by Nick Hornby
JESS
I got on Dad’s computer, and put ‘Cindy Sharp’ into Google, and I found an interview she’d given to some woman’s magazine when Martin had gone to prison. ‘Cindy Sharp talks for the first time about her heartbreak’ and all that. You could even click on a picture of her and her two girls. Cindy looked like Penny, except older and a bit fatter, because of having had kids and that. And what’s the betting that Penny looked like the fifteen-year-old, except that the fifteen-year-old was even slimmer than Penny, and had bigger tits or whatever? They’re tossers, aren’t they, men like Martin? They think women are like fucking laptops or whatever, like, My old one’s knackered and anyway, you can get ones that are slimmer and do more stuff now.
So I read the interview, and it said she lived in this village called Torley Heath, about forty miles outside London. And if she was trying to stop people like us from knocking on the door to tell her to get back with her husband, then she made a big mistake, because the interviewer described exactly where her house is in the village – opposite an old-fashioned corner shop, next door but one to the village school. She told us all this because she wanted us to know how idealistic or whatever Cindy’s life is. Apart from her ex-husband being in prison for sleeping with a fifteen-year-old.
We decided not to tell JJ. We were pretty sure he’d stop us for some bullshit reason or another. He’d say, ‘It’s none of your business,’ or, ‘You’ll fuck up the last chance he’s got.’ But we thought we had a strong argument, Maureen and I. Our argument was this. Maybe Cindy did hate Martin because he was a real playa who went anywhere with anyone. But now he was suicidal, and he probably wouldn’t go anywhere with anyone, or at least not for a while. So basically, if she wouldn’t take him back, she had to hate him enough to want him to die. And that’s a lot of hate. True, he hadn’t ever said he wanted to get back with her, but he needed to be in a secure domestic environment, in a place like Torley Heath. It was better to do nothing in a place where there was nothing to do than in London, where there was trouble – teenage girls and nightclubs and tower-blocks. That’s what we felt.
So we had a day out. Maureen made horrible like old-fashioned sandwiches with egg and stuff in them, which I couldn’t eat. And we got the tube to Paddington, then the train to Newbury, and then a bus to Torley Heath. I’d been worried that Maureen and I wouldn’t have much to say to each other, and we’d get really bored, and I’d end up doing something stupid, because of the boredom. But it really wasn’t like that, mostly because of me, and the effort I put in. I decided that I was going to be like an interviewer type-person, and I’d spend the journey finding out about Maureen’s life, no matter how boring or depressing it was. The only trouble was that it was actually too boring and depressing to listen to, so I sort of switched off when she was talking, and thought up the next question. A couple of times she looked at me funny, so I’m guessing that quite often she had just told me something and then I asked her about it again. Like once, I tuned back in to hear her go, something something something met Frank. So I went, When did you meet Frank, but I think what she’d just said was, That was when I met Frank. So I’d have to work on that, if I was ever to be an interviewer. But let’s face it, I wouldn’t be interviewing people who did nothing and had a disabled son, would I? So it would be easier to concentrate, because they’d be talking about their new films and other stuff you’d actually want to know about.
Anyway, the point was that we went through a whole journey to the middle of fucking nowhere without me asking her whether she had sex doggy style or anything like that. And what I realized then was that I’d come a long way since New Year’s Eve. I’d grown as a person. And that made me think that our story was sort of coming to an end, and it was going to be a happy ending. Because I’d grown as a person, and also we were in this period where we were sorting out each other’s problems. We weren’t just sitting around moping. That’s when stories end, isn’t it? When people show they’ve learned things, and problems get solved. I’ve seen loads of films like that. We’d sort out Martin today, and then turn our minds to JJ, and then me, and then Maureen. And we’d meet on the roof after ninety days, and smile, and hug, and know that we had moved on.
The bus stop was right outside the village shop that the article in the magazine had gone on about. So we got off the bus and stood outside the shop and looked across the road to see what we could see. What we saw was this little cottagey sort of place with a low wall, and you could look into the garden, and in the garden there were two little girls all wrapped up in hats and scarves and they were playing with a dog. So I went to Maureen, Do you know the names of Martin’s kids? And she was like, Yes, they’re called Polly and Maisie – which seemed about right, I thought. I could imagine Martin and Cindy having kids called Polly and Maisie, which are sort of old-fashioned posh names, so everyone could pretend that Mr Darcy or whatever lived next door. So I shouted, Oo-o, Polly! Maisie! And they looked at us and came towards us, and that was my detective work over.
We knocked on the door and Cindy answered, and she looked at me as if she half-recognized me, and I was like, I’m Jess. I’m one of the Toppers’ House Four, and I was, you know, linked to your husband or whatever in the newspapers. Which was a lie, by the way. (That was me telling her it was a lie, not me telling you. I really wish I knew where speech marks or whatever went. I can see the point of them now.)
And she said, Ex-husband, which was sort of an unfriendly and unhelpful start.
And I went, Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it?
And she went, Is it?
And I went, Yes, it is. Because he doesn’t have to be your ex-husband.
And she went, Oh, yes he does.
And we hadn’t even gone through the front door.
At that point Maureen goes, Do you think we could come in and talk to you? I’m Maureen. I’m also a friend of Martin’s. We’ve come down from London on the train.
And the bus, I said. I just wanted her to know we’d made an effort.
And Cindy said, I’m sorry, come in. Not I’m sorry, fuck off home, which is what I thought she was going to say. She was apologizing for her bad manners in making us stand out on the doorstep. So I was like, Oh, this is going to be easy. In ten minutes I’ll have bullied her into taking him back.
So we walk into the cottage, and it’s cosy in there, but not all like out of a magazine, which I thought it would be. The furniture didn’t really match, and it was old, and it smelled of the dog a bit. She showed us through to the sitting room and there was this geezer in there sitting by the fire. He was nice-looking, younger than her, and I thought, Oh-oh, he’s got his feet under the table. Because he was listening to a Walkman with his shoes off, and you don’t listen to a Walkman with your shoes off in someone’s house if you’re just visiting, do you?
Cindy went up to him and tapped him on the shoulder and said, We’ve got visitors, and he was like, Oh, I’m sorry. I was listening to Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter. The children love it, so I thought I should give it a whirl. Have you heard it? So I was like, Yeah, do I look nine years old to you? And he didn’t know what to say to that. He took the headphones off and pressed a button on the machine.
And Cindy said, It’s Paul’s dog that the girls are playing with. And I was like, Yeah, so? But I didn’t say that.
Cindy told him that we were friends of Martin’s, and he asked whether she wanted him to leave, and she said, No, of course not, whatever they’ve come to say I want you to hear. So I said, Well, we’ve come to tell Cindy she should get back with Martin, so you might not want to hear that. And he didn’t know what to say to that either.
Maureen looked at me, and then she goes, We’re worried about him. And Cindy said, Yes, well, I can’t say I’m surprised. And Maureen tells her about the bloke who topped himself, and how it was because of how his wife and kids had left him, and Cindy said, You know Martin left us? We didn’t leave him? And I was like, Yeah, that’s why we’ve come. Because if
you’d left him, this whole trip would have been a waste of time. But, you know. We’ve come down here to tell you he’s changed his mind, sort of thing. And Maureen said, I think he knows that was a mistake. And Cindy goes, I had no doubt he’d realize it in the long term, and I also had no doubt that by the time he did it would be too late. And I went, It’s never too late to learn. And she went, It is for him. And I said I thought she owed him another chance, and she sort of smiled and said she disagreed and I said I disagreed with her disagreeing and she said we must agree to disagree. And I was like, So you want him to die, then?
And then she went a bit quiet, and I thought I’d got her. But then she goes, I thought about killing myself too, when things were really bad, a while ago. But I didn’t have the option, because of the girls. And it’s indicative of the way things are that he does have the option. He’s not part of a family. He hated being part of a family. And that’s when I decided it was his business. If he had the freedom to fuck around, then he had the freedom to kill himself, too. Don’t you think?
And I went, Well I can see why you say that. Which was a mistake, because it didn’t help my argument.
Cindy said, Did he tell you I wouldn’t let him see the girls?
And Maureen said, Yes, he did mention that. And Cindy went, Well, that’s not true. I just won’t let him see them here. He could take them for weekends in London, but he won’t. Or he says he will, but then he makes excuses. He doesn’t want to be that sort of dad, you see. It’s too much effort. He wants to come home from work, read them a story some nights but not every night, and go to see them in the Christmas play. He doesn’t want all the other stuff. And then she was like, I don’t know why I’m telling you this. And I went, He’s a bit of a tosser, really, isn’t he? And she laughed. He’s made a lot of mistakes, she said. And he continues to make them.
And that Paul bloke goes, If he were a computer, you’d have to say that there’s a programming fault, so I was like, What’s it got to do with you? And Cindy said, Listen, I’ve been very patient with you up until now. Two strangers knock on my door and tell me to get back together with my ex-husband, a man who nearly destroyed me, and I invite them in and actually listen to them. But Paul is my partner, and part of my family, and a wonderful stepfather to the girls. And that’s what it’s got to do with him.
And then Paul stood up and said, I think I’ll take Harry Potter upstairs, and he nearly tripped over my feet, and Cindy dived over and was like, Careful, darling, and then I worked out he was blind. Blind! Fucking hell! That’s why he had a dog. That’s why she was trying to tell me he had a dog (because I was giving it all that stuff, like, Do I look nine years old oh God oh God). So we’d gone all the way down there to tell Cindy she had to leave a blind man and get back together with a man who shagged fifteen-year-olds and treated her like shit. It shouldn’t really have made any difference, though, should it? They’re always going on about how they want to be treated the same as everyone else. So I’ll leave the blind thing out of it. I’ll just say that we went all the way down there to tell Cindy she had to leave an OK bloke who was good to her and her kids, and get back with an arsehole. And that still didn’t sound great.
I’ll tell you what really got me, though. The only proof that Martin had ever had anything to do with Cindy was us turning up in her house. Us and his kids, anyway, but they would only be proof if you took them for a DNA test and that. Anyway, what I mean is, as far as Cindy was concerned, he might as well have never existed. They’d all moved on. Cindy had a whole new life now. On the way down, I’d been thinking about how I’d moved on, but all I’d done was gone one train ride and one bus journey without asking Maureen about sexual positions. After I’d seen Cindy, that didn’t seem like such a long journey. Cindy had got rid of Martin, moved and met someone else. Her past was in the past, but our past, I don’t know… Our past was still all over the place. We could see it every day when we woke up. It was like Cindy lived in a modern place like Tokyo and we lived in an old place like Rome or somewhere. Except it couldn’t be exactly like that, because Rome is probably a cool place to live, what with the clothes and the ice cream and the lush boys and that – just as cool as Tokyo. And where we lived wasn’t cool. So maybe it was more like, she lived in a modern penthouse, and we lived in some old shithole that should have been pulled down years ago. We lived in a place where there were holes in the walls, and anyone could stick their head through them if they wanted to, and make faces at us. And Maureen and I had been trying to persuade Cindy to move out of her cool penthouse and move into our dump with us. It wasn’t much of an offer, I could see that now.
As we were leaving, Cindy was like, I’d have more respect for him if he asked me himself. And I went, Ask you what? And she said, If I can help him, I will. But I don’t know what he wants help with.
And when she said that, I could see we’d done the afternoon all wrong, and there was a much better way.
JJ
The only trouble was, the American self-help guy didn’t have the first fucking idea of how to help himself. And to be honest with you, the more I thought about the ninety-day theory, the less I could see how it applied to me. As far as I could tell, I was fucked for a lot longer than ninety days. I was giving up being a musician for ever, man, and giving up music wasn’t going to be like giving up cigarettes. It was going to get worse and worse, harder and harder, every day I went without. My first day working at Burger King wouldn’t be so bad, because I’d tell myself, you know… Actually, I don’t know what the fuck I’d tell myself, but I’d think of something. But by the fifth day I’d be miserable, and by the thirtieth year… Man. Don’t try talking to me on my thirtieth anniversary of burger-flipping. I’ll be real grouchy that day. And I’ll be sixty-one years old.
And then, when this stuff had gone around and around in my head for a while, I’d kind of stand up, mentally speaking, and say, OK, fuck it, I’m going to kill myself. And then I’d remember the guy we saw do exactly that, and I’d sit down again feeling truly terrible, worse than when I’d stood up in the first place. Self-help was a crock of shit. I couldn’t help myself to a free drink.
The next time we met up, Jess told us all that she and Maureen had gone to see Cindy out in the countryside.
‘My ex-wife was called Cindy,’ said Martin. He was sipping a latte and reading the Telegraph, and not really listening to anything Jess had to say.
‘Yeah, that’s a coincidence,’ said Jess.
Martin continued to sip his coffee.
‘Der,’ said Jess.
Martin put the Telegraph down and looked at her.
‘What?’
‘It was your Cindy, you doughnut.’
Martin looked at her.
‘You’ve never met my Cindy. Ex-my Cindy. My ex.’
‘That’s what we’re saying to you. Maureen and I went down wherever it was to talk to her.’
‘Torley Heath,’ said Maureen.
‘That’s where she lives!’ said Martin, scandalized.
Jess sighed.
‘You went to see Cindy?’
Jess picked up his Telegraph and started leafing through it, kind of a spoof on his previous lack of interest. Martin snatched the paper away from her.
‘What the hell did you do that for?’
‘We thought it might help.’
‘How?’
‘We went down to ask her whether she’d take you back. But she wouldn’t. She’s shacked up with this blind geezer. She’s well sorted. Isn’t she, Maureen?’
Maureen had the good sense to stare at her own shoes.
Martin stared at Jess.
‘Are you insane?’ he said. ‘On whose authority did you do that?’
‘On whose authority? On my authority. Free country.’
‘And what would you have done if she’d burst into tears and said, you know, “I’d love him to come back”?’
‘I would have helped you pack. And you’d have fucking well done what we’d told you
.’
‘But…’ He made some spluttering noises, and then stopped. ‘Jesus Christ.’
‘Anyway, there’s no chance of that. She thinks you’re a right bastard.’
‘If you’d ever listened to anything I’d ever said about my ex-wife, you could have saved yourself a trip. You thought she’d take me back? You thought I’d go back?’
Jess shrugged. ‘It was worth a try.’
‘You,’ said Martin. ‘Maureen. There’s nothing on the floor. Look at me. You went with her?’
‘It was her idea,’ said Jess.
‘So you’re an even bigger fool than she is.’
‘We all need help,’ said Maureen. ‘We don’t all know what we want. You’ve all helped me. I wanted to help you. And I thought that was the best way.’
‘How would it work now when it didn’t work before?’
Maureen didn’t say anything, so I did.
‘So which of us wouldn’t try to make something work now that didn’t work before? Now that we’ve seen what the alternative is. A big fat fucking nothing.’
‘So what would you want back, JJ? ’Jess asked.
‘Everything, man. The band. Lizzie.’
‘That’s stupid. The band was rubbish. Well,’ she said quickly when she saw my face. ‘Not rubbish. But not… you know.’
I nodded. I knew.
‘And Lizzie packed you in.’
I knew that, too. What I didn’t say, because it sounded too fucking lame, was that if it were possible to rewind, I’d rewind back to the last few weeks of the band, and the last few weeks of Lizzie, even though everything was fucked up. I was still playing music, I was still seeing her – there wasn’t anything to complain about, right? OK, everything was dying. But it wasn’t dead.
