Virtual Strangers

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  ‘Mum, what are you doing? It’s quarter to six in the morning!’

  ‘Er, nothing, Ben. Just popping a plant stick in my yukka.’

  ‘At this time? So why’s the computer on then?’

  ‘Erm...silly me. Must have left it on overnight.’

  ‘No you didn’t. I used it last, remember. Unless you’ve been - Mum, you do know you’re on-line, don’t you?’

  ‘Erm...ooops! Er.. that’s because.. in fact...LOOK! What is this? Twenty questions? If you’re up, make yourself useful and put the kettle on or something! Don’t come in here quizzing me about... well, about anything, quite frankly. Go on then! Don’t just stand there!’

  ‘Okay, okay, okay! Moo-dy or what?’

  And all that for a deeply uninformative;

  thesimpsons@cymserve.co.uk

  Dear Charlotte Simpson,

  I know I owe you that, but if I tell you who he is then you’ll find out who I am, won’t you? So, regrettably, I can’t. I’m sorry I said I would put you in touch - I wasn’t thinking. I will find out anything I can however, and get it to you, promise.

  Griffith.

  Pah! On the way to work I compile a mental list of the male contingent of Rose and Matt’s party and come to the depressing realisation that, to the best of my belief, all men-friends of my acquaintance at said party are either married/have partners or are somebody’s Grandad. Or are gauche teenage sons of more mature friends. So Griffith is either a rogue pensioner, an unusually eloquent juvenile or a furtive, unavailable, out of bounds man.

  Hmmm. Cyber-flirtatiousness is not a good idea.

  Chapter 7

  Definitely not good idea. Stableford Saturday. Late pm. Tense.

  What a funny thing. Having started the week in a mood of strident indignation and full of zeal about exposing my phantom email stalker etc., I find that I have ended the week in an unexpected romantically charged flap. I waved Phil off on Thursday with a peculiar surge of end-of-term excitement, imagining myself and griffith engaged in a frantic clinch at the much talked about Stableford Bonfire Night barbecue - which I am certain beyond question griffith will attend.

  I’m now oscillating between cogitating anxiously about what to wear and being very angry about having developed the worrying (nay, pathetic) perception that what I look like merits any anxiety in the first place. I look like I look, and will look so whatever. i.e. unremarkable, pretty-ish, reasonable bustline, topped off with reliably unruly hair.

  Having considered the miserable possibility of griffith being gorgeous stroke married stroke (arrrgh!) one of shaggable top six etc., I have instead decided he is allowed to be none of above. I have decided, rather, that griffith is/was an elusive, enigmatic, box of Black Magic chocolates type character, who has hovered mysteriously on the fringes of the Cefn Melin social scene keeping a profile too low even for eagle-eyed Simpson consideration. Indeed, I have expanded griffith into a figure of almost legendary and iconic proportions and imagined a whole saga-type international airport novel around him.

  Except set in Tenby, of course.

  11 pm

  But perhaps I shouldn’t have gone after all.

  Well there wasn’t any point in not going, was there? Not going would have involved spending Saturday evening watching Family Fortunes or Casualty or some ropey film effort, while absorbing a relentless whining commentary from Dad about how he’d gone to a lot of trouble making a Sussex Pond Pudding (True. But why?) and how he’d told all sorts of people he’d be going to the party and that they’d be very disappointed if he didn’t show (false, surely?). Plus I knew Ben would never forgive me as his hormone surge is threatening to take him over entirely, with spot clusters rampant and claiming ever more territory, in the manner of bacteria on nutrient agar jelly. Plus, and mainly, as there had been not a single communication from mystery griffith all week, I was, I realised, practically hyperventilating with frustration about his steadfast refusal to spill the beans re. his I.D.

  So we went.

  Early reconnaissance revealed any number of prospective griffiths. Stableford parties always include a large male corporate contingent (from Bill Stableford’s cutting edge of technology type firm in Cardiff Bay) some of which could have been at Rose and Matt’s do also, given the complex dynamics of pairings and blood ties and, quite possibly, phases of the moon. And with Cardiff being Cardiff, you could sign up for a course in small mammal husbandry in the Amazon Basin and still expect to find someone you knew in the queue.

  But conscious that I was in danger of looking like an old mad crone with mystical vision who could see people’s spectral auras and so on, I decided being pro-active in griffith detection was a bit of a non-starter. I’d just have to bide my time, keep my wits about me, and hope.

  I joined in, therefore, with all the usual firework barbecue party type activities, draping myself alluringly over the Stableford’s swing-seat, and making appropriate weee! wow! noises as rockets expired in their milk bottles and Catherine wheels whizzed enthusiastically shedwards - I even took charge of an ironic sparkler contingent (the average child age being fourteen or so). None of which proved to be productive romantically, so eventually, spying a lone adult male, I went and holed up under the jaunty green barbecue awning instead.

  And found myself with a like-minded soul at last. Richard Potter, whose general air of skittishness might have led one less astute than myself to jump to erroneous cyber-conclusions, was never a contender for covert emailing stunts. Despite his glorious dancing come-to-bed eyebrows, over which he seemed to have little control, Richard sent out only signals of terror - terror lest anyone female and his side of eighty might leap up and shove their tits in his face. (This being due to a recent extra-marital-shenanigans crisis, and his subsequent - if now reversed - harrowing re-location by wife Julia to a lino-infested flat in Cathays.)

  I came upon him lurking by the condiments trestle, where, whilst ripping the skin from his chicken, crocodile fashion, he’d launched a volley of translucent pink blobs at his shirt.

  ‘Death by defrosted drumstick!’ I quipped.

  Blank look. Engineer. No food hygiene awareness. ‘Really?’ he said, eyeing the stump with alarm.

  ‘Only joking,’ I chortled. ‘I’m sure it tastes lovely. Ha ha. Here, let me help you. Have a dab with my tissue.’

  ‘Thanks. Here on your own?’

  ‘I guess so. In spirit. Dad and Ben are here somewhere, but Phil’s at some sort of Brontë weekend. How’s Julia?’

  ‘Oh, fine,’ he said, instantly (and endearingly) blushing. We moved on to a hard landscaping and quarrying imbroglio till Caroline Stableford bore down upon us with yet another assortment of speared flesh, nestling invitingly in a bath of leached bodily fluids.

  ‘Try a brochette,’ she urged. ‘they’re surf and - don’t laugh - hen coop. Ha, ha. The green bits (the black bits) are deep fried radish leaves.’

  ‘I’m allergic,’ I improvised. ‘Prawns make my face go all blotchy.’

  ‘These won’t. They’re fresh ones.’

  And still trying to breast-stroke through the chicken plasma, by the look of them. I shook my head. ‘No, really. I simply can’t risk it.’

  ‘Hmm,’ she said. Adding by way of her eyebrows that going all blotchy was my natural party look anyway, and more a mulled wine than shellfish based facial response.

  ‘Richard, then. Tempt you?’

  His left eyebrow tangoed. Then lowered with relief as she gave up and left.

  But one could never be far from a Stableford in Cefn Melin.

  ‘No Phil, then?’ Bill asked moments later. He was doing the rounds with a Vin de Pays winebox. I was sucking a twiglet, thus unable to answer. I shook my head.

  ‘Weekend in Yorkshire,’ explained Richard. ‘A coach trip.’

  ‘Oh? He never mentioned,’ said Bill.

  ‘Never mentioned what?’

  ‘Last night. About a coach trip. When I saw him in the Flag. Office do, was it? Or just a Friday night
piss up?’

  Piss up? What piss up? Phil at a piss up?

  ‘This was last night?’ I asked, feeling suddenly stupid.

  ‘No Phil, then?’ echoed Adam Jones, who’d just wandered across.

  ‘No sir-ee,’ Bill confirmed with a headshake, as Caroline returned, forcing Adam to deflect the brochette laden tray.

  ‘Just been saying,’ Bill added, before I could. ‘He’s away on a coach trip. Yorkshire, you say, Charlie? Don’t envy him two fifty miles on a coach!’

  I irritably scooped up a handful of peanuts.

  ‘But they were setting off at tea time. He was leaving work early.’

  ‘Well he must have done that - amount he had on board.’

  Phil drunk?

  ‘Perhaps the coach was delayed.’ This was Adam Jones again - interjecting in typical spit-spot Mary Poppins crisis management style. ‘I expect they stopped off for a drink.’

  Of course, I thought. And I’m Judith Chalmers.

  ‘No Phil, then?’ Davina, now. ‘Pass the mayo, Adam.’

  ‘Just saying,’ said Bill. ‘He’s off bussing round Yorkshire. With er...’

  ‘With Charlotte Brontë, apparently!’ chortled Caroline, skewering Bill with a covert, but still perfectly obvious, look.

  Which everyone saw. And then pretended to not see. Mouthfuls were taken. Throats were cleared. I picked up my drink.

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘No doubt I’ll soon hear all about it. Ah! There’s my father. And it’s almost eleven. Better liberate Francesca before Ben does. Um. Yes.’

  Back in the bloody toilet, and crying! What was it with me lately?

  Caroline Stableford’s downstairs loo had a cream stencilled muslin bag-thing on a small coat hanger hanging from the radiator. Which cheered me up no end. Principally because it had eleven toilet rolls in it. Which led me to conjecture that there must be precious few crises one could find oneself in where a ten toilet roll complement would find itself lacking. Having run out of Handy Andies, I used an extravagant dozen or so sheets to mop up the trails of mascara. And then wondered what perverse personality facet would lead to Caroline’s toilet arrangements making me feel better. But, nevertheless, it did.

  Far less cheering, however, was emerging from the cloakroom to find both Adam and Davina Jones hovering by the door.

  Davina thrust a finger into the airspace between us. ‘Ah, Charlie!’ she said. ‘The Drinkwater survey. Is it booked, or has Minnie been stalling again?’

  I cleared my throat. Smiled at her. ‘Monday. Ten thirty. I’ll be there. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Uh-huh. I hope so. Well, I’m off. See you next. Adam, keys.’ She flattened her palm to receive them, then pecked his cheek lightly and tripped off down the hall.

  ‘Right-ho,’ I said to her back. Then, slightly embarrassed to find myself once again in a snivelling situation with the good Doctor (who surely, by now, considered me a complete flake), ‘Did you, er… want to use...’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ he confirmed, nodding and stepping back slightly so I could move around him. ‘But d’you want this? You’ve a bit of something...’

  He gestured to my (puff-o-puffy) eye then smiled and plucked something from a pocket. He dangled it in front of me. It was a hankie. Unused, ironed, and depressingly snowy.

  I took it and sighed.

  ‘Why it is some people always have a clean hankie?’ I burbled. ‘I try telling myself it’s not a particularly life enhancing virtue, but, deep down, it makes me feel really inadequate.’

  As did any overt display of effective household linen management. Dan’s pitiful pants supply leapt into mind.

  Adam Jones looked at me with the sort of facial arrangement that probably swelled the gynaecological surgery queue tenfold, then batted the air in a deprecatory arc.

  ‘Sheer fortuitousness,’ he said. ‘Cleaning lady came today, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ I said, glad Davina hadn’t actually ironed it herself. ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid!’

  He hovered, smiling benignly while I began dabbing hopefully with the hankie. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Do you want to go back in and use the mirror first?’

  ‘No, no. You go right on in,’ I assured him.

  ‘No, really... please. Go ahead,’ he urged.

  For God’s sake! ‘For goodness sake! Really, I’m fine!’

  His forehead creased and he looked at me quizzically. ‘You don’t look it.’

  This was getting ridiculous. He’d be offering to take my pulse next. ‘Really,’ I insisted. ‘Can’t a girl have a small eyelash/cornea fusion crisis without everybody–’

  He laughed. A sort of trrrhgh! Then shook his head. His hair, I noticed, didn’t shake with it. Very short, very wavy, very thick, very dense.

  ‘You have such a wacky turn of phrase,’ he said. To which there was really no answer. Other than ‘bugger off, will you?’ which, under the circumstances, didn’t seem like a terribly good idea. Which made me crosser. I was beginning to feel like I was getting the measles. Breaking out in off-beat descriptive quips all over the place.

  ‘That’s me!’ I sang. ‘A ditty, a smile, a merry quip and so on. Excuse me, won’t you? My face,’ I explained, ‘is collapsing again.’

  Eleven.

  No Phil then, indeed. I’ll give them no bloody Phil then. I’ll give Phil no bloody Phil then.

  I’m in the doghouse, of course, with Father. He has discovered a new friend, in the shape of Hester, Stableford granny (don’t know which side. Much care) and fellow preserves enthusiast, and wishes to be left to wow her with his extensive repertoire of facts about pectin. In the doghouse also with Ben. He has discovered new Facets Of Francesca and wishes to be left to wow her with his (albeit, I hope, less extensive) repertoire of ways to get inside her bra.

  We march home in a terse and uncommunicative crocodile, punctuated by dissident mutterings and belches from behind, and, in my case, a feeling that life is happening somewhere else altogether (in mystery-griffith style pine-clad shag-piled sixties penthouse, in Cadbury-mauve lounge suit and fur mules etc.)

  Midnight.

  No Phil, then. What’s the matter with them all? Like, ‘yes! here he is! I keep him in a special pouch in my knickers, you ninnies!’

  There will, of course, be an innocent explanation. Like; Phil was just on his way to the coach stop when he bumped into an old school friend and, seeing that he had an hour to kill (being an ulcer-containment hour early for everything) he decided to go for a drink with him to talk about old times, and one thing led to another and...

  No. The only one thing that leads to another with Phil is it being seven o’clock and then it being eight o’clock and so on.

  Okay. Phil missed the coach.

  No. Never.

  Okay. Phil got on the coach, realised he’d left his wallet or something...

  No. Never.

  Okay. Phil got on the coach and the coach set off, but it broke down en route, and they all got off and went to the pub while it was fixed (or whatever) and by the time the coach was ready to go they were all a bit worse for wear, and he wasn’t able to call me because Ben was surfing the net all evening and our phone was constantly engaged (must get extra line), and he couldn’t call me today because he was indeed on the coach all day with a hangover and probably fully intends to call me tomorrow. And may even have tried to call me this evening, of course. Yes.

  No. the Flag and Fulcrum is in the middle of Queen Street which is nowhere near the coach station, but is very close to Phil’s office.

  Okay. Phil lied.

  No. Surely not.

  Okay. Phil......um.....Phil.............Yes. Yes! Phil.......No. Never.

  Okay. Phil lied.

  Trouble is, I really can’t believe that he did. Phil simply isn’t that kind of a guy. He’s straight, uncomplicated; a man with integrity. A man with - oh, hell. How would I know, really? All I really know about Phil is that he appears uncomplicated. But how can a forty year old divorcee ever
be that uncomplicated? He has a whole chunk of past that does not include me. And as he steadfastly refuses to talk about any of it, I haven’t a real handle on what makes him tick. Perhaps that’s it. Perhaps that’s why we don’t work. Because we’re starting from scratch, without reference to anything. Always skimming the surface - not plumbing the depths. But still...Phil lie? To what end? For what purpose? But just as the idea of Phil lying seems crazy, I have simply no reason to know that he won’t.

  One a.m.

  I’m beginning to feel that a small hours cyber-meander could be a possible route to inner calm and stress reduction. Strange odours are always marginally less intense in the study (or nasal sensitivity is possibly cyclical, like sleep) plus the surfaces are not clogged with cooling preserves. Also I can surf the net for pictures of obscure geological features and perhaps find details of a previously unadvertised June trek to the Himalayas, without the need for jostling with son two re. net time. Or perhaps I can find a friend with which to share love of plate tectonics. With GSOH, FSH etc. Or even stray griffith, perhaps? In any event I can send a cheap rate email to Dan about pant preferences, in preparation for providing a well stocked clothing holdall next term. Make tea. Boot computer. Switch blow heater on. Pour tea. Sit down. Look up to find new unread email to view.

  thesimpsons@cymserve.co.uk

  Hello stranger.

  Just wanted to check if you were all right.

  Griffith.

  Yes! No! Tsk! I’ll give him bloody Griffith. And then, hmmm. Curious. I check the time it was sent. Well, well, well. Only fifteen minutes ago. Curiouser. Maybe..... Consider pausing to reflect. Consider not answering his email until I’ve had a chance to order my thought processes and sharpen my investigative powers. Consider saving till morning for a very small percentage of a second, then, as minimum billing time with cymserve is one minute anyway, type;

  griffith@cymserve.co.uk

  Dear Griffith,

  What makes you think I’m not?

  C.

  thesimpsons@cymserve.co.uk

  Dear Charlie,

  Look, I was just concerned. That was all.