Nick Hornby - High Fidelity

High Fidelity
http://www.fictionbook.ru/author/hornby_nick/high_fidelity/hornby_high_fidelity.html
Page 99 of 112
6/20/2006
“We’d better let Marie sell her tapes, Laura.”
“Marie, will you do a PA in Rob’s shop”
Marie laughs. She laughs, and doesn’t reply. We stand there foolishly.
“You’re kidding me, right”
“Not really. On a Saturday afternoon, when the shop’s busy. You could stand on the counter.” This
last embellishment is Laura’s own, and I stare at her.
Marie shrugs. “OK. But I get to keep any money I make from the tapes.”
“Sure.” Laura again. I’m still staring at her from before, so I have to content myself with staring at her
even harder.
“Thanks, it was nice to meet you.”
We go back to where we were standing.
“See” she says. “Easy.”
Occasionally, during the first few weeks of Laura’s return, I try to work out what life is like now:
whether it’s better or worse, how my feelings for Laura have changed, if they have, whether I’m happier
than I was, how near I am to getting itchy feet again, whether Laura’s any different, what it’s like living
with her. The answers are easy—better, kind of, yes, not very near, not really, quite nice—but also
unsatisfying, because I know they’re not answers that come from down deep. But somehow, there’s less
time to think since she came back. We’re too busy talking, or working, or having sex (there’s a lot of sex
at the moment, much of it initiated by me as a way of banishing insecurity), or eating, or going to the
pictures. Maybe I should stop doing these things, so as I can work it all out properly, because I know
these are important times. But then again, maybe I shouldn’t; maybe this is how it’s done. Maybe this is
how people manage to have relationships.
“Oh, great. You never asked us to play here, did you”
Barry. Idiot. I might have known he’d find something in Marie’s imminent in-store performance to
moan about.
“Didn’t I I thought I did, and you said no.”
“How are we ever going to get going if even our friends won’t give us a break.”
“Rob let you put the poster up, Barry. Be fair.” This is quite assertive for Dick, but there is something
in him that doesn’t like the idea of Barry’s band anyway. For him, I think, a band is too much like
action, and not enough like fandom.
“Oh, fucking great. Big fucking deal. A poster.”
“How would a band fit in here I’d have to buy the shop next door, and I’m not prepared to do that
just so’s you can make a terrible racket one Saturday afternoon.”
“We could have done an acoustic set.”
“Oh, right. Kraftwerk unplugged. That’d be nice.”
This gets a laugh from Dick, and Barry looks round at him angrily.
“Shut up, jerk. I told you, we’re not doing the German stuff anymore.”
“What would be the point What do you have to sell Have you ever made a record No Well, there
you are, then.”
So forceful is my logic that Barry has to content himself with stomping around for five minutes, and
then sitting on the counter with his head buried in an old copy of Hot Press. Every now and again he
says something feeble—“Just because you’ve shagged her,” for example, and, “How can you run a
record shop when you have no interest in music at all” But mostly he’s quiet, lost in contemplation of
what might have been had I given Barrytown the opportunity to play live in Championship Vinyl.
It’s a stupid little thing, this gig. All it will be, after all, is half a dozen songs played on an acoustic
guitar in front of half a dozen people. What depresses me is how much I’m looking forward to it, and
how much I’ve enjoyed the pitiful amount of preparation (a few posters, a couple of phone calls to try
and get hold of some tapes) it has involved. What if I’m about to become dissatisfied with my lot What
do I do then The notion that the amount of … of life I have on my plate won’t be enough to fill me up