A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

different from anyone I know. They’re more like the people on television, the people in
EastEnders
and the other programmes where people know what to say straightaway. I’m not saying they’re bad. I’m saying they’re different. They wouldn’t worry so much about Matty if he was their son. They don’t have the same sense of duty. They don’t have the church. They’d just say, ‘What’s the difference?’ and leave it at that, and maybe they’re right, but they’re not me, and I didn’t know how to tell them that.
    They’re not me, but I wish I was them. Maybe not them, exactly, because they’re not so happy either. But I wish I was one of those people, the people who know what to say, the people who can’t see the difference. Because it seems to me that you have more chance of being able to live a life you can stand if you’re like that.
    So I didn’t 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, that’s why I’ve climbed all these stairs, that’s why I’ve been telling a boy – dear God, a man – who can’t hear me all about a New Year’s Eve party that I’d made up. But there’s anotheranswer, too, isn’t there? And the other answer is, No, of course I don’t, you fool. Please stop 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 that’s why I was up there – there wasn’t quite enough to stop me.
    ‘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?’
    ‘It’s too late to call them.’
    ‘There’ll 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.
    ‘Someone loves you,’ said Jess, but he ignored her.
    I had the address and phone number written down on my little note. I fished it out of my pocket, but I couldn’t read it in the dark.
    ‘Give it here,’ said Martin.
    Well, I was embarrassed. It was my little note, my letter, and I didn’t want anyone reading it while I was watching them, but I didn’t know how to say that, and before I knew it, Martin had reached over and snatched it from me.
    ‘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.’
    ‘Yours
are
crap?’ said JJ. ‘Meaning, there are like, what, hundreds of them?’
    ‘I’m always writing them,’ said Jess. She seemed quite cheerful about it. The two boys looked at her, but they didn’t say anything. You could see what they were thinking, though.
    ‘What?’ said Jess.
    ‘I imagine that most of us have just written the one,’ said Martin.
    ‘I keep changing my mind,’ Jess said. ‘Nothing wrong with that. It’s a big decision.’
    ‘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 wasn’t, or not joking when he was.
    ‘Anyway. No I won’t 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 weren’t going to be asking any more questions. If I’d phoned I would have come up with this great long explanation for why I was phoning at four in the morning, something I’d have