Part 2-2

百度搜索 A Long Way Down 天涯 或 A Long Way Down 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.

    There was a ruminative silence.

    Well. Gosh. Now what? Youre the agent. Id have thought this gave you no end of creative opportunities.

    Ill have a little think and call you back. By the way, Jesss father has been trying to get hold of you. He called here, and I said we didnt give out personal numbers. Did I do the right thing? You did the right thing. But give him my mobile number anyway. I suppose theres no avoiding him.

    Do you want to call him? He left his number.

    Go on, then.

    While I was on the phoo Theo, both my ex-wife and my ex-girlfrie messages. I had thought of her of them when Theo was reading out that story; now I felt sick. I was beginning to realize an important truth about suicide: failure is as hurtful as success, and is likely to provoke even more anger, because theres no grief with which to water it down. I was, I could hear from the tone of the messages, in very deep shit.  I called dy first.  You fug selfish idiot, she said.

    You dont know anything, apart from what you read in the paper.

    You seem to be the only person in the world that the papers get bang thts. If they say youve slept with a fifteen-year-old, you have. If they say youve fallen over drunk ireet, you have. They doo i stuff for you.

    This was actually quite an acute observation. She was right: not once have I been the victim of misrepresentation or distortion. If you think about it, that was one of the most humiliating aspects of the last few years. The papers have been full of shit about me, and every word of the shit was true.

    So Im presuming, she went on, that theyve got it right again. You were up the top of a tower-block with the iion of hurling yourself off.

    And instead you came back down again with a girl.

    Thats about the long and the short of it.

    And what about your daughters?  Do they know? Not yet. But someo school will tell them. They always do. What do you wao say to them? Maybe I should talk to them.

    dy barked ohe bark was, I suspected, inteo be a satirical laugh.

    Tell them what you want, I said. Tell them Daddy was sad, but then he cheered up again.

    Brilliant. If we had a pair of two-year-olds, that would be perfect.

    I dont know, dy. I mean, if I t see them, then its not really my problem, is it? Its something youve got to deal with.

    You bastard.

    And that was the end of the first phone call. Pointing out that her refusal to let me participate in my daughters upbringi me out in the cold struck me as a restatement of the bleeding obvious, but never mind. It got her off the phone.

    I dont know what I owe my daughters any more. I gave up smoking, years ago, because I khen that I owed them that much. But when you make the sort of mess Ive made, smoking seems like the least of your worries - which is why I started again. Now theres a journey: from giving up smoking - giving up smoking because you want to protect your kids from loss for as long as possible - tuing with their mother about the best way t proud father. I had fotten that Jess felt about long words the way that racists feel about black people: she hated them, and wao send them back where they came from. She threw him a filthy look.

    Firstly, shes eighteen. And sedly, I sat on her head in order to stop   her from jumping. Which might not have been parental, but it was at least practical. Im sorry I didnt write you a full report at the end of the evening.

    Did you sleep with her? Why is that your business, Dad? I wasnt having that. I wasnt going to get involved in an argument about Jesss rights to a private sex life.

    Absolutely not.

    Oi, said Jess. You dont have to say it like that.

    Like what? Like youre relieved or something. You should be so lucky.

    I value our friendship too muplicate it.

    Ha ha.

    Are you going to maintain a relationship with Jess? Define your terms.

    I think you should define yours first.

    Listen, pal. I came here because I kneorried you must be. But if yoing to talk to me like that, Ill fuck off home. The word-racist brightened a little: the Anglo-Saxon was striking back against the Roman invader.

    Im sorry. But you know the family history now. It doesnt make things easy for me.

    Ha! Like it makes things easy for me, said Jess.

    Its hard for all of us. Cri had clearly decided to make an effort.

    Yeah, I  see that.

    So what  we do? Please? If youve got any ideas… The thing is, I said, Ive got problems of my own.

    Der, said Jess. We were w why you were up there.

    I appreciate that, Martin. He had clearly been media-traio use first names wherever possible, like the rest of Blairs robots, to show that he was my mate. I have a hunch about you. I  see youve made some, some wrong turns in your life… Jess snorted.

    But I dont think youre a bad man.

    Thank you.

    Were in a gang, said Jess. Arent we, Martin? We are, Jess, I said, with what I hoped her father would reize as a weary lack of enthusiasm. Were friends for ever.

    What sort of gang? said Cri.

    Were going to watch out for each other. Arent we, Martin? We are, Jess. If my words became any wearier, they would no longer have the energy to crawl up my throat and out of my mouth. I could imagihem slithering back down to where theyd e from.

    So you will be in loco parentis after all? Im not sure its that sort of gang, I said.  "The Loco Parentis gang"… Doesnt souough, does it? What are we going to do? Beat up the Paterfamiliases? You fug shut up and you fug shut up, Jess said, to Cri and me respectively.

    My point is, said Cri, that yoing to be around.

    Hes promised, Jess said.

    And Im supposed to feel reassured by that.

    You  feel what you like, I said. But Im not reassuring anyone about anything.

    You have children of your own, I uand? Sort of, said Jess.

    I doo spell out how worried Ive been about Jess, and what a   differe would make to know that there was a sensible adult looking out for her.

    Jess sniggered unhelpfully.

    I know you wouldnt be… Youre ly… Some of the tabloids would...

    Hes worried about you sleeping with fifteen-year-olds, said Jess.

    Im not being interviewed for this job, I said. I dont want it, and if you choose to give it to me, thats your lookout.

    All I want you to say is that if you see Jess getting herself into serious trouble, then youll either try to prevent it, or youll tell me about it.

    Hed love to, said Jess. But hes flat broke.

    Why is money relevant? Because say he had to keep an eye on me and Id goo some club or something, and they would him in because hes skint… Well Well what? I could go in there and OD on smack. Id be dead, just because you were too mean to stump up.

    I suddenly saw Jesss point: a weekly wage of ￡ from Britains lowest-rated cable TV station not only focuses the mind but stimulates empathy and imagination. Jess slumped lifeless in a toilet, all for the sake of twenty quid… It was too ghastly to plate, if you plated in the right spirit.

    How much do you want? Cri let out a sigh, as if everything - the versation we were having, New Years Eve, my prisoence - had been carefully plotted to lead to this moment.

    I dont want anything, I said.

    Yes, you do, said Jess. Yes he does.

    How much does it cost to get into a club, these days? Cri asked.

    You  get through a hundred quid, easy, said Jess.

    A hundred quid? We were humiliating ourselves for the price of a det dinner for two?

    I dont doubt you  "get through" a hundred quid without trying. But he wouldo "get through" anything, would he? Hed only he price of admission, if youd overdosed s. Im presuming that he wouldopping at the bar, if you were h between life ah ioilet.

    So what youre saying is, my life isnt worth a hundred quid to you.

    Thats nice, after what happeo Jen. I wouldnt have thought you had enough daughters to spare.

    Jess, thats not fair.

    The front door slammed somewhere betwee and the fair, and Cri and I were left staring at each other.

    I hahat badly, he said, didnt I? I shrugged. She was ext money with menaces. Either you give her as much as she wants every time she asks for it, or she storms out. And I  see that might be a little… you know. Discerting. Given the family history.

    Ill give her as much as she wants, every time she asks for it, he said.

    Please go and find her.

    I left the house two hundred and fifty pounds richer; Jess was waiting for me at the end of the drive.

    Ill bet you got double what we were asking for, she said. Always works, when you mention Jen.

    <strong>JESS</strong>

    You wont believe this - I dont think I do now - but in my head, what happeo Jen had fuck all to do with New Years Eve. I could tell, from talking to the others and reading the papers, that no one else saw it that way, though. They were like, Ooooh, I get it: your sister disappeared, so you want to jump off a building. But it isnt like that. Im sure it must have been an ingredient, sort of thing, but it wasnt the whole recipe. Say Im a spaghetti Bolognese, well I re Jen is the tomatoes. Maybe the onions.

    Or even just the garlic. But shes not the meat or the pasta.

    Everyos to something like that in different ways, dont they?

    Some people would start supproups and all that; I know they would,   because Mum and Dad are always trying to introduce me to some fug group or another, mostly because the group was set up by someone who ended up getting a CSE or whatever off of the Queen. And some people would sit down, turV on and watch for the wenty years.

    Me, I just started messing around. Or rather, messing around became more like a full-time job, whereas previously it had been a hobby: some messing around had already been done before Je. Ill be ho about that.

    Before I go on, Ill ahe questions that everyone always asks, just sos you dont sit there w and not trating on what Im saying.

    No, I dont know where she is. Yes, I think shes alive. Why I think shes alive: because that whole thing with the car in the car park looked phony to me. What does it feel like, having a missing sister? I  tell you. You know how if you lose something valuable, a wallet or a piece of jewellery, you t trate on anything else? Well, it feels like that all the time, every day.

    Theres something else people ask: Where do you think she is? Which is different from: Do I know where she is? At first I didnt uand that the two questions were different. And then when I did uand, I thought that the Where do you think she is? question was stupid. Like, well if I khat Id go and look for her. But now I uand it as being a more poetic question. Cos, really, its a way of asking what she was like. Do I think shes in Africa, helping people? Or do I think shes on one long perma rave, or writing poems on a Scottish island, or travelling through the bush in Australia? So heres what I think. I think she has a baby, maybe in America, and shes in a little town somewhere sunny, Texas, say, or California, and shes living with a man who works hard with his hands and looks after her and loves her. So thats what I tell people, except of course I dont know whether Im telling them about Jen or about me.

    Oh, and one more thing - especially if youre reading this iure, when everyones fotten about us and how things turned out for us: dont sit around hoping for her to pop up later on, to rescue me. She doesnt e back, OK? And we dont find out shes dead, either. Nothing happens, set about it. Well, dont fet about her, because shes important. But fet about that sort of ending. Its not that sort of story.

    Maureen lives halfway between Toppers House aish Town, in one of those little poky streets full of old ladies and teachers. I dont know for sure theyre teachers, but there are an awful lot of bikes around - bikes and recyg bins. Its shit, recyg, isnt it? I said to Martin, and he was like, If you say so. He sounded a bit tired. And I asked him if he wao know why it was shit, but he didnt. Just like he hadnt wao know why France was shit, either. He wasnt in a chatty mood, I suppose.

    It was just me and Martin in the car because JJ didnt want a lift with us,   even though we nearly went past his flat. JJ probably would have helped smooth the versation along a bit, I think. I wao talk because I was nervous, and that probably made me say stupid things. Or maybe stupid is the wrong word, because its not stupid to say France is shit. Its just a bit abrupt or whatever. JJ could have put a sort of ramp up to my senteo help people skateboard down from them.

    I was nervous because I khat we were going to meet Matty, and Im sort of not good with disabled people. Its nothing personal, and I dont think Im disablist, because I know theyve ghts to an education and bus passes and that; its just that they turn my stomach a bit. Its all that having to pretend theyre just like you and me when theyre not, really, are they? Im not talking disabled like people who have only got one leg, say.

    Theyre all right. Im talking about the ones who arent right up top, and shout, and make funny faces. How  you say theyre like you and me?

    OK, I shout and make funny faces, but I know when Im doing it. Most of the time I do, anyway. With them theres no predig, is there? Theyre all over the place.

    To be fair to him, though, Mattys pretty quiet. Hes sort of so disabled that its OK, if you know what I mean. He just sits there. From my point of view, thats probably better, although I  see that from his, its probably not much good. Except who knows whether hes got a point of view? And if he hasnt got ohen its got to be mihat ts, hasnt it? Hes quite tall, and hes in a wheelchair, and hes got cushions and what have you stuffed up behind his o stop his head lolling about. He doesnt look at you or anything, so you dooo freaked out. You fet hes there after a while, so I coped better than I thought I would. Fug hell, though.

    Poor old Maureen. Ill tell you, you wouldnt have persuaded me down from that roof. No way.

    JJ was already there when we arrived, so when we walked in it was like a family reunion, except no one looked like each other, and no one preteo be pleased to see each other. Maureen made us a cup of tea, and Martin and JJ asked her some polite questions about Matty. I just looked around a bit, because I didnt want to listen. She really had tidied up, like she said she was going to. There was almost nothing in the place, apart from the telly and things to sit on. It was like shed just moved in. In fact, I got the impression that shed moved things out and taken things down, because you could just make out marks on the wall. But then Martin was going, What do you think, Jess?, so I had to stop looking around and start joining in. lans to make.

    JJI didnt want to go to Maureens place with Martin and Jess because I ime to think. Id done a couple interviews with music journalists in the past, but they were fans of the band, sweet guys who went away totally psyched if you gave them a demo d let them buy you a drink. But these people, people like the kno-the-door inspirational lady… Man, I didnt know anything about them. All I knew was that theyd somehow found out my address iy-four hours, and if they could do that, then what couldnt they do? It was like they had the names and addresses of every single person living in Britain, just in case one day any of them did anything that might be iing.

    Anyway, she made me totally paranoid. If she wao, she could find out about the band in five minutes. And then shed get a hold of Eddie, and Lizzie, and then shed find out that I wasnt dying of anything - or if I was, Id kept the o myself. Plus, shed find out that the disease I wasnt dying of was ent.

    In other words, I was freaked out enough to think I was in trouble. I took a bus up to Maureens, and on the way I decided I was going to e , tell them all about everything, and if they didnt like it, fuck em. But I didnt want them reading about it in the papers.

    It took us a while to get used to the sound of poor Mattys breathing, which was loud and sounded as if it took a lot of effort. We were all thinking the same thing, I guess: we were all w whether we could have coped, if we were Maureen; we were all trying to figure out whether anything could have persuaded us to e back down off that roof.

    Jess, said Martin. You wanted us to meet. Why dont you call us to order? OK, she said, and she cleared her throat. We are gathered here today...

    Martin laughed.

    Fug hell, she said. Ive only done half a sentence. Whats funny about that? Martin shook his head.

    No, e on. If Im so fug funny, I want to know why.

    Its perhaps because its something more usually said in church.

    There was a long pause.

    Yeah. I khat. That was the vibe I was after.

    Why? Martin asked.

    Maureen, you go to church, dont you? Jess said.

    I used to, said Maureen.

    Yeah, see. I was trying to make Maureen feel fortable.

    Very thoughtful of you.

    Why do you have to fuck up everything I do? Gosh, said Martin. I  almost smell the inse.

    Right, you  start it off then, you fug...

    Thats enough, said Maureen. In my house. In front of my son.

    Martin and I looked at each other, screwed up our faces, held our breaths, crossed our fingers, but it was no use. Jess was going to point out the obvious anyway.

    In front of your son? But hes...

    I havent got CCR, I said. It was the only thing I could think of. I mean, obviously it needed saying, but I had inteo give myself a little more preparation time.

    There was a silence. I was waiting for them to dump on me.

    Oh, JJ! Jess said. Thats fantastic! It took me a mio realize that in the weird world of Jess, they had not only found a cure for CCR during the Christmas <dfn>..</dfn>holidays, but delivered it to my front door in the Angel some time between New Years Eve and January nd.

    Im not sure thats quite what JJ is saying, said Martin.

    No, I said. The thing is, I never had it.

    No! Bastards.

    Who?   The fuck-bloody doctors. At Maureens house, fuck-bloody became Jesss curse of choice. You should sue them. Supposing youd jumped?

    And theyd got it wrong? Motherfucker. Did it really have to be this hard?

    Im not sure hes quite saying that, either, said Martin.

    No, I said. Ill try and be as clear as possible: there aint no such thing as CCR, and<bdo>?９9ｌib?</bdo> even if there was, Im not dying of it. I made it up, cos… I dont know. Partly cos I wanted your sympathy, and partly because I didnt think youd uand what was really wrong with me. Im sorry.

    You tosser, said Jess.

    Thats awful, said Maureen.

    You arsehole, said Jess.

    Martin smiled. Telling people you have an incurable disease when you dont is probably right up there with sedug a fifteen-year-old, so he was enjoying my embarrassment. Plus, he was maybe eveled to a little moral superiority, because hed dohe det thing whe humiliated: hed walked to the top of Toppers House and dangled his feet over the edge. OK, he didnt go over, but, you know, hed shown he was taking things seriously. Me, Id thought about offing myself first and then disgraced myself afterwards. Id bee an even bigger asshole sinew Years Eve, which was kind of depressing.

    So why did you say it? Jess asked.

    Yes, said Martin. What were you attempting to simplify? It just… I dont know. Everything seemed shtforward with you guys. Martin and the, you know. And Maureen and… I nodded over to Matty.

    Wasnt straightforward with me, said Jess. I was crapping on about Chas and explanations.

    Yeah, but… No offense, but you were nutso. Didnt really matter what you said.

    So what was wrong with you? Maureen asked.  I dont know. Depression, I suppose youd call it.

    Oh, we uand depression, said Martin. Were all depressed.

    Yeah, I know. But mine seemed too… too fug vague. Sorry, Maureen.

    How do people, like, not curse? How is it possible? There are all these gaps in speech where you just have to put a fuck. Ill tell you who the most admirable people in the world are: newscasters. If that was me, Id be like, And the motherfuckers flew the fug plane right into the Twin Towers.

    How could you not, if youre a human being? Maybe theyre not so admirable. Maybe theyre robot zombies.

    Try us out, said Martin. Were uanding people.

    OK. So the short version is, all I ever wao do was be in a roroll band.

    Roroll? Like Bill Haley and the ets? said Martin.

    No, man. Thats not… Like, I dont know. The Stones. Or… Theyre not roroll, said Jess. Are they? Theyre rock.

    OK, OK, all I wao do was be in a rock band. Like the Stones, or, or… Crusty music, said Jess. She wasnt being rude. She was just clarifying my terms.

百度搜索 A Long Way Down 天涯 或 A Long Way Down 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.