High Fidelity by Nick Hornby Read Free Book Online Page B

Revolver, I open the bottle of white wine that Laura brought home last week, sit down and watch the Brookside omnibus that I taped.
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    In the same way that nuns end up having their periods at the same time, Laura’s mum and my mum have mysteriously ended up synchronizing their weekly phone calls. Mine rings first.
    â€œHello, love, it’s me.”
    â€œHi.”
    â€œEverything all right?”
    â€œNot bad.”
    â€œWhat sort of week have you had?”
    â€œOh, you know.”
    â€œHow’s the shop doing?”
    â€œSo-so. Up and down.” Up and down would be great. Up and down would imply that some days are better than others, that customers came and went. This has not been the case, frankly.
    â€œYour dad and I are very worried about this recession.”
    â€œYeah. You said.”
    â€œYou’re lucky Laura’s doing so well. If it wasn’t for her, I don’t think either of us would ever get off to sleep.”
    She’s gone, Mum. She’s thrown me to the wolves. The bitch has fucked off and left me… Nope. Can’t do it. This does not seem to be the right time for bad news.
    â€œHeaven knows she’s got enough on her plate without having to worry about a shop full of bloomin’ old pop records…”
    How can one describe the way people born before 1940 say the word “pop”? I have been listening to my parents’ sneering one-syllable explosion—heads forward, idiotic look on their faces (because pop fans are idiots) for the time it takes them to spit the word out—for well over two decades.
    â€œâ€¦I’m surprised she doesn’t make you sell up and get a proper job. It’s a wonder she’s hung on as long as she has. I would have left you to get on with it years ago.”
    Hold on, Rob. Don’t let her get to you. Don’t rise to the bait. Don’t…ah, fuck it.
    â€œWell, she has left me to get on with it now, so that should cheer you up.”
    â€œWhere’s she gone?”
    â€œI don’t bloody know. Just…gone. Moved out. Disappeared.”
    There is a long, long silence. The silence is so long, in fact, that I can watch the whole of a row between Jimmy and Jackie Corkhill without hearing so much as a long-suffering sigh down the receiver.
    â€œHullo? Anybody there?”
    And now I can hear something—the sound of my mother crying softly. What is it with mothers? What’s happening here? As an adult, you know that as life goes on, you’re going to spend more and more time looking after the person who started out looking after you, that’s par for the course; but my mum and I swapped roles when I was about nine. Anything bad that has happened to me in the last couple of decades—detentions, bad exam marks, getting thumped, getting bunged from college, splitting up with girlfriends—has ended up like this, with Mum visibly or audibly upset. It would have been better for both of us if I had moved to Australia when I was fifteen, phoned home once a week and reported a sequence of fictitious major triumphs. Most fifteen-year-olds would find it tough, living on their own, on the other side of the world, with no money and no friends and no family and no job and no qualifications, but not me. It would have been a piece of piss compared to listening to this stuff week after week.
    It’s…well, it’s not fair. ’Snot fair. It’s never been fair. Since I left home, all she’s done is moan, worry, and send cuttings from the local newspaper describing the minor successes of old school friends. Is that good parenting? Not in my book. I want sympathy, understanding, advice, and money, and not necessarily in that order, but these are alien concepts in Canning Close.
    â€œI’m all right, if that’s what’s upsetting you.”
    I know that’s not what’s upsetting her.
    â€œYou know that’s not what’s