A Long Way Down (34 page)

‘Thanks, man.’

‘You’re welcome. I just tell it like I see it.’

He was smiling and I was smiling, and we were just talking to each other the way we’ve always talked to each other about anything that’s gone wrong in our lives; it just sounded a little meaner than usual, I guess. Back in the day he’d be telling me that the girl who’d just broken my heart preferred him anyway, or I’d be telling him that the song he’d just spent months working on was a piece of shit, but the stakes were higher now. He was right, though, probably more right than he’d ever been. There would be no waste involved. The trick is to see that you’re still entitled to your three-score years and ten anyway.

Busking isn’t so bad. OK, it’s bad, but it’s not terrible. Well, OK, it’s terrible, but it’s not… I’ll come back and finish that sentence with something both life-affirming and true another time. First day out it felt fucking great, because I hadn’t held a guitar in so long, and second day out was pretty good, too, because the rustiness had gone a little, and I could feel stuff coming back, chords and songs and confidence. After that, I guess it felt like busking, and busking felt better than delivering pizzas.

And people do put money on the blanket. I got about ten pounds for playing ‘Losing My Religion’ to a whole crowd of Spanish kids outside Madame Tussauds, and only a little less from a bunch of Swedes or whatever the next day (‘William, It Was Really Nothing’, Tate Modern). If I could only kill this one guy, then busking would be the best job I could hope to find. Or at least, it would be the best job that involved playing guitar on a sidewalk, anyway. This guy calls himself Jerry Lee Pavement, and his thing is that he sets up right next to you, and plays exactly the same song as you, but like two bars later. So I start playing ‘Losing My Religion’, and he starts playing ‘Losing My Religion’, and I stop, because it sounds terrible, and then he stops, and then everyone laughs, because it’s so fucking funny ha ha ha, and so you move to a different spot, and he moves right along with you. And it doesn’t matter what song you play, which I have to admit is kind of impressive. I thought I’d throw him off with ‘Skyway’ by the Replacements, which I worked simply to piss him off, and which maybe nineteen people in the world know, but he had it down. Oh, and everyone throws their coins at
him, because he’s the genius, obviously, not me. I took a pop at him once, in Leicester Square, and everyone started booing me, because they all love him.

But I guess everyone has someone at work that they don’t get along with. And if you’re short on walking metaphors for the stupidity and futility of your working life – and I appreciate that not everyone is – then you have to admit that Jerry Lee Pavement is pretty hard to beat.

We met in the pub opposite Toppers’ House for our Ninetieth Day party. The idea was to have a couple of drinks, go up on to the roof, have a little think about everything and then go off for a curry in the Indian Ocean on Holloway Road. I wasn’t sure about the curry part, but the others said they’d choose something that would agree with me.

I didn’t want to go up on the roof, though.

‘Why not?’ said Jess.

‘Because people kill themselves up there,’ I said.

‘Der,’ said Jess.

‘Oh, so you enjoyed it on Valentine’s Day, did you?’ Martin asked her.

‘No, I didn’t
enjoy
it, exactly. But, you know.’

‘No, I don’t know,’ said Martin.

‘It’s all part of life, isn’t it?’

‘People always say that about unpleasant things. “Oh, this film shows someone getting his eyes pulled out with a corkscrew. But it’s all part of life.” I’ll tell you what else is all part of life: going for a crap. No one ever wants to see that, do they? No one ever puts that in a film. Let’s go and watch people taking a dump this evening.’

‘Who’d let us?’ said Jess. ‘People lock the door.’

‘But you’d watch if they didn’t.’

‘If they didn’t, it would be more a part of life, wouldn’t it? So, yes, I would.’

Martin groaned and rolled his eyes. You’d have thought he’d be
much cleverer than Jess, but he never seemed to win an argument with her, and now she’d got him again.

‘But the reason people lock the door is they want privacy,’ said JJ. ‘And maybe they want privacy when they’re thinking of killing themselves.’

‘So you’re saying we should just let them get on with it?’ said Jess. ‘Because I don’t think that’s right. Maybe tonight we can stop someone.’

‘And how does that fit in with your friend’s ideas? As far as I understand it, you’re now of the opinion that when it comes to suicide you should let the market decide,’ said Martin.

We’d just been talking about a man without a name called Nodog, who told Jess that thinking about killing yourself was perfectly healthy, and everyone should do it.

‘I never said anything about any of that s—.’

‘I’m sorry. I was paraphrasing. I thought we weren’t allowed to interfere.’

‘No, no. We can interfere. Interfering is part of the process, see? All you have to do is think about it, and after that, whatever. If we stop someone, the gods have spoken.’

‘And if I were a god,’ said Martin, ‘you’re exactly the sort of person I’d use as a mouthpiece.’

‘Are you being dirty?’

‘No. I’m being complimentary.’

Jess looked pleased.

‘So shall we look for someone?’ she said.

‘How do you look for someone?’ JJ asked her.

‘There’s probably someone in here, for a start.’

We looked around the pub. It was just after seven, and there weren’t many people in yet. In the corner by the gents’, there were a couple of young fellas in suits looking at a mobile phone and laughing. At the table nearest the bar, there were three young women, looking at photographs and laughing. At the table next to us there was a young couple laughing about nothing, and sitting at the bar there was a middle-aged guy reading a newspaper.

‘Too much laughing,’ said Jess.

‘Anyone who thinks text messages are funny isn’t going to kill himself,’ said JJ. ‘There isn’t enough going on internally.’

‘I’ve seen some funny text messages,’ said Jess.

‘Yeah, well,’ said Martin. ‘I’m not sure that really disproves JJ’s point.’

‘Shut up,’ said Jess. ‘What about the bloke reading the paper? He’s on his own. He’s probably the best we can do.’

JJ and Martin looked at each other and laughed.

‘The best we can do?’ said Martin. ‘So what you’re saying is that we have to dissuade someone in this room from killing themselves whether they were thinking of it or not?’

‘Yeah, well, the laughing cretins aren’t going to go up there, are they? He looks more, like, deep.’

‘He’s reading the racing page of the f—
Sun
,’ said Martin. ‘In a moment his mate’s going to turn up, and they’ll have fifteen pints and a curry.’

‘Snob.’

‘Oh, and who’s the one who thinks you have to be deep to kill yourself?’

‘We all do,’ said JJ. ‘Don’t we?’

We had two drinks each. Martin drank large whiskies with water, JJ drank pints of Guinness, Jess drank Red Bull and vodka, and I drank white wine. I’d probably have been dizzy three months ago, but I seem to drink a lot now, so when we got up to walk across the road, I just felt warm and friendly. The clocks had gone forward on the previous Sunday, and even though it seemed dark when we were down on the street, up on the roof it felt as though there were some light left somewhere in the city. We leaned on the wall, right next to the place where Martin had cut through the wire, and looked south towards the river.

‘So,’ said Jess. ‘Anyone up for going over?’

No one said anything, because it wasn’t a serious question any more, so we just smiled.

‘It’s gotta be a good thing, right? That we’re still around?’ said JJ.

‘Der,’ said Jess.

‘No,’ said JJ. ‘It wasn’t a rhetorical question.’

Jess swore at him and asked him what that was supposed to mean.

‘I mean, I really do want to know,’ said JJ. ‘I really do want to know whether it’s… I don’t know.’

‘Better that we’re here than that we’re not?’ said Martin.

‘Yeah. That. I guess.’

‘It’s better for your kids,’ said Jess.

‘I suppose so,’ said Martin. ‘Not that I ever see them.’

‘It’s better for Matty,’ said JJ, and I didn’t say anything, which reminded everyone else that it wasn’t really better for Matty at all.

‘We’ve all got loved ones, anyway,’ said Martin. ‘And our loved ones would rather we were alive than dead. On balance.’

‘You reckon?’ said Jess.

‘Are you asking me whether I think your parents want you to live? Yes, Jess, your parents want you to live.’

Jess made a face, as though she didn’t believe him.

‘How come we didn’t think of this before?’ said JJ. ‘On New Year’s Eve? I never thought of my parents once.’

‘Because things were worse then, I suppose,’ said Martin. ‘Family’s like, I don’t know. Gravity. Stronger at some times than others.’

‘Yup. That’s gravity for you. That’s why in the morning we can like float, and in the evening we can’t hardly lift our feet.’

‘Tides, then. You don’t notice the pull when it’s… Well, anyway. You know what I mean.’

‘If some guy came up here tonight, what would you tell him?’ said JJ.

‘I’d tell him about the ninety days,’ said Jess. ‘’Cos it’s true, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah,’ said JJ. ‘It’s true that none of us feel like killing ourselves tonight. But like… If he asked us why, if he said to us, So tell me what great things have happened to you since you decided not to go over the edge… what would you tell him?’

‘I’d tell him about my job in the newsagent’s,’ I said. ‘And the quiz.’

The others looked at their feet. Jess thought about saying something, but JJ caught her eye, and she changed her mind.

‘Yeah, well, you, you’re doing OK,’ said JJ after a little while. ‘But I’m f— busking, man. Sorry, Maureen.’

‘And I’m failing to help the dimmest child in the world with his reading,’ said Martin.

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself,’ said Jess. ‘You’re failing at loads of different things. You’re failing with your kids, and your relationships…’

‘Oh, yes, whereas you, Jess… You’re such a f— success. You’ve got it all.’

‘Sorry, Maureen,’ said JJ.

‘Yes, excuse me, Maureen.’

‘I didn’t know Nodog ninety days ago,’ said Jess.

‘Ah, yes,’ said Martin. ‘Nodog. The one unqualified achievement any of us can boast of. Maureen’s quiz team excepted, of course.’

I didn’t remind him about the newsagent’s. I know it’s not much, but it might have seemed as though I was rubbing it in a bit.

‘Let’s tell our suicidal friend about Nodog. “Oh, yes. Jess here has met a man who doesn’t believe in names, and thinks we should all kill ourselves all the time.” That’ll cheer him up.’

‘That’s not what he thinks. You’re just taking the p—. What did you want to bring all this up for, JJ? We were going to have a good night out, and now everyone’s all f— depressed.’

‘Yeah,’ said JJ. ‘I’m sorry. I was just wondering, you know. Why we’re all still here.’

‘Thanks,’ said Martin. ‘Thanks for that.’

In the distance we could see the lights on that big wheel down by the river, the London Eye.

‘We don’t have to decide right now, anyway, do we?’ said JJ.

‘Course we don’t,’ said Martin.

‘So how about we give it another six months? See how we’re doing?’

‘Is that thing actually going round?’ said Martin. ‘I can’t tell.’

We stared at it for a long time, trying to work it out. Martin was right. It didn’t look as though it was moving, but it must have been, I suppose.

Thanks to: Tony Lacey, Wendy Carlton, Helen Fraser, Susan Petersen, Joanna Prior, Zelda Turner, Eli Horowitz, Mary Cranitch, Caroline Dawnay, Alex Elam, John Hamilton.