The Third Person

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

‘Are you writing this down now?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Look at me while you’re doing it.’

So I looked over at him, sitting next to me. He was a large man: tall and solid, without being muscular or fat. Clean shaven. Brown hair. Blue eyes behind the glasses he was wearing. In fact, apart from the gun he was holding, pointing only vaguely at me but with his eyes doing most of the damage, he seemed normal. Just an average, everyday guy: the kind you passed in the street all the time without noticing, caring about or looking twice at.

Except for that gun.

‘What do you want?’ I said. I was surprised by how frightened I sounded. ‘I don’t have any money.’

He smiled, but even as I’d said it I’d known how stupid it was. He wasn’t here for money. My flat was on the top floor of a half-abandoned, three-quarters derelict shit-stack, and that was hardly the sort of place you came at random just to turn somebody over. On top of that, he clearly knew all about me. He hadn’t got me on the floor; he hadn’t tied me up or told me not to fucking move and asked where the money was.

What had happened was this.

It had been pouring down outside. There was a cacophony of clicks and splashes as the rain hit windowsills and cars and awnings below: a deep, dense, wet sound; a three-dimensional noise that you could walk through. The rain smelled warm, almost spicy. The street and pavements far below seemed suitably black and charred.

I’d been sitting, staring at the blank e-mail I’d received. There was no actual message, only the attachment, and I kept alternating between reading sections of the text it contained and staring at the empty e-mail and wondering what it meant.

Somehow, it had sidled through all the broken and breaking servers and found its way here, to my inbox.

The screensaver woke up – a featureless black background and I nudged the mouse to send it away. The blank message returned. Implacable. It was almost surprising how full of meaning no words could be.

I opened the attachment again and read it through.

It was very much incomplete: I guessed that there was less than a quarter of the original text there, and the rest was corrupted to the point where the meaning had gone, but I could make out some of the words and I recognised enough of the others to know what this was.

she screams se har(d thyt wf jjkpeopllr hurt h…r

I closed the attachment and clicked back to the blank message. Nothing – no words anyway. The malformed text made me think of a dog. It was like an old dog you’d dragged out back and shot in the head, but then you hear a scraping at the back door, go and open it, and there it is. And you don’t know whether it’s loyalty or anger that’s brought it back to you, except that in this case I thought that I did. The blank screen glared at me. If I stared, the emptiness felt like it was burning into my eyes.

Bang. Bang.

Two steady knocks at the front door, and I’d turned around before I knew it. The blank message continued its empty flare in the corner of my eye.

I didn’t move.

My attention was focused on the lock, with the rest of the room fading away around me, and I realised that it was open. My front door was unlocked, and I didn’t even dare move. But then it really was open – opening, anyway – and a large man with a gun was walking into the darkness, bringing sickly light from the hall along with him.

He’d just closed the front door calmly, keeping the gun pointing at me the whole time, and then he’d taken a seat at the table beside me.

‘Get yourself some fresh paper,’ he’d said. ‘And a pen. And then start writing down what’s happening here.’

And so that’s what I’d done.

The smile disappeared now as he told me what I already knew.

‘I don’t want your money. I just want you to listen.’

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘Right.’

‘Yes. Listen and write.’

Okay, I thought. He’s someone who knows about me and what I can do, and maybe he wants to make some money. So perhaps there was an angle here that I could use to help myself. But then again – if that was all that he wanted, he could have taken a dozen notebooks off the shelves behind him and sold them to whatever buyer he had interested. So why not do that? My mind was backtracking, and I couldn’t help thinking of the blank e-mail I’d just received. The corrupted attachment. Did this have something to do with that empty message?

He leaned forward and looked me in the eyes. Just stared into them intently.

‘Are you in there, Jason?’ he said. ‘Are you hearing me?’

All I could do was stare back at him. I didn’t know what to say, but I didn’t have the courage to look down. So I kept the connection, my right hand twitching away as I wrote.

After a second, he leaned away again. ‘Never mind. Either you are or you aren’t.’

I looked down at the paper in front of me, which was nearly full. He must have followed my gaze and realised what I was thinking because he placed another one down in front of me and said:

‘Let’s have a nice clean break, shall we?’

There was a playground near where Graham and Jason grew up, formed in a concrete bubble on the edge of this park that wasn’t really a park at all – just grassland, really, with a couple of chalk-white pitch shapes stained thoughtlessly into it, and the ring of a path for older people to stroll around in summer. There was a maze of trees and bushes which people from the nearby pubs would lose themselves in on an evening, in order to fuck drunkenly. The playground was at the top.

Graham had had his first beer there, and smoked his first joint. He didn’t lose his virginity there, shivering and cold, although he would have liked to.

They shared the place out between about thirty of them, mixed in every way, and they didn’t exactly mingle but they all put up with one another’s presence without much confrontation. Graham’s group consisted of Jason and about five or six other friends from school. One of those was Emma Lindley. She had messy blonde hair that she wore half tied back, and she was always smiling, and she was slim from all the football she played with the boys. Graham thought she was beautiful, and had done for nearly a year. He’d managed to speak to her a couple of times, but the conversation had never done more than skim the surface. In their circle of friends they were at opposite sides, which meant Graham was always looking across at her while she was always turned one way or the other, talking to someone else. But it was okay. He’d accepted that, generally speaking, that was the way things always were. It was certainly how they always had been. He didn’t get the girl. Maybe he was being overly optimistic, but he thought that one day he would. It couldn’t stay like this forever; he was a nice guy.

That night, Graham and a boy called Jonny were sitting side by side on the mound of concrete at the top of the playground. They were next to the slide that curved down its surface, and another boy – pissed to high heaven – was sliding down it, and then clambering up the wedged steps to the top, and then sliding down again, over and over. In about ten minutes he would lean on his knees and be sick in front of them, but for now he was happy.

Across the other side of the playground, Emma was talking to Connor and Jason. They were by the swings. Graham looked from them up to the night sky. It was very dark blue, not black, and the stars were full of colour.

‘Here.’

Jonny passed Graham the bottle of whisky they were sharing. Graham took a swig and winced. It hurt, but it made his head warm and the night hum. Alcohol shaved the edges off. When he was drunk, which he was getting towards being now, he felt a lot more positive about things. Not that they were closer to being within his reach. It just mattered less that they weren’t.

He took another swig, and then said, ‘Here,’ and Jonny took the bottle back again.

Graham looked around. The playground was quite busy tonight, but the groups were as segregated as ever. It was mostly boys and girls he knew from school – people he knew but didn’t know – and none of them really wanted to mix. Occasionally someone would come over and beg a cigarette or beer or rolling paper, and there’d be some perfunctory friendly conversation. It was always amiable, never convincing.

Graham knew he was just one of those guys: background people. He was very smart, but not irritating enough to be a target. He didn’t have that many friends, but enough to coast by, and he was never invited anywhere, but nobody was surprised or annoyed when he tagged along with people who were. He’d never had a girlfriend, but he’d been turned down by a few high-profile players way above his station, and so nobody thought he was gay. Nobody really thought much about him at all. That was all okay, too.

One of the reasons he came here was because it made him feel accepted, but it was weird. In many ways it just underlined how much he wasn’t. For him, it was all kind of an act. Whereas Jason was the real thing.

Graham looked back just as Connor joined them. He took the whisky from Jonny and said, ‘Three’s a crowd tonight.’

Jonny laughed, but not much. Graham’s attention returned to the swings across the playground. Now, Emma and Jason were on their own over there, sitting side by side on the hard rubber seats, twisting gently against the strength of the chains. Just talking, but quietly, without really looking at each other.

‘I know when I’m not wanted,’ Connor said.

Their feet were scraping the tarmac beneath them.

Graham looked away and gestured for the whisky off Connor.

‘Here.’

As he drank it, he thought: well, that’s okay. And it was, too. It was just the way things always had happened and always would. He was used to it. He sat there with Connor and Jonny and got methodically drunk, and he must have looked at Jason and Emma every few seconds, because by the end of the evening it was like he had a stop-start movie of them in his head. But all the time, he chatted with his friends, and on the surface he seemed to have a good time. He was aware that it was very important that he keep anyone from realising what he was feeling, including himself. So he watched them but tried not to think about it, and when they walked off together he didn’t let it bother him. It was okay.

Really, it was-

Okay.

So this is what happened.

What really happened.

Like I said, I saw Claire Warner through the window of the train: an odd moment, but fitting in a way – that my first real-life glimpse of her should be occluded slightly by the sunlight on a streaky window. I recognised her face from the picture she’d sent, and would have known it was her even without the white dress. The way she was standing. It’s like everyone else in the station was forty per cent less real than she was. Crowds, sponsored by Stand-In.

She didn’t know me to look at, but I caught her eye before I’d reached her, smiled, and she smiled back and knew it was me. Amazingly, she didn’t look disappointed. I walked over to her feeling nervous, not knowing how to greet her or what to say. In the end, it was easy. We said hi to each other softly, and she kissed me on the cheek, her body like air in front of me. Would you like to get a coffee? And I said yeah, please – this is really weird, isn’t it? Isn’t this really weird?

That much all happened.

What I didn’t tell you was that that day was one of Amy’s darker days. I’d like to say that I didn’t know, but I did. We argued that morning. I’d told her in advance that I had to do overtime and was heading into work for the day, but she was upset with me, or maybe just plain upset, and she asked me not to go. Maybe I could call in sick or something? Because she was really down and it would be nice for us to spend some time together. After all, we’d hardly seen each other lately. She was forgetting what I looked like.

She was lying in bed when she said all this to me. Propped up on one elbow, watching me getting dressed, giving me that look.

And you know what? I was fucking irritated.

I’m not proud of it, but what I thought was: there you go again, spoiling it for me. It had happened before. In fact, sometimes it seemed as though Amy had this psychic ability to know when something mattered to me, or when I was looking forward to something, and those were the times when she suddenly needed me. She’d ask me to cancel; sometimes she’d cry; and – always – she’d give me the look that she was giving me now. Half begging me to say yes and half wondering how I couldn’t. Amy would have dropped the world for me without even thinking.

Once upon a time, I would have done the same for her. I mean, I used to drop everything, even though it felt like a twist inside me, because I knew that the twist would be smoothed out quickly and, probably within the hour, I wouldn’t even remember it had been there. But things change. You give stuff up for someone you love because you don’t mind; and then you stop doing that when you do.

Maybe that’s why she kept asking me to.

That morning, I felt annoyed with her. Deep down, I understand that it was more than that. I was angry with what had happened to her and how it had impacted upon our relationship, and I was pissed off at myself for a betrayal I’d rationalised, but not nearly enough. It’s just that she was there.

‘How the fuck am I supposed to cancel,’ I said, looping on a tie I knew I’d take off after I left the house. ‘When they’re expecting me to be there?’

I think that part of it was me staying up late the night before, talking to Claire on Liberty and discussing what we were going to do when we met. She was the only thing on my mind. In my head, I was already on that train. The conversation Amy wanted to have was making me think: this isn’t fair, this always happens to me, why can’t something go right for me just once? And lots of other stupid things.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Amy said, falling back and turning away. ‘Just go.’

I remember feeling relieved. Everything was okay – she’d told me to go. But I also felt like a child. I remembered nonspecific examples of my mother caving in to some tantrum I’d thrown, and that was how I felt, standing at the foot of the bed and looking at Amy. She had hidden herself behind a ridge of duvet. I’d got what I wanted, and it felt sour.

‘Are you crying?’

‘No. Just fucking go.’

I hesitated. I really did.

But not for long.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

And left.

There was a party. It was a New Year’s Eve party, and everybody was very drunk. For the last few years, since most of their friends had come together as couples, they’d celebrated New Year together, in one of their houses, drinking and playing games, and then forming a circle and singing and hugging when midnight came.

This year, the party had been held at Jason and Amy’s, but there was something different about the atmosphere. Graham and Helen arrived and Graham knew immediately that something was wrong. He just couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

‘Hi guys.’

They had been there before any of the other guests. Jason and Amy took their coats and hung them up in the small hallway by the front door and it was clearly an awkward operation. Graham and Helen stood up straight, pressed to the walls, while the two of them manoeuvred around each other, not acknowledging each other beyond being careful not to touch. A silence had fallen amongst them like snow.

‘Come on in,’ Amy said to Helen, leading her into the living room.

Jason had taken Graham into the kitchen instead.

‘Let’s get you a drink, mate.’

‘Thanks.’

Their kitchen was big and bright, edged by work surfaces covered with unopened bottles and cans, a chopping board balancing a lemon and a lime, and pre-prepared bowls of crisps and nuts and biscuits. Amy had baked some mini sausage rolls and pizzas, as well, and they were resting on plates on top of the cooker. In the oven, Graham could smell potato wedges.

‘Here.’

Graham took the beer Jason was offering. His feet stuck to the tiles a little and gave little clicks as he walked over.

They went through to the living room, and it was nicer in there. There was a coffee table in the centre of the room covered with night lights; a lamp on a table in one corner; some larger candles on the dresser. It gave the room a subdued mood. Amy and Helen were conferring over the stereo. Graham and Jason sat down, and when music was finally chosen, Amy sat down on a different settee to Jason, and Graham thought: strange.

Other people arrived and the tension got diluted a little. But it was still there the whole evening.

The closest Graham could come was to think it was like when you turned up at someone’s house just after an argument, and they were still banging around separately. Pretending each other didn’t exist, except for scoring awkward potshots with comments too subtle to have any real meaning for you, and competing for your attention like you were some kind of prize. God knew it had been like that enough times at his house. And it was like that here. There didn’t seem to have been an argument, but it felt like there had. Perhaps Jason and Amy had been quarrelling without realising it, because neither of them seemed comfortable looking at the other. They didn’t seem right standing next to each other, either, and every time they spoke the things they said got taken slightly off-angle, or questioned, or ignored, as though they were either wanting a fight or expecting one.

It got to midnight and they sang in a circle – a kind of group hug, but with kicks and laughter – and then Connor took charge of the stereo and played songs they’d grown up to at the kind of volume you only get away with on New Year’s Eve. But despite the surface cheer, things still weren’t right. Some time after one o’clock, Graham realised Amy wasn’t around and went looking for her. He found her outside, sitting on the front step. She’d been crying.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’

She didn’t want to tell him – she said ‘nothing’ a few times – but he sat with her for a bit and eventually she said:

‘It’s just Jason. He’s being really horrible to me and I don’t know why.’

‘What do you mean? What’s he done?’

‘It’s nothing he’s done. He’s just… I don’t know. He said something in a really nasty tone of voice. I can’t remember what it was.’

‘Oh.’

She was very drunk, and so was Jason, and so was he. Graham didn’t know whether Jason had really said something bad or if Amy was just being that special kind of over-sensitive that only comes with being so pissed.

‘I’m sure he didn’t mean it.’

Amy said, ‘He doesn’t want me around anymore.’

‘He’s just drunk.’

She ignored him and started crying again.

He didn’t know what to say, and he knew that he could, if he wasn’t careful, say the wrong thing, or at least a very stupid and unhelpful thing. There was still a pinprick of common sense shining through the alcoholic haze, so he didn’t say anything. After a second, he reached out and touched her shoulder, and then gave it a tentative, friendly rub. Reassuring her. Her hair was in her face, so he tucked a few strands back behind her ear.

The intimacy of it immediately felt like a betrayal. Even though she hadn’t said anything, and hadn’t seemed at all bothered, he took his hand away. And then wished he hadn’t. And then was glad he did.

‘If you ever need a shoulder to cry on,’ he said. ‘I’m not good for much, but I can always do that.’

‘Thank you. I appreciate it. I’m sorry about this.’

‘Don’t be sorry. I don’t mind.’ He stood up. ‘But it’s cold out here. You should come back inside.’

‘I’ll be okay. Just give me a couple of minutes.’

‘You should go and see Amy,’ Graham told Jason, who was swaying in the centre of the lounge and didn’t seem able to focus. ‘She’s outside. She’s a bit upset.’

‘Okay.’

But he didn’t move, and Graham wanted to punch him. Instead, he sat down. He’s just drunk, he thought, but then realised that it wasn’t enough. He was drunk too, and he would have gone out immediately if Amy was his girlfriend and he’d known she was upset.

‘Jason, mate,’ he said after a moment. ‘I really think you should go out and see Amy.’

And Jason looked at him for a second, not seeing and not understanding, and maybe Graham really would have punched him then. But before he could get up, Jason lurched off in the direction of the front door.

‘Fucking sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry,’ Claire said, and then she looked at me with that expression – the one that said she liked me but was slightly disappointed at the same time. She touched my shoulder gently, and then gave it a squeeze. ‘You’re a nice guy, Jason. And I’m not into ruining lives.’

‘Maybe I should go,’ I said.

She shook her head.

‘Why? Come on – let’s have another coffee. We can talk.’ She gave me a nice smile. ‘You can tell me about your girlfriend. Okay?’

I thought about it. As weird an idea as it should have seemed, suddenly it didn’t. In fact, I realised that I really did want to talk to Claire about Amy – that it seemed right. The feeling of relief was getting stronger and brighter. I figured that I had a lot I needed to say.

‘Okay,’ I told her, nodding. I even managed a smile. ‘That’d be really nice.’

That all happened, too.

What I didn’t know was that Amy had a lot to say at that point as well. In fact, she was telling Graham a story about a girl.