The Third Person

by Stephanie Newell

  ‘When he gets better, maybe we can offer to open his letters and read them out to him, in case they’re important,’ Katie Nelson suggested. Katie goes to my school. She’s in the year below me. I’m not sure if I like her yet. First of all, she’s got to pass some tests.

  Helen nodded. ‘Maybe he can’t read.’

  When the ambulance arrived, the old man was awake again, rolling around, making crunching noises in the glass. I felt sorry for him. He’d made it all the way down to the pub with his empty bottles and all the way back with the full new ones, then tumbled at the last hurdle, his very own doorstep.

  Clearly he had forgotten the important Rule about concentrating on the details.

  Anyway, when they took Mrs Phillips off in an ambulance today, he stood in the doorway of the shop, hands dangling by his side, frowning. In-between screams of pain and gulps from the oxygen mask, Mrs Phillips kept shouting instructions to him about Sammy and the shop. But he just stood there looking like a kid who’s got lost in the supermarket. When the ambulance drove off, he hung his head, crept back into the shop and turned the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed.’ He didn’t even say hello to me.

  ****

  Sun 11th September

  I clatter over the threshold. Mr Phillips appears from the corridor, chewing something. He swallows melodramatically when he sees me and breaks into applause. Well, he’s clearly feeling a lot better than yesterday.

  ‘Look who we have here.’ Then he screws up his eyes comically and looks around the shop. ‘Where’s little Miss Messy today?’

  ‘Helen? She’s round at Katie Nelson’s,’ I explain. His behaviour is a bit suspicious, like my dad just before a big row with Rebecca. ‘And you’re right, she is messy. You should see her bedroom. It stinks! I’m surprised there aren’t any rats in there.’

  Mr Phillips’s blue eyes twinkle. His hair is glossy and fair. He reminds me of the Handsome Prince in that story Dad used to read me when I couldn’t get to sleep.

  An overweight black-and-white cat tries to sneak into the shop through the connecting door. Mr Phillips shoos it back. I long to explore the house behind the shop to see what things he’s put on the shelves and in the corners. I imagine how he’s transformed the dusty corridors and rooms, hanging crystal chandeliers to channel beams of light in unexpected directions, and how he’s hung mirrored globes from the ceilings to capture the sparkle in his eyes a million times over.

  My pound coin presses into my palm. I’ve managed to shake off my sister and sneak up to the shop for some special time alone with Mr Phillips, just him and me.

  ‘And what can I do you for, young lady?’ he asks, making me laugh at the way he mixes up the words to give them new meanings.

  His eyes are full of laughter and jokes.

  When Mrs Phillips is serving in the shop, the toddler burbles in the background and the air reeks of cabbage. But today the air smells of lavender and fresh laundry.

  I hand him my shopping list.

  ‘Would you take a look at this!’ he exclaims, whistling, bringing my list up close to his face, slowly going cross-eyed until his pupils almost touch his nose.

  I try hard not to laugh.

  Using my superfine calligraphy nib, I’ve listed each item in order of priority, with the price per ounce marked neatly beside it. I used one of my dad’s old shopping lists as a model.

  Patiently, Mr Phillips measures and weighs half an ounce of lemon sherbets, followed by half an ounce of Mr Humbug’s rhubarb-and-custards. After twisting the corners of each paper bag, he bends forward so that his nose almost touches the counter and places a tiny tick beside each item on my list using the pencil that peeps out of his hair behind his ear.

  When he comes to my order for chocolate buttons, he says he needs assistance to measure such a small amount, because I only want a quarter of an ounce. He asks if I would kindly step behind the counter to help him. He raises the hatch like a drawbridge, and I’m through to the cramped space behind. He stands on my right and holds my elbow steady as I dip the scoop into the jar, lean towards the scales, and solemnly drop one, two, three chocolate buttons into the open mouth of the bag.

  His hand is really warm. My skin prickles and burns all along the right-hand side of my body.

  Suddenly he levers my arm so that all the disks scatter everywhere, and says, ‘Whoops!’

  I scream. I don’t like surprises. But I feel pleased about the sweets.

  Mr Phillips puts his finger on his lips and I do the same. Together we promise not to tell anybody about the incident with the chocolate buttons. From this experience I have learnt a useful Rule for next time: always put your favourite thing last on a shopping list, not first, just in case.

  I hand my coin to him and give him my sweetest smile as I take my change and reach out for the paper bags. He guides me back through the hatch into the familiar space of the shop, and thanks me for helping an old man whose wife is in hospital.

  I love Mr Phillips, but I haven’t told him yet.

  I stand on the lino and inform him that from now on I’ll be helping in the shop.

  Mr Phillips is adamant that he doesn’t need any assistance, but I know he’s only being polite.

  I insist. I rearrange the Delmonte fruit tins so that the colour schemes match properly. It’s hardly surprising that the shop is such a mess, because all Mr Phillips does is scuff around behind the counter and fidget with his pencil.

  After about half an hour, Mr and Mrs Nelson appear in the door, blocking the entrance and spoiling the romantic atmosphere I’ve created.

  ‘Have you seen our little girl?’ Mrs Nelson asks. She looks around the empty shop. ‘Katie! Where are you? She came up here to buy crisps with your sister, Lizzie. We haven’t seen them for over an hour.’

  It’s obvious that Katie and my sister aren’t here, but Mrs Nelson comes into the shop anyway, disturbing the peace.

  Mr Nelson stands on the ‘Welcome’ mat in the doorway. ‘Got this place on the cheap, did you?’ he asks, inserting his forefinger into the doorframe and wriggling it around.

  ‘We’ll soon get the business up and running,’ Mr Phillips says. His voice sounds completely different when he talks to grownups. From this I can tell he’s a shy person, just like me.

  To my utter amazement, Katie Nelson suddenly bursts through the connecting door behind the shop counter, shrieking with laughter. She ducks under the wooden hatch and runs up to her parents excitedly, waving a dusty mousetrap. ‘We’ve been finding things in the old cellar.’

  Why didn’t Mr Phillips say that she was here?

  The white fur collar on her jacket is covered with cobwebs. Her pink rah-rah skirt is smeared with streaks of dirt. My sister bursts out of the corridor behind her and rushes into the shop with equal vigour, followed by the cat.

  ‘Look at the state of you both!’ Mrs Nelson screams. She turns to Mr Phillips and rolls her eyes. ‘I hope they haven’t been annoying you, Mr Phillips. And I hope you know what you’re letting yourself in for, having another one. One’s bad enough. How is your wife? Caesarean, was it? Home soon?’

  ‘Come here, princess,’ Mr Nelson says, reaching out his arms to Katie. ‘We’ve been looking for you.’

  Mrs Nelson eyes the messy stack of boxes in the corner, and pats the tight curls in her perm. ‘Shopkeepers before, were you?’

  ‘We’re starting a new business. Change of scene.’

  ‘Where were you living before?’ Mrs Nelson asks. ‘In town?’

  ‘Quite a way away,’ Mr Phillips says, and waves his hand vaguely towards the creek.

  ‘We’re at number sixteen. We only moved in ourselves a few months ago. Wanted to get out of town. Nice safe environment for our little girl…’ She glances briefly at the strings of edible necklaces on display in Mr Phillips’s cabinet. ‘Let me know if we can be of any help.’

  ‘Thanks for the offer.’

  I glower at Helen and Katie. What I can’t work out is precisely how these girls got i
n when I’ve been here all along. Perhaps they crept through the back door without him knowing, and now he’s too polite to mention it to Mr and Mrs Nelson?

  ‘What did you do before?’

  ‘Actually, I was made redundant. Fresh start.’

  Mr Nelson shakes his head. He pauses, twitches his moustache, and then says vehemently, ‘Bloody unions!’

  ‘But what was it you did before?’ Mrs Nelson asks.

  ‘I really must phone my wife.’ Mr Phillips fidgets with the paper bags and looks at the door. ‘Nice to meet you both. I hope you’ll make the most of having a shop in the village again. Bye-bye girls. Off you go as well, young Elizabeth.’

  ****

  Mon 12th September

  On the way home from swimming lessons in town, our car gets stuck behind a convoy of slaughterhouse trucks which trundle towards the bone factory with their loads. Slimy bones protrude from the tarpaulins strapped over the skips. When the truck in front of us hits a pothole, some bones bounce out and roll to the side of the road.

  I stare at the threads of red stuff hanging off the bones on the verge.

  As soon as she sees the convoy, Helen clamps her eyes closed and clutches her skinny knees. ‘Tell me when they’ve gone,’ she whimpers.

  I know that the bones she imagines behind her tightly closed eyelids are far worse than the ones I can see in the truck.

  ‘It’s always better to keep your eyes open if you want to see what’s really going on,’ I tell her. ‘Otherwise your imagination starts to play tricks, and that only makes things worse. You should know that by now.’

  ‘I don’t want to see it.’

  ‘For God’s sake, shut up both of you,’ Rebecca shouts, jamming her foot on the brake and pulling into the verge. ‘Stop being so neurotic!’

  I don’t know why she always tries to blame me as well as Helen. I’m not neurotic. I’m totally different from my sister.

  Rebecca allows the convoy to move off ahead, onto the flat road on the other side of the creek.

  When we get back to number eleven, the first thing we do is run around the house closing the windows and slamming the doors, plugging any gaps leading to the outside world.

  Above the gentle, melodic rattle of rigging on the creek, the air fills with the clatter of bones as they’re tipped into the factory yard. They sound clean and dry, like pencils dropping on a classroom floor.

  If it’s a school morning when a convoy of trucks arrives, we always rush to get in the car and leave the house before the stench reaches the village. If it’s half-term or the school holidays or a Saturday, we have to stay sealed indoors. Sometimes Helen and I take our dad’s old pestle and mortar, which he used to grind some white powder, and we mix butter and sugar together to make a delicious creamy snack. My sister is allowed to lick the pestle while I have the mortar. But on Bone Days the mixture always tastes sour because the backs of our throats are coated with the smell.

  Rebecca refuses to cook proper meals on Bone Days. She shuts herself in the study and listens to Bach. She says the stench from the factory destroys the flavour of anything she prepares for us. I think she’s just using the factory as an excuse, though, because Rebecca believes that cooking is a waste of time: you spend hours making something, and what happens? People eat it in just a few seconds.

  Today, Helen creeps into her bedroom with a bucket from under the sink, retching.

  I make sandwiches which I carry into the living-room and eat in front of John Craven’s Newsround. Scooby-Doo comes on. I start to feel bored.

  Out of pity I decide to play a game with my sister to take her mind off the bones. My favourite indoor game is called Pulse Beat. I made it up when I was small. You have to mix equal handfuls of split peas with dry kidney beans on two dinner plates, and then you compete with each other to see how quickly you can separate them out again.

  Helen squeals with excitement when I suggest we play this game, and she demands repeat matches until I refuse to play any more.

  My favourite game is hide-and-seek.

  Slowly, the bone-smell drifts over the creek and seeps into the house.

  ****

  Tues 13th September

  Rebecca wants me to keep an eye on my sister in the two-hour period between our arrival home from school and her return from the campus because Mrs Nelson phoned up last night to complain that Helen was leading Katie astray in the village. Now my sister is under instructions to come straight home from the village school and wait for me at number eleven until I arrive back from my school in town.

  This arrangement suits me because although, legally speaking, I will not be old enough to babysit for another seventy-eight days, Rebecca has agreed to pay my rate of seventy-five pence per hour. She complained bitterly and attempted to negotiate with me, saying that I shouldn’t charge a fee to my own mother for the care of my sister, but I held firm and refused to alter my price. I always win in the end.

  I’m saving up for a microscope so that I can examine things in detail. In June, Helen caught some tadpoles in a jar. Using her pipette, I sucked each one up by the tail. As each tiny body got stuck in the nozzle, a strange dark liquid swirled out of its tail. I want to be able to see what’s really going on.

  ****

  Thurs 15th September

  That girl with bright white hair, white eyelashes and a pale freckly face approaches our English teacher’s table.

  ‘I’m learning the violin,’ she tells our teacher proudly, in a voice loud enough for all of us to hear. She explains that she’s approaching the first exam. She calls it the ‘Royal Academy of Music Examination,’ and says that her violin teacher expects her to get a distinction.

  Our teacher’s admiration for this girl radiates through the whole classroom; it reaches out to where I sit and tweaks sharply at my ears. I can’t let this Pale Girl take the upper hand with our new teacher. When you move into a new year-group at school, it is very important to establish your status and credentials early on with all the teachers.

  Our task in class today is to write an essay entitled ‘My Summer Holiday.’ How boring! Year after year we have to write on the same topic at the start of term. Teachers have no imaginations. I make use of the opportunity to describe how, during the holidays, my violin teacher got me to audition for the Royal Academy of Music. I’m so gifted that I exceed their standards and they want to offer me a scholarship.

  I pause, wondering why I wouldn’t have mentioned this to anybody, then write that I haven’t confided in anybody because, given what happened to my dad, my mother prefers me to stay in the village, sheltered by anonymity, avoiding the limelights of London.

  As I try to think what to write next, I look around the classroom. People’s lips move in quiet concentration as they attempt to spell the names of their holiday resorts.

  Why can’t I go to London? I start to panic, struggling to think what might have happened to my dad. I can’t cross out what I’ve written, and we’re not allowed to tear the pages out of the exercise book. We’ve only got ten minutes left. What would stop me from being able to accept my scholarship at the Royal Academy?

  At the start of the summer, I write, an IRA letter-bomb to my dad was intercepted. Naturally, after that my mother has been nervous about taking me to London. We like to keep quiet about my father’s important political position. We even have to pretend that he doesn’t live with us any more in order to shelter him. I would be grateful if school didn’t publicise the fact or tell my mother that I’ve mentioned it here. Nobody is safe in these dangerous times. Our house in particular is under threat from the IRA. All the letters that come through our front door are screened by officials.

  I hand in my exercise book.

  For the rest of the morning I worry in case our teacher doesn’t believe it.

  After school, I seek her out in the staff room and tell her shyly that I’m worried about my essay because it contains some disturbing information and disclosures. I sketch the bare bones of my story.
Her frown deepens, and she looks at me in amazement. But when she reaches out a hand and pats my arm, I know that I’ve defeated that Pale Girl’s story.

  ****

  Sat 17th September

  ‘But I want to help while she’s away.’ I fidget with the crooked tower of baskets by the door, trying to make each one fit neatly into its neighbour.

  He’s standing opposite me, stacking a shelf with tins of spam.

  ‘That’s a very kind offer, but we’re all ship-shape here. There’s not a lot to do apart from sing to myself and practise my ballroom dancing!’ He jiggles his hips provocatively and grins at me.

  ‘You don’t have to pay me. I’d like to do it.’

  The tinned vegetables and packet soups are in complete disarray. Obviously, Mr Phillips is not capable of seeing how things look to the outside world. He needs me because I have an eye for detail, and that includes the way I’ll look after him when we get married in the end.

  ‘She’s only been gone a couple of days, Lizzie, and there hasn’t exactly been a mad rush of people fighting over the last loaf of bread. People in this village,’ he widens his eyes, leans forward, and puts a finger to his lips, ‘haven’t yet realised that a massive slick of volcanic lava is rolling down the creek to hit the village, so you’d better not tell them if you want to consume this last packet of chocolate digestives.’ The packet appears in his hand, conjured out of thin air.

  I try not to laugh. I want him to see how serious I am about my proposition. ‘But she might be gone for ages. I can clean the shop while she’s away. I like cleaning. Or the house? I’m a very clean person at home. You should see my room. You don’t have to pay me.’

  He laughs and looks at me fondly. ‘And what would people say to that? Not only am I employing an underage worker, but I’m not even paying her. They’d have my guts for garters. You run along now, Lizzie. You’ve got better things to do than hang around here chatting to an old man.’