The Third Person

‘You met her. We know this for a fact. She travelled to Schio on the eleventh of August at nine-thirty am. I have the ticket she used – which she kept, incidentally – and I have had people cross-reference listings of her on-line boyfriends with rail records. You arrived twenty minutes later on a train from here, in a seat you reserved over two weeks earlier.’

‘Jesus.’ I shook my head. ‘Your people have too much time on their hands.’

‘So. You met her.’

‘Yes.’

I was thinking: the ticket she used – which she kept, incidentally .

There are no incidental details in my life.

All this because of a railway ticket.

‘The police know, too,’ he said. ‘But they don’t care. They don’t think you killed her, and they have better things to do. I don’t think you killed her, either.’

‘I didn’t kill her. I haven’t spoken to her in months.’

He seemed interested by this.

‘When exactly did you last speak to her?’

‘In Schio,’ I said immediately. ‘That was the last time I had any contact with her at all.’

He leaned back. It was impossible not to see the look of disappointment on his face, and I knew that I was going to have to work hard to convince him that it was true. And although it wasn’t strictly true, as far as I was concerned it might as well be.

‘Why?’ he said.

‘Why what?’

‘Why then? After you’d met her for the first time. Why was that the end of it?’

Her pretty face, giving me that look. That look that was half-affection and half-pity. The one that said: you fit into the groove too well, no matter what you say, and if I offered to launch you into space on the adventure you always wanted, you know what would happen? You’d run away screaming.

You’re a nice guy, Jason. And I’m not into ruining lives.

After I met her, I went home, arriving back quite late. Amy was already in bed by then: three-quarters asleep and only vaguely aware of me slipping in beside her. She was naked. She was facing away from me, and I moved up against her, pressing my chest to her thin back, putting my arm around her and cupping my hand on her slight stomach. All I could smell was her hair. I’d come so close to making the worst mistake of my life, and I’d never been more relieved than I was right then.

‘I love you,’ I told her, kissing the side of her neck.

She didn’t say anything, but she moved slightly and took hold of my hand where it rested on her stomach and she gave it a squeeze. And she pressed back against me, giving a noise that might have been contentment.

Why hadn’t I seen her again?

I looked at the old man.

‘Because I love my girlfriend,’ I said. ‘That’s why.’

I saw her 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?

Claire looked beautiful, and I was tongue-tied for a few minutes, but then I loosened up. I already knew her, after all: her e-mails and chat-voice had given accurate readings of her personality, and before too long we were talking easily and freely. She bought me an espresso. Knock it back, she said. Like a shot of spirits. When she did that with her own, I saw her throat and felt my stomach lurch. There was something half-wild about her – about the way she laughed so unselfconsciously, the way she touched me gently on the shoulder, the way this whole encounter seemed so easy for her. It seemed mad that we were in a train station, talking. Flirting, even – because that was what we were there to do, after all. That was what we both wanted. Ever since I’d booked the ticket (and I’d had to book it, just to be sure) I’d been anticipating it. The night before, we’d cybered for what would prove to be the last time. She’d described taking me into the toilets at the station and fucking me in one of the cubicles, wrapped around me and desperate. That was why we were here. But:

‘I don’t think I can do this,’ I told her.

‘Do what?’

‘You know. This. I don’t think I can do it.’

More than that, I could barely even look at her. The table was so very interesting. She frowned slightly, her chin resting on her hand, her elbow resting on the table, so perhaps my look got to her face in a roundabout way.

‘Have sex with me?’ she asked. ‘Is that what you mean?’

I shrugged, feeling awkward.

‘Yeah. I guess that’s what I mean.’