by Alex Lake
‘Well,’ she said. ‘It sounds like sciatic pain. The sciatic nerve runs down your leg and it can become irritated if the muscles in your hip and leg get too stiff. I’m going to suggest some physical therapy. The PT will give you some stretches, which should help. Do you get much exercise, Mr D— Derek?’
He shook his head.
‘Do you have hobbies?’
‘Computer stuff, mainly. I like some of the games. You know Minecraft?’
‘I’ve heard of it,’ Sarah said, even though she hadn’t. ‘But I’m not familiar with it.’
‘You build worlds,’ Mr Davies said. ‘Which you control.’
‘Sounds fascinating. Do you spend a lot of time playing it?’
‘You don’t really play it. It’s about the world you create. You’re like a puppet master.’
Sarah had an image of him staring at his computer in the dark, his face illuminated by the glow from the screen as he built and managed his imaginary world.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘You might want to limit the time you spend sitting down. Maybe take a walk every day for thirty minutes, or even two walks.’
He frowned. ‘Is that all?’ he said. ‘You don’t want to take a look?’
‘I’m not sure what I would see,’ she replied, and smiled. ‘The receptionist will make your PT appointment.’
At lunchtime she drove to the pet store. The man behind the counter led her to a large tank filled with hundreds of goldfish.
‘Fifty cents apiece,’ he said. ‘You’ll need a tank and some food, as well as a bottle of the anti-chlorine stuff. Tap water has chlorine in it; it needs to be neutralized or it’ll kill the fish. We can drink the stuff but a fish can’t.’ He shrugged. ‘Go figure.’
In total it was nearly twenty dollars. A fifty-cent fish with a nineteen-dollar tank. The man laughed when she pointed it out.
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘but if the fish dies, it’s only another half-dollar to replace it.’
‘And they all look the same,’ Sarah said. ‘So the kids will never know it’s a new one.’
The man gave her a strange smile. ‘You’d think so,’ he said. ‘But it turns out kids always know. In my experience they pay attention to the details much more than we do. They can tell the difference between one fish and another pretty darn good. Best to come clean, tell ’em the fish died, and let ’em pick another.’
‘Well,’ Sarah said. ‘Either way, it’s still only fifty cents.’
‘That, ma’am, is the truth,’ the man said. ‘Now enjoy your fish.’
On the way out, the man had told her to fill the tank, then put the fish – keeping it in the plastic bag full of water he had put it in – in the tank, so the water in the bag and the water in the tank could come to the same temperature. Then, after a few hours, she could pour the fish into its new home.
She didn’t want to do this at work, so she stopped at home and followed his instructions. On the way out, she waved to the fish. It already felt like one of the family. The kids were going to love it.
That evening, as she was leaving work, she got a notification on her phone informing her she had been tagged in a post. She tapped on the link.
It was in a post from Sarah Havenant. The Fake Sarah. No photo this time; just her name, as part of a new post.
A post which read:
Got my goldfish! She’s a beauty!
Sarah stopped at the front door of the medical center. Her head spun and she felt close to passing out. She sat on one of the benches by the door. Before smoking was entirely banned on the premises it was where smokers had sat, and it still had faint traces of the acrid smell of cigarettes.
June, one of the nurses, tapped her on the shoulder.
‘Are you OK, Dr Havenant?’
Sarah nodded. ‘I’m fine. Thanks.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. I didn’t have lunch. Low blood sugar.’
The nurse walked into the medical center. When she came out she was holding one of the lollipops they gave to kids.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘Have this.’
Sarah sat in the car. She was cold, her mind blank.
There was no doubt now. Whoever this was, they were doing it to get her attention.
They were fucking with her. They were deliberately trying to mess with her head.
And it was working.
Worse, they knew she had been to the pet store. They had been there and seen her walk out with a goldfish in a bag.
Whoever was doing this was watching her.
Hands shaking, legs weak, she started the car. She had to get home, and she had to get there immediately.
9
Ben’s car was in the driveway when she pulled up. She could hear the kids playing in the backyard.
She went into the house and walked through to the kitchen. Ben was closing the oven door.
‘Baked potatoes,’ he said, and smiled at her. ‘I’ll make some burgers on the grill.’
‘I didn’t know we were having burgers,’ Sarah said.
‘I needed to distract the kids,’ Ben replied.
‘What do you mean?’
‘We had a bit of a nasty surprise when we got home.’
Sarah’s mouth went dry. She felt the blood rush from her face. What now? What had Fake Sarah done now?
‘What kind of surprise?’ she said, her voice little more than a croak.
‘Are you OK?’ Ben said.
She wasn’t, but she nodded. ‘What surprise?’
‘There was a dead fish floating in a bag,’ he said. ‘At first they were excited when they saw it, then they started to ask why it wasn’t swimming. They figured it out pretty quickly. Faye had a bit of a meltdown. Hence the burgers. I promised bacon and avocado on top as well.’
Sarah relaxed, a little. ‘A dead fish is all?’ she said. ‘I thought – I thought it might be worse.’
‘Worse?’ Ben said. ‘Why were you expecting worse?’
The skin around Sarah’s eyes tightened and she felt her mouth begin to tremble. ‘It – it happened again,’ she said. ‘A post. About the goldfish.’
‘On the fake Facebook account?’
She nodded. ‘They posted about the fish I bought at lunchtime.’
Ben straightened. ‘They did? How did they know?’
‘I don’t know. They must – they must have been following me.’
‘Shit,’ Ben said. ‘If this is someone’s idea of a joke, then it’s not funny.’
‘It’s not a joke, Ben. None of my friends would do this.’
‘Then who?’ he said. ‘Who would have been following you?’
‘I have no idea.’
She called Toni when the kids were in bed.
‘Hey,’ Toni said. ‘How are you?’
‘Good,’ Sarah said. ‘Well, kind of. But I’ll get to that in a bit. How are you holding up?’
Toni had separated from her husband, Joe, six months earlier and was in the process of getting divorced. They’d met when she was thirty-two and she had married him despite her – and her friends’ – misgivings. He was tall, good-looking, well-dressed and had a whiff of the snake-oil salesman about him. It was his shoes which had put Sarah off: every time she saw him he was wearing a new pair, and they were always meticulously shined or brushed or cleaned. Ben had good shoes, solid English brogues from Church’s or Loake, but they had a reassuringly scuffed appearance. From time to time he polished them, but only when necessary. He didn’t want to polish them; he had better things to be doing. But Joe must have spent hours on his shoes and clothes and hair. It was, as far as Sarah was concerned, a bit suspicious. It couldn’t all be for Toni’s benefit.
And it turned out it wasn’t. Joe was having a series of affairs with women who worked in his office. One, Toni might have forgiven. Six or seven was too much.
‘The divorce comes through in a fortnight,’ Toni said. ‘Can’t wait.’
‘It’ll be good to get it over with. You been busy?’
<
br /> ‘Oh yeah. My life is a laugh a minute. All I need is to get all the hot twenty-six-year-old firemen to leave me alone so I have time to write my novel and then I’ll be OK. But enough about my amazing life. How are you?’
‘Well,’ Sarah said. ‘There has been some weird stuff going on.’
‘Don’t tell me Ben is having an affair. I couldn’t take it. Not Ben. He’s too boring.’
‘He’s not boring!’ Sarah paused. ‘OK, well maybe. But no. It’s not an affair. It’s – there’s a Facebook account. In my name. It’s easier if I send it to you. Let me know when you have it.’
She messaged a link to Toni.
‘Here it is,’ Toni said. ‘I’ll bring it up.’ There was a pause. ‘OK, got it on my screen now. There you are, posting stuff. What’s the big deal?’
‘The big deal is, it wasn’t me who posted it. Any of it.’
‘What do you mean? These are your photos. There’s one of us in Portland with Anne.’
‘I didn’t post them,’ Sarah said. ‘That isn’t my account. It’s someone else’s, someone who has been posting photos of me, under my name. And there’s one from inside the house.’
There was a sharp intake of breath.
‘You didn’t do this?’ Toni said. ‘This is crazy.’
‘It isn’t’ – Sarah hesitated, but she had to ask – ‘it’s not you, is it?’
‘What? Why would it be me?’
‘You do have a track record of pranking people, Toni.’
‘Yeah, but firstly that was when we were in college. And secondly, even I would never come up with a prank like this, let alone be able to do it. I mean, where would I get the photos?’
‘You could have asked other people.’
Toni laughed. ‘Look, Sarah,’ she said. ‘Let’s put this one to bed, once and for all. I had nothing to do with this, OK? And in any case, my pranks were funny—’
‘I wouldn’t say funny, exactly,’ Sarah interrupted.
‘Well, at least harmless. And this is neither. This is creepy. Very fucking creepy.’
This was not what Sarah had been hoping to hear. She had been hoping – although, looking back, it was probably a vain hope – Toni would say, Yeah, it was me or don’t worry, it’s a thing millennials do to tease people, but instead, she was agreeing.
‘I know,’ Sarah said. ‘I’m worried.’
‘Have you called the cops?’
‘You think I need to?’
‘I don’t know. It can’t hurt. And you could tell Facebook. Contact somebody there and ask them to take the profile down.’
‘Would they do that?’
‘Probably not. They’d cite freedom of speech or whatever to justify their unwillingness to lose a user, but you might as well ask the question.’
‘OK,’ Sarah said. ‘Thanks for the suggestions.’
‘No worries. And keep me posted, OK?’
Sarah ended the call. Ben appeared in the doorway to their bedroom.
‘How was Toni?’ he said.
‘Good. The divorce is nearly done.’
‘What did she think about Fake Sarah?’
‘She suggested I contact Facebook and ask them to remove it, and also call the cops.’
Ben wagged his head from side to side. ‘I’m not sure what the cops will do,’ he said. ‘There’s not really a crime for them to investigate. But you could try.’
‘I will,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ll do it in the morning. I need to go to bed. I barely slept last night.’
She didn’t sleep much better that night. She got out of bed early and decided to start with Facebook. The police could wait; there was no point calling them at this time anyway as they would hardly rush over because of some Facebook account, and besides, she didn’t particularly want them showing up at her house at 7 a.m. She preferred to be dressed and showered before a face-to-face meeting with a police officer.
She logged on to her account and looked for some contact details. Under ‘More’ there was an option for ‘Help and Support’; she clicked and a link appeared for reporting abusive content. She was about to follow it, but she stopped herself.
Was it really abusive content? She wasn’t sure it was. It was weird and unsettling, but it wasn’t abusive, or obscene. It was merely photos. She needed to think about how she was going to approach this.
She decided to take a look at the fake account so she could tell Facebook exactly what was going on. She could gather her thoughts, and at the same time see if anything new had been posted.
She clicked the link.
It wasn’t there.
She searched Facebook for Sarah Havenant.
There was her account, and there was another Sarah Havenant, but she was a teenager from Ohio.
The profile had been deleted, so now there was nothing to show the cops or to write to Facebook about.
She felt a momentary surge of relief, but it was quickly replaced with a nagging unease. Maybe, just maybe, this was the end of whatever had been going on.
And maybe it wasn’t.
10
She will look, today, at the account. Maybe she will wake up and decide not to, decide she is going to ignore it, but eventually she will want, need to look, like a drunk who wakes up with all the best intentions – I will not drink today, I will not – but then as the day goes on and all the old feelings and insecurities come back, the glass of beer or wine or vodka starts to look more and more appealing.
And then you’re drinking it, and you hate yourself, but at least you scratched the itch.
When she gives in, though, the account will not be there. It is unlikely – but possible – Facebook would take her seriously and help her trace it, although they would find it hard to locate the owner even if they did. So it is better to close off that avenue before it becomes a problem.
And the account itself is not important. It’s merely the hook.
And the fish is hooked now.
Well and truly hooked.
11
In the evening Sarah googled herself again; in the morning she repeated the exercise. She was there – her MD page, some records from 10k and half-marathon races she had run, a photo of her and Jean at a charity dinner that had made it into the Portland newspapers – but there was nothing from her doppelgänger.
The other Sarah Havenant was nowhere to be seen.
She wondered whether it was an error of some kind in Facebook itself, a bug in the code that created shadow profiles then shut them down when it realized they were there. It was unlikely, but so were the alternatives.
Either way, it was gone.
‘So,’ Sarah said. ‘What are you going to call it?’
‘Is it ours?’ Miles asked.
‘Sure,’ Sarah said. ‘All yours.’
‘And we can call it what we want?’ he said.
‘As long as it isn’t rude, then yes.’
She, Ben, Miles, Faye and Kim contemplated the new goldfish. It swam contentedly around its new home.
‘I’m calling it Faye,’ Miles said.
‘You can’t call it after your sister,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s a fish.’
‘I want it to be called after me,’ Faye said. ‘Faye the fish.’
‘It’ll be confusing,’ Sarah said. ‘Let’s think of another name.’
‘You said it’s our fish,’ Miles replied. ‘And Faye’s not rude, so if we want to call it Faye, we can.’
‘He has a point,’ Ben said. ‘It is what you promised.’
‘But then we’ll have two Fayes,’ Sarah said. ‘And I don’t want to.’ What she was thinking about was the day – which was inevitable – when the fish died. She didn’t want the words Faye is dead spoken in the house, even about a pet fish.
‘But it’s ours!’ Faye said. ‘Mommy, we’re calling it Faye. And you can’t stop us.’ She turned to the tank. ‘Hello, Faye,’ she said. ‘That’s my name too.’
‘There you go,’ Ben said. ‘Faye the Fish it is.’
Rac
hel Little, it turned out, was coming back to Barrow later in the week. She sent Sarah a message to let her know, and to ask whether she wanted to meet up over the weekend.
Sarah didn’t, particularly, but it was hard to say no, so she suggested a coffee on Saturday morning at the Little Cat Café.
I’ll have my youngest with me, she said. Hope it’s OK.
Kim? Rachel replied. Fine. Would love to meet her.
Sarah was jarred by the fact this stranger – because Rachel was a stranger, after all these years – knew her kids’ names, and she almost cancelled, but she reminded herself that, had it not been for the fake profile, she wouldn’t have noticed that someone knew what her children were called. The information was out there for anyone to see, after all.
A lot of information was out there for anyone to see.
We’ll be there, she replied. And welcome back.
‘Sarah?’
The voice came from behind her and she turned to face the speaker. At first she did not recognize Rachel. The last time she’d seen her – twenty years ago – she’d been tall and gangly and wild-haired and badly dressed, but now she was totally different. She was wearing a pair of flat-fronted linen pants and a sleeveless olive blouse, her hair – tinged with auburn – was long and luxuriant, and her skin glowed with a West Coast tan.
But those were outward changes; what Sarah noticed most was how much more at ease Rachel was. As a teenager she’d seemed a bit lost, a bit unsure of her place in the world. Now it was obvious she had grown into herself; all the awkwardness was gone, replaced by a calm elegance.
‘Rachel,’ she said. ‘How are you? It’s great to see you.’
‘I’m well. Glad to be back in Barrow.’ Her voice was different too. Fuller, more mature. Less reedy than Sarah remembered. ‘You?’
‘Despite college and medical school, sometimes I feel like I never left! But I like it here.’ Sarah gestured at Kim, who was playing with some wooden trains at a toy table in the corner of the café. ‘It’s a great place to raise kids.’
Rachel’s smile faded for a second; she brushed her stomach with her hand. It was a gesture pregnant women often made, and Sarah wondered whether she was going to tell her she was expecting, but Rachel simply nodded agreement. ‘Where will you be living?’ Sarah said.
