by Paul Burston
Tom shrugs. ‘I was probably just saying it for effect.’
‘You do that a lot: say things for effect.’
‘Do I?’
Emma smiles. ‘Didn’t you once tell me you were bisexual?’
‘I think everyone is, aren’t they? In theory? We’re all somewhere on the Kinsey scale.’
‘But you’ve never actually been with a woman?’
Tom wonders if she’s alluding to that night, then chooses to play dumb. ‘I’ve been with plenty of women. I’m with one right now.’
Emma raises an eyebrow. ‘That’s debatable. But you know what I mean. Have you ever’ – she lowers her voice to a stage whisper – ‘been all the way?’
‘If you’re referring to sexual intercourse, this is neither the time nor the place.’
‘Says the man who’s been undressing the waiter for the past hour!’
Tom laughs. ‘Touché!’
‘I’d like to propose a toast,’ Emma says, raising her glass. ‘To us!’
‘To us!’ Tom repeats, clinking his glass with hers and gazing over her shoulder at the waiter, who returns his look with a flicker of a smile.
Emma doesn’t want dessert. Neither does Tom, but he has no intention of vacating the premises just yet, not when there’s the possibility of something off the menu.
‘How about coffee?’ he asks.
Emma shakes her head and empties the remains of the champagne bottle into her glass, sloshing a fair amount onto the table. Evidently, she’s a lot drunker than he is. This may be because she’s eaten far less, insisting that he sample everything she ordered and refusing to touch anything on his plate.
Tom smiles at her fondly as she leans towards him across the table.
‘I’m pleased it went well today,’ she says, reaching for his hand. ‘You know how much I care about you.’
‘I do,’ he replies, stroking her fingers with his thumb.
‘Let’s ask for the bill,’ Emma says. ‘Then why not come back to mine? I have a surprise for you.’
‘What sort of surprise?’
‘If I tell you, it won’t be a surprise, will it?’
Tom hesitates. ‘Let’s save it for another time. You’ve already spoiled me quite enough for one day.’ He pats her hand and pulls away. ‘I’ll get you a cab.’
‘Fine. I’ll drop you off in Vauxhall on the way.’
‘Thanks, but I’m not heading back yet. It’s still early, and I’ve a few things I need to do.’
Emma sighs. ‘What things?’
‘Just … things.’
‘Oh.’ She glances in the direction of the waiter. ‘Those things.’
Tom grins. ‘I’m celebrating, remember?’
Emma drains her glass. ‘How could I forget?’
9
DAY 1
Today is the first day of the rest of my life. It’s also the first day of my punishment for the crime of ‘harassing’ He Who Must Be Obeyed. The restraining order lasts for two years, or 730 days, which means there are another 729 days to go before I’m no longer legally prohibited from contacting you.
I hope you’re satisfied, Tom. Somehow you managed to convince everyone that a serious crime had been committed and that it was incumbent upon the judge to pass the toughest sentence possible. She made this perfectly clear as she read it out. ‘I’m warning you, Miss Stokes!’ she thundered, peering at me over her spectacles. ‘If you disobey this court order you will be rearrested and sent straight to prison!’
Here is a list of the things I’m currently prohibited from doing:
Contacting directly or indirectly including through third parties TOM HUNTER, including but not limited to email or Facebook;
Contacting directly or indirectly including through third parties TOM HUNTER, including but not limited to Twitter;
Including Twitter handle @tomhunterofficial in any tweets;
Editing any Wikipedia page of or related to TOM HUNTER or his work;
Linking any blog and/or review and/or website to that of TOM HUNTER;
Directly commenting on and/or about any blog and/or review and/or article written by TOM HUNTER.
I think you’ll agree that this is a pretty comprehensive list. I’m also warned that if I fail to comply with any part of this order, I will be committing an offence and could be imprisoned for up to five years. I’m already on a suspended sentence, and that’s pretty much how I feel: suspended. On hold. Can you imagine how that feels, Tom? Pretty shit, I can tell you.
Do you know what really pisses me off? I know what harassment is. Real harassment, I mean. Not the trumped-up nonsense I’ve been convicted of. There was a guy at college who wouldn’t leave me alone. He’d wait for me outside lecture halls, lurking in corridors. He’d follow me around like a puppy, hoping I’d take pity on him or his persistence would grind me down. When that didn’t work, he took it up a level. He’d turn up outside my flat, insisting that we were meant to be together. He’d say that if he couldn’t have me, then nobody could. I don’t mind saying it scared me – but not half as much as I scared him. I didn’t go crying to the authorities, either. I have my own way of dealing with things. He got the message.
And you think this is harassment? A few emails? Some disagreements on Twitter? One foolish attempt to persuade you to stop being so melodramatic and taking things so far? You don’t know you’re born…
To add insult to injury, the judge called me homophobic. Me, who knows her Michel Foucault back to front. Me, who can quote Oscar Wilde until the cows come home. I’m not homophobic. I don’t have a problem with gay people. The only problem I have is with middle-class wankers who are stuck up their own arses. But, of course, it suited your needs to play the gay-victim card – and like the idiot she is, the judge fell for it hook, line and sinker.
So yes, her ladyship was very tough on me. But was it tough enough for you, I wonder? I suspect not. I’m sure if you had your way I’d be locked in a prison cell already – one of the many women thrown under the bus by the great British legal system. Do you know there are currently more women in this country imprisoned for trivial offences like nonpayment of council tax than there are men serving time for murder? It’s almost enough to make one a feminist. Almost, but not quite.
Thankfully, I’m not in prison. I’m back at home with my dad. He’s upstairs now, having a rest before dinner. Poor man. This is the third time this week that he’s been unable to get through the day without taking to his bed for a few hours. The stress and strain of this ridiculous charade has really taken its toll on him.
Not that I expect you to give a damn. I saw the way you looked at us today as we were leaving court. Gloating doesn’t begin to describe it. And there was something else, too. It was a look of contempt, the kind people like you usually reserve for those paraded on Jeremy Kyle – for those they could so easily have been, were it not for a few A levels and a university degree. Oh yes, I see you, Tom. I know who you are and where you come from. I know the lengths you went to, to get as far away from that small suburban shit-hole as possible. I know how hard you studied, how diligently you worked to reinvent yourself and put your past firmly behind you. But it’s still there, isn’t it? It still lives inside you, eating away at you like a cancer. Self-improvement is a wonderful thing, but it can produce some truly toxic people.
I watched you today as you climbed into a taxi, barely glancing back at the destruction you’d left in your wake. Was there even a glimmer of sympathy for me, or has your heart hardened to such an extent that all human feeling is dead? My dad told me to turn away, to put you out of my mind. But how could I? There we were, Dad and me, publicly shamed, my life in tatters around me, while you drove off without a care in the world.
But what about your dear friend Emma? Was that a look of compassion I saw on her heavily made-up face today? If I didn’t know better I’d say she was feeling ever so slightly sorry for me. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want her pity. Not hers, of all people. I’ve seen th
e way she sucks up to you. I bet she’s swallowed every lie you’ve ever told her. But when I caught her looking at me across the crowded courtroom today, she didn’t seem too happy. I thought she’d be rejoicing in my downfall. Instead she looked rather sad and, dare I say it, confused. Are the doubts creeping in, do you think? Is she starting to wonder if perhaps you haven’t told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? What I’d give to have a quiet chat with her one day, woman to woman. The tales I could tell!
The last three weeks have given me plenty of time to think about things. The judge told me to do this the last time I faced her, the day she delivered her verdict. ‘I want you to think very carefully about what you’ve done,’ she said, as if I’m the sort of person who never thinks about her actions. If anything, my problem is that I think too much.
Had I been given the opportunity to put my thoughts into words, I’d have told the court that there’d been a terrible miscarriage of justice, that the crime I stood convicted of is the same ‘crime’ ordinary, law-abiding people are actively encouraged to commit every day. We’re all stalking each other online. All of us. We follow strangers on Twitter, comment on people’s posts on Facebook, like their photos on Instagram. Sometimes we even send them private messages. And let’s not forget all the times we Google each other, or search for people’s profiles on dating apps. The whole online world is one big stalking exercise. If I’m guilty, then so are millions of others.
But I didn’t get the chance to say this. ‘You’ve had your opportunity to speak,’ the judge snapped as soon as I opened my mouth. So instead I was left to ponder the absurdity of my situation – and I mean that in the theatrical sense. You’re familiar, I’m sure, with the Theatre of the Absurd – all those post-war playwrights exploring the meaning of life in a world where God is dead and man is left to his own dark devices. This is what my life has become. It’s a Beckett play in which I’m buried up to my waist for no apparent reason and slowly sinking. It’s a play by Pinter in which every pause has the potential for violence and the punchlines leave bruises. It’s a great big cosmic joke, darker and more twisted than anything Edward Albee or even Jean Genet could have imagined. It’s Kafka’s The Trial dragged, kicking and screaming, into the twenty-first century.
But you know all this. You know how unjust this whole episode has been, how absurd it is that I’ve been convicted of a crime I didn’t commit. Despite what you said in court, you know that I’d never harm you, that words are my only weapons. Yet you managed to convince the judge that mere words caused you alarm and distress. And you, a celebrated writer. Hope you’re careful when you sit down to write, Tom. Each time you open your laptop, I hope you wear protective clothing. We wouldn’t want any of those nasty words leaping off the screen and causing you harm, would we?
How is the writing going, by the way? Are you still struggling? Or have you found yourself some other muse to exploit, the way you exploited me? I don’t suppose Emma is much help. I can picture her flicking through a glossy magazine at the hairdresser’s – that upmarket one in Bloomsbury, where she goes to have her roots done. But browsing a bookshop or scanning the shelves at her local library? She doesn’t seem the type.
I know what you’re thinking. Yes, I know where darling Emma goes to get her hair done. And no, I wasn’t stalking her. If you must know, it happened quite by chance. It was last Tuesday evening. I’d left Russell Square Station and was on my way to see a film at the Brunswick Centre when there she was, hurrying across Woburn Place. I recognised her immediately from court, though I have to say she was looking rather more dishevelled than usual. I imagine it takes a lot of time and money to maintain that glossy image she aspires to; and it was the end of a busy working day, after all. But there was something more than that. She looked, I don’t know, distressed. I confess my curiosity got the better of me. The film didn’t start for another half hour, so I followed her, careful to maintain a discreet distance. I watched her enter the salon. The receptionist obviously knew her, and within minutes she was being ushered into a chair and surrounded by a team of stylists and offered coffee and a selection of magazines. She looked very much at home, and the grim face I’d glimpsed earlier on the street looked altogether more relaxed.
Later, when I got home, I took another look at her Facebook page and was astonished to find that she checks into this salon once every two weeks. Why on earth does she go so often, I wonder? How much maintenance can one woman need? I checked the price list for that salon. Your precious Emma spends more on her hair than my dad and I live on in a week.
It strikes me now that how we each spent that evening was a pretty good indication of the kinds of women we are. To use a hairdressing metaphor, it highlighted the difference between us. While I was busy broadening my mind at the Curzon, Emma was having all manner of chemicals plastered onto her scalp. Not that there’s any crime in that, of course. But it does make me wonder what you see in her, what you get out of that ‘special relationship’ of yours.
As a wise man once said, there’s more to life than books, Tom – but not much more. Is Emma a keen reader? Does she know her Jack Reacher from her Friedrich Nietzsche? Her Jean Rhys from her Jean Genet? Come to think of it, is she a fan of Bowie? Has she ever been moved by Morrissey or seduced by Suede? Does she know all the words to ‘Life on Mars’? I doubt it somehow. So what on earth do you talk about? I can’t imagine her work is very interesting. How excited can you get over a spreadsheet? And there’s only so much interest a man like you can take in a woman’s clothes, hair and makeup.
I’m starting to sound like I’m obsessed with her. And I’m really not. Honest, guv! I’m just … curious. We both know what a curious creature I can be. It’s one of the things you used to say you liked about me. Until you decided you didn’t.
But back to you and your book. If you’re really stuck, it’s worth remembering that Twitter is full of people offering tips for writers. Some are even published writers themselves! But you don’t seem very keen on Twitter these days. You’ve hardly tweeted since this whole thing began. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t resist sneaking a peak at your Twitter feed every now and then. There’s nothing in the restraining order to say I can’t.
My lawyer says I should steer clear of social media altogether, in case I’m tempted to try and make contact with you. I assured him I won’t. These words I’m writing are for my eyes and peace of mind only. They won’t be landing in your inbox any time soon, so there’s no need for my legal pal to worry or for you to get your designer briefs in a twist. But I refuse to turn my back on Twitter and crawl away in shame. I’m not some troll you can banish from social media like the evil queen banished from the magical kingdom. This is not a fairy story (no pun intended) and you are not king of the world.
Incidentally, was it just my imagination, or were there far fewer reporters in court today? I was hoping for a few more newspaper cuttings to add to my scrapbook. Perhaps you’re no longer as famous or as interesting as you like to think. Or maybe your media friends are feeling a teensy bit embarrassed for you – the man with the ego so big and so fragile he had to employ the full weight of the law to silence a poor woman.
But this woman won’t be silenced. Like it or not, not everyone sees me the way you do. Thousands of people on Twitter enjoy my daily scribblings. My followers expect me to keep them entertained and I’m not about to let them down. I take my responsibilities seriously. I’m not one of those precious snowflakes who announces the need for a ‘social-media detox’ or flounces off Twitter whenever things don’t go their way. I leave that to the cupcake feminists with their sugary sentiments and sick-inducing self-righteousness. I’m made of far sterner stuff than that.
It’s good to remind myself of this, to remember that I existed quite happily before you came along. Sometimes I catch sight of myself in the mirror and I wonder what you did to me, how you drove me so far from myself that I became totally lost in you. You were like a black hole, sucking me into your or
bit. The gravitational pull was like nothing I’d ever experienced, and I was powerless to resist. It was life, Tom, but not as I know it. Before you, I’d never felt so completely absorbed by another human being. I’d never been the sort of person who relies on someone else to complete their sense of self. I’d never been one of the ‘we’ people – the ones who draw attention to their relationship status with every word that comes out of their mouths: ‘we think this’ or ‘we prefer that’ or ‘we thought we might try southern Spain this year’. Don’t get me wrong. I know we were never a couple, you and I – at least not in the romantic sense. But there was a connection that went way beyond casual friendship, whatever lies you may have told yourself, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service.
Lying is an art, like everything else. You do it exceptionally well. And now that we live in an ‘post-truth’ age of ‘fake news’, I suppose it’s only to be expected that the person with the greater media platform won. That’s what impressed them all – your celebrity. What hope was there for me, a humble blogger, compared to a celebrated novelist like you? It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that after the show trial was over, there was a queue for signed copies of your books. I can picture you at the bench, a stack of books beside you, wielding your pen and disarming them all with your smile. The same smile you used to disarm me.
I keep thinking back to that night in the pub, the night you denied all knowledge of. At the time of my arrest, several months had passed since that fateful night, our communication reduced to angry exchanges on Twitter. There were no photographs of us together, and if there were any witnesses, I had no way of tracking them down. It was so long ago, I doubt even the barman would have remembered me. My lawyer told me it would be my word against yours – and as I’ve since learned to my cost, my word counts for very little compared to the word of the great Tom Hunter.
Looking back, I don’t think my legal representative was all that happy to be representing me. But that’s what happens when you’re forced to rely on legal aid. Had I been in a position to hire a lawyer of my own choosing, perhaps things would have turned out differently.