Unfollow Me

by Charlotte Duckworth

  * * *

  I spend the rest of the day speaking to recruitment agents on the phone—I booked today and Monday off work, and Ben sounded relieved when I told him it was to job hunt. He said he’d give me a glowing reference, even though we both know you can’t do that anymore. It’s for the best, even if it is terrifying.

  I wonder what Violet would do in my situation. She complained of crippling postnatal depression, so bad she couldn’t get out of bed, but at the end of the day she wasn’t single and broke like me. So it can’t have been that bad. She had Henry: handsome, successful, charismatic Henry and his painfully rich family. She lived in his beautiful Chelsea flat. She didn’t need to do anything, if she didn’t want to. She could have paid for a live-in nanny and focused entirely on her recovery. I didn’t even have time to see the counsellor my doctor recommended. But then again, maybe too much time to think is a bad thing. Too much time to think fills the space around and inside you until you eventually drown in it. Keeping busy is the key to keeping sane.

  It’s been balanced on a razor-edge, though. It only takes one little shift before the whole stack comes tumbling down. I’ve barely a pound left in my bank account. It’s got so desperate that I started researching food banks this week. It turns out you have to be referred by someone. I think I’ve got it hard, but that’s proof there are so many people more needy than me.

  I’m in my bedroom, trying to decide what to wear to this talk. I think back to the days when I had money to buy myself things—never much, I was never well off, but before Archie was born, things were comfortable enough. I still have some clothes from those days, but every time I try them on, it’s as though they don’t fit. They don’t feel like “me” anymore. They’re a relic from a previous life. So much color and pattern. Beautiful dresses in every shade under the sun, coated in designs ranging from small birds to dramatic zigzags. James used to buy them for me. He was big on presents, when we first got together.

  I pull the dresses out, laying them on my bed. They seem shorter than I remembered. My figure hasn’t changed much but I don’t hold myself in the way I used to.

  I so want to impress Luke.

  I reach into my wardrobe again, just in case. Tucked into the far-right corner, one shoulder hanging limply from the hanger, is the shirt I wore on my first official date with James. Dark green, with black flecks and a wrap-over front. I had forgotten all about it.

  I pull it over my head, tucking it into the waistband of my jeans and arranging it so that it drapes nicely. Then I sit at my dressing table and make my face up, in the way I used to.

  I brush my hair through with dry shampoo and then tie it up in a bun, leaving a few strands to hang loosely around my face. In the mirror, I try out different expressions. When I’m not smiling, my face looks drawn and sad, but when I do manage a grin, I look pretty presentable.

  My phone buzzes. It’s Luke, saying he’ll be there in twenty minutes. I text back a quick reply, and make my way to the Tube.

  18 April 2017

  From: gottheblues@hotmail.com

  To: violet@violetisblue.com

  Hi Violet,

  I see you all had a great Easter. Mandy seemed really into it. Why was she even at your Sunday dinner? She’s an assistant. Shouldn’t she be with her own family? Or don’t they get on? She seems the type to have fallen out with people over the years. Her laugh is enough to drive most people insane.

  Did you notice the way she flirted with Henry when he carved the lamb? I did. I think you ought to be careful of that.

  What do you see in him anyway? I know he’s got a “cool” job, but I bought a copy of his magazine the other day and it was 90% adverts for aftershave and sunglasses. What little text there was seemed like complete drivel. And I didn’t find a single piece by him. Does he actually do anything at work?

  Don’t you think you deserve better, Violet?

  * * *

  19 April 2017

  From: gottheblues@hotmail.com

  To: violet@violetisblue.com

  You can reply to me, you know.

  Just because I’m being honest with you, and sometimes the truth hurts, it doesn’t mean you should just IGNORE ME.

  At the end of the day, when you think about it, I actually pay your wages, by watching your content.

  So I guess you could say I’m your boss.

  Would you ignore your boss?

  * * *

  19 April 2017

  From: gottheblues@hotmail.com

  To: violet@violetisblue.com

  Sorry. I’ve had a bad day. I shouldn’t have been so snide about Mandy and Henry. But it’s only because I worry about you, Violet.

  Please reply.

  YVONNE

  I turn the shiny foil wrapper over in my hand, looking at the printed lettering, wondering about the person who designed it. Stupid, pointless, irrelevant thoughts, just here to distract me. I’ve never been a procrastinator. I’m a doer, proactive at every opportunity.

  But this little plastic stick is the enemy. The thing that’s crushed my hope, time and time again. Earlier this year, we had taken to testing together, with Simon politely turning his back while I did the deed, and then putting his arm around me as we waited for the result. But he doesn’t know about this month, about its loaded significance or the fortune teller’s promise. I know it’s nonsense, of course, that her words were so generic they could fit anyone’s life, like a horoscope, but I still can’t help but hope there was something in it.

  Simon thinks we’re going to meet the consultant next week, is prepared to face the uphill struggle that is IVF all over again. Although I suppose all that’s required of him is to flick through some magazines, deposit the goods in a pot, and then support me as I weep and wail.

  I put the test down on top of the toilet and reach for my phone. A few taps and the GoMamas TTC forum loads. I scan through the latest posts. Several people are on almost the same cycle as me, and those who have tested have inevitably received BFNs—Big Fat Negatives. The rest are determined to wait, so it seems.

  No point in testing until AF is due. I’m not wasting the money this month.

  Nope, me neither. It’s just heartache and disappointment, and it might all be for nothing. BFNs tell you nothing this early on, and BFPs are really unlikely this soon.

  What a surprise. A BFN for me. I was so sure I felt different this month. I’m 12 DPO so I’m sure it would be showing up by now. Guess I’m out AGAIN for this month.

  You’re not out till the wicked witch arrives! Don’t give up hope! Wait till your period is due and test again!

  I know they’re right, and as I read their posts, I feel myself relax a bit. Even if my tiny embryo implanted two days ago, the amount of pregnancy hormone in my urine is going to be minuscule. There’s also that debate about whether it’s best to test first thing in the morning or not.

  This is insanity.

  I’m about to quit the forum but notice I have a private message from Jade. I click to read it.

  So??! Don’t leave me in suspense! Why the silence? Tell me our secret plan has worked!

  I don’t reply. I’m ashamed that she knows the lengths I’ve gone to. It was her idea, but I should have told her she was mental.

  I’m usually what the social media world calls a “lurker”: someone who reads but doesn’t engage. I’ve only ever posted on the Trying To Conceive threads, and that’s only been out of desperation.

  A lurker. I quite like that picture of myself. And it seems appropriate for this evening, when I’m going to be doing just that. Lurking in the shadows, in the hope of finding out how she is. Desperate times, desperate measures. Hopefully tonight I’ll finally get the answers I need.

  * * *

  The event is held in the wrong part of London for me, but it doesn’t surprise me she picked here. Shoreditch, mecca to the hipster mums, who pretend they’re open and welcoming to outsiders but in reality are just as cliquey and mean as they were as teenagers. Just like
all these influencers, who only engage with each other, largely ignoring their “fans.” They certainly have no idea what life is like for a single mother living on the outskirts of Leeds, no matter how much they’d like to think they do.

  As I approach Shoreditch Town Hall, I grow more impressed that Violet has pulled this off. It’s so much bigger than I expected: more of a theatre or a church than a town hall, with an impressive columned façade and a sweeping flight of stone steps up to the entrance. I’m early, as intended, and I make my way up the steps thankful that there’s no one else following me.

  At the top, I pause, looking through the glass in the door. No sign of her. I’m safe. I go into the reception area. Three women are standing behind a table covered in name badges. They’re chatting amongst themselves. I cough.

  “Hello!” one of them says. She’s wearing red lipstick and has bleached blonde hair like Violet’s, scraped back into a high ponytail. She’s wearing some kind of oversized pyjama top. “Can I just take your name?”

  “Yvonne Foster,” I say, remembering in time that I didn’t give my real surname when I registered for the event.

  Blonde bun woman frowns and runs her pen down a list she’s holding.

  “Let me see … There you are!” she says, drawing a very decisive line through my name. “Let me find you your name badge.”

  “It’s there,” I say, pointing at it.

  “Yes!” she says. Her enthusiasm is a little wearing.

  “Am I the first?” I say, as I clutch the badge in my hand. Not a chance I’m pinning it to my coat.

  “No, there are a few people here already,” she says. “Cloakroom is to your left, if you have anything you want to drop off, and toilets are just down the stairs. If you go inside the main hall, you’ll find refreshments at the back, and the panel discussion begins at 6.30.”

  “Thanks,” I say, blinking at her. I want to ask her if Violet is still hosting, but much like the pregnancy test, there’s some delicious joy in the waiting, in the agony of not knowing. I guess it’s called hope.

  I make my way through to the main hall, heading for the refreshments table. It’s been decorated with slogans from the event, and the drinks are themed. There are cocktails, named somewhat bizarrely after the influencers on the panel. Violet’s drink is, of course, an unappealing blue and violet colored concoction, but I eschew it in favor of some water with peels of cucumber floating in it.

  Slowly but surely, the room begins to fill up. Mostly with women just a little younger than me, mostly in groups. There are a few men, though, which surprises me. I never thought to invite Simon. I wonder what he would think, if I told him I was going to attend a panel discussion on the difficulty of progressing your career once you had a baby. He’d probably tell me I didn’t have to worry. That’s his main aim in life, stopping me from worrying.

  At one point, a woman wearing a khaki jacket and ripped black jeans comes up to me, taking me by surprise. She has a razor-sharp bobbed haircut, complete with a thick fringe that finishes halfway down her forehead. It’s a look my mother would have described as “severe.”

  “Hi,” she says, “I’m Jules. Well, Julie, but who wants to be called Julie? Everyone calls me Jules.”

  “I know,” I say and she frowns at my remark. “I mean, it’s on your name badge. Nice to meet you. I’m Yvonne.” I hold my name badge up so she can read it, then re-clutch it in my left palm.

  She laughs, touching her badge lightly.

  “Ah! Forgot I was wearing it.”

  “Easily done.”

  “Did you come here alone?” she asks, taking a sip of her drink, which I can see is the Big Momma cocktail, consisting of Bailey’s and a lot of ice.

  “Yes,” I reply, but something makes me continue. “Well, sort of. I’m friends with one of the panel members.”

  “Oh amazing,” Jules says, nodding. “Which one?”

  “Violet Young,” I say. I shouldn’t have said anything. What if she knows her? What if she works for her?

  “Cool,” Jules says, seemingly unimpressed.

  “‘How about you?” I ask.

  “Nope, never met them before. In fact, I hadn’t heard of most of them, if I’m honest. But I saw an article about it in Stylist the other week on the Tube and though, fuck me, what a great idea. I mean, seriously, it’s like we’re in the dark ages over here when it comes to flexible working. My sister lives in Sweden and it’s a whole other world…”

  “Do you have kids?” I say. She doesn’t look like a mother.

  “Nope, not yet,” she says. “I’m only twenty-eight. But it’s important to get this shit sorted, isn’t it? To show your support while you have the time. What about you?”

  There’s a beat where I consider it, but then I remember what the fortune teller said. That sometimes, believing things makes them happen.

  “Not exactly,” I smile, patting my stomach and raising my glass of water. It catches the light of the chandelier, twinkling in front of me, as if giving me its blessing. “I mean, not yet. But I’m pregnant.”

  LILY

  Luke is waiting for me opposite the station, his record bag slung across his body. He gives a little wave and then ambles towards me. I feel myself flush as he approaches. I hope my eye make-up has stayed in place.

  “Hello,” he says. “Got here all right in the end then?”

  “Yes, sorry,” I say. “I had to suffer the slow crawl of the District all the way to Whitechapel. It’s a long way from Acton.”

  He nods, smiling.

  “I’m in Kentish Town,” he says. “So not too bad.”

  I knew this already, of course. It was on his Twitter bio. But I don’t want him to know I’ve found out everything there’s possible to find out about him online, and he registers my carefully constructed blank expression.

  “It’s on the Northern line. Anyway, shall we go?”

  “Great,” I say. “You can fill me in on what you’ve discovered on the way.”

  “Well, first up, Amy is Henry’s sister-in-law,” Luke says, and I turn my face towards him, surprised.

  “Oh!” I say, trying to work out exactly what that means.

  “Married to his younger brother,” he replies.

  “How did you find that out? He’s always been so private about his brother. There’s nothing online about him. He’s called Andrew, I think.”

  “Andrew was a bit of a tearaway in his late teens,” Luke says, and the word tearaway sounds so incongruous coming from him that I have to stifle the urge to tease him. “Heavily into recreational drugs, that kind of thing. Believe it or not, Henry was the ‘sensible’ one. But Andrew lives on the family estate now, runs the place with his wife Amy. No kids yet.”

  “She seemed really young,” I say, thinking back to our encounter on the doorstep, and how she said she didn’t know London very well. “She was very pretty.’”

  “Yeah, she’s the daughter of a friend of the family. Posh too. I think they’ve known each other for years.”

  “So why would she have been at Violet and Henry’s house? Babysitting while Henry was visiting Violet in hospital? It’s a bit weird, isn’t it?”

  “Very,” Luke nods, slowing his pace a little. I can see our destination—Shoreditch Town Hall—just ahead of us. “The family estate is in Somerset, so not exactly near London.”

  “Maybe one of Henry’s parents died? Is that a possibility?”

  “Henry’s father died a few years ago, and his mother is still alive and kicking, very much the matriarch of the Blake estate. Maybe Andrew was there as well? Family visit?”

  “I don’t know. I only saw her.”

  “Let’s see what happens tonight,” Luke says, as we approach the steps up to the venue. “They haven’t announced anything about Violet not appearing, so maybe she’ll turn up and the mystery will be solved.”

  He turns to make his way up the stairs and I find myself pulling on his arm to stop him. He looks at me.

  “Can I
ask … can I ask you something?” I say, suddenly nervous.

  “Sure.” His eyes are wary.

  “Why are you so interested? In Violet, I mean? I know it’s your job—to interrogate the zeitgeist,” I got that from his bio, and I pause for a few seconds, embarrassed that he’ll now know I’ve looked him up, “but mummy bloggers? It’s quite a random one, isn’t it? For a young man to be interested in?”

  He laughs, long and loud.

  “Oh God, do you think I’m some kind of pervert?” He grins at me and his eyes are kind. “Fair enough. It is odd that I’m investigating this, rather than, what, compulsive gamers in their 40s?”

  “It’s just, you said you didn’t have any kids. And before I had Archie, I knew nothing about the whole online mummy influencer thing. So it’s just surprising … Sorry.”

  “Well, I could tell you that it was because my boss asked me to look into it, but that would only be half of the truth. You remember I mentioned my nephew? My sister had a really bad time after he was born. Postnatal depression. She knew about Violet, got a bit obsessed by her and her family. When Ellie pitched the idea to me, I told Ali—that’s my sister—and she was really keen for me to look into it further. I guess I’m doing it a bit for her too.”

  “But…” I take a deep breath. “Why did you want to be in touch with me? Ellie could have told you everything I know, and more.”

  Not everything, I think to myself.

  Luke’s cheeks suddenly flush. He looks down at his feet.

  “Um,” he says. He looks back up at me, rubbing his chin, then giving a little shrug. “I don’t know, I guess Ellie just thought we might, er, get on.”

  My eyes widen and I feel my heart begin to speed up. So she was setting us up, after all. Brilliant, Lily, just brilliant. Well done.

  “Oh,” I say. “Right.”

  Luke gives a strange sound—half cough, half laugh. We begin to climb the stone steps.

  “How’s your sister now?” I ask, glancing sideways at Luke. His cheeks are aflame now, the speckly blush spreading to his neck. Perhaps there’s some hope after all. And he hasn’t seen my blouse yet.