Nick Hornby - High Fidelity

High Fidelity
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Page 87 of 112
6/20/2006
“Who upset you”
“Nobody. I just don’t feel old enough. I want someone to look after me because my dad’s died, and
there’s no one there who can, so when Liz told me you’d disappeared, I used it as an excuse to get out.”
“We’re a right pair, aren’t we”
“Who upset you”
“Oh. Nobody. Well, Liz. She was … ” I can’t think of the adult expression, so I use the one closest to
hand. “She was picking on me.”
Laura snorts. “She was picking on you, and you’re sneaking out on her.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
She gives a short, mirthless laugh. “It’s no wonder we’re all in such a mess, is it We’re like Tom
Hanks in Big. Little boys and girls trapped in adult bodies and forced to get on with it. And it’s much
worse in a real life, because it’s not just snogging and bunk beds, is it There’s all this as well.” She
gestures through the windscreen at the field and the bus stop and a man walking his dog, but I know
what she means. “I’ll tell you something, Rob. Walking out of that funeral was the worst thing I’ve ever
done, and also the most exhilarating. I can’t tell you how good and bad I felt. Yes I can: I felt like a
baked Alaska.”
“It’s not like you walked out of the funeral, anyway. You walked out of the party thing. That’s
different.”
“But my mum, and Jo, and … they’ll never forget it. I don’t care, though. I’ve thought so much about
him and talked so much about him, and now our house is full of people who want to give me time and
opportunity to think and talk about him some more, and I just wanted to scream.”
“He’d understand.”
“D’you think I’m not sure I would. I’d want people to stay to the bitter end. That’d be the least they
could do.”
“Your dad was nicer than you, though.”
“He was, wasn’t he”
“About five or six times as nice.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
“Sorry.”
We watch a man trying to light a cigarette while holding a dog lead, a newspaper, and an umbrella. It
can’t be done, but he won’t give up.
“When are you going to go back, actually”
“I don’t know. Sometime. Later. Listen, Rob, would you sleep with me”
“What”
“I just feel like I want sex. I want to feel something else apart from misery and guilt. It’s either that or
I go home and put my hand in the fire. Unless you want to stub cigarettes out on my arm.”
Laura isn’t like this. Laura is a lawyer by profession and a lawyer by nature, and now she’s behaving
as though she’s after a supporting role in a Harvey Keitel movie.
“I’ve only got a couple left. I’m saving them for later.”
“It’ll have to be the sex, then.”
“But where And what about Ray And what about … ” I want to say ‘everything.’ What about
everything
“We’ll have to do it in the car. I’ll drive us somewhere.”
She drives us somewhere.
I know what you’re saying: You’re a pathetic fantasist, Fleming, you wish, in your dreams, etc. But I
would never in a million years use anything that has happened to me today as the basis for any kind of
sexual fantasy. I’m wet, for a start, and though I appreciate that the state of wetness has any number of
sexual connotations, it would be tough for even the most determined pervert to get himself worked up
about my sort of wetness, which involves cold, irritation (my suit trousers are unlined, and my legs are
being rubbed raw), bad smells (none of the major perfume makers has ever tried to capture the scent of
wet trousers, for obvious reasons), and there are bits of foliage hanging off me. And I’ve never had any