The Third Person (35 page)

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.