Dark Grey Arrow

My boyfriend’s calling me on my mobile, and I look over from where I’m sitting at my computer and watch without mirth or feeling as his name lights up the screen. I watch it as it vibrates and pulses against the duvet on my mattress and think “Sam. Sam. Sam.” Or maybe I’m just reading it, “Sam. Sam. Sam.” I am probably doing both, reading and thinking “Sam” as he calls and I don’t answer. Sam is cute and looks like he is an old painting of a young duke or earl - he could easily be the face of the Penguin Classic’s version of Young Werther. Say, if they ran out of real-life paintings of young men, that is.

He gets upset if I mention anyone else I’ve ever slept with, or even kissed, and even though we’ve been together six or seven months now I still feel strange saying “This is Sam, my boyfriend.” I found it weird to write it down at the start of this story. Like it could just as easily be something I’d make up. It would have been a good idea to at least change his name to protect his identity. But I realise that it shouldn’t be a problem. I can’t imagine too many people are going to be reading this.

After a few seconds, let’s say 15 seconds, it stops ringing and lies there inert, except now the screen is marked with a dark grey arrow curling round on itself just above where the digital clock reads 21:08. I don’t know why I didn’t answer. The dark arrow is made up of matrix dots and makes me nervous.
“Yeah?” I say, glaring at it. “You’re so smug it’s untrue”.
I pick it up cautiously, with my thumb and index finger and carry it over to my desk. I go into the call history part of my phone and press “ok” or whatever automated response is required to get rid of the arrow. Now the screen just reads 21:11. There is no arrow. I feel like I have solved the problem and defeated technology in one deft movement. It is, of course, a momentary sensation.

There’s a crowd of people on the street beneath my window and they are all whooping and laughing and saying things like “that is bad” and “bear high, blud” in quite an aggressive way, but only because they are having fun, not because they want to shoot each other or rape each others’ Mums. They can only be teenagers because some of them have those chrome coloured scooter things and what’s more they are spending their evening hanging around the doorway to a shop. I watch them for a minute and think how meekly I speak in comparison to them, how risible the volume of my voice and my speech patterns would be to them. I wonder if I’d get on better in the world if I went around shouting “GIMME SOME BREAD, BLUD. THAT IS BAD!” and then realise that I would never be able to pull it off. I feel very white. Like milk.

I think about the phone one more time, which is a bit too close for my liking, feigning innocence as it sits on the desk, peering out from behind my laptop. I suffer a twinge of guilt. I think about the conversation I had with Sam last week. We were walking along the Southbank when he asked me why I’d just completely stopped speaking half way through our conversation. I admitted that sometimes I have to hold my tongue and say nothing because I feel the only alternative would be to speak my mind and offend him. He just looked at me baffled, and quietly said “But I never have to do that with you.”
“What, never?” I implored.
“You don’t really annoy me. Except when you don’t speak.”
“That’s amazing.” I said. “But I don’t really believe you.”

And I wonder what’s wrong with him. How he could be so blind to all my most hideous, unattractive qualities. I conclude that he’s probably aware of my flaws, how could he not be, but he is just unnaturally tolerant. Yes, it must be that he has a high tolerance threshold when it comes to girlfriends, so long as they’re not talking about sex with other people.

I wonder whether he’d ever just sit and let the phone ring when he saw that I was calling him, and I cannot picture it. I somehow doubt that is something he would do. He is probably incapable of it. I am lucky. Although really luck has nothing to do with it. If I believed in God, I'd say I was blessed. But as it is I'll just have to settle with the following: I feel loved.

It is now 21:32 and I’ve decided to return the call. I’ll apologise and then ask my boyfriend, Sam, if he’d like to meet up this evening. I could ask him if he’d allow me to buy him a drink or if he’d like to watch a film together. It will do me good to leave the house and nightfall hasn’t even properly come yet. I’m glad that it only took me 24 minutes to arrive at this decision. What’s twenty-four minutes? Just one episode of ‘The Simpsons’ with adverts. In the grand scheme of things twenty four minutes is nothing. I don’t want to lie to him but if he asks any questions, he will have to believe me when I explain that I was just in the bath.