ‘when I work with parents of what I call morally challenged children in my clinic, the thing that comes up for