Part 2-7
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Anna will be w whats happeo me.We could move to aable, I said, but I k was over, destroyed by a malevolent force beyond my trol.
See you later, said Jess cheerily.
And that was the last time I saw Kathy. If I were her, Id still be restrug the dialogue in my head, writing it down aing friends to act it out, looking for any kind of clue that would help me make sense of that breakfast.
You never know with Jess whether shes being sharp or lucky. When you shoot your mouth off as fast and as frequently as she does, youre bound to hit something sometime. But for whatever reason, she was right: Kathy wouldnt have happened without music. She was supposed to be a little pick-me-up, my first sihe band broke up - my first ever as a non-practig musi, because I was already in a band when I lost my virginity, and Ive been in a band ever since. So after she left, I started to worry about how this was ever going to work, and like whether Id be in some fug old folks home in forty years telling some little old lady with h that REMs manager had wao represent my band. When was I ever going to be a person - someoh maybe a job, and a personality that people could respond to? Its no fug use, giving something up if theres nothing to take its place. Say Id just kept talking about the books we were both reading, and wed never mentioned music… Would we still have goo bed? I could. It seemed to me that wit.hout my old life, I had no life at all. My morale-booster ended up making me feel totally fug crushed and desperate.
<strong>MAUREEN</strong>
We didnt really think anything of Martin missing his breakfast, even though breakfast was included. I was getting used to the idea that once or twice a day, something would happen that I wouldnt uand. I didnt uand what Jess had been up to the night before, and I didnt uand why there was a strange woman - a girl, really - sitting at our breakfast table. And now I didnt uand where Martin had gone. But not uanding dido matter very much. Sometimes, when you watch a cops and robbers film oelevision, you dont uand the beginning, but you know youre not meant to. You watyway, though, because in the end someone will explain some of the things to you if you pay close attention. I was trying to think of life with Jess and JJ and Martin as a cops and robbers film; if I did everything, I told myself not to panic. Id wait until someone gave me a clue. And anyway, I was beginning to see that it didnt really matter even if you uood almost nothing. I hadnt really uood why we had to say wed seen an angel, or how that got us on to the television. <mark>?９９ｌｉb?</mark>But that was all fotten about noarently, so why make a fuss? I must admit, I was worried about where everyone was going to sit at breakfast, but that wasnt because I was fused. I just didnt want Martin to think us rude.
After breakfast I tried to telephohe care home, but I couldnt manage on my own. In the end I had to ask JJ to do it for me, and he explaihat there were lots of extra o dial, and some you had to leave out, and I dont know what else. I wasnt being cheeky, using the telephone, because the others told me I could call once a day whatever the expeherwise, they said, I wouldnt relax properly.
And the telephone call… Well, it ged everything. Just those two or three minutes. More happeo me in my head during the telephone call than during all that time up on the roof. And it wasnt as if there was any bad news, or any news at all. Matty was fine. How could he not be? He needed care, and he was getting care, and there wasnt much else they could tell me, was there? I tried to make the versation last longer, and, fair play to him, the ried to help me make it last lod love him.
But her of us could think of anything to say. Matty doesnt do anything in the course of a day, and he hadnt done anything on that particular day.
Hed been out in his wheelchair, aalked about that, but mostly we were talking about the weather, and the garden.
And I thanked him and put the phone down and thought for a moment, and tried not to feel sorry for myself. Love and and the rest of it, the things that only a mother provide… For the first time in his life I could finally see that those things were no use to him anyway. The point of me was exactly the same as the point of the people in the care home. I robably still better at it than they were, because of the practice Id had. But I could have taught them all theyd o know in a couple of weeks.
What that meant was that when I died, Matty would be fine. And what that meant was the thing Id been most afraid of, ever since he was born, wasnt frightening in the least. And I didnt know whether I wao kill myself more or less, knowing that. I didnt know whether my whole life had been a waste of time or not.
I went downstairs, and I saw Jess in the lobby.
Martins checked out of the hotel,bbr>?</abbr> she said.
And I smiled at her politely, but I didnt stop, and I kept walking. I didnt care that Martin had checked out of the hotel. If I hadnt made the telephone call I would have cared, because he was in charge of our money.
But if hed gone off with the money, it wouldnt matter much, would it? Id stay there, or not, and Id eat, or not, and Id drink, or not, and go home, or not, and what I did or didnt do wouldnt matter to a all. And I walked for most of the day. Do people get sad on holiday sometimes? I imagihey do, having all that time to think.
For the rest of the week, I tried to keep out of everybodys way. Martin was gone anyway, and JJ dido mind. Jess didnt like it much, and once or twice she tried to make me eat with her, or sit on the beach with her. But I just smiled and said, No thank you. I didnt say, But youre always so rude to me! Why do you want to talk to me now?
I borrowed a book from the little bookcase iion, a silly oh a bright pink cover called Paws for Beth about a single girl whose cat turns into a handsome young fella. And the young fella wants to marry her, but shes not sure because hes a cat, so she takes a while to decide. And sometimes I read that, and sometimes I slept. Ive always been fine on my own.
And the day before we flew home I went to Mass, for the first time in a month or so. There was a lovely old chur the town - muicer than ours at home, which is modern and square. (Ive often wondered whether God would even have found ours, but I suppose He must have done by now.) It was easier than I thought it would be to walk in and sit down, but thats mostly because I didnt know anybody there. But after that everything seemed a little harder, because the people seemed sn, and I didnt know where we were very often because of the language.
I got used to it, though. It was like walking into a dark room - and it was dark in there, much darker than ours. After a little while, I started to be able to see things, and what I could see were people from home. Not the actual people, of course, but the Tenerife versions. There was a woman like Bri<q></q>dgid, who knew everyone a looking down the pews and smiling and nodding. And there was a fella who was a little unsteady on his feet, even at that time of day, and that at.
And then I saw me. She was my age, on her own, and she had a grown-up son in a wheelchair who didnt know what day it was, and for a little while I stared at them, and the woman caught me staring and she obviously thought I was being rude. But it seemed se, such a ce, until I thought about it. And what I thought was, you could probably go into any churywhere in the world and see a middle-aged woman, no husband in sight, pushing a young lad in a wheelchair. It was one of the reasons churches were ied, probably.
MARTIN I have never been a particularly introspective man, and I say this unapologetically. One could argue that most of the trouble in the world is caused by introspe. Im not thinking of things like war, famine, disease or violent crime - not that sort of trouble. Im thinking more of things like annoying neer ns, tearful chat-show guests and so on. I ow see, however, that its hard to prevent introspe when one has nothing to do but sit around and think about oneself. You could try thinking about other people, I suppose, but the other people I tried to think about teo be people I knew, and thinking about people I knew just brought me right back to where I didnt want to be.
So in some ways it was a mistake, cheg out of the hotel and going off on my own, because even though Jess irritated the hell out of me, and Maureen depressed me, they occupied a part of me that should never be left ued and unfurnished. It wasnt just that, either: they also made me feel relatively aplished. Id dohings, and because Id dohings, there ossibility that I might do other things. Theyd dohing at all, and it was not difficult to imagihat they would tio do nothing at all, and they made me look and feel like a world leader who runs a multinational pany in the evenings and a scout troop at weekends.
I moved into a room that was more or less identical to the one Id been staying in, except I treated myself to a sea view and a baly. And I sat on the baly for two solid days, staring at the sea view and being introspective. I t say that I articularly iive in my introspe; the clusions I drew on the first day were that Id made a pigs ear of just about everything, and that Id be better off dead, and if I died no one would miss me or feel bad about my death. And then I got drunk.
The sed day was only very slightly more structive; having reached the clusion the previous evening that no one would miss me if I died, I realized belatedly that most of my woes were someone elses fault: I was estranged from my children because of dy, and dy was also responsible for the end of my marriage. I made one mistake! OK, nine mistakes. Nine mistakes out of say a hundred opportunities! I got per t and I still failed the test! I was imprisoned a) due to entrapment, and b) because societys attitudes to teenage sexuality are outmoded. I lost my job because of the hypocrisy and disloyalty of my bosses. So at the end of the sed day, I wao kill other people, rather than kill myself, and thats got to be healthier, surely?
Jess found me ohird day. I was sitting in a cafe reading a two-day-old Daily Express and drinking cafe leche, and she sat down opposite me.
Anything about us in there? she said.
I expect so, I said. But Ive only read the sport and the horoscopes so far. Havent looked at the front page yet.
Fun-nee. I sit with you? No.
She sat down anyway.
Whats all this about, then? All what? This… big sulk.
You think Im sulking? What would you call it, then? Im sick to death of you.
What have we done? Not you plural. You singular. Toi, not vous.
Because of the ht? Yes, because of the ht.
You just didnt like me saying you were my dad, did you? Youre old enough to be.
Im aware of that.
Yeah. So get over it. Take a chill pill.
Im over it. Ive taken one.
Looks like it.
Jess, Im not sulking. You think I moved out of a hotel because you said I was your father? I would.
Because you hate him? Or because youd be ashamed of your daughter? Both.
This is what happens with Jess. Whehinks youre withdrawing, she pretends to be thoughtful (and by thoughtful, I mean self-loathing, whie is the only possible oute of any prolohought on her part). I decided I wasnt going to be taken in.
Im not going to be taken i lost.
What have I done now? Fug hell.
Youre pretending to be a remorseful human being.
What does "remorseful" mean? It means youre sorry.
For what? Go away.
For what? Jess, I want a holiday. Most of all, I want a holiday from you.
So you wao get pissed up and take drugs.
Yes. I want that very much.
Yeah, right. And if I do Ill get a bollog.
Nope. No bollog. Just go away.
Im bored.
So go and find JJ or Maureen.
Theyre b.
And Im not? Which celebrities have you met? Have you met Eminem? No.
You have, but you wont tell me.
Oh, for Christs sake.
I left some money oable, got up and walked out. Jess followed me dowreet. What about a game of pool? No.
Sex? No.
You dont fancy me? No, Some men do.
Have sex with them, then. Jess, Im sorry to say it, but I think our relationship is over.
Not if I just follow you around all day it isnt.
And you think that would work in the long term? I dont care about the long term. What about what my dad said about looking out for me? And Id have thought youd want to. I could replace the daughters youve lost. And that way you could find inner peace, see? There are loads of films like that.
She offered this last observation matter-of-factly, as if it were somehow indicative of the truth of the sario shed imagined, rather than the opposite.
What about the sex you were ? How would that fit in with you replag the daughters Ive lost? This would be a different, you know, thing. Route. A different way to go.
We passed a ghastly looking bar called New York City.
Thats where I g<s>藏书网</s>ot thrown out fhting, said Jess proudly. Theyll kill me if I try to go in again.
As if to illustrate the point, a grizzled-looking owner was standing in the doorway with a murderous look on his face.
I need a pee. Dont go anywhere.
I walked into New York City, found a lavatory somewhere in the Lower East Side, put the TV pages of the Express over the seat, sat down and bolted the door. For the hour or two I could hear her yelling at me through the wall, but eventually the yelling stopped; I presumed shed gone, but I stayed in there anyway, just in case. It was eleven in the m when I bolted the door, and three iernoon when I came out. I did the time. It was that sort of holiday.
JJ The last band I was in broke up after a show at the Hope and Anchor in Islington, just a few blocks from where my apartment is now. We kneere breaking up before we went on stage, but we hadnt talked about it.
Wed played in Maer the night before, to a very small crowd, and on the way down to London wed all been a little snappy, but mostly just morose and quiet. It felt exactly the same as when you break up with a woman you love - the sick feeling iomach, the knowledge that nothing you say will make any fug difference - or, if it does, it wont make any difference for any lohan like five minutes. Its weirder with a band, because you kind of know that you wont lose touch with the people the way you lose touch with a girlfriend. I could have sat in a bar with all three of them the night without arguing, but the band would still have ceased to exist. It was more than the four of us; it was a house, and we were the people in it, and wed sold it, so it wasnt ours any more. Im talkiaphorically here, obviously, because no one would have given us a fug dime for it.
Anyway, after the show at the Hope and Anchor - and the show had an unhappy iy to it, like a desperate break-up fuck - we walked into this shitty little dressing room, and sat down in a line, and then Eddie said, That feels like it. And he did this thing that was so unlike him, so not just like Eddie: he reached out either side, and took my hand and Jesses hand, and squeezed. And Jesse took Billys hand, just so that wed all be joined for one last time, and Billy said, Fuck you, queer boy, and stood up real quick, which kind of tells you all you o know about drummers.
I had only known my holiday panions for a few weeks, but there was the same kind of sick feeling on the way from the hotel to the airport.
There was a break-up ing, you could smell it, and no one was saying anything. And it was for the same reason, which was that wed taken things as far as we could, and there was nowhere for us to go. Thats why everyone breaks up, I guess, bands, friends, marriages, whatever. Parties, weddings, anything.
Its funny, but when the band split, one of the reasons I felt sick was because I was worried about the uys. What the fuck were they going to do, you know? None of us were over-qualified. Billy wasnt real big on reading and writing, if you hear what Im saying, and Eddie was too, like, pugilistic to hold down a job for long, and Jesse liked his spliff… The one person I had no real s about was me. I was going to be OK. I was smart, and stable, and I had a girlfriend, even though I knew Id miss making music every fug day of my life, I could still be something and someohout it. So what happens? A few weeks later, Billy and Jesse get a gig with a band bae whose rhythm se had walked out on them, Eddie goes to work for his dad, and Im delivering pizzas and nearly jumping off a fug roof.
So this time around, I was determined not to fret about my fellow band members. Theyd be OK, I told myself. It didnt look that way, maybe, but theyd survived so far, just about, and it wasnt my problem anyway.
Iaxi to the airport we talked some about what wed done, and what wed read, and the first thing we were going to do whe home, and shit like that, and on the plane we all dozed, because it was an early flight. And the the tube from Heathrow to Kings Cross, and took a bus from there. It was on the bus that we started that maybe we wouldnt be hanging out so much.
Why not? said Jess.
Because we have nothing in on, said Martin. The holiday proved that.
I thought it went OK.
Martin snorted. We didnt speak to each other.
You were hiding in a toilet most of the time, said Jess.
And why was that, do you think? Because were soul mates? Or because ours is not one of my most fulfilliionships? Yeah, and what is your most fulfilliionship? Whats yours? Jess thought for a moment, and then shrugged.
With you lot, she said.
There was a silehat was long enough for us to see the truth of Jesss observation as it applied to her. And luckily for us, Martin spoke up just as we were starting to see how it might possibly apply to us too.
Yes. Well. It shouldnt be, shouldnt it? Are you givihe push? If you want to put it like that. Jess, we got through the holiday. And now its time to go our separate ways.
What about Valentines Day? We meet on Valentines Day, if you want. We said wed do that.
Up on the roof? Do you still think you might throw yourself off ? I dunno. It ges day by day.
Id like to meet up, said Maureen.
I suppose Valentines must be a pretty important day for you, Maureen, said Jess. She said it as if she were making versation, but Maureen reized the disguised nastiness and didnt bother to respond. Just about everything Jess said could be bounced right back at her, but none of us had the energy any more. We looked out the window at the traffi the rain, and at Angel I said goodbye and got off. As I watched the bus drive away, I could see Maureen offer the others, even Jess, her packet of Polo mints, and the gesture seemed kind of heartbreaking.
For the week I did nothing, pretty much. I read a lot, and wandered around Islington to see if there was any sign of a bad job for me. One night I blew ten pounds on a ticket for a band called Fat ce, who were playing in the Union Chapel. They started up around the same time as us, and now they had a det deal, and there was a buzz about them, but they were lame, in my opinion. They stood there and played their songs, and people clapped, and there was an encore, and then we left, and I wouldnt say any of us was richer for the experience.
I was reized on the way out, by a guy who must have been in his forties.
All right, JJ? he said. Do I know you? I saw you at the Hope and Anchor last year. I heard the band had split.
You living here? Yeah, for now.
What you doing? You gone solo? Yeah, thats right.
Cool We met at eight in the evening on Valentines Day, and everyone was on time. Jess wao meet later, like at midnight or something, for full tragic effect, but no one else thought it was such a good idea, and Maureen didnt want to travel home so late. I ran into her oairs on the , and told her I was glad to hear she was thinking about travelling home afterwards.
Where else would I go? No, I just meant… Last time you werent gonna go home, you know?
Not, like, on the bus, anyway.
On the bus? Last time, you were going to get off the roof the quick way. I walked my fihrough the air and then pluhem downwards, as if they were jumping off the roof. But tonight, it sounds as though youll be taking the long way down.
Oh. Yes. Well. Ive e on a bit, she said. In my head, I mean.
Thats great.
Im still feeling the be of the holiday, I think.
Right on.
And then she didnt want to talk any more, because it was a long , and she was short of breath.
Martin and Jess arrived a couple of minutes later, and we said hello, and then we all stood there.
What was the point of this, actually? said Martin.
We were going to meet up and see hoere all feeling and all that, said Jess.
Ah. We shuffled our feet. And how are we all feeling? Maureens doing good, I said. Arent you, Maureen? I am. I was saying to JJ, I think Im still feeling the be of the holiday.
Which holiday? The holiday we just had? He looked at her and then shook his head, with a mixture of amazement and admiration.
How about you, Mart? I said. How you doing? But I could kind of tell what the ao that question was going to be.
Oh, you know. e e ca, Tosser, said Jess.
We shuffled our feet some more.
I read something I thought might i you all, Martin said.
Yeah? I was w… Maybe it would be good to talk about it
Sounds good to me, I said. I mean, maybe we should celebrate anyway, you know? Celebrate? said Martin, like I was nuts.
Yeah. I mean, were alive, and, and… The list kind of ran out after that. But being alive seemed worth the price of a round of drinks. Being alive seemed worth celebrating. Unless, of course, it wasnt what you wanted, in which case… Oh, fuck it. I wanted a drink anyway. If we couldnt think of anything else, then me wanting a drink was worth celebrating. An ordinary human desire had emerged through the fog of depression and indecision.
Maureen? Yes, I dont mind.
It doesnt look to me like anyones going to jump, I said. Not tonight.
Is that right? Jess? She wasnt listening.
Fuck me, she said. Jesus Christ.
She was staring at the er of the roof, the spot where Martin had she wire on New Years Eve. There was a guy sitting there, exactly where Martin had sat, and he was watg us. He was maybe a few years older than me, and he looked real frightened.
Hey, man, I said quietly. Hey. Just stay there.
I started to walk slowly over to him.
Please dont e any closer, he said. He anicky, ears, dragging furiously on a smoke.
Weve all been there, I said. e on back over and you join ang. This is our reunion. I tried another couple of steps. He didnt say anything.
Yeah, said Jess. Look at us. Were OK. You think youre never going to get through the evening, but you do.
I dont want to, said the guy.
Tell us what the problem is, I said. I walked a little closer. I mean, were all fug experts in the field. Maureen here...
But I never got any further. He flipped the cigarette over the edge, and then with a little moan he pushed himself off. And there was silence, and then there was the noise of his body hitting the crete all those floors below. And those two he moan and the thud, Ive heard every single day since, and I still dont know which is scarier.
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