by Nick Hornby
‘We do.’
‘Right. Sorry, Maureen. OK, “You are a pig” when you’re not a pig.’
‘Metaphor.’
‘Exactly. We didn’t literally see an angel. But we sort of did metaphorically.’
‘We sort of metaphorically saw an angel,’ repeated JJ. He had the flat disbelief thing off pat now.
‘Yeah. Yeah. I mean, something turned us back. Something saved our lives. Why not an angel?’
‘Because there wasn’t one.’
‘OK, we didn’t see one. But you could say that anything was an angel. Any girl, anyway. Me, or even Maureen.’
‘Any girl could be an angel.’ JJ again.
‘Yeah. Because of angels. Girls.’
‘Have you ever heard of the Angel Gabriel, for example?’
‘No.’
‘Well, he – he– was an angel.’
‘Yeah?’
For some reason I suddenly lost patience.
‘What is this nonsense? Can you hear yourself, Jess?’
‘What have I said now?’
‘We didn’t see an angel, literally or metaphorically. And, incidentally, seeing something metaphorically, whatever that means, is not the same as seeing something. With your eyes. Which, as I understand it, is what you’re proposing we say. That’s not embellishing. That’s talking bullshit, sorry, Maureen. To be honest, I’d keep this to yourself. I wouldn’t tell anyone about the angel. Not even the national press.’
‘But say if we get on telly and get a chance to, you know, spread our message?’
We all stared at her.
‘What the hell is our message?’
‘Well. That’s sort of up to us, isn’t it?’
How was one supposed to argue with a mind like this? The three of us never managed to find a way, so we contented ourselves with ridicule and sarcasm, and the afternoon ended with an unspoken agreement that as three-quarters of us hadn’t really enjoyed our brief moment of media exposure, we would allow the current interest in our mental health to dwindle away to nothing. And then, a couple of hours after I got home, there was a phone call from Theo, asking me why I hadn’t told him that I’d seen an angel.
JESS
They weren’t happy. Martin was the worst: he went up the fucking wall. He called me at home and went off on one for about ten minutes. But I knew he was going to be all right about it, because Dad answered the phone, and Martin never said anything to him. If he’d said anything to Dad, then the story would have come apart. It needed the four of us to stick to our guns, and as long as we did that, we could say we’d seen whatever we wanted to have seen. The thing is, it was too good an idea to waste, wasn’t it? And they knew that, which is why I thought they’d come round to it in the end – which they did, sort of. And for me, it was our first big test as a group. They all had a straightforward choice to make: were they on my side or not? And to be honest, if they’d decided that they weren’t, I doubt whether I’d have had anything more to do with them. It would have said a lot about them as people, none of it good.
I admit I was a bit sneaky. First of all I asked JJ the name of the woman who’d come round to see him that morning, and he told me her name and the paper she worked for, which was a bonus. He thought I was just making conversation, but I thought it might come in handy at some stage. And then when I got home, I called the paper. I said I’d only speak to her, and when I told them my name they gave me her mobile number.
She was called Linda, and she was really friendly. I thought she might think it was all a bit weird, but she was very interested and encouraging, really. If she had a fault as a journalist, I’d say it was that she was too encouraging, if anything. Too believing and trusting. You’d expect a good journalist to be all, you know, How do I know you’re telling the truth, but I could have told her anything and she’d have written it down. She was slightly unprofessional, between you and me.
So she was all, What did this angel look like, Jess? She said Jess a lot, to show that we were friends.
I’d thought about this. The stupid thing to say would have been that he – I’d decided he was a he, because of Gabriel – looked like a church angel, with wings and all that. That would give off the wrong signals, I thought.
Not what you’d expect, I said. And Linda went, What, no wings or haloes, Jess? And she laughed – like, What kind of berk would say they’d seen an angel with wings and a halo? So I knew I’d made the right decision. I laughed as well, and I went, No, he looked all modern, and she was like, Really?
(I always do this, when I’m talking about what someone said. I’m always, like, So I was like, and, She went, and all like that. But when a conversation goes on a bit, it’s a drag, isn’t it? Like, went, like, went. So I’m going to do it like a play from now on, OK? I’m not so good on speech marks or whatever, but I can remember plays from reading them at school.)
ME: Yeah. He was dressed modern. He looked like he could have been in a band or something.
LINDA: A band? Which band?
ME: I don’t know. Radiohead or someone like that.
LINDA: Why Radiohead?
(You couldn’t say anything without her asking a question. I said Radiohead because they don’t look like anything much. They’re just blokes, aren’t they?)
ME: I don’t know. Or Blur. Or… Who’s that guy? In that film? He’s not the one who’s not married to Jennifer Lopez, he’s the other one, and they won an Oscar, because he was good at maths even though he was only a cleaner… The blond one. Matt.
LINDA: The angel looked like Matt Damon?
ME: Yeah, I suppose. A bit.
LINDA: So. A handsome angel who looked like Matt Damon.
ME: He’s not all that, Matt Damon. But, yeah.
LINDA: And when did he appear, this angel?
ME: When?
LINDA: Yes, when. I mean, how close to… to jumping were you?
ME: Oh, really close, man. He came in at the last minute.
LINDA: Wow. So you were standing on the ledge? All of you?
ME: Yeah. We’d decided we were going to go over together. For company, sort of thing. So we were standing there saying our goodbyes to each other and that. And we were going to do One, Two, Three, Jump and we heard this voice behind us.
LINDA: You must have been frightened out of your wits.
ME: Yeah.
LINDA: It was a wonder you didn’t fall off.
ME: Yeah.
LINDA: So you all turned around…
ME: Yeah. We all turned around, and he said…
LINDA: Sorry. What was he wearing?
ME: Just a sort of… Like a baggy suit, sort of thing. A baggy white suit. Quite fashionable, really. Looked like it had set him back a few quid.
LINDA: A designer suit?
ME: Yeah.
LINDA: Tie?
ME: No. No tie.
LINDA: An informal angel.
ME: Yeah. Smart-casual, anyway.
LINDA: And did you know immediately he wasn’t a human man?
ME: Oh, yeah.
LINDA: How?
ME: He was all… fuzzy. Like he wasn’t tuned in properly. And you could see right through him. You couldn’t see his liver or anything like that. You could just see like the buildings on the other side of him. Oh, yeah – plus, he was hovering above the roof.
LINDA: How high?
ME: High, man. When I first saw him, I was like, that guy is five metres tall. But when I looked down at his feet, they were a metre above the ground.
LINDA: So he was about twelve feet tall?
ME: Two metres above the ground, then.
LINDA: So he was nine feet tall.
ME: Three metres. Whatever.
LINDA: So his feet were above your heads.
ME: (Becoming fucked off with her going on about metres, but trying not to show it) To begin with. But then he sort of worked out that he’d overdone it, and he, you know. Came down a bit. I got the impression that he hadn’t done any hovering
for a while. He was a bit rusty.
(I was just making this stuff up as I went along. I mean, you know already I was making it up. But seeing as how I’d called her without thinking any of it through, I thought I was doing really well. She seemed to like it, anyway.)
LINDA: Amazing.
ME: Yeah. It really was.
LINDA: So what did he say?
ME: He said, you know, Don’t jump. But he said it very peacefully. Calmly. He had this like inner wisdom. You could tell he was a messenger from God.
LINDA: Did he say that?
ME: Not in so many words. But you could work it out.
LINDA: Because of the inner wisdom.
ME: Yeah. He had that sort of air about him, like he’d met God personally. It was wicked.
LINDA: That’s all he said?
ME: He was like, Your time hasn’t come yet. Go back down and send people this message of comfort and joy. And tell them that war is stupid. Which is something I personally believe.
(That last bit, the Which I personally believe bit, wasn’t part of the play. I’m just giving you extra information, so you can get a better picture of the kind of person I am.)
LINDA: And do you intend to spread that message?
ME: Yeah. Course. That’s one of the reasons we want to do this interview. And if any of your readers are like world leaders or generals or terrorists or whatever, then they should know that God is not a happy bunny at the moment. He’s well pissed off with that side of things.
LINDA: I’m sure our readers will find that very thought-provoking. And you all saw it?
ME: Oh, yeah. You couldn’t miss him.
LINDA: Martin Sharp saw it?
ME: Oh, yeah. Course. He saw it… he saw it more than any of us.
(I didn’t quite know what that meant, but I could tell it was important to her that Martin was involved.)
LINDA: So now what?
ME: Well. We’ve got to work out what we’re going to do.
LINDA: Of course. Will you be talking to any other newspapers?
ME: Oh, yeah. Definitely.
I was pleased with that. I got her up to five grand in the end. I had to promise that she’d have a chance to speak to everybody, though.
JJ
It didn’t seem like it was going to be too difficult, at first. OK, none of us was thrilled that Jess had got us into this angel thing, but it didn’t seem worth falling out over. We’d grit our teeth, say we’d seen an angel, take the money and try and forget it ever happened. But then the next day you’re sitting in front of a journalist, and you’re all agreeing with a straight face that this fucking angel looked like Matt Damon, and loyalty seemed like the dumbest of all the virtues. It wasn’t like you could just go through the motions, either, when you’re supposed to have seen an angel. You can’t just say, ‘Yeah, blah, angel, whatever.’ Seeing an angel is clearly a big deal, so you’ve got to act like it’s a big deal, with excitement and open-mouthed awe, and it’s hard to do open-mouthed awe through gritted teeth. Maureen was maybe the one person who could have been convincing, because she believed in that stuff, kind of. But because she believed in it, she was the one who had the most trouble with the lies. ‘Maureen,’ said Jess patiently and slowly, as if Maureen were simply being dumb, rather than fearing for her immortal soul, ‘It’s for five thousand pounds.’
The paper arranged for someone from the care home to sit for Matty, and we met Linda in the café where we’d had breakfast on New Year’s morning. We had our photos taken – mostly group shots, but then they took one or two more outside, with us pointing at the sky and our jaws unhinged with wonder. They didn’t end up using those, probably because one or two of us overdid it a little, and one of us wouldn’t do it at all. And then, after the shoot, Linda asked us questions.
It was Martin she was after – he was the prize. If she could get Martin Sharp to say that an angel had kept him from killing himself – i.e., if she could get Martin Sharp to say, ‘I AM A WACKO – OFFICIAL’ – she had a front-page story. Martin knew it, too, so his performance was heroic, or as close to heroism as you can come if you’re a sleazy talk-show host who is never likely to do anything involving actual heroism. Martin telling Linda that he’d seen an angel reminded me of that Sidney Carton guy in A Tale of Two Cities going to the guillotine so that his buddy could live: Martin wore the expression of a man about to have his head sliced off for the greater good. That Sidney guy, though, he’d discovered his inner nobility, so he probably looked noble, but Martin just looked pissed off.
Jess did all the talking to begin with, and then Linda got tired of her, and started to ask Martin questions directly.
‘So when this figure began hovering… Hovering? Is that right?’
‘Hovering,’ confirmed Jess. ‘Like I said, he hovered too high at first, because of being out of practice, but then he found the right level.’
Martin winced, like the angel’s refusal to put his feet on the ground somehow made things more embarrassing for him.
‘So when the angel was hovering in front of you, Martin, what did you think?’
‘Think?’ Martin repeated.
‘We didn’t think much, did we?’ said Jess. ‘We were too stunned.’
‘That’s right,’ said Martin.
‘But you must have thought something,’ Linda said. ‘Even if it was only, Bloody hell, I wonder if I could get him on to Rise and Shine with Penny and Martin.’ She chuckled encouragingly.
‘Well,’ said Martin. ‘I haven’t been presenting the show for a while now, remember. So it would have been a waste of time asking him.’
‘You’ve got your cable show, though.’
‘Yes.’
‘So maybe he would have gone on that.’ She chuckled encouragingly again.
‘We tend to book mainly showbiz stuff. Stand-up comedians, soap stars… The odd sportsman.’
‘So you’re saying you wouldn’t have had him on.’ Once she’d started this line of questioning, Linda seemed kind of reluctant to let it drop.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’ she snorted. ‘I mean, it’s not David Letterman, your show, is it? It’s not like people are swarming all over you to get on it.’
‘We do all right.’
I couldn’t help feeling that she was missing the point of the story. An angel – possibly like an emissary from the Lord Himself, who knows? – had visited a tower-block in Archway to stop us all from killing ourselves, and she wanted to know why he hadn’t been booked on a talk show. I don’t know, man. You’d have thought that would be one of the questions nearer the end of the interview.
‘He’d have been the first person on that we’d ever heard of, anyway.’
‘You’d heard of him before, had you?’ said Martin. ‘This particular angel? The one who looked like Matt Damon?’
‘I’ve heard of angels,’ she said.
‘Well, I’m sure you’ve heard of actresses,’ said Martin. ‘We’ve had them on, too.’
‘Where are we going with this?’ I said. ‘You really wanna write a piece about why the Angel Matt wasn’t a guest on Martin’s show?’
‘Is that what you call him?’ she said. ‘The Angel Matt?’
‘Usually we just call him “The Angel”,’ said Jess. ‘But…’
‘Would you mind if Martin answered a couple of questions?’
‘You’ve asked him loads already,’ said Jess. ‘Maureen hasn’t said anything. JJ hasn’t said very much.’
‘Martin’s the one that most people will have heard of,’ said Linda. ‘Martin? Is that what you call him?’
‘Just “The Angel”,’ said Martin. He looked happier than this on the night he tried to kill himself.
‘Can I just check something?’ said Linda. ‘You did see him, Martin, didn’t you?’
Martin shifted in his seat. You could tell he was scouting around the inside of his head, just to make sure that there were no escape routes he’d overlooked.
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br /> ‘Oh, yes,’ said Martin. ‘I saw him, all right. He was… He was awesome.’
And with that, he finally walked into the cage that Linda had opened for him. The public at large were now free to poke sticks at him and call him names, and he just had to sit there and take it, like an exhibit in a freak show.
But then, we were all freaks now. When friends and family and ex-lovers opened their newspapers the next morning, they could come to one of only two possible conclusions: 1) we’d all looped the loop, or 2) we were scam artists. OK, strictly speaking, there was a third conclusion – we were telling the truth. We saw an angel that looked like Matt Damon, who for reasons best known to himself told us to get down off the roof. But I got to say, I don’t know anyone who’d believe that. Maybe my great-aunt Ida, who lives in Alabama and handles snakes every Sunday morning in her church, but then, she’s nuts too.
And I don’t know, man, but to me it seemed a long way back from there. If you were gonna draw a map, you’d say that mortgages and relationships and jobs and all that stuff, all the things that constitute a regular life, were in like New Orleans, and by coming out with all this horseshit we’d just put ourselves somewhere north of Alaska. Who’s going to give a job to a guy who sees angels? And who’s going to give a job to a guy who says he sees angels because he might make a few bucks for himself? No, we were finished as serious people. We had sold our seriosity for twelve hundred and fifty of your English pounds, and as far as I could tell that money was going to have to last us for the rest of our lives, unless we saw God, or Elvis, or Princess Di. And next time we’d have to see them for real, and take photos.
Just over two years ago, REM’s manager came to see Big Yellow, and asked whether we were interested in his company representing us, and we said we were happy with what we had. REM! Twenty-six months ago! We were sitting around in this fancy office, and this guy, he was trying to persuade us, you know? And now I was sitting around with people like Maureen and Jess, taking part in a pathetic attempt to squeeze a few bucks out of someone who was desperate to give it to us, so long as we were prepared to totally embarrass ourselves. One thing the last couple of years has taught me is that there’s nothing you can’t fuck up if you try hard enough.
