Nick Hornby - High Fidelity

High Fidelity
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Page 53 of 112
6/20/2006
silly and girly; she said I didn’t want to think of them in the same way that I thought about my mates.
She was right, of course—I don’t. But that’s not the point. Barry doesn’t do this to strike a blow for
equality: he does it because he’s being spiteful, because he wants to puncture any sense of romantic
well-being that Laura or Anna or whoever might have created in us. He’s sharp, Barry. Sharp and nasty.
He understands the power that girls’ names have, and he doesn’t like it.
“Is she all green and furry”
This started out joky—Barry as demon counsel for the prosecution, Dick as defendant—but now those
roles have started to harden. Dick looks guilty as all hell, and all he’s done is meet someone.
“Leave it, Barry,” I tell him.
“Oh, yeah, you would say that, wouldn’t you You two have got to stick together now. Shaggers
United, eh”
I try to be patient with him. “Are you coming to the pub or what”
“No. Bollocks.”
“Fair enough.”
Barry leaves; Dick is now feeling guilty, not because he’s met someone, but because I have nobody to
drink with.
“I suppose I’ve got time for a quick one.”
“Don’t worry about it, Dick. It’s not your fault that Barry’s a jerk. You have a nice evening.”
He flashes me a look of real gratitude, and it breaks your heart.
I feel as though I have been having conversations like this all my life. None of us is young anymore,
but what has just taken place could have happened when I was sixteen, or twenty, or twenty-five. We
got to adolescence and just stopped dead; we drew up the map then and left the boundaries exactly as
they were. And why does it bother Barry so much that Dick is seeing someone Because he doesn’t
want a smile from a man with buckteeth and an anorak in the cinema queue, that’s why; he’s worried
about how his life is turning out, and he’s lonely, and lonely people are the bitterest of them all.
Fourteen
Ever since I’ve had the shop, we’ve been trying to flog a record by a group called the Sid James
Experience. Usually we get rid of stuff we can’t shift—reduce it to 10p, or throw it away—but Barry
loves this album (he’s got two copies of his own, just in case somebody borrows one and fails to return
it), and he says it’s rare, and that someday we’ll make somebody very happy. It’s become a bit of a joke,
really. Regular customers ask after its health, and give it a friendly pat when they’re browsing, and
sometimes they bring the sleeve up to the counter as if they’re going to buy it, and then say “Just
kidding!” and put it back where they found it.
Anyway, on Friday morning, this guy I’ve never seen before starts flicking through the ‘British Pop S-
Z section,’ lets out a gasp of amazement and rushes up to the counter, clutching the sleeve to his chest as
if he’s afraid someone will snatch it from him. And then he gets out his wallet and pays for it, seven
quid, just like that, no attempt to haggle, no recognition of the significance of what he is doing. I let
Barry serve him—it’s his moment—and Dick and I watch every move, holding our breath; it’s like
someone has walked in, tipped petrol over himself, and produced a box of matches from his pocket. We
don’t exhale until he’s struck the match and set himself alight, and when he’s gone we laugh and laugh
and laugh. It gives us all strength: if someone can just walk in and buy the Sid James Experience album,
then surely anything good can happen at any time.
Laura’s changed even since I last saw her. Partly it’s the makeup: she’s wearing it for work, and it
makes her look less stressed-out, less tired, in control. But it’s more than that, too. Something else has
happened, maybe something real, or maybe something in her head. Whatever it is, you can see that she
thinks she’s started out on some new stage in her life. She hasn’t. I’m not going to let her.