Cover

CONTACTS

Mark Watson

Dedication

For Coop,

who changed my story for good.

PART ONE

THE TEXT

1

8 MARCH 2019

23:55

I’ve decided to end my life. I know this will come as a shock to some of you and I’m sorry if it upsets anyone. Sorry, also, if a text message is a strange way to find out. I am not sending this for you to try to change my mind; I know what I’m doing, and I’m fine. I just wanted the chance to say goodbye and to thank you for the things we have shared. James x

2

9 MARCH 2019

LONDON–EDINBURGH TRAIN, 00:02

Texting 158 people at once was a strange feeling – stranger than James had expected. The task of drafting the message hadn’t been difficult at all. In fact, it had been cathartic to write it. It was as if he didn’t fully believe he was capable of taking this dramatic action until he’d committed it to the screen. It was the difference between making a mental vow and saying it out loud. And now, telling every single one of his contacts: that was the final step. You didn’t tell 158 people you were doing something and then duck out of it. This was sealing the deal.

Most people would probably have a more tech-efficient way of spreading the news. WhatsApp, perhaps.

Even as recently as five years ago, well after he’d left the tech world, James would still have found it difficult to imagine not having a Facebook account. But then, he would also have found it difficult to imagine not having a girlfriend, or best mate, a healthy relationship with his sister, a purpose. He’d come off Facebook, and everything else like that, as soon as Michaela left.

This was his final act of sharing, you could say. It was a bit of a clumsy way to do it, he reflected, reading the message which was about to be dispatched to his entire phone book one more time. The ‘James x’ looked ridiculous to James’s own eyes. He never normally signed off with an ‘x’. He’d been left behind by the age of over-familiarity between virtual strangers. Only recently, before he got sacked, a passenger he was picking up – a total stranger – had sent him a GIF of a goat eating a chocolate bar whole, with the caption ‘SWEEEEET!’ Again, at one time James would have found that funny, responded with something similar. But when you were lonely, fake displays of friendship made things feel lonelier still. And fake was all he had, now. A brief smile exchanged at the table with his flatmate, a friendly nod on the way into work. They weren’t enough. You couldn’t be almost forty and be living off these crumbs of affection. And now he wasn’t going to, any more.