Part 2-4
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Martins the ohat most people will have heard of, said Linda.Martin? Is that what you call him? Just "The Angel", said Martin. He looked happier than this on the night he tried to kill himself.
I just cheething? said Linda. You did see him, Martin, didnt you? Martin shifted in his seat. You could tell he was scouting around the inside of his head, just to make sure that there were no escape routes hed overlooked.
Oh, yes, said Martin. I saw him, all right. He was… He was awesome.
And with that, he finally walked into the cage that Linda had opened for him. The public at large were now free to poke sticks at him and call him names, and he just had to sit there and take it, like an exhibit in a freak show.
But then, we were all freaks now. When friends and family and ex-lovers opeheir neers the m, they could e to one of only two possible clusions: ) wed all looped the loop, or ) we were scam artists. OK, strictly speaking, there was a third clusion - we were telling the truth. We saw an ahat looked like Matt Damon, who for reaso known to himself told us to get down off the roof. But I got to say, I dont know anyone whod believe that. Maybe my great-aunt Ida, who lives in Alabama and handles snakes every Sunday m in her church, but then, shes nuts too.
And I dont know, man, but to me it seemed a long way back from there. If you were gonna dra, youd say that mes aionships and jobs and all that stuff, all the things that stitute a regular life, were in like New Orleans, and by ing out with all this horseshit wed just put ourselves somewhere north of Alaska. Whos going to give a job to a guy who sees angels? And whos going to give a job to a guy who says he sees angels because he might make a few bucks for himself? No, we were finished as serious people. We had sold our seriosity for twelve hundred and fifty of ylish pounds, and as far as I could tell that money was going to have to last us for the rest of our lives, unless we saw God, or Elvis, or Princess Di. Aime wed have to see them for real, and take photos.
Just over two years ago, REMs manager came to see Big Yellow, and asked whether we were ied in his pany representing us, and we said we were happy with what we had. REM! Twenty-six months ago! We were sitting around in this fancy office, and this guy, he was trying to persuade us, you know? And now I was sitting around with people like Maureen and Jess, taking part in a pathetic attempt to squeeze a few bucks out of someone who was desperate to give it to us, so long as we were prepared to totally embarrass ourselves. Ohing the last couple of years has taught me is that theres nothing you t fuck up if you try hard enough.
My only solation was that I didnt have any friends and family here; no one knew who I was, except for a few fans of the band, maybe, and I like to think that they werent the type to read Lindas paper. And some of the guys at the pizza place might see a copy lying around somewhere, but theyd have smelled the cash, and the desperation, and they could have cared less about the humiliation.
So that just left Lizzie, and if she saicture of me looking ihen so be it. You know why she dumped me? She dumped me because I wasnt going to be a roroll star after all. you fug believe that?
No you t, because its beyond belief, and therefore unbelievable.
Shittiness, thy name is Woman. That was my thinking, at that point in time, you know, that it wouldnt hurt her to see how shed messed me up. In fact, if I could be temporarily invisible, then one of the first things Id do, after robbing a bank and going into the womens showers at the gym and all the usual stuff, is put the paper down in front of her and watch her read it.
See, I didnt know anything about anything then. I thought I khings, but I didnt.
<strong>MAUREEN</strong>
I didnt think Id ever be able to go back to the church again after the interview with Linda. Id been thinking about it a bit, the day before; I missed it terribly, and I wondered whether God would really mind if I just sat at the bad didnt go to fession - sneaked out somehow before union. But once Id told Linda that Id seen an angel, I khat Id have to keep away, that I wouldnt be able to go back before I died. I didnt kly what sin Id itted, but I was sure that sins involving making up angels were mortal.
I still thought I was going to kill myself when the six weeks were up; what would have ged my mind? I was busier than Id ever been, what with the press interviews and the meetings, and I suppose that took my mind off things. But all the running around just felt like last-miivity, as if I had some things to get done before I went on holiday. That was who I was, then: a person who was going to kill herself soon, the moment I could get round to it.
I was going to say that I saw the first little glimmer of light that day, the day of the interview with Linda, but it wasnt really like that. It was more as if Id already chosen what I was<u>99liｂ?</u> going to wat TV; and I was beginning to look forward to it, and then noticed that there was something else on that might be more iing. I dont know about you, but choice isnt always what I want. You end up flig between one el and another, and not watg either programme properly. I dont know how people with the cable television cope.
What happened was that after the interview, I found myself talking to JJ. He was going back to his flat, and I was heading towards the bus stop, and we ended up walking along together. Im not sure he wao, really, because weve hardly spoken since I slapped that man on New Years Eve, but it was one of those awkward situations where I was walking five paces behind him, so he stopped for me.
That was kind of hard, wasnt it? he said, and I was surprised, because I thought I was the only one whod found it difficult.
I hate lies, I said.
He looked at me and laughed, and then I remembered about his lie.
No offence, I said. I lied too. I lied about the angel. And I lied to Matty, as well. About going to a party on New Years Eve. And to the people in the respite home.
Godll five you for those, I think. We walked along a little bit more, and then he said, for no reason that I could tell, What would it take to ge your mind? About what? About… you know. Wanting To End It All.
I didnt know what to say.
If you could make a deal with God, kind of thing. Hes sitting there, the Big Guy, across the table from you. And hes saying, OK, Maureen, we like you, but we really want you to stay put, oh. What we do to persuade you? What we offer you? Gods asking me personally? Yeah.
If He was asking me personally, He wouldnt have to offer me anything.
Really? If God in His infinite wisdom wanted me to stay oh, then how could I ask for anything? JJ laughed. OK, then. Not God.
Who, then? A sort of… I dont know. A sort of ic, you know, President. Or Prime Miony Blair. Someone who get things done. You dont have to do what Tony Blair says without asking for something iurn.
he cure Matty? Nope. He only arrahings.
Id like a holiday.
God. Youre a cheap date. Youd choose to live out the rest of your natural life for a week in Florida? Id like to go abroad. Ive never been.
Youve never been abroad? He said it as though I should be ashamed, and for a moment I was.
When was the last time you had a holiday? Just before Matty was born.
And hes how old? Hes een.
OK. Well, as your manager, Im going to be asking the Big Guy for a holiday a year. Maybe two.
You t do that! I really felt sdalized. I see now I was taking it all too seriously, but it felt real to me, and it seemed like a holiday a year was too much.
Trust me, said JJ. I know the market. iy wont blink an eye.
e on, what else? Oh, I couldnt ask for anything else.
Say he does give you two weeks holiday a year. Fifty weeks is a long time to wait for it, you know? And youre not going to get another appoi with iy. You got one shot. Everything you want, youve got to ask for in one go.
A job.
You want a job? Yes. Of course.
What kind of job? Anything. W in a shop, maybe. Anything to get me out of the house.
I used to work, before Matty was born. I had a job in an office stationers in Tufnell Park. I liked it; I liked all the different pens, and sizes of paper and envelopes. I liked my boss. I havent worked since.
OK. e on, e on.
Maybe a bit of a social life. The church has quizzes sometimes. Like pub quizzes, but not in the pub. Id like to have a go at one of those.
Yep, we allow you a quiz.
I tried to smile, because I knew JJ was joking a bit, but I was finding the versation hard. I couldnt really think of anything very much, and that annoyed me. And it made me feel afraid, in a strange sort of a way. It was like finding a door that youd never seen before in your own house.
Would you want to know what was behind it? Some people would, Im sure, but I wouldnt. I didnt want to carry on talking about me.
What about you? I said to JJ. What would you say to iy? Ha. Im not sure, man. He calls everyone man, even if youre not a man. You get used to it. Maybe, I dont know. Live the last fifteen years all ain or something. Finish high school. Fet about music. Bee the kind of person whos happy to settle for what he is, rather than what he wants to be, you know? But iy t arrahat.
ly.
So youre worse off than me, really. iy do things for me, but not for you.
No, no, shit, Im sorry, Maureen. I dido imply that. You have a… You have a really hard life, and none of its your fault, and everything thats happeo me is just y own stupidity, and… Theres no parison. Really. Im sorry I ever mentio.
But I wasnt sorry. I liked thinking about iuch more than I liked thinking about God.
MARTIN The headline in Lindas paper - page one, apanied by the picture of me flat on my face outside a nightclub - read FOR HARPS - SEE SHARP.
The story did not, as Linda had promised it would, emphasize the beauty and mystery of our experien the roof; rather, it chose to trate on anle, namely, the sudden, gratifying and amusing lunacy of a former television personality. The journalist in me suspects that she got the story abht.
What does that mean? Jess asked me on the phohat m.
Its an old lager ad, I said. "HARP - STAYS SHARP".
What has lager got to do with anything? Nothing. But the name of the lager was Harp. And my names Sharp, you see.
OK. Then what have harps got to do with anything? Angels are supposed to play them.
Are they? Should we have said he laying a harp? To make it more ving? I told her that, in my opinion, the addition of a harp to the portrait of the Angel Matt Damon that ainted was uo have helped vince people of its authenticity.
And anyway, how e its all about you? We hardly get a fug mention.
I had many other phone calls that m - from Theo, who said that theres been a lot of i iory, and who thought Id finally given him something he could work with, as long as I was fortable talking to the public about what was obviously a private spiritual moment; from Penny, who wanted us to meet and talk; and from my daughters.
I hadnt been allowed to speak to them for weeks, but dys maternal instinct had obviously told her that the day Daddy was in the papers talking about seeing messengers from God was a good day to reinstate tact.
Did you see an angel, Daddy? No.
Mummy said you did.
Well, I didnt.
Why did Mummy say you did? Youd better ask her.
Mummy, why did you say Daddy saw an angel? I waited patiently while a brief versation took place away from the receiver.
She says she didnt say it. She says the neer says it.
I told a fib, sweetie. To make some money.
Oh.
So I buy you a nice birthday present.
Oh. Why do you get money for saying you saw an angel? Ill tell you aime.
Oh.
And then dy and I spoke, but not for very long. During our brief versation I mao refer to two different types of domesticated female animals.
I also received a phone call from my boss at FeetUp. He was calling to tell me that I was fired. Youre joking.
I wish I was, Sharpy. But youve left me with no alternative.
By doing what, exactly? Have you seen the paper this m? Thats a problem for you? You e across as a bit of a o be ho, What about the publicity for the el? All ive, in my book.
You think theres such a thing as ive publicity for FeetUp? How do you mean? What with no one ever having heard of us. You. There was a long, long silence, during which you could hear the rusting cogs of poor Des mind turning over.
Ah. I see. Very ing. That hadnt occurred to me.
Im not going to beg, Dec. But it would seem a little perverse to me.
You hire me when no one else in the world would give me the time of day.
And then you fire me when Im hot. How many of your presenters are all over the papers today? No, no, fair point, fair point. I see where youre ing from. What youre saying, if I read you correctly, is that theres no such thing as bad publicity for a… a fledgling cable el.
Obviously I couldnt have put it as elegantly as that. But yes, thats the long and the short of it.
OK. Youve turned me round, Sharpy. Whove we got on this afternoon? This afternoon? Yeah. Its Thursday.
Ah.
Had you fotten? I sort of had, really, yeah.
So weve got no one? I re I could get JJ, Maureen ao e on.
Who are they? The other three.
The other three who? Have you read the story? I only read the one about you seeing the angel.
They were up there with me.
Up where? The whole ahing, De, came about because I was going to kill myself. And then I bumped into three other people oop of a tower-block who were thinking of doing the same thing. And then… Well, to cut a long story short, the aold us to e down again.
Fuck me.
Exactly.
And you re you get the other three? Almost sure of it.
Jesus Christ. How much will they cost, dyou re? Three hundred quid for the three of them, maybe? Plus expenses. One of thems a… Well, shes a single parent, and her kid will need looking after.
Go on, then. Fuck it. Fuck the expense.
Top man, Dec I think its a good idea. Im pleased with that. Old Des still got it, eh? Tht. Youre a newshound. Youre the Newshound of the Baskervilles.
What youve got to tell yourself, I told them, is that no one will be watg.
Thats one of your old pro tricks, right? said JJ knowingly.
No, I said. Believe me. Literally no one will be watg. I have never met anyone who has ever seen my show.
The world headquarters of FeetUpTV! - known, iably, to its staff as Tibbr></abbr>tsUpTV! - is in a sort of shed in Hoxton. The shed tains a small receptiowo dressing rooms and a studio, where all four of our homegrown programmes are made. Every m, a woman called dy-Ann sells etics; I split Thursday afternoon with a man called D J Goodnews, who speaks to the dead, usually on behalf of the receptionist, the window er, the minicab driver booked to take him home, or anyone else who happens to be passing through: Does the letter A mean anything to you, Asif ? and so on. The other afternoons are taken up by tapes of old dog races from the US - once upon a time the iion was to offer viewers the ce to bet, but nothing ever came of it, and in my opinion, if you t bet, then dog rag, especially old dog rag, loses some of its appeal. During the evening, two women sit talking to each other, in and usually about their underwear, while viewers text them lewd messages, which they ignore. And thats more or less it. De runs the station on behalf of a mysterious Asian businessman, and those of us who work for FeetUpTV! only presume that somehow, in ways too obtuse and sophisticated for us to decipher, we are involved iraffig of class A drugs and child praphy. Oheory is that the dogs in the races are sending out encoded messages to the traffickers: if, say, the dog iside lane wins, then that is a message to the Thai tact that he should send a couple of kilos of heroin and four thirteen-year-olds first thing in the m. Something like that, anyway.
My guests on Sharp Words tend to be old friends who want to do something to help, or former celebrities in a boat not dissimilar to my own - holed uhe waterline and sinking fast. Some weeks I get has-beens, and everyos wildly over-excited, but most weeks its had-beens.
dy-Ann, D J GoodNews and the two semi-clothed ladies have appeared on my show not just once, but several times, in order to give viewers a ce to get to know them a little better. (Sharp Words is two hours long, and though the advertisiment, namely Karen oion, does its best, we are rarely interrupted by messages from our sponsors. The theoretical viewer is highly uo feel as though we have barely scratched the versational surface.) Attrag people of the calibre of Maureen and Jess, then, stituted something of a coup: only rarely have my guests appeared on the show during the same decade that they have appeared in the neers.
I took pride in my interviewing. I mean, I still do, but at a time when I seemed to be able to do nothing else properly, I hung on to my peten a studio as I would to a tree root on the side of a cliff. I have, in my time, interviewed drunken, maudlin actors at eight in the m and drunken, aggressive footballers at eight in the evening. I have forced lying politis to tell something like the truth, and I have had to cope with mothers whose grief has made them unfortably verbose, and not once have I let things bee sloppy. My studio sofa was my classroom, and I didnt tolerate any waywardness. Even in those desperate FeetUpTV! months spent talking to nobodies and never-weres, people with nothing to say and no ability to say it, it was f to think that there was some area of my life in which I was petent. So when Jess and JJ decided that my programme was a joke and acted accly, I suffered something of a sense of humour failure. I wish, of course<bdi>?9９ｌib.</bdi>, that I hadnt; I wish that I could have found it io be a little less pompous, a little more relaxed. True, I was encing them to talk about an unfettable experiehat they hadnt had, and which I khey hadnt had. And grahat imaginary unfettable experience reposterous. A, despite these impediments, I had somehow expected a higher level of professionalism.
I dont wish to overstate my case; its not bloody rocket sce, doing a TV interview. You chat to yuests beforehand, agree on a rough versational course, remind them of their hilarious aes and, in this case, of the known facts about the fis we were about to discuss, as provided by Jess in her inal interview - namely, that the angel looked like Matt Damon, he floated above the roof, and he was wearing a baggy white suit. Dont fuck about with those bits, I told them, or well get into a mess. So what happens? Almost immediately? I ask JJ what the angel was wearing, aells me that the angel was wearing a promotional T-shirt for the Sandra Bullock film While You Were Sleeping - a film which, as luck would have it, Jess had seen on TV, and was thus able to synopsize at siderable length.
If we just stick to the subject, I said. Lots of people have seen While You Were Sleeping. Very few people have seen an angel.
Fuck off. No ones watg. You said.
That was just one of my old pros tricks.
Well be in trouble now, then. Because I just said "Fuck off". Youll get loads of plaints for that.
I think that our viewers are sophisticated enough to know that extreme experiences sometimes produce extreme language.
Good. Fuckofffuckofffuckoff. She made her apologetic wave at Maureen, and then into the camera, at the ed people of Britain.
Anyway, watg rubbish Sandra Bullock films isnt a very extreme experience.
We were talking about the angel, not Sandra Bullock.
What angel? And so on, and on, until De walked in with the etics lady and ushered us off the air, into the street and, in my case, out of a job.
<strong>JESS</strong>
Someone should write a song or something called They fuck you up, your mum and dad. Something like, They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They make you feel fug bad. Because they do. Especially your dad.
Thats why he gets the rhyme. He<big>?</big> wouldnt like me saying this, but if it wasnt for me and Jen, no one would ever have heard of him. Hes not like the boss of Education - thats the Secretary of State. There are loads of ministers, and hes only one of them, so hes what they call a junior minister, which is a laugh and a half because hes not very junior at all. So hes sort of a loser politi, really. You wouldnt mind if he was a loser because he shot his mouth off and said what he thought about Iraq or whatever, but he doesnt; he says what hes told to say, and it still doesnt do him much good.
Most people have a rope that ties them to someone, and that rope be short or it be long. (Be long. Belong. Get it?) You dont know how long, though. Its not your choice. Maureens rope ties her to Matty and its about six inches long and its killing her. Martins rope ties him to his daughters, and, like a stupid dog, he thinks it isnt there. He goes running off somewhere - into a nightclub after a girl, up a building, whatever - and then suddenly it brings him up short and chokes him as surprised, and then he does the same thing again the day. I think JJ is tied to this bloke Eddie he keeps talking about, the one he used to be in the band with.
And Im learning that Im tied to Jen, and not to my mum and dad - not to home, which is where the rope should be. Jen thought she was tied to them too, Im sure of it. She felt safe, just because she was a kid with parents, so she kept walking and walking and walking until she walked off a cliff or into the desert or off to Texas with her meic. She thought shed get jerked back by the rope, but there wasnt one. She learhat the hard way. So Im tied to Jen now, but Jen isnt solid, like a house. Shes floating, blowing around, no one knows where she is; shes sort of fug useless, really, isnt she?
Anyway, I dont owe Mum and Dad anything. Mum uands that.
She gave up expeg anything ages ago. Shes still a mess because of Jen, and she hates Dad, and shes given up on me, so everythings all above.. board there. But Dad really thinks that hes entitled to something, which is a joke. For example: he kept showihese articles that people were writing about him, saying he should resign because his daughter was in such a fug state, as if it was any of my business. And I was like, So?
Resign. Or dont. Whatever. He o talk to a career adviser, not a daughter.
It wasnt as if we were in the papers for long, anyway. We made one more k of money, from a new el chat shoere going to really try and do it straight that time, but the woman who interviewed us really got on my tits, so I told her wed made it all up to earn a few bob, and she told us off, and all these stupid brain-dead old bags in the audience booed us. And that was it, no one wao speak to us any more. We were left to eain ourselves. It wasnt too hard. I had loads of ideas.
For example: it was my idea that we met for a coffee regularly -either at Maureens or somewhere in Islington, if we could find someoo sit with Matty. We didnt mind spending bits of the money on babysitters or whatever you want to call them; we pretended we were up for it because we wanted Maureen to have a break, but really it was because we didnt want to go round hers all the time. No offence, but Matty put like a real downer ohing.
Martin didnt like my idea, of course. First he wao know what regularly meant, because he didnt want to it himself. And I was like, Yeah, well, what with no kids and no wife and no girlfriend and no job, it must be hard to find the time, and he said it wasnt a question of time actually it was a question of choice, so I had to remind him that he had agreed to be part of a gang. And he was like, So what, so I went, Well, whats the point of agreeing? And he said, No point. Which he thought was funny, because it was more or less what Id said on the roof on New Years Eve. And I was like, Well, youre a lot older than me, and my young mind isnt fully formed yet, and he went, You say that again.
And then we couldnt agree on where wed meet. I wao go to Starbucks, because I like frappuos and all that, but JJ said he wasnt into global franchises, and Martin had read in some posey magazine about a snooty little coffee bar iween Essex Road and Upper Street where they grow their own beans while you waited or something. So to keep him happy, we met up there.
Anyway, this place had just ged its name and its vibe. The snootiness hadnt worked out, so it wasnt snooty any more. It used to be called Tres Marias, which is the name of a dam in Brazil, but the guy who ran it thought the name fused people, because what did one Mary have to do with coffee, let alohree? And he didnt even have one Mary. So now it was called Captain Coffee, and everyone knew what it sold, but it dido make much differe was still empty.
We walked in, and the guy that ran it was wearing this old army uniform, and he saluted us, and said, Captain Coffee at your service. I thought he was funny, but Martin was like, Jesus Christ, aried to leave, but Captain Coffee would us, he was that desperate. He told us we could have our coffee for free on our first visit, and a cake, if we wanted. So we didnt walk out, but the problem was that the place was tiny. There were like three tables, and each table was six inches away from the ter, which meant that Captain Coffee was leaning on the ter listening to everything we said.
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