Nick Hornby - High Fidelity

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High Fidelity http://www.fictionbook.ru/author/hornby_nick/high_fidelity/hornby_high_fidelity.html Page 72 of 112 6/20/2006 “And that makes him an awful person, does it” “In my book, yes. Barry, Dick, and I decided that you can’t be a serious person if you have—” “Less than five hundred. Yes, I know. You’ve told me many, many times before. I disagree. I think it’s possible to be a serious person even if you have no records whatsoever.” “Like Kate Adie.” She looks at me, frowns, and opens her mouth, her way of indicating that I’m potty. “Do you know for a fact that Kate Adie’s got no records whatsoever” “Well, not none. She’s probably got a couple. Pavarotti and stuff. Maybe some Tracy Chapman, and a copy of Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, and two or three Beatles albums.” She starts to laugh. I wasn’t joking, to be honest, but if she thinks I’m funny then I prepared to act like I was. “And I’ll bet she was one of the people at parties who used to go ‘Woooh!’ to the fade-out of ‘Brown Sugar.’ ” “There is no greater crime than that, as far as you’re concerned, is there” “The only thing that runs it close is singing along to the chorus of ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining,’ at the top of your voice.” “I used to do that.” “You didn’t.” The joking has stopped now, and I look at her appalled. She roars. “You believed me! You believed me! You must think I’m capable of anything.” She laughs again, catches herself having a good time, and stops. I give her the cue. “This is where you’re supposed to say that you haven’t laughed this much in ages, and then you see the error of your ways.” She makes a so-what face. “You make me laugh much more than Ray does, if that’s what you’re getting at.” I give a mock-smug smile, but I’m not feeling mock-smug. I’m feeling the real thing. “But it doesn’t make any difference to anything, Rob. Really. We could laugh until I had to be taken away in an ambulance, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to unload the car and move all my stuff back in. I already knew you could make me laugh. It’s everything else I don’t know about.” “Why don’t you just admit that Ian’s an arsehole and have done with it It would make you feel better.” “Have you been talking to Liz” “Why Does she think he’s an arsehole too That’s interesting.” “Don’t spoil it, Rob. We’ve got on well today. Let’s leave it at that.” I pull out the stack of records and CDs that I’ve sorted out for her. There’s The Nightfly by Donald Fagen, because she’d never heard it, and some blues compilation samplers I decided she ought to have, and a couple of jazz-dance things I bought for her when she started going to a jazz-dance class, although it turned out to be a different and frankly much crappier form of jazz-dance, and a couple of country things, in my vain attempt to change her mind about country, and … She doesn’t want any of it. “But they’re yours.” “They’re not really, though, are they I know you bought them for me, and that was really sweet of you, but that was when you were trying to turn me into you. I can’t take them. I know they’d just sit around staring at me, and I’d feel embarrassed by them, and … they don’t fit in with the rest of what’s mine, do you understand That Sting record you bought me … that was a present for me. I like Sting and you hate him. But the rest of this stuff … ” She picks up the blues sampler. “Who the hell’s Little Walter Or Junior Wells I don’t know these people. I … ” “OK, OK. I get the picture.” “I’m sorry to go on about it. But, I don’t know, there’s a lesson in here somewhere, and I want to make sure you get it.” “I get it. You like Sting but you don’t like Junior Wells, because you’ve never heard of him.” “You’re being deliberately obtuse.”
High Fidelity http://www.fictionbook.ru/author/hornby_nick/high_fidelity/hornby_high_fidelity.html Page 73 of 112 6/20/2006 “I am, actually, yes.” She gets up to go. “Well, think about it.” And later on, I think, what for What’s the point of thinking about it If I ever have another relationship, I’ll buy her, whoever she is, stuff that she ought to like but doesn’t know about; that’s what new boyfriends are for. And hopefully I won’t borrow money off her, or have an affair, and she won’t need to have an abortion, or run away with the neighbors, and then there won’t be anything to think about. Laura didn’t run off with Ray because I bought her CDs she wasn’t that keen on, and to pretend otherwise is just … just … psychowank. If she thinks that, then she’s missing the Brazilian rain forest for the twigs. If I can’t buy specially priced compilation albums for new girlfriends, then I might as well give up, because I’m not sure that I know how to do anything else. Twenty-Four I enjoy my birthday, but today I don’t feel so good about it. Birthdays should be suspended in years like this one: there should be a law, of man if not of nature, that you are only allowed to age when things are ticking along nicely. What do I want to be thirty-six for now I don’t. It’s not convenient. Rob Fleming’s life is frozen at the moment, and he refuses to get any older. Please retain all cards, cakes, and presents for use on another occasion. Actually, that seems to be what people have done. Sod’s law decrees that my birthday should fall on a Sunday this year, so cards and presents are not forthcoming; I didn’t get anything Saturday, either. I wasn’t expecting anything from Dick or Barry, although I told them in the pub after work, and they looked guilty, and bought me a drink, and promised me all sorts of things (well, compilation tapes, anyway); but I never remember their birthdays—you don’t, do you, unless you are of the female persuasion—so a tantrum would not be particularly appropriate in this case. But Laura Relatives Friends (Nobody you know, but I do have some, and I do see them sometimes, and one or two of them do know when my birthday is.) Godparents Anyone else at all I did get a card from my mum and a P.S. from my dad, but parents don’t count; if you don’t even get a card from your folks, then you’re really in trouble. On the morning of the day itself I spend much too much time fantasizing about some enormous surprise party organized by Laura, maybe, with the help of my mum and dad, who could have provided her with the addresses and phone numbers of some of the people she wouldn’t know about; I even find myself irritated by their not having told me about it. Suppose I just took myself off to the pictures for a solitary birthday treat without letting them know Then where would they be, eh They’d all be hiding in some cupboard somewhere while I was watching a Godfather triple-bill at the Scala. That’d serve them right. I decide not to tell them where I’m going; I’ll leave them squashed up in the dark, cramped and ill-tempered. (“I thought you were going to ring him” “I told you I didn’t have time,” etc.) After a couple of cups of coffee, however, I realize that this sort of thinking is not profitable, that it is, in fact, likely to drive me potty, and I decide to arrange something positive instead. Like what Go to the video shop for a start, and rent loads of things I’ve been saving up for just such a dismal occasion as this: Naked Gun 2 ½, Terminator 2, Robocop 2. And then ring up a couple of people to see if they want a drink tonight. Not Dick and Barry. Marie maybe, or people I haven’t seen for a long time. And then watch one or two of the videos, drink some beer, and eat some crisps, maybe even some Kettle Chips. Sounds good. Sounds like the sort of birthday a brand-new thirty-six-year-old should have. (Actually, it is the only sort of birthday a brand-new thirty-six-year-old could have, the sort of thirty-sixyear-old with no wife, family, girlfriend, or money, anyway. Kettle Chips! Fuck off!) You thought there was going to be nothing left in the video shop, didn’t you You thought I cut such a tragic figure that I’d be reduced to watching some Whoopi Goldberg comedy-thriller which never got a
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Nick Hornby - High Fidelity

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