Chapter 10

I d never met an American before, I don't think. I wasn't at all sure he was one, either, until the others said something. You don't expect Americans to be delivering pizzas, do you? Well, I don't, but perhaps I'm just out of touch. I don't order pizzas very often, but every time I have, they've been delivered by someone who doesn't speak English. Americans don't deliver things, do they? Or serve you in shops, or take your money on the bus. I suppose they must do in America, but they don't here. Indians and West Indians, lots of Australians in the hospital where they see Matty, but no Americans. So we probably thought he was a bit mad at first. That was the only explanation for him. He looked a bit mad, with that hair. And he thought that we'd ordered pizzas while we were standing on the roof of Toppers' House.

'How would we have ordered pizzas?' Jess asked him. We were still sitting on her, so her voice sounded funny.

'On a cell,' he said.

'What's a cell?' Jess asked.

'OK, a mobile, whatever.'

Fair play to him, we could have done that.

'Are you American?' Jess asked him.

'Yeah.'

'What are you doing delivering pizzas?'

'What are you guys doing sitting on her head?'

'They're sitting on my head because this isn't a free country,' Jess said. 'You can't do what you want to.'

'What did you wanna do?'

She didn't say anything.

'She was going to jump,' Martin said.

'So were you!'

He ignored her.

'You were all gonna jump?' the pizza man asked us.

We didn't say anything.

'The f—?' he said.

'The f—?' said Jess. 'The f— what?'

'It's an American abbreviation,' said Martin. ' "The f—?" means "What the f—?" In America, they're so busy that they don't have time to say the "what".'

'Would you watch your language, please?' I said to them. 'We weren't all brought up in a pigsty.'

The pizza man just sat down on the roof and shook his head. I thought he was feeling sorry for us, but later he told us it wasn't that at all.

'OK,' he said after a while. 'Let her go.'

We didn't move.

'Hey, you. You f— listening to me? Am I gonna have to come over and make you listen?' He stood up and walked towards us.

'I think she's OK, now, Maureen,' Martin said, as if he was deciding to stand up of his own accord, and not because the American man might punch him. He stood up, and I stood up, and Jess stood up and brushed herself down and swore a lot. Then she stared at Martin.

'You're that bloke,' she said. 'The breakfast TV bloke. The one who slept with the fifteen-year-old. Martin Sharp. F—! Martin Sharp was sitting on my head. You old pervert.'

Well, of course I didn't have a clue about any fifteen-year-old. I don't look at that sort of newspaper, unless I'm in the hairdresser's, or someone's left one on the bus.

'You kidding me?' said the pizza man. 'The guy who went to prison? I read about him.'

Martin made a groaning noise. 'Does everyone in America know, too?' he said.

'Sure,' the pizza man said. 'I read about it in the New York Times.'

'Oh, God,' said Martin, but you could tell he was pleased.

'I was just kidding,' said the pizza man. 'You used to present a breakfast TV show in England. No one in the US has ever heard of you. Get real.'

'Give us some pizza, then,' said Jess. 'What flavours have you got?'

'I don't know,' said the pizza man.

'Let me have a look, then,' said Jess.

No, I mean… They're not my pizzas, you know?'

Oh, don't be such a pussy,' said Jess. (Really. That's what she said. I don't know why.) She leaned over, grabbed his bag and took out the pizza boxes. Then she opened the boxes and started poking the pizzas.

This one's pepperoni. I don't know what that is though. Vegetables.'

'Vegetarian,' said the pizza man.

'Whatever,' said Jess. 'Who wants what?'

I asked for vegetarian. The pepperoni sounded like something that wouldn't agree with me.