About a Boy by Nick Hornby
She wasn’t bad. The piano playing was better than her voice, but her voice wasn’t awful, simply adequate, if a little thin, and she could certainly carry a tune. No, it wasn’t the quality that embarrassed him, it was the sincerity. He’d been with people who had picked up guitars and sat down at pianos before (although not for a very long time), but they had always sent themselves up in some way: they had chosen stupid songs to play, or sung them in a stupid way, or camped them up or done anything to show they didn’t mean it.
Fiona meant it. She meant ‘Knocking On Heaven’s Door’, and then she meant ‘Fire And Rain’, and then she meant ‘Both Sides Now’. There was nothing between her and the songs; she was inside them. She even closed her eyes when she was singing.
‘Do you want to come over here so you can see the words?’ she asked him after ‘Both Sides Now’. He’d been sitting at the dining table staring hard at Marcus, until Marcus started singing too, at which point he turned his attention to the wall.
‘Ummm… What’s next?’
‘Any requests?’
He wanted her to play something that she couldn’t close her eyes to, ‘Roll Out The Barrel,’ say, or ‘Knees Up, Mother Brown’, but the mood had already been set.
‘Anything.’
She chose ‘Killing Me Softly With His Song’. There was nothing he could do but stand next to her and let the odd half-syllable of lyric crawl choking out of his mouth. ‘Smile… While… Boy… Ling…’ He knew, of course he knew, that the song couldn’t last forever, that the evening couldn’t last forever, that he would soon be home tucked up in bed, that singing round the piano with a depressive hippy and her weirdo son wouldn’t kill him. He knew all that, but he didn’t feel it. He couldn’t do anything with these people after all, he could see that now. He’d been stupid to think there was anything here for him.
When he got home he put a Pet Shop Boys CD on, and watched Prisoner: Cell Block H with the sound down. He wanted to hear people who didn’t mean it, and he wanted to watch people he could laugh at. He got drunk, too; he filled a glass with ice and poured himself scotch after scotch. And as the drink began to take hold, he realized that people who meant it were much more likely to kill themselves than people who didn’t: he couldn’t recall having even the faintest urge to take his own life, and he found it hard to imagine that he ever would. When it came down to it, he just wasn’t that engaged. You had to be engaged to be a vegetarian; you had to be engaged to sing ‘Both Sides Now’ with your eyes closed; when it came down to it, you had to be engaged to be a mother. He wasn’t much bothered either way about anything, and that, he knew, would guarantee him a long and depression-free life. He’d made a big mistake thinking that good works were a way forward for him. They weren’t. They drove you mad. Fiona did good works and they had driven her mad: she was vulnerable, messed-up, inadequate. Will had a system going here that was going to whizz him effortlessly to the grave. He didn’t want to fuck it up now.
*
Fiona called him once more, soon after the excruciating supper; she left a message on the machine, and he didn’t answer it. Suzie called him too, and though he wanted to see her, he suspected she was ringing on Fiona’s behalf, so he was vague and non-committal. It looked to him like he’d taken the single mum thing as far as it would go, and he was preparing for a return to the life he had been living before he met Angie. Maybe it was for the best.
He went record shopping, he went clothes shopping, he played a bit of tennis, he went to the pub, he watched telly, he went to see films and bands with friends. Time units were filled effortlessly. He had even gone back to reading books in the afternoon; he was halfway through a James Ellroy thriller one Thursday, in that horrible dead dark time between Countdown and the news, when the doorbell went.
He was expecting to see someone selling J-cloths and brushes, so he found himself looking at nothing when he opened the door, because his visitor was a good foot shorter than the average hawker.
‘I’ve come to see you,’ said Marcus.
‘Oh. Right. Come in.’ He said it warmly enough, as far as he could tell, but for some reason he felt a rising tide of panic.
Marcus marched into the sitting room, sat down on the sofa and stared intently at everything.
‘You haven’t got a kid, have you?’
That was certainly one explanation for the panic.
‘Well,’ said Will, as if he were about to launch into a very long and involved story, the details of which were currently eluding him.
Marcus got up and walked around the flat.
‘Where’s your loo? I’m dying for a pee.’
‘Just down the hall there.’
While Marcus was gone, Will tried to think of a story that would account for the complete absence of anything Ned-related, but there was nothing. He could either tell Marcus that of course he had a child, and that the lack of both child and child-related paraphernalia was simply… simply something he would think of later; or he could dissolve into tears and own up to being a pathetic fantasist. He decided against the latter version.
‘You’ve only got one bedroom,’ said Marcus when he got back.
‘Have you been nosing around?’
‘Yeah. You’ve got one bedroom, you’ve got no children’s toys in the bathroom, there are no toys in here… You haven’t even got any photos of him.’
‘What business is it of yours?’
‘None. Apart from you’ve been lying to me and my mum and my mum’s friend.’
‘Who told you where I lived?’
‘I followed you home once.’
‘Where from?’
‘I saw you out wandering around and I followed you.’
This was plausible. He was often out wandering around and, in any case, he hadn’t told Suzie or Fiona or the SPAT woman where he lived, so there was no other explanation.
‘Why?’
‘Dunno. Something to do.’
‘Why don’t you just go home, Marcus?’
‘All right. But I’m going to tell my mum.’
‘Ooooh. I’m scared.’
Will could feel himself tumbling down a hill towards the kind of panicky guilt he hadn’t felt since schooldays, and it seemed natural to resort to the kind of phrases he used then. There was no explanation he could give Marcus, other than the truth – that he had invented a child so he could meet women – and the truth sounded much seedier than it was ever intended to be.
‘Go on then, off you go.’
‘I’ll do you a deal. I won’t say anything to my mum if you go out with her.’
‘Why do you want your mum to go out with someone like me?’
‘I don’t think you’re too bad. I mean, you told lies, but apart from that you seem OK. And she’s sad, and I think she’d like a boyfriend.’
‘Marcus, I can’t go out with someone just because you want me to. I’d have to like the person as well.’
‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘Nothing’s wrong with her, but—’
‘You want to go out with Suzie, don’t you?’
‘I don’t want to talk about this with you.’
‘I thought so.’
‘I didn’t say anything. All I said was… Listen, I really don’t want to talk about this with you. Go home.’
‘OK. But I’ll be back.’ And off he went.
When Will had conceived this fantasy and joined SPAT, he had imagined sweet little children, not children who would be able to track him down and come to his house. He had imagined entering their world, but he hadn’t foreseen that they might be able to penetrate his. He was one of life’s visitors; he didn’t want to be visited.
fifteen
Marcus wasn’t daft. Well, OK, he was daft sometimes, like with the singing, but he wasn’t stupid-daft, just brush-daft. He could see instantly that the things he knew about Will, the stuff about him not having a kid and not having an ex, were too good to give up all at once; they were worth something. If he’d
He wasn’t sure why he didn’t want that. He just knew that he didn’t want to spend this information straight away, in the same way that he didn’t want to spend birthday money straight away: he wanted to leave it in his pocket while he looked around, to work out what it was worth. He knew he couldn’t make Will go out with his mum if he wasn’t bothered, but he could make him do something else, maybe, something he hadn’t even thought of yet, so he started going round to Will’s house more or less every day after school to get some ideas.
The first time he went back, Will wasn’t too pleased to see him. He just stood in the doorway with his hand on the latch.
‘What?’ said Will.
‘Nothing. Thought I’d pop round.’ That made Will smile, although Marcus couldn’t see why. ‘What are you doing?’
‘What am I doing?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Watching TV.’
‘What are you watching?’
‘Countdown.’
‘What’s that?’ Marcus knew what it was. Every kid who had ever come home from school knew what it was: it was the most boring programme in the history of television.
‘A quiz show. Words and numbers.’
‘Oh. Would I like it?’ Of course he wouldn’t like it. Nobody liked it, apart from his dad’s girlfriend’s mum.
‘I’m not sure I care.’
‘I could watch it with you, if you want.’
‘That’s very nice of you, Marcus, but I usually manage on my own.’
‘I’m good at anagrams. And maths. I’d be really helpful, if you were serious about doing well.’
‘So you do know what Countdown is.’
‘Yes. I remember now. I really like it. I’ll go when it’s finished.’
Will looked at him and shook his head. ‘Oh, hell. Come in.’
Marcus was almost in anyway. He sat down on Will’s long cream sofa, kicked his shoes off and stretched himself out. It was as useless as he remembered, Countdown, but he didn’t complain or ask to watch another channel. (Will had cable, Marcus noted for future reference.) He just sat there patiently. Will didn’t do anything while the programme was on: he didn’t shout the answers at the screen, or tut when somebody got something wrong. He just smoked.
‘You need a pen and paper to do it properly,’ Marcus observed at the end.
‘Yeah, well.’
‘Do you ever do that?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Why didn’t you today?’
‘I don’t know. Jesus.’
‘You could have done. I wouldn’t have minded.’
‘That’s very big of you.’
He turned the TV off with the remote and they sat in silence.
‘What do you want, Marcus? Haven’t you got any homework to do?’
‘Yeah. Do you want to help me?’
‘That wasn’t what I meant. I meant, why don’t you go home and do it?’
‘I’ll do it after supper. You shouldn’t smoke, you know.’
‘No, I know. Thank you for telling me. What time does your mum get home?’
‘About now.’
‘So?’
Marcus ignored him and started poking around the flat. Last time he’d only noticed that there was no Ned, and he’d missed a lot of things: the flash hi-fi, the hundreds of CDs and thousands of records and tapes, the black and white photos of people playing saxophones and the film posters on the wall, the wooden floors, the rug. It was small, which surprised Marcus. If Will earned what Marcus thought he earned, then he could afford something a lot bigger than this. It was cool, though. If Marcus had a flat of his own, he’d make it look just like this, although he’d probably choose different film posters. Will had posters of old films he’d never heard of – Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep. Marcus would have Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, definitely, and Free Willy and… he wouldn’t have Hellhound 3 or Boilerhead, though. Not now. The Dead Duck Day had really put him off things like that.
‘Nice flat.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Quite small, though.’
‘It’s big enough for me.’
‘But you could get something bigger if you wanted to.’
‘I’m happy with this one.’
‘You’ve got a lot of CDs. More than anyone I’ve met.’ Marcus went over to look at them, but he didn’t really know what he was looking for. ‘Iggy Pop,’ he said, and laughed at the funny name, but Will just looked at him.
‘Who are those people on the wall? The ones with the saxophones and the trumpets?’
‘Saxophonists and trumpeters.’
‘But who are they? And why are they on your wall?’
‘That’s Charlie Parker, and that’s Chet Baker. And they’re on my wall because I like their music and they’re cool.’
‘Why are they cool?’
Will sighed. ‘I don’t know. Because they took drugs and died, probably.’
Marcus looked at him to see if he was joking, but he didn’t seem to be. Marcus wouldn’t want pictures on his walls of people who took drugs and died. He’d want to forget all about that kind of thing, not look at it every day of his life.
‘Do you want anything? A cup of tea or a Coke or something?’
‘Yeah, OK.’
Marcus followed him into the kitchen. It wasn’t like their kitchen at home. It was much smaller and whiter, and it had loads more gadgets, all of which looked as though they had never been used. At home, they had a liquidizer and a microwave, both of which were covered in stains that had gradually become black.
‘What’s this?’
‘Espresso machine.’
‘And this?’
‘Ice-cream maker. What do you want?’
‘I’ll have some ice-cream, if you’re making it.’
‘I’m not. It takes hours.’
‘Might as well buy it from the shop, then.’
‘Coke?’
‘Yeah.’
Will handed him a can and he snapped it open.
‘Do you watch telly all day then?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘So what else do you do?’
‘Read. Shop. See friends.’
‘Nice life. Did you go to school when you were a kid?’
‘Yeah, course.’
‘Why? I mean, you didn’t really need to, did you?’
‘How d’you work that out? What do you think school’s for?’
‘Getting a job.’
‘What about reading and writing?’
‘I could do that years ago, and I’m still going to school. Because I’ve got to get a job. You could have left school when you were about six or seven. Saved yourself all the hassle. You don’t really need to do history to go shopping or read, do you?’
‘Depends if you want to read about history.’
‘Is that what you read about?’
‘Not often, no.’
‘OK, so why did you go to school?’
‘Shut up, Marcus.’
‘If I knew I wasn’t going to get a job, I wouldn’t bother.’
‘Don’t you like it?’ Will was making himself a cup of tea. When he’d put the milk in they went back into the living room and sat down on the sofa.
‘No. I hate it.’
‘Why?’
‘It doesn’t suit me. I’m not a school sort of person. I’m the wrong personality type.’ His mum had told him about personality types a while ago, just after they had moved. They were both introverts, she said, which made a lot of things – making new friends, starting at new schools and new places of work – more difficult for them. She’d said it as if it would make him feel better, but of course it hadn’t helped at all, and he couldn’t understand how on earth she thought it might: as far as he could see, being an introvert jus
‘Do people give you a hard time?’
Marcus looked at him. How did he know that? Things must be worse than he thought, if people knew even before he had said anything.
‘Not really. Just a couple of kids.’
‘What do they give you a hard time about?’
‘Nothing really. Just, you know, my hair and glasses. And singing and stuff.’
‘What about singing?’
‘Oh, just… sometimes I sing without noticing.’
Will laughed.
‘It’s not funny.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I can’t help it.’
‘You could do something about the hair.’
‘Like what?’
‘Get it cut.’
‘Like who?’
‘Like who! Like how you want it.’
‘This is how I want it.’
‘You’ll have to put up with the other kids, then. Why do you want your hair like that?’
‘’Cos that’s how it grows, and I hate going to the hairdresser.’
‘I can see that. How often do you go?’
‘Never. My mum cuts it.’
‘Your mum? Jesus. How old are you? Twelve? I would have thought you’re old enough to get your own hair cut.’
Marcus was interested in that ‘old enough’. It wasn’t something he was told very often. ‘D’you think?’
‘Course. Twelve? You could get married in four years’ time. Are you going to get your mum to cut your hair then?’
Marcus didn’t think he’d be getting married in four years’ time, but he could see what Will was telling him.
‘She wouldn’t like it, would she?’ he said.
‘Who?’
‘My wife. If I had a wife, but I don’t think I will. Not in four years.’
‘I wasn’t really thinking of that. I was thinking that you might feel a bit of a wally if your mum had to come round and do everything like that. Cut your hair and cut your toenails and scrub your back—’