Read Online The Third Person by Steve Mosby - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Steve Mosby
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concrete and personal about her, because she’s totally absorbed in the relationship.
Certain things are true, of course. She is small (five foot) and thin (probably about seven stone), and she does have clear skin, in the same way that a baby has a clear conscience; these aren’t things she’s ever had to work at. In fact, she’s never had to work at anything, as far as I know. Her parents are both very rich and very protective: a lethal combination. They paid her way through University, and then supported her for a while afterwards, all the time assuming that their investmentin her gave them overall control on any decisions she had to make. If you wanted to see Helen as a company, you might see her parents as two silent partners who between them have the casting vote. You would have to see her as a small company, of course, but keep that a secret from the silent partners: they see it as a world-beater.
What would this company do? It’s simply not streamlined for business and knows it. So it merges. There is strength in numbers, and it makes sense for the weak to ally themselves with the strong. The silent partners – who, having organised it themselves, don’t understand how weak the original corporate structure is – see it the other way around.
Merge by all means, they explain,
but never forget
who is the
most important and dominant company in this merger
.
I’d been friends with Graham since we were little kids; our families lived next door to each other and we got on from day one – peas in a pod, and all that. Except he was always more brilliant than me academically, while I outshone him socially. When I was already happily esconced with Amy, he’d never even had a girlfriend.
What about Helen
? Amy asked me one day. Helen was a childhood friend of Amy’s, but the revolutions of our social circles were such that Graham and Helen had yet to actually meet.
What do you think about them as a couple
? I thought it sounded cool. I wanted Graham to be happy: he’d been growing increasingly insecure and introspective as time went by, and it was starting to worry me. Helen seemed nice.
Is
nice, really, in her own way.
So we introduced them and encouraged them.
Madness.
On the one side, Graham: a genuinely nice, shy guy who – despite his notable success in several key areas of life – had begun to feel like an abject failure because he didn’t meet the marketed standard of shagging hundreds of women and having relationships which, the movies had assured him,would provide him with that all-important reason to live. On the other side, Helen. She was desperate for a relationship in much the same way, but her subconscious feelings of inadequacy – so well-covered by those false smiles and that cheery disposition – were bubbling up, convincing her that she would never get one.
The way I saw it was this: when you’re falling through the air, you don’t pick and choose your handholds; you grab onto the first branch you can get your fucking hands on, and you cling to it with grim determination. And they were both falling. Putting them together was only ever going to end one way: in a kind of awful, successful failure.
‘Hi, Jason.’
Helen peered around the edge of the door like an anxious child, giving me a big smile. She was one of those people who had to say everything with a laugh and a joke. The subtext every time she opened her mouth was always the same:
things are spiralling out of control
, she was saying,
but you have to laugh, don’t you
?
‘Come on in.’
‘Cheers.’ I wandered into the hall. ‘How are you doing?’ Being quite small, Helen was also quite weak, and she had to push the door quite hard to get it closed. The effort was there in her voice:
‘Oh – just pottering. You know.’
She laughed.
‘Gray in?’ I said.
‘Through in the study.’ She raised her eyebrows by flicking her head back: a Helen tut. ‘Working. As usual.’
‘Keeping you in the manner to which
Certain things are true, of course. She is small (five foot) and thin (probably about seven stone), and she does have clear skin, in the same way that a baby has a clear conscience; these aren’t things she’s ever had to work at. In fact, she’s never had to work at anything, as far as I know. Her parents are both very rich and very protective: a lethal combination. They paid her way through University, and then supported her for a while afterwards, all the time assuming that their investmentin her gave them overall control on any decisions she had to make. If you wanted to see Helen as a company, you might see her parents as two silent partners who between them have the casting vote. You would have to see her as a small company, of course, but keep that a secret from the silent partners: they see it as a world-beater.
What would this company do? It’s simply not streamlined for business and knows it. So it merges. There is strength in numbers, and it makes sense for the weak to ally themselves with the strong. The silent partners – who, having organised it themselves, don’t understand how weak the original corporate structure is – see it the other way around.
Merge by all means, they explain,
but never forget
who is the
most important and dominant company in this merger
.
I’d been friends with Graham since we were little kids; our families lived next door to each other and we got on from day one – peas in a pod, and all that. Except he was always more brilliant than me academically, while I outshone him socially. When I was already happily esconced with Amy, he’d never even had a girlfriend.
What about Helen
? Amy asked me one day. Helen was a childhood friend of Amy’s, but the revolutions of our social circles were such that Graham and Helen had yet to actually meet.
What do you think about them as a couple
? I thought it sounded cool. I wanted Graham to be happy: he’d been growing increasingly insecure and introspective as time went by, and it was starting to worry me. Helen seemed nice.
Is
nice, really, in her own way.
So we introduced them and encouraged them.
Madness.
On the one side, Graham: a genuinely nice, shy guy who – despite his notable success in several key areas of life – had begun to feel like an abject failure because he didn’t meet the marketed standard of shagging hundreds of women and having relationships which, the movies had assured him,would provide him with that all-important reason to live. On the other side, Helen. She was desperate for a relationship in much the same way, but her subconscious feelings of inadequacy – so well-covered by those false smiles and that cheery disposition – were bubbling up, convincing her that she would never get one.
The way I saw it was this: when you’re falling through the air, you don’t pick and choose your handholds; you grab onto the first branch you can get your fucking hands on, and you cling to it with grim determination. And they were both falling. Putting them together was only ever going to end one way: in a kind of awful, successful failure.
‘Hi, Jason.’
Helen peered around the edge of the door like an anxious child, giving me a big smile. She was one of those people who had to say everything with a laugh and a joke. The subtext every time she opened her mouth was always the same:
things are spiralling out of control
, she was saying,
but you have to laugh, don’t you
?
‘Come on in.’
‘Cheers.’ I wandered into the hall. ‘How are you doing?’ Being quite small, Helen was also quite weak, and she had to push the door quite hard to get it closed. The effort was there in her voice:
‘Oh – just pottering. You know.’
She laughed.
‘Gray in?’ I said.
‘Through in the study.’ She raised her eyebrows by flicking her head back: a Helen tut. ‘Working. As usual.’
‘Keeping you in the manner to which
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