A Long Way Down

A Long Way Down

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A Long Way Down
Nick Hornby

Part 1 Martin Maureen Jess Martin Maureen

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Jess Martin Jess Martin Maureen JJ Jess Maureen Martin Jess JJ Maureen Martin JJ Maureen Jess JJ Maureen Martin Jess JJ Martin Maureen JJ Part 2 JessJJ Maureen Martin Jess JJ Maureen Martin Jess JJ Maureen Martin Jess JJ Maureen Martin Jess JJ Maureen Martin JJ Part 3 Martin Maureen Jess JJ

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Martin Maureen Jess JJ Martin Maureen Jess JJ Martin Maureen Jess Martin JJ Maureen Acknowledgments

Nick Hornby ALong Way Down
To Amanda

“The cure for unhappiness is happiness, I don’t care what anyone says.” Elizabeth McCracken, Niagara Falls All Over Again

Part 1
Martin
Can I explain why I wanted to jump off the top of a tower-block? Of course I can explain why I wanted to jump off the top of a tower-block. I’m not a bloody idiot. I can explain it because it wasn’t inexplicable: it was a logicaldecision, the product of proper thought. It wasn’t even a very serious thought, either. I don’t mean it was whimsical—I just meant that it wasn’t terribly complicated, or agonized. Put it this way: say you were, I don’t know, an assistant bank manager, in Guildford. And you’d been thinking of emigrating, and then you were offered the job of managing a bank in Sydney. Well, even though it’s apretty straightforward decision, you’d still have to think for a bit, wouldn’t you? You’d at least have to work out whether you could bear to move, whether you could leave your friends and colleagues behind, whether you could uproot your wife and kids. You might sit down with a bit of paper and draw up a list of pros and cons. You know: CONS—aged parents, friends, golf club. PROS—more money, betterquality of life (house with pool, barbecue, etc.), sea, sunshine, no leftwing councils banning “Baa-Baa Black Sheep”, no EEC directives banning British sausages, etc . It’s no contest, is it? The golf club! Give me a break. Obviously your aged parents give you pause for thought, but that’s all it is—a pause, and a brief one, too. You’d be on the phone to the travel agents within ten minutes. Well,that was me. There simply weren’t enough regrets, and lots and lots of reasons to jump. The only things in my “cons” list were the kids, but I couldn’t imagine Cindy letting me see them again anyway. I haven’t got any aged parents, and I don’t play golf. Suicide was my Sydney. And I say that

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with no offence to the good people of Sydney intended.

Maureen
I told him I was going to a New Year’s Eve party. I told him in October. I don’t know whether people send out invitations to New Year’s Eve parties in October or not. Probably not. (How would I know? I haven’t been to one since 1984. June and Brian across the road had one, just before they moved. Andeven then I only nipped in for an hour or so, after he’d gone to sleep.) But I couldn’t wait any longer. I’d been thinking about it since May or June, and I was itching to tell him. Stupid, really. He doesn’t understand, I’m sure he doesn’t. They tell me to keep talking to him, but you can see that nothing goes in. And what a thing to be itching about anyway! It just goes to show what I had tolook forward to, doesn’t it? The moment I told him, I wanted to go straight to confession. Well, I’d lied, hadn’t I? I’d lied to my own son. Oh, it was only a tiny, silly lie: I’d told him months in advance that I was going to a party, a party I’d made up. I’d made it up properly, too. I told him whose party it was, and why I’d been invited, and why I wanted to go, and who else would be there. (It...