Part 2-5

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    And because of ere and what had happeo us, we wao talk about personal things, so it was embarrassing him standing there.

    Martin was like, Lets drink up and go, aood up. But Captain Coffee went, Whats the matter now? So I said, The thing is, we o have a private versation, and he said he uood pletely, and hed go outside until wed finished. And I said, But really, everything we say is private, for reasons I t go intbbr>?9９lib.</abbr>o. And he said it didnt matter, hed still wait outside unless anyone else came. And thats what he did, and thats why we ended up going to Starbucks for our coffee meetings. It was hard to trate on how miserable we were, with this berk in an army uniform leaning against the window outside cheg that we werent stealing his biscuits, or biscotties as he called them. People go on about places like Starbucks being unpersonal and all that, but what if thats what you want?

    Id be lost, if JJ and people like that got their way, and there was nothing unpersonal in the world. I like to know that there are big places without windows where no one gives a shit. You need fideo go into small places with regular ers, small bookshops and small music shops and small restaurants and cafes. Im happiest in the Virgiore and Borders and Starbucks and Pizza Express, where no one gives a shit, and no one knows who you are. My mum and dad are always going on about how soulless those places are, and Im like, Der. Thats the point.

    The book group thing was JJs idea. He said people do it a lot in America, read books and talk about them; Martin reed it was being fashionable here, too, but Id never heard of it, so it t be that   fashionable, or Id bbr></abbr>have read about it in Dazed and fused. The point of it was to talk about Something Else, sort of thing, and not get into rows about who was a berk and who rat, which was how the afternoons in Starbucks usually ended up. And what we decided was, we were going to read books by people whod killed themselves. They were, like, our people, and so we thought we ought to find out what was going on in their heads.

    Martin said he thought we might learn more from people who hadnt killed themselves - we should be reading up on what was so great about staying alive, not what was so great about topping yourself. But it turned out there were like a billion writers who hadnt killed themselves, and three or four who had, so we took the easy option, a for the smaller pile. We voted on using funds from our media appearao buy ourselves the books.

    Anyway, it turned out not to be the easy option at all. Fug hell! You should try ahe stuff by people whove killed themselves! We started with Virginia Woolf, and I only read like two pages of this book about a lighthouse, but I read enough to know why she killed herself: she killed herself because she couldnt make herself uood. You only have to read oeo see that. I sort of identify with her a bit, because I suffer from that sometimes, but her mistake was to go public with it. I mean, it was lucky in a way, because she left a sort of souvenir behind so that people like us could learn from her difficulties and that, but it was bad luck for her. And she had some bad luck, too, if you think about it, because in the olden days anyone could get a book published because there wasnt so mupetition. So you could marto a publishers offid go, you know, I want this published, and theyd go, Oh, OK then. Whereas now theyd go, No, dear, go away, no one will uand you. Try pilates or salsa dang instead.

    JJ was the only one who thought it was brilliant, so I had a go at him, and he had a go back because I didnt like it. He was all, Is it because your daddy reads books? Is that why you e on like such a dork? Which was an easy oo answer, because Daddy doesnt read books, bad luck, and I told him so. And then I said, Is it because you didnt go to school? Is that why you think all books are great eveheyre shit? Because some people are like that, arent they? Youre not allowed to say anything about books because theyre books, and books are, you know, God. Anyway, he didnt like that much, which means I got him right where it hurts. He said that he could see that what was going to happen to our reading group was that I would wreck it, and how had he been so stupid as to expeything else? And I was like, Im not going to wreything. If a books shit, Ill say so. And he went, Yeah, but yonna say theyre all shit, arent you, because youre so fug trary, sorry Maureen. And I said, Yeah, and yonna say theyre all great, because youre such a creep. And he said, They are all great, and he went through all these people we were supposed   to be talking about in the club - Sylvia Plath, Primo Levi, Hemingway.

    So I said, Well whats the point of doing the reading club if you know in advaheyre all great? Whats fun about that? And he said, Its not Pop Idol, man. You dont vote for the best oheyre all good, and t that, aalk about their ideas. And I was like, well if shes anything to go by, I dont accept theyre all great. In fact I not the opposite. And JJ got really worked up about that, and there was some unpleasahen, and Martin stepped in and we decided not to do any more books for a while, in other words ever. That was when we decided to have a go at musical suicide instead. Maureen had never heard of Kurt Cobain,  you believe it?

    I do think. I know no one believes it, but I do. Its just that my way of thinking is different from everyone elses. Before I think, I have to get angry and maybe a bit violent, which I  see is sort of annoying for everyone else, but tough shit. Anyway, that night, in bed, I thought about JJ, and what hed said about how I hated books because Daddy read them.

    And its true what I said, that he doesnt, not really, although because of his job he has to pretend that he does.

    Jen was a reader, though. She loved her books, but they scared me.

    They scared me when she was around, and they scare me even more now.

    What was in them? What did they say to her, when she was unhappy and listening only to them and to no one else - not her friends, not her sister, no one? I got out of bed a into her room, which has bee exactly as it was on the day she left. (People are always doing that in films, and you think, Yeah, right, like you dont want a guest bedroom, or somewhere to put all your crap. But yoing in there and fug everything up.) And there they all are: The Secret History, Catch-, To Kill a Mogbird, The Catcher in the Rye, No Logo, The Bell Jar (which is a aybe not, because that was one of the books JJ wanted us to read), Crime and Punishment, , Good Places to Go When You Want To Disappear… That was just a joke, that last one.

    I dont think I was ever going to be a big reader, because she was the brainy one, not me, but Im sure I would have beeer at it if she hadnt put me off by disappearing. It wasnt the first time Id been in her room, and it wouldhe last, I knew, and the books all sit there and look at me, and what I hate most is knowing that one of them might help me to uand. I dohat Ill find some sentence shes underlihat will give me a clue about where she is, although I looked, a while ago. I flicked through, just in case shed put like an exclamation mark by the word Wales, or a ring around Texas. I just mean that if I read everything she loved, and everything that took her attention in those last few months, then Id get some picture of where her head was at. I dont even know whether these books are serious or sad or scary. And youd think Id want to find   out, wouldnt you, sidering as how much I loved her and everything.

    But I dont. I t. I t because Im too lazy, too stupid, and I t even make the effort because something stops me. They just sit there looking at me, day after day, and one day I know Ill put them all in a big pile and burn them.

    So, no, Im not a big reader.

    JJ Our cultural program was all on my shoulders, because none of the others knew anything about anything. Maureen got books out of the library every couple weeks, but she didnt read stuff we could talk about, if you know what Im saying, unless we wao talk about whether the nurse should marry the bad rich guy or the good puy. And Martin wasnt a big fan of Literature. He said he read a lot of books in prison, but mostly biographies of people who had overe great adversities, like Nelson Mandela and those guys. My guess is Nelson Mandela wouldnt have thought of Martin Sharp as a soul brother. When you looked at their lives closely, youd see that theyd wound up in jail for different reasons. And, believe me, you dont want to know what Jess thought of books. Youd find it offensive.

    She was right about me, though, kind of. How could she not be? Ive spent my entire life with people who dont read - my folks, my sister, most of the band, especially the rhythm se - and it makes you really defensive, after a while. How many times  you be called a fag before you snap? Not that I mind being called a fag blah blah blah, and some of my best friends blah blah, but to me, being a fag is about whether you like guys, not whether you like Don DeLillo - who is a guy, admittedly, but its his books I like, not his ass. Why does reading freak people out so much?

    Sure, I could be pretty anti-social when we were on the road, but if I laying a Gameboy hour after hour, no one would be on my case. In my social circle, blowing up fug space monsters is socially acceptable in a way that Ameri Pastoral isnt.

    Eddie was the worst. It was like we were married, and pig up a book was my way of telling him that I had a headache every night. And like a marriage, the longer we were together, the worse it got; but now that I think about it, the longer we were together, the worse everything got. We kneerent going to make it, as a band and maybe even as friends, and so we were both panig. And me reading just made Eddie panic more, because I think he had some bullshit idea that reading was going to help me find some sort of new career. Yeah, like thats what happens in life.

    Hey, you like Updike? You must be a cool guy. Heres a $, job in   our advertising agency. We spent all those years talking about the stuff we had in on, and the last few months notig all the ways we were different, and it broke both of our hearts.

    And all that is a long-ass way of explaining why I freaked out at Jess.

    Id left one band full of aggressive illiterates, and I sure as hell wasnt going to join another one. When youre unhappy, I guess everything in the world - readiing, sleeping - has something buried somewhere i that just makes you unhappier.

    And for some reason, I thought music was going to be easier, which, sidering Im a musi, wasnt real smart. I only have a lot ied in books, but I got my whole life ied in music. I thought I couldnt g with Nick Drake, especially in a room full of people whove got the blues. If you havent heard him… Man, its like he boiled down all the melancholy in the world, all the bruises and all the fucked-up dreams youve let go, and poured the esseo a little tiny bottle and corked it up. And whearts to play and sing, he takes the cork out, and you  smell it. Youre pinned into your seat, as if its a wall of noise, but its not - its still, and quiet, and you dont want to breathe in case yhten it away. And we were listening to him over at Maureens, because we couldnt play our own music at Starbucks, and at Maureens youve got the sound of Matty breathing, which was like this whole extra freaky instrument. So I was sitting there thinking, man, this is going to ge these peoples lives for ever.

    At the end of the first song, Jess started putting her fingers dowhroat and making faces.

    But hes such a drip, she said. Hes like, I dunno, a poet or something.

    This was meant to be an insult: I ending my days with someone who thought that poets were creatures you might find living in your lower iine.

    I dont mind it, said Martin. I wouldnt walk out, if he laying in a wine bar.

    I would, said Jess.

    I wondered whether it would be possible to punch both of them out simultaneously, but rejected the idea on the grounds that it would all be over too quickly, and there wouldnt be enough pain involved. Id want to keep on pummeling them after they were down, which would mean doing them o a time. Its music rage, which is like re, only mhteous. When you get re, a tiny part of you knows youre being a jerk, but when you get music rage, youre carrying out the will of God, and God wants these people dead.

    And then this weird thing happened, if you  call a deep respoo Five Leaves Left weird.

    Have you not got ears? Maureen said suddenly. t you hear how unhappy he is, and how beautiful his songs are? We looked at her, and then Jess looked at me.

    Ha ha, said Jess. You like something Maureen likes. She sang this last part, like a little kid, nah-nah, nah-nah-nah.

    Dont pretend to be more foolish than you are, Jess, said Maureen.

    Because youre foolish enough as it is. She was steamed. She had the music rage too. Just listen to him for a moment, and stop blathering.

    And Jess could see that she meant it, and she shut up, and we listeo the whole rest of t<bdi></bdi>he album in silence, and if you looked at Maureen closely you could see her eyes were glistening a little.

    When did he die? eey-four. He was twenty-six.

    Twenty-six. She was quiet for a moment, thoughtful, and I was really hoping that she was feeling sorry for him and his family. The alternative was that she was envying him for having spared himself all those unnecessary extra years. You eople to respond, but sometimes they  overdo it, you know?

    People dont want to hear it, do they? she said.

    No one said anything, because we werent sure where she was at.

    This is how I feel, every day, and people dont want to know that. They want to know that Im feeling what Tom Jones makes you feel. Or that Australian girl who used to be in Neighbours. But I feel like this, and they wont play what I feel on the radio, because people that are sad dont fit in.

    Wed never heard Maureen talk like this, didnt even know she could, and even Jess didnt want to stop her.

    Its funny, because people think its Matty that stops me fitting in. But Mattys not so bad. Hard work, but… Its the way Matty makes me feel that stops me fitting in. You get the weight of everything wrong. You have to guess all the time whether things are heavy ht, especially the things inside you, and you get it wrong, and it puts people off. Im tired of it.

    And so suddenly Maureen was like my girl, because she got it, and because she felt the music rage too, and I wao say the right thing to her. You need a holiday.

    I said it because I wao be sympathetic, but then I remembered iy, and I realized that now iy had the money.

    Hey. What about that? Why not? I said. Lets all take Maureen on holiday somewhere. Martin burst out laughing.

    Yeah, right, said Jess. What are we? Volunteers for like an old folks home or something? Maureens not old, I said. How old are you, Maureen?  Im fifty-one, she said.

    OK, not an old folks home. A b folks home.

    And what makes you the most fasating person on the pla? Martin said.

    I dont look like that, for a start. Anyways, I thought you were on my side? And almost unnoticed, amid all the laughter and the general s, Maureen had started to cry.

    Im sorry, Maureen, said Martin. I wasnt being ungallant. I just couldnt imagihe four of us sitting around a swimming pool on our sun loungers.

    No, no, said Maureen. I took no offense. Not much, anyway. And I know nobody wants to go on holiday with me, and thats fine. I just got a bit weepy because JJ suggested it. Its been a long… Nobodys… I havent… It was just nice of him, thats all.

    Oh, fug hell, said Martin quietly. Now, Oh, fug hell  mean a lot of different things, as you know, but there was no ambiguity here; we all uood. What Marti by Oh, fug hell in this text, if I  explain an obsity with an obsity, is that he was fucked. Because what kind of asshole was going to say to Maureen, you know, Yeah, well, its the thought that ts. Hope thats enough for you.

    And like five days later we were on a plao Tenerife.

    <strong>MAUREEN</strong>

    It was their decision, not mine. I didhat I had the right to decide, not really, even though a quarter of the money did belong to me. I was the one whod suggested the holiday in the first place, to JJ, when we were talking about iy, so I didnt think it was right that I should join ihey took a vote on it. I think what I did is, I abstained.

    It wasnt as if there was a big argument, though. Everyone was all for it.

    The only debate was about whether to go now or in the summer, because of the weather, but there was a general feeling that, what with ohing and another, it was better to go now, before Valentines Day. For a moment they thought we could afford the Caribbean, Barbados or somewhere, until Martin pointed out that the money we had would have to cover Mattys time in the care tre as well.

    Lets go without Maureen, then, said Jess, and I was hurt, for a moment, until it turned out she was joking.

    I t remember the last time I wept because I was happy. Im not saying that because I eople to feel sorry for me; its just that it was a strange feeling. When JJ said he had an idea, and then explained what it was, I didnt even allow myself to <q></q>think for a moment that it would ever e to anything.

    It was funny, but up to that point, we hadnt really ever been o each other. Youd think that would have been a part of the story, sidering how wed met. Youd think this would be the story of four people who met because they were unhappy, and wao help each other.

    But it hadnt been up until then, not at all, nothing like, unless you t me and Martin sitting on Jesss head. And even that was being cruel to be kind, rather than kind plain and simple. Up until then it had beeory of four people who met because they were unhappy and then swore at each other.

    Three of them swore, anyway.

    I was making little sobbing hat embarrassed everyone, myself included.

    F— hell, said Jess. Its only a week in the poxy ary Isles. Ive been there. Its just beaches and clubs and that.

    I wao tell Jess that I hadnt even seen an English beach sity left school; they used to take them thton every year, and I went with them once or twice. I didnt say anything, though. I may not know the   weight of many things, but I could feel the weight of that one, so I kept it to myself. You know that things arent going well for you when you t even tell people the simplest fact about your life, just because theyll presume youre asking them to feel sorry for you. I suppose its why you feel so far away from everyone, in the end; anything you  think of to tell them just ends up making them feel terrible.

    I want to describe every moment of the journey, because it seemed so exg, but that would probably be a mistake, too. If youre like everybody else then youll already know what an airport looks like, what it sounds and smells like, and if I tell you about it, then it would be just another way of saying that I havehe sea for ten years. Id got a one-year passport from the post office, and even that caused too much excitement, because I saw one or two people from the chur the queue, and they know Im not a big traveler. One of the people I saw was Bridgid, the woman who didnt invite me to the New Years Eve party I didnt go to; one day, I thought, Ill tell her how she helped me to take my first trip abroad. Id really have to know how much things weighed before I tried that, though.

    You probably know that you sit in a row of three. They let me sit in the window seat, because theyd all been on planes before. Martin sat in the middle and JJ sat o him on the aisle for the first few minutes. After a little while, Jess had to slaces with JJ, because she had an argument with the woman sittio her about the wee bag of nuts they give you, and there was some shouting and carrying on. Ahing you probably know is that theres a terrible noise when you take off, and sometimes the plane shakes in the air. Well of course I didnt know any of those things, and my stomach turo water, and Martin had to hold my hand and talk to me.

    And you probably also know that when you look out of an aeroplane window ahe world shrink like that, you t help but think about the whole of your life, from the beginnin<var>藏书网</var>g until where you are now, and everyone youve ever known. And youll know that thinking about those things makes you feel grateful to God for providing them, and angry with Him for not helping you to uand them better, and so you end up in a terrible muddle and needing to talk to a priest. I decided I wouldnt sit in the window seat on the way back. I dont know how these jet-set people who have to fly once or twice a year cope, I really dont.

    Not having Matty with me was like missing a leg. It felt that strange.

    But I also ehe lightness of it, so it probably wasnt at all like missing a leg, because I dont suppose people whove had a leg taken off do enjoy the lightness of it very much. And I was going to say that it was much easier to move around without Matty, but its much harder to move around with only one leg, isnt it? So maybe it would be more truthful to   say that being on the plahout Matty was like being without a third leg, because a third leg would feel heavy, I expect, and it would get in the way, and you would be relieved if it was taken off. I missed him most when the plane was doing its shaking; I thought I was going to die, and I hadnt said goodbye to him. I pahen.

    We didnt fall out on the first night. Everyone was happy then, even Jess. The hotel was nice, and , and we all had our own toilets and bathrooms, which I hadnt been expeg. And when I opehe shutters, the light poured into the room like a torrent of water through a burst dam, and it nearly knocked me over. My knees buckled for a moment, and I had to lean against the wall. The sea was there too, but it wasnt fierd strong, like the light; it just sat quiet and blue, and made tiny little murmuring noises.

    Some people  see this whehey want to, I thought, but then I had to stop thinking that because it would have got in the way of the things I wao think about. It was a time to be feeling grateful, not to be coveting my neighbours wife, or his sea views.

    We ate in a seafroaurant not far from the hotel. I had a nice piece of fish, and the men ate squid and lobster, and Jess had a hamburger, and I drank two or three glasses of wine. I wont tell you when Id last eaten out in a restaurant, or had wih a meal, because Im learning not to do that.

    I didnt even try to tell the others, because I could feel the weight for myself, and k was more than they would want to carry. Anyway, they knew by this time that it was donkeys years since Id done anything at all, apart from the things I do every day of my life. They took it franted.

    I would like to say this, though, and I dont care how it sounds: it was the  meal Ive ever had in my life, and perhaps the  evening Ive ever had in my life. Is that so terrible, to be so positive about something?

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