Staying Alive

Staying Alive
Matt Beaumont

From the bestelling author of ‘e’ comes a hilarious and moving novel of a very normal life becoming extraordinaryMurray’s living life to the full – and it might just kill him. He’s started telling the truth at work. He’s borrowed a stack of cash from a man with a gun, a speech impediment and no grasp whatsoever of APR. He’s also taking drugs and – God help him – he’s started dancing. Badly. To trance. And now he’s on the run with a human version of Muttley and a teenage girl called Fish.Which is strange, because a few weeks ago Murray didn’t even burn the candle at one end. But when his doctors tell him he has only months to live, he gives his boring old self the boot, relaunches a new, improved Murray and falls in love with a passion he didn’t know was in him.His old self, of course, would tell him he’s digging his own grave. But he’ll be needing one of those soon enough anyway, won’t he?

Staying Alive

Matt Beaumont

HarperCollinsPublishers

For Sam, spaceman of the future

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#ua81b57dc-c9dc-54e8-b306-cb1d20046181)

Title Page (#u727c5f86-1cae-5b7a-9193-872bef977059)

Dedication (#uf1c40377-34ac-5cc4-82dc-2e33601ee75f)

nov. (#ue5d822d1-a9e2-55d7-bdd4-519a83cf5c0b)

one: like on the telly? (#u207e1a39-ae64-5eca-bd07-1309e04c4f1c)

two: nobody died (#uc0382646-9c6a-5eee-bec0-595793cdfb00)

three: fifteen weeks, four days and an indeterminate number of hours (#u433626cf-bf4e-533a-9f61-2752c59cff4f)

four: fancy that. outposts of the nhs that examine nothing but balls (#u29df99f1-0275-518d-be27-9bf8c234b6cc)

five: you’ve been wanking, haven’t you? (#u7a16fcc7-a363-5043-a35d-52041f2bfb57)

six: it’s kind of personal (#u7683e76f-5d64-57b4-a061-389d3fa93625)

seven: i have done this before, you know. that’s why i keep my nails short (#u9610c206-d156-5200-8686-117183119e02)

eight: absolutely dandy (#ud357061c-03ab-57aa-bce6-cea300968301)

nine: i said run! (#u9b627c40-6135-5c16-b0a5-42162084b21a)

ten: trance is the bollocks (#u2ddf1c53-2d5c-5604-8992-47e6cea4a4c7)

eleven: three words (#u4540f564-a57f-5508-9721-70979b510858)

dec. (#uf0eb8f80-5333-5b00-8732-5a1a4b06f277)

one: thoffy, thakki (#ue48d6b9e-2175-59ce-a27a-df8db6afe853)

two: you work in advertising. you earn more in a week than the average filipino takes home in a year. what do you know about crisis? (#uf91f7ea3-90ac-5ac9-b3da-48119d5f021c)

three: they asked me to feed their fish (#litres_trial_promo)

four: i promise (#litres_trial_promo)

five: the pharmaceutical industry is mired in the shite with the arms dealers and big tobacco, murray. they’re little better than a mob of sallow-faced pushers outside a wee kiddies’ playground and it depresses the hell out of me (#litres_trial_promo)

six: two jacuzzis (!!) (#litres_trial_promo)

seven: back in the land of the living (#litres_trial_promo)

eight: you risked a criminal record for a garlic crusher? (#litres_trial_promo)

nine: yoo berra gerrootta thuh fookin ruhrd (#litres_trial_promo)

ten: do smack, rob banks, screw everyone (#litres_trial_promo)

eleven: out of the silo (#litres_trial_promo)

twelve: ze vacky guys behint our vunderful adwertisements (#litres_trial_promo)

thirteen: i still want us to be (#litres_trial_promo)

fourteen: who’s mona? (#litres_trial_promo)

fifteen: the best way forward for humankind: mutant antlers or giant lobster claws? (#litres_trial_promo)

sixteen: as if (#litres_trial_promo)

seventeen: things (#litres_trial_promo)

eighteen: he ain’t worth it (#litres_trial_promo)

nineteen: i know where i can get one (#litres_trial_promo)

twenty: whoops-a-fucking-daisy (#litres_trial_promo)

twenty-one: it’s gonna be chocker with dusky totty (#litres_trial_promo)

twenty-two: i won’t sink (#litres_trial_promo)

twenty-three: why couldn’t he have met a nice spanish girl? (#litres_trial_promo)

twenty-four: i won’t say it (#litres_trial_promo)

jan. (#litres_trial_promo)

one: mike said why didn’t they put a sainsbury’s there? something to benefit the whole community (#litres_trial_promo)

two: poor megan (#litres_trial_promo)