Filter This

by Sophie White

  Amy hit a wall-mounted keypad beside her and a projector screen descended from a hidden compartment in the ceiling above the opposite wall. She aimed a slim silver remote at a projector perched on a discreet shelf above her head and the screen of her own laptop appeared across from them, displaying an infographic representing several mid-level Irish influencers.

  Shelly shifted a bit to peer around Amanda, who was now applying muddy brown stripes to her cheeks, forehead and down the sides of her nose.

  ‘Go easy, Amanda,’ Amy instructed, frowning at Shelly’s face. ‘We’ve got M&S sponcon up first at 11 a.m., so just low-key, everyday-mam-in-the-park vibes but with a touch of SJP, OK? Save the Kardashian homage for touch-ups tonight before the launch.’

  Shelly caught Amanda’s eye and gave a jokey little eye-roll, nodding towards Amy. Shelly was paranoid that one day Amanda would go rogue and spill on all the goings-on behind brand SHELLY so she always took pains to keep her onside, especially when Amy was being … well, Amy.

  ‘So, let’s talk wild-card nominations.’ Amy carried on tapping away at her spreadsheet on the iPad. ‘We need to nail this. Too many lame choices and it’ll be obvious you’re trying to limit the competition, but we don’t want anyone who’s too good. I’ve put together a shortlist here for you to look over – obviously, I’ve got a pretty good handle on these girls. They’re the usuals, uncontroversial, all under ten thousand followers, blonde, low appeal in terms of sponsored-content deals, apparently unable to put together an outfit without minimum five Penneys items—’

  ‘I love Penneys,’ chimed in Amanda. ‘It’s great for a few bits.’

  ‘No shit, Amanda,’ said Amy without looking up.

  Shelly jumped in. ‘I know, Amanda. I’m addicted! Where would we be without Penneys? Sure this is Penneys.’ Shelly smiled, tugging on her silk shorties PJ set – it wasn’t, it was Calvin Klein.

  Amanda pinched some of the silk between her fingertips. ‘Well, you can always tell it’s not the real deal up close,’ she admitted.

  Amy was flicking through the first few outfits posted by the more eager wannabes. ‘Jesus, here’s a terrifying ensemble,’ she exclaimed as Dawn O’Connor, a fitness blogger, appeared on the opposite wall in shiny PVC thigh-high boots, a red kilt, white shirt and shiny PVC baker-boy cap.

  ‘It’s a look,’ said Shelly, careful to be diplomatic.

  ‘Oh my god, LOL,’ Amy burst out as the next wild-card wannabe’s #OOTD post appeared.

  Shelly flung a dark look in Amy’s direction. ‘I like it,’ she said loudly, drowning out her assistant’s scoffing.

  Amanda paused in her blending and turned to assess the latest offering. ‘Is it a bit … revealing? Does she have it on wrong?’

  Amy was shaking her head. ‘It’s a nightmare – she must have it on backwards or something. There’s a lot of vadge on show there.’

  Shelly laughed in spite of herself, but then was hit again by another wave of nausea. Any time she seemed to relax even for a minute the nausea was back – like a pesky reminder that her life was heading for a terrible collision. Amy continued to flick through the slideshow, keeping up a harsh commentary and occasionally noting down ‘potentials’. Amanda was carefully working away, shading and highlighting. Shelly closed her eyes.

  Maybe the best thing to do was get away with Dan for a few days and do the reveal in a nice relaxed, luxurious setting. She had a backlog of invites from practically every exclusive hotel in the country. Amy kept any and all perks on a spreadsheet for reference any time there was a date night or mini-break on the horizon. All they need do was pick one, get Georgie sorted and hit the road.

  Maybe Dan would be happy with the news? Maybe another baby was what they really needed to be more like a real family? A sharp prick wrenched Shelly out of the reverie; Amanda was tidying her brows. But the prick served as a necessary reality check – after all, Shelly realised, no marriage in history was ever improved by a new baby.

  ‘Marriages have to survive babies,’ her own mother had joked in the hospital the day Georgie was born. ‘Ah yeah,’ her dad had agreed, cradling the hours-old Georgie. ‘We were in the trenches for a long time there but it’ll pay off now when you’re all wiping our arses in a couple more years.’ Her parents had chuckled at that, while Dan practically flinched – he did not get her dad’s humour – and Shelly had felt the anxiety rear up. Dan had never made much effort to fit in with her family. In the early years, when they’d come home visiting from London, they’d sometimes stay with either Johnnie or Serena, her brother and sister, but Dan never made much of an effort with them and then she’d felt weird about being there. She knew they thought Dan was a snob and as time passed Shelly drifted apart from them. Especially after Serena went to Canada and Johnnie had kids. She still sent him and Mairead tickets to the panto and other bits of free swag she thought they might like, but it was mainly to make herself feel better.

  She knew she was different to the old Shelly who Johnnie’d bailed out of trouble with their parents when she was caught drinking as a teenager. She acted different and she definitely sounded different. Johnnie once said he was sick of the act she put on in front of Dan. It had really stung, more so because she knew he was right. In London, she’d somehow taken on a bit of a persona and it didn’t quite match up with the pre-Dan Shelly. Had she known even back then that she and Dan were not a good fit and just tried to be what she thought he wanted? It was not an idea she enjoyed investigating, and she tucked it away to the back of her mind. They needed to make their marriage work and that was just that. Too much depended on it. Shelly took a deep breath. It would all be better after she told Dan about the baby and brought him round to the idea.

  Where to go for the baby announcement? Laurel House was an option and Dan would love the oyster bar. But even thinking the words ‘oyster bar’ was a torment with this nausea. Of course, she’d need to take care of the requisite Instagramming while they were there – there is, after all, no such thing as a free luxury mini-break – and that could potentially piss Dan off. He just doesn’t get that it’s work, she thought.

  Maybe she could have Amy do it remotely. She could record a few generic having-a-lovely-time posts against a neutral backdrop and send pics on the sly when they were down there, then Amy could do all the faff of uploading them.

  ‘OK.’ Amy clapped her hands. ‘Amanda, this is gorge,’ she said, waving her hands in the general direction of Shelly’s face. ‘You’re off the hook now until touch-ups around 5.30 – that cool?’

  ‘Fab.’ Amanda gave Shelly’s face a final once-over.

  Amy was busily tapping away on her phone. ‘Mail me the list of products used with corresponding Insta-handles. And don’t just guess them like last time, Amanda – that’s just sloppy and gives me more work to do.’

  Shelly and Amanda exchanged furtive smiles and Shelly gave her a little encouraging wink as she headed out the door. It was great to have Amy do the delegating, really. Any correcting or unpleasantness with the personnel, Amy handled like a pro and Shelly didn’t have to get her hands dirty. It meant that PRs and stylists never bitched about her – they could all moan and rail against Amy while Shelly’s nice-girl vibes remained perfectly intact.

  ‘OK, real-talk time.’ Amy began taking snaps of Shelly’s finished make-up. ‘Look left,’ she commanded. ‘Suck in your cheeks. So my top three recommendations for wild cards are Grace O’Mahoney, Dara Stoney and Sinead Worthing. They’re all the perfect blend of nice and potentially useful.’

  Shelly took in the profiles of each girl as Amy outlined their stats and prospective uses. Grace O’Mahoney (9.5K followers) did PR for some luxury brands – ‘Could cough up some nice gifties for us,’ commented Amy. Dara Stoney (just over 10K followers) was a stylist and art director who created shoots for the country’s biggest magazines – ‘It’d be good to get you into more fashion editorials, enough of this “at home with” stuff. Dan’s never up for it anyway,’ said Amy, never one to waste t
ime on tact.

  Shelly sometimes felt uneasy about the endless machinations and quid pro quo nature of the Insta scene, but it was a grimy world, and this was how it just was sometimes. Anyway, the girls would be delighted – it’s networking not bribery, reasoned Shelly. At this she had a sudden thought. ‘Wait, what about that girl on the Durty Aul’ Town crew?’ She searched her brain for a name, clicking her fingers. Aisling? Alex? ‘I was talking to her yesterday …’

  ‘Ali?’ Amy looked sceptical. ‘You already liked one of her posts yesterday morning, so you’re set on that front. Plus she’s doing better these days – you don’t want her actually giving you a run for your money!’

  ‘But she has a hand in the production schedule and you know what a killer the early-morning calls are …’ Shelly hated sounding grabby and Imelda wasn’t getting many scenes lately but, still, 5 a.m. on set was a bitch.

  Amy looked dubious as she flicked her fingers over the phone screen, checking the GlossiesWildCard hashtag. ‘She hasn’t actually posted for the wild-card entry yet.’

  ‘I told her yesterday and she was definitely into it.’

  ‘OK, I’ll suss that and give her the nudge re call times at tonight’s launch.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Shelly smiled. Amy worked for her but sometimes it felt like the reverse.

  ‘Fine, I’m bumping Sinead then.’ At this Amy’s phone buzzed in her hand and she hopped down from the stool. ‘Right, outfit-of-the-day time for us – we’ve got some sponcon Stories for your M&S partnership and we also need to pencil in some Georgie Stories for this afternoon, numbers are dipping. I’ll ring Marni.’

  Shelly flinched at this – it was all so bald, carting Georgie in and out of her life as needed. So much was scheduled in every day – she was at work, after all, so she needed childcare – but then staging quality time with her daughter for the SHELLY account felt terrible. Sometimes in bed at night she’d look at the account, full of posts about #MamaDaughterTime and pics of her looking adoringly at the little girl and the guilt would start to choke her.

  ‘It’s no different to mums at the office all day,’ Shelly would think, trying to assuage her anxiety. But she knew she was different. Those women would probably have given anything to be home with their kids, while Shelly had practically run back to work after Georgie. She loved her little girl … but the lonely, long days of early motherhood had scared Shelly. She was certain she would never take to it, that nothing would feel normal again. The doctor said depression but Shelly suspected she was just a shit mother, just wasn’t cut out for it. When she returned to set she was relieved to be free and that made her feel even worse.

  Amy stormed over to the wardrobe and flung it open. Flicking through the assorted blazers, she selected a blush one from the new M&S collection and thrust it at Shelly. ‘Try it with the Acne jeans,’ she commanded. ‘I’ll see you downstairs.’

  7

  The bathroom adjoining Miles’s room was a place Ali never went into if she could help it. It was a large windowless wet room with a showerhead in one corner, a sink and a raised toilet with bars for patients to hold on to. In there, there was an ever-present danger of encountering some new fresh horror of his disease and now, pacing frantically, she was assailed by the depressing accoutrements of decline – nappies, urine-sample containers. ‘Just don’t look closely,’ she counselled herself. She needed to address the problem at hand.

  More DMs were dropping in from eagle-eyed followers who’d spotted the sign for the ward and assumed she was in hospital.

  ‘Oh, exciting! Are you trying out the ear lobe lipo we were chatting about?’ asked @LauraOD.

  ‘If you’re in for fillers, get 2ml, with 1ml can’t see any difference TBH. They’ll try and argue but stand your ground,’ advised @makeupmadam119.

  ‘Ali?’ Tabitha called from outside the door. ‘You dad’s ready for his lunch – will I give it to him or do you want to?’

  ‘OK, OK,’ called Ali. ‘I’ll do it. Leave the tray and I’ll be right out.’

  Ali flicked on the camera and smoothed her hair. ‘Hey, lovelies, thanks for the DMs. A few of you guys might have gotten the wrong end of the stick there. I’m not getting anything done and I’m totally fine – I’m just working on a little surprise coming in a few months. Big kisses!’

  There, that’s fine, thought Ali, hitting Post.

  She slipped back out of the bathroom and went over to give her dad a gentle kiss on his cheek. ‘Sorry, Miles, Instagram dramz!’ She smoothed his hair. ‘How are you?’

  Miles lay flat on his back, a sheet draped over him. Ali had a slight fear of her dad’s body now. She didn’t like to think of how frail he was beneath the flannel pyjamas he wore. He was extremely thin. ‘The Slimming World gang would be so proud – you’re, like, Victoria Beckham-thin, Dad!’ Ali’s feeble attempts at humour dissolved in the oppressive atmosphere. Miles’s brown eyes were open but trained firmly on the opposite wall. He didn’t appear to even register her presence in the room. The doctors said he might have some cognition but how much was anyone’s guess. Based on this, Ali tried to chat to him as much as possible and fill him in on what was going on in her life, but she couldn’t get over a persistent and unpleasant sense that he really had no concept of where he was or even what he was anymore.

  Ali wasn’t sure which thought was worse: that he had some consciousness left but couldn’t communicate with them, or that there was nothing left of his mind and all this chatter was slipping into a terrifying void where the spark and flow of his neural pathways had once twisted and turned. The locked-in theory gave Ali nightmares. She frequently dreamed that Miles was back but he wasn’t the charming, loving jokester he’d always been: he was an angry, malevolent being who was raging with her. After these dreams, she always felt vulnerable, as though exposed as the shitty person she’d always suspected herself to be.

  Being a good daughter was just so much work. She often looked at her fellow visitors and wondered at their incredible reserves of love and patience. They seemed relaxed and at ease, like compassion and care came easily to them. She tried to touch her father, to hold his hands and stroke his cheeks, but deep down she knew the truth was she was scared of touching him and she hated this about herself.

  She never had the guts to ask Mini if she suffered this frustrating spiral of self-hate. Ali suspected Mini would not be good at alleviating Ali’s guilt, and she certainly didn’t want to invite Mini’s analysis – mainly because, more often than not, her analysis sounded distinctly like criticism. There was a lot of ‘you never’ and ‘you always’ and, TBQH, who needed that?

  After pushing open the windows and taking a few deep breaths, Ali pulled up a chair to her dad’s bed, raised its head and assessed the lunch spread.

  ‘I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, Dad, it’s pretty fucking bleak today. By the looks of it we’ve got a pre-masticated mélange of vegetables, some meat-related product and a gravy of indeterminate origin. Quality-wise, I’d say we’re talking mid-seventies transatlantic-flight meal with an extremely depressing calorie-pumped pudding for dessert. Aesthetically speaking, let’s just say there are more appetising sights on offer when googling “untreated haemorrhoids”.’

  Ali watched Miles closely, searching for a reaction, any glimmer, no matter how tiny, that he’d heard her. Nothing. She loaded a fork and brought it to his mouth. Even though his gaze never shifted, he accepted the bite and even chewed and swallowed. This seemed confirmation enough that Miles was gone from her – old Miles would never have accepted such a hideous meal.

  Once his bites had started to slow, she carefully tipped some of his thickened drink into his mouth and wiped his face. The gloopy beverage was supposed to prevent fluid going down the wrong way and potentially causing pneumonia, which could be serious for her dad. Or a way out, Ali would often catch herself thinking on particularly bleak days.

  ‘I have to take a picture for this thing I’m doing,’ Ali announced. It sometimes felt awkward talking to
Miles. She’d seen other visitors showing their loved ones pictures on their phones or reading aloud from the newspaper but it felt somehow pointless. Maybe she and Mini were just too cynical – not that she particularly liked admitting that she was like Mini in any way.

  Ali turned on her Spotify and hit Play.

  ‘I made you a new playlist.’ She smoothed Miles’s hair, which was longish, the way he’d always worn it, and still a lovely shade of blond with just a hint of grey. He still looked like himself in lots of ways. At sixty, he was younger than many of the nurses and doctors who looked after him and, apart from being so incredibly thin, and his complexion, which was now a troubling shade of grey, he still looked a lot like his old self. Ali couldn’t quite remember when all the problems had started, which seemed ironic given the diagnosis Miles finally got at fifty-five. Alzheimer’s. A particularly cruel flavour: early onset.

  The first signs were so innocuous that Ali and Mini worried they might’ve been missing them for ages. Forgotten words, buying the same CDs over and over, pouring milk on his porridge and then going to do it again and again until Mini or Ali would stop him. When he sang around the house, gaps in the lyrics appeared that he filled with nonsense words. In time (so, so quickly, really – early onset advances rapidly, the doctors explained) the songs were all nonsense and you had to listen carefully to hear the beautiful melody still buried beneath.

  ‘I didn’t put any of your prog rock shite on there,’ Ali warned as the reedy voice of Neil Young trickled into the room. The sun had rounded the building and light was pressing against the curtains. Ali pulled them back and the room instantly brightened, though the dreary atmosphere remained.

  She checked her phone for the time – 2 p.m. Better get going – she didn’t want her post to be too early in the day and get buried by all the rest, but she couldn’t be too late either. Ali set to work, pulling out the gear she’d brought for the #OOTD picture. She smoothed a pale-green floral print dress and hung it on the back of the wardrobe. She felt a familiar sense of calm descend as she plotted the post – Instacalm they should call it, she thought.