by
Nick Hornby
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She asks how I am, and whether I'm looking after myself; she tells me that she doesn't think much of this Ian guy. We arrange to meet for a drink sometime next week. I hang up.
Which fucking Ian guy?
[...]
Which fucking Ian guy?
(intervening paragraph is describing current events, when Marie comes into the shop)
I don't know anybody called Ian. Laura doesn't know anybody called Ian. We've been together three years and I've never heard her mention an Ian. [...] I am almost certain that since 1989 she has been living in an Ianless universe.
And this certitude, this Ian-atheism, lasts until I get home. [...]
'He goes on long enough,' I said one night, when we were both lying awake, staring at the ceiling. 'I should be so lucky,' said Laura. This was a joke. We laughed. Ha ha, we went. Ha, ha, ha. I'm not laughing now. Never has a joke filled me with such nausea and paranoia and insecurity and self-pity and dread and doubt.
It's only just beginning to occur to me that it's important to have something going on somewhere, at work or at home, otherwise you're just clinging on. If I lived in Bosnia, then not having a girlfriend wouldn't seem like the most important thing in the world, but here in Crouch End it does. You need as much ballast as possible to stop you floating away; you need people around you, things going on, otherwise life is like some film where the money ran out, and there are no sets, or locations, or supporting actors, and it's just one bloke on his own staring into the camera with nothing to do and nobody to speak to, and who'd believe in this character then? I've got to get more stuff, more clutter, more detail in here, because at the moment I'm in danger of falling off the edge.
[...] She thinks Laura might be more interested in me if I did some evening classes. We agree to differ or, at any rate, I hang up on her. [...]
maternal wisdom
[...] You walk much more quickly afterwards, trying to recapture the part of the day that has escaped, and quite often you have the urge to read the international section of a newspaper, or go to see a Peter Greenaway film, to consume something solid and meaty which will lie on top of the candyfloss worthlessness clogging up your head.
on vinyl addicts who waste half a day browsing a vinyl shop
[...] she said something about the money, something about whether I'd start paying her back in instalments, and I said I'd pay her back at a pound a week for the next hundred years. That's when she hung up.
Silence. i don't know what to say. There are lods of things I want to ask, but they are all questions I don't really want answered: when did you start seeing Ian, and was it because of the you know the ceiling noise thing, and is it better (What? she'd ask; Everything, I'd say), and is this really definitely it, or just some sort of phase, and--this is how feeble I'm becoming--have you missed me at all even one bit, do you love me, do you love him, do you want to end up with him, do you want to have babies with him, and is it better, is it better, IS IT BETTER?
'Yeah, yeah, I know. But say I hadn't seen it and I said to you, "I haven't seen Reservoir Dogs yet" , what would you think?'
'I'd think, you're a sick man. And I'd feel sorry for you.'
'No, but would you think, from that one sentence, that I was going to see it?'
'I'd hope you were, yeah, otherwise I would have to say the you're not a friend of mine.'
'No, but—'
'I'm sorry, Rob, but I'm struggling here. I don't understand any part of this conversation. You're asking me what I'd think if you told me that you hadn't seen a film that you've seen. What am I supposed to say?'
'Just listen to me. If I said to you—'
—'"I haven't seen Reservoir Dogs yet," yeah, yeah, I hear you—'
'Would you ... would you get the impression that I wanted to see it?'
Well ... you couldn't have been desperate, otherwise you'd have already gone.'
'Exactly. We went first night, didn't we?'
'But the word "yet" ... yeah, I'd get the impression that you wanted to see it. Otherwise you'd say you didn't fancy it much.'
'But in your opinion, would I definitely go?'
him obsessing over Laura saying that he hadn't slept with Ian yet
'How did you know Alison?'
'I was her first boyfriend.'
There's a silence, and for a moment I worry that for the last twenty years I have been held responsible in the Ashworth house for some sort of sexual crime I did not commit.
'She married her first boyfriend. Kevin. She's Alison Bannister.'
[...]
'What did you say your name was'
'Rob. Bobby. Bob. Robert. Robert Zimmerman.' Fucking hell.
he phone-spaghettis everywhere