Nick Hornby - A Long Way Down

I once asked Dad what he’d do if he wasn’t working in politics, and he said he’d be working in politics, and what he meant, I think, is that wherever he was in the world, whatever job he was doing, he’d still find a way back, in the way that cats are supposed to be able to find a way back when they move house. He’d be on the local council, or he’d give out pamphlets, or something. Anything that was a part of that world, he’d do. He was a little sad when he said it; he told me it was, in the end, a failure of imagination.

And that’s me: I suffer from a failure of imagination. I could do what I wanted, every day of my life, and what I want to do, apparently, is to get walloped out of my head and pick fights. Telling me I can do anything I want is like pulling the plug out of the bath and then telling the water it can go anywhere it wants. Try it, and see what happens.

I had a good day, that first day. In the morning I read The Sportswriter by the pool, and that’s one fucking cool book. And then I ordered a sandwich, and then… Well, the truth of the matter is, I thought it was about time to jump-start my libido, which had been on life-support and demonstrating no outward signs of life for like four or five months. You ever read that book some dude wrote with like his eyelid? He had to flicker it every time whoever was helping him got to the right letter of the alphabet. True story. Anyway, my fucking libido couldn’t even have written that book. But sitting by the pool in my shorts, with the sun warming parts of me that had been frozen for a long time, in all the ways there are to be frozen, there were dim but unmistakable signs of life.

It wasn’t like I went out with the express purpose of doing anything about it. I just thought I’d go for a walk and look around, maybe get back in touch with that side of life. I went back to the room to get dressed first, though. I’m not a bare-chested kind of guy. I’m like a hundred and thirty pounds, skinny as fuck, white as a ghost, and you can’t walk around next to guys with a tan and six-pack when you look like that. Even if you found a chick who dug the skinny ghost look, she wouldn’t remember she dug it in this context, right? If you were into Dolly Parton and they played a blast of her album during a hip-hop show, she just wouldn’t sound good. In fact, you wouldn’t even be able to fucking hear her. So putting on my faded black jeans and my old Drive-By Truckers T-shirt was my way of being heard by the right people.

And get this: not only did I get heard, if I may use a euphemism, but I got heard by someone who’d seen the band and liked us. I mean, what are the chances? OK, she couldn’t remember us real clearly, and I kind of had to tell her she’d liked us, but, you know. Still. What happened was, I found this cool salt-water pool in the town, designed by some local artist, and I stopped for a beer and a sandwich right across from there. And this English chick was sitting by herself on the next table, and she was reading this book called Bel Canto , so I told her I’d read it too, and we started to talk about it, and I scooted over to her table. And then we started talking about music, because Bel Canto is kind of about music—opera, anyway, which some people think is music—and she said she was more into rock’n’roll than opera, so I was like, which bands? And she listed a whole bunch, and one of them, this band called the Clockers, we’d done a tour with a few years back. And she’d seen them on that tour, in Manchester, where she lives, and she thought she might have gotten there early enough to see the opener, and I said, Well, that was us. And she said, Oh, right, I remember, you were cool. I know, I know, but I was at a period in my life where I took what I could get.

We ended up spending the afternoon together, and then I blew off the family dinner and we spent the evening together, and then, finally, we spent the night together at my hotel, because she had a room-mate at hers. And that was the first time I’d gotten any since the last night with Lizzie, which was more like necrophilia anyway.

Kathy and I had breakfast together in the dining room the next morning, and not only because the hotel didn’t have enough stars for room service: I was kind of looking forward to bumping into the others. For some reason I thought I’d get some props—OK, maybe not from Maureen, but from Martin, certainly, because he’s got an eye for a pretty girl. I even somehow got it into my head that Jess would be kind of impressed. I could see the three of them on the other side of the room, and two of them whispering dirty jokes, and I’d feel cool again.

Maureen was first down. I waved to her as she came in, to be friendly, but the wave was somehow misinterpreted as an invitation, and she came and sat down at our table. She looked at Kathy suspiciously.

“Is someone not coming down for breakfast?” She wasn’t being rude. She was just confused.

“No, see…” But then I didn’t know what to say.

“I’m Kathy,” said Kathy, who was also confused. “I’m a friend of JJ’s.”

“The trouble is, there isn’t really room for five on the table,” said Maureen.

“If everyone else shows, Kathy and I will move,” I said.

“Who’s «everyone else»?” Kathy asked, I guess reasonably.

“Martin and Jess,” said Maureen. “But Jess got brought home in a police car last night. So she might be having a lie-in.”

“Oh,” I said. I mean, I wanted to know why Jess had been brought home in a police car and everything. But I didn’t want to know right then.

“What had she done?” asked Kathy.

“What hadn’t she done?” said Maureen. The waitress came over and poured us some coffee, and Maureen went to the buffet table for her croissants.

Kathy looked at me. She had some questions, I could tell.

“Maureen is…” But then I couldn’t think of a way to finish the sentence. I didn’t have to find a way, either, because then Jess walked in and sat down.

“Fuck me,” she said. That was by way of an introduction. “I feel so shit. Normally I’d think a good puke might make me feel better. But I puked my whole insides up last night. There’s nothing left.”

“I’m Kathy,” said Kathy.

“Hello,” said Jess. “I’m in such a state I didn’t even realize I don’t know you.”

“I’m a friend of JJ’s,” said Kathy, and Jess’s eyes lit up ominously.

“What sort of friend?”

“We just met yesterday.”

“And you’re having breakfast together?”

“Shut up, Jess.”

“What have I said?”

“It’s what you’re going to say.”

“What am I going to say?”

“I have no idea.”

“Have you met our mum and dad yet, Kathy?”

Kathy’s eyes flickered nervously over to Maureen.

“You’re braver than me, JJ,” said Jess. “I wouldn’t bring a one-night stand down to the family breakfast table. That’s fucking modern, man.”

“That’s your mother?” said Kathy. She was trying to be real casual, but I could tell she was freaking a little.

“Of course it’s not my mother. We’re not even the same nationality. Jess is being…”

“Did he tell you he was a musician?” said Jess. “I’ll bet he did. He always does. That’s the only way he can ever get a girlfriend. We keep telling him not to try that one, because people always find out in the end. And then they’re disappointed. I’ll bet he said he was a singer, right?”

Kathy nodded, and looked at me.

“That’s a laugh. Sing for her, JJ. You should hear him. Fucking hell.”

“Kathy saw my band,” I said. But as soon as I’d said it, I remembered that I’d told Kathy she’d seen the band, which isn’t quite the same thing; Kathy turned to look at me, and I could tell she was remembering the same thing. Oh, man.