Unfollow Me

by Charlotte Duckworth

  “We made you a card, Mummy,” Archie says, hauling himself to his feet and tottering over to the coffee table to pick it up. “To make you get well soon.”

  “His idea,” Luke says, as I take it from Archie. “I told him you weren’t feeling very well, that you needed some more sleep.”

  “Are you better now, Mummy?” Archie says, hugging my legs as he looks up at me.

  I bite my lip.

  “Getting there,” I reply. “Thank you for the card. It’s lovely.”

  “Why don’t you get a shower?” Luke says. His eyes are cold, pragmatic. “And Archie and I can finish the Shopping List Game, which he’s royally beating me at so far. I’ll put some coffee on.”

  “Thank you,” I say, under my breath as I stroke Archie’s hair, but Luke just nods.

  * * *

  Luke stays with us all day. He is the perfect gentleman—the perfect friend—but with Archie taking all the attention we don’t have a chance to speak about the previous day, or what Ellie told him. I drink a lot of coffee, and take multiple paracetamol, and by the afternoon, once we’ve been for a bracing walk in the park on Archie’s insistence, I feel a little bit more human.

  Luke is quieter with me than usual, but at least he’s here. That has to count for something. After lunch, when Archie is doing quiet time in his room with his books, I try to apologise, but Luke brushes me away, changing the subject.

  “Let’s talk later,” he says. “I thought you might want to see this. Statement from Violet’s manager. Finally.” He hands me a piece of paper, and I take it from him and read.

  My client Violet Young is aware that there has been some speculation in the media as to why she has recently closed her social media channels. Unfortunately, her second daughter, Lula, is in hospital recovering from a serious accident. She does not wish to comment further on the matter, and asks the media to respect her privacy and leave her family in peace at this difficult time.

  “A serious accident?” I say, looking up at Luke. I think back to the time when I stalked Henry as he walked Skye to school. It hadn’t occurred to me that Lula should have been with them, that she started nursery there in September. I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed her absence. But suddenly, things start to make sense. It’s Lula that’s been in hospital all this time. Not Violet.

  “I wonder what happened,” I say. “God, poor Lula. She’s only three.”

  “Apparently Violet’s been at the hospital almost constantly since it happened. Understandably.”

  “But why…” I begin, the thoughts scrambling in my mind. “Why would she delete her social media accounts? Bit of a random thing to do? Wouldn’t you just leave them? Not update them?”

  “That’s what I thought too,” Luke says. “I’ve gone back to her manager, asked for more details. Doubt I’ll get any, though.”

  “But Luke…” I say, reaching out to touch his arm. “It’s none of our business. A child has been injured. We should do as they say and leave it alone.”

  I hand the piece of paper back to him. Luke nods, his nose wrinkling at me, then folds it and puts it in his pocket.

  * * *

  Archie is in bed, and finally Luke and I sit on the sofa together. Side by side, not snuggled up against each other as we usually are.

  “Thank you for today … for looking after us both. I know Ellie told you some things about me…”

  Luke takes a deep breath.

  “Perhaps it would help,” he says. “If you could explain it to me a bit. I don’t think you … I always thought I was a good judge of character. I just need to understand, I think. What motivated you. When you’ve got so much going for you. Why were you so worried about what some random woman was up to? To the extent that you would leave those kinds of comments?”

  I sniff.

  “It hasn’t been easy for me, you know,” I say, and even though I feel like crying, there are no tears there. “I’ve had … some issues. Growing up. You know I told you my mother died? That wasn’t strictly true.”

  Luke’s eyes widen.

  “She walked out on me and my dad, when I was six months old. Never came back. He was too angry to look for her, and by the time he realised she wasn’t coming back, it was too late. We never found her. So she might be dead. But I don’t know for sure.”

  Luke blinks slowly.

  “And then your husband died?” he says, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, that’s a lot for someone to deal with.”

  I shift away from him, staring past his shoulder at the pathetic Christmas tree behind him.

  “Archie’s father isn’t dead,” I say, my voice small. “I don’t know who his father is. It was a one-night stand. I’d been … in a difficult relationship for some time. The man had just ended it.” I pause, glancing back at Luke, but he’s staring at me blankly. Have I already lost him?

  I let out a deep sigh. Luke is frowning now, his eyes a mixture of upset and shock.

  I rub my face with my hands.

  “The night I knew he had ended it for good, I went out and got blind drunk, brought some bloke home. I don’t even remember what he looked like, not really. When I woke up in the morning he was gone. Didn’t leave me a number. I don’t even remember his name. That’s the hardest thing of all. I’ll never be able to tell Archie who his father is.”

  “God, Lily. Why did you say he was dead?” Luke says, his voice tight. “You could have told me the truth.”

  “I don’t know. I guess I was ashamed. It was the easiest way to get people to truly feel sorry for me. Everyone thinks they know that a single mum’s life is hard, but they have no idea just how hard. It just slipped out once, when the health visitor came round to weigh Archie. Even though she was trying to be kind, the flat was a mess, I was a mess, Archie hadn’t slept and I was barely holding it together … I could tell she was judging me for being a single mother. To have got myself in that position in the first place. So I told her my husband had died. You should have seen the way she changed when I said it. It was like she suddenly saw me completely differently—she was so much more sympathetic. And I needed that sympathy. I needed that support. Am I any less deserving of it because Archie’s father is some arsehole who used me for a night of fun then did a runner when I was still asleep? Does that make me a worse person than if he had died?”

  “No, of course not. But to lie about that…”

  He stands up and I grab his arm and pull him back down on to the sofa, my fingers digging into his skin.

  “No!” I say. “Don’t leave. Please, just listen … Let me explain. Let me explain everything.”

  He doesn’t say anything. But to my relief he sits back down, staring at me.

  “It was just a little fib at first, to the health visitor, but it didn’t feel like one. After all, I was grieving. I was grieving for the end of my relationship; I was grieving that my son didn’t have a father. At first when I started watching Violet, I found it comforting. To see someone else with a young baby who was suffering like I was. But then … her life started to get better. And mine didn’t…”

  Luke stares at me.

  “Doesn’t it ever get to you, how unfair life is? How some things go so well for some people, but not others?”

  He shakes his head.

  “So I left some comments, a few times, just gentle suggestions at first. But she ignored them. I suppose I was annoyed, and the comments got worse. Sometimes … when I was at home, drinking too much, I just wrote the first spiteful things that came to my head. The alcohol brought out the worst in me—I was trying to get her attention, but then all her fans ganged up on me, and it made me feel even more angry.”

  I feel sick.

  “Do you ever feel like you love and hate someone at the same time? It made me feel better about my own parenting, seeing her get things wrong. I don’t know. You probably think I’m an awful bitch. But I’m not, I promise. I just … I just lost all sense of what was appropriate.”

  “Jesus, Lily,” Luke say
s.

  “I’m sorry. I do know it all sounds crazy. It was just … it all started to run away with me. I was drinking too much … I don’t know…”

  “You’re telling me,” he says, sighing. “Jesus. You do realise your behavior … it’s not normal? It’s not rational?”

  “I know,” I say, desperate now. “It’s just…”

  “Why didn’t you go and see someone about it?” he says. “Get some help?”

  I look down.

  “I don’t know. I was too far in … But look, I’ve been trying to cut down on my drinking. I’m sorry about last night, it was a blip. I’m different from how I was back then. Back then I just didn’t know who I could talk to, who would understand,” I say. “But that’s kind of what the charity does, ironically … helps single parents with practical stuff, but also … emotionally.”

  He looks away. I can’t bear how uncomfortable I’ve made him.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “Let’s eat something,” he says, sighing. “And we can talk some more after dinner. I don’t want to abandon you, Lily. But God. You should have told me. You should have trusted me to help.”

  I nod, pushing away the nagging shame that I still don’t trust him enough to tell him everything, and I let the tears fall.

  * * *

  Luke is cooking again. The smell of spices coming from my tiny kitchen takes me back to a holiday I once had with James, in Morocco. Perhaps Luke and I will go on a holiday like that soon. And then, when the dust has settled a bit and our relationship is on more stable ground, I can tell him about Skye and my trip to the park, and what happened to Archie.

  After the Skye incident, Violet sacked Mandy. She put an Instagram picture up of herself, her children tucked under her arms, explaining in vague terms how let down she’d felt, and telling her audience in no uncertain terms that approaching her children without her being around was completely out of order. I emailed her as soon as I saw it, saying how pleased I was she’d finally got rid of Mandy, and she replied and told me she’d report me to the police if I ever contacted her again. So I didn’t. I couldn’t take the risk. After all, I nearly lost Archie because of it.

  I shudder, remembering the way he cried as I held him on the cold stone floor of our hallway. The bruise on his forehead that took a month to fade, a permanent reminder of how I had failed him as a parent.

  I didn’t stop watching Violet though. I was addicted to her, to her whole family.

  I scroll through Instagram. I follow nearly five hundred people, and yet I probably only know twenty of them in real life.

  I look through my posts. There are thirty-two in total, ranging back over the past year. I only joined Instagram to follow Violet and Henry’s updates. My pictures are shocking, quite frankly. The early ones aren’t so bad—pictures of Archie’s little fists balled up around Bear as he sleeps, a few shots of the back of his head as he tackles the climbing frame in the park. But then it all goes wrong: blurry, out-of-focus selfies. The ones that gave me away to Ellie. Me in my bathroom, late at night after one too many, pouting at myself for no apparent reason. The pitiful number of likes—five at most. A few comments from random strangers with names like death2zorbs telling me I look fit. I’m so embarrassed. Then some boring shots of birthday cakes in the office. Who would be interested in this rubbish?

  I sit there and methodically save each picture of Archie, then delete my entire account, before setting up a new one from scratch. The screen asks me to fill out my bio. On my old account there was nothing there. Not even my first name. Nothing else about me. I was an anonymous lurker, like so many others.

  This time will be different. I use my real name.

  Lily Peters, London. PR assistant @SupportingSolos.

  A new start.

  I reach forward to the coffee table, lifting up my glass of wine—just one this evening, I’ve promised myself—and then I pick up the silver coaster that lay beneath it. I turn it over in my hands, my fingers idly stroking the engraved design.

  All I have left of Violet. I wonder if she’s missed it yet.

  VIOLET

  DECEMBER 2018

  I set up the camera in my new office. It’s south-facing and overlooks the allotments in front of the trainline behind our house. A bit different from the view from our house in Barnsbury, but here I feel I can finally relax. This space is all mine.

  I dig out my old ring light and reach down to plug it in by my desk. Then I turn it on, checking the screen on the back of the camera to see the difference as it illuminates my face. It’s incredible, what a bit of lighting can do. Suddenly my face is lifted, the imperfections erased. But it’s not real. It’s not what I actually look like. I switch the light off, and before I have time to think, press record.

  Testing testing!

  My voice comes out hesitant to begin with, but I keep talking, to warm it up. I try not to imagine who might be listening. I try to imagine I’m just talking to myself, plastering a grin on my face and flicking loose hair from my eyes.

  Hello chaps, if any of you are still out there!

  So. Where to start … You might have noticed this is a new channel. I’ll come to the reasons behind that in a minute. But things have changed a lot for me over the past year. First of all …

  I pause, glancing over at the tissue box. I hadn’t anticipated needing it so soon. I pull one out.

  As you may already know, just before last Christmas, my daughter Lula had an accident. We left her unaccompanied in the bath, and she suffered a near-drowning. A near-drowning, for those of you who are not aware, is one stage before death by drowning. She was three, and we thought it perfectly safe to leave her splashing and playing in the bath for a few minutes while we went downstairs to answer the door.

  I cough, imagining the comments rolling in already.

  It never occurred to us that what would happen was possible. But somehow, Lula slipped beneath the water and when we found her, she was face down, not moving.

  Did you know young children can drown in less than two inches of water? That in the time it takes to send a tweet, a child in a bathtub can lose consciousness? If you leave it just a couple of minutes longer, the unconscious child will undoubtedly sustain permanent brain damage?

  I pause again, blowing my nose and wiping away the tears. The camera’s red light blinks at me.

  On the way to hospital, Lula’s heart stopped twice. After thirty-two minutes of CPR, they managed to stabilise her. Once we were there, she needed a feeding tube and a breathing machine to keep her alive. She was in a coma for nearly three weeks. She lost control of her head and was unable to sit, roll over or speak. Her eyes weren’t able to track objects, and it felt like she had turned back into a baby.

  I keep talking. If I stop now, I’ll collapse.

  We were lucky though, that she didn’t experience any seizures. She’s had the best care over the past year and is recovering well, thanks to daily physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy. We’re hopeful there won’t be too many long-term effects, but only time will tell. I cannot thank the doctors and nurses and experts who have helped her enough.

  I lean forward slightly and take a sip from the glass of water on my desk.

  Many people wondered why I deleted my social media accounts. It was a knee jerk thing. I don’t even really remember doing it. I remember crying and shaking and screaming a lot as they worked on Lula and we waited for news. I didn’t go to bed that night. I was so full of regret, for sharing everything. My precious daughters. I’d let the world have too much of them, and at that moment, I just wanted them back.

  I look out the window, watching as a train trundles past. Then I take a deep breath and look back at the camera.

  It was a horrific time. And since then, Henry and I have separated. It was a long time coming, and I’m not going to go into the whys and wherefores. The girls still see their father at the weekends and he continues to play an active role in their lives.

&n
bsp; I sniff, pinch my nose.

  So, you’re probably wondering. Why am I here now? Why did I come back?

  My break from YouTube made me think long and hard about what I was trying to achieve. It’s a privilege, to have this platform. I want to make it count. I want to leave something behind that has meaning. I don’t want to chase advertising revenues anymore.

  I will no longer be featuring my girls. Not until they’re old enough to truly understand and to consent. I won’t be featuring my home, my handbags, my clothes or shoes. Because the last year has taught me how absolutely unimportant these things are.

  Instead I want to tell stories. Of real mothers and their lives. Over the past year I have met so many different mothers, all with their own unique story to tell. Whether they’re dealing with a sick child, or infertility, or—worse still—have faced the unimaginable and lost a child. I want to give these ordinary women a voice. To raise awareness of all the different struggles different women deal with daily, across the UK and beyond.

  I hope that you’ll join me in listening to them.

  I smile at the camera, blink slowly, then reach forward to stop the recording. My heart is thudding in my chest. Who knows if this will work? Who knows if anyone even cares about what I have to say anymore?

  Turning to my computer, I think of all the things I didn’t say on camera. That Henry had cheated on me, then begged me for months to take him back. That I’d had a stalker who’d approached my daughter in Regent’s Park, trying to get information on us as a family. That I’d had to fire my assistant Mandy, because of what this woman had done. I’d wanted to tell the police about the woman—surely they could trace her through her emails?—but Henry talked me out of it. Looking back, it’s clear he was worried it was his bit on the side that had been sending the emails, that she had talked to Skye in the playground. Yvonne. And he didn’t want the police tracing her, and me finding out what he’d been up to.

  That was so Henry, putting himself first, telling me that this nutcase hadn’t technically done anything illegal, that we’d be wasting police time. He turned it into another one of our rows about my career choice. “What did you expect?” he screamed at me. “You’ve been asking for it! Sticking our kids all over YouTube like that.”