Part 3-1
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<strong>MARTIN</strong>The guy who jumped had two profound and apparently tradictory effects on us all. Firstly, he made us realize that we werent capable of killing ourselves. And sedly, this information made us suicidal again.
That isnt a paradox, if you know anything about the perversity of human nature. A long time ago, I worked with an alcoholieone who must remain nameless because you will almost certainly have heard of him.
Aold me that the first time he failed on an attempt to quit the booze was the most terrifying day of his life. Hed always thought that he could stop drinking, if he ever got round to it, so he had a choice stashed away in a sock drawer somewhere at the back of his head. But when he found out that he had to drink, that the choice had never really been there… Well, he wao do away with himself, if I may temporarily fuse our issues.
I didnt properly uand what he meant until I saw that guy jump off the roof. Up until then, jumping had always been an option, a way out, money in the bank for a rainy day. And then suddenly the money was gone - or rather, it had never been ours in the first place. It beloo the guy who jumped, and people like him, because dangling ys over the precipice is nothing unless youre prepared to go that extra two inches, and none of us had been. We could tell each other and ourselves so.hing different - oh, I would have do if she hadhere or he hadhere or if someone hadnt sat on my head - but the fact of the matter was that we were all still around, and wed all had ample opportunity not to be. Why had we e down that night? Wed e down because we thought we should go and look for some twit called Chas, who turned out not to be terribly germao our story. Im not sure we could have persuaded old matey, the jumper, to go and look for Chas. He had other things on his mind. I wonder how he would have scored on Aaron T. Becks Suicide I Scale? Pretty high, I should think, unless Aaron T. Beck has been barking up the wrong tree. No one could say the i wasnt there.
We got off that roof sharpish once hed gone over. We decided it was best not to hang around and explain our role, or lack of it, in the poor chaps demise. We had a little Toppers previous, after all, and by owning up, wed only be fusing the issue. If people knew wed been up there, then the clarity of the story - unhappy man jumps off of building - would be diminished, and people would uand less of it, rather than more. We wouldnt want that.
So we charged dowairs as fast as damaged lungs and varicosed legs would let us, a our separate ways. We were too nervous to go for a drink in the immediate viity, and too nervous to travel in a taxi together, so we scattered the moment we reached the pavement. (What, I wondered on the way home, was the pub to Toppers House like of an evening? Was it full of unhappy people on their , or half-fused, half-relieved people whod just e down? Or an awkward mix of the two? Does the landlhe uniqueness of his tele?
Does he exploit their mood for financial gain - by a Miserable Hour, for example? Does he ever try to get the Uppers - in this text the very unhappy people - to mix with the Downers? Or the Uppers to mix with each other? Has there ever been a relationship born there? Could the pub even have been responsible for a wedding, and thus maybe a child?) We met again the following afternoon in Starbucks, and everyone had the blues. A fereviously, in the immediate aftermath of the holiday, it had been perfectly clear that we no longer had much use for each other; now, it was hard to imagine who else would be suitable pany. I looked around the cafe at the other ers: young mothers with prams, young men and women in suits with mobile phones and pieces of paper, fn students… I tried to imagialking to any of them, but it was impossible. They wouldnt want to hear about people jumping off tower-blocks. No one would, apart from the people I was sitting with.
I all fug night thinking about that guy, said JJ. Man. What was going on there? He robably just, you know. A drama queen. A male drama queen.
A drama king, said Jess. He looked the sort.
Thats very shrewd, Jess, I said. In the brief glimpse we got of him before he pluo his death, he didnt strike me as someoh serious problems. Nothing on your scale, anyway.
Itll be in the local paper, said Maureen. They usually are. I used to read the reports. Especially when it was ing up to New Years Eve. I used to pare myself with them.
And? How did you get on? Oh, said Maureen. I did OK. Some of them I couldnt uand.
What sort of things? Money.
I owe loads of people money, said Jess proudly.
Perhaps you should think of killing yourself, I said.
Its not much, said Jess. Only twenty quid here and twenty quid there.
Even so. A debts a debt. And if you t pay… Maybe you should take the honourable way out.
Hey. Guys, JJ said. Lets keep some focus, huh? On what? Isnt that the problem? Nothing to focus os focus on that guy.
We dont know anything about him.
No, but, I dont know. He seems kind of important to me. That was what we were gonna do.
Were we? I was, said Jess.
But you didnt.
You sat on my head.
But you havent done anything about it since.
Well. We went to that party. And we went on holiday. And, you know.
Theres beehing after another.
Terrible, isnt it, how that happens? Youll have to block out some time in your diary. Otherwise life will keep getting in the way.
Shut up.
Guys, guys… I had, once again, allowed myself to be drawn into an undignified spat with Jess. I decided to a a more statesmanlike manner.
Like JJ, I have spent a long night cogitating, I said.
Tosser.
And my clusion is that we are not serious people. We were never serious. We got closer than some, but nowhere near as close as others. And that puts us in something of a bind.
I agree. Were fucked, said JJ. Sorry, Maureen.
Im missing something, said Jess.
This is it, I said. This is us.
What is? This. I gestured vaguely at our surroundings, the pany we were keeping, the rain outside, all of which seemed to speak eloquently of our current dition. This is it. Theres no way out. Not even the way out is the way out. Not for us.
Fuck that, said Jess. And Im not sorry, Maureen.
The ht, I was going to tell you about something Id read in a magazine. About suicide. Do you remember? Anyway, this guy reed that the crisis period lasts y days.
What guy? JJ asked.
This suicidologist guy.
Thats a job? Everythings a job.
So what? said Jess.
So weve had forty-six of the y days.
And what happens after the y days? Nothing happens, I said. Just… things are different. Things ge.
The exact arra of stuff that made you think your life was unbearable… Its got shifted around somehow. Its like a sort of real-life version of astrology.
Nothings going to ge for you, said Jess. Youre still going to be the geezer off the telly who slept with the fifteen-year-old ao prison. No one will ever fet that.
Yes. Well. Im sure the y days thing wont apply in my case, I said. If that makes you happier.
Wont help Maureeher, said Jess. Or JJ. I might ge, though. I do, quite a lot.
My point, anyway, is that we extend our deadline again. Because… Well, I dont know about you lot. But I realized this m that Im not, you know, ready to go solo just yet. Its funny, because I dont actually like any of you very much. But you seem to be, I dont know… What I need.
You know how sometimes you know you should be eating more cabbage?
Or drinking more water? Its like that.
There was a general shuffling of feet, which I interpreted as a declaration of relut solidarity.
Thanks, man, said JJ. Very toug. Whens the y days up? March st.
Thats a bit of a ce, isnt it? said Jess. Exactly three months.
Whats your point? Well. Its not stific, is it? What, ay-eight days would be? More stific, yeah.
No, I get it, said JJ. Three months sounds abht. Three months is like a season.
Very much like, I agreed. Given there are four seasons, and twelve months in a year.
So were seeing the wihrough together. Thats cool. Winter is when you<bdi></bdi> get the blues, JJ said.
So it would appear, I said.
But we gotta do something, said JJ. We t just sit around waiting for three months to be up.
Typical Ameri, said Jess. What do you want to do? Bomb some poor little try somewhere? Sure. It would take my mind off things, some bombing.
What should we do? I asked him.
I dont know, man. I just know that if we spend six weeks pissing and moaning, then were not helping ourselves.
Jess is right, I said. Typical bloody Ameri. "Helping ourselves." Self-help. You do anything if you put your mind to it, right? You could be President.
What is it with you assholes? Im not talking about being President.
Im talking about, like, finding a job waiting tables.
Great, said Jess. Lets all not kill ourselves because someone gave us a fifty peip.
No fug ce of that in this fug try, said JJ. Sorry, Maureen.
You could always just go back where you came from, said Jess. That would ge something. Also, your buildings are higher, arent they? So, I said. Forty-four days to go.
There was something else iicle I read: an interview with a man whod survived after jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
He said that two seds after jumping, he realized that there was nothing in his life he couldnt deal with, no problem he couldnt solve - apart from the problem hed just given himself by jumping off the bridge. I dont know why I didhe others about that; youd think it might be relevant information. I wao keep it to myself for the time being, though. It seemed like something that might be more appropriate later, wheory was over. If it ever was.
MAUREEN It was in the local paper, the following week. I cut the story out, a it, and I read it every so often, just to try to uand the poor maer. I couldnt keep him out of my head. He was called David Fawley, and hed jumped because of problems with his wife and children. Shed met someone else, and moved away to be with him, and taken the kiddies with her. He only lived two streets away, which seemed very strao me, a ce, until I realized that people in my local paper always lived locally, unless someone had visited to open a school or something. Glenda Ja came to Mattys school once, for example.
<strong>Martin</strong>
was right. When I saw David Fawley jump, it made me see that I hadnt been ready on New Years Eve. Id been ready to make the preparations, because it gave me something to do - New Years Eve was something to look forward to, in a strange sort of way. And when Id met some people to talk to, then I was happy to talk, instead of jump. Theyd have let me jump, I think, once Id told them why I there. They wouldnt have got in my way, or sat on my head. But even so, Id gone dowairs and on to the party. This poor David hadnt wao talk to us, that was the thing Id noticed. Hed e to jump, not to natter. I thought Id goo jump, but I ended up nattering anyway.
If you thought about it, this David fella and me, we were opposites.
Hed killed himself because his children were gone, and Id thought about it because my son was still around. There must be a lot of that goes on. There must be people who kill themselves because their marriage is over, and others who kill themselves because they t see a way out of the oheyre in. I wondered whether you could do that with everyone, whether every unhappy situation had an unhappy opposite situation. I could with the people who had debts, though. No one ever killed himself because he had too much mohose sheikhs with the oil doo it suicide very often. Or if they do, no one ever talks about it. Anyerhaps there was something in this opposites idea. I had someone, and David had no one, and hed jumped and I hadnt. When it es to itting suicide, nobody beats somebody, if you see what I mean.
Theres no rope holding you back.
I prayed for Davids soul, even though I k wouldnt do him any good, because he had itted the sin of despair, and my prayers would fall on deaf ears. And then after Matty had goo sleep, I left him alone for five minutes and walked down the road to see where David had lived. I dont know why I did that, or what I hoped to see, but there was nothing there, of course. It was one of these streets full of big houses that have been turned into flats, so thats what I found out, that he lived in a flat. And then it was time to turn around and go home.
That evening, I watched a programme oelevision about a Scottish detective who does on with his ex-wife very well, so I thought about David some more, because I dont suppose he got on very well with his ex-wife either. And Im not sure this was the point of the programme, but there wasnt mu in it for lots uments between the Scottish detective and his ex-wife, because most of the time he had to find out whod killed this woman a her body outside her ex-husbands house to make it look as though hed killed her. (This was a different ex-husband.) So in an hour-long programme, there were probably only ten minutes of him arguing with his ex-wife, and his children, and fifty minutes of him trying to find whod put the womans body in the dustbin. Forty minutes, I suppose, if you took out the advertisements. I noticed because I was a bit more ied in the arguments than I was in the body, and the arguments dido e around very often.
And that seemed abht to me, ten minutes an hour. It robably abht for the programme, because he was a detective, and it was more important for him and for the viewers that he spent the biggest k of his time on solving the murders. But I think even if youre not in a TV programme, then ten minutes an hour is abht for your problems.
This David Fawley was unemployed, so there was a fair old ce that he spent sixty minutes an hour thinking about his ex-wife, and his children, and when you do that, youre bound to end up on the roof of Toppers House.
I should know. I dont have arguments, but there have been lots of times in my life when I couldnt stop Matty being sixty minutes an hour.
There was nothing else to think about. Id had more on my mily, because of the others, and the things that have happened in their lives. But most of the time, on most days, it was just me and my son, and that meant trouble.
Anyway, that evening there was a whole jumble of thoughts. I lay in bed half-asleep, thinking about David, and the Scottish detective, and ing down off the roof to find Chas aually I got these thoughts unknotted, and when I woke up in the m I decided it would be a good idea to find out where Martins wife and children lived, and then go and talk to them all and see if there was any ce of getting the family back together. Because if that worked, then Martin would so eaten up about some things, and hed have somebody rather than nobody, and Id have something to do for forty or fifty minutes an hour, and it would help everybody.
But I eless detective. I knew Martins wifes name was dy, so I looked dy Sharp up in the phone book, and she wasnt there, and I ran out of ideas after that. So I asked Jess, because I didnt think JJ would approve of my plan, and she found all the information we needed in about five minutes, on a puter. But then she wao e with me to see dy, and I said she could. I know, I know. But you try telling her she t have something she wants.
<strong>JESS</strong>
I got on Dads puter, and put dy Sharp into Google, and I found an interview shed given to some womans magazine when Martin had goo prison. dy Sharp talks for the first time about her heartbreak and all that. You could even cli a picture of her awo girls. dy looked like Penny, except older and a bit fatter, because of having had kids and that. And whats the betting that Penny looked like the fifteen-year-old, except that the fifteen-year-old was even slimmer than Penny, and had bigger tits or whatever? Theyre tossers, arent they, men like Martin? They think women are like fug laptops or whatever, like, My old ones knackered and anyway, you get ohat are slimmer and do more stuff now.
So I read the interview, and it said she lived in this village called Torley Heath, about forty miles outside London. And if she was trying to stop people like us from knog on the door to tell her to get back with her husband, then she made a big mistake, because the interviewer described exactly where her house is in the village - opposite an old-fashioned er shop, door but oo the village school. She told us all this because she wanted us to know how idealistic or whatever dys life is. Apart from her ex-husband being in prison for sleeping with a fifteen-year-old.
We decided not to tell JJ. We were pretty sure hed stop us for some bullshit reason or another. Hed say, Its none of your business, or, Youll fuck up the last ce hes got. But we thought we had a strong argument, Maureen and I. ument was this. Maybe dy did hate Martin because he was a real playa who went anywhere with anyone. But now he was suicidal, and he probably wouldnt go anywhere with anyone, or at least not for a while. So basically, if she wouldnt take him back, she had to hate him enough to want him to die. And thats a lot of hate. True, he hadnt ever said he wao get back with her, but he o be in a secure domestiviro, in a place like Torley Heath. It was better to do nothing in a place where there was nothing to do than in London, where there was trouble - teenage girls and nightclubs and tower-blocks. Thats what we felt.
So we had a day out. Maureen made horrible like old-fashioned sandwiches with egg and stuff in them, which I could. A the tube to Paddington, therain to Newbury, and then a bus to Torley Heath. Id been worried that Maureen and I wouldnt have much to say to each other, and wed get really bored, and Id end up doing something stupid, because of the boredom. But it really wasnt like that, mostly because of me, and the effort I put in. I decided that I was going to be like an interviewer type-person, and Id spend the journey finding out about Maureens life, no matter how b or depressing it was. The only trouble was that it was actually to and depressing to listen to, so I sort of switched off when she was talking, and thought up the question. A couple of times she looked at me funny, so Im guessing that quite often she had just told me something and then I asked her about it again. Like once, I tuned ba to hear her go, something something somethi Frank. So I went, When did you meet Frank, but I think what shed just said was, That was when I met Frank. So Id have to work on that, if I was ever to be an interviewer. But lets face it, I woulderviewing people who did nothing and had a disabled son, would I? So it would be easier to trate, because theyd be talking about their new films and other stuff youd actually want to know about.
Anyway, the point was that we went through a whole jouro the middle of fug nowhere without me asking her whether she had sex doggy style or anything like that. And what I realized then was that Id e a long way sinew Years Eve. Id grown as a person. And that made me think that our story was sort of ing to an end, and it was going to be a happy ending. Because Id grown as a person, and also we were in this period where we were s out each others problems. We werent just sitting around moping. Thats when stories end, isnt it? When people show theyve learhings, and problems get solved. Ive seen loads of films like that. Wed sort out Martin today, and then turn our minds to JJ, and then me, and then Maureen. And wed meet on the roof after y days, and smile, and hug, and know that we had moved on.
The bus stop was right outside the village shop that the article in the magazine had gone on about. So we got off the bus and stood outside the shop and looked across the road to see what we could see. What we saw was this little cottagey sort of place with a low wall, and you could look into the garden, and in the garden there were two little girls all ed up in hats and scarves and they were playing with a dog. So I went to Maureen, Do you know the names of Martins kids? And she was like, Yes, theyre called Polly and Maisie - which seemed abht, I thought. I could imagine Martin and dy having kids called Polly and Maisie, which are sort of old-fashioned posh names, so everyone could pretend that Mr Darcy or whatever lived door. So I shouted, Oo-o, Polly! Maisie! And they looked at us and came towards us, and that was my detective work over.
We knocked on the door and dy answered, and she looked at me as if she half-reized me, and I was like, Im Jess. Im one of the Toppers House Four, and I was, you know, lio your husband or whatever in the neers. Which was a lie, by the way. (That was me telli was a lie, not me telling you. I really wish I knew where speech marks or whatever went. I see the point of them now.) And she said, Ex-husband, which was sort of an unfriendly and unhelpful start.
And I went, Well, thats the thing, isnt it?
And she went, Is it?
And I went, Yes, it is. Because he doesnt have to be your ex-husband.
And she went, Oh, yes he does.
And we hadnt even gohrough the front door.
At that point Maureen goes, Do you think we could e in and talk to you? Im Maureen. Im also a friend of Martins. Weve e down from London orain.
And the bus, I said. I just wanted her to know wed made an effort.
And dy said, Im sorry, e in. Not Im sorry, fuck off home, which is what I thought she was going to say. She ologizing for her bad manners in making us stand out on the doorstep. So I was like, Oh, this is going to be easy. In ten minutes Ill have bullied her into taking him back.
So we walk into the cottage, and its cosy in there, but not all like out of a magazine, which I thought it would be. The furniture didnt really match, and it was old, and it smelled of the dog a bit. She showed us through to the sitting room and there was this geezer in there sitting by the fire. He was nice-looking, youhan her, and I thought, Oh-oh, hes got his feet uhe table. Because he was listening to a Walkman with his shoes off, and you dont listen to a Walkman with your shoes off in someones house if youre just visiting, do you?
dy went up to him and tapped him on the shoulder and said, Weve got visitors, and he was like, Oh, Im sorry. I was listening to Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter. The children love it, so I thought I should give it a whirl. Have you heard it? So I was like, Yeah, do I look nine years old to you? And he didnt know what to say to that. He took the headphones off and pressed a button on the mae.
And dy said, Its Pauls dog that the girls are playing with. And I was like, Yeah, so? But I didnt say that.
dy told him that we were friends of Martins, and he asked whether she wanted him to leave, and she said, No, of course not, whatever theyve e to say I want you to hear. So I said, Well, weve e to tell dy she should get back with Martin, so you might not want to hear that. And he didnt know what to say to that either.
Maureen looked at me, and then she goes, Were worried about him.
And dy said, Yes, well, I t say Im surprised. And Maureen tells her about the bloke who topped himself, and how it was because of how his wife and kids had left him, and dy said, You know Marti us? We didnt leave him? And I was like, Yeah, thats why weve e. Because if youd left him, this whole trip would have been a waste of time. But, you know. Weve e dowo tell you hes ged his mind, sort of thing. And Maureen said, I think he knows that was a mistake. And dy goes, I had no doubt hed realize it in the long term, and I also had no doubt that by the time he did it would be too late. And I went, Its oo late to learn. And she went, It is for him. And I said I thought she owed him another ce, and she sort of smiled and said she disagreed and I said I disagreed with her disagreeing and she said we must agree to disagree. And I was like, So you want him to die, then?
And then she went a bit quiet, and I thought Id got her. But then she goes, I thought about killing myself too, when things were really bad, a while ago. But I didnt have the option, because of the girls. And its indicative of the way things are that he does have the option. Hes not part of a family. He hated being part of a family.
And thats when I decided it was his business. If he had the freedom to fuck around, then he had the freedom to kill himself, tobbr>..</abbr>o. Dont you think?
And I went, Well I see why you say that. Which was a mistake, because it didnt help my argument.
dy said, Did he tell you I would him see the girls?
And Maureen said, Yes, he did mention that. And dy went, Well, thats not true. I just wo him see them here. He could take them for weekends in London, but he wont. Or he says he will, but then he makes excuses. He doesnt want to be that sort of dad, you see. Its too much effort. He wants to e home from work, read them a story some nights but not every night, and go to see them in the Christmas play. He doesnt want all the other stuff. And then she was like, I dont know why Im telling you this. And I went, Hes a bit of a tosser, really, isnt he? And she laughed. Hes made a lot of mistakes, she said. And he tio make them.
And that Paul bloke goes, If he were a puter, youd have to say that theres a programming fault, so I was like, Whats it got to do with you?
And dy said, Listen, Ive been very patient with you up until now. Twers knoy door and tell me to get back together with my ex-husband, a man who nearly destroyed me, and I ihem in and actually listen to them. But Paul is my partner, and part of my family, and a wonderful stepfather to the girls. And thats what its got to do with him.
And then Paul stood up and said, I think Ill take Harry Potter upstairs, and he nearly tripped over my feet, and dy dived over and was like, Careful, darling, and then I worked out he was blind. Blind! Fug hell! Thats why he had a dog. Thats why she was trying to tell me he had a dog (because I was giving it all that stuff, like, Do I look nine years old oh God oh God). So wed gone all the way dowo tell dy she had to leave a blind man a back together with a man who shagged fifteen-year-olds and treated he<u>..</u>r like shit. It shouldnt really have made any differehough, should it? Theyre always going on about how they want to be treated the same as everyone else. So Ill leave the blind thing out of it. Ill just say that we went all the way dowo tell dy she had to leave an OK bloke who was good to her and her kids, a back with an arsehole. And that still didnt sound great.
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