by Chris Killen
I type ‘Dalisay Rivera’ into the search bar and hit return.
Four different Dalisay Riveras appear on my screen.
The one I’m searching for is right at the top of the list. I click on her thumbnail and it leads me to her profile page, which is almost blank unless we become friends.
I move my cursor over ‘+1 Add Friend’ and click.
PAUL
2014
Oh dear, Paul thinks as he puts his pen down and swigs his last half inch of Kronenbourg. He’s sitting at one of the back tables in the Wetherspoon’s opposite Whitworth Park.
He’d printed off his ‘novel’ – all forty-seven pages – and bought a brand new red Uniball gel ink pen for two pounds sixty-five from the student shop, but there’s no way to make this any good, he realises, just halfway through the first chapter, no matter what he scribbles all over his manuscript.
He stands and buttons his coat.
Then he opens his laptop case, puts the pages of his novel inside, zips it up, and walks out through the pub, past a few florid old men drinking pints of real ale, past a wild-haired mad woman whispering into the ear of a plastic baby, and back onto Oxford Road, where it’s already gone dark. Great. Another day wasted.
Lately, Paul’s been having these fantasies about stealing a car and driving it off a bridge. In the fantasies he’s always pursued by a cop, played by Michael Douglas, and the whole thing takes place in America and, right at the end, Paul screams, ‘See you later, fuck-face!’ and then floors the accelerator and his car swerves off a bridge and crashes into the sea.
On his way to the bus stop, he wonders how long he’s got left.
How many days or weeks or months.
On the NaNoWriMo forum, people are writing their final chapters.
They’re excited.
They’re beginning to talk about redrafting and agent letters and Christmas.
Just then Paul hears footsteps echoing off the wet brickwork of the Manchester Museum archway and immediately convinces himself it’s a mugger, coming for him. Paul is always imagining things like this. For instance: each night, last thing before bed, he’ll need to go and double-check the front door to the flat is locked, otherwise he’ll lie there waiting for masked men to burst in and hold Sarah and him hostage, forcing them to do lewd sexual acts, just for the fun of it.
As a precautionary measure, Paul takes out his phone and pretends to receive a phone call, hearing the footsteps – they are definitely real footsteps – quicken behind him. He feels his heart quicken, too.
‘Hello,’ Paul murmurs into his cracked, silent phone.
He’s not very good at acting.
He doesn’t know what to say next.
He pretends it’s the doctor’s surgery on the other end of the line, calling him back after a scan.
‘What a relief,’ he says. ‘That’s great news. Thanks so much for letting me know.’
But maybe talking on your iPhone isn’t the best way to scare off a mugger.
It seems, suddenly, like the worst thing you could do.
‘Right, bye,’ Paul says, picking up his pace, hearing the footsteps behind him getting louder and quicker, too.
Fuck, he thinks, unable to just turn round and look.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
He jams his tongue against the lump.
The lump is his talisman.
It’s supposed to stop other bad things from happening to him.
So why isn’t it helping now?
‘Scuse me, mate?’ a hoarse voice behind him says. ‘Scuse me?’
Paul stops and turns round.
Why am I stopping? he thinks, tonguing the lump. Why am I turning round?
The man is wearing a dark blue coat with the hood pulled up, his face in shadow. ‘Let’s have a quick look at that phone, mate,’ he rasps.
This can’t be happening.
‘Sorry,’ Paul says, rooted to the spot.
‘Give us your fucking phone, mate, yeah?’
‘It’s got a crack on it,’ Paul says as he obediently hands the man his phone.
‘What’s in there?’ the man says, nodding at the laptop bag in Paul’s left hand.
‘Oh, it’s just . . .’ Paul says. ‘It’s just a really old, shit laptop.’
It’s a top-of-the-range MacBook Pro.
It still has over a year left on its extended warranty.
‘Well, fucking give it us or I’ll stab you up, yeah?’
Paul knows right then – for certain – that they are the only two human beings on this dark, whistling stretch of Oxford Road. The man isn’t tall or particularly well built. He’s about the same size as Paul. He has narrow eyes and a scab on the left side of his mouth. He isn’t holding a knife. He’s just holding Paul’s phone.
‘I . . .’ Paul says.
‘Fucking give it us,’ the man hisses, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, his eyes darting up and down the empty street then back to Paul. ‘Give it us or I’ll stab you up, you fucking bellend.’
So Paul hands the man his laptop, too, his beautiful, shiny MacBook Pro 13" with retina display and additional RAM.
The man turns and runs away with it.
Paul breathes out, dizzied from a sudden rush of adrenaline.
He might be sick.
He staggers across the pavement and rests himself against the cold, damp wall of the Manchester Museum, feeling pinpricks of rain on his neck and cheeks and forehead.
My novel, Paul thinks, as a strange, manic delight begins to bubble in his stomach.
My novel!
Immediately, he begins drafting a new email in his head:
Dear Julian, I’m sorry but my laptop’s been stolen. It had absolutely everything on it. I’m so stupid. I’m such a fucking idiot. I should have backed things up externally. I know. But I didn’t. And the one hard copy I had was in the bag too. Can you believe it? Which ultimately means, Julian, that my novel – which I’m afraid to say was actually becoming kind of amazing – I hate to tell you is now lost, completely, forever.
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 01:34:12 +0000
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Sorry
Sorry, again again again, for my late reply.
I’ve mostly just been super busy at the cafe. Also, a weird thing happened which I feel strangely nervous about telling you for some stupid reason.
I’m being silly. I’ll just say it.
Okay, well, first of all I went to that bar your friend suggested, The Railway Club, with Emily and Jenn from work last week and we all got really smashed, but in a fun, silly way. It was probably one of my best nights out here so far actually. And afterwards, Jenn took us to this nightclub with Japanese-style karaoke booths at the back and Jenn sang Britney Spears and I sang Cat Stevens and Simon & Garfunkel songs and Emily sang New York, New York three times in a row.
And anyway, so that’s that, and I’m at work a few days later and then something happens that’s just so ridiculous I still kind of can’t quite believe it . . . are you ready for this?
I GOT AN I SAW U OF MY OWN.
What are the chances, right?!
Here it is in all its ridiculous glory:
BRITS ABROAD
Railway Club, Saturday night. You were out with your friends and I was the ‘boring’ British bloke at the bar who recognised your accent and made you laugh about what might be happening on EastEnders. You said I looked Scottish (whatever that means). As you were leaving you told me where you worked but like an idiot I’ve forgotten. Please get in touch. I’d love to make you laugh again.
So . . . yeah. That’s Part One of the story.
Let’s have a quick interlude now, where I go and make myself a cup of Emily’s weird herbal tea and gather my thoughts . . .
Okay, I’m back. So here’s Part Two:
Well, I went on a date with him (Emily and Jenn both badgered me, relentlessly, I had
no real choice) and I really thought it was going to be awful, so we arranged for him to just pop in and have a coffee on my lunchbreak, but guess what: it was actually okay.
He’s nice.
He’s called Michael, and he’s a little bit older (31) and there’s just something extremely calm and quiet and reassuring about him. This sounds so stupid but as I was talking to him I felt the frantic, chattering thing inside me – which if I’m honest has been going pretty much non-stop since god-knows-when – actually fall silent for a while.
I felt like a better version of myself. If that makes any kind of sense?
So I’ve decided that I think I’m going to meet him again.
I don’t know, it might be nothing, it probably is nothing, but he’s really nice and I like him and I’m just surprised at how easy it was to talk to him.
Please, please, please say you’re happy for me, Ian. I need you to be a friend about this.
L
x
LAUREN
2014
On the bus home I got a text from Carl, the guy I’d cancelled on: How about tonight instead? The bus stopped and more passengers got on. A woman asked if I was reading the paper on the seat next to me. I shook my head and she picked it up and sat down and opened it and started leafing through, her elbow digging softly in my ribs.
Dog of the Day!
162 die in factory blaze in Bangladesh!
Girl, 13, dies of ruptured stomach!
I could hear Ginny meowing behind the front door, before I’d even got it open. She wound around my legs, almost tripping me up as I went through to the kitchen and opened the cupboard and found there were no packets of food left, just a box of those dry things she always turned her nose up at. So I took the rest of the lasagne out of the fridge, spooned some into her dish and then slid the rest onto a microwavable plate.
‘There you go, Garfield,’ I said, putting her portion down on the floor.
She sniffed it, looked at me confused, sniffed it again, then began to lick the top of it.
I set ten minutes on the microwave, then went through to the living room and sat down on the sofa, turned on the TV, flicked through the channels, and fiddled with my phone.
I typed ‘Somalia’ into Wikipedia.
Somalia, I read, (Somali: Soomaaliya; Arabic: aṣ-Ṣūmāl /sө ̍maːliә/ so-mah-lee-ә), officially the Federal Republic of Somalia[1] (Somali: Jamhuuriyadda Federaalka Soomaaliya, Arabic: Jumhūriyyat aṣ-Ṣūmāl al-Fiderāliyya), is a country located in the Horn of Afr . . .
I let my eyes stray a little down the screen.
. . . has a population of around 10 million. About 85% of residents are ethnic Somalis,[3] who have historically inhabited the northern part of the country. Ethnic minorities make up the remainder and are largely concentrated in the . . .
I skipped on further.
. . . succession of treaties with these kingdoms, the British and Italians gained control of parts of the coast and established the colonies of British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland.[17][18] In the interior, Muhammad Abdullah Hassan’s Dervish State successfully repelled the British Empire four times and forced it to retreat to the coastal region,[19] The Dervishes were finally defeated in 1920 by British airpower.[20] Italy acquired full control of the northeastern and southern parts of the area after successfully waging the so-called Campaign of the Sultanates against the ruling Majeerteen Sultanate and Sultanate of Hobyo.[18] Italian occupation lasted until 1941, yielding to British military administration. Northern Somalia would remain a protectorate, while southern Somalia became a United Nations Trusteeship in 1949. In 1960, the two regions united to form the independent Somali Republic under a civilian government.[21] Mohamed Siad Barre seized power in 1969 and established the Somali Democratic Republic. In 1991, Barre’s government collapsed as the Somali Civil War broke out . . .
What’s wrong with me? I thought.
It felt worse, somehow, to read the article without really processing it correctly than to not read it at all, so I closed it and put my phone as far away from me as I could without standing, right on the other arm of the sofa, face down.
I closed my eyes and focused on the movement of breath in and out of my lungs and the sofa beneath me and my hands in my lap and my whirring brain and my slightly full bladder and a pin-prick itch on my left shoulderblade and the aching arches of my feet and something that felt like a spot about to happen on my chin if I chewed my lip a certain way.
I opened my eyes, picked up my phone, and replied to Carl’s text.
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 01:34:12 +0000
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: ?
Please reply.
IAN
2014
‘Be good,’ Carol says on Friday morning, squeezing me tight. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’ We’re standing in the car park. It’s so early it’s still dark.
‘Can I use your car while you’re gone?’ I say.
This is a joke.
I’ve never learned to drive.
‘Don’t you dare,’ she says, smiling.
I wheel her suitcase over to Martin’s Audi and he pops the boot from inside and I lift it in.
‘I’ve left your present in the kitchen,’ she says.
‘I’ll give you yours when you get back,’ I say. ‘It’s still, um, on order.’
‘Please don’t accidentally burn everything down while I’m away.’
We hug again, and then she gets into the car and I turn and walk back towards the front door. Behind me I hear the squeal of Martin’s tyres as he races out of the drive.
There’s a parcel and a card on the table by the kitchen window.
I open the card first. Ian, Happy Birthday! it reads. She’s taped a tenner inside, with a big curly arrow pointing at it and the message, Have a drink on me!
I unpeel it and put it in my pocket.
The present is a long, green Marks & Spencer’s scarf.
I’ve never once in my life mentioned anything to Carol about needing a scarf and I look at it for a long time, wondering what could possibly have made her choose it, what exactly it was about a long green Marks & Spencer’s scarf that she thought I might like.
I try my very hardest to like it.
But at the same time, I can’t help but take it as an indicator of how little we really know each other any more.
On the bus into work I look around at all the other passengers on the lower deck and think: I am now a thirty-one-year-old man sat here on this bus. I smoked a roll-up at the bus stop, before I remembered I was supposed to be quitting. The tobacco was there in my coat pocket and I was still on autopilot. It’s okay, I tell myself. Today is a write-off. But you will definitely quit tomorrow. I catch a quick glimpse of my face reflected in the window of the bus and wonder if it looks however a thirty-one-year-old man’s face is supposed to look.
I fiddle with the end of my green scarf and look out of the window and hope that Carol is having a nice weekend away with Martin.
Just before my stop, my phone beeps.
I open the message, hoping it might somehow be from Dalisay even though she doesn’t have my number.
It’s from Mum:
Happy birthday love hop you ar having a lovely day love nun, it says.
While Martin’s away, Dean stands in as manager. He’s wearing an old grey suit instead of his usual jeans and jumper, and he stoops in the doorway and claps his hands in a pale imitation of Martin and tells us all to get cracking and that he’ll be back in a bit to check up on us.
Dalisay’s terminal remains empty. I keep my eye fixed on the doorway all morning, willing her to walk through it, before finally remembering that she said she was helping her aunt.
There’s a tangible lack of enthusiasm in the room.
It’s still somehow a week till payday.
We’re all at our lowest ebb.
I log into Facebook but she�
�s still not accepted my friend request.
I click in the search bar, type ‘Lauren Cross,’ and hit return, knowing there’ll be nothing there, there never is, but checking anyway.
I scroll through the results and, as usual, none of them are her.
The dialler chirps.
The phone rings in my ear.
I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
PAUL
2014
Paul sits in the doctor’s waiting room, attempting to read a list of the Fifteen Guaranteed Ways to Give Your Girl a Screaming Orgasm but he can’t really concentrate. He keeps reading number six (‘The Bowling Ball Technique’) over and over, his stomach churning and fluttering.
‘Mr Saunders?’ the receptionist says eventually.
‘That’s me,’ Paul says, raising a trembling hand.
‘Doctor O’Brien will see you now. Room three.’
Paul stands. He puts GQ back on the coffee table. He leaves the waiting room.
This is it, he thinks, as he walks along the corridor. This is the moment my life changes forever. It will just be doctors and hospitals from this moment onwards. Everything will smell of disinfectant. I will never go to Australia or give my girl a screaming orgasm or publish another novel ever again.
He pushes open the door to room three and the doctor, a doughy, grey-haired man in his late forties, smiles at him warmly.
‘Paul,’ he says, like they’ve met before. ‘What can we do for you, then?’
Paul lowers himself shakily into the chair.
He’s not eaten anything except a Mars bar in the last forty-eight hours.
‘It’s . . . It’s . . . Well, I’ve got this . . . lump . . . on my gum.’
‘Right, okay,’ Doctor O’Brien says, nodding, like a lump on the gum is a perfectly normal thing for a thirty-one-year-old male to have. ‘And how long have we had this lump, do you think?’
‘Maybe two months?’ Paul says. ‘I’m not too sure.’
‘Right, let’s have a look then,’ Doctor O’Brien says.
He stands up and comes out from behind his desk. He puts on an eyepiece and a pair of rubber gloves and picks up a little mirror on a stick. ‘Can you show me which gum it’s on, please?’ he says. ‘Just tip your head back a little further for me, would you?’