by Nick Hornby
‘Do you want to spend Christmas round ours?’ Marcus asked, even before he had stepped into the flat.
‘Ummm,’ said Will. ‘That’s, ah, very kind of you.’
‘Good,’ said Marcus.
‘I only said that’s very kind of you,’ said Will.
‘But you’re coming.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because—’
‘Don’t you want to come?’
‘Yes, of course I do, but… What about your mum?’
‘She’ll be there too.’
‘Yes, I’d sort of presumed that. But she wouldn’t want me there.’
‘I’ve already spoken to her about it. I said I wanted to invite a friend, and she said OK.’
‘So you didn’t tell her it was me?’
‘No, but I think she guessed.’
‘How?’
‘I haven’t got any other friends, have I?’
‘Does she know you still come round here?’
‘Sort of. She’s stopped asking me, so I think she’s given up worrying about it.’
‘And there really isn’t anyone else you’d rather ask?’
‘No, course not. And if there was, they wouldn’t be allowed to come to my house for Christmas lunch. They’d be going to their own houses. Except they live in their own houses, so they wouldn’t be going anywhere, would they?’
Will was finding the conversation depressing. What Marcus was saying, in his artful, skewed way, was that he didn’t want Will to be alone on Christmas day.
‘I’m not sure what I’m doing yet.’
‘Where might you be going instead?’
‘Nowhere, but…’
Any conversational holes that needed filling were usually filled by Marcus. His concentration was such that any ums and ers and buts he looked on as cues to change the subject entirely. For some reason, though, he suddenly abandoned his usual technique and stared at Will intently.
‘What are you staring at?’ Will said eventually.
‘I wasn’t staring. I was waiting for you to answer the question.’
‘I answered it. “Nowhere,” I said.’
‘You said “Nowhere, but…”. I was waiting for what came after the but.’
‘Well, nothing. I’m not going anywhere for Christmas.’
‘So you can come to us.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘But what?’
‘Stop asking me “But what?” all the time.’
‘Why?’
‘Because… it’s not polite.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because… I clearly have reservations, Marcus. That’s why I keep saying “But”. I’m obviously not one hundred per cent convinced that I want to come to your house for Christmas.’
‘Why not?’
‘Are you being funny?’
‘No.’
It was true, of course: Marcus was never deliberately funny. One look at Marcus’s face was enough to convince Will that the boy was merely curious, and that his curiosity showed no signs of abating. The conversation had already been extended way beyond Will’s comfort point, and now he was beginning to worry that he would eventually be forced to articulate the cruellest of truths: that Marcus’s mother was, like her son, a lunatic; that even disregarding the sanity aspect of things they were both a pair of losers anyway; that he couldn’t imagine a gloomier Christmas; that he would much, much rather revert to his original plan for oblivion and the entire output of the Marx Brothers than pull wishbones with either of them; that any sane person would feel the same way. If the kid couldn’t take a hint, what option did he have? Unless…
‘I’m sorry, Marcus, I was being rude. I’d love to spend Christmas with you.’
That was the other option. It wasn’t his chosen option, but it was the other option.
As it turned out it wasn’t just the three of them, which helped him no end when he showed up. He was expecting one of Fiona’s logic-free lectures, but all he got was a look; she clearly didn’t want to resume hostilities in front of her other guests. There was Marcus’s dad Clive, and his girlfriend Lindsey, and his girlfriend’s mum, six of them altogether, all squashed round the fold-out dining table in the flat. Will didn’t know that the world was like this. As the product of a 1960s’ second marriage, he was labouring under the misapprehension that when families broke up some of the constituent parts stopped speaking to each other, but the set-up here was different: Fiona and her ex seemed to look back on their relationship as the thing that had brought them together in the first place, rather than something that had gone horribly wrong and driven them apart. It was as if sharing a home and a bed and having a child together was like staying in adjacent rooms in the same hotel, or being in the same class at school – a happy coincidence that had given them the opportunity for an occasional friendship.
This couldn’t happen all the time, Will thought, otherwise SPAT would have been full of happy but estranged couples, all introducing their exes and their nexts and their kids from here, there and everywhere; but it hadn’t been like that at all – it had been full of justified and righteous anger, and a very great deal of unhappiness. From what he had seen that evening he didn’t think too many SPAT families would be reconvening for a game of Twister and a sing-song round the tree today.
But even if it didn’t happen very often, it was happening here, today, which at first Will found rather sickening: if people couldn’t live together, he reckoned, they should at least have the decency to loathe each other. But actually, as the day wore on and he had a little more to drink, Will could dimly see that to strive for pleasantness and harmony once a year wasn’t an entirely contemptible ambition. A room full of people trying to get on made Marcus happy, for a start, and even Will was not cynical enough to wish Marcus anything but happiness on Christmas Day. On New Year’s Eve he would make a resolution to recover some of his previous scepticism, but until then he would do as the Romans do, and smile at people even if he disapproved of them. Smiling at people didn’t mean that you had to be friends with them forever, surely? Much later in the day, when common sense prevailed and everyone started squabbling, he learnt that smiling at people didn’t even mean that you had to be friends for a day, but for a few hours he was happy to believe in an inverted universe.
He had bought presents for Fiona and Marcus. He gave Marcus a vinyl copy of Nevermind, because they didn’t own a CD player, and a Kurt Cobain T-shirt, so he could keep in with Ellie; he gave Fiona a pretty groovy and pretty expensive plain glass vase, because she’d complained after the hospital business that she didn’t know what to do with the flowers. Marcus gave him a crossword-solver’s book to help him with Countdown, and Fiona gave him The Single Parent’s Handbook as a joke.
‘What’s the joke?’ Lindsey asked him.
‘Nothing,’ said Will quickly and, he could see as soon as he’d said it, feebly.
‘Will pretended to have a kid so’s he could join this single parents’ group,’ said Marcus.
‘Oh,’ said Lindsey. The strangers in the room, Lindsey and her mum and Clive, looked at him with some interest, but he declined to elucidate. He just smiled at them, as if it were something anyone would do in the circumstances. He wouldn’t like to have to explain what those circumstances were, however.
The present-giving part of the day didn’t take that long, and for the most part it was the usual stuff – alarmingly so, given the complicated web of relationships in the room. Penis-shaped chocolate was all very well, Will thought (actually he didn’t think that at all, but never mind – he was trying to live and let live) but was penis-shaped chocolate an appropriate gift for your boyfriend’s currently boyfriendless and celibate ex-lover? He really didn’t know, but it seemed a little tasteless, somehow – surely the whole subject of penises was best left alone on occasions like this? – and anyway Fiona had never struck Will as a penis-shaped-chocolate kind of woman, but she laughed anyway.
As the pile of discarded wrapping paper grew bigger, it struck Will that just about any present given in these circumstances could be deemed inappropriate or darkly meaningful. Fiona gave Lindsey some silk underwear, as if to say, ‘Hey, it doesn’t matter to me what you two get up to at nights,’ and she gave Clive a new book called The Secret History, as if to say something rather different. Clive gave Fiona a Nick Drake cassette, and though Clive did not know about the hospital business, as far as Will was aware, there still seemed to be something weird about him forcing a possibly suicidal depressive’s music on a possibly suicidal depressive.
Clive’s presents for Marcus were in themselves uncontroversial, computer games and sweatshirts and a baseball cap and the Mr Blobby record and so on, but what made them seem pointed was their contrast with the joyless little pile that Fiona had given Marcus earlier in the day: a jumper that wouldn’t do him any favours at school (it was baggy and hairy and arty), a couple of books and some piano music – a gentle and very dull maternal reminder, it transpired, that Marcus had given up on his lessons some time ago. Marcus showed him this miserable haul with a pride and enthusiasm that almost broke Will’s heart… ‘And a really nice jumper, and these books look really interesting, and this music because one day when I… when I get a bit more time I’m going to really give it a go…’ Will had never properly given Marcus credit for being a good kid – up until now he’d only noticed his eccentric, troublesome side, probably because there hadn’t been much else to notice. But he was good, Will could see that now. Not good as in obedient and uncomplaining; it was more of a mindset kind of good, where you looked at something like a pile of crap presents and recognized that they were given with love and chosen with care, and that was enough. It wasn’t even that he was choosing to see the glass as half-full, either – Marcus’s glass was full to overflowing, and he would have been amazed and mystified if anyone had attempted to tell him there were kids who would have hurled the hairy jumper and the sheet music back in the parental face and demanded a Nintendo.
Will knew he would never be good in that way. He would never look at a hairy jumper and work out why it was precisely right for him, and why he should wear it at all hours of the day and night. He would look at it and conclude that the person who bought it for him was a pillock. He did that all the time: he’d look at some twenty-five-year-old guy on roller-skates, sashaying his way down Upper Street with his wraparound shades on, and he’d think one of three things: 1) What a prat; or 2) Who the fuck do you think you are?, or 3) How old are you? Fourteen?
Everyone in England was like that, he reckoned. Nobody looked at a roller-skating bloke with wraparound shades on and thought, hey, he looks cool, or, wow, that looks like a fun way of getting some exercise. They just thought: wanker. But Marcus wouldn’t. Marcus would either fail to notice the guy at all, or he would stand there with his mouth open, lost in admiration and wonder. This wasn’t simply a function of being a child, because, as Marcus knew to his cost, all his classmates belonged to the what-a-prat school of thought; it was simply a function of being Marcus, son of Fiona. In twenty years’ time he’d be singing with his eyes closed and swallowing bottles of pills, probably, but at least he was gracious about his Christmas presents. It wasn’t much of a compensation for the long years ahead.
twenty-three
It was good having a mum and dad who didn’t decide things together, Marcus thought; that way you got the best of both worlds at Christmas. You got things like jumpers and sheet music, which you had to have, but then you got things like computer games and fun stuff as well. And if his mum and dad had still been together, what would Christmas have been like now, with just the three of them? Pretty boring, probably. This way it was more like a party, what with Will and Lindsey and, well, he wasn’t really bothered about Lindsey’s mum, if he were honest, but she sort of helped to fill the room up.
After presents they had lunch, which was a big ring doughnut-type thing made of pastry rather than doughnut, with a lovely cream and mushroom sauce in the hole in the middle, and then they had Christmas pudding with five-pence pieces hidden in it (Marcus had two in his portion), and then they pulled crackers and put the hats on, except Will wouldn’t wear his for very long. He said it made his head itch.
After they’d watched the queen on TV (nobody wanted to, apart from Lindsey’s mum, but whatever old people wanted they got, in Marcus’s experience), Clive rolled a joint, and there was a bit of a row. Lindsey was angry with Clive because of her mum, who had no idea what he was doing until people started shouting about it, and Fiona was angry with Clive because of Marcus, who had seen him roll a joint about one thousand million times before.
‘He’s seen me do it hundreds of times before,’ said Clive. It was the wrong thing to say, as it turned out, so Marcus was glad he hadn’t said it.
‘I wish you hadn’t told me,’ said Fiona. ‘I really didn’t want to know.’
‘What, you thought I’d given up dope the day we separated? Why would I do that?’
‘Marcus was younger then. He was always in bed before you started rolling up.’
‘I never smoke any, Mum. Dad won’t let me.’
‘Oh, well that’s all right then. As long as you’re not smoking any, I have no objection to your father indulging his drug habit in front of you.’
‘Ha, ha,’ said Marcus. Everyone in the room looked at him, and then they continued the argument.
‘I’d hardly describe the occasional spliff as a drug habit, would you?’
‘Well obviously I would, because I just have.’
‘Can we talk about this another time?’ Lindsey asked. Her mother hadn’t said anything so far, but she certainly seemed interested in what was going on.
‘Why? Because your mother is here?’ Marcus had never seen Fiona get cross with Lindsey before, but she was getting cross with her now. ‘Unfortunately I can never have a conversation with Marcus’s father without your mother being present, for reasons I have yet to fathom. So you’ll just have to bloody well put up with it.’
‘Look, I’ll put the dope away, OK? Then we’ll all calm down and watch International Velvet and forget about it.’
‘International Velvet isn’t on,’ said Marcus. ‘It’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.’
‘That wasn’t the point I was making, Marcus.’
Marcus didn’t say anything, but inwardly he disagreed: it hadn’t been the only point, but it had certainly been one of them.
‘I know he takes drugs,’ said Lindsey’s mum suddenly. ‘I’m not daft.’
‘I don’t… take drugs,’ said Clive.
‘Well, what do you call it then?’ said Lindsey’s mum.
‘It’s not drug-taking. It’s… just normal. Drug-taking is something different.’
‘Do you think he takes them on his own?’ Fiona said to Lindsey’s mum. ‘Do you think your daughter just sits there watching him?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She doesn’t mean anything, Mum. I think Clive’s idea is an excellent one. Let’s put it all away and play charades or something.’
‘I didn’t say anything about charades. I suggested watching International Velvet.’
‘It’s not International—’ Marcus begun.
‘Shut up, Marcus,’ said everybody, and then they all laughed.
The row changed the atmosphere, though. Clive and Fiona agreed to have a proper conversation about the dope thing some other time, Fiona and Lindsey snapped at each other a couple of times, and even Will seemed different, although none of it had had anything to do with him. Marcus reckoned Will had been having a good time up until then, but afterwards he seemed apart from it all, whereas before he’d been one of the family. It was almost like he was laughing at them for rowing, for reasons Marcus couldn’t understand. And then, after they’d had supper (there were cold meats for the meat-eaters, and Marcus had some, just to see the look on his mum’s face), Suzie came round with her little girl and it was thei
r turn to laugh at Will.
Marcus didn’t know that Will hadn’t seen Suzie since his mum had told her about Ned and SPAT and all that. Nobody had said anything, but that didn’t mean much – Marcus had always presumed that after he had gone to school or to bed adults did all sorts of things they didn’t tell him about, but now he was beginning to suspect this wasn’t true, and that the adults he knew didn’t have any sort of a secret life at all. It was obvious when Suzie walked into the room that this was an awkward moment, especially for Will: he stood up, and then he sat down, and then he stood up again, and then he went red, and then he said he ought to be going, and then Fiona told him not to be pathetic, so he sat down again. The only spare chair was in Will’s corner, so Suzie had to sit next to him.
‘Have you had a nice day, Suze?’ Fiona asked her.
‘OK, yeah. We’re just on the way home from Grandma’s.’
‘And how’s Grandma?’ asked Will. Suzie turned to look at him, opened her mouth to reply, but changed her mind and ignored him completely. It was one of the most exciting things Marcus had ever seen in real life, and easily the most exciting thing he had ever seen in his own living room. (His mum and the sick on the Dead Duck Day didn’t count. That wasn’t exciting. It was just horrible.) Suzie was snubbing, he reckoned. He’d heard a lot about snubbing, but he had never watched anyone do it. It was great, if a bit frightening.
Will stood up and sat down again. If he really wanted to leave, Marcus thought, nobody could stop him. Or rather, they could stop him – if everyone in the room grabbed him and sat on him he wouldn’t get very far. (Marcus smiled to himself at the thought of Lindsey’s mum sitting on Will’s head.) But they wouldn’t stop him. So why didn’t he just stand up, stay stood up and start walking? Why did he keep on bobbing up and down? Maybe there was something about snubbing that Marcus didn’t know. Maybe there were snubbing rules, and you just had to sit there and be snubbed, even if you didn’t feel like it.
