First of all, Ill have you know that I scored very highly on Aaron T.

Good, said Martin. And when he said that, you could tell that, instead of killing ourselves, we were all going to come down from the roof and look for Jesss boyfriend, or whatever he was. It wasnt much of a plan, really. But it was the only plan we had, so all we could do was try and make it work.

I didnt take any notice of the silly things Jess said about cutting people.

Oi, Sharpy! Martin smiled at them pleasantly.

Not bad. Dead. He said this flat, like he was just correcting her on a point of fact - as if in his line of work, bad and dead were two addresses that people got confused.

One of the biggest, Martin said. Certainly in the top ten. He was one of those people who sometimes seemed to be joking when he wasnt, or not joking when he was.

OK, OK. So youre saying the worst that could happen is, you die a painful and violent death. And I say to you, my friend, that its better to die like a man than hide underneath grills like a mouse.

You know I havent had sex since that night we went out, dont you? I didnt know that, Chas, no. How would I know? Where would I have read that? Ive been too scared. I cant make that mistake again. I cant have another woman shouting at me in the cinema. I dont mind, you know, never having sex again. Its better that way. Im twenty-two. I mean, by the time youre sixty, you dont feel like it anyway, right? So were only talking forty years. Less. I can live with that. Women are fucking maniacs, man.

The two boys looked at her, but they didnt say anything. You could see what they were thinking, though.

Excuse me, he whispered as loudly as he dared.

Where were you this time last year? I was at a party at home. With Lizzie, my ex.

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

I wish I was deluding myself. Really. It would help. But we used to have these message boards up on our website, and Id read them every now and again, and I could tell that people felt the same way we did; and I looked at other peoples boards, too, and they didnt have the same kind of fans. I mean, everyone has fans who love what they do, otherwise they wouldnt be fans, right? But I could tell from reading the other boards that our guys walked out of our shows feeling something special. We could feel it, and they could feel it. Its just that there werent enough of them, I guess.

Yes, suicide had been contemplated for more than three hours prior to the attempt. Yes, I was certain of death even if I received medical attention: its fifteen storeys high, Toppers House, and they reckon that anything over ten will do it for you pretty well every time. Yes, there was active preparation for the attempt: ladder, wire-cutters and so on. He shoots, he scores.

Give me your mobile and Ill make some calls, said Jess.

Chas laughed. It was the hollow, desperate laugh of a man who knew that, when it came to calming Jess down, several elephant tranquilizers would be much more useful than a little chat.

Well, is there? said Jess.

Oh.

Every New Years the same, huh? How do you mean? You know. Warm white wine, a bad party full of jerks. And this year Id promised myself things would be different.

He doesnt know anyone in South London, Jess said.

Right. And I didnt really know how to follow up, so we sipped our drinks and watched the jerks.

Where he is? Yes. Id rather f—ing kill myself than try and get a cab to go somewhere in South London at four in the morning, said Martin.

Jesus. I would have needed to sit down too if Jess ever cut loose on me, and Ive been around the block a few times. I took her outside on to a little roof terrace that looked like it never got the sun at any time of the day or year, but there was a picnic table and a grill out there anyway. Those little grills are everywhere in England, right? To me theyve come to represent the triumph of hope over circumstance, seeing as all you can do is peer at them out the window through the pissing rain. There were a couple of people sitting at the picnic table, but when they saw that Maureen wasnt feeling too good they got up and went back inside, and we sat down. I offered to get her a glass of water, but she didnt want anything, so we just sat there for a while. And then we both heard like this hissing noise, coming from the shadows next to the grill in the far corner, and eventually we figured out that there was a guy back there. He was young, with long hair and a sorry-ass moustache, hunkered down in the dark, trying to attract our attention.

Were you engaged? I asked Jess, and then wished I hadnt.

I dunno, said Jess. Some party somewhere. Is that what it depends on?

When Frank broke off our engagement I didnt think Id ever get over it.

Where you wanna go? Shoreditch.

Me neither.

Shit, he said. Fuck. Im sorry. Shit. Will you help me climb over? No. I want you to come and talk to her. Shes had, shes had like a rough evening, and maybe a little chat would help calm her down.

Yes. Bad luck.

So once you find out that the poor girl is confused and vulnerable, thats when you run away.

Doesnt everybody, when they feel themselves getting out of control? You know: you say to yourself, OK, Im a booky person, so then you go and get some books from the library and carry them around for a while. Or, OK, Im a druggy person, and smoke a lot of weed. Whatever. And it makes you feel different. If you borrow someone elses clothes or their interests or their words, what they say, then it can give you a bit of a rest from yourself, I find.

Who will? The people in the respite home.

It will be all Tessa and that lot.

Well, yes, said Martin. They do.

So I didnt know what to say when Martin asked me if I really wanted to die. The obvious answer was, Yes, yes, of course I do, you fool, thats why Ive climbed all these stairs, thats why Ive been telling a boy - dear God, a man - who cant hear me all about a New Years Eve party that Id made up. But theres another answer, too, isnt there? And the other answer is, No, of course I dont, you fool. Please sthttps://read.99csw.comop me. Please help me. Please make me into the kind of person who wants to live, the kind of person who has a bit missing, maybe. The kind of person who would be able to say, I am entitled to something more than this. Not much more; just something that would have been enough, instead of not quite enough. Because thats why I was up there - there wasnt quite enough to stop me.

Someone loves you, said Jess, but he ignored her.

Also, the business in the cinema, which looking back on it might have been the final straw. That was inappropriate behaviour, too. Or maybe the behaviour wasnt inappropriate, because we had to have that conversation some time, but the place (the Holloway Odeon) wasnt right, and nor was the time (halfway through the film) or the volume (loud). One of the points Chas made that night was that I wasnt really mature enough to be a mother, and I can see now that by yelling my head off about having a baby halfway through Moulin Rouge I sort of proved it for him.

I only paid for one night, said Maureen.

JJWhile Jess called everyone she knew to find out where this guy Chas was at, I was leaning on the wall, looking through the wire at the city, and trying to figure out what Id listen to at that exact moment, if I owned an iPod or a Discman. The first thing that came to mind was Jonathan Richmans Abominable Snowman in the Market, maybe because it was sweet and silly, and reminded me of a time in life when I could afford to be that way. And then I started humming the Cures In Between Days, which made a little more sense. It wasnt today and it wasnt tomorrow, and it wasnt last year and it wasnt next year, and anyway the whole roof thing was an in-between kind of a limbo, seeing as we hadnt yet made up our minds where our immortal souls were headed.

People must say that to you all the time, one of them said.

There you go. Youre in trouble wherever you look.

So I was in a bad mood from the get-go. I was worried that I was going to get into a fight, and Id even decided what that fight would be about: Id be defending either Martin or Maureen from the sneers of some motherfucker with a goatee, or some woman with a moustache. But it never happened. The weird thing was that Martin in his suit and his fake tan, and Maureen in her raincoat and sensible shoes, they somehow blended right in. They looked so straight that they looked, you know, out there.

Give it here, said Martin.

Yes. In my country.

People do still get engaged, Martin said. Its not a stupid question.

It would have been neat if Id fallen in love with Maureen, wouldnt it? I can even see the newspaper headline: SHARP TURNED! And then thered be some story about how Old Sleazebag had seen the error of his ways and decided to settle down with nice homely older woman, rather than chase around after schoolgirls and C-list actresses with breast enlargements.

Does your missus mind? Sorry? Your missus. La femme. Does she care? About you working all night? No, she dont care. Not now. Not in the place where is she.

I had to run away. She was chasing me. With a knife, half the time.

Martin and his TV hair could have been in Kraftwerk, and Maureen could have been like a real weird version of Mo Tucker from the Velvet Underground. Me, I was wearing a pair of faded black pants, a leather jacket and an old Gitanes T-shirt, and I felt like a fucking freak.

I cant come into the light.

MAUREEN I didnt like it that they were making me sound tight. It wasnt anything to do with money. I needed one night so I paid for one night. And then someone else would have to pay, but I wouldnt be around to know.

I nearly did away with myself then - I certainly considered it. But I thought I could ride it out, I thought things might get better. Imagine the trouble I could have saved if I had done! I would have killed the both of us, me and Matty, but of course I didnt know that then.

Im not going anywhere, said Maureen. Im not leaving the roof, and I wont change my mind.

It was time to feel different. I dont know why I said that stuff to Maureen; I dont know why I say half the things I say. I knew Id overstepped the mark, but I couldnt stop myself. I get angry, and when it starts its like being sick. I puke and puke over someone and I cant stop until Im empty. Im glad Martin pulled me outside. I needed stopping. I need stopping a lot. So I told myself that from that point on I was going to be more a person out of the olden days kind of thing. I swore not to swear, ha ha, or to spit; I swore not to ask harmless old ladies who are clearly more or less virgins whether they shagged doggy style.

How about you? Jess said to the driver. You working all night? Or are you gonna go and have a few somewhere? Work toute la nuit, said the driver. All the night.

He wound down the passenger window and leaned over.

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.

Who the fucks this now? Im Maureen, said Maureen. Why should you get away with it? Get away with what? I didnt do anything.

Yes. Bad men kill her. Kill her, kill her mother, kill her father.

Oh, that, said Jess. Forget it. The moments gone. I can tell. So weve got to find something else to do.

And right there was the place Jess chose to stop: exactly at the point where her silence would show her up. So we drove on, thinking our thoughts. And I would bet a million bucks that our thoughts all contained, somewhere in their tangle and swirl, a version of the same questions: Why hadnt we seen him up there? Or had he been up and come down, like us?

Youre thinking, Oh, this guy wasnt serious. He wanted a tabloid photographer to capture his quote unquote cry for help so that he could sign a My Suicide Hell exclusive for the Sun. SHARP TAKES THE SLEAZY WAY OUT. And I can understand why you might be thinking that, my friends. I climb a stairwell, have a couple of nips of Scotch from a hip-flask while dangling my feet over the edge, and then when some dippy girl asks me to help find her ex-boyfriend at some party, I shrug and wander off with h九_九_藏_書er. And how suicidal is that?

When we got to where we were going, Martin gave him a very large tip, and he was pleased and grateful, and called us his friends. We would have liked to be his friends, but he probably wouldnt have cared for us much if he got to know us.

I hope we dont find him, said Maureen. Not for a while. Id like a sherry, please, if you can find one.

I imagine that most of us have just written the one, said Martin.

You did? Really? OK, but what living people get engaged? Im not interested in people out of the Ark. Im not interested in people with, with like shoes and raincoats and whatever. I wanted to ask what she thought we should wear instead of shoes, but I was learning my lesson.

Cheers.

You wanna talk to us, you come here.

Chas got sick of me, for example. And I really need that not to happen any more, otherwise Ill be left with nobody. With Chas, I think everything was just too much; I came on too strong too quickly, and he got scared. Like that thing in the Tate Modern? That was definitely a mistake. Because the vibe in there… OK, some of the stuff is all weird and intense and so on, but just because the stuff is all weird and intense, that shouldnt have meant that I went all weird and intense. That was inappropriate behaviour, as Jen would have said. I should have waited until wed got outside and finished looking at the pictures and installations before I went off on one. I think Jen got sick of me, too.

Anyway. No I wont be reading this one out. He was squinting at it to read the number, and then he tapped the number out. And a few seconds later it was all done. He apologized for ringing so late, and then told them something had come up and Matty would be staying for another day, and that was it. The way he said it, it was like he knew they werent going to be asking any more questions. If Id phoned I would have come up with this great long explanation for why I was phoning at four in the morning, something Id have had to have thought up months ago, and then they would have seen through me and Id have confessed and ended up going to get Matty out a few hours earlier rather than a day later.

Well, I was embarrassed. It was my little note, my letter, and I didnt want anyone reading it while I was watching them, but I didnt know how to say that, and before I knew it, Martin had reached over and snatched it from me.

These people, though, Martin and JJ and Jess, theyre different from anyone I know. Theyre more like the people on television, the people in EastEnders and the other programmes where people know what to say straightaway. Im not saying theyre bad. Im saying theyre different. They wouldnt worry so much about Matty if he was their son. They dont have the same sense of duty. They dont have the church. Theyd just say, Whats the difference? and leave it at that, and maybe theyre right, but theyre not me, and I didnt know how to tell them that.

But you dont need our help, I said. We dont know how to start looking for Chas. Youre the only one who can find him.

Oh, man, I wish you could have seen the look on his face. He scrambled to his feet and started looking for ways to escape over the back wall. At one point I thought he was going to try running up it, like a squirrel.

Martin gave them a cheerful, what-can-you-do shrug and turned back to me.

Even though our problems had driven us up there, it was as if they had somehow, like Daleks, been unable to climb the stairs. And now we had to go back down and face them again. But it didnt feel like we had any choice. Even though we had nothing in common beyond that one thing, the one thing was enough to make us feel that there wasnt anything else - not money, or class, or education, or age, or cultural interests - that was worth a damn; wed formed a nation, suddenly, in that couple of hours, and for the time being we wanted only to be with our new compatriots. I had hardly exchanged a word with Maureen, and I didnt even know her surname; but she understood more about me than my wife had done in the last five years of our marriage. Maureen knew that I was unhappy, because of where shed met me, and that meant she knew the most important thing about me; Cindy always professed herself baffled by everything I did or said.

I had the address and phone number written down on my little note. I fished it out of my pocket, but I couldnt read it in the dark.

Oh, Christ, he said when he saw it. I could feel myself blushing. Is this your suicide note? Cool. Read it out, said Jess. Mine are crap, but I bet hers is worse.

You have to talk to her. said Maureen.

Theres only Maureen and me out here.

What would happen to you if you did? A nutter might try to kill me.

The rest of us got in the back.

Maureen looked at him helplessly again. Why? Because, said Jess. Anyway, theres fuck all to do up here, is there? Martin laughed, kind of.

Anyway.

Because it seems to me that you have more chance of being able to live a life you can stand if youre like that.

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

What about me? Im upset. My life is a shambles.

I came up with a lot of utter nonsense when Frank and I broke up; I told people that Frank had been forced to move away, that he was sick in the head, that he was a drunk and hed hit me. None of it was true. Frank was a sweet man whose crime was that he didnt love me quite enough, and because this wasnt much of a crime I had to make up some bigger ones.

Theyre not me, but I wish I was them. Maybe not them, exactly, because theyre not so happy either. But I wish I was one of those people, the people who know what to say, the people who cant see the difference.

Martin went spare at me, told me I was a bitch, and an idiot, and asked me what Maureen had ever done to me. And I just said, Yes, sir, and, No, sir, and, Very sorry, sir, and I looked at the pavement, not at him, just to show him I really was sorry. And then I curtsied, which I thought was a nice touch. And he said, What the fucks this, now? Whats the yes sir no sir business? So I told him that I was going to stop being me, and that no one would evehｔｔps://ｒｅad•9９ｃｓw•ｃｏｍr see the old me again, and he didnt know what to say to that. I didnt want them to get sick of me. People do get sick of me, Ive noticed.

"Jolly", Jess snorted. Why are you such a tosser? If you were going to joke around with Jess, and use words ironically, then youd have to give her plenty of advance warning.

Maureen, meanwhile, was plainly petrified. She jumped every time anyone laughed, or swore, or broke something; she stared at the party-goers as if she were looking at Diane Arbus photos projected fifty feet wide on an Imax screen.

You OK? Thats life, he said, and looked at me. Hed somehow managed to give an old cliche new depth.

Bad luck, said Jess.

Because theyll come looking for me.

JJ I want to tell you about my old band - I guess because Id started to think about these guys as my new one. There were four of us, and we were called Big Yellow. We started out being called Big Pink, as a tribute to the Band album, but then everyone thought we were a gay band, so we changed colors. Me and Eddie started the band in high school, and we wrote together, and we were like brothers, right up until the day that we werent like that any more. And Billy was the drummer, and Jesse was the bassist, and… shit, you could care less, right? All you need to know is this: we had something that no one else ever had. Maybe some people used to have it, before my time - the Stones, the Clash, the Who. But no one Ive ever seen had it. I wish youd come to one of our shows, because then youd know that Im not bullshitting you, but youll have to take my word for it: on our good nights we could suck people up and spit em out twenty miles away. I still like our albums, but it was the shows that people remember; some bands just go out and play their songs a little louder and faster, but we found a way of doing something else; we used to speed em up and slow em down, and we used to play covers of things we loved, and that we knew the people who came to hear us would love too, and our shows came to mean something to people, in a way that shows dont any more. When Big Yellow played live, it was like some kind of Pentecostal service; instead of applause and whistles and hoots, thered be tears and teeth-grinding and speaking in tongues. We saved souls. If you love rocknroll, all of it, from, I dont know, Elvis right through James Brown and up to the White Stripes, then youd have wanted to quit your job and come and live inside our amps until your ears fell off. Those shows were my reason for living, and I now know that this is not a figure of speech.

Did you shag him? Ill bet you did. How did he like it? Doggy style? So he didnt have to look at you? And then Martin grabbed her and dragged her into the street.

So why didnt I just put him in a home and not die? What would the difference be? But that just goes to show that they didnt understand me, or Matty, or Father Anthony, or anyone at the church. No one I know thinks that way.

Good. Im not enjoying myself here.

Anyway, who the f— did you get engaged to? I didnt want any of this. It didnt seem fair that this is what happened when you tried to help.

The only questions where I might not have received maximum points are the first two, which deal with what Aaron T. Beck calls isolation and timing. No one near by in visual or vocal contact gets you top marks, as does Intervention highly unlikely. You might argue that as we chose the most popular suicide spot in North London on one of the most popular suicide nights of the year, intervention was almost inevitable; I would counter by saying that we were just being dim. Dim or grotesquely self-absorbed, take your pick.

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

Why should we care? We didnt know you half an hour ago. I dont give much of a fuck about how weird you get on your own.

They didnt understand, I could tell. I mean, they could understand that I was unhappy. But they couldnt understand the logic of it. The way they looked at it was this: if I died, Matty would be put in a home somewhere.

Maybe cut her a little.

White wine? Would they have that? I found a couple paper cups, and a bottle with something left in it.

Listen. If you came outside and had a little chat, whats the worst that could happen? Shes tried to kill me twice and she got me arrested once. Plus, Im banned from three pubs, two galleries and a cinema. Plus, Ive had an official warning from...

But well all go together, do you think? I guess. Thats the deal, right? Until we find this guy.

When I came back, Jess was standing there in tears, and the rest of the party had cleared a little space around us. Some boy had told her that Chas had been and gone, and hed gone with somebody he met at the party, some girl. Jess wanted us all to go round to this girls house, and JJ was trying to persuade her that it wasnt a good idea.

And why was she chasing you? What is this? Why is it your business? I dont like to see people upset.

Like God, I said.

A young African guy driving a shitty old Ford pulled up alongside us.

Jess spent ten minutes talking to sources close to Chas and came back with a best guess that he was at a party in Shoreditch. We walked down fifteen flights of stairs, through the thud of dub and the stink of piss, and then emerged back on to the street, where we stood shivering in the cold while waiting for a black cab to show. Nobody said much, besides Jess, who talked enough for all of us. She told us whose party it was, and who would probably be there.

You want a drink? Wheres Jess? Looking for Chas.

This nutters everywhere.

Maureen felt faint after Jess cut loose on her, and who could blame her?

Oh. Howdy, pardner. If I tell you that this amused him, youll know all you need to know about this guy. Listen, can you check the party and see if the nutters gone? What does he look like? She. I know, I know, but shes really scary. A mate saw her first and told me to hide out here until shed gone. I went out with her once. Not like "once upon a time". Just once. But I stopped because shes off her head, and… This was perfect.

What九-九-藏-書 do you think? said Martin to the rest of us.

Come back here, I said.

Well, said Jess. In that case I couldnt let it go, could I? What does that mean? I wouldnt kill her. Im not that mad. But I would have to hurt her.

Shut up, said Martin, and got in the front seat. My treat, he said.

Cheers.

It was maybe four-thirty in the morning by now, but there were tons of people around, in cars and cabs and on foot. Everyone seemed to be in a group. Sometimes people waved to us; Jess always waved back.

Right.

Yes, she said quickly. Oh, yes.

What? You know. Oi, Sharpy and all that.

I cant tell you how many times Id watched Eddie pop someone at a party or after a show. And hed probably say the same thing about me, although in my memory I was the Man of Peace, with only the occasional lapse into violence, and he was the Man of War, with only the occasional moment of calm and clarity. And OK, Maureen was like this little old lady, but watching her take a swing really brought it all back home.

I walked over to the other side of the terrace and crouched down next to him.

Id try to kill you, if I were Jess, she said quietly - so quietly that it was hard to square the violence of the words with the timidity in the voice.

And yet, of course, if it hadnt been for the teeming throng up there, I wouldnt be around today, so maybe old Beck is bang on the money. We may not have been counting on anyone to rescue us, but once we started bumping into each other, there was certainly a collective desire - a desire born more than anything out of embarrassment - to shelve the whole idea, at least for the night. Not one of us descended those stairs having come to the conclusion that life was a beautiful and precious thing; if anything, we were slightly more miserable on the way down than on the way up, because the only solution we had found for our various predicaments was not available to us, at least for the moment. And there had been a sort of weird nervous excitement up on the roof; for a couple of hours we had been living in a sort of independent state, where street-level laws no longer applied.

I keep changing my mind, Jess said. Nothing wrong with that. Its a big decision.

And thats the whole thing, right there, because we believed her. Maybe other people on other nights wouldnt have but the three of us, that night, we had no doubts. It wasnt 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 shed try it. And once youd worked that out, then it was just a question of how much you cared.

And Alfie and Tabitha and the posse who go down Ocean on Saturdays. And Acid-Head Pete and the rest of the whole graphic design crew.

Martin groaned; Maureen looked seasick.

Well, we had sex that once. But I didnt know she was a fucking maniac then.

What? said Jess.

The driver laughed mirthlessly.

Where do you think well go next? I dont know.

Bad luck, though. Of all the people on TV, you end up looking like that cunt.

Party? said the driver.

Well? said Martin. Are you prepared to wait until tomorrow night? What will I tell the people in the home? Have you got the phone number? Its too late to call them.

How can I help you? You American? Yes.

So phone them up and tell them hell be staying two.

I said this because I knew it was the right thing to say, not because my experience told me anything different. It wasnt true that women were fucking maniacs, of course it wasnt - just the ones that I had slept with and Chas had slept with.

Now, see, Chas couldnt know, but that wasnt such a good line of argument to use with any of our crowd, the Toppers House Four. We were, by definition, the Kings and Queens of Shambles.

Ah, said Martin. That lot.

So, said JJ. Maureens OK. That just leaves you, Martin. You wanna join in? Well, where is this Chas? Martin said.

Yeah, right. Dream on.

I dont give a fuck, you know, she said. I can jump, or we can look for Chas. Same thing, to me.

I thought you said you had sex with her, Maureen said. Or maybe you didnt say that in so many words. But you said you hadnt had sex since. So Im thinking that you slept with her.

Anyone with an emotional antenna could have felt the mood in the cab turn real dark. Anyone with any life experience could have figured out that this was a man with a story, and that this story, whatever it was, was unlikely to get us into the party mood. Anyone with any sense would have stopped right there.

It cant be hygienic, living in a place without rooms. Even people who live in bedsits usually have access to a proper bathroom, with doors and walls and a window. This place, the place where the party was being held, didnt even have that. It was like a railway station toilet, except there wasnt even a separate gents. There was just a little wall separating the bath and toilet from the rest of it, so even though I needed to go, I couldnt; anyone might have walked around the wall and seen what I was doing. And I dont need to spell out how unhealthy it all was. Mother used to say that a bad smell is just a germ gas; well, whoever owned this flat must have had germs everywhere. Not that anyone could use the toilet anyway. When I went to find it, someone was kneeling on the floor and sniffing the lid. I have no idea why anyone would want to smell the lid of a toilet (while someone else watched! Can you imagine!). But I suppose people are perverted in all sorts of different ways. It was sort of what I expected when I walked into that party and heard the noise and saw what kind of people they were; if someone had asked me what I thought people like that would do in a toilet, I might have said that theyd sniff the lid.

Engaged? Jess said. Engaged? What is this? Pride and f—ing Prejudice? "Oooh, Mr Arsey Darcy. May I plight my truth?" "Oh yes, Miss Snooty Knobhead, Id be charmed Im sure." She said this last part in a silly voice, but you could probably have guessed that.

Would he sneer, if we told him our 九_九_藏_書troubles? How come he turned out to be so fucking… dogged?

So even if youre right, and the moment has passed, I said, why do we have to do anything together? Why dont we go home and watch TV? Cos I get weird on my own. I told you.

Yours are crap? said JJ. Meaning, there are like, what, hundreds of them? Im always writing them, said Jess. She seemed quite cheerful about it.

I know what youre thinking, all you clever-clever people who read the Guardian and shop in Waterstones and would no more think of watching breakfast television than you would of buying your children cigarettes.

Becks Suicide Intent Scale. Ill bet you didnt even know there was such a scale, did you? Well, there is, and I reckon I got something like twenty-one out of thirty points, which I was pretty pleased with, as you can imagine.

Oh.

So anyway. Martin went mental at me for a while, and then he just seemed to shrink, as if he was a balloon and hed been punctured. Whats wrong, kind sir? I said, but he just shook his head, and I could understand enough from that. What I understood was that it was the middle of the night and he was standing outside a party full of people he didnt know, shouting at someone else he didnt know, a couple of hours after sitting on a roof thinking about killing himself. Oh yeah, and his wife and children hated him. In any other situation I would have said that hed suddenly lost the will to live. I went over and put my hand on his shoulder, and he looked at me as if I were a person rather than an irritation and we almost had a Moment of some description - not a romantic Ross-and-Rachel-type moment (as if), but a Moment of Shared Understanding. But then we were interrupted, and the Moment passed.

What if she did know? said JJ.

Fine. We wouldnt ask you to.

Therell be somebody on duty. Give me the number. He pulled one of those tiny little mobile telephones out of his pocket and turned it on. It started ringing, and he pressed a button and put the phone to his ear. He was listening to a message, I suppose.

JESS When Martin pulled me outside, I did that thing where you decide to become a different person. Its something I could do whenever I felt like it.

Nope.

Oh, said Jess. Bad woman, eh? I winced, and Im sure the others did, too. Bigmouth strikes again.

So what? said Jess. What are they going to do if they cant find you? Theyll put Matty somewhere terrible.

Oh, yeah! Good call! his buddy said.

You know what? Im not sure theres going to be too much sherry around. These guys dont look like sherry-drinkers to me.

Happy New Year, said the driver.

So you dont feel like a bond kind of thing because of what weve been through.

Maureen didnt want to come in with us, but we led her through the door and up the stairs into a room that was the closest thing Ive seen to a New York loft since Ive been here. It would have cost a fortune in NYC, which means it would have cost a fortune plus another thirty per cent in London. It was still packed, even at four in the morning, and it was full of my least favorite people: fucking art students. I mean, Jess had already warned us, but it still came as a shock. All those woolly hats, and moustaches with parts of them missing, all those new tattoos and plastic shoes… I mean, Im a liberal guy, and I didnt want Bush to bomb Iraq, and I like a toke as much as the next guy, but these people still fill my heart with fear and loathing, mostly because I know they wouldnt have liked my band. When we played a college town, and we walked out in front of a crowd like this, I knew we were going to have a hard time. They dont like real music, these people. They dont like the Ramones or the Temptations or the Mats; they like D J Bleepy and his stupid fucking bleeps. Or else they all pretend that theyre fucking gangstas, and listen to hip-hop about hos and guns.

And then can we go? Sure.

I felt almost as sorry for him as I did for myself, because I didnt make it easy for him. We were in the Ambler Arms, except its not called that any more, over in the corner by the fruit machine, and the landlord came over to our table and asked Frank to take me home, because nobody wanted to put any money in the machine while I was there howling and bawling my eyes out, and they used to make a fair bit of money from the fruit machine on quiet nights.

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.

Do you know Acid-Head Pete at all? Martin asked him. Well, were hoping to run into him. Should be jolly.

Thirty pounds.

Chas had given up on sex, whereas we were trying to decide whether to give up on fucking life.

None of us said anything.

This is the Matty whos a vegetable? Does he give a shit where he goes? Maureen looked at Martin helplessly.

Youre Chas, arent you? How did you know that? Im a friend of Jesss.

You dont want to think shit like that, man. Youve just had some bad luck.

Its OK, Jess said. I know her. Theres probably been some sort of misunderstanding. She probably just didnt know about me and Chas.

Nice? It was OK, yeah. You? I was at home. With Matty.

So Martin gave her the phone, and she went to the other side of the roof where no one could hear her, and we waited to be told where we were going.

Fuck off, said Chas. And then, womp! Maureen popped him as hard as she could.

Right. And did you think, a year ago...

Fuck off, said Jess.

Martin Sharp! You know, off of breakfast telly! I winced. I have never really hung out with a celebrity, and it hadnt occurred to me that walking into a party with Martins face is like walking into a party naked: even arts students tend to take notice. But this was more complicated than straightforward recognition.

There was only one incident that made me think I might have to break someones nose. Martin was standing there drinking wine straight out of a bottle, and these two guys started staring at him.

Which people get engaged? I did, I said. But I said it too quietly, because I was scared of her, and so she made me say it again.

Maureen had stood up and come to join us in our dark barbecue corner.