Digital Circumstances

by BRM Stewart

  Then we got onto personal stuff. She said she was sorry about Fiona, but never had a chance to properly say it. I spoke about the days before she had died, not realising how ill she had become – though it was obvious now, looking back at holiday snaps of our honeymoon in the Algarve, and comparing them with the photos of our last Christmas together.

  I began to cry, and Sam held my hand and buried her face in the nape of my neck, her other hand on the back of my head. I could smell her perfume, feel the softness of her body. After she went to buy more drinks – I gave her the money – she picked up my hand again and sat close to me, our hips touching.

  Sam spoke about her family: her big sister had had a second baby and then separated from her ‘two-timing shagger’ of a husband. Sam lived with her mum in Partick; her mum worked in a shop; her dad had left a long time ago. Sam didn’t have a boyfriend at the moment.

  ‘Did you and Charlie ever…?’

  She grimaced. ‘Yeah. He’s a good-looking guy, but he’s such a flash twat. He moved on.’

  ‘Must have been awful for you.’

  She looked blankly at me with her dark brown eyes framed by heavy mascara. ‘It was good fun. He took me up to a hotel near Loch Lomond for the weekend once. Treated me really good, like a princess. But I think he shagged one of the waitresses when we were there.’ She shrugged.

  We spoke about music: I didn’t listen to much, but knew one or two of the bands she mentioned. She didn’t read books, I didn’t have time. She liked going to the cinema with her friends, but I didn’t know any of the films she’d seen.

  We had almost nothing in common, apart from working in the same place.

  Out on the pavement, I looked around for a taxi for her. ‘You just going home?’ I asked her as we waited in the darkness and the light rain.

  She grimaced. ‘Suppose.’ She didn’t look at me.

  ‘Want to come back to my place…?’ I had no idea why I suggested that, and waited for the refusal.

  She linked her arm in mine. ‘OK.’

  We crossed the road through the traffic, along and upstairs, while I wondered what sort of condition I’d left it in that morning, couldn’t remember when the cleaner had last been in.

  Once inside, I went to the toilet and urged her to make herself a drink – there was beer and coke in the fridge, an old half-bottle of vodka in a cupboard in the lounge. I tidied up the bathroom a bit, but luckily it wasn’t too bad.

  In the lounge, she had shut the curtains, and was sitting on the sofa with her vodka and coke, a beer poured into a glass for me. ‘This place needs a bit of a makeover, Martin.’

  I sat beside her, looked round the tired decor, and agreed. ‘Cheers.’

  I took a sip of my beer, and then reached to touch her arm. She didn’t respond for a minute or two, and then she just finished her drink in one go and put the glass on the carpet, and leaned towards me. I kissed her on the mouth, and my hands were around her, and hers were around me, holding me. Nothing was said. I just let my desire run away with me, not thinking about the next morning, not thinking that I didn’t love her in any sense but that she must have some kind of feelings for me after all.

  Amongst the tangle of limbs and hands we somehow got each other undressed, and my lips were everywhere on her white body, and she held me and let me wander over her.

  ‘I don’t have any condoms,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t worry. Just pull out, OK? Please?’

  I was worried for a moment that I wouldn’t be able to function at all, because of the ghost of Fiona in the room, but my young hormones won the day.

  Finally we slept, a blizzard of tissues scattered round the lounge and the bedroom. In the morning I woke with a splitting headache and a profound sense of guilt, thinking that this was a betrayal of Fiona and also a betrayal of Sam. At one point during the night she’d whispered: ‘I always fancied you, Martin. I thought we’d never get it together.’ And she’d snuggled her body close against me. I did enjoy holding someone during the night, a warm soft body next to me.

  Now, in the morning, her fingers were working on me and, as she climbed on top of me with the biggest smile I’d ever seen on her face – and almost comical panda eyes from smudged mascara – I found I couldn’t refuse her, and decided to deal with my guilt later.

  *

  Sam and I continued our relationship, though ‘relationship’ makes it sound more than it was: we had sex, lots of it. And she kept my flat tidy, and stayed there almost every night. She looked so happy it made me miserable, but every time I thought of breaking it off she would reach down with her cool, soft hands and I would again concede to short-term gratification. She obviously thought that my odd manner was the after-effects of Fiona’s death, and that I would come out of it in due course. I hadn’t ever realised she had wanted me, that her liaison with Charlie had been to spite me, get my attention. I didn’t love her in any sense, and we hadn’t anything in common out of bed, and it wasn’t fair letting her think there was hope, but I just couldn’t break it off. Part of me had wondered whether Fiona had been the only one that would ever want me, and that what I had with Sam was probably as good as I was ever going to get now – so, being young, I stayed with what I had.

  The business soldiered on. The new office along St Vincent Street had opened up, under the name B&D Software Solutions. It was bright, glossy, cool and, well, business-like – not like the workshop in Argyle Street. We acquired a young receptionist with good people skills and a working knowledge of computers; she was pretty too, and expert at fending off unwanted attention.

  At first there weren’t any customers. I discussed this with Sandy, but he said Talbot wasn’t bothered – give it time. They would come.

  Along on Argyle Street, we were still doing OK, but I was aware things had changed again. There was still a group of gamers and hobbyists, but mainly we were getting people who used their computers for word-processing and spreadsheets, ‘looking at things on the Internet’, and sending emails. We tried to push some of them towards St Vincent Street, and gradually it seemed to happen, with the enthusiasts staying at Argyle Street.

  Gradually I was spending more of my time in St Vincent Street as that side picked up – installing Windows 95 and finding drivers for the peripherals punters wanted, making sure they bought a much bigger hard drive than they needed – at least three gig, and preferably five – and the anti-virus software, an email client. We would phone after a few days, check everything was working fine. Word got around that we did a good job, cared for our customers, were in for the long game, not a fast buck.

  Davey and I were still drawing a very nice salary, and cash payments and bonuses kept appearing, along with mysterious forms to sign that had the names of strange companies on them: Sandy said it was just a way of avoiding tax, not to worry about it. I couldn’t quite see how we the company was making so much money. Every time I spoke to Sandy, he shrugged and just repeated that Ken Talbot wasn’t bothered, so I should just enjoy the ride.

  I joined a gym. I’d always been stick-thin, and walked everywhere, but a lifestyle of big meals, taxis, junk food and loads of alcohol had given me a little tummy and a general flabbiness. I went three times a week, building up my stamina on the running machines, enduring the hell of the cross-trainer. I began going out for runs, round Kelvingrove Park, and along the river, faster and further each time. The exercise left me with a high, but there was more booze afterwards, and despair. I felt trapped by my relationship with Sam, and I felt guilty: beyond the sex, there was nothing. I was using her. And, given that, the business success felt hollow, the money meaningless. I felt I was drifting from day to day.

  *

  In the trade press there was an advert for a 3-day conference in London – ‘exploiting the world wide web’, and I asked Davey if he fancied it. He didn’t want to leave Jane for that length of time, so I went myself, flying to Gatwick, into Victoria on the Gatwick Express, and a taxi out to the big hotel in Kensington. I hadn’t
visited London before, and it was all so busy and noisy; warmer than Glasgow, but with many more people packed in, and indecipherable accents.

  That evening we had an ‘ice-breaker’ in our groups in the main conference suite, and initial discussions about what we thought the Internet could be used for – everyone used the phrase ‘blue-sky thinking’. We had dinner with loads of wine, and then a presentation in the main conference room, using a digital projector showing PowerPoint slides fading into each other, flashing and twirling. I watched the effects, and realised a couple of things: I hadn’t been keeping up with developments as well as I’d thought, and I had no idea what the presentation was about.

  I paid closer attention and started to note down things B&D had to do. My mind began to work, and I realised there was a whole dimension out there that I had been missing. I’d been moving on day to day, but there was a leap to be made. The stupid ideas I’d had for websites weren’t stupid at all – or, rather, they weren’t stupid enough. I sat up in my seat, and exchanged smiles with the woman sitting beside me.

  The delegates were of all ages, with relatively few women, most of whom kept quite quiet. We were all dressed in suits, though some of the young men didn’t wear ties, and I discreetly took mine off at one point. As the evening progressed, I began to notice who the really smart people were, who were the bullshitters, who were the guys with the cheque books, and who were the thinkers, taking it all in.

  I wasn’t sure what anyone thought of me, but, after we’d changed following the final evening presentation and drifted back down to the bar, I found I had attracted a couple of the men and one woman, all of whom I had badged as ‘really smart’. I bought an eye-wateringly expensive round of drinks for us, and we tucked ourselves in a corner, away from the others, forming a tight group that defied anyone to break in.

  The woman was called Elizabeth Davidson – she’d been beside me at the presentation. She was tall, a few years older than me, into her thirties, and was now wearing a dark denim skirt and a loose, checked shirt. She had light brown hair that brushed her shoulders, and a strong, calm, handsome face that lit up when she smiled, showing perfect teeth. She sat very still, sipping white wine, but the fingers on one hand played with the engagement ring on her left hand; I took that as a sign that she was drawing everyone’s attention to it. She worked in a large bookshop in York, and had declared an interest in early signs of Internet shopping. She had a classless accent with hints of Yorkshire in some vowels.

  One of the men was called Raymond Jones. He worked for a bank in London. Once you got past the gelled, spiky hair, the casual jacket and trousers that looked smarter than my suit, and the public school accent, he turned out to be quite a sharp guy. He was exploring banking online. ‘There’s been some available since the early 80’s,’ he told us, ‘but very much a niche market. We are ready to manage credit cards online, deal in shares – not just check your account.’

  ‘Won’t people worry about security?’ Elizabeth asked.

  ‘There are lots of ways to make it secure – the maths is all in place: there are systems for secure log-ins and for making transactions secure with short-term one-off passwords.’

  We nodded. ‘But,’ I argued, ‘the biggest risk is the soft fleshy thing attached to the keyboard.’ They laughed, especially Elizabeth. I was thinking of the replies I’d had to those spoof emails where I had pretended to be a bank and just asked for people’s details.

  ‘Pornography on the Internet too,’ Raymond said.

  Elizabeth grimaced: ‘Oh god no!’

  The other man was Colin Strachan, shorter than me and several years older, with greying hair. He actually contributed little, but he asked questions and listened carefully to all the discussion on online security. He was a ‘consultant’, which apparently meant he knew a lot but didn’t have a job.

  I told them about myself and our company, and the need to move up a gear, ride the Internet thing properly.

  ‘Are you married, Martin?’ Elizabeth asked as Raymond went to get drinks, quickly lifting her glass, averting her eyes but then flicking them back to hold mine.

  ‘Widowed,’ I said. ‘A few years ago now.’

  ‘In a relationship?’

  I grimaced: ‘That’s a complicated story. I see you’re engaged.’

  ‘That’s a complicated story as well.’

  We all went our separate ways to bed, knackered, excited, and a bit drunk.

  The next day was longer, lots of brain-storming, presentations, alcohol to keep down the critical faculties, and an hour in the hotel gym – Elizabeth was there, her full figure suddenly noticeable in tight Lycra as she ran on the machine beside me, her long legs matching my pace.

  The ideas came thick and fast: banking on the internet (from Raymond), selling books, selling groceries, selling CDs, playing music (laughter here, but I told them about those two guys in the US who had created IUMA, the Internet Underground Music Archive, and the compression of audio as MP2 files, and the ever-increasing speed of modems, that all made distributing music on the internet feasible), sharing photographs (shouted down – modems were far too slow), playing movies (hysterical laughter from everyone), sharing information, being able to have group discussions, collaborate on documents.

  Again, the four of us formed a closed group in the bar after dinner – others had gone out to find different pubs, but we had tacitly agreed to stay here. We picked up on the ideas we had listened too. Elizabeth knew of an American company which had been formed to sell books online, and the idea terrified her. ‘Customers will come in to browse our stock and see what they like, and then go away and buy it cheaper online.’

  We offered her suggestions. ‘Set it up yourself: send out catalogues of your stock – or let them browse your shop online, and deliver the books yourself. There will always be people who trust the local bookshop more than an online retailer. Anyone over, say, fifty isn’t going to shop on the Internet unless he can walk round to physically complain afterwards that he never got the right book.’

  ‘Online banking,’ Raymond said. ‘Easy to move money around, pay bills.’

  ‘How do you deposit money?’ Elizabeth asked, and we laughed as I described people shoving fivers into their floppy disk drives.

  ‘No no no. Everybody gets their salary paid directly into the bank these days.’

  ‘Some don’t. Some get paid in cash.’

  ‘Ah, fuck them.’

  Cue a sharp intake of breath and laughter, and another round of drinks.

  Colin Strachan had been thinking more and talking less. ‘Businesses will need people to help keep their money and their information secure,’ he said quietly at one point.

  I saw what he meant. We installed anti-virus software, but there was more to be done if our business clients were going to be doing serious financial work online. We needed to keep their system running – do their backups for them? And make sure they were secure from people grabbing their email addresses and their bank details – and stop them being stupid, like the people who had cheerfully sent me their account numbers and sort codes. I felt that Colin knew a lot about the field: maybe we could bring him in to advise us.

  ‘Great possibilities for fraud,’ Elizabeth said, and Colin pursed his lips and nodded. I caught his eye, and he seemed to know what I was thinking.

  After that, we drank more, and Raymond started to hit on Elizabeth; she crossed her legs and sat back as he opened his and leaned forward. Colin and I talked a bit more about how the Glasgow business could be built up, and he gave me his card – ‘that’s my mobile phone number,’ he pointed. ‘What’s yours?’ I shook my head, and resolved to get one, as soon as I could. ‘I’ll talk to my partner and give you a call next week,’ I said.

  ‘I’m off to Spain next weekend. I have a place out there – two places, actually. But I could come up to Glasgow, say, Thursday, and fly out directly to Spain on Friday. If that suits.’

  I nodded. Yes, it suited. I could see how it c
ould all work, but first Sandy needed to meet Colin.

  I stood up – my evening was done, and, for the first time in years, I really didn’t want another drink. ‘I’m off to bed – see you all at breakfast.’

  Elizabeth stood up too, draining her wine. ‘I’ll come with you, get you those papers we spoke about.’

  I hesitated for the merest fraction of a second. ‘OK. Well, goodnight all.’ Several thoughts slipped through my mind.

  In the lift, Elizabeth smiled at me: ‘Thanks, Martin – Raymond was getting a bit serious there.’

  ‘I don’t blame him.’

  She smiled again, but not a warm smile, and looked away to our reflections in the door of the lift. ‘My engagement is falling apart,’ she suddenly said, ‘but there’s no way I’m going to let myself be fucked by a stranger at a conference.’ Her voice was flat, emotionless.

  I wasn’t quite sure how to take that, so I tried a joke: ‘Especially not by Raymond.’

  And she laughed. ‘Did you see him slip off his wedding ring last night? Little shit.’

  The lift stopped at her floor and she fumbled in her handbag.

  ‘Well, goodnight,’ I said.

  She pressed a business card into my hand as she stepped out of the lift and turned – I held the doors open with my foot, wondering what was going to happen, what she was going to say. She didn’t look too sure herself.

  ‘I’m going up to Edinburgh for the book festival in a few weeks. If you’re available, if you’d like to meet up… Well, that’s the number of the shop in York, and my mobile. Call me. If you want. You can tell me about your relationship.’

  ‘There might be nothing to tell by then.’

  She leaned forward to give me the lightest of kisses on the cheek, her breath warm. ‘Goodnight, Martin. See you at breakfast.’

  Chapter 15

  May this year - Romania

  Helen dropped me at Edinburgh airport at half past seven for the 9:10 KLM flight to Schiphol. I got out of the car, with my case, and she gave me a long, tight hug – one of the few I’d had for weeks; we’d hardly spoken, and the sex had stopped completely. When she released me, there were tears streaming down her cheeks. She tried to smile, and it almost worked; she looked like she was trying to say something, but couldn’t get anything out. She turned away and got into the car.