The Third Person

‘Jason, it’s me. Charlie. I was just calling to find out how you are. I mean, I know that you’re not great, but… you know. Williams is going spare about you not turning in this week.’

I picked up the phone and checked that Charlie had been the last caller; she had. I hit redial and waited, turning gently on the spot to wring some of the stiffness from my lower back. As it rang at her end, I wandered through to the kitchen, selected a pint glass from the cabinet and took it over to the sink.

Click

‘Hello?’

‘Charlie,’ I said, ‘it’s me. Jason.’

‘Oh hiya.’ She sounded pleased that I’d called. Maybe a little surprised, too. ‘I’m glad you rang back. We’ve been worried about you.’

I held the receiver between my head and shoulder and poured water into the pint glass.

‘I’m okay. Just finding things… hard-going. You know?’

‘Yeah. Well, you know – not really. But I guess I can imagine what you must be going through. I wish I could help, or do something.’ She paused. ‘I mean, you’re in trouble here.’

‘I figured.’

‘Not that it matters.’

‘Not much,’ I said. ‘No.’

‘I guess you’ve got other things on your mind at the moment.’

Hearing her voice, it was like Charlie was in the room with me; I recognised her slight accent. I mean, it was her. But at the same time, it wasn’t – couldn’t be – because it wasn’t as though she was shouting down a tube and I was hearing her. The sound wasn’t her at all. It was Charlie mediated. A load of electrical signals transformed into pitch and tone and volume.

It was an artificial voice. Made-up. Created.

But then we never really do hear people do we? We experience the vibration of air molecules in a certain way, and come to associate that with the individual people around us. It struck me that – in a weird way – I’d never actually heard Charlie at all, just the effect that she’d had on the world.

Other things on your mind.

‘Yeah,’ I said, closing my eyes. ‘A thousand things.’

‘Is there anything I can do? Anything at all? I’d like to help.’

I sighed. Opened my eyes.

Don’t do this.

But I’d thought it through before this, and I was pretty sure that it would be okay. No – strike that. I was just plain sure.

‘You want to go for a drink tomorrow?’ I asked. It came out a bit too quickly, as well, but I figured she’d take that as my reluctance to ask her for help. Male pride. Whatever. ‘I mean, I’d like that. It’d be nice. We could talk.’

‘Sure.’ She sounded pleased. ‘Where would you like to go?’

‘Um.’ I pretended to think about it. ‘What about the Bridge? You know – the one on the ring road?’

Charlie lived on the other side of Swaine Woods. A patch of houses just across from Lacey Beck, in fact.

I closed my eyes; forced myself to carry on with the conversation.

Really sure.

It will be okay.

‘Sounds good,’ she said. ‘It’s nice in there.’

‘Yes. It is.’

‘So, what time?’

‘About half-past four?’ I suggested. ‘How about that?’

‘Still sounds good.’

‘Well okay, then. It’s… well, it’s not a date.’

‘No.’

I’d meant it as a joke, but realised – as she replied – that I’d said entirely the wrong thing. That used to happen with Amy all the time, before she disappeared. We’d both be happy, having a lovely conversation and the sun would be out, and then one wrong word from me would turn the whole day on its head. Make the sky go dark; make us both not know where to look, or what to say. It was good to know that I hadn’t lost the knack.

‘Okay,’ I said softly. ‘Well, I’ll see you there.’

‘Yeah. Thanks for ringing.’

‘Take care,’ I said, and pressed [CANCEL] on the call.

The kitchen was suddenly very quiet. The enormity of what I’d just done was hanging in the air; I could just make out the shape of it, and saw enough to know that it was wrong.

The year before, when I was still hung up on material things and the idea of being part of something that mattered, I would have stood and agonised about my actions. I would have fought with my conscience over it. But that was all past now. I’d learnt the best way to deal with these things. A two sentence thought which was hard to face but seemed increasingly easy to take to heart.

It’s done now, and you can’t change it. So deal with the consequences.

And what I’d found was: that thought is like a box. That’s how I imagined it, anyway: a black box up in the loft. Whenever you’re facing anything you want to save until later, or don’t really want to face at all, you open the box and drop whatever it is inside. And so that’s what I did. I put my conflicting emotions about what I’d done that evening in the black box, allowed the lid to seal itself, and forgot all about them.

And then I went upstairs to exercise.