Nick Hornby - A Long Way Down

We didn’t win the quiz. We came fourth out of eleven teams, but the boys were quite pleased with that. And I knew some things that they didn’t know. I knew that the name of Mary Tyler Moore’s boss was Lou Grant, for example. I knew that John Major’s son married Emma Noble, and I knew that Catherine Cookson had written about Tilly Trotter and Mary Ann Shaughnessy. So there were three points they wouldn’t have got, right there, which might be why they said I could come again. The fourth chap is unreliable, apparently, because he’s just got a girlfriend. I told them I was the most reliable person they could possibly hope to meet.

A couple of months ago, I read a library book about a girl who found herself falling in love with her long-lost brother. But of course it turned out he wasn’t her long-lost brother after all, and he’d only told her that because he liked the look of her. Also it turned out that he wasn’t poor. He was very rich. And on top of that, they found out that the bone marrow of his dog matched the bone marrow of her dog, who had leukemia, so his dog saved the life of her dog.

It wasn’t as good as I’m making it sound, to tell you the truth. It was a bit soppy. But the point I’m trying to make is that I’m worried I’m starting to sound like that book, what with the job, and the quiz team. And if I’m starting to sound like that to you, then I’d like to point out two things. Firstly I’d like to point out that getting care for Matty costs more than Ј4.75 an hour, so I’m not even as well off as I was, and a story that ends with you not as well off as you were isn’t really a fairy-story, is it? Secondly I’d like to point out that the fourth chap in the quiz team will turn up sometimes, so I won’t be in every week.

I was drinking gin and bitter lemons in the pub, and the others wouldn’t even let me buy a round; they said I was a ringer, and had to be paid for. Maybe it was the drink that left me feeling so positive, but at the end of the evening, I knew that when we met again on March 31st, I wouldn’t be wanting to throw myself off the roof, not for a while. And that feeling, the feeling that I could cope for now… I wanted to hang on to that for as long as possible. It’s going all right so far.

The morning after the quiz, I went back to the church. I hadn’t been to any church since we were on holiday, and I hadn’t been to mine for weeks and weeks, ever since I’d met the others on the roof. But I could go back now because I didn’t think I’d be committing the sin of despair for a while, so I could go back and ask for God’s forgiveness. He can only help you if you’ve stopped despairing, which if you think about it… Well, it’s not my business to think about it. It was a quiet Friday morning, and there was hardly anybody in. The old Italian woman who never misses a Mass was there, and there were a couple of African ladies I’d never seen before. There were no men, and there were no young people. I was nervous before I went to the confessional, but it was fine, really. I told the truth about how long it had been since my last confession, and I confessed to the sin of despair, and I was given fifteen Decades of the Rosary, which I thought seemed on the steep side, even for the sin of despair, but I won’t complain. Sometimes you can forget that God is infinite in His mercy. He wouldn’t have been infinite if I’d jumped, mind you, but I hadn’t.

And then Father Anthony said, “Can we help you with anything? Can we ease your burden in any way? Because you must remember that you’re part of a community here at the church, Maureen.”

And I said, “Thank you, Father, but I have friends who are helping.” I didn’t tell him what sort of community these friends belonged to, though. I didn’t tell him that they were all despairing sinners.

Do you remember Psalm 50? “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.” I went to Toppers’ House because I had called and called and called, and there was no delivery, and my days of trouble seemed to have lasted too long, and showed no signs of ending. But He did hear me, in the end, and He sent me Martin and JJ and Jess, and then He sent me Stephen and Sean and the quiz, and then He sent me Jack and the newsagent’s. In other words, He proved to me that He was listening. How could I have carried on doubting Him, with all that evidence? So I’d better glorify Him, as best I can.

So this bloke with the dog didn’t have a name. I mean, he must have had one at some stage, but he told me he didn’t use it any more, because he didn’t agree with names. He reckoned they stopped you from being whoever you wanted to be, and once he’d explained it to me, I could sort of see what he meant. Say you’re Tony, or Joanna. Well, you were Tony or Joanna yesterday, and you’ll be Tony or Joanna tomorrow. So you’re fucked, really. People will always be able to say things like, Oh, that’s so typical of Joanna. But this geezer, he could be like a hundred different people all in one day. He told me to call him whatever came into my head, so at first he was Dog, because of the dog, and then he was Nodog, because we went for a drink in a pub and he left the dog outside. So he’d had two completely different personalities in the first hour we spent together, because Dog and Nodog are sort of opposite types, aren’t they? Bloke with dog is different from bloke with no dog. Bloke with dog has a different image from bloke in pub. And you can’t say, Oh, that’s so typical of Nodog to let his dog shit in someone’s garden. It wouldn’t make sense, would it? How can Nodog have a dog that shits in someone’s garden, or any dog at all, come to that? And his point is, we can all be Dogs and Nodogs in a single day. Dad, for example, could be Notdad when he’s at work, because when he’s at work he’s not Dad. I know this is all pretty deep, but if you think about it hard, it makes sense.

And in that same day he was Flower, because he picked me a flower when we were walking through the little park down near Southwark Bridge, and then Ashtray, because he tasted like one, and Flower is the opposite of Ashtray, too. You see how it works? Human beings are millions of things in one day, and his method understands that much better than like the Western way of thinking about it. I only called him one more name after that, and it was dirty, so that one will have to be a secret. When I say it was dirty, I mean it will sound dirty to you out of context sort of thing. It’s only really dirty if you don’t respect the male body, and that in my opinion would make you dirty, not us.

So this bloke… Actually, I can see one advantage to the Western way of thinking, which is that if someone has a name, you know what to call them, don’t you? It’s only one small advantage, and there are millions of big disadvantages, including the biggest one of all, which is that names are really fascist and don’t allow us to express ourselves as human beings, and turn us into one thing. But as I’m talking about him a lot here, I think I’ll call him just one name. Nodog will do, because it’s more unusual, and you’ll know who I’m talking about, and it’s better than Dog, because you might think I’m talking about a fucking dog, which I’m not.

So Nodog took me back to his place after we’d gone for a drink. I didn’t think he’d have a place, to be honest, what with the dog and everything. He looked like the sort of bloke who might be in between places, but I obviously met him at a good time. It wasn’t a normal sort of a place, though. He lived in a shop round the back of Rotherhithe station. It wasn’t a converted shop, either—it was just a shop, although it didn’t sell anything any more. It used to be like an old-fashioned corner shop thingy, so there were shelves, and counters, and there was a big shop window, which he kept covered with a sheet. Nodog’s dog had his own bedroom at the back, which must have been a stockroom once upon a time. Shops are actually quite comfortable, if you can put up with a bit of discomfort. You can put your clothes up on the shelves, put your telly up on the counter where the cash register would have gone, put your mattress on the floor, and you’re away. And shops have toilets, and water, although they don’t have baths or showers.