Chapter 16

I was going to just like splurge, tell 'em everything they needed to know - Big Yellow, Lizzie, the works. There was no need to lie. I guess I felt a little queasy listening to the other guys, because their reasons for being up there seemed pretty solid. Jesus, everyone understood why Maureen's life wasn't worth living. And, sure, Martin had kind of dug his own grave, but even so, that level of humiliation and shame… If I'd been him, I doubt if I'd have stuck around as long as he had. And Jess was very unhappy and very nuts. So it wasn't like people were being competitive, exactly, but there was a certain amount of, I don't know what you'd call it…marking out territory? And maybe I felt a little insecure because Martin had pissed all over my patch. I was going to be the shame and humiliation guy, but my shame and humiliation was beginning to look a little pale. He'd been locked up for sleeping with a fifteen-year-old, and fucked over in the tabloids; I'd been dumped by a girl, and my band wasn't going anywhere. Big fucking deal.

Still, I didn't think of lying until I had the trouble with my name. Jess was so fucking aggressive, and I just lost my nerve.

'So,' I said. 'OK. I'm JJ, and…'

'Woss that stand for?'

People always want to know what my initials are for, and I never tell them. I hate my name. What happened was, my dad was one of those self-educated guys, and he had a real, like, reverence for the BBC, so he spent too much time listening to the World Service on his big old short-wave radio in the den, and he was real hung up on this dude who was always on the radio in the sixties, John Julius Norwich, who was like a lord or something, and writes millions of books about like churches and stuff. And that's me. John fucking Julius. Did I become a lord, or a radio anchor, or even an Englishman? No. Did I drop out of school and form a band? Yep. Is John Julius a good name for a high-school dropout? Nope. JJ is OK, though. JJ's cool enough.

'That's my business. Anyway, I'm JJ, and I'm here because…'

'I'll find out what your name is.'

'How?'

'I'll come round your house and ransack it until I find something that tells me. Your passport or bank book or something. And if I can't find anything then I'll just steal something you love and I won't give it back until you've coughed up.'

Jesus Christ. What gives with this girl?

'You'd rather do that than call me by my initials?'

'Yeah. Course. I hate not knowing things.'

'I don't know you very well,' said Martin. 'But if you're really troubled by your own ignorance, I'd have thought there should be one or two things higher up the list than JJ's name.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Do you know who the Chancellor of the Exchequer is? Or who wrote Moby-Dick?'

'No,' said Jess. 'Course not.' As if anyone who knew stuff like that was a dork. 'But they're not secrets, are they? I don't like not knowing secrets. I could find that other stuff out any time I felt like it, and I don't feel like it.'

'If he doesn't want to tell us, he doesn't want to tell us. Do your friends call you JJ?'

'Yeah.'

'Then that's good enough for us.'

'S'not good enough for me,' said Jess.

'Just belt up and let him talk,' said Martin.

But for me, the moment had gone. The moment of truth, anyway, ha ha. I could tell I wasn't going to get a fair hearing; there were waves of hostility coming off Jess and Martin, and these waves were breaking everywhere.

I stared at them all for a minute.

'So?' said Jess. 'You forgotten why you were going to kill yourself, or what?'

'Of course I haven't forgotten,' I said.

'Well, fucking spit it out then.'

'I'm dying,' I said.

See, I never thought I'd run into them again. I was pretty sure that sooner or later we'd shake hands, wish each other a happy whatever, and then either trudge back down the stairs or jump off the fucking roof, depending on mood, character, scale of problem etcetera. It really never occurred to me that this was going to come back and repeat on me like a pickle in a Big Mac.

'Yeah, well you don't look great,' said Jess. 'What you got? AIDS?'

AIDS fitted the bill. Everyone knew you could wander around with it for months; everyone knew it was incurable. And yet… I'd had a couple friends who died from it, and it's not the kind of thing you joke about. AIDS I knew I should leave the fuck alone. But then - and this all ran through my head in the thirty seconds after Jess's question - which fatal disease was more appropriate?

Leukemia? The Ebola virus? None of them really says, 'No, go on, man, be my guest. I'm only a joke killer disease. I'm not serious enough to offend anyone.'

'I got like this brain thing. It's called CCR.' Which of course is Creedence Clearwater Revival, one of my all-time favorite bands, and a big inspiration to me. I didn't think any of them looked like big Creedence fans. Jess was too young, I really didn't need to worry about Maureen, and Martin was the kind of guy who'd only have smelled a rat if I'd told him I was dying of incurable ABBA.

'It's like Cranial Corno-something.' I was pleased with the 'cranial' part. That sounded about right. The 'corno-' was weak, though, I admit.

'Is there no cure for that?' Maureen asked.

'Oh, yeah,' said Jess. 'There's a cure. You can take a pill. It's just that he couldn't be arsed. Der.'

'They figure it's from drug abuse. Drugs and alcohol. So it's all my own fuckin' fault.'

'You must feel a bit of a berk, then,' said Jess.

'I do,' I said. 'If "berk" means asshole.'

'Yeah. Anyway, you win.'

Which confirmed to me once and for all that a competitive edge had snuck in.

'Really?' I was pleased.

'Oh, yeah. Dying? Fuck. That's, you know… Like diamonds or spades or those… Trumps! You've got trumps, man.'

'I'd say that having a fatal disease was only any good in this game,' said Martin. 'The who's-the-most-miserable bastard game. Not much use anywhere else.'

'How long have you got?' Jess asked.

'I don't know.'

'Roughly. Just like off the top of your head.'

'Shut up, Jess,' said Martin.

'What have I said now? I wanted to know what we were dealing with.'

We're not dealing with anything,' I said. 'I'm dealing with it.'

'Not very well,' Jess said.

'Oh, is that right? And this from the girl who can't deal with being dumped.'

We fell into a hostile silence.

'Well,' said Martin. 'So. Here we all are, then.'

'Now what?' said Jess.

'You're going home, for a start,' said Martin.

'Like fuck I am. Why should I?'

'Because we're going to march you there.'

'I'll go home on one condition.'

'Go on.'

'You help me find Chas first.'

'All of us?'

'Yeah. Or I really will kill myself. And I'm too young to do that. You said.'

'I'm not sure I was right about that, looking back,' said Martin. 'You're wise beyond your years. I can see that, now.'

'So it's OK if I go over?' She started to walk towards the edge of the roof.

'Come back here,' I said.

'I don't give a fuck, you know,' she said. 'I can jump, or we can look for Chas. Same thing, to me.'

And that's the whole thing, right there, because we believed her. Maybe other people on other nights wouldn't have but the three of us, that night, we had no doubts. It wasn't that we thought she was really suicidal, either; it was just that it felt like she might do whatever she wanted to do, at any given moment, and if she wanted to jump off a building to see what it felt like, then she'd try it. And once you'd worked that out, then it was just a question of how much you cared.

'But you don't need our help,' I said. 'We don't know how to start looking for Chas. You're the only one who can find him.'

'Yeah, but I get weird on my own. Confused. That's sort of how I ended up here.'

'What do you think?' said Martin to the rest of us.

'I'm not going anywhere,' said Maureen. 'I'm not leaving the roof, and I won't change my mind.'

'Fine. We wouldn't ask you to.'

'Because they'll come looking for me.'

'Who will?'

'The people in the respite home.'

'So what?' said Jess. 'What are they going to do if they can't find you?'

'They'll put Matty somewhere terrible.'

'This is the Matty who's a vegetable? Does he give a shit where he goes?'

Maureen looked at Martin helplessly.

'Is it the money?' said Martin. 'Is that why you have to be dead by the morning?'

Jess snorted, but I could see why he had asked the question.

'I only paid for one night,' said Maureen.

'Have you got the money for more than one night?'

'Yes, of course.' The suggestion that she might not seemed to make her a little pissed. Pissed off. Whatever.

'So phone them up and tell them he'll be staying two.'

Maureen looked at him helplessly again. 'Why?'

'Because,' said Jess. 'Anyway, there's fuck all to do up here, is there?'

Martin laughed, kind of.

'Well, is there?' said Jess.

'Nothing I can think of,' said Martin. 'Apart from the obvious.'

'Oh, that,' said Jess. 'Forget it. The moment's gone. I can tell. So we've got to find something else to do.'

'So even if you're right, and the moment has passed,' I said, 'why do we have to do anything together? Why don't we go home and watch TV?'

' 'Cos I get weird on my own. I told you.'

Why should we care? We didn't know you half an hour ago. I don't give much of a fuck about how weird you get on your own.'

So you don't feel like a bond kind of thing because of what we've been through.'

'Nope.'

'You will. I can see us still being friends when we're all old.' There was a silence. This was clearly not a vision shared by all.