by Paul Burston
Tom forces a smile. ‘How long were you two together?’
‘The best part of sixty years. He held on long enough to see the equal marriage bill passed. That’s something we never thought we’d see in our lifetime. What about you? Are you spoken for?’
‘I’m not in a relationship.’
‘I’m surprised. Good-looking chap like you. I’d have thought you’d be fighting them off. Or is that it? You’d rather fight them off than let someone get too close?’
Normally, an enquiry like this would prompt Tom to clam up or tell someone to mind their own business. But the conversation has taken him by surprise, and for some reason he feels he’s talking to someone who deserves an honest answer. ‘You’re probably right,’ he says. Then, feeling the old man’s eyes burning into him, ‘There was someone, once. It didn’t end well.’
‘I see,’ Colin replies. ‘Well, far be it from me to tell you how to live your life. But if you were thinking of giving it another go, my advice would be not to leave it too long. It doesn’t get any easier with age, I can tell you.’
‘No,’ says Tom. ‘I don’t suppose it does.’ And then the most alarming thing happens. He feels something churning inside him. It starts deep in his stomach and rises to his chest. His breath shortens and his rib cage heaves. He can’t remember the last time he cried, but suddenly there’s the unmistakable sting of tears in his eyes.
Don’t cry, Tom tells himself. But he already is.
Colin’s face creases with concern. ‘Oh dear,’ he says, rising to his feet and gesturing to Tom to follow him. ‘Come along. I think we’d best get you inside.’
23
DAY 20 (710 DAYS REMAINING)
I see you’ve taken time out of your busy writing schedule to tell your sob story to the newspapers. Honestly, Tom. Anyone would think you had nothing better to do. Or is this who you are now? A professional victim determined to milk this experience for the rest of your life? Reading the article, I hope you felt a stab of shame when you compared yourself to the other men interviewed. What happened to them was truly terrible. Perhaps there’s a part of you that wishes you’d had it as hard as they did. It wouldn’t surprise me. Victimhood is a competitive sport these days, and people like you seem determined to take it to a whole new level.
There was that word again – ‘troll’. You just can’t let it lie, can you? I confess I spent a few minutes composing a comment from one of my online aliases to post under the article, pointing out the hypocrisy of such a self-righteous organ as the Guardian resorting to such dehumanising name-calling. But then I decided I had better things to do than risk another visit from your friends on the police force. What a charmed life you lead. Enforcers of the law at your beck and call. Friendly journalists waiting to be fed your version of events. And still you lay claim to being a victim.
According to Wikipedia, ‘a troll is a person who sows discord on the internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous or off-topic messages in an online community with the intent of provoking readers into an emotional response, or of otherwise disrupting normal, on-topic discussion, often for the troll’s amusement’.
Of course the same could be said of half the journalists who complain of being ‘trolled’ on Twitter before flouncing off and suspending their accounts – only to reappear a few days later and applauded for their bravery in returning to the fray. Such courage! Such hypocrisy! Such is the life of the commentariat – those precious snowflakes who troll their readers one minute and scream blue murder the next. Consider me suitably amused.
I don’t know if your new friend at the Guardian has ever complained of being trolled, but she certainly seems to have swallowed their editorial line. I can’t say I’m familiar with the work of Ruth Freeman, though with a name like that she probably considers herself some sort of liberal firebrand – Ruth the Truth Sayer, speaking truth to power from her lofty perch at the nation’s least favourite broadsheet.
And you, feeding her the lines. For someone who claims to want nothing to do with me, you seem to spend a lot of your time thinking about me. Do you miss me, Tom? Only you do seem rather obsessed. Perhaps it isn’t me who needs a therapist, but you. Aren’t you a bit old for name-calling? I do have a name. It’s Evie. Not ‘the troll’ as you seem so intent on calling me. Not a nice way to describe someone, is it? Though I suppose I should be flattered that I’m worthy of the definite article, at least. It shows that I matter, that I’m not just any old troll in your eyes, as I apparently am to some.
Even before the Google alert appeared in my inbox, I’d had several of your most ardent admirers attack me on Twitter. I suppose you see that as some kind of justice – ‘the troll’ gets trolled. Did nobody ever tell you that two wrongs don’t make a right? It’s a funny kind of justice – not the kind most Guardian readers would ascribe to.
I’m reminded of a recent conversation I had with my therapist, who seems to have lost interest in my family history and keeps steering me back to more recent events.
‘What does the term “troll” mean to you?’ she asked, as if I didn’t know exactly where she was going.
‘There are many varieties of troll,’ I replied. ‘You need to be more specific.’
‘I’m thinking specifically of people who abuse and harass others on the internet.’
‘Again, you need to define your terms,’ I said. ‘Abuse and harassment are both relative. One person’s abuse and harassment are another person’s fair and reasonable sustained critique.’
Maria raised her eyebrows at me. ‘Not according to the law. You were found guilty of harassment under the Malicious Communications Act. The case against you was based on behaviour widely recognised as trolling.’
‘I haven’t trolled in my life, ducky,’ I said. ‘I leave that to the rough trade down the Dilly. You should vada the lallies on some of those omee-palones. Bona doesn’t begin to describe them!’
I don’t think Maria is familiar with the old Polari, because she stared at me blankly.
‘I was speaking in Polari,’ I explained. ‘It’s gay slang. “Trolling” means looking for sex.’
‘I see,’ she said. ‘Then allow me to rephrase my next question. When did you first become aware that people perceive you as an internet troll?’
I smiled at her knowingly. ‘That’s a bit like asking a homosexual, “When did you first realise you were gay?” Like “gay”, “troll” is a social construct and one I categorically refuse to accept.’
It was Foucault who said that living in San Francisco he felt like a homosexual in a city full of gays. I know the feeling. I’m a champion of free speech in a world full of trolls.
‘Nonetheless, you were found guilty of online harassment,’ Maria said. ‘If we’re to make any progress in these sessions, it would help if you would at least acknowledge the crime of which you were convicted.’
Hark at her, I thought, but said nothing.
‘I know this isn’t easy for you,’ she continued. ‘But if you can’t admit that your behaviour was wrong, I don’t see how you can possibly hope to be rehabilitated.’
‘Is that why I’m here?’ I asked her. ‘To be rehabilitated? I thought this was just part of my punishment.’
‘Is that how you feel?’
‘Oh, am I allowed feelings?’
Maria tilted her head in that sympathetic fashion she has. ‘How are you finding these sessions, Evie?’
‘Simple,’ I said. ‘I take the bus. It stops right outside.’
She gave me one of her tight smiles. ‘I meant, do you find them difficult? Are they helping you?’
‘Is that what you’re trying to do? Help me?’
‘Of course. But for me to help you, you have to help yourself.’
‘The Lord helps those who help themselves,’ I said. ‘You sound like an evangelist! But I suppose this is your religion, isn’t it?’
She didn’t respond. ‘And what about your journal? Are you finding that
helpful?’
‘Oh, yes,’ I said. ‘One should always have something sensational to read on the train.’ I grinned at her. ‘It’s a quote. Oscar Wilde.’
‘I’m well aware of that. It’s a line from The Importance of Being Earnest. Cecily Cardew, if I’m not mistaken?’
‘Well done,’ I said. ‘Full marks.’
Maria nodded. ‘Perhaps it would be more helpful if you quoted less and talked more about how you’re feeling. Otherwise there’s not really much point in you being here.’
‘Come now,’ I replied. ‘Let’s not play games. We both know I’m not here through choice.’
Maria gave the tiniest of shrugs. ‘I’m just trying to help.’
‘Of course you are. But maybe I don’t need help. Or at least not the kind you’re advocating.’
I felt her stifle an exasperated sigh. ‘Okay. So what kind of help do you need?’
‘Where do you want me to start?’
‘Start wherever you want.’
So I gave her a list. Maria wasn’t to know this, but I was quoting from Madonna’s infamous ‘rap’ in ‘American Life’, the one where she catalogues her various employees, from her agent and her manager to her chef, gardener and bodyguards. Only I wasn’t quite that demanding. I wanted an agent, a publisher, an editor, a publicist – all the help one needs to launch one’s literary opus on an unsuspecting world.
‘That’s quite a list,’ Maria said when I finally ran out of steam.
‘There’s a few people I forgot. I also need the help of other authors.’ I paused. ‘You know, for puffs.’
Maria frowned. ‘Puffs?’
I smiled, sensing that she thought I was being offensive to oversensitive homosexual types. ‘Puffs. Those quotes you see on book covers urging you to buy this book immediately, telling you how truly wonderful the author is.’
‘I see. And is that what you were hoping to get from Mr Hunter?’
I paused for a while before answering, knowing we were nearly out of time. ‘Oh, no,’ I said finally. ‘I got a lot more from him.’
I first discovered the great white hope known as Mr Tom Hunter when his debut novel, Boy Afraid, was published. To fully appreciate the book’s impact, you have to consider the context. For years, bookshelves everywhere had groaned under the weight of Bridget Jones and all her Chardonnay-soaked sob sisters. Now, finally, some critics were calling time on chick lit. For me, the end couldn’t come soon enough. I hated Bridget with every fibre of my being – a neurotic, calorie-counting child woman we were all supposed to identify with, in a tale lifted straight from the pages of Jane Austen. How backward-looking is that?
After chick lit we had dad lit – Nick Hornby, Tony Parsons and all those famously sensitive male authors eager to demonstrate that men had feelings too. Like chick lit, dad lit suffered from an overdose of sentimentality. The formula was simple: take one small family unit consisting of a hapless but lovable father figure and his troubled young son. A toddler will do, but a boy aged around eight is best. He has to be prepubescent as teenage boys bring their own problems and a whole other weight of expectation. Add a beautiful and much-loved mother figure who is spoken of with great reverence but is no longer in the picture due to a messy divorce or untimely tragic death. Watch the male characters bond as they struggle through the trauma of grief and a diet of takeaways. Then introduce a mother substitute who fills the woman-shaped gap in their lives, bonding with the son and providing the dad with someone to share his bed and his love of some revealingly sensitive hobby, such as plant husbandry or nature photography. Failing that, a shared passion for exotic cookery will do.
Hunter’s book wasn’t like that. It was bold. Original. It dared to go where no dad lit had gone before. Here at last was a contemporary writer I could identify with. His hero is a man who struggles to raise his only daughter after his wife leaves him – rather like my own dad. The wife isn’t the saintly figure of so many dad lit novels, but a hard-bitten bitch – rather like my own mother. The father-daughter relationship is explored in a way I hadn’t seen done before, which led me to assume that the author must be a dad himself. The discovery that he wasn’t only made his achievement all the more remarkable. I won’t give away the plot, but suffice to say it doesn’t end well. Again, this was not only brave but honest. We live in a world where men are three times more likely than women to commit suicide. If women were killing themselves at the rate men are, we’d never stop hearing about it. It took an author of Mr Hunter’s calibre to give those men a voice.
As the book rose up the charts, he became quite the celebrity. One minute he was chatting on the sofa with Lorraine Kelly, the next he was on the cover of the Sunday Times Magazine. And much to my amazement, he looked every bit as good as his author photo. How often have you come across a celebrity in real life only to find yourself bitterly disappointed? I saw Orlando Bloom at the BFI once. I’m afraid to say he looked rather runtish. Not so our Mr Hunter. He was taller, more handsome, with an impressively full head of hair. No wonder my own head was turned.
The book was so successful they even made a film starring Ryan Gosling. He wouldn’t have been my first choice, and the film’s ending was a total cop-out, but that’s Hollywood for you. At least it ensured that sales of the book continued to rise. To say that I took an active interest in Mr Hunter’s career would be putting it mildly. I blogged about his work. I attended book readings. I even had him sign my copy of his second, less successful novel, the one he seems to be mildly embarrassed by, though to my mind it’s every bit as good as his first. We became pen friends shortly after that night – and the rest, as they say, is history.
But here’s the thing about history. It’s always told by the winners. Just because Mr Hunter won his court case against me, that doesn’t make my account of what happened between us any less true.
I spent a few hours at the library yesterday. I like to support my local library, and it’s handy to have access to a computer with an IP address that can’t be traced directly back to me. Not that I was doing anything illegal, but sometimes it pays to err on the side of caution. If only I’d learned this lesson sooner.
I arrived home mid-afternoon to find my dad sitting quietly at the kitchen table, a load of papers spread out in front of him. It was barely three-thirty, so I was rather surprised to find him sitting there.
‘Is everything okay?’ I asked him. ‘You’re never normally back this early.’
‘I’m fine,’ he insisted. ‘It was a slow day so I decided to come home and catch up on some paperwork.’
He wasn’t fine – I could see that. But there was no point in pushing it. He’s as stubborn as a mule when he wants to be. I take after him in that respect. I take after him in lots of ways. If I hadn’t been untimely ripped from my mother’s womb, I’d question whether I had any of her DNA in me at all.
‘I bought some of those salmon fishcakes you like,’ my dad said. ‘I thought we’d eat around six, if that’s okay. I quite fancy an early night. I’ll give you a shout when dinner’s ready.’
Something told me he wasn’t telling the whole truth, but I left him to his paperwork, went up to my room and logged onto my computer. I had a blog to write and some social media stuff to catch up on. I’m writing a blog about all the people who’ve blocked me. It’s a bit playful and tongue-in-cheek, but makes a number of serious points about censorship and freedom of speech. I’m not allowed to mention Mr Hunter by name and I’m not allowed to follow him on Twitter. Not that I need to. I have other ways of keeping tabs on people of interest.
There were a number of emails, mainly related to a new project I’m working on concerning a woman artist in Wales. And there was another email, too – a most surprising email from someone I wouldn’t have expected to hear from in a million years. At first I thought it was some kind of joke or possibly even a trap. I hesitated before replying, but my curiosity got the better of me. Life can take such unexpected turns sometimes, can’t it? People you thought w
ere friends turn out to be enemies – or ‘frenemies’ as we’re now required to call them – and people you considered enemies can turn out to be potential allies. To say I was pleased by this sudden turn of events would be putting it mildly. By the time Dad called me for dinner, I was positively bubbling with excitement.
My bubble soon burst. Seated at the dining table, I’d barely taken a bite out of my fishcake when I sensed something was wrong. ‘What’s the matter, Dad?’ I asked. ‘What is it?’
He took a few moments before answering. ‘I need to ask you something. It’s about your mother.’
I crammed in another mouthful. ‘Must we? I’m eating.’
‘It’s not a joking matter, Evie. This is important. It’s about the day she died.’
I chewed thoughtfully and swallowed before replying. ‘That was years ago. I think it’s time we moved on, don’t you?’
Dad set down his knife and fork and stared across the table at me. ‘But we’ve never really talked about it, have we? Not properly.’
‘Why drag it up now? Let sleeping dogs lie.’ I couldn’t help but smirk slightly. Referring to women as ‘dogs’ was one of my mother’s pet hates.
Dad pushed aside his untouched plate. ‘Your mother wasn’t the easiest of women, Evie. I know that. But she loved you in her own way.’
I hate it when people use that expression – that someone loved you ‘in their own way’. As if love is such a nebulous concept it can be stretched to encompass virtually anything. As if abuse, cruelty and neglect can all fall under the banner of this wonderful thing we call love. As if you can stretch a rubber band and it won’t snap back in your face.
‘And in what way would that be?’ I asked.
‘She had a very difficult childhood. Her own mother never showed her much love, so she didn’t have a good role model.’ Dad smiled sadly. ‘Children don’t come with a user’s manual, more’s the pity. But she did care for you.’