picked up his jacket, which was slung over the back of the sofa. He said, ‘I’ll pop out now. Do you want anything else?’
Sammy Jo smiled obsequiously. ‘I’ll write you a list.’
She looked around her and then saw the pizza pad on the table. Jason was watching her as he pulled his jacket on. She saw the few words that she had scribbled on to the top of the pad and, trying not to frown, ripped the page away and screwed it up in her hand. Jason said, ‘What’s that? Beginning of your thesis?’
She grimaced. ‘Very funny. Actually it was a trial shopping list, but I’ve now thought of several items extra, including five years’ subscription to Parenting magazine.’
She wrote down a couple of things and then handed him the piece of paper. He took it and perused it for a second. ‘For a frightening moment there I thought you were serious.’
She shrugged, ‘You know me, Jason, happy with sterilizing liquid and rosehip syrup. I don’t need anything else in my life.’
He raised his eyebrows in disbelief, chucked Charlie gently under her chin and said, ‘I’ll only be gone ten minutes or so, enjoy yourself.’ Sammy Jo smiled.
When he had gone, she found a pair of rubber knickers, put them over Charlie’s nappy and then manoeuvred the baby’s tiny body into a yellow lambswool romper suit. She pulled a small, soft blanket from her cot by the window and wrapped her up in it, then lay her down inside the cot. Charlie squawked her disapproval as soon as Sammy Jo set her down. Sammy Jo steeled herself to ignore these noises and strolled into the kitchen to make a mug of tea. As she switched the kettle on the telephone started ringing. She paused for a moment and then went to answer it.
‘Yes?’
A voice said, ‘Forget all that crap about empirical information. I don’t want to alarm you with big words before you’ve even got a grip on the basic ideas.’
Sammy Jo bit her lip, and then said violently, ‘What makes you think that I don’t understand what that word means? What the hell makes you presume that?’
Her heart sank. She hadn’t intended to participate in this conversation at all. She knew that participation was half of the trouble with anonymous callers. It meant that you were condoning the act. Implicitly. She felt ashamed and stupid and thought, ‘After all I’ve been through, I’m still a silly, stupid novice. I haven’t learned anything. I don’t deserve people’s help and advice.’
The voice continued, ‘Let’s go back to what I said first, Sammy Jo. That question about two things in life that we can be sure of. Two basic things.’
Sammy Jo’s heart plummeted. She thought, ‘My God, he knows my name. Did I say my name when I answered this time? Why did I answer him in the first place?’
She said, ‘I guess I can be sure that you are telephoning me, irritating me, involving yourself in my life when all I really wish is that you were dead in a room somewhere or dying of a terrible disease, or at the very least in some fundamental physical discomfort.’
The voice cackled, ‘Well done! That’s part of the answer, Sammy Jo, very well done. To put it simply, the two things that we can really be sure of in life are (a) that we exist. We can be sure of ourselves. Are you in any doubt that you exist, Sammy Jo, any doubt at all?’
Sammy Jo sighed. ‘The only thing I don’t doubt is that you are a pain in the fanny. That’s all.’
The voice paused for a moment and then said, ‘I get your point. We know that we exist because we can feel pain. Our bodies feel pain. I can be sure of two things, to quote Russell: “We are acquainted with our sense-data and, probably, with ourselves. These we know to exist.” Sense-data is a silly technical word which I’ll explain to you later.’
Sammy Jo was biting her nails and looking around for the pen she’d used earlier to write her shopping list. To pass the time she said, ‘Go away. I don’t want to talk to you.’
The voice said, ‘Imagine yourself in any situation, any situation at all. It doesn’t matter what you imagine yourself doing.’
He paused. ‘I knew it would come to this, he’s going to talk dirty. I knew it,’ Sammy Jo thought instantaneously. She felt familiar feelings of outraged passivity seeping into her chest. ‘Go on, say it, you dirty bastard. Don’t pretend that this is about anything else,’ she said.
But the voice continued, ‘No matter what you think, do or imagine, the only constant element is you. You can’t get away from yourself. You can imagine that the world is a figment of your imagination, that the sky is yellow but just seems blue, that your body doesn’t really exist and that you are just imagining that it does, that you are in fact asleep and dreaming and not awake at all. Close your eyes.’
Automatically Sammy Jo closed her eyes and quickly opened them again. She hung up. The phone rang immediately. She let it ring about ten times until the repetitive noise it made began to upset Charlie and she began to splutter and howl. Sammy Jo felt guilty about letting it upset her and also couldn’t help thinking that perhaps it was someone else. Eventually she picked it up. ‘Yes?’
The voice continued, ‘If you close your eyes it’s possible to reject almost everything that seems predictable in everyday life.’
She sighed and then said bitterly, ‘I can’t deny the fact that you exist, though, can I? You exist, don’t you?’
The voice was urgent and persuasive. ‘No way. Think about it. Nothing exterior to your mind and your thought is necessary. Don’t be confused by my use of the word “necessary” here. I used it in its philosophical context. By it I mean a Necessary Truth, something that cannot be denied. For all you know my voice could be just a figment of your imagination.’
Sammy Jo laughed, a guttural, cynical laugh. ‘Oh, so now you’re going to tell me that this telephone call, this infuriating interruption in my life, is my own fault. Is that it?’
‘Could be.’
Sammy Jo sighed loudly. ‘Well, if I made you up, how come you won’t go away?’
There was a short silence. During this silence Sammy Jo picked up her pen and wrote the words NECESSARY TRUTH on the pizza pad in large capitals. The voice then said, ‘Try and remember this phrase: I Think Therefore I Am. In Latin it goes Cogito Ergo Sum. I think is “cogito”, c-o-g-i-t-o. Therefore is ergo, e-r-g-o. I am is sum, s-u-m. Got that?’
Sammy Jo finished writing down the last letter, then slammed her pen down on the table. ‘What on earth makes you think I give a damn? You’re boring me. Go and bore someone else.’
The voice said calmly, ‘I want you to read something by a guy called Descartes tonight. He was the founder of modern philosophy – circa 1600. He invented something called “The Method of Systematic Doubt”. If you can get hold of his Meditations I’d recommend the first chapter. It’s only short.’
Sammy Jo said quickly, ‘Forget it. I’ll be much too busy this evening committing sodomy with my household pet and watching Emmerdale Farm.’
This time he rang off.
She picked up her pen again and wrote down the name Descartes (although she spelled it Deycart), then threw the pen down, tore off the top page of the pad, crumpled it up and threw it at the
