“Geoff,” I said. “Forget about it. I have.” And I picked up his empty pint and took it to the bar. When I returned with the drinks I put my hand on his, in a fatherly way. “You have been a good friend to me,” I said. “If it wasn’t for you, my book wouldn’t even have been in that bookshop. And if it wasn’t for your encouragement, I wouldn’t have had the heart to start another novel.” This got him going.
“Stephen, that’s great. What’s it about?”
“I haven’t worked out the story yet but I have a character in my head. I can see him, I can hear him.” I chuckled as I tapped the side of my head. He was in there all right. “I’m still at the research stage and I wondered whether you might be able to help me with something. I know you’ve already given me a lot of your time so I don’t like to ask…”
“No, no, it’s fine. Ask away.”
So I did. I told him the character was a teenage boy and that, although I felt confident with the characterisation after all my years in teaching, it was the techie stuff I was having difficulty with.
“I want to create a Facebook page for him. A real one…”
“You mean a fake one. A fake page? For a fictional character?”
“Ummm.” I nodded, taking a sip of my beer.
He didn’t say anything. I could hear the cogs turning: old man; teenage boys; fake Facebook page. If I say it myself, I think I handled his misgivings with agility.
“He’s not the main character, it’s actually the grandfather I want to focus on and his relationship with this boy, but still, I need to understand a bit more about the world these kids disappear into when they go online. I mean look,” I said and pointed over to a table of youngsters: drinks on the table, cigarettes standing by, faces ready to break into laughter. All normal. It could have been a scene from any decade, except they weren’t speaking. There was no conversation. They weren’t even looking at each other. Their eyes were down, on their phones, like a bunch of old ladies checking their bingo cards.
“I mean, what are they looking at?” I smiled in bafflement.
He nodded. “I see what you mean,” clunk, clunk went the cogs.
“Maybe it’s a bad idea but I feel such an imbecile around that sort of thing I just hoped you might be able to guide me through it. An idiot’s guide to Facebook and however else young people ‘communicate’ with each other.” And I tickled that word “communicate” with my fingers. “It’s an alien world to me.”
“Me too,” he said.
“Oh well, it was just a thought.” Bugger.
“But my son’s on it all the bloody time.”
“I didn’t know you had a son.”
“Yeah. He’s eighteen. Lives with his mother but he comes over every other weekend. He could probably help.”
And that’s how it started. Sundays on the Net with Geoff’s son. And in exchange for his expertise, I helped him out with his English essays. Geoff was delighted when his son started getting A’s for his homework, although I think we’d both agree that I was the more enthusiastic student. I can’t fault his boy’s teaching though. He was extremely thorough. Fifty friends, he said. At least. And he showed me how to get them. He was a good teacher and I was the perfect pupil. At times my head felt as if it would explode with all this new information, but I was greedy for it. How on earth do you get a photograph taken in the 1990s into a laptop? How do you do it? Well, now I know. And once it’s in there, spread it around. Don’t just put it on Facebook — make sure it’s on Google too.
“What sort of music does he like?” And I shrugged, suddenly the dunce in the class, and that afternoon he sent me home with some tracks on my laptop. Geoff was always there, he never left us alone together. He brought us cups of tea and I would bring with me jars of Nancy’s jam to have with our crumpets. It was a good arrangement and a very pleasant few weeks.
I passed with flying colours, equipped with all the tricks I needed to bring Jonathan to life again. Our son now has a future, and it feels good to hold it in our hands. This time, when he goes off on his travels, we can make sure we keep a firmer grip on his likes and dislikes, and the friends he picks up on the way. You can’t have too many friends, but it’s important he has one special one, a confidante, someone he can open up to.
38. SUMMER 2013
Catherine takes the bus to work, the simplest route from her mother’s house. It’s pragmatic, not cowardly. Stephen Brigstocke is the coward. She’d kept her phone on all night, but he hadn’t called. She sits on the bus replaying in her head her nightly confessions to her mother and wonders if any of them have filtered through. Her mother hasn’t said anything, but does she know? Does she remember? Tears come at the thought that her mother knows but doesn’t judge her. She blinks them away so she can pull down the mask she must wear to get through the day. It fits her well, no one would know it was there, and she has even got used to the way it inhibits her breathing. By the time she gets off the bus she is in her stride, marching along the stretch of road towards work like a confident woman on her way to a busy day in the office, not noticing anyone she passes. Not noticing the old man in the knitted hat who has stopped to stare at her as she sweeps past. They almost touch. He smells her as she walks by. He watches her until she disappears.
She walks into the office, unwinding her silk scarf from her throat and letting its beautiful print shiver across her chest, moving as she moves. She dumps her bag on the floor and sits down in her chair, swinging round to check who else is in, but she is the first. Odd, it’s ten o’clock. She takes out her diary, thinking there must be a meeting she’s forgotten and then she notices them. Piled up on her desk. Copies of The Perfect Stranger, spines rigid, stare back at her accusingly.
Fuck. Her hands shake as she snatches them up and shoves them in the bin under her desk. Fuck. He has been here. Thank Christ she is alone, but as she sits back in her chair and looks up she sees she is not.
Kim and Simon are watching her. Kim and Simon are standing side by side. In Kim’s hand is a copy of the book. Catherine tries to meet her eye but she avoids meeting Catherine’s. Simon walks towards her, hand held out, as if he is approaching a nervous animal. Don’t speak, let him speak first.
“Cath.” He imbues her name with his own sense of superiority.
She watches him come closer, her foot pressing down on the bin under her desk to stop her leg shaking.
“You okay if we have a quick chat?” And he sits down on the chair next to her. He has never been able to hide his feelings of rivalry. This is an opportunity he won’t pass up. Kim stands by his side.
“Thing is, Kim came to me because she didn’t know what to do.”
Kim speaks now, sounding like a nervous child: “Stephen Brigstocke came in — he brought in the books… his book.” One twitches in her hand. Catherine bites her cheek until she tastes blood.
“So the difficulty is,” Simon picks up, “Kim told me that you asked her to drop the story about Mr. Brigstocke and I wondered why you were so keen to kill it off?”
“Oh, did you. Well, it has absolutely nothing to do with you.” Her voice shakes, lacking the strength of its words.
“I think it does… I mean I wish it didn’t but… if a junior member of the team comes to me asking for advice then it becomes my business.”
“A junior member of the team? God. Who do you think you are?”
He takes the book from Kim and waves it around.
“You told Kim he was a paedophile and you asked her to track him down and then, once she’d done that, you told her to forget all about it.” He sits back in the chair, spreading his legs and thrusting them out in front so his crotch is staring up at Catherine. “I wonder why you did that?”