A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby Read Free Book Online Page A

not.’ As if anyone who knew stuff like that was a dork. ‘But they’re not
secrets
, are they? I don’t like not knowing
secrets
. I could find that other stuff out any time I felt like it, and I don’t feel like it.’
    ‘If he doesn’t want to tell us, he doesn’t want to tell us. Do your friends call you JJ?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Then that’s good enough for us.’
    ‘S’not good enough for me,’ said Jess.
    ‘Just belt up and let him talk,’ said Martin.
    But for me, the moment had gone. The moment of truth, anyway, ha ha. I could tell I wasn’t going to get a fair hearing; there were waves of hostility coming off Jess and Martin, and these waves were breaking everywhere.
    I stared at them all for a minute.
    ‘So?’ said Jess. ‘You forgotten why you were going to kill yourself, or what?’
    ‘Of course I haven’t forgotten,’ I said.
    ‘Well, fucking spit it out then.’
    ‘I’m dying,’ I said.
    See, I never thought I’d run into them again. I was pretty sure that sooner or later we’d shake hands, wish each other a happy whatever, and then either trudge back down the stairs or jump off the fucking roof, depending on mood, character, scale of problem etcetera. It really never occurred to me that this was going to come back and repeat on me like a pickle in a Big Mac.
    ‘Yeah, well you don’t look great,’ said Jess. ‘What you got? AIDS?’
    AIDS fitted the bill. Everyone knew you could wander around with it for months; everyone knew it was incurable. And yet… I’d had a couple friends who died from it, and it’s not the kind of thing you joke about. AIDS I knew I should leave the fuck alone. But then – and this all ran through my head in the thirty seconds after Jess’s question – which fatal disease was more appropriate?Leukemia? The Ebola virus? None of them really says, ‘No, go on, man, be my guest. I’m only a joke killer disease. I’m not serious enough to offend anyone.’
    ‘I got like this brain thing. It’s called CCR.’ Which of course is Creedence Clearwater Revival, one of my all-time favorite bands, and a big inspiration to me. I didn’t think any of them looked like big Creedence fans. Jess was too young, I really didn’t need to worry about Maureen, and Martin was the kind of guy who’d only have smelled a rat if I’d told him I was dying of incurable ABBA.
    ‘It’s like Cranial Corno-something.’ I was pleased with the ‘cranial’ part. That sounded about right. The ‘corno-’ was weak, though, I admit.
    ‘Is there no cure for that?’ Maureen asked.
    ‘Oh, yeah,’ said Jess. ‘There’s a cure. You can take a pill. It’s just that he couldn’t be arsed. Der.’
    ‘They figure it’s from drug abuse. Drugs and alcohol. So it’s all my own fuckin’ fault.’
    ‘You must feel a bit of a berk, then,’ said Jess.
    ‘I do,’ I said. ‘If “berk” means asshole.’
    ‘Yeah. Anyway, you win.’
    Which confirmed to me once and for all that a competitive edge had snuck in.
    ‘Really?’ I was pleased.
    ‘Oh, yeah. Dying? Fuck. That’s, you know… Like diamonds or spades or those… Trumps! You’ve got trumps, man.’
    ‘I’d say that having a fatal disease was only any good in this game,’ said Martin. ‘The who’s-the-most-miserable bastard game. Not much use anywhere else.’
    ‘How long have you got?’ Jess asked.
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Roughly. Just like off the top of your head.’
    ‘Shut up, Jess,’ said Martin.
    ‘What have I said now? I wanted to know what we were dealing with.’
    ‘
We’re
not dealing with anything,’ I said. ‘
I’m
dealing with it.’
    ‘Not very well,’ Jess said.
    ‘Oh, is that right? And this from the girl who can’t deal with being dumped.’
    We fell into a hostile silence.
    ‘Well,’ said Martin. ‘So. Here we all are, then.’
    ‘Now what?’ said Jess.
    ‘You’re going home, for a start,’ said Martin.
    ‘Like fuck I am. Why should I?’
    ‘Because we’re going to