Number 40

The feeling of forgetting a phone, a name, and an address is simply frustrating and can mess with your head. It can make you quite uneasy and ruin the rest of the day. Some part of you is not really there, when you forget you’re most valuable belongings. The feeling of forgetting and delirious is exactly what we see in the short “Number 40” by Sarah Butler, from the anthology The Picador Book of 40, 2012.

In the short story Number 40 we meet the anxious and unbalanced Melissa. Melissa is feeling anxious because she forgets a lot of things, and this time it is her phone. The short story is told through a third person limited narrator, where the narrator follows the forgetful Melissa throughout the story, and the reader is only able to read only her thoughts and feelings (s. 1, ll. 1-2) Melissa is living with her fiancé Simon: “Now they were living together”. “The ring Simon has given her two weeks ago” – “Three neat diamonds caught in three gold claws”. Simon has proposed to her, just two weeks ago. Melissa felt sick at the time, Simon proposed to her (s.3, ll. 84-85) she either felt vile because of the food or maybe she had a bad hunch towards the relationship. Moreover the relationship did not always seem to go as smooth (s.1, ll. 1-7) She feels like he is ignoring her, like she is not even there.
The narrator uses flash back (s. 1, ll. 14-27) where Melissa and Simon was on vacation, where everything seemed wonderful and happy. But as soon as they came home, she would call him and he’d be blunt and the conversation would be over. The vacation seems to be the only joyful memory they have with each other in the time being.
Melissa feels over looked and translucent where she works: “She couldn’t afford to miss the team meeting – it was hard enough getting noticed in that place, never mind promoted”. And as she suspected her coworkers did not notice her (s.1, ll. 28-29) moreover than feeling overlooked, she feels pale and cold: “The team meeting didn’t go well – not in any dramatic sense, it was more that Melissa suspected no one would have noticed if she had gone home to get her phone”.
She would every so often ask for another holiday, but always end up getting the same answer from Simon (s. 2, ll. 33-36) She is not into the house either (s, 2, ll. 39-40) But she knows that “relationships were about compromise, and she was, at least, good at that”. This means she knows she has to lose some, to get a good relationship to function.
Melissa recall a woman whom worked with Simon, she and her fiancé Simon had her and her pompous boyfriend to dinner. “Simon and Emma – or maybe it was Emily – went outside for a cigarette after they’d eaten. Watching them through the window, standing close together under the narrow porch, Melissa had felt suddenly cold and uncomfortable, as though she’d walked into an empty house that hadn’t been lived in for years”. Melissa feels jealousy and cold when Simon and Emma-Emily are standing so close together under their porch. Still fixated of the thought of that woman, Melissa manages to walk past the no longer existing house (s. 2, ll. 55-57) Still in her own state of mind, Melissa walks up to a door that does not belong to her and try to open the door with her keys. When she figures it out, she tries to another door and another one. Not one of these doors belongs to her – “And realized that this door was pale grey, whilst their door was green – she had painted it herself”. She was starting to lose her mind, or as her Simon would say: “You’re losing your marbles”. When she thought of marbles – “Melissa imagined a stream of heavy glass balls, with twist of colour caught inside, falling onto the street and rolling down the shallow incline towards the main road”.
The only thing Melissa is certain about is that, their house is on 40 Rossendale Road. “She counted off the numbers: two, four, six, eight, 36, 38, 42. Number 40 was not there” she could not believe there was not any house number 40 (s, 3, ll. 75-8) She was certain for a moment that she was not there either, just like she felt at work: “so she put down her umbrella, held both hands out in front of her and looked at them, because, right then, she wasn’t sure if she was there either.” Still confused and delirious, Melissa seeks help from their unknown neighbours. “No one answered at number 42, but when she rang the bell if number 38 a man opened the door, in trainers, grey tracksuit bottoms and a blue T-shirt with patches of sweat under each arm”. Melissa asking “I’m looking for number 40” The man is confused and makes fun of her, because he knows there is no number 40: “well, what do you know? I’d never noticed that”. Melissa asking to borrow the phone when again she realizes she has forgotten Simon’s number. She leaves the house with the memory of Simon and the woman (s. 3, ll. 119-126)
Sitting on the pavement wet and delirious, she finally sees Simon (s. 3, ll. 133- 139) silently she follows Simon past their no longer existing house and further down a different street, a different house. A house that did not belong to them (s. 3, ll. 140-145) When she called out his name – “He turned, and she saw that it wasn’t him at all. Similar, yes, but heavier around the face, with thinner, greyer hair; and she was pretty sure Simon would never wear a tie like that”. As she backed away and the man opened the door, she could see the wooden table with the spindly legs. Melissa looks down on her translucent self and brings her mind back to the happy memory with Simon (s. 3, ll. 155-156)
Every color Melissa sees is always the color grey: (s. 1, l 14) (s, 2. Ll. 61, 63) (s, 3, l. 120) It is raining all the time, when she goes for work (s. 1, l. 8) when she leaves for work (s. 2, l. 42) the only time it has stopped raining is when she thinks she has found her Simon (s,4. L. 153) which mean that the rain follow Melissa’s mood, only when she finally thinks she has found her love Simon, the rain stops. Melissa is overlooked and translucent just like a ghost, maybe when the house was gone, she was gone with it.
The short story number 40 has an open ending and it is up to the reader whatever happens to Melissa, will she find her home or is she really just translucent?
A relationship can be tough, especially when the other one is overlooked. When is it okay to break free from the shadow and into the light? If you only keep hiding in the light, you may just be a ghost in the shadows.