Nick Hornby - A Long Way Down

What happened was that after the interview, I found myself talking to JJ. He was going back to his flat, and I was heading towards the bus stop, and we ended up walking along together. I’m not sure he wanted to, really, because we’ve hardly spoken since I slapped that man on New Year’s Eve, but it was one of those awkward situations where I was walking five paces behind him, so he stopped for me.

“That was kind of hard, wasn’t it?” he said, and I was surprised, because I thought I was the only one who’d found it difficult.

“I hate lies,” I said.

He looked at me and laughed, and then I remembered about his lie.

“No offence,” I said. “I lied too. I lied about the angel. And I lied to Matty, as well. About going to a party on New Year’s Eve. And to the people in the respite home.”

“God’ll forgive you for those, I think.” We walked along a little bit more, and then he said, for no reason that I could tell, “What would it take to change your mind?”

“About what?”

“About… you know. Wanting To End It All.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“If you could make a deal with God, kind of thing. He’s sitting there, the Big Guy, across the table from you. And he’s saying, OK, Maureen, we like you, but we really want you to stay put, on Earth. What can we do to persuade you? What can we offer you?”

“God’s asking me personally?”

“Yeah.”

“If He was asking me personally, He wouldn’t have to offer meanything.”

“Really?”

“If God in His infinite wisdom wanted me to stay on Earth, then how could I ask for anything?”

JJ laughed. “OK, then. Not God.”

“Who, then?”

“A sort of… I don’t know. A sort of cosmic, you know, President. Or Prime Minister. Tony Blair. Someone who can get things done. You don’t have to do what Tony Blair says without asking for something in return.”

“Can he cure Matty?”

“Nope. He can only arrange things.”

“I’d like a holiday.”

“God. You’re a cheap date. You’d choose to live out therest ofyour natural life for a week in Florida?”

“I’d like to go abroad. I’ve never been.”

“You’ve never been abroad?”

He said it as though I should be ashamed, and for a momentI was.

“When was the last time you had a holiday?”

“Just before Matty was born.”

“And he’s how old?”

“He’s nineteen.”

“OK. Well, as your manager, I’m going to be asking the Big Guy for a holiday a year. Maybe two.”

“You can’t do that!” I really felt scandalized. I can see now I was taking it all too seriously, but it felt real to me, and it seemed like a holiday a year was too much.

“Trust me,” said JJ. “I know the market. Cosmic Tony won’t blink an eye. Come on, what else?”

“Oh, I couldn’t ask for anything else.”

“Say he does give you two weeks’ holiday a year. Fifty weeks is a long time to wait for it, you know? And you’re not going to get another appointment with Cosmic Tony. You got one shot. Everything you want, you’ve got to ask for in one go.”

“A job.”

“You want a job?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“What kind of job?”

“Anything. Working in a shop, maybe. Anything to get me outof the house.”

I used to work, before Matty was born. I had a job in an office stationer’s in Tufnell Park. I liked it; I liked all the different pens, and sizes of paper and envelopes. I liked my boss. I haven’t worked since.

“OK. Come on, come on.”

“Maybe a bit of a social life. The church has quizzes sometimes. Like pub quizzes, but not in the pub. I’d like to have a go at one of those.”

“Yep, we can allow you a quiz.”

I tried to smile, because I knew JJ was joking a bit, but I was finding the conversation hard. I couldn’t really think of anything very much, and that annoyed me. And it made me feel afraid, in a strange sort of a way. It was like finding a door that you’d never seen before in your own house. Would you want to know what was behind it? Some people would, I’m sure, but I wouldn’t. I didn’t want to carry on talking about me.

“What about you?” I said to JJ. “What would you say to Cosmic Tony?”

“Ha. I’m not sure, man.” He calls everyone “man”, even if you’re not a man. You get used to it. “Maybe, I don’t know. Live the last fifteen years all over again or something. Finish high school. Forget about music. Become the kind of person who’s happy to settle for what he is, rather than what he wants to be, you know?”

“But Cosmic Tony can’t arrange that.”

“No. Exactly.”

“So you’re worse off than me, really. Cosmic Tony can do things for me, but not for you.”

“No, no, shit, I’m sorry, Maureen. I didn’t mean to imply that. You have a… You have a really hard life, and none of it’s your fault, and everything that’s happened to me is just “cos of my own stupidity, and… There’s no comparison. Really. I’m sorry I ever mentioned it.”

But I wasn’t sorry. I liked thinking about Cosmic Tony much more than I liked thinking about God.

The headline in Linda’s paper—page one, accompanied by the picture of me flat on my face outside a nightclub—read “FOR HARPS—SEE SHARP”. The story did not, as Linda had promised it would, emphasize the beauty and mystery of our experience on the roof; rather, it chose to concentrate on another angle, namely, the sudden, gratifying and amusing lunacy of a former television personality. The journalist in me suspects that she got the story about right.

“What does that mean?” Jess asked me on the phone that morning.

“It’s an old lager ad,” I said. “ «HARP—STAYS SHARP».”

“What has lager got to do with anything?”

“Nothing. But the name of the lager was Harp. And my name’s Sharp, you see.”

“OK. Then what have harps got to do with anything?”

“Angels are supposed to play them.”

“Are they? Should we have said he was playing a harp? To make it more convincing?”

I told her that, in my opinion, the addition of a harp to the portrait of the Angel Matt Damon that we had painted was unlikely to have helped convince people of its authenticity.

“And anyway, how come it’s all about you? We hardly get a fucking mention.”

I had many other phone calls that morning—from Theo, who said that there’s been a lot of interest in the story, and who thought I’d finally given him something he could work with, as long as I was comfortable talking to the public about what was obviously a private spiritual moment; from Penny, who wanted us to meet and talk; and from my daughters.

I hadn’t been allowed to speak to them for weeks, but Cindy’s maternal instinct had obviously told her that the day Daddy was in the papers talking about seeing messengers from God was a good day to reinstate contact.

“Did you see an angel, Daddy?”

“No.”

“Mummy said you did.”

“Well, I didn’t.”

“Why did Mummy say you did?”

“You’d better ask her.”

“Mummy, why did you say Daddy saw an angel?”

I waited patiently while a brief conversation took place away from the receiver.

“She says she didn’t say it. She says the newspaper says it.”

“I told a fib, sweetie. To make some money.”

“Oh.”

“So I can buy you a nice birthday present.”

“Oh. Why do you get money for saying you saw an angel?”

“I’ll tell you another time.”

“Oh.”

And then Cindy and I spoke, but not for very long. During our brief conversation I managed to refer to two different types of domesticated female animals.