by Sophie White
Shelly checked that Georgie was engrossed in the strawberry bowl and picked up the phone to look at the picture once more.
It was this same room, though before they had done the full light-filled-extension revamp. The sliding doors that now ran the full width of the kitchen-dining room had yet to be put in and instead that wall just had two large windows. This picture exposing the charade of the breastfeeding post had been taken from the window of the old back door.
Shelly twisted slightly to look at the spot where it had been. There were some floating shelves there now with tasteful Insta-essential accessories: a couple of ferns, a succulent, a glowing diffuser and a picture of resplendent pregnant Shelly. What a different story that pregnancy was compared with this one. She looked down.
At nineteen weeks, her bump was nearly as big now as it had ever gotten when she’d been expecting Georgie – she’d be massive by the end. Apparently, this happened on second pregnancies, the young midwife had sympathised before posing for a selfie for her own burgeoning account (@AWhiffOfMidwifery, 12,000 followers). ‘It’s ’cos the extension’s already been built, know what I mean?’
Shelly grimaced just remembering her words. Ewww.
Of course, this latest incriminating photo knocked Marni firmly off the list of suspects. She hadn’t joined them at that stage. And Shelly felt in her heart of hearts it couldn’t be Amy. For starters, Amy was behind the camera when this picture had been taken. She’d have needed an accomplice. It was too ludicrous; Shelly shook the thought from her head. She’d seen Amy’s reactions to some of these posts and, really, no one was that good an actor – Shelly should know, she’d studied with some seriously talented people at RADA. Of course, there was Hazel and Polly. There was always a little competition simmering between them. And they had been there earlier that day, but they had both left by the time this pic was taken. And if it was either of them it didn’t make much sense. Wouldn’t they be trying to get her off Insta? Not demanding she be more prolific in her posting?
Hazel was off on her own mad tangent of earth mama stuff and she surely had too much on her plate already for a committed campaign of blackmail, and Polly was just so nice and boring. Shelly felt bad thinking this, but it was true, she was so basic. There were always mortifying spelling mistakes in her captions. Shelly cringed. She genuinely appeared to not know the difference between ‘you’re’ and ‘your’. She just didn’t seem to have the imagination for something like this.
Maybe it was a stranger? A Shell-Belle gone bad? She shivered at the idea of a stranger creeping around the property. She screengrabbed the latest shots and sent them to Detective Bríd. Hopefully they would get some time to discuss the case soon but Shelly knew from her email that Bríd was snowed under.
Chapter 11
Ali observed the crowd outside the Glasnevin community centre from the safety of her car at the far side of the car park. It was a fairly wide demographic, lots of old people, a few teenagers and every age in between. They mostly looked as if they had just come from work. She consulted the pin Amy had sent her the night before to double-check that she was indeed in the right place. They just didn’t look like a bunch of crazy catfishers. The bulk of them looked like boring nine to fivers. The whole crew could have just as easily been a community choir or something. There was a little old man who looked about seventy. What was he doing on the internet full stop? Never mind catfishing people?
She checked the time on her phone. Twenty-five past. According to Amy’s text, the meeting started at half and she could see people in the group stubbing out cigarettes and putting away their vapes as others began to file inside. It was now or never. Ali definitely didn’t want to walk in after everyone. She’d always hated that feeling in school of everyone watching her while she tried to find a seat. Best to be among the crowd and remain anonymous. Though Ali was just about the least anonymous person in Dublin these days. Everywhere she went, she could see people doing double-takes, leaning in to whisper urgently to their friends or, worse, seizing their phones to snap a pic. Ugh. So many pics kept cropping up online of her looking shady ducking into the Spar near her and Liv’s place. Notions.ie kept posting them alongside headlines like ‘Not So Glam Now: Shamed Instagrammer Spotted Purchasing Findus Crispy Pancakes’.
Though Amy had promised her that anonymity wouldn’t be a problem at CatAnon.
‘It’s in the title. Catfishers Anonymous. You don’t even have to give your real name. I think lots of them go by initials or their old catfish handles – it’s something to do with facing their actions or whatever. May the fourth be with you.’
Ali had grinned. Liv had said exactly the same to her first thing this morning. They were perfect for each other.
Shit. Ali could see the last of the CatAnons holding the door open for one another and she hopped out of the car and sprinted across. The tall, ginger guy heading inside just in front of her turned to greet her.
‘Hi. I’m @SweetBabyAngel16.’ He held out his hand to shake hers.
‘Oh, yeah. Hi.’ Ali tucked her hair nervously behind her ear. ‘I’m, eh, @AlisBaba.’ An unmistakable flicker of recognition crossed his face, but he simply smiled warmly and said, ‘I think you’ve come to the right place, my friend.’
Ugh, God. Were the Catfishers going to be all peace and love and healing? Ali grimaced, making her way inside and slipping into a seat near the door at the back. @SweetBabyAngel16 had taken the one in front of her. She looked around the room. There were about sixteen people altogether. A few caught her eye and smiled, which she nervously dodged. Her tummy felt weird, but she couldn’t tell if it was nerves or the first detectable little hum of life from the bab. She’d seen him on the scan. He looked like a kidney bean with wiggly little arms and legs and she’d felt certain he was a boy. She gave her non-existent bump a gentle pat and held her breath to feel the gentle pops within. It had to be the baby. She smiled to herself. There you are! The midwife at her last appointment reassured her she’d start showing soon. She was nineteen weeks after all. ‘Everyone’s body is different,’ she’d said, patting Ali’s arm.
Ali didn’t like to dwell on the fact that while a large part of her was just excited to have a bump, a smaller part of her thought that once Sam saw her with a cute little pregnant belly, he’d finally soften towards her. Aaaand if she was being totally honest, another even smaller, darker part of her knew the bump’d better get on with popping soon, as Amy’d finalised an excellent sponsorship deal for Ali’s return to Instagram. As the girl who’d previously cried ‘baby’, they needed there to be no niggling doubts in the followers’ minds that this time it was #AlisNoBullshitBaba. That was literally the campaign’s hashtag. They had partnered with Sweet Little Lies – Ireland’s first and only private polygraph testing service – and Ali was constantly having to look at the final figure they’d agreed on to keep herself from backing out. After Amy’s cut it was nearly a year’s salary at Durty Aul’ Town.
Amy was irritated by Ali’s qualms. ‘For God’s sake, a few months ago you designed a pram for your fake baby, Ali. What’s the problem? This campaign is about a mea culpa. It’s about owning up to your bullshit. And coming clean. It’s perfect.’
Ali gazed around the walls as more people came in and got settled. There were posters with slogans everywhere.
‘Don’t do the first post.’
‘Keep it in the day.’
‘Do no harm, tell no lies.’
‘Put the phone down.’
A woman settled herself in one of the chairs at the desk at the top of the room, opened a large diary and began doing a headcount. Behind her hung two vast posters that looked like scrolls. One announced in large letters: ‘The 12 Steps of Catfishers Anonymous’ while the other proclaimed ‘The 12 Beliefs of Catfishers Anonymous’. Ali started to read with interest when a last straggler bustled in and hurried to the empty chair at the desk.
Ali clamped her mouth shut in case she audibly gasped. She’d not been expecting to run int
o someone she knew at this little weirdo shindig but there, shrugging off her denim jacket and sitting primly facing the room, was none other than @PollysFewBits. What the actual fuck was she doing here? And not just here but, judging by her seat at the head of the room, here in some sort of position of seniority? Ali saw Polly see her and a look of mild panic swept across her usually serene features. Ali tried to smile in a reassuring fashion and Polly nodded brusquely, leaning to hear whatever the woman beside her was saying.
They confabbed for a second longer, then the woman beside Polly cleared her throat and began reading from a laminated sheet in front of her.
‘Hello and welcome to this meeting of Catfishers Anonymous. My name is @BigDickY2K and I am a catfisher.’
The people around Ali drowned back: ‘Hi @BigDickY2K.’
‘This is a closed meeting of Catfishers Anonymous,’ she continued. ‘The only requirement for attendance is a desire to stop catfishing. Are there any newcomers here today who would like to introduce themselves?’
At least six people looked in Ali’s direction. According to Amy, there was only one group like this in the whole of Dublin, so of course they were going to notice a newbie. Ali sighed and cleared her throat awkwardly.
‘Hi, I’m … eh …’
@SweetBabyAngel16 turned back, coming to her rescue. ‘You can say your name or use your old online handle,’ he whispered. ‘Then say you’re a catfisher.’ He finished with a wink.
‘OK … I’m @AlisBaba and I’m a … catfisher.’
‘Hi @AlisBaba,’ chimed everyone, with lots of them giving her warm nods and encouraging smiles. The girl beside her, who looked about 30, shook her hand.
‘We will begin today’s meeting with @Always_Watching who has kindly agreed to share her story of recovery from catfishing addiction.’
‘Thanks, M.’ Polly smiled at the woman beside her and clasped her hands together on the table in front of her. ‘I’m @Always_Watching and I’m a catfisher. So … where to start? I suppose the first time I ever made a fake profile was back in the MSN messenger days, which is a bit of a giveaway on my age!’ A few appreciative chuckles rippled through the room. ‘I’d go on there and pretend to be this really hot girl who was amazing at hockey and on the school team. It wasn’t serious lies at first. I just wanted to feel like I could be someone different. I loved talking to the boys on there who were so gorgeous, and all seemed to be the most popular guys in their schools. Sure, who knows who they were. I was probably talking to some of you lot.’ Polly grinned and the room erupted in guffaws. Ali spotted one of the older men getting a knowing nudge from the little old lady beside him.
‘I suppose things got more serious when I got to college and there was more opportunity to be online. My parents had been pretty strict because it was all new back then. When I was a teenager, the family PC was the size of a small car and it was plonked in the living room, where the whole family hung out. But when I got to college, I could stay in the library all day. And, of course, that’s when MySpace and Bebo became big and I had millions of profiles. I was lead singer in a band on one and I was really into dancing on another. I’d steal all the pictures from obscure blogs and tumblrs. It was a bit easier back then. You couldn’t reverse search an image yet,’ she added a little sadly, as though mourning a simpler time when catfishing was pure. Ali looked around the room at the sea of sympathetic faces. Some nodded at different things Polly said.
‘I just loved my online life. I felt special online. People wanted to talk to me and be my friend. Whatever I wanted, I could make happen.’
Ali, to her surprise, found herself involuntarily nodding along. She got it. It was everything she’d been feeling these last few months.
‘Then, of course,’ Polly carried on, ‘I met a boy online and he became my boyfriend. He was always trying to meet up. He lived down the country, so, at first, I could get by on excuses but eventually he decided to come up to Dublin and surprise me. He knew I lived on campus. I wasn’t that good at catfishing back then. I used lots of the same details across my profiles. I didn’t bother changing things like date of birth or location and I put up similar pics of my house and where I lived, that sort of thing. When I opened the door to him, I panicked and pretended to be Sylvie’s roommate – that was the persona he’d been seeing online for nearly six months, “Sylvie”. When he asked my name, I told him my real name, not realising he was already suspicious and had found my other profiles online. He said he’d come back later, and I remember just sitting on the floor panicking. I was too shocked to even make a plan. When he came back an hour later, I barely spoke. He had printouts of Sylvie’s MySpace account and my own personal one – he’d gone to an internet café, remember those?’ Polly smiled wanly. ‘He called me a freak and a pathetic little bitch.’
The girl beside Ali murmured sympathetically. Ali noticed @SweetBabyAngel16 in front of her was wiping his eyes, his shoulders tensed. Ali thought of Sam holding Liv’s thesis and spitting the same kind of furious words about her and she found she had to swallow hard to hold off the tears herself.
‘That should have been my rock bottom.’ Polly twisted her fingers nervously in front of her. ‘I’m afraid I just got better at covering my tracks. Things got darker then and of course that’s when @Always_Watching started, which was my last online identity before I found this wonderful programme. I’ve probably spoken for long enough but just to say CatAnon saved me and I have learned so much in these rooms. And for any newcomers’ – Polly’s eyes met Ali’s and she looked deadly serious – ‘anonymity is sacrosanct. It’s so important for all our recoveries that we can trust each other.’ She raised an eyebrow in Ali’s direction, then smiled brightly, looking around to take in the whole room. ‘I know it sounds mad to trust a roomful of catfishers, but there you have it. I’d trust you all with my passwords!’ she finished with a little laugh.
Everyone applauded and @BigDickY2K made a couple of notes in her book and asked people not to talk for too long so that everyone had time to share. The sharing followed a circle around the room starting to Polly’s left, meaning Ali would have to open her mouth pretty damn soon. Shite.
‘Hi, I’m @User_4_h8,’ said the little old lady, who had nudged the man beside her during Polly’s speech. ‘And I’m a catfisher.’
‘Hi @User_4_h8,’ the room answered.
‘I got so much from your sharing, P. You always have such a great message. I have so much love for this programme too. You all know me. I didn’t pick up a phone until well into my sixties. I barely knew there was an internet.’ She laughed nervously, patting her white hair that was set into a neat little cap of waves. ‘I first got started on TripAdvisor. It was an accident. My Jimmy had opened up a B&B in Kilkenny. Lovely place and then next thing they got a bad review on this yoke. I was beside myself. Jimmy was saying “Don’t be worrying, Mam” but I couldn’t sleep. I was sick on it. Then Jimmy’s wife told me she reckoned it was a publican from town who’d put a bid on the property before they got it. Well, one night I’d had a sherry and was feeling braver than usual and I got the lad over the road to bring me his iPhone and he showed me how to set up an account and I was off. I gave that fecking publican a bollocking of the highest order. I said his pub was uglier than a bishop’s bare arse!’
Ali was startled by the vitriol that was suddenly pouring out of this sweet little old lady.
‘And bam! Just like that I was addicted to my catfishing. I got the lad from over the road to set me up on my own iPhone and then there was no stopping me. I went after everyone. The team manager at the GAA club who put Seamus Óg on the seconds. Biddy Meaney – meaney is RIGHT – down at bridge, who charged me for a class that I didn’t turn up to because of her stupid fecking cancellation policy.’
Jaysus, she’s on a roll, Ali thought. Maybe if she kept going Ali wouldn’t have to speak at all.
‘Anyway’ – @User_4_h8 folded her hands primly in her lap – ‘today I’m proud to say that I have deactivated every ac
count and now I just use my phone to FaceTime the grandchildren, get the odd bit of shopping – oh, and I’m a divil for Candy Crush. I’ll leave it at that.’
‘Thanks, @User_4_h8,’ chimed everyone.
The next man looked nervous. He was pulling at his shirt collar and the point where his thinning brown hair met his forehead was shiny with sweat.
‘Hi everybody. I’m @OfficerMartin and I’m a catfisher.’
‘Hi @OfficerMartin,’ the room dutifully responded.
‘Well, eh, gosh, thank you firstly for your incredibly honest share.’ He nodded to Polly. ‘I got a lot out of your story. It really brought me back to my rock bottom and reminded me how I never realised I was a catfisher. I just did these things and never saw that I was addicted to the power that my online persona gave me.’ Around Ali, a few people nodded. ‘For me, it started when I’d gone to the guards to give out about a neighbour who constantly parked his car up on the path, blocking the whole thing. Everyone had to step into the road to walk around it – it was so bloody inconsiderate. My wife would have the buggy for our youngest fella, and she’d be dragging that into bloody traffic, like!’ He was getting heated and paused to breathe and calm himself.
‘Sorry, it’s just that kind of thing bothers me. Anyway, at the garda station they didn’t give a crap. Told me I should just have a word with the neighbour. I was annoyed at being dismissed like that. The guard was on his computer on the other side of the glass at the reception and he was just so dismissive of me. That’s when I spotted his name badge and got the idea.’ @OfficerMartin swallowed and ran his fingers through his hair again. ‘I went home and set up an email account in his name. It was just to give my neighbour a warning. I never thought I’d do anything else with it. Truly.’ He licked his lips and then took a swig from his bottle of water.