Free Not a Star and Otherwise Pandemonium by Nick Hornby Page A

mind’, ‘Never mind’, ‘Never mind’. I haven’t really seen any porn films–only what was on the TV when we were on holiday in Spain, when we found that German cable channel. But if someone had told me that Mark had appeared in one and asked me to guess what sort of part he played, I’d have said he was the husband who discovered his wife in bed with the window-cleaner or something like that. I’d never have guessed that he’d be on the cover. Sad, isn’t it, the way you sort of give up on your kids?
    So it was like I had to get used to this whole new life–a life in which Mark had something that marked him out, made him different to everyone else. I had no idea what that something was, though. That was the next big shock.
     
    I know this sounds funny, but I probably hadn’t thought about Mark’s penis since the day he was born. I mean, I didn’t even think about it very much then, but that was the last time it actually sort of meant something to me. Because on the day he was born, his penis was who he was, if you know what I mean. The midwife held him up and said, ‘It’s a little boy,’ and I looked, and it was. So Mark was Mark, and not Olivia, which was who he would have been if he didn’t have one. And after that…Well, I washed him and everything, until he was old enough to do it himself, and then that was it. Our relationship was over. Even when he started seeing girls, and Dave and I were wondering whether he was sleeping with them, I never thought about that actual part of him. I told Dave to talk to him about contraception and the rest of it, and when I thought about his sex life…Well, I tried not to. Once, when he was seventeen or so, I walked into his bedroom on a Thursday afternoon, and he was in there with Lisa, his girlfriend at the time. They weren’t naked or anything, but they weren’t doing their homework either, and his hands were all over her. I just walked out again, and I got Dave to talk to him later, about what would happen if he got someone pregnant, what it would cost him. (I left Dave to work that bit out, because–never mind, never mind–I couldn’t.) But I never said anything. I wished I hadn’t seen what I saw, though. It was as if I’d walked in on my mum and dad doing something. I suppose someone’s written a book about sex and the family, because it’s obviously an important and difficult subject. But the trouble is, you wouldn’t want to read it, would you?
     
    I had to think about all of it–Mark’s penis and sex and the family, everything–when I put the video on. I didn’t watch it all. I couldn’t. (And it wasn’t just because Mark was in it, or because it was filthy. It was also rubbish, cheap and vulgar and depressing, like a naked version of an old 70s sitcom. The girl with the big breasts, for example, was supposed to be French, so of course she said ‘Ooh la la!’ It was about all she did say.) But I saw enough to understand why Mark was on the cover. It was the biggest one I’ve ever seen. OK, I haven’t seen many, but you see them around more than you used to, don’t you? You see them in films, and some of the girls at work have posters and postcards up, and Dave isn’t the only man I’ve ever slept with. And I can honestly say that the ones I’ve seen were all pretty much the same size, give or take. Mark’s, though…It looked like it didn’t belong to him. It looked like it was a special effect. In fact, the only reason I knew for sure it was real was because no one in their right minds would put Mark in a film if it wasn’t for his thing. He can’t act to save his life, and you could hardly hear what he says because he mumbles so badly, and it’s not even as if he looks like Tom Cruise. He’s nice-looking, I think, but no one would go to the trouble of making an enormous penis for him. Mark was special, after all. We’d never have to say ‘Never mind’ about that.
    You’re probably thinking to yourself, ‘Hold on.