Nick Hornby - High Fidelity

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High Fidelity http://www.fictionbook.ru/author/hornby_nick/high_fidelity/hornby_high_fidelity.html Page 78 of 112 6/20/2006 “It’s not that bad. There were only two of them.” She looks at me to see if I’m joking. When she laughs, it’s clear that I am. “But it was your birthday.” “Well. You know.” “Your birthday. And that’s the best you can do” “Say it was your birthday today, and you wanted to go out for a drink tonight. Who would you invite Dick and Barry T-Bone Me We’re not your bestest friends in the whole world, are we” “Come on, Rob. I’m not even in my own country. I’m thousands of miles from home.” My point exactly. I watch the couples that come into the shop, and the couples I see in pubs, and on buses, and through windows. Some of them, the ones that talk and touch and laugh and inquire a lot, are obviously new, and they don’t count: like most people, I’m OK at being half of a new couple. It’s the more established, quieter couples, the ones who have started to go through life back-to-back or side-to-side, rather than face-to-face, that interest me. There’s not much you can decipher in their faces, really. There’s not much that sets them apart from single people; try dividing people you walk past into one of life’s four categories—happily coupled, unhappily coupled, single, and desperate—and you’ll find you won’t be able to do it. Or rather, you could do it, but you would have no confidence in your choices. This seems incredible to me. The most important thing in life, and you can’t tell whether people have it or not. Surely this is wrong Surely people who are happy should look happy, at all times, no matter how much money they have or how uncomfortable their shoes are or how little their child is sleeping; and people who are doing OK but have still not found their soul mate should look, I don’t know, well but anxious, like Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally; and people who are desperate should wear something, a yellow ribbon maybe, which would allow them to be identified by similarly desperate people. When I am no longer desperate, when I have got all this sorted out, I promise you here and now that I will never ever complain again about how the shop is doing, or about the soullessness of modern pop music, or the stingy fillings you get in the sandwich bar up the road (£1.60 for egg mayonnaise and crispy bacon, and none of us have ever had more than four pieces of crispy bacon in a whole round yet) or anything at all. I will beam beatifically at all times, just from sheer relief. Nothing much, by which I mean even less than usual, happens for a couple of weeks. I find a copy of ‘All Kinds of Everything’ in a junk shop near the flat, and buy it for fifteen pence, and give it to Johnny next time I see him, on the proviso that he fuck off and leave us alone forever. He comes in the next day complaining that it’s scratched and demanding his money back. Barrytown make a triumphant debut at the Harry Lauder, and rock the place off its foundations, and the buzz is incredible, and there are loads of people there who look like A&R men, and they go absolutely mental, and honestly Rob, you should have been there (Marie just laughs, when I ask her about it, and says that everyone has to start somewhere). Dick tries to get me to make up a foursome with him, Anna, and a friend of Anna’s who’s twenty-one, but I don’t go; we see Marie play at a folk club in Farringdon, and I think about Laura a lot more than I think about Marie during the sad songs, even though Marie dedicates a song to ‘the guys at Championship Vinyl’; I go for a drink with Liz and she bitches about Ray the whole evening, which is great; and then Laura’s dad dies, and everything changes. Twenty-Five I hear about it on the same morning she does. I ring her number from the shop, intending just to leave a message on her machine; it’s easier that way, and I only wanted to tell her about some ex-colleague who left a message for her on our machine. My machine. Her machine, actually, if we’re talking legal ownership. Anyway. I wasn’t expecting Laura to pick up the phone, but she does, and she sounds as
High Fidelity http://www.fictionbook.ru/author/hornby_nick/high_fidelity/hornby_high_fidelity.html Page 79 of 112 6/20/2006 though she’s speaking from the bottom of the sea. Her voice is muffled, and low, and flat, and coated from first syllable to last in snot. “Cor dear oh dear, that’s a cold and a half. I hope you’re in bed with a hot book and a good water bottle. It’s Rob, by the way.” She doesn’t say anything. “Laura It’s Rob.” Still nothing. “Are you all right” And then a terrible moment. “Pigsty,” she says, although the first syllable’s just a noise, really, so ‘pig’ is an educated guess. “Don’t worry about that,” I say. ‘Just get into bed and forget about it. Worry about it when you’re better.” “Pig’s died,” she says. “Who the fuck’s Pig” This time I can hear her. ‘My dad’s died,” she sobs. ‘My dad, my dad.” And then she hangs up. I think about people dying all the time, but they’re always people connected with me. I’ve thought about how I would feel if Laura died, and how Laura would feel if I died, and how I’d feel if my mum or dad died, but I never thought about Laura’s mum or dad dying. I wouldn’t, would I And even though he was ill for the entire duration of my relationship with Laura, it never really bothered me: it was more like, my dad’s got a beard, Laura’s dad’s got angina. I never thought it would actually lead to anything. Now he’s gone, of course, I wish … what What do I wish That I’d been nicer to him I was perfectly nice to him, the few times we met. That we’d been closer He was my common-law father-in-law, and we were very different, and he was sick, and … we were as close as we needed to be. You’re supposed to wish things when people die, to fill yourself full of regrets, to give yourself a hard time for all your mistakes and omissions, and I’m doing all that as best I can. It’s just that I can’t find any mistakes and omissions. He was my ex-girlfriend’s dad, you know What am I supposed to feel “You all right” says Barry, when he sees me staring into space. “Who were you talking to” “Laura. Her dad’s died.” “Oh, right. Bad one.” And then he wanders off to the post office with a pile of mail orders under his arm. See From Laura, to me, to Barry: from grief, to confusion, to a fleeting, mild interest. If you want to find a way to extract death’s sting, then Barry’s your man. For a moment it feels strange that these two people, one who is so maddened by pain that she can hardly speak, the other who can hardly find the curiosity to shrug, should know each other; strange that I’m the link between them, strange that they live in the same place at the same time, even. But Ken was Barry’s boss’s ex-girlfriend’s dad. What is he supposed to feel Laura calls back an hour or so later. I wasn’t expecting her to. “I’m sorry,” she says. It’s still hard to make out what she’s saying, what with the snot and the tears and the tone and the volume. “No, no.” Then she cries for a while. I don’t say anything until she’s a bit quieter. “When are you going home” “In a minute. When I get it together.” “Can I do anything” “No.” And then, after a sob, “No” again, as if she’s realized properly that there’s nothing anybody can do for her, and maybe this is the first time she’s ever found herself in that situation. I know I never have. Everything that’s ever gone wrong for me could have been rescued by the wave of a bank manager’s wand, or by a girlfriend’s sudden change of mind, or by some quality—determination, self-awareness, resilience—that I might have found within myself, if I’d looked hard enough. I don’t want to have to cope with the sort of unhappiness Laura’s feeling, not ever. If people have to die, I don’t want them
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Nick Hornby - High Fidelity

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