The Third Person

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.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

‘She told me about what happened to her that time,’ the man said. ‘She told me about how she was raped, and she told me how difficult it had been for her. I mean, she didn’t fucking need to tell me that, Jason, but she told me anyway.’

He kept looking at me, and it was making everything worse. If he’d just been telling the story, sat there with the gun, it would still be frightening, but it would also be a little easier. As it was, he was involving me. It felt as though I needed to do and say everything exactly right, or else he might involve me in more painful ways. But at the same time, I realised that he wasn’t actually looking at me at all; he was looking through me and past me, at this Jason, and so it didn’t really matter what I did. Whether I got out of here alive seemed to depend on how badly a memory pissed him off.

‘I was so angry with you,’ he said, as if reading my mind. ‘Where the fuck were you that day? Do you have any idea what she was going through? She needed you, and you were off wherever you were, doing whatever you wanted. You didn’t care about her at all, and it fucking killed me.’

He looked away, shaking his head.

‘I could never understand how you could be so…’ He screwed up his face in disgust. ‘ Ambivalent to her. You didn’t understand what you had. I would have killed to have what you had, and you didn’t even care. I wanted her, and I wanted to slap her, but most of all I just wanted to slap you.’

I was growing colder by the second. He was talking to Jason, and this was all for his benefit, and that meant that he was intending to give the document I was writing to Jason. So why wasn’t he explaining it all in person?

He’s going to kill me.

I noticed the blood on his jacket then. There was a little on his shirt, and quite a bit more had dried on the backs of his hands. How had I ever missed it?

He was going to kill me.

‘We had some drinks,’ the man said. ‘We had some drinks, and then we had some more. You were at work, Amy said. She said you wouldn’t be back all day. I didn’t believe that’s where you were at all, though, and you know why? Because she didn’t believe it. I could tell. She was so fucking sad, Jason. So unhappy. So I suggested we have some drinks. And it was the middle of the day, but we figured to hell with it, and so we had some drinks. I mean – why not?’

He shook his head again and then looked up at me. There were so many emotions on his face now, beside the anger, that I found it impossible to know what he was thinking or planning to do.

‘And what happened,’ he said, ‘happened.’

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

After I met Claire, 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.

And I never knew that anything had happened between Amy and Graham that afternoon. Maybe it was because I was so tangled up in my own guilt that it never occurred to me she might have some of her own, or that the issues that affected our relationship would cause her to make the same mistake that I almost had. I mean, why would that be the case? You see, it was all about me by then. The way I’d left her that morning was indicative of everything about our relationship. Once upon a time, I’d been there for her, and now I was only there for me. I’d offered comfort and sacrifice to ease what I knew was difficult for her, and now I only offered questions. Where was my comfort? Who was there to ease things for me when I found it hard?

I should have known it was over by the way I was thinking. Instead, I lay there against her, feeling my own guilt, holding her belly, thinking that it might all be okay after all. It was stupid and fucking delusional. You can put the feelings aside but you can’t throw them, and so they’re always within reach. They find their way into your hands again. Sometimes, people do everything except push them at you. It was never really about her being raped. I can blame that, and I do blame it, but it’s not the whole story. That event cast a shadow, all right, but for a while I cast a light. It wasn’t something impossible and insurmountable. We had a good life, and we loved each other very much, and for a while there it had been just about as perfect as anything Graham had ever dreamed of.

You can’t blame the rape.

But you can, if you choose to, blame me.

‘We had sex three times,’ the man said. ‘And each time, she felt guilty afterwards, but we kept falling back into it. And at the end, she couldn’t believe what she’d done. She started crying. You will never have any idea how much that woman loved you, Jason, and you just… you just fucking… pushed her away.’