Page 21 of The Typo

Hey Cameron,

It’s finally the weekend, and boy am I glad it’s here. Hope your week hasn’t been as exhausting as mine. It’s been show after show at the Edinburgh Variety, including press night, which is a massive deal. I try to pretend it isn’t, but you can tell the atmosphere in the theatre is that bit tenser when the professional critics are in the audience, scribbling away in their little notepads. I don’t know how they manage to read what they’re written. I’ve always found that if I attempt to write in the dark, it’s inevitably incomprehensible squiggles of nonsense. The marketing team did their bit by offering them booze, which was disappointingly declined.

Anyway, the verdict is in, and they liked the performance. It was a huge relief, let me tell you. You’re only as good as your last show, that’s what they always claim. I’d like to say that I celebrated in a sophisticated and mature way, but actually I ended up going out with the girls. It’s so good to be able to hit the bars and enjoy the best of what Edinburgh has to offer. Now I’m recovering with some TLC from my folks. I think I could sleep for 24 hours straight.

Amy x

The words poured out of me and I hit send before I could change my mind. My alter ego was buzzing with the adrenalin of a job well done. Good for her. For a few minutes I basked in the imagined glory, picturing Cameron’s impressed expression when he read my deliberately casual mention of the critics’ positive reaction. It wasn’t all lies, I told myself. I hadn’t said that I was the one up on stage being reviewed, although neither had I made it clear that I very much wasn’t. And as to the bit about hitting the town with the girls, well, I had done that the other week. I couldn’t exactly say I’d actually spent my free evenings binge-watching reruns of ‘Below Deck’, could I? I wanted to be a person who had something to show off about, someone who was talented and successful, deserving of plaudits, and deserving of Cameron’s correspondence. Someone unlike me.

I reread the email, guilt kicking in big time. And then I realised with horror that I’d made a mistake. Why had I let slip the name of the theatre I worked at? It could ruin everything. But it was too late to recall the email now. I slammed my laptop shut in frustration, wishing I could switch off my anxiety as easily.

ChapterEleven

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: 28 Jan, 14:37

Subject: Video call?

Hello Amy,

Thank you so much for your kind advice. Wise words indeed, and it’s a relief to hear that even a seasoned pro like yourself still experiences nerves before a performance. I’ve mentally consigned my inner critic to the iceberg as you advise, and I’ll let you know how the talk goes.

Huge congratulations on your successful show week. I’m so happy all went well, and I hope you’re having an equally good weekend. I’ve checked the time difference and I think it must be the afternoon for you. We’re on ship time, which theoretically is that of our departure port, but George made the excellent suggestion of moving it on by an hour so that the guests don’t feel like they’re getting up at quite such a painfully early hour of the day, but can still take advantage of the beautiful light at sunrise to get the best shots.

I digress. I’m hoping to be able to reply to your lovely emails in more depth while we take on the Drake Passage in a couple of days, seasickness permitting, of course. Fingers crossed what I experienced on the outward voyage was a one-time thing and that I’ve become immune to it now, but that might be foolishly optimistic of me. The crew are expecting it to be a rough one, if the sick bags placed at two-metre intervals around the entire ship are anything to go by.

Your description of cranachan got my mouth watering, but I think I’m going to wait until we’re safely back in the calm waters of port before I see if I can sweet talk one of the chefs into making some. And speaking of my brief return to land, I wondered if you fancy having a video chat when I’m there and back on the mobile network, which should be by Friday, weather permitting. In the spirit of transparency, I’m actually feeling nervous typing the question *gulp*. I don’t want to seem presumptuous in suggesting a change of medium, nor do I want you to feel like you have to say yes. You’ve probably got far better things to do with your spare time. I want you to know that receiving an email from you is always a high point of my day, and if emailing is all you wish from our interaction, then that’s not a problem at all. But I thought it might be nice to have a chat where we can actually talk in real-time rather than having to wait for the vagaries of shipboard internet. And if a phone call, why not make it a video call? Again, absolutely zero pressure coming from me, it’s entirely up to you. I’m going to press send on this quickly before I lose the internet again. Don’t feel like you have to reply straightaway, take your time. And now I’m concerned that I’m making far too big a deal of this. So, another reason I’m going to hit send quickly is that I’m talking myself out of making the suggestion. Here goes…

Cameron

My first instinct was to reply and say no. No, I most definitely didn’t want to have a video call and destroy the picture of him that I’d created in my head. Or more importantly, destroy his image of me. After all, the woman that he wanted to speak to was a confident, fun-loving individual who was a successful musician and had a thriving social life. Not me at all. He could only be disappointed if he met the real me. My second thought was that maybe I shouldn’t even reply, that this was the sign our correspondence had run its course. Ghosting him wouldn’t be a nice option, but wouldn’t it be safer, in the long run? I should be looking for friendships closer to home rather than pretending to be someone I wasn’t, and trying to fill the gaps in my life with a stranger who was literally at the other end of the world from me.

I clicked away from my emails, and hit play on a new episode of the ‘Join Us’ podcast, but although it was hardly a complicated topic under discussion, I found I couldn’t concentrate on it because I was debating what to do about Cameron’s suggestion. He couldn’t have been less pushy in making it, plus he’d been very clear that there was no rush to answer. But I knew from experience that too much time to consider things was never a good thing. It would be a massive risk to agree to the call. I’d have to be so careful not to contradict the stories I’d told him about myself and expose my lies. And it would be much harder to be deceitful to his face. The guilt I was already experiencing was bad enough. A video call could ruin our whole friendship, such as it was, and I couldn’t deal with the thought of losing what had become a lifeline to me.

But despite all the logical arguments against agreeing to the call, there was still a quavering voice at the back of my head which was urging me to take a chance for a change, to say yes to Cameron and hang the consequences. The man had been occupying so many of my thoughts since that first email that it was hard to resist the opportunity to satisfy my curiosity about the individual behind the words on the screen.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: 28 Jan, 15:14

Subject: Re: Video call? YES

Hi Cameron,

Yes. It would be good to have a proper chat. Would a Zoom call work?

Amy x

I hit send before I could change my mind. Free Zoom calls were time limited. Forty minutes maximum. I could handle forty minutes of putting on a good front, right? Besides, I had nearly a week to prepare myself for it. I could write a crib sheet, rehearse answers to questions he might ask, and make sure that I didn’t give myself away.

I waited to see if Cameron would reply straightaway. Even if the body of the email didn’t download, he would see from the subject line that I’d agreed to his suggestion. What would it be like to see him and hear him speak? When I read his emails, I could hear a voice—soft, intelligent and full of animated interest—but was I deluding myself? What would he actually sound like? Maybe his accent would give me a clue whereabouts in the UK he was from. Beyond confessing to being a southerner, he’d been rather vague about his geographical origins.

And what would he look like? For some reason I imagined he’d be stubbly and broad shouldered, although that could be influenced by the pictures I’d seen of Antarctic explorers. Or maybe he was wiry and clean-shaven, but slightly weather-beaten, with those little crease lines by the eyes to indicate that the person smiles a lot. Cameron sounded like a happy person in his emails. Mind you, so did I.

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