by Andrea Mara
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” I reply, then feel guilty when I look at Ava and Rebecca.
CatherineW says she wishes she’d known she looked good, instead of worrying about losing weight – now she wants to look like she did in her twenties. This is all getting a bit serious, I think, replying to tell her she looks amazing. At least I assume she does – I’ve never met her in real life.
Then I see a third tweet from the account called “VIN”. Three less friendly unpunctuated words this time:
Where are you
I click into it to look at the details. It’s a new account – only one tweet so far – the question to me. No profile picture, no details at all. The display name is “VIN” and the underlying username below that is @Vin_H_O_Rus. Someone’s initials? I must be staring because Rebecca notices.
“What’s up, Mum, is something wrong?”
I put down my phone. “Nothing. Just an odd message.”
Ava looks up now. “It’s not that weird guy from last year again, is it? The one who was sending you the horrible ‘I am watching you’ messages? Leon?”
I shake my head. “No, God, nothing like that, love – don’t worry. Leon is long gone. He got bored when I stopped replying. He’s not back, I’m certain.”
But I’m lying. Really, I’m not sure at all.
Chapter 2
There she is again, in the same deckchair in the shallow waves. I stop running to look out at the water and, although my phone is full of sea-blue photos, my finger swipes instinctively to the camera. Swivelling so that my back is to the sea, I stretch my arms to take a photo of myself. I’m usually cautious with selfies in case anyone from work sees one, but I’m pretty sure Lauren-the-runner in sunglasses and ponytail won’t be identifiable as Lauren-the-psychologist with make-up and a carefully groomed bob. Imagine if Brian realised I have a blog – he’d be purple, and adamant it’s against clinic policy. It isn’t, I’ve checked the handbook. But still, I can see why clients might not like it if the person in whom they confide their innermost thoughts is also running a photography blog.
My phone vibrates as I close the camera – another Twitter notification, and from the same account as last night – VIN.
Ignoring me won’t work. I can see you’re in Venice – who is the woman in your photo?
The morning sun is beating down but suddenly I feel cold. ‘Ignoring me won’t work.’ That’s exactly the kind of thing Leon used to say. Shit. Of course he’s not gone away – why would he? ‘Ignoring me won’t work.’ I thought it did, but maybe he just found someone else to torment for a while. I hit the block option so he can’t tweet me any more – something I should have done much sooner first time round, wondering what ‘VIN’ means, and why Leon changed his name.
The narrow Venice streets are restless and bustling – busier this afternoon than during our first visit last week, and humidity cloaks us at every step. Rebecca says we should have stayed on the beach, but it seems daft to come all this way and only travel into the city once. We cross a tiny stone bridge and stop to look down over the water – more to get a breather than to see anything in particular. Lines of coloured shirts and backpacks stretch down the canal-side street, on to the next bridge and beyond, like a determined but slow-moving Chinese dragon dance. We watch for a while, resting our elbows on the stone parapet, then I get the girls to face me for a photo. On auto-pilot they smile and, just as I’m about to take it, a man crosses between us. He turns to face the camera when I press the button, as though posing with the girls, then walks on. Instinctively I laugh, though I’m not sure if I get the joke. The girls want to see the picture. The man is wearing a bright-red baseball cap and sunglasses and he’s not smiling, though his head is inclined towards Rebecca, as if he’s meant to be in the shot. Then Ava points out that he’s wearing a Guinness T-shirt – probably an Irish tourist who spotted we were Irish too, she says, and decided to photobomb. It makes sense, though why he looks so serious I don’t know. That’s part of the joke, Ava says, shaking her head at me. I’m obviously too old for the joke. I want to crop him out of the photo before I share it on Instagram but the girls want to keep him in. There’s no accounting for teen humour, nevertheless I do as I’m asked, then we slip back into the throngs of tourists weaving their way down the sweltering street.
At the next laneway we duck away from the canal in search of shade. It’s not much cooler, but in the small square up ahead I can see an ice-cream café, which more than likely means air-conditioning. My phone buzzes as we shuffle behind a tour group – another tweet from VIN. How did he do that if I blocked him? It takes me a moment to spot that he’s set up a completely new profile with a similar username, by adding a “1” at the end. @Vin_H_O_Rus1. I stop to open it.
Nice to be so close to you
My stomach lurches – what does that mean? I stand still as people jostle against me, my head swivelling left and right, but nobody is looking at me. My phone buzzes again.
I could almost smell you
Jesus, is he here?
Another tweet:
What’s that perfume you’re wearing?
A man bumps against me and I flinch – he mutters something under his breath and keeps moving. All around, tourists push their way towards the square and there’s nobody standing still or watching me.
Another tweet pops up:
And nice to be so near to your daughter. Rebecca, is it?
Oh my God, where are the girls? I start pushing through the crowd, apologising as I force my way towards the square, until I see Ava standing outside the ice-cream shop. But there’s no sign of Rebecca.
“Where’s your sister?” I ask, half shouting when I get to her.
Ava looks confused. “Is she not with you?”
“No, I stopped for a minute, I didn’t see where she went.”
My eyes scour the crowd as it passes, looking for red curls.
“Mum, just ring her – there’s no panic – she knows we’re coming here, doesn’t she?” Ava says, pointing into the café.
Of course, I just need to ring her. I take out my phone and find another message from VIN.
She’s very pretty. I like her red hair.
Oh fuck. I think I’m going to throw up. My fingers rattle over the screen as I pull up Rebecca’s number, but it goes straight to voicemail. I try again, and still the crowd trails past, oblivious to my rising panic. Again it goes to voicemail. Oh my God, where is she?
Two policemen come out of the restaurant next door.
“Excuse me, can you help?” I hurry over. “My daughter’s missing!”
I show them her photo – the one I just took on the bridge.
“Does she have a phone? You can try to call her?” one of them asks in accented but perfect English.
“I tried but it’s going to voicemail. And this man has been sending me messages.” I pull up the VIN tweets. They look confused. “I’m afraid he’s here and that maybe he –” My voice breaks, swallowing the end of the sentence.
“Mum!” Ava is calling me.
I look behind me and see Rebecca standing beside her, outside the café.
“Rebecca, my God, where were you?” I march over, cross and relieved and foolish.
“Eh, in the toilet of the café? What’s the panic?”
“But I phoned you – it went to voicemail?”
She shrugs. “I don’t have any missed calls. The toilets are downstairs, probably out of coverage.”
I check my phone – two more tweets have come in from VIN while I was searching for her.
She smells nice too.
I liked being in your photo on the bridge. It makes me feel closer to all of you.
Jesus. I pull up the photo again and look at the man in the baseball cap. VIN? He found us?
“Rebecca, did anyone speak to you? That man?”
“What man?”
“The man who stood into our picture on the bridge – did you see him again?”
“
God, Mum, it was just a photobomb – people do stuff like that all the time.”
Glancing behind me, I put my arms around the girls to herd them into the ice-cream café and we take a seat by the window so I can watch people going past. The girls babble about ice-cream flavours and I smile and nod but my eyes are on the crowd. Then I see him. The red baseball cap, the dark glasses, in among a group of tourists following a flag-wielding guide. Pushing back my stool, I dart outside and before I can stop to think about what I’m going to say, I squeeze my way through the tour group and grab the man by the elbow.
He yanks his arm away and jumps back, then starts yelling at me in Spanish.
“Who are you?” I yell back. “Did you send me those messages?”
He takes off his sunglasses and bewildered eyes stare at me. He backs away, jostling the woman behind him. She links arms with him, and asks him something in Spanish. Pointing at me, he shakes his head.
“No hablo ingles,” he says to me.
“My husband doesn’t speak English. I think you mix him with someone else?” the woman says, looking me up and down.
A small circle forms around me and suddenly I want to be anywhere but here – a frazzled, half-manic woman accusing strangers on a Venice street.
“But you were in my photo – on the bridge,” I say to the man. “Have you been following me? Messaging me?”
He looks confused, and his wife says something to him in Spanish.
He laughs and replies to her.
“The photo was a joke,” she says. “My husband is sorry if it offends you. He doesn’t send you any messages. How would he do that?”
I don’t think her husband is sorry but it’s a moot point – it’s clear he’s not the person who’s been tweeting me. With as much dignity as I can muster, I mumble an apology and turn back towards the café, ignoring the muttering and laughing behind me.
Ava and Rebecca stare open-mouthed when I return to our table and immediately want to know what it was about. I don’t want to tell them about VIN, so I go for a watered-down version of the truth.
“I think someone back home saw the photo of you two with the guy on the bridge and thought it would be funny to message me pretending to be him.”
The girls look confused.
“But it wasn’t him,” I continue. “He’s a Spanish tourist with no idea what I was talking about. The messages are from someone playing a trick on me. Easy to do when you think about it. No big deal.”
I smile to reassure them that I’m not losing it but, as I sit eating melted ice cream, still shaking from the encounter, I wonder if perhaps I am.
The girls are tired after the trip to Venice and there’s no card game on the deck tonight – by ten they’re in their rooms. I’m reading my book outside except I’m not really, I’m scrolling through Facebook. A tweet comes in from VIN.
Did you enjoy meeting me on the bridge? Or was it me? I guess you’ll never know.
Then another:
Blocking me won’t work by the way, I’m not going anywhere until you tell me about the woman on the beach. And perhaps we can have more fun in the meantime.
Jesus Christ. Could it be Leon, watching my holiday through what I post online? It doesn’t sound like him though – not with the questions about the girl in the beach photo. Then again maybe that’s just a sideshow and the main aim is to freak me out . . . God, it’s all just speculation – I don’t even know if it’s him.
Right, block. He’s gone.
I switch off my phone.
Chapter 3
She wasn’t on the beach this morning and, unexpectedly, I missed her. She was like a cornerstone, with swimmers and walkers flowing around, while she stayed perfectly still, just being. The sea was as blue as it is every day but it failed to lift me – I’d slept badly, dreaming about Leon, and when I got up I argued with the girls over the mess in the mobile home. So, on my way back to the campsite, I stopped to pick up coffee and pastries. My mother would say I was feeling guilty. But it was worth it – the girls were happy, and the sugar and caffeine are giving me the lift I need.
Sitting on the deck, drinking the last of my coffee, I feel better. Then my phone vibrates, breaking the mood, and I know who it’s going to be before I look. VIN with another new account, @Vin_H_O_Rus2. All he needs is a new email address each time and he can keep setting up accounts indefinitely. Christ.
You are obviously used to obsessing about yourself, but NEWSFLASH – not everything is about you. Who is the woman?
My mouth goes dry as I read the message a second time. This doesn’t sound like Leon. Shit. I should never have posted the photo. My fingers race to press delete – from Instagram, from Facebook, from Twitter. It’s too little, too late, and I know it. The irony catches me – how often have I drilled it into the girls – once you share something online, it’s there forever. Deleting it afterwards is useless. But it feels better than doing nothing. I need to ask TheDailyByte.ie to take it down too, and while I’m searching for their contact details, another tweet comes in.
Deleting it is a waste of time – I saved the photo. It doesn’t change anything, I’m not going away until you tell me who she is.
What the hell does he want with the woman in the photo – does he know her? But then why is he asking me about her? I block him again but I already know he’ll be back.
Ava and Rebecca want to go to the beach for the afternoon. I try to talk them out of it – the sun is hotter than it has been, and they’ve both got Dave’s fair skin. But they insist, and tell me that’s what sun cream is for.
My phone rings as we’re about to leave, shrill in the quiet afternoon air. Work. Great. I consider not answering but it’ll hang over me all afternoon if I don’t. Ignoring the look Ava’s giving me, I pick up.
“Lauren, it’s Brian. I’m sorry to call you on holidays but I need you to do a quick interview with a journalist about the impact of redundancy on mental health and everyone else is too busy. You’re very good with these things – she’ll call you at 3 o’clock our time. So that’s what – an hour later or an hour earlier wherever you are?”
Wow, thanks for working that out for me, I want to say. But I don’t.
“I’m just about to head out with the girls – maybe someone else can do it, once all the appointments are done?”
“Sorry, I wouldn’t ask if I had someone else – we’re all stretched at the moment while you’re on leave. And we need to take any opportunity we can to get Steps to Wellness a mention in the media – it’s all about the clinic’s profile. Thanks, Lauren, I appreciate it.”
I glance up at Ava. She’s glaring at me and tapping her foot.
“Can you give me the journalist’s details and I’ll call her this evening when I’m free?”
There’s a hint of petulance when he passes me her number, as though I’m putting him out and not the other way around.
“And listen, we may need to look at your hours, Lauren. It’s difficult to manage the clinic when you’re working shorter days than everyone else. I’m worried about you more than anything – it must be hard to fit everything in, and you need to focus on self-care too. So we’ll talk when you’re back.”
Way to ruin a holiday, thanks, Brian. I force a smile into my voice. “I’m sure I can make it work – I was thinking of taking my paperwork home with me at night – sure we’ll chat when I’m back.” I hang up before he can sound any more death knells.
Ava is still glaring. “Mum, don’t be such a wuss – just tell him you’re on holidays and can’t do the call.”
“It’s fine, I don’t mind chatting to journalists,” I tell her, stuffing a beach towel into my bag.
“But not on your holidays – you’re meant to be spending time with us!”
I manage to suppress what I really want to say about dealing with a sulky child as well as a sulky boss, and instead promise her it’s the one and only work-call I’ll do.
My phone beeps again but I know better than to check
it and, by the time we get to the beach, Ava has forgotten she was cross. The two of them stretch out, determined to tan, Rebecca with a book on mythology and Ava with something depressingly dystopian.
On any other day, I’d lie down too, but unease keeps me upright, my eyes combing the umbrellas and sunbathers that line the sand in higgledy-piggledy rows. Something catches my eye – the girl from the photograph, sitting in a deckchair just a little to my left. Her hair glints in the late-afternoon sun and a pale-blue sundress sets off her tan. In a sea of bikinis she looks apart. I must be staring – she glances over. Turning away, I rummage in my bag for my book but instead my hand closes around my phone. Two emails, a missed call from my mother, and two tweets, both from a new VIN account.
You’re so self-obsessed. I don’t actually care about you. Who is the woman?
And another:
I’m not going anywhere. I’ll see you very soon.
I look over at the girl, then back down at my phone, and start to feel sick.
Chapter 4
In the end, the call with the journalist is easy. I phone her while the girls are getting ready to go out and we bond over a shared love of Montepulciano when I tell her I’m in Italy – a wine neither of us can pronounce, but both of us like to drink. I give her what she needs for her article and she says it reminds her of her own redundancy and how anxious she felt, even though her partner had a good job. Not for the first time since Dave left, the fear of losing my job hits. I never thought like this before we broke up – even in the downturn, we were fine. People always need doctors. Not so much psychologists in private practice, but it didn’t matter because Dave was there. And then he wasn’t.