Nick Hornby - A Long Way Down

Anyway, after the show at the Hope and Anchor—and the show had an unhappy intensity to it, like a desperate break-up fuck—we walked into this shitty little dressing room, and sat down in a line, and then Eddie said, “That feels like it.” And he did this thing that was so unlike him, so not just like Eddie: he reached out either side, and took my hand and Jesse’s hand, and squeezed. And Jesse took Billy’s hand, just so that we’d all be joined for one last time, and Billy said, “Fuck you, queer boy,” and stood up real quick, which kind of tells you all you need to know about drummers.

I had only known my holiday companions for a few weeks, but there was the same kind of sick feeling on the way from the hotel to the airport. There was a break-up coming, you could smell it, and no one was saying anything. And it was for the same reason, which was that we’d taken things as far as we could, and there was nowhere for us to go. That’s why everyone breaks up, I guess, bands, friends, marriages, whatever. Parties, weddings, anything.

It’s funny, but when the band split, one of the reasons I felt sick was because I was worried about the other guys. What the fuck were they going to do, you know? None of us were over-qualified. Billy wasn’t real big on reading and writing, if you hear what I’m saying, and Eddie was too, like, pugilistic to hold down a job for long, and Jesse liked his spliff… The one person I had no real concerns about was me. I was going to be OK. I was smart, and stable, and I had a girlfriend, even though I knew I’d miss making music every fucking day of my life, I could still be something and someone without it. So what happens? A few weeks later, Billy and Jesse get a gig with a band back home whose rhythm section had walked out on them, Eddie goes to work for his dad, and I’m delivering pizzas and nearly jumping off a fucking roof.

So this time around, I was determined not to fret about my fellow band members. They’d be OK, I told myself. It didn’t look that way, maybe, but they’d survived so far, just about, and it wasn’t my problem anyway.

In the taxi to the airport we talked some about what we’d done, and what we’d read, and the first thing we were going to do when we got home, and shit like that, and on the plane we all dozed, because it was an early flight. And then we got the tube from Heathrow to King’s Cross, and took a bus from there. It was on the bus that we started to recognize that maybe we wouldn’t be hanging out so much.

“Why not?” said Jess.

“Because we have nothing in common,” said Martin. “The holiday proved that.”

“I thought it went OK.”

Martin snorted. “We didn’t speak to each other.”

“You were hiding in a toilet most of the time,” said Jess.

“And why was that, do you think? Because we’re soul mates? Or because ours is not one of my most fulfilling relationships?”

“Yeah, and what is your most fulfilling relationship?”

“What’s yours?”

Jess thought for a moment, and then shrugged.

“With you lot,” she said.

There was a silence that was long enough for us to see the truth of Jess’s observation as it applied to her. And luckily for us, Martin spoke up just as we were starting to see how it might possibly apply to us too.

“Yes. Well. It shouldn’t be, shouldn’t it?”

“Are you giving me the push?”

“If you want to put it like that. Jess, we got through the holiday.and now it’s time to go our separate ways.”

“What about Valentine’s Day?”

“We can meet on Valentine’s Day, if you want. Wesaid we’ddo that.”

“Up on the roof?”

“Do you still think you might throw yourself off ?”

“I dunno. It changes day by day.”

“I’d like to meet up,” said Maureen.

“I suppose Valentine’s must be a pretty important day for you, Maureen,” said Jess. She said it as if she were making conversation, but Maureen recognized the disguised nastiness and didn’t bother to respond. Just about everything Jess said could be bounced right back at her, but none of us had the energy any more. We looked out the window at the traffic in the rain, and at Angel I said goodbye and got off. As I watched the bus drive away, I could see Maureen offer the others, even Jess, her packet of Polo mints, and the gesture seemed kind of heartbreaking.

For the next week I did nothing, pretty much. I read a lot, and wandered around Islington to see if there was any sign of a bad job for me. One night I blew ten pounds on a ticket for a band called Fat Chance, who were playing in the Union Chapel. They started up around the same time as us, and now they had a decent deal, and there was a buzz about them, but they were lame, in my opinion. They stood there and played their songs, and people clapped, and there was an encore, and then we left, and I wouldn’t say any of us was richer for the experience.

I was recognized on the way out, by a guy who must have been in his forties.

“All right, JJ?” he said.

“Do I know you?”

“I saw you at the Hope and Anchor last year. I heard the bandhad split. you living here?”

“Yeah, for now.”

“What you doing? You gone solo?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Cool”

We met at eight in the evening on Valentine’s Day, and everyone was on time. Jess wanted to meet later, like at midnight or something, for full tragic effect, but no one else thought it was such a good idea, and Maureen didn’t want to travel home so late. I ran into her on the stairs on the way up, and told her I was glad to hear she was thinking about travelling home afterwards.

“Where else would I go?”

“No, I just meant… Last time you weren’t gonna go home, youknow? Not, like, on the bus, anyway.”

“On the bus?”

“Last time, you were going to get off the roof the quick way.” I walked my fingers through the air and then plunged them downwards, as if they were jumping off the roof. “But tonight, it sounds as though you’ll be taking the long way down.”

“Oh. Yes. Well. I’ve come on a bit,” she said. “In my head, I mean.”

“That’s great.”

“I’m still feeling the benefit of the holiday, I think.”

“Right on.”

And then she didn’t want to talk any more, because it was a long way up, and she was short of breath.

Martin and Jess arrived a couple of minutes later, and we said hello, and then we all stood there.

“What was the point of this, actually?” said Martin.

“We were going to meet up and see how we were all feeling and all that,” said Jess.

“Ah.” We shuffled our feet. “And how are we all feeling?”

“Maureen’s doing good,” I said. “Aren’t you, Maureen?”

“I am. I was saying to JJ, I think I’m still feeling the benefit of theholiday.”

“Which holiday? The holiday we just had?” He looked at her and then shook his head, with a mixture of amazement and admiration.

“How about you, Mart?” I said. “How you doing?” But I could kind of tell what the answer to that question was going to be.

“Oh, you know. Comme ci comme ca,”

“Tosser,” said Jess.

We shuffled our feet some more.

“I read something I thought might interest you all,” Martin said.

“Yeah?”

“I was wondering… Maybe it would be good to talk about it somewhere other than here. In a pub, say.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said. “I mean, maybe we should celebrate anyway, you know?”

“Celebrate?” said Martin, like I was nuts.

“Yeah. I mean, we’re alive, and, and…”