Nick Hornby - A Long Way Down

“It is.”

“This is the Metropolitan Police.”

“Oh, hello,” I said.

“Hello. We’ve had reports that your son was causing trouble in the shopping centre on New Year’s Eve. Shoplifting and sniffing glue and mugging people and so on.”

“I’m afraid it couldn’t have been my son,” I said, like an eejit. “He has a disability.”

“And you’re sure he’s not putting the disability on?”

I even thought about this for half a second. Well, you do, don’t you, when it’s the police? You want to make absolutely sure that you’re telling the absolute truth, just in case you get into trouble later on.

“He’d be a very good actor if he was.”

“And you’re sure he’s not a very good actor?”

“Oh, positive. You see, he’s too disabled to act.”

“But how about if that’s an act? Only, the er, the wossname fits his description. The suspect.”

“What’s the description?” I don’t know why I said that. To be helpful, I suppose.

“We’ll come to that, madam. Can you account for his whereabouts on New Year’s Eve? Were you with him?”

I felt a chill run through me then. The date hadn’t registered at first. They’d got me. I didn’t know whether to lie or not. Supposing someone from the home had taken him out and used him as a cover, sort of thing? One of those young fellas, say? They looked nice enough, but you don’t know, do you? Supposing they had gone shoplifting, and hidden something under Matty’s blanket? Supposing they all went out drinking, and they took Matty with them, and they got into a fight, and they pushed the wheelchair hard towards someone they were fighting with? And the police saw him careering into someone, and they didn’t know that he couldn’t have pushed himself, so they thought he was joining in? And afterwards he was just playing dumb because he didn’t want to get into trouble? Well, you could hurt someone, crashing into them with a wheelchair. You could break someone’s leg. And supposing… Actually, even in the middle of my little panic I couldn’t really see how he’d manage the glue sniffing. But even so! These were all the things that went through my mind. It was all guilt, I suppose. I hadn’t been with him, and I should have been, and the reason I hadn’t been with him was because I wanted to leave him for ever.

“I wasn’t with him, no. He was being looked after.”

“Ah. I see.”

“He was perfectly safe.”

“I’m sure he was, madam. But we’re not talking about his safety, are we? We’re talking about the safety of people in the Wood Green shopping centre.”

Wood Green! He was all the way up in Wood Green!

“No. Yes. Sorry.”

“Are you really sorry? Are you really really really f— sorry?”

I couldn’t believe my ears. I knew the police used bad language, of course. But I thought it would come out more when they were under stress, with terrorists and such like, not on the phone to members of the public in the course of a routine inquiry. Unless, of course, she really was under stress. Could Matty, or whoever pushed him, have actually killed someone? A child, maybe?

“Maureen.”

“Yes, I’m still here.”

“Maureen, I’m not really a policewoman. I’m Jess.”

“Oh.” I could feel myself blushing at my own stupidity.

“You believed me, didn’t you, you silly old bag.”

“Yes, I believed you.”

She could hear in my voice that she’d upset me, so shedidn’t tryto make any more of it.

“Have you seen the papers?”

“No. I don’t look at them.”

“We’re in them.”

“Who’s in them?”

“We are. Well, Martin and I are in them by name. What alaugh, eh?”

“What does it say?”

“It says that me and Martin and two other mystery, youknow, people had a suicide pact.”

“That’s not true”.

“Der. And it says I’m the Junior Minister forEducation’s daughter.”

“Why does it say that?”

“Because I am.”

“Oh.”

“I’m just telling you so you know what’s in the papers. Are yousurprised?”

“Well, you do swear a lot, for a politician’s daughter.”

“And a woman reporter came round to JJ’s flat and asked himwhether we came down for an inspirational reason.”

“What does that mean?”

“We don’t know. Anyway. We’re going to have a crisis meeting.”

“Who is?”

The four of us. Big reunion. Maybein the place where we hadbreakfast.”

“I can’t go anywhere.”

“Why not?”

“Because of Matty. That’s one of the reasons I was up on the roof. Because I can never go anywhere.”

“We could come to you.”

I began to flush again. I didn’t want them here.

“No, no. I’ll think of something. When are you thinking ofmeeting up?”

“Later on today.”

“Oh, I won’t be able to sort anything out for today.”

“So we’ll come to you.”

“Please don’t. I haven’t tidied up.”

“So tidy up.”

“I’ve never had anyone from the television in my house. Or a politician’s daughter.”

“I won’t put on any airs or graces. We’ll see you at five.”

And that gave me three hours to sort everything out, put everything away. It does drive you a little bit mad, a life like mine, I think. You have to be a little mad to want to jump off the top of a building. You have to be a little mad to come down again. You have to be more than a little mad to put up with Matty, and the staying in all the time, and the loneliness. But I do think I’m only a little mad. If I were really mad, I wouldn’t have worried about the tidying up. And if I were really, properly mad, I wouldn’t have minded what they found.

I suppose it crossed my mind that my visit to Toppers’ House might be of interest to our friends in the tabloid press. I was on the front page of the paper for falling down drunk in the street, for Christ’s sake, and some would argue that attempting to fall off a high building is even more interesting than that. When Jess told Chas where we’d met, I did wonder whether he’d have the wit to sell the knowledge on, but as Chas seemed to me a particularly witless individual, I dismissed the fear as paranoia. If I’d known that Jess was newsworthy in her own right, then I could have prepared myself.

My agent called first thing, and read the story out to me—I only bother with the Telegraph at home now.

“Is any of this true?” he said.

“Between you and me?”

“If you want.”

“I was going to jump from the top of a tower-block.”

“Gosh.”

My agent is young, posh and green. I came out of prison to find that there had been a quote unquote reorganization at the agency, and Theo, who used to make the coffee for my previous agent, is now all that stands between me and professional oblivion. It was Theo who found me my current job at FeetUpTV!, the world’s worst cable channel. He has a degree in Comparative Religion, and he’s a published poet. I suspect that he plays his football for Allboys United, if you get my drift, although that’s neither here nor there. He’s at the chocolate teapot end of the competency scale.

“I met her up there. Her and a couple of others. We came back down again. And here I am, in the land of the living.”

“Why were you going to jump off the top of a tower-block?”

“It was purely whimsical.”

“I’m sure you must have had a reason.”

“I did. I was joking. Read my file. Acquaint yourself with recent events.”