The Third Person

‘Hi. I didn’t get you guys up, did I?’

‘No, we were up already.’ He sounded subdued, and I figured: argument. There was a time, right back before Amy disappeared, when I might have thought that them arguing was a good thing, but I didn’t know what to think anymore. Fuck them and good luck to them at the same time.

‘How are you doing?’ he said.

‘Fine,’ I lied. ‘And I’m making some headway.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah.’ I didn’t feel like going into my headway with him over the phone, so I just said:

‘I’ve got a few leads.’

‘Well, I’ve got some information for you, too. The stuff you wanted.’

It sounded like there was meant to be a but at the end of that sentence, and I heard it even though it wasn’t technically there. Invisible words: language seems like such a solid thing until you start reading all the spaces.

‘That’s great,’ I said.

‘The server information. The user ID. Some background. I couldn’t get as much as I wanted, because my computer’s fucking up.’

‘I appreciate you looking for me. I really do.’

I was trying to sound friendly, but his tone didn’t alter.

‘Jay, you remember what I told you yesterday afternoon?’

‘I remember.’

‘About me backing out if this got dodgy?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I remember.’

I wished he’d just say whatever was on his mind. But it probably wasn’t that easy for him. We had history, after all, and when you’re throwing out memorabilia you take a last look, don’t you? It’s not like throwing away a milk carton.

‘What are you saying, Gray?’ I prompted him. ‘You want out on me?’

Without any hesitation, ‘I want out on you.’

‘It got dodgy?’

‘Not exactly. It didn’t need to get any more dodgy than it already was. I just can’t do this anymore. I don’t really want to explain it, but that doesn’t bother me too much.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Well, for what it’s worth, I understand.’

It wasn’t worth anything and we both knew it.

‘I’ve set up a Yahoo account for you,’ he said, and then gave me the address. ‘Find yourself an internet cafe and check the inbox. Everything you need to know is there. I’ve sent the text, the user details, some background. As much as I could find.’

‘Thanks. I mean it.’

‘And that’s the end, okay?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That’s the end.’

‘You don’t ring here anymore.’

I could imagine Helen leaning in the doorway, watching her boyfriend make this oh-so-difficult, oh-so-necessary phone call to his old friend. Secretly so pleased. She’d make him a nice coffee afterwards, and say some comforting shit about how he’d done the right thing. Which, of course, he probably had.

I closed my eyes.

He said, ‘You don’t call round.’

Maybe they could even stop buying sugar now. One less thing to worry about.

‘It’s just… that’s it, Jay. That really has to be it.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry. Just don’t call or phone or come round. Maybe you should even let go of all this.’

‘All this.’

‘Amy. Maybe you should let go of her and move on.’

‘Maybe I should move on.’

‘You there?’

I blinked, realising that I hadn’t been speaking these last few things, just thinking them.

‘I’ve got to go,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you in the next life, Gray.’

And the receiver was down before I even knew that I’d done it. The traffic was still making its way past. Moving on and up as I stood there by the side of the road. None of the drivers were watching me: they were all watching the cars directly in front and behind, and that was all. In the cold morning sunshine there was something about that that struck me as being almost profound. But then it went.

‘Maybe I should move on,’ I said out loud.

As though it was actually still possible.

But I wasn’t going to get out of anything as easily as that.

There was an internet cafe a block and a half away from the coach station: one of those wonderful all night places where you can surf and drink cheap coffee for about a pound an hour while the world outside gets dark and light and then dark again. Throw in the sizzle and smell of bacon, frying behind a counter at the far end, and you had a done deal as far as I was concerned. The dregs of last night’s clubbing circuit were slipping out even as I arrived. I got myself a coffee, a bacon sandwich and an hour’s screen time, and then logged into the account that Graham had set up for me.

There were six new messages waiting in the inbox, five of them forwarded on from Gray’s own personal account and bristling with multi-coloured attachments. The sixth was a circular from i-Mart. It contained details of a few of their latest products and thanked me for subscribing to what it said was the most popular e-list in the western world. I cursed Gray quietly – but with a smile – and dumped the circular into a greedy trash can. A thousand shreds of digital shit disappeared into the electrical ether.

The first thing I looked for was the text. It wasn’t there.