by Lisa Jewell
She opened up a packet of pumpkin seeds and flicked through twenty pages of adverts full of seventeen-year-old girls with eating disorders wearing dresses that cost as much as holidays until she finally found the article she was looking for.
The first story was about a secretary from Kent who’d found love with a Palestinian car mechanic in an Internet chatroom for fans of Michael Jackson. It was a sweet story and they were obviously genuinely in love, but, try as she might, Cass couldn’t see a happy ending for them.
The second story was about a lesbian from Dundee who’d found the courage to come out of her closet at the age of thirty-two after joining a chatroom for Scottish lesbians and was now a successful stand-up comedian.
But it was the third story that really caught Cass’s attention. A story about a thirty-four-year-old Internet MD from London – a story about a girl called Joy Downer.
It had to be her. It was an unusual name, the age was about right and the photograph of a petite, stylish, dark-haired girl with slightly oriental features perfectly matched the mental image that Vince’s description had left her with.
Cass tipped a handful of pumpkin seeds into her mouth and started to read:
I found my father – then I found myself
joy Downer, 34, was a thirty-something divorcée,
living at home with her mother and working in a photo lab
when a chance find in her parents’ loft changed the course of her life
for ever. She now runsWhateverhappenedto.com, the UK’s most
successful search and reunion website for friends, families and lovers.
‘My marriage was a disaster,’ says Joy, thirty-four. ‘I’d married in haste, barely giving a thought to the consequences, and of course it went horribly wrong very quickly. My parents had had a difficult marriage, too. They eventually divorced and, on the day that my father remarried, I found myself rooting around in the loft in my parents’ house. Within minutes I’d found a photo that I believed held the key to all the confusion in my life. It was a picture of a handsome young half-Tibetan boy, and I knew for certain the moment I saw the photograph that he was my real father. My mother later told me that he was a gardener in the apartment block where they lived in Singapore, that they’d had a passionate affair and that he was indeed my father. For some reason I didn’t feel all that surprised by the discovery. I’d always felt displaced, as if I didn’t quite belong in my environment. I was like a human chameleon – always trying to fit in with what other people expected of me, never being true to myself. I really didn’t know who I was, and my immediate and overwhelming reaction on hearing about my father was that I wanted to meet him.
‘My mother encouraged me and the very next day I went on-line to see if I could track him down. All I knew about him was his name and age, but in less than three hours I’d found him. I sent him an e-mail immediately, which he replied to the very next day. He sounded warm and friendly, and very soon I was organizing a trip to stay with him and his family in Columbus, Ohio.
‘I had no idea what to expect as I set off for America, but the minute I walked through customs at Columbus and saw my father standing there, I knew I’d done the right thing. He was everything I could have hoped for – sweet-natured, gentle, clever and family-minded. His wife made me feel incredibly welcome and, even though it felt a bit strange at first, being in a foreign country, living in a stranger’s house, I soon came to feel as if I was one of the family. I extended my trip from two weeks to two months so that I could spend as much time as possible with my father. I found that we had so much in common – it was little things, such as the fact that we both love people watching, we both pick our toenails and we both hate the smell of Scotch. We shared mannerisms, too, and his feet were exactly the same shape as mine!
‘When I eventually came home I felt like a different person, like I finally made sense. So instead of finding another job in a photo lab I decided to try something different with my newfound confidence. My experience of looking for my father on the Internet had inspired me. I’d been lucky – it had only taken me three hours to find my father. But it could have taken me much, much longer, or I might not have found him at all. It occurred to me that instead of trawling randomly through search engine results for a missing person, wouldn’t it be great if there was a website that did all the hard work for you. I mentioned the idea to my father in America and he loved it – so much so that he offered to lend me the money to start it up! Eight months later, the website finally went live. We now get over ten thousand hits a day and have been respon sible for reuniting hundreds of people, from ex-colleagues and first loves to old mates and adopted children. If we can’t find the person you’re looking for, you don’t pay a penny. I employ ten people and we have just won an industry award.
‘It’s so great going to work every day knowing that what I do makes a difference to people’s lives. I feel professionally fulfilled for the first time in my life and, on a personal level, reuniting people for a living made me realize how wasteful it is to let important people fall through your fingers. About two years ago I tracked down the man I originally thought was my father, the man who brought me up. I’ll never have a proper relationship with him, but it was reassuring to see him after so many years and to know that he is happy and content.
‘The Internet is an incredible thing. Every day I feel amazed and overwhelmed by its ability to impact on people in such tiny, personal ways and such huge, impersonal ways. I wouldn’t be where I am today without it – in fact, I would say that I owe my happiness to the World Wide Web.’
Cass sighed. She didn’t have a great deal of fondness for much that the modern world had to offer – she often felt that she’d have been happier in a more medieval setting, in a world with fewer flashing lights and more handicrafts (but possibly a touch more personal hygiene). But she made an exception for the Internet. It was a truly remarkable thing – so inherently human and touchingly old-fashioned.
She flicked back to the photograph of Joy Downer and stared at it for a while. She really was an incredibly pretty girl in an ethereal, slightly indie kid kind of a way. And now she’d seen her she could totally see why Vince had been infatuated with her. They would have been perfect together. A dream couple. Just like her and Hayden. She gulped at the thought of ending up apart from your soul mate. Poor Vince. Poor Joy. Everyone should have what she and Hayden had.
As she stared at the picture of the girl with the pretty eyes, Cass thought back to ten years ago, to her life as a carefree single girl in a flat share in Finsbury Park, before she’d got all grown-up and wrinkly, when Madeleine was still alive and she’d been convinced she was going to drop dead on her thirtieth birthday. She thought about Vince and his sweet smile and the way he’d carried on going out with that Magda girl for about six months longer than he’d meant to because he was too nice to dump her. She thought about the passage of time and how you really knew you were getting old when you had to start chucking out old memories to make room for the new ones, and she wondered how Vince was now, what he was up to, if he’d ever found a girl who truly appreciated him.
And then, as the train rushed through a tunnel and deafened her to the chatter of her fellow passengers, she closed her eyes, clasped her hands together and said a prayer to Carlos, her 150-year-old spirit guide, that Vince would read the October issue of Company magazine, that he’d send Joy an e-mail and that Vince and Joy would finally be reunited.
Sixty-One
Vince hated coming home. He could feel the Portuguese sunshine falling off him like flakes of dead skin as he headed towards passport control at Gatwick. With every step down the carpeted walkway he felt more and more of the mellow warmth and relaxation of his holiday being left behind. His bag weighed heavily on his shoulder, and the thought of what he was coming home to left him feeling sick with despondency. He wanted to turn around and start walking in the opposite direction, get back on the plane and be back at Faro airport in time for a nice dinner o
verlooking the sea.
His two weeks away had changed nothing. He was still living at his mum’s, still getting divorced and still a driving instructor. In a couple of weeks his tan would have faded to nothing, and it would be as if he’d never gone away.
He’d had plenty of time to think in Portugal.
He’d thought of all sorts of things he’d like to do with his life, but they were exactly the same things he’d thought about doing after being made redundant from Coalford Swann. Stupid, teenage fantasies about being both creatively fulfilled and ludicrously rich. But he was too old for teenage fantasies. He had a child. He had nowhere to live. He needed to do something that would earn him money, and quickly.
He flashed his passport at a dreary, disinterested British person and sighed heavily. The only good thing about coming home, he mused, was seeing Lara. He’d missed her like he’d miss an eyeball or a thumb. The ache of missing her had been physically painful.
He stopped with the rest of his flight mates under the luggage screens, waiting for his flight number to come up. He stared around him at the same faces he’d been staring at three hours ago at Faro airport, faces that had looked playful and cosmopolitan in the Portuguese light, faces that had started to fade as the minutes ticked by in the air, faces that now looked cheated and dampened as they waited resignedly to collect their luggage and head home. Coming back from holidays made Cinderellas out of everyone, he thought.
And then he caught the eye of a girl he hadn’t seen at Faro. A small, slim girl with straight brown hair cut into a feathery bob. She was dressed in a denim miniskirt and blue cotton halterneck and was laden down with duty-free vodka. She looked about thirty and was wearing slightly too much make-up. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but Vince couldn’t put his finger on it.
She looked at him quizzically. He looked away. When he looked at her again she was still staring at him in that probing way. He blushed. Suddenly she walked towards him.
‘I’ve just worked it out,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘You’re Vince, aren’t you? Vince-with-the-funny-surname?’
Vince looked round him, checking that no one was watching this slightly embarrassing exchange. ‘Er, yes,’ he said.
‘I knew it!’ she said, ‘I’ve got a memory for faces. It’s a talent. A skill.’ She beamed up at him. Her teeth were crooked and tinged yellow.
He smiled at her politely. There was something unsettling about her, something not quite right. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I don’t really, quite…’
‘No, no, no,’ she said, patting his arm reassuringly, ‘you’re not supposed to remember me. It’s all right. I’ve changed quite a bit since we last met.’ She beamed at him again. ‘Do you remember, about, God, must be about ten years ago now – do you remember a cat? A big orange cat called… ‘ The girl clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, trying to recall.
‘Madeleine?’ he offered.
‘That’s right!’ she pounced on his offering. ‘That’s right, Madeleine. Except we called her Mou-Shou and thought she was a he.’ She laughed and looked at him expectantly, and something began to rise, vapour-like, from the reservoirs of his memory. ‘Were you… ?’ he began, tentatively.
‘That’s right. Bella. I’m Bella. The new and improved version,’ she said as she flicked her hair.
‘Oh, my God,’ he said, ‘you look so…’
‘I know. I know. It’s fab, isn’t it? I had the op last year,’ she whispered. ‘Finally. Thank God. It only took, like, twenty years. So now I’m me. At last. Bugger of it is that no one ever recognizes me any more.’ She laughed nervously and took a breath. ‘So,’ she said, ‘what are you up to these days?’
Vince was still reeling from the shock of Bella’s transformation, not to mention his first ever face-to-face conversation with a post-operative transsexual. ‘Er… just in the middle of a divorce, actually,’ he said.
‘Oh, dear. Is it a nasty one?’
‘Not too bad. But then, you know, no divorce is good, is it?’
‘Ooh, I don’t know. That Joy’s divorce was good,’ she stopped momentarily. ‘Did you know?’ she said. ‘Did you know that Joy and that weird bloke got divorced?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that was the last time I spoke to her, actually. She was just about to get divorced.’
‘Thank God. That was such a relief, I tell you. I don’t know what she was thinking of. He was so wrong for her.’ She shook her head incredulously. ‘But getting divorced from him – the best thing she ever did. And that George has already remarried and got a kid. It was best for both of them; it really was. She’s just blossomed since they split up. Bought a flat. Got a proper job. Found her real dad.’
‘Her real dad…?’
‘Oh, yes – the drama of it. She found a photo in her mum’s loft. Some handsome young fellow with a fruity message written on the back. Turns out that old dumpling of a mother of hers had had a torrid affair with a boy young enough to be her son. Turns out that he was Joy’s real dad.’
‘Shit. You’re kidding.’
‘No. And Joy found him on the Internet and went and met him last year in the States. And she’s just been like this new person ever since. So confident. So go-getty’
‘Go-getty?’
‘Yeah. Leaving George, then finding her dad. She knows who she is now. She’s got an identity. And, boy, do I know how she feels.’ She stopped and smiled.
‘So, you’re still in touch with her, then?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘It’s funny because I really didn’t like her when I first met her. I don’t know why. I didn’t warm to her. But over the years she’s become one of my closest friends. She’s just the loveliest person I’ve ever known. And I’m fussy about people, I really am.’ She stopped and glanced up at the luggage announcement screens. ‘Fucking hate this,’ she said, ‘I mean, what are they actually doing with our bags, for God’s sake?’ She tutted and looked at her watch. ‘I’m seeing her tonight.’
‘Who-Joy?’
‘Uh-huh. Going round to hers for dinner, with Jules. D’you remember Jules?’
‘Is that the, er… large woman?’
‘Yes. Julia. With the boobs. That’s right. And Julia’s boyfriend – I mean, fiancé. She’s getting married in July.’ She smiled.
Vince smiled back. He didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t quite get his head around the concept of Joy still existing, of her still knowing these people who seemed like such a distant and dream-like part of his existence. He couldn’t believe that once upon a time all he’d had to worry about was weird flatmates, ex-girlfriends and missing cats. He couldn’t believe he’d lived in a flat share in Finsbury Park, that he’d worked as a copywriter, that he’d been twenty-six years old without a care in the world. It all seemed so petty and foolish.
‘So,’ he said, eventually, ‘what’s Joy up to these days?’
‘Well, she’s living in Southgate. She’s working for herself, running a website. Got her own little offices in Palmers Green, employs a few people. She’s doing really well…’
‘Wow,’ Vince nodded appreciatively. ‘And is she, you know, with anyone?’
Bella shook her head. ‘Nope. All alone and single. Why, are you still interested?’
Vince blanched. ‘God, no. Well, not in that way. I mean…
‘God, that was weird, wasn’t it, that business with the cat? Spooky. And I tried to tell Joy that you were after her then, but she didn’t believe me. Said she’d seen you with some stunning woman and a kid, that I was winding her up. And then she went and married that weird man and that was that. Didn’t really see her again for years.’
‘I saw her,’ said Vince, ‘just before they split up. I saw Joy in Covent Garden. We had a chat. She left him the next day.’
‘God,’ said Bella, ‘you two. You’ve got some kind of weird connection, haven’t you?’ She wiggled her fingers. ‘And now here we are again. Another spooky coincidence. Do you think maybe fate’s t
rying to tell you something?’
Vince shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ he said.
‘Ooh, I tell you what. Why don’t you come along tonight? For dinner?’
‘What!’
‘I’m serious. It would be so incredible to see her face when you turned up at the door.’
‘But I can’t. I’m not invited.’
‘Oh, sod that. What are you – a vampire? Joy always cooks way too much anyway. And she’s been single for long enough. She’s in danger of turning into a weird old spinster. Come along. It’ll be amazing.’
‘Oh, God,’ Vince began to fluster, ‘I don’t know. I mean I’ve only just got back from holiday. I need to unpack. I want to see my daughter…’
‘Your daughter goes to bed, doesn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, then, put her to bed, then jump in a cab. You’ll be there in time for the main course.’
‘I’m very tired…’
‘Tired?’ she complained. ‘Joy Downer, the loveliest girl in all the world, the girl you lost your virginity to, a beautiful single girl who makes the best mushroom risotto in north London is waiting for you in Southgate and you’re tired? You’re just going to go home to an empty flat and sleep?’
Vince stopped and licked his lips. Because he wasn’t just going home to an empty flat, was he? He was going to visit his daughter for half an hour before she went to bed, engage in a few minutes of mealy-mouthed questions and answers with Jess, then head back to his mum’s to sleep in a thirteen-year-old boy’s bedroom.
Suddenly the thought of a plate of home-made risotto and a bottle of wine in convivial surroundings struck him as just the cure for the post-holiday blues. And the idea of seeing Joy again, well, he wasn’t quite sure how he felt about that. He brought her face to mind, tried to remember what she’d looked like at seventeen, a moody teenager in army surplus, at twenty-five, a radiant bride in cream linen, and the last time he’d seen her, a chic girl about town in jeans and sunglasses, about to leave her husband and reclaim her independence. He remembered that strange feeling he’d had after he spoke to her for the last time, that feeling of wanting to share her journey. Before life had started piling up on top of him like the contents of an over-full cupboard and he’d forgotten all about her again.