Материал: nick_hornby_about_a_boy
with money and Marcus had none, but you didn’t need dosh to be dysfunctional. So what if Charles
Freeman had killed himself with expensive malt whisky, and Fiona had tried to kill herself with National
Health tranquillizers? The two of them would still have found plenty to talk about at parties.
Will didn’t like the connection he had made very much, because it meant that if he had any decency in
him at all he would have to take Marcus under his wing, use his own experience of growing up with a
batty parent to guide the boy through to a place of safety. He didn’t want to do that, though. It was too
much work, and involved too much contact with people he didn’t understand and didn’t like, and he
preferred watching
Countdown
on his own anyway.
But he had forgotten that he seemed to have no control over his relationship with Marcus and Fiona.
On November the fucking twentieth, the day after November the fucking nineteenth, when he had more
or less decided that Marcus would have to get by without his help, Fiona rang and started saying mad
things down the phone.
‘Marcus doesn’t need a father, and he certainly doesn’t need a father like you,’ she said. Will was lost
even before they’d started. At this point in the conversation he had contributed an admittedly guarded
but otherwise entirely unprovocative, ‘Hello, how are you?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Marcus seems to think he needs adult male company. A father figure. And somehow your name came
up.’
‘Well, I can tell you, Fiona, I didn’t put him up to it. I don’t need junior male company, and I
definitely don’t need a son figure. So, fine. You and I are in complete agreement.’
‘So you won’t see him even if he wants to see you?’
‘Why doesn’t he use his father as a father figure? Isn’t that the easiest solution, or am I being dim?’
‘His father lives in Cambridge.’
‘What, Cambridge, Australia? Cambridge, California? Presumably we’re not talking about the
Cambridge just up the M11?’
‘Marcus can’t drive up the M11. He’s twelve.’
‘Hold on, hold on. You phoned up to tell me to keep out of Marcus’s way. I told you that I had no
intention of getting in Marcus’s way. And now you’re telling me… What? I missed a bit somewhere.’
‘You just seem very keen to be shot of him.’
‘So you’re
not
telling me to leave him alone. You’re telling me to apply for custody.’
‘Are you incapable of conducting a conversation without resorting to sarcasm?’
‘Just explain to me clearly and simply, without changing your mind halfway through, what you want
me to do.’
She sighed. ‘Some things are a little more complicated than that, Will.’
‘Is that what you phoned me up to tell me? Because I got the wrong end of the stick early on, I think,
during the bit about how I was the most unsuitable man in the world.’
‘You’re really not very easy to deal with.’
‘So don’t deal with me!’ He was nearly shouting now. He was certainly angry. They had been talking
for less than three minutes, yet he was beginning to feel as though this telephone conversation was going
to be his life’s work; that once every few hours he would put the receiver down to eat and sleep and go
to the toilet, and the rest of the time Fiona would be telling him one thing and then its opposite over and
over again. ‘Just put the phone down! Hang up on me! I really won’t be offended!’
‘I think we need to talk about this properly, don’t you?’
‘What? What do we need to talk about properly?’
‘This whole thing.’
‘There isn’t a whole thing. There isn’t even a half thing!’
‘Are you free for a drink tomorrow night? Maybe it would be better to talk face to face. We’re not
getting anywhere here.’
There was no point in fighting her. There wasn’t even any point in not fighting her. They made
arrangements to meet for a drink, and it was a mark of Will’s frustration and confusion that he was able
to look on the agreement of a time and a place as a resounding triumph.
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Will had never been alone with Fiona; up until now Marcus had always been there, telling them when
to talk, and what to talk about—apart from the trainers day, when he was kind of telling them what to
talk about, even though he wasn’t saying anything. But when Will had got the drinks in—they went to a
quiet pub off the Liverpool Road where they knew they would get a seat and be able to talk without
competing against a juke-box, or a grunge band, or an alternative comedian—and sat down opposite
Fiona, and ascertained, once again, without even meaning to, that he did not find her in the least
attractive, he realized something else: he had been drinking in pubs for nearly twenty years and not once
had he been to a pub with a woman in whom he had no sexual interest whatsoever. He thought again.
Could that be right? OK, he’d carried on seeing Jessica, the ex, who always insisted he was missing out,
after they had split up. But there had been sexual interest once upon a time, and he knew that if Jessica
were ever to announce that she was looking for a discreet extra-marital affair, he would certainly apply
for the job, put his name forward for consideration.
No, this was certainly a first for him, and he had no idea whether different rules applied in these
situations. Obviously it would be neither appropriate nor sensible to take her by the hand and look into
her eyes, or move the subject gently on to sex so that he could introduce a more flirtatious note into the
proceedings. If he had no desire to sleep with Fiona, then of course there was no necessity to pretend
that every single thing she said was interesting. But a strange thing happened: he was interested, mostly.
Not in a well-I-never-knew-that kind of way, because even though Fiona probably knew a lot of things
that Will didn’t, he was almost sure that all of them would be very dull… It was just that he was
absorbed in the conversation. He listened to what she said, he thought about it, he answered. He couldn’t
remember the last time that had happened, so why was it happening now? Was it just sod’s law—you
don’t fancy someone, so they’re bound to be endlessly fascinating—or was something happening here
that he should think about?
She was different today. She didn’t want to tell him what a useless human being he was, and she
didn’t want to accuse him of molesting her son; it was almost as if she had decided that this was a
relationship she was stuck with. Will didn’t like the implications of that.
‘I’m sorry about yesterday,’ she said.
‘That’s OK.’
Will lit a cigarette, and Fiona made a face and wafted the smoke away. Will hated people who did that
in places where they had no right to do so. He wasn’t going to apologize for smoking in a pub; in fact,
what he was going to do was single-handedly create a fug so thick that they would be unable to see each
other.
‘I was very upset when I called. When Marcus said he felt he needed some male input, I felt as though
I’d been slapped round the face.’
‘I can imagine.’
He didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. Why would anyone take the blindest bit of notice of
anything Marcus said?
‘You know, it’s the first thing you think of when you split up with the father of your son, that he’s
going to need a man around and so on. And then good feminist common sense takes over. But ever since
Marcus has been old enough to understand we’ve talked about it, and every time he’s assured me that it
doesn’t matter. And then yesterday it came right out of the blue… He’s always known how worried I am
about that.’
Will didn’t want to get involved in any of this. He didn’t care whether Marcus needed a man in his life
or not. Why should he? It wasn’t his business, even though he seemed to be the man in question. He
hadn’t asked to be and, anyway, he was pretty sure that if Marcus did need a man, it wasn’t his sort. But
listening to Fiona now, he realized that in some respects at least he understood Marcus better than she
did—possibly, he conceded reluctantly, because he was a man and Fiona wasn’t, and possibly because
Marcus was, in his own junior and eccentric way, a devious man. Will understood devious men.
‘Well there you are then,’ he said flatly.
‘Where am I?’
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‘That’s why he said it. Because he knew it would do the job.’
‘What job?’
‘Whatever job he wanted it to do at the time. I expect he’s been saving it. That was his nuclear option.
What were you arguing about?’
‘I’d just reiterated my opposition to his relationship with you.’
‘Oh.’ That was very bad news. If Marcus was willing to go nuclear on his account, then he was in even
deeper than he’d feared.
‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying? That he was attacking me in my most vulnerable spot just
so he could win an argument?’
‘Yeah. Course he was.’
‘Marcus isn’t capable of that.’
Will snorted. ‘Whatever.’
‘Do you really think so?’
‘He’s not daft.’
‘It’s not his intelligence I’m worried about. It’s his… emotional honesty.’
Will snorted again. He had intended to keep his thoughts to himself throughout this conversation, but
they kept escaping through his nose. What planet did this woman live on? She was so unworldly that she
seemed to him to be an unlikely suicidal depressive, even though she sang with her eyes closed: surely
anyone who floated that high above everything was protected in some way? But of course that was part
of the problem. They were sitting here because a twelve-year-old’s craftiness had brought her crashing
down to earth, and if Marcus could do it, any boyfriend or boss or landlord—any adult who didn’t love
her—could do it. There was no protection in that. Why did these people want to make things so hard for
themselves? It was
easy
, life, easy-peasy, a matter of simple arithmetic: loving people, and allowing
yourself to be loved, was only worth the risk if the odds were in your favour, but they quite clearly
weren’t. There were about seventy-nine squillion people in the world, and if you were very lucky, you
would end up being loved by fifteen or twenty of them. So how smart did you have to be to work out
that it just wasn’t worth the risk? OK, Fiona had made the mistake of having a child, but it wasn’t the
end of the world. In her position, Will wouldn’t let the little sod drag him under.
Fiona was looking at him. ‘Why does everything I say make you do that?’
‘What?’
‘Make that snorting noise?’
‘I’m sorry. It’s just that… I don’t know anything about, you know, stages of development and what
kids should do when and all that. But I do know that it’s around now you shouldn’t trust anything a
human male says about what he feels.’
Fiona looked bleakly at her Guinness.
‘And when does that stop, in your expert opinion?’ The last two words had a rusty serrated edge on
them, but Will ignored it.
‘When he’s around seventy or eighty, and then he can use the truth at highly inappropriate moments to
shock people.’
‘I’ll be dead then.’
‘Yup.’
She went to the bar to get him a drink, and then sat back down heavily in her seat. ‘But why you?’
‘I just told you. He doesn’t really need a male influence. He just said it to get his own way.’
‘I know, I know. I understand that. But why does he want to see you so much he’d do that to me?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you really not know?’
‘Really.’
‘Maybe it is best if he doesn’t see you.’
Will said nothing. He had learnt something from the previous day’s conversation, anyway.
‘What do you think?’
‘I don’t.’
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‘What?’
‘I don’t think. I don’t think anything. You’re his mother. You make the decisions.’
‘But you’re involved now. He keeps coming round to your house. You take him out to buy shoes. He’s
living this whole life I can’t control, which means you have to.’
‘I’m not going to control anything.’
‘In which case, it’s best that he doesn’t see you.’
‘We’ve been here before. What do you want me to do if he rings on the bell?’
‘Don’t let him in.’
‘Fine.’
‘I mean, if you’re not prepared to think about how to help me, then keep out.’
‘Right.’
‘God, you’re a selfish bastard.’
‘But I’m on my own. There’s just me. I’m not putting myself first, because there isn’t anybody else.’
‘Well, he’s there too now. You can’t just shut life out, you know.’
She was wrong, he was almost positive. You could shut life out. If you didn’t answer the door to it,
how was it going to get in?
Nineteen
Marcus didn’t like the idea of his mum talking to Will. A while ago he would have got excited about
it, but he no longer thought that he and his mum and Will and Ned and another baby perhaps were going
to live together in Will’s flat. For a start, Ned didn’t exist, and for another start, if you could have two
starts, Fiona and Will didn’t like each other very much, and anyway Will’s flat was nowhere near big
enough for them all, even though there weren’t as many of them as he had originally thought.
But now everyone knew too much, and there were too many things that he didn’t want the two of them
to talk about without him. He didn’t want Will to talk to his mum about the hospital, in case it made her
go funny again; and he didn’t want Will to tell her about how he’d tried to blackmail Will into going out
with her; and he didn’t want his mum to talk about how much telly he was allowed to watch, in case
Will started turning it off when he went round… As far as he could tell, every possible topic of
conversation meant trouble of some sort.
She was only gone for a couple of hours after tea time, so they didn’t have to find a baby-sitter; he put
the chain on the door, did his homework, watched a bit of TV, played on the computer and waited. At
five past nine she buzzed the special buzz on the doorbell. He let her in, and stared at her face to try to
work out just how angry or depressed she was, but she seemed OK.
‘Did you have a good time?’
‘It was OK.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘He’s not a very nice man, is he?’
‘I think he is. He bought me those trainers.’
‘Well, you’re not to go round any more.’
‘You can’t stop me.’
‘No, but he’s not going to answer the door, so it’s a waste of time.’
‘How do you know he’s not going to answer the door?’
‘Because he told me he wouldn’t.’
Marcus could just hear Will saying that, but it didn’t worry him. He knew how loud the buzzer was
inside the flat, and he had the time to ring it and ring it and ring it.
Marcus had to go and see the headmistress about his trainers. His mum had made a complaint to the
school, even though Marcus had told her,
begged
her, not to. They’d spent so long arguing about it that
he ended up having to go days after the event. So now he had a choice: he could lie to the headmistress,
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tell her that he had no idea who had stolen his shoes, and make himself look stupid; or he could tell her
and lose his shoes, jacket, shirt, trousers, underpants and probably an eye or a piece of ear on the way
home. He couldn’t see that he’d lose much sleep worrying about what to do.
He went at the beginning of lunch break, the time his form teacher had told him to go, but Mrs
Morrison wasn’t ready for him; he could hear her through the door, shouting at someone. He was on his
own at first, but then Ellie McCrae, this sulky, scruffy girl from year ten who hacked off her own hair
and wore black lipstick, sat down on the far end of the row of chairs outside the office. Ellie was
famous. She was always in trouble for something or other, usually something quite bad.
They sat in silence for a bit, and then Marcus thought he’d try to talk to her; his mum was always on at
him to talk to people at school.
‘Hello, Ellie,’ he said. She looked at him and laughed once under her breath, shook her head bitterly
and then turned her face away. Marcus didn’t mind. In fact, he almost laughed. He wished he had a
video camera. He’d love to show his mum what happened when you tried to talk to another kid at
school, especially an older kid, especially a girl. He wouldn’t bother trying again.
‘How come every squitty little shitty snotty bastard knows my name?’
Marcus couldn’t believe she was talking to him, and when he looked at her it seemed as though he was
right to be doubtful, because she was still looking the other way. He decided to ignore her.
‘Oi, I’m talking to you. Don’t be so fucking rude.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t think you were talking to me.’
‘I don’t see any other squitty little shitty bastards here, do you?’
‘No,’ Marcus admitted.
‘So. How come you know my name? I haven’t got a bloody clue who you are.’
‘You’re famous.’ He knew that was a mistake as soon as he had said it.
‘What am I famous for?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Yes you do. I’m famous because I’m always in trouble.’
‘Yes.’
‘Fucking hell.’
They sat there for a while longer. Marcus didn’t feel like breaking the silence; if saying ‘Hello, Ellie’
caused that much trouble, then he wasn’t about to ask her whether she’d had a nice weekend.
‘I’m always in trouble, and I’ve never done anything wrong,’ she said eventually.
‘No.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because you just said so.’ Marcus thought that was a good answer. If Ellie McCrae said she hadn’t
done anything wrong, then she hadn’t.
‘If you’re being cheeky, you’ll get a slap.’
Marcus wished Mrs Morrison would hurry up. Even though he was prepared to believe that Ellie had
never done anything wrong, ever, he could see why some people might think she had.
‘Do you know what I’ve done wrong this time?’
‘Nothing,’ Marcus said firmly.
‘OK, do you know what I’m supposed to have done wrong?’
‘Nothing.’ This was his line, and he was sticking to it.
‘Well, they must think I’ve done something wrong, or I wouldn’t be sitting here, would I?’
‘No.’
‘It’s this sweatshirt. They don’t want me to wear it, and I’m not going to take it off. So there’s going to
be a row.’
He looked at it. They were all supposed to wear sweatshirts with the school logo on them, but Ellie’s
showed a bloke with scraggy hair and half a beard. He had big eyes and looked a little bit like Jesus,
except more modern and with bleached hair.
‘Who’s that?’ he asked politely.
‘You must know.’
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