Nick Hornby: A Long Way Down

“To live outside the law you must be honest,” I said.

“What the fucking hell does that mean?” said Jess.

You know, I’ve never really known what the fuck it means, to tell you the truth. Bob Dylan said it, not me, and I’d always thought it sounded good. But this was the first situation I’d ever been in where I was able to put the idea to the test, and I could see that it didn’t work. We were living outside the law, and we could lie through our teeth any time we wanted, and I wasn’t sure why we shouldn’t.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Shut up, then, Yankee boy.”

And I did. There were approximately twenty-eight minutes of our time out remaining.

A long time ago, when I was eight or nine, I saw this programme on telly about the history of the Beatles. Jen liked the Beatles, so she was the one who made me watch it, but I didn’t mind. (I probably told her I did mind, though. I probably made a fuss and pissed her off.) Anyway, when Ringo joined, you sort of felt this little shiver, because that was it, then, that was the four of them, and they were ready to go off and be the most famous group in history. Well, that’s how I felt when JJ turned up on the roof with his pizzas. I know you’ll think, Oh, she’s just saying that because it sounds good, but I’m not. I knew, honestly. It helped that he looked like a rock star, with his hair and his leather jacket and all that, but my feeling wasn’t anything to do with music; I just mean that I could tell we needed JJ, and so when he appeared it felt right. He wasn’t Ringo, though. He was more like Paul. Maureen was Ringo, except she wasn’t very funny. I was George, except I wasn’t shy, or spiritual. Martin was John, except he wasn’t talented or cool. Thinking about it, maybe we were more like another group with four people in it.

Anyway, it just felt like something might happen, something interesting, and so I couldn’t understand why we were just sitting there eating pizza slices. So I was like, Maybe we should talk, and Martin goes, What, share our pain? And then he made a face, like I’d said something stupid, so I called him a wanker, and then Maureen tutted and asked me whether I said things like that at home (which I do), so I called her a bag lady, and Martin called me a stupid, mean little girl, so I spat at him, which I shouldn’t have done and which also by the way I don’t do anywhere near as much nowadays, and so he made out like he was going to throttle me, and so JJ jumped in between us, which was just as well for Martin, because I don’t think he would have hit me, whereas I most definitely would have hit and bitten and scratched him. And after that little fluffle of activity we sat there puffing and blowing and hating each other for a bit.

And then when we were all calming down, JJ said something like, I’m not sure what harm would be done by sharing our experiences, except he said it more American even than that. And Martin was like, Well, who’s interested in your experiences? Your experiences are delivering pizzas. And JJ goes, Well, your experiences, then, not mine. But it was too late, and I could tell from what he’d said about sharing our experiences that he was up here for the same reasons we were. So I went, You came up here to jump, didn’t you? And he didn’t say anything, and Martin and Maureen looked at him. And Martin just goes, Were you going to jump with the pizzas? Because someone ordered those. Even though Martin was joking, it was like JJ’s professional pride had been dented, because he told us that he was only here on a recce, and he was going downstairs to deliver before coming back up again. And I said, Well, we’ve eaten them now. And Martin goes, Gosh, you didn’t seem like the jumping type, and JJ said, If you guys are the jumping type then I can’t say I’m sorry. There was, as you can tell, a lot of, like, badness in the air.

So I tried again. Oh, go on, let’s talk, I said. No need for pain-sharing. Just, you know, our names and why we’re up here. Because it might be interesting. We might learn something. We might see a way out, kind of thing. And I have to admit I had a sort of plan. My plan was that they’d help me find Chas, and Chas and I would get back together, and I’d feel better.

But they made me wait, because they wanted Maureen to go first.

I think they picked me because I hadn’t really said anything, and I hadn’t rubbed anyone up the wrong way yet. And also, maybe, because I was more mysterious than the others. Martin everyone seemed to know about from the newspapers. And Jess, God love her… We’d only known her for half an hour, but you could tell that this was a girl who had problems. My own feeling about JJ, without knowing anything about him, was that he might have been a gay person, because he had long hair and spoke American. A lot of Americans are gay people, aren’t they? I know they didn’t invent gayness, because they say that was the Greeks. But they helped bring it back into fashion. Being gay was a bit like the Olympics: it disappeared in ancient times, and then they brought it back in the twentieth century. Anyway, I didn’t know anything about gays, so I just presumed they were all unhappy and wanted to kill themselves. But me… You couldn’t really tell anything about me from looking at me, so I think they were curious.

I didn’t mind talking, because I knew I didn’t need to say very much. None of these people would have wanted my life. I doubted whether they’d understand how I’d put up with it for as long as I had. It’s always the toilet bit that upsets people. Whenever I’ve had to moan before—when I need another prescription for my anti-depressants, for example—I always mention the toilet bit, the cleaning up that needs doing most days. It’s funny, because it’s the bit I’ve got used to. I can’t get used to the idea that my life is finished, pointless, too hard, completely without hope or colour; but the mopping up doesn’t really worry me any more. That’s always what gets the doctor reaching for his pen, though.

“Oh, yeah,” Jess said when I’d finished. “That’s a no-brainer. Don’t change your mind. You’d only regret it.”

“Some people cope,” said Martin.

“Who?” said Jess.

“We had a woman on the show whose husband had been in acoma for twenty-five years.”

“And that was her reward, was it? Going on a breakfast TV show?”

“No. I’m just saying.”

“What are you just saying?”

“I’m just saying it can be done.”

You’re not saying why, though, are you?”

“Maybe she loved him.”

They spoke quickly, Martin and Jess and JJ. Like people in a soap opera, bang bang bang. Like people who know what to say. I could never have spoken that quickly, not then, anyway; it made me realize that I’d hardly spoken at all for twenty-odd years. And the person I spoke to most couldn’t speak back.

“What was there to love?” Jess was saying. “He was a vegetable. Not even an awake vegetable. A vegetable in a coma.”

“He wouldn’t be a vegetable if he wasn’t in a coma, would he?” said Martin.

“I love my son,” I said. I didn’t want them to think I didn’t.

“Yes,” said Martin. “Of course you do. We didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”

“Do you want us to kill him for you?” said Jess. “I’ll go down there tonight if you want. Before I kill myself. I don’t mind. No skin off my nose. And it’s not like he’s got much to live for, is it? If he could speak, he’d probably thank me for it, poor sod.”

My eyes filled with tears, and JJ noticed.

“What are you, a f— idiot?” he said to Jess. “Look what you’ve done.”