Seeing Other People

by Gayle, Mike

  I didn’t move.

  ‘Oh, come on, Joe, there’s nothing wrong with taking a look.’

  I still didn’t move.

  ‘I promise you, there’s nothing to be scared of.’

  She waved me towards her again. ‘You never know, if you go through with it, you might get lucky and end up with a job like mine. Think about how much fun that would be! We could be work mates!’

  Surreal as this all was I had to laugh at that one but then I remembered what it was she was asking me to do. I took a step backwards.

  ‘Fiona, I don’t want to die.’

  She raised her eyebrows mockingly. ‘Now that really does surprise me. You’ve got absolutely nothing going for you.’

  ‘I’ve got Penny, I’ve got the kids, I don’t need anything more. They might be miles away from me but even the little I have is better than nothing at all.’

  Fiona nodded thoughtfully. ‘What if I told you I could get you back to them?’

  ‘What? To Harrogate?’

  ‘No, you idiot, to the real world.’

  It had to be a trick. This was after all Fiona I was talking to but even so I couldn’t help falling for it just a little bit.

  ‘You can get me back to them?’

  ‘I could . . . but you’d have to trust me.’

  Here it was, the catch.

  ‘Trust you how exactly?’

  ‘By jumping off this roof.’

  My heart sank. For a moment there I’d actually believed she might be telling me the truth.

  ‘And so you should,’ said Fiona, doing that listening-to-my-thoughts thing. ‘Because this is as honest as I get: this isn’t the real world, Joe. I told you that on the day Penny kicked you out and you just wouldn’t believe me. I’ve even shown you your body, lying exactly where it fell when I whacked you, and you still thought I was making it all up. But it’s true, Joe, none of this is real. Your real life and everything in it is waiting for you and all you’ve got to do to get it back is wake up.’

  ‘And to wake up, all I’ve got to do is throw myself off a building? Now I really know I’m insane.’ I pulled out my phone and dialled 999.

  The operator answered immediately. ‘Emergency, which service do you require?’

  ‘The police,’ I replied. They put me through instantly. ‘Hi, my name’s Joe Clarke, I’m a journalist working for the Correspondent and for the past year or so I’ve been suffering from severe hallucinations. They’ve become really intense and right now they’re telling me to throw myself off the top of Lewisham Shopping Centre car park. I need help fast. Please, hurry, I don’t know how long I can resist.’

  I ended the call and stared defiantly at Fiona.

  ‘They’ll lock you up, you know.’

  ‘To stop me from harming myself.’

  ‘And then you’ll be stuck here for good.’

  ‘In the real world where I made a mess of my life? If that’s the only option on offer I’ll take it.’

  ‘But that’s just it. It isn’t the only option. You know this world has never made any sense. You were mugged but had no bruises, you think you slept with Bella but can’t remember a thing about it. You can see the ghost of your dead ex-girlfriend but you know in your heart of hearts that ghosts don’t really exist. You’re not mad, Joe, you’re dreaming, and you know as well as I do that all the best dreams end with the hero or heroine falling to what feels like their death. Only it isn’t. As they fall, they kick out and wake up safe and warm in their own beds.’

  It was hard not to believe her. Crazy though it sounded Fiona actually seemed to be making some sort of sense.

  ‘But even if this is remotely true, if this really could all be over that easily, then why didn’t you just say so instead of trying to psycho-bitchface me into topping myself?’

  Fiona laughed. ‘Oh, come Joe, surely you wouldn’t deny a girl a little fun?’

  I don’t quite know what it was that made me believe her but I did. So much so that without thinking I joined her at the railings and together we peered down at the traffic below: cars, lorries, buses and motorcycles all transporting passengers across a London that if Fiona was to be believed didn’t actually exist. Was it all part of an elaborate scenario played out by my own mind? If so I really had to wonder at it. This alternate reality my subconscious had supposedly concocted was so detailed and multilayered as to be utterly convincing. The warmth of the metal barriers under my hands emitting the heat they’d absorbed from the early-morning sun. The cool of the breeze against my skin and the constant hum of the traffic beneath us combined with the anthology of smells in the air, everything from the tang of petrol fumes through to the faint scent of decaying refuse. How was it possible that my mind alone had replicated all of these different sensations so authentically? It was awe-inspiring and disturbing all at once.

  My thoughts churned around as I looked down at the streets below but the one thing I kept coming back to was how much I wanted to go home.

  Without pausing to think any more I climbed over the barrier to the ledge on the other side. As ledges went it wasn’t exactly the widest in the world – the fronts of my shoes were hanging over the edge – but with my hands on the barrier to support myself I was sure I wasn’t about to go anywhere by accident.

  I looked down, trying to gauge where I would land. It was hard to tell from this height. Quite possibly the pavement but if I leaped rather than stepped there was every chance I’d hit the road.

  I took a deep breath and counted down:

  Five.

  Four.

  Three.

  A noise from behind me. I turned around to see Fiona pulling up the telescopic handle of her suitcase as though she was getting ready to depart. She stopped and looked up at me.

  ‘What’s wrong? Why have you stopped counting? Have you forgotten what comes next?’

  My gaze shifted from Fiona to the bag and back again.

  ‘What’s that about?’

  I pointed to the bag.

  Fiona looked down. ‘Oh, that, it’s a suitcase. Why? What did you think it was?’

  ‘I know it’s a suitcase. I want to know why you’ve got it.’

  ‘Why do people normally have suitcases?’

  ‘Because they’re going somewhere.’

  Fiona clapped her hands slowly. ‘Bravo! Brain of Britain! You’re not really that dense, are you?’

  ‘But I don’t understand. Where are you going?’

  ‘Why would you care where I’m going? You don’t like me.’

  ‘Of course I don’t . . . it’s just that I need to know this isn’t a trick. This is my life we’re talking about here.’

  ‘Fine, whatever.’ She crossed her right hand across her chest. ‘Joe Clarke, I do solemnly swear that I am not pulling your plonker; is that good enough?’

  In the distance I could hear police sirens. They were coming for me. If I really was going to go through with this I needed to make it happen soon.

  I looked at Fiona’s bag again. Maybe that was what I was finding so disconcerting. I felt my grip tighten on the railings.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Why does it matter? Like I said, I’m off.’

  ‘But where?’

  ‘Anywhere that’s not here. I’m not a workaholic you know. I deserve a break just like anyone else.’

  ‘Except that you’re dead.’

  ‘Says you.’

  ‘Says everybody who was at your funeral.’ I looked her up and down. ‘And the clothes? Every time I’ve seen you, you’ve been wearing the same clothes, only now you’re all dressed in black.’

  Fiona laughed. ‘If only you’d been this observant when we were together! If you really want to know, Joe, I’ll tell you: these are my party clothes. I’m letting my hair down, doing a bit of celebrating. Now get on with it before the coppers arrive.’

  Suddenly I wasn’t so certain about the version of events that had me poised to leap off the top of Lewisham Shopping Centre�
�s car park. Was this the real world after all? Had I lost it completely and been about to commit suicide? Once again Fiona had got inside my head and was messing with my mind for her own amusement.

  I began clambering back over the railing with my heart racing at how close I’d come to going through with my crazy plan.

  Fiona cried out. ‘What are you doing? Get back out there right now, you’re spoiling everything!’

  I ignored her and didn’t stop until I was safely over the other side.

  ‘I can’t believe I nearly did it,’ I said, gasping with exertion and adrenalin. ‘You were going to let me jump weren’t you? And then what would’ve happened once I’d splatted on the pavement? I don’t get any of this. Are you back from the dead or have I just conjured you up? Why are you here? Whatever you are surely you’ve punished me enough? I haven’t got anything, you’ve had the lot: Penny, the kids, every single thing that matters to me.’

  Fiona laughed, ‘And you think I did that? What a short memory you have!’

  ‘And I told you I’ve learned my lesson! Aren’t you supposed to be like Jacob Marley? Shouldn’t you be returning me to my bed so that I can wake up on Christmas morning a changed man?’

  ‘You’re forgetting one thing,’ said Fiona.

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘I hate you. What were the last words I said to you when I dumped you that weekend in Sheffield? I told you that one day you were going to look back at that moment and regret how you’d treated me.’ Fiona stopped to grin. ‘Well this is that day, Joe. It’s been a long time coming but better late than never, eh? So what’s it to be? Are you going to jump or not because the police are going to be here in’ – she checked her watch – ‘precisely ninety-two seconds.’

  ‘You think I won’t do it,’ I replied, studying her face for signs of the truth. ‘That’s what this whole thing is about. If I don’t do it then I’ll be stuck here forever without the only woman I’ve ever loved, living in some coalhole I can barely afford and only getting to see my kids once every month. You know what? You’re really clever.’ I shook my head in disbelief as I began climbing back over the barrier again. ‘You absolutely had me there with your Goth get-up and your daft bag and your “I’m not telling you to jump” nonsense. I see it now, Fiona, it’s crystal clear: you want me to stay here and rot while my family’s back at home waiting for me. Well that’s not going to happen.’

  I looked over the edge again. All I needed was to take one step out and this would all be over.

  ‘What are you waiting for now?’ chided Fiona.

  She was right. What was I waiting for? A sign? A miracle? A last-minute reprieve?

  Heart racing, I turned to face her once more. ‘What if I’m wrong? What if you don’t exist? What if this is the real world? What if I jump off this building and the only thing that happens is I fall to the ground and spread myself across a very wide area. What if Penny and the kids really are on their way back to Harrogate? I can’t have them thinking that I didn’t love them enough to carry on living. If this is the only world there is, then a world where I can still see them and talk to them is better than nothing at all.’

  Abandoning her suitcase Fiona strode over to the barrier until she was level with me. ‘The thing about you, Joe,’ she said as I further tightened my grip on the railing, ‘is that you’ve always been too easily led. I was the worst girlfriend in the world and yet instead of growing a spine you just put up with me. All these years later and you haven’t changed. That’s how you nearly ended up with Slag Face: she turned on the charm and you were just too stupid and spineless to resist. But you’re not that man any more are you? Thanks to me you’ve grown, you’ve changed, you’re nowhere near as weak as you used to be. You’re not the finished article quite yet, but with a little nudge in the right direction, you could be.’

  Ignoring the screeching of tyres from the fast-approaching police cars Fiona held out her hand to help me back over the barrier but as I let go of the railing she lunged forward suddenly, shoving me in the chest and sending me flying backwards. Time seemed to slow down as I scrambled frantically in the air hoping through sheer force of will that my flailing arms would miraculously restore my balance, but they didn’t and so all I could do was accept my fate as Fiona’s final words reached my ears. ‘It’s been fun,’ she called. ‘We should do this again sometime.’

  38

  Had it worked after all?

  Was I back in the real world?

  Or had it been the real world all this time and had I just made an untimely exit?

  Of all the options the only one that made sense was the last one – after all how could I still be alive when only a matter of seconds ago I’d been hurtling towards the pavement adjacent to the A21? I’d obviously lost the plot. That’s what the inquest into my death would say. The coroner’s report would practically write itself. Recently divorced man suffering from undiagnosed depression caused by breakdown of marriage and lack of contact with son and daughter jumps from the top floor of Lewisham Shopping Centre’s car park. No one else involved (let’s not forget that I made Fiona up!). Verdict: death by suicide.

  If I was lucky I’d get a couple of inches in the local gazette and maybe a short piece in the Correspondent telling the world what a great person I was to work with. The kids would be devastated obviously. Penny too. She’d blame herself and everyone would wonder why I hadn’t left a note.

  As for these thoughts of mine they were easily explained. They felt like the fading glow from an old-style valve amplifier, still warm from the power that had once surged through it but no longer connected to the mains. Maybe I had another minute or two left of consciousness, maybe less, after which along with everything I was and everything I’d ever hoped to be I’d fade permanently into the black night of eternity. That was what this was.

  Or at least that was what I thought until I heard the voices.

  They were indistinct at first. It was impossible to tell one from another let alone pick out individual words – but then I heard Penny’s voice. I could hear it as clearly as though she was whispering in my ear. She was saying: ‘Joe, please, Joe, please wake up,’ in a voice so desperate and heart-broken that I could only conclude she thought I had gone for good.

  It was hard to know what to do with this new information. On the one hand I was glad to have been saved from the pain of the injuries the fall had no doubt inflicted on me but on the other it seemed odder by the moment that I should be conscious at all. While mulling over this new conundrum, slowly, very slowly, the other voices I’d heard behind Penny’s became more distinct. Now I could hear them as clearly as if I was in the same room as them. ‘Look, his eyes are moving,’ one of them said. ‘I just saw a flicker,’ said another. ‘Call a nurse,’ urged yet another and gradually I worked out that they were talking about me.

  Was I alive?

  Had I been given a second chance?

  Penny’s voice again: ‘Joe, please, Joe, come back to me.’ How long had I waited to hear those words? How long had I dreamed of the moment when she might feel like this about me again? I had to see her. I had to. With all the strength I could muster I tried to open my eyes but it felt as though they were weighted down with lead. I tried again and this time they opened just a fraction. Light. There was light. But where was I? The light was so blinding it was impossible to tell. I struggled on, eyelids parting a fraction at a time, as all the while my irises – sluggish and lazy after their enforced respite – adjusted and focused to reveal more. Gradually the light became less intense, my vision clearer. I could make out a blurred form, a form which after some moments took on the shape and definition of a face, one whose features steadily arranged themselves into those of the only person I wanted to see: Penny.

  ‘It’s you,’ I said and I couldn’t help but smile. ‘You came back to me. I thought you were gone for good.’

  ‘I didn’t go anywhere,’ she said. ‘I’ve been right here all the time. How do you feel?’ />
  It was a good question. I didn’t feel much of anything at all. No pain from the fall. I felt groggy but that was about it.

  ‘You’re really here aren’t you?’ I said, my voice slurring slightly.

  ‘I am,’ said Penny. ‘Yes, I am. You don’t need to worry about me. Do you know where you are?’

  I looked around the room. A window. No decoration on the white wall. I wasn’t at home.

  I looked at Penny and smiled. ‘I’m not dead am I?’

  ‘You’re in hospital, sweetheart,’ she said gently. ‘The A&E department of the Royal London Hospital. You were mugged in Cambridge Heath. The doctor thinks you were knocked out by a blow to the back of the head. Do you remember anything at all?’

  How best to explain? What could I say? That I remembered being mugged but was actually more concerned about the year that followed it and how she had ended up divorcing me?

  ‘It’s all a bit of a blur,’ I said eventually. ‘How did I get here? Did someone find me?’

  ‘The guys from the shoot,’ said Penny. ‘They found you and called an ambulance.’

  ‘You mean Van, Paul and Stewart? They’re good guys you know. The absolute best. I never would have kept it together if it hadn’t been for them.’

  ‘I know,’ said Penny. ‘They acted really swiftly and called an ambulance straight away.’

  This wasn’t what I meant at all. The Divorced Dads’ Club were my friends, they’d been there for me when I’d needed help most, surely I couldn’t have imagined everything we’d been through – the nights out to the pub, their help fixing up my house, the camping holiday to Suffolk. ‘I’ve known them . . . I mean, I feel like I’ve known them forever, Pen. Are they here?’

  Penny gestured out of sight and then Van appeared in my line of vision.

  ‘Van mate, how are you?’

  ‘Er . . . I’m fine thanks. More’s the point, dude, how are you?’