Chapter 24

JESS

 

When you're sad - like, really sad, Toppers' House sad - you only want to be with other people who are sad. I didn't know this until that night, but I suddenly realized it just by looking at Chas's face.

There was nothing in it. It was just the face of a twenty-two-year-old boy who'd never done anything, apart from dropped a few Es, or thought anything, apart from where to get the next E from, or felt anything, apart from off his face. It was the eyes that gave him away: when he made that stupid joke about Martin and expected us to laugh, the eyes were completely lost in the joke, and there was nothing else left of them. They were just laughing eyes, not frightened eyes or troubled eyes - they were the eyes a baby has when you tickle¹ it. I'd noticed with the others that when they made jokes, if they did (Maureen wasn't a big comedian), you could still see why they'd been up on the roof even while they were laughing - there was something else in there, something that stopped them giving themselves over to the moment. And you can say that we shouldn't have been up there, because wanting to kill yourself is a coward's way out, and you can say that none of us had enough reason to want to do it. But you can't say that we didn't feel it, because we all did, and that was more important than anything. Chas would never know what that was like unless he crossed the line too.

Because that's what the four of us had done - crossed a line. I don't mean we'd done anything bad. I just mean that something had happened to us which separated us from lots of other people. We had nothing in common apart from where we'd ended up, on that square of concrete high up in the air, and that was the biggest thing you could possibly have in common with anyone. To say that Maureen and I had nothing in common because she wore raincoats and listened to brass² bands or whatever was like saying, I don't know, the only thing I've got in common with that girl is that we have the same parents. And I didn't know any of that until Chas said that thing about Martin being a cunt.

The other thing I worked out was that Chas could have told me anything - that he loved me, he hated me, he'd been possessed³ by aliens and the Chas I knew was now on a different planet - and it wouldn't have made any difference. I was still owed an explanation, I thought, but so what? What good was it going to do me? It wouldn't have made me any happier. It was like scratching when you have chickenpox. You think it's going to help, but the itch⁴ moves over, and then moves over again. My itch suddenly felt miles away, and I couldn't have reached it with the longest arms in the world. Realizing that made me scared that I was going to be itchy for ever, and I didn't want that. I knew all the things that Martin had done, but when Chas had gone I still wanted him to hug me. I wouldn't even have cared if he'd tried anything on, but he didn't. He sort of did the opposite; he held me all funny, as if I was covered in barbed wire.

I'm sorry, I went. I'm sorry that little shitbag called you names. And he said it wasn't my fault, but I told him that of course it was, because if he hadn't met me he wouldn't have had to experience the trauma⁵ of being called a cunt on New Year's Eve. And he said he got called a cunt a lot. (This is actually true. I've known him for a while now, and I'd say I've heard people, complete strangers, call him a cunt about fifteen times, a prick⁶ about ten times, a wanker maybe about the same, and an arsehole approximately half a dozen times. Also: tosser, berk, wally, git, shithead and pillock.) Nobody likes him, which is weird⁷, because he's famous. How can you be famous if nobody likes you?

Martin says it's nothing to do with the fifteen-year-old thing; he reckons⁸ that if anything it got slightly better after that, because the people who called him a cunt were exactly the sort of people who didn't see anything wrong with underage sex. So instead of shouting out names, they shouted out things like, Go on, my son, Get in there, Wallop, etcetera. In terms of personal abuse, although not in terms of his marriage or his relationship with his children, or his career, or his sanity⁹, going to prison actually did him some good. But all sorts of people seem to be famous even though they have no fans. Tony Blair is a good example. And all the other people who present breakfast TV programmes and quiz shows. The reason they're paid a lot of money, it seems to me, is because strangers yell¹⁰ terrible words at them in the street. Even a traffic warden¹¹ doesn't get called a cunt when he's out shopping with his family. So the only real advantage to being Martin is the money, and also the invitations to film premieres and dodgy nightclubs. And that's where you get yourself into trouble.

These were just some thoughts I had when Martin and I hugged. But they didn't get us anywhere. Outside my head it was five o'clock in the morning and we were all unhappy and we didn't have anywhere to go.

I was like, So now what? And I rubbed my hands together, as if we were all enjoying ourselves too much to let the night end - as if we'd been giving it large in Ocean, and we were all off for bagels and coffee in Bethnal Green, or back to someone's flat for spliffs and a chill¹². So I went, Whose gaff? I'll bet yours is tasty, Martin. I'll bet you've got Jacuzzis and all sorts. That'll do. And Martin said, No, we can't go there. And, by the way, my Jacuzzi days are long gone. Which I think meant that he was broke, not that he was too fat to go in one or anything. Because he's not fat, Martin. He's too vain to be fat.

So I said, Well, never mind, as long as you've got a kettle and some Corn Flakes¹³. And he went, I haven't, so I was like, What have you got to hide? And he said, Nothing, but he said it in a funny way, an embarrassed, hiding sort of a way. And then I remembered something from before which I thought might be relevant and I said, Who was leaving messages for you on your mobile? And he went, Nobody. And I said, Is that Mr Nobody or maybe Miss Nobody? And he said, Just nobody. So I wanted to know why he didn't want to invite us back, and he went, Because I don't know you. And I said, Yeah, like you didn't know that fifteen-year-old. And then he said, as if he was angry, OK. Yeah. Let's go to mine. Why not?

And so we did.

1 tickle   

v.搔痒，胳肢；使高兴；发痒；n.搔痒，发痒

参考例句：

• Wilson was feeling restless. There was a tickle in his throat.威尔逊只觉得心神不定。嗓子眼里有些发痒。
• I am tickle pink at the news.听到这消息我高兴得要命。

2 brass   

n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器

参考例句：

• Many of the workers play in the factory's brass band.许多工人都在工厂铜管乐队中演奏。
• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc.黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。

3 possessed   

adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的

参考例句：

• He flew out of the room like a man possessed.他像着了魔似地猛然冲出房门。
• He behaved like someone possessed.他行为举止像是魔怔了。

4 itch   

n.痒，渴望，疥癣；vi.发痒，渴望

参考例句：

• Shylock has an itch for money.夏洛克渴望发财。
• He had an itch on his back.他背部发痒。

5 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

6 prick   

v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛

参考例句：

• He felt a sharp prick when he stepped on an upturned nail.当他踩在一个尖朝上的钉子上时，他感到剧烈的疼痛。
• He burst the balloon with a prick of the pin.他用针一戳，气球就爆了。

7 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

8 reckons   

计算( reckon的第三人称单数 )； 猜想； 考虑； 思忖

参考例句：

• In cricket, a no ball reckons as one run. 在板球中，投球违例要失一分。
• Any unemployed person reckons as deserving government help. 任何一个失业者都被认为应受到政府的帮助。

9 sanity   

n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确

参考例句：

• I doubt the sanity of such a plan.我怀疑这个计划是否明智。
• She managed to keep her sanity throughout the ordeal.在那场磨难中她始终保持神志正常。

10 yell   

vi./n.号叫，叫喊

参考例句：

• This gave them a chance to yell.这给了他们大声喊叫的机会。
• When his schoolmate made the last goal,the boy gave out with an untrammeled yell.那个男孩在他的同学踢进最后一球时不禁纵声欢呼。

11 warden   

n.监察员，监狱长，看守人，监护人

参考例句：

• He is the warden of an old people's home.他是一家养老院的管理员。
• The warden of the prison signed the release.监狱长签发释放令。

12 chill   

vt.使变冷，使冷却，使沮丧；n.寒冷，风寒

参考例句：

• With the chill factor,it's nearly minus forty here.加上风寒指数，气温接近零下40度。
• The bad news cast a chill over the whole family.这坏消息使全家人感到沮丧。

13 flakes   

小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人

参考例句：

• It's snowing in great flakes. 天下着鹅毛大雪。
• It is snowing in great flakes. 正值大雪纷飞。