The Assistant

by S. K. Tremayne

  I must not burst into sobs. In a trendy wine bar, in trendy new King’s Cross? No, that’s not me, that’s not Jo Ferguson. I did some of my big interviews here, in Vinoteca, for my Big Tech article. Back then, when I was the old me: confident, exuberant, forensic. I totally nailed that story – and some people in the world of Tech – from Apple to Facebook to the rest – clearly resent me for the nailing. Including Simon. Could he be persuaded by Polly?

  I need to know. I am tempted to accuse him outright, this minute.

  Yes?

  No.

  No!

  I must, again, be smarter than that, get him to confess: if he is somehow involved. An outright, unevidenced accusation from me will only add to the perception I am going nuts. Especially if I lay most of the blame on Polly.

  The waiter returns. Our steaks sit on the table, with spinach and horseradish and appealing fat chips. Blood seeps from my hunk of beef. I think, momentarily, of that candy-suck dribble of pink froth from Jamie Trewin’s mouth. Jo, you are going to die. You will kill yourself.

  ‘Simon.’ I gaze his way as he eagerly chews the beef. ‘This is one reason why I wanted to talk. You mentioned Arlo.’

  He eyes me.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Well, apparently you installed the Assistants, the smart-home stuff, in Tabitha’s flat, specifically at Arlo’s request. Is that true? Did you do that?’

  He chews as he answers, ‘Sure. Yep. And?’

  ‘And you didn’t think to tell me?’

  He stops chewing, long enough to give me a deeply sarcastic expression.

  ‘Didn’t I? I can’t remember.’ He chases beef with beer. ‘Maybe I did it when you were messaging with Liam. Hmmm? Perhaps I wasn’t in a mood to talk with you, so much? Not then.’

  This is going wrong. I wonder if I should mention Liam, the weird conversation, the ghosting; yet if Simon and Polly are responsible for all this, I shouldn’t show that I am on to them.

  As I wrestle the dilemmas, Simon says, ‘What does it matter anyway, Jo? Yes, I helped out, I have a bit of expertise, I have mates who can do this code, Arlo wanted it all done in a certain way.’

  I seize on this.

  ‘You mean Arlo wanted his smart-home linked to Tabitha’s, so he can watch her at all hours, and now he can watch me? He can see and listen to everything I say or do? And you don’t think that’s a tiny bit sinister?’

  I wait for his reaction to my revelation. His reaction is laughter. He actually laughs. Like I am some conspiracy theorist and I have claimed the royal family are lizards.

  ‘Jesus, Jo, he’s not the secret police, and he’s not got the flat under CIA surveillance.’ Another forkful of bloody, chewy beef. ‘Get a grip. Why are you acting up? This isn’t normal – this isn’t Jo Ferguson.’

  Perhaps he sees me wince at his words; his expression mellows.

  ‘Listen: Arlo likes looking after his fiancée, that’s all it is. He likes making sure she’s OK.’ His headshake is sad. ‘The same way I once wanted to look after my wife. Until you did what you did.’

  I try not to be deflected by guilt. I’m not even eating my blood-streaming steak. The blood is mixing with the horseradish, like gore and vomit. Jamie Trewin. Me on Skype. Voices in my head. How did all this happen? Who did that to me? Is it me? Is it all in my failing brain?

  ‘No!’ I say. Half shouting. ‘You don’t understand! Knowing that Arlo can listen in, he’s like Big Brother, up in Highgate, and you helped him make it that way.’ My words rush on, faster than my thoughts, ‘I want to know, do you listen in too, Simon? Are you linked as well? Is it Polly forcing you, because she hates me? You said she hates me. Are you two making the Assistants torment me?’

  ‘Jesus!’ he says. ‘Enough.’ His fork drops onto an empty plate. Other diners are glancing over. The whole world watches us, through those lofty glass walls, scrawled with silver lyrics of winter rain.

  ‘Simon – please, be honest, did you do something to them, to the tech, to him, to get at me? I would kind of understand, I know Polly’s animosity, I won’t blame you, after Liam, I simply need to know—’

  It hasn’t worked. He growls,

  ‘Need to know what? Sod this shit. I don’t want any revenge, for God’s sake. This is you getting paranoid, like you did after you finished that article, hacking everyone off. Saying Facebook was running our lives, Google can predict our thoughts, mad stupid bullshit: it was nuts, Jo. Flat earth shit. It may have made you as a journalist, may have got a zillion clicks, got you two million retweets or whatever, but it was still BOLLOCKS.’

  He pushes his empty plate away. My hunk of uneaten meat will remain uneaten.

  ‘Jo, look, I’ve tried to stay friends with you, after what you did to me, texting those nudes, breaking us up, but now you accuse me of this – and you even accuse Polly, my baby’s mother – Jeezo, maybe we should say goodbye.’

  ‘Hello, you two?’

  I turn at a familiar voice. And my heart descends further. Oh God. The timing. It’s Gul, and Jenny. Our friends. We have to be civil, offer them a drink, even as they have walked into an obvious argument. It’s hardly a coincidence that they are here, in Vinoteca: all the people from big tech come here. The HQs surround. Why did I choose here?

  I am a fool. My judgement is marred. My only hope is that Jenny, or maybe even Gul, will tune into the mood, and flee.

  ‘Hey, you guys,’ Simon says, his voice blatantly strained. ‘We’re finishing dinner. Ah. Have a glass?’

  ‘… OK, well …’ Jenny says, glancing delicately between us. And I realize, with relief, that she already feels the bad vibe.

  ‘I can’t really linger, Gul and I have got a silly dinner, people waiting. But, Jo,’ she looks my way, ‘did I tell you I got a new phone, and new number?’

  I lean for my facedown phone, but she stops me. ‘No, don’t! Let me write it down. I’ve got a real pen and everything. Have you noticed how people never write things any more? Well, I’ve decided to take a stand.’

  As she takes a sheet of paper – today’s wine list – and briskly writes her name, and number, at the top, I think: Yes, she’s bang on. No one writes things any more. All we do is bloody type. Tap tap tap, into these phones, and screens, and tablets. Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap.

  The whole world taps, like a madman, and we forget the older, sweeter skills. The other day I had to sign an invoice and I found I could barely do it, barely write my own name, as if I was back to being four, and my dad was teaching me my letters.

  He had such beautiful handwriting. He taught us all. He loved to write with a proper pen, with proper ink, and proper paper. Oh my daddy.

  Tap tap tap.

  ‘Here,’ Jenny says, handing me the folded paper. ‘Give me a call some time and let’s have a drink. I’m away on biz for a while but when I’m back?’ She looks at both of us, she looks at me a little longer, perhaps with concern. Then she sighs anxiously, keen to escape the mood. ‘OK. OK. Better go!’

  And she disappears.

  Simon and I share a relieved glance – and then we look at Gul, expecting him to follow suit.

  But he doesn’t. My heart sinks as he pulls up a chair, and grins, and sits down, and says, ‘Meh, those dudes can wait. Bunch of boring dicks from eBay. I’d love a glass of the Rioja.’ Without being offered, he reaches over and sloshes a glass from my half-bottle. Then he starts talking to Simon: tech stuff, obscure stuff, and I can sense Simon’s stiffness in his replies. He just wants Gul to go. Now Gul turns and looks at me, ‘And how are you, Jo?’

  ‘Oh, fine. Still writing, you know.’

  He gives me an odd look.

  ‘You’re still all alone there in Camden?’

  ‘Well, uh, I live with Tabitha, but …’

  ‘It’s a bit bloody cold to be sleeping alone. Innit? Hah. Haha.’ His laughter is forced, anxious – or something else. Simon’s eyes are rolling. The awkward silence renews. At last Gul drains his wine, and pushes back his chair, and says,


  ‘Anyway ahhhhhh … I’d better go and talk crap with the coders. See ya. See ya.’ He leans over and gives me a sloppy kiss on the cheek. ‘Don’t be all alone in the snow, Jo!’

  Simon and I watch as he disappears. Then Simon says drily, ‘He always fancied you.’

  The thought startles me. I was genuinely unaware. ‘Really?’

  ‘He always talks about you. Asks stuff about you. Wants to know if you’re … doing OK. Always defending you. So. Yes. You really didn’t know? He’s your biggest fan. Apart from Liam.’

  My ex drains his beer. And sighs, sardonically, as if all this was pointless. Then he adds, ‘Either way. Do we have anything left to debate?’

  He reaches in his pocket, presumably for a wallet. I feel very tired all of a sudden. The broken sleep from last night, the horror of the Skype call. And then Jenny’s gaze, just now, as if maybe she knows something, and wanted to help. And Gul? Fancying me? Really? I had no idea. Gul.

  Whatever it means, I have no energy to work it out.

  ‘No,’ I tell Simon. ‘Let me pay, it was me that asked you here.’ Too tired and confused, I decide to make peace. For now. ‘I’m sorry this all went wrong. I need to explain things better, when I’m not shattered. I’ll send you an email?’

  His shrug is diffident. As he stands he throws me one brief, pitying smile. ‘Get some sleep, Jo. And stop being such a helmet.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Tinfoil hat. Paranoia. Stop acting crazy. Stop suspecting me of taking revenge! I loved you and you broke us up – and there’s an end to it. We’re over, you move on, and I have to get home. I have a baby to hold.’

  I don’t think he does mean this maliciously. Though he is clearly irritated. Without saying goodbye, he sweeps out into the January wind, which whips litter into little swirls, and makes people leap into cabs. Escaping, escaping, escaping.

  Yet I cannot escape. I have to go home to Delancey Street, where I have no baby to hold. Where I will be alone with the horror. Invented or real.

  20

  Jo

  Stepping out of the restaurant, I fetch my phone, and look at the screen. For a moment I think: Uber? But then I think: No. Walk. Cold air. So I hurry up King’s Boulevard, towards the plaza of silent fountains outside Central Saint Martin’s where, on warm sunny days, barefoot kids run between the joyous jets of water. On this winter evening, all is desolate, wind-strafed, and deserted. The pop-up Pad Thai VW combi is shuttered and closed as I descend the AstroTurf steps down to Regent’s Canal.

  The towpath is the fastest pedestrian way back to Camden. Basically, the only way if you want to walk. And I want a winter walk to clear my head. I handled it so badly with Simon.

  Tunnels and water stretch in front of me, with anonymous, new, oversized skyscrapers to the left and right; and next to them the red mantis-eye lights on the tops of giant cranes, which loom like huge metal animals with their necks all deliberately broken. I walk faster. Longboats creak together in the canalside dark, some with tiny storm lanterns, flickering in the cold, showing their names in swirly, romantic paint: Saliannah, Little Drifter, Celebration.

  I see a shocked face at a porthole, staring at me, goggly-eyed, then gone. It looked like a man, but wearing garish lipstick.

  Noise follows. Yet I am not being followed. I am being overtaken. The cyclist rings his bell and says SORRY as he rushes past; cycling so fast I topple left in alarm, almost falling into the dark canal water. Plop.

  ‘Sorry!’ he shouts again, far too late. Yet I want him to come back. Don’t leave me here. This is the dingiest section of the canal, where multiple bridges carry the railways, which means multiple tunnels, pasted with graffiti. This next tunnel is so claustrophobic I have to tilt my neck and duck as I head on down the towpath. The cold and jailed water shifts and glops; I see reflections of black bricks and distant, silvery streetlight, at the far end.

  I’ve got to get there and I will be OK. I will be OK. I am talking to myself,

  ‘Come on, Jo, you will be fine. Don’t be a helmet.’

  It doesn’t matter that I am talking to myself. There is no one here to listen, and shake their head at the madwoman. The water of the canal is so black in the dark, it looks like a river of crude oil. It looks viscous. I wonder, if I jumped in, how long it would take me to sink, and drown. Perhaps I would simply float.

  At last I emerge from the tunnel into the empty air. Nearly there, nearly home. Is that the pregnant, modernist steel apartments that mean Sainsbury’s? I think so. I see another new, angular block of flats I don’t recognize. London changes so much, so fast, even as you stand still.

  Yes, this is Camden. There is the weir of falling water, and there are bars, ahead, and crowds of young drinkers, pub-crawling Camden Lock. My phone beeps in my bag. I think I’ve got a text message. Could it be Simon? I fish for my phone, as I scurry up the towpath steps, into the hubbub of young people, into life, tattoo parlours, the souvenir bazaars, they don’t close even if it’s minus twenty degrees Celsius.

  I read the text.

  I know where you are. You’re on the canal, by Camden Lock. You haven’t got long now.

  I look for the number: the source. This is no number I recognize.

  My urge is to scream and hurl the phone into the dark icy waters of the canal. But I shan’t do that. Instead I tremblingly key in Simon’s number, it has to be Simon, only he knew I was in Vinoteca, only he knew where I was walking, he could have watched me, he must have watched me go home on foot, via the canal, taking the towpath to Camden.

  He picks up at once.

  ‘It’s you!’ I scream. And I don’t care if this makes every Italian student in Camden turn in alarm, at the crazy lady by the falafel cafe. ‘It’s you! You did this! You messed with the Assistants, you’re messing with my phone, you know how to do this. Only you! STOP IT.’

  His answer is cold, and super-calm.

  ‘Please. It’s you that has to stop. This is demented—’

  ‘How dare you! I’m not mad, it’s you that’s freaking me out, or you and Polly, or you and all those geeky friends of yours? Is it all of you?’

  ‘Jo, calm down. Do you realize how this shit might sound to someone else?’ His voice is still so sensible. This makes it worse. Like he is trying to soothe a toddler. ‘I’m sorry, Jo, but you looked so awful today, and all these …’ He pauses, like a good friend breaking bad news. ‘All these paranoid outbursts: they’re a bad sign. I think you may be having a breakdown. Please, go and see a doctor. Yeah?’

  He ends the call. I gaze down at the phone, in shivering frustration. Drunk kids barge past me, singing breathy football songs, voices turned to icy steam, heading to the Spoons, down the other side of the Lock.

  And then I realize.

  This doesn’t have to be Simon. How would he know exactly where I am? He wouldn’t. Not exactly.

  The irony is I do have an app on my phone which tells people precisely where I am. Findafriend. And Simon isn’t linked to it. And the only two people who are linked to it are: Will, my brother in LA. And Tabitha, my best friend.

  Tabitha. Tabitha Tabitha Tabitha.

  Tabitha likes to look at Findafriend and send me sardonic messages when she sees I am in the pub. Having another cocktail, sweetie? And I do the same to her. It’s part of our friendship – or what I assumed was our friendship.

  Could I have been completely wrong? This isn’t anything to do with Simon? In that case it is possibly Tabitha, inviting me into her flat, just to torment me?

  Yet I do not see her motive. At all.

  That leaves one candidate. If it’s not Simon and it’s not Tabitha then it is me. Doing this to myself.

  I am halted by another ping. Another message. Another bit of news from nowhere.

  The message is an image: a picture has flashed onto my phone.

  And the image is my father. Holding me in his arms. I am possibly three years old, my toddler thumb in my mouth. My father looks so happy. Sane and hands
ome, the sun in his eyes, standing in the garden. My lost daddy.

  I have never seen this photo before. This text has a different number. And it comes with a name; yet I never wrote this name into my phone. And for a very good reason.

  Apparently, I have been texted by JAMIE TREWIN.

  21

  Dr Hussain

  Ranim Hussain looked at the red-haired, red-eyed woman in front of her, wondering quite what to say. The patient wasn’t yet near the diagnostic threshold where a referral for schizophrenia made sense, and Camden Community Mental Health Resources were stretched enough already. Yet the young woman, who had only just registered with Primrose Hill Surgery, having so recently moved to the area, was obviously in distress, and exhibiting some peculiar symptoms.

  ‘Miss Ferguson, can we go over it again?’

  ‘You can, you know, call me Jo. If you’re going to be my GP? I don’t need formality.’

  Ranim smiled warmly. ‘If that makes you happier, of course.’ She turned to her PC, tapped a couple of keys, checked her notes. ‘Were you on first-name terms with your last GP? Up in in North Finchley?’

  ‘Well, no.’ The young woman managed an anaemic laugh. ‘That’s the point! I hardly ever saw him, because I was barely ever ill. I was happy and healthy, one year to the next. Loved my job. Loved life. I don’t smoke, I eat right, exercise all the time, as much as I can—’

  ‘Drink?’

  Jo Ferguson paused. She looked at her nails. Ranim noted that a couple of them were bitten.

  ‘Yes, I drink. Probably too much. But not waaaaay too much.’

  Ranim tapped a few keys.

  ‘How many units would you say, a week? Given that one small glass of wine is a unit.’

  Jo closed her eyes, doing the maths; then opened her eyes and said,

  ‘Ten units in a sober week? Fifteen in a boozy week? That’s a bad week though.’

  Ranim nodded, and mentally doubled each number. She’d learned from long experience that almost everyone – other than the completely abstinent, or Muslims like her own family, and even then not all – her beery Uncle Danesh! – lied about alcohol intake. Double or triple the estimate and you were invariably closer.