Virtual Strangers

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  Griffith.

  griffith@cymserve.co.uk.

  Dear Griffith,

  What’s with the capital G? And what do you mean “concerned”? How concerned? And why concerned? And what do you mean by typing ‘Look’ in that aggressive tone? And why aren’t you in bed? And why aren’t I in bed, for that matter? It’s one in the morning and my house smells of hobgoblins and my boyfriend (laughable; ho, ho, ho etc.) has been sighted, inebriated, in a sleaze-bag pub in town when he should have been hot-footing it up to Castle Howard or wherever it was the Brontës hung out, and admiring the view from the dormer and so on - and all for reasons best known to himself, and certainly not to me. And everyone else - Caroline Stableford, particularly - seems to know all about it and- and, well, like I said. Why concerned? You were there, weren’t you? Tell me your name.

  C.

  Now.

  thesimpsons@cymserve.co.uk

  Dear Charlie,

  But you didn’t really want to see him any more, anyway, did you? To be fair. So you can hardly feel aggrieved about it. Surely it’s a blessing?

  Griffith.

  Tsk!

  griffith@cymserve.co.uk

  Dear, dear Griffith,

  That’s not the point. Anyway, I’m beginning to have a very ambivalent feeling about this conversation. And you haven’t answered my question.

  C.

  PS And scrub that bit about Castle Howard. That was Brideshead Revisited. It was Haworth I meant. I wouldn’t want you to think I was stupid or anything. I’ve read that as well, actually.

  And I must have read something by Emily Brontë. Must have. Was she Northanger Abbey? And what about Ann? (Anne?) And what the hell did Bram (Bramwell? Brom? Bromwich?) write? Very irritated by the fact that Phil, undoubtedly, has all the answers. Slurp tea and await bing. Bing!

  thesimpsons@cymserve.co.uk

  Dear Charlie,

  I didn’t think so for an instant. And I haven’t. Jane Eyre was torture. And Brideshead was considered passé at college. We all thought it was Poncey.

  Why ambivalent?

  Griffith

  College! Aha!

  griffith@cymserve.co.uk

  Dear Griffith,

  Ambivalent because much as I want to find out who you are, there is a part of me that’s apprehensive about it - supposing you have got a face like a scone topping, or worse - supposing you’re drop dead gorgeous? Actually, I’m not sure which is worse. Yes I am - absolute worst will be if you’re someone I know and really don’t like, which is what always happens, doesn’t it?

  I beg to differ about Brideshead (though Jeremy Irons has become a bit of an over earnest thespian since then). And who’s ‘we’? And you still haven’t answered my question. And most importantly, which college? And which course? A Clamtec diploma?

  C.

  thesimpsons@cymserve.co.uk

  But, Charlie, it’s not going to be a problem, is it? Because you’re not going to find out who I am. Then we can carry on our chats without worrying. Anyway, which question was it you wanted answered? G.

  griffith@cymserve.co.uk

  Dear Griffith,

  Stop pratting about. I’ve started so I’ll finish.

  1. The question about how you knew there was anything to be concerned about.

  2. The question about who ‘we’ were.

  3. The question about who you are.

  4. The question about what the hell I’m doing sending emails to a qualified clam digger from Tenby.

  5. The question about whether you were there.

  C.

  PS - the underlining is a new departure. Is it significant?

  thesimpsons@cymserve.co.uk

  Significant only in that my typing has improved no end these last few weeks. I even do italics now. And bold. Impressed?

  Answers;

  1. You already told me about the Phil situation (it was an all purpose ‘are you all right’).

  2. My fellow clam diggers. We preferred Amis. (Martin.)

  3. Pass.

  4. Enjoying it.

  5. Pass.

  G.

  griffith@cymserve.co.uk

  Griffith, you’re a rat. So how come you emailed me at one in the morning?

  thesimpsons@cymserve.co.uk

  Fortuitousness.

  Oh, and the boxing being on.

  Boxing? Huh? But I am just about to type ‘what about the boxing?’ when a strange and hair-prickling sensation of comes over me; a sensation I am beginning to recognise as one that should be attended to at all costs. Scan brain. Slurp tea. Scan brain some more. Say ‘fortuitousness’ in soft tones to myself, then ‘look’ then ‘GOOD GOD ’ then ‘fortuitousness’ again. Go into kitchen and retrieve the hankie from my jacket, ball into my fist then walk back into the study. Sit down, open fist, spread out hankie on desktop, peer in light from computer at monogrammed corner.

  Read; A G J.

  A G J. A G J. Blink. Sit back. Read again. Say out loud. Lean forward. Type;

  griffith@cymserve.co.uk

  I have your handkerchief. Don’t email me again.

  Then I switch off the computer and go straight to bed.

  Chapter 8

  Sunday 11.07 a.m.

  And carefully noted, as a totally pyroclastic moment in my life. Pyroclastic in that free flowing sensations of utter consternation/ churning stomach/ disbelief etc. are now tumbling in a almost seismic wave over the landscape of my psyche, while boulders of angst rise and bob on the surface; married-boulder, Davina-boulder, pillar of community-boulder, boss-boulder, blanket horror-boulder etc. If I was given to hand wringing I would most certainly wring my hands.

  The future is a strange and scary landscape; all at once full of excitement and promise, and at the same time, the risk of eternal damnation. Or some such waffle. It’s corny, I know, and overstating the obvious, but such was the enormity of the truth I’d uncovered that only the wildest and most clichéd of sentiments seemed to do justice to the situation I now found myself in.

  Which was some situation. Here was a guy who was married to my boss and who, at the same time, and with full knowledge of what he was doing, was carrying on an email correspondence with me. And it wasn’t just anyone. It was Adam Jones. Adam Jones the GP. Adam Jones the utterly gorgeous GP. A guy that, well, - a guy that I really, really, really liked. A guy who I not only liked but admired. A guy that I knew everyone liked and admired - and why wouldn’t they? He was a kind, caring man. Who’s wife was Davina. Oh God. Davina. How - how on earth - would I deal with Davina? How would I face her, knowing what I knew now?

  And then there was sex. There was a sex-thing at work here. Oh, Lord, I couldn’t even begin to think about that.

  So this is what I did. About fifteen seconds after I went to bed, I got up again, went back downstairs, re-booted the computer and signed on to Cymserve. But there was nothing. Zippo. So I went back to bed.

  About fifteen seconds after that, I went down and did it all again. But there was (infuriatingly now) still nothing. So, feeling stupid, I stomped back to bed once again.

  And stared at the ceiling until it finally, amazingly, inexplicably hit me (possibly by means of the very mystical vision I have always been so sneery about) how the whole excruciating business might just have happened. In any event, a Willie JJ compliment slip became suddenly, horribly, mind-numbingly clear. So I went back downstairs and dug out my diary - an eighties style sliced-loaf sized mock leather organiser, within whose stout poppered cover resided some fifteen years worth of administrative data (plus a perspex ruler and London underground map. There also used to be a page detailing important international feast days, but as it faced Z in the address book section, the text had been totally obliterated by rabid doodles and tear stains - my divorce solicitor being one Clemenzia Zoot).

  The diary sprung open - a decade and a half’s scraps are surprisingly springy - and I was soon ferreting feverishly among the snippets in ‘G’. And at last, there they were, in my own spik
y writing: the fateful words ‘griffith@cymserve.co.uk’.

  It was seven forty two, but I called Rose regardless. I knew she’d be whisking the pigswill or something.

  ‘So that’s how,’ I told her, having dropped my new bombshell. ‘I wrote this down for Davina. Must have been, oh...a good eighteen months back, if not longer. There was some sort of contract she needed to look at and she wanted the guy to email her at home. Austin Metro I think it was. Funny thing is, I can even remember thinking it was a strange address at the time. But you know how it is - she rattled on about how important it was that the guy got the right address when he phoned, that I never got around to it. It was one of those things you just do and forget. You know?’

  ‘Slow down,’ she advised. Then, ‘Hmm. What a business! But how come you thought it was ours?’

  ‘God, that’s just it! It was me! You know what I’m like with admin - six months in the handbag, three in the desk tidy and so on - when it surfaced in my handbag again, I simply copied it into the address book itself under G.’

  ‘And ours?’

  ‘Under R, of course. For Rose. I’m looking at it right now. It’s a system of sorts.’

  ‘Not when you then look us up under G for Griffith. Mind you, when was the last time you’d have looked us up anyway?’

  ‘Exactly! Must have been ten years ago.’

  ‘And your methods with most things are generally arbitrary. You must have had a filing-by-Christian-name moment.’ She whistled. ‘And Adam Jones ended up with my email. This is going to take some time to sink in! But - God! - just think - Davina could have seen some –’

  ‘The first thing I thought of!’ (Not strictly. The first thing, as I said, was more along the lines of Oh God Adam JonesWow Christ Not Not Fair Oh Wow). ‘But then I would have known about it like a shot, wouldn’t I? And then I remembered that Davina has her own PC at home now. I remember her getting it. It’s like Computers ‘R Us at their place. They’ve got a study each, too.’

  ‘No kids yet.’

  I could hardly bear discuss this. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And they’re both workaholics. Though it tickles me to think of Adam Jones holed up in his study, furtively sending you emails.’

  I wasn’t sure I felt tickled. ‘There was never anything furtive about it,’ I reminded her.

  Rose laughed. A dark chocolate laugh, swirled with nuggets of emphasis. ‘Not for you, maybe, but certainly for him,’ she purred. ‘Don’t forget, he knew who he was sending them to.’

  My father tootled in a half hour or so later, bearing tea and the pained look he’s recently developed and could possibly patent.

  ‘What on earth is that smell?’ he whinnied, casting around.

  Distracted and impatient, I shrugged irritably at him. ‘What smell?’ I barked.

  ‘What smell?’ he countered. ‘Goodness me, Charlotte, has your nose gone on holiday?’

  Regrettably, no. I exhaled then inhaled. Still breathing at least. Still functioning. Just. ‘But what smell? What sort of sme –‘

  ‘Ah! Here’s the culprits! Charlotte, what on earth have you been doing? look at these!’

  He bent down and picked up the blow-heater. Plus my flip flops. Which were spot-welded to the top.

  Note; must make an ENT appointment sooner rather than later as I suspect I have suffered necrosis of the nasal mucus membrane, by spice.

  Midday.

  Am tempted to attach my hand to the kitchen door handle in order to stop a new and disconcerting involuntary log-on spasm, which is threatening to take over my entire day. Fortunately, I have a diversion in place, as my father is making a big splash at the Cefn Melin Xmas Food and Craft Extravaganza this afternoon with entries in several categories of the preserves section.

  Also I am belatedly (oh, be still my beating heart!) re-aware that the Phil situation is still unresolved. Am tempted to surf the net for obscure Brontëan factual trivia (as a lie-detector) but am deflected by the realisation that it is simply a symptom of the same involuntary log-on spasm. I’m anticipating a call from Phil with a mixed bag of irritable/nonchalant mind-sets (though my mind is almost fully occupied with the Adam Jones Development) and am actually, I realise now, dreading a bona fide explanation for his movements.

  Am also tempted to email Daniel to glean pointers to his Possible Christmas Movements. But I know without doubt that any enquiry about Possible Christmas Movements will elicit a cavalcade of diatribes about personal space and its importance in parent/child duty related negotiations (followed by a long period of non-contact as penance). Therefore I must accept that this is simply yet another symptom of my involuntary log-on spasm also, as I’m generally very mindful of filial sensitivities.

  Early evening - bleak and cheerless time of early winter afternoon, during which all hope seems lost; all optimism pointless. Must beware of getting SAD – should I book a low season week in Benalmadena, perhaps?

  Dad won in both the chutney and the jam categories, and his lemon cheese came a respectable fourth in Miscellaneous Preserves (respectable because this, he told me, was his second only venture into the world of curds). We celebrated by sitting in the warm, dusky kitchen and eating an entire whisked sponge.

  ‘The secret,’ he told me, ‘where lemons are concerned, is to look out for the ones with the really thin skins and to keep a tight rein on the temperature.’

  All of which looked like becoming uncomfortably pertinent when Phil’s car pulled up outside some moments later.

  He hadn’t called. And it had already struck me that whatever he’d been up to on Friday night it wasn’t simply a case of him drinking. Phil drank, but only in the most social of settings, and even then, only in small, straight sided glasses. Him being drunk then, was not actually about drinking, but more likely about wanting to be drunk. For which he must have had a reason. And if it was a reason he felt disinclined to share with me, then it must have been about me. Or, more precisely, about someone else. Though we’d only been seeing each other for a while, I’d known Phil, in a chit chat at parties kind of way, for ages. And as far as I knew (God, how little I did know), he really only drank when he was unhappy. As the security light illuminated his slim form on the driveway, I had the uncomfortable sensation that whatever manoeuvres I’d had in mind about ending things, I was about to be beaten to it.

  ‘How Haworth?’ I sang as I answered the door. (Bizarrely, some part of my brain seemed to think that a jocular tone was required.)

  ‘Oh,’ he said, wrong footed, as he wiped his feet rhythmically. ‘Oh, er. Small, dark, atmospheric. Um.’

  He hovered in the hall while I entirely neglected to usher him anywhere - busy as I was with the diversionary tactic of straightening the ruck in the doormat. Phil had never really become truly comfortable in our house; never taken his shoes off or made himself tea, for instance. I’d taken this to be more about having two proprietorial young males (and latterly, an aged one too) prowling around than about not actually feeling comfortable - Phil was always sensitive to proprietaries - but seeing him now, I decided it wasn’t about that at all. There were, it suddenly seemed, other forces at work. His eyes were the colour of sticky toffee pudding; dark lashed and intense, and quite his best feature. Looking back, I could now see it was the eyes that had swung it. The carpet, tonight though, was the chief beneficiary.

  ‘And so on,’ I repeated, for no good reason. ‘Kitchen? Cake?’ I started moving down the hall, but was immediately aware that he wasn’t following. I turned around.

  ‘Charlie, I need to talk to you,’ he said quietly.

  I said ‘Ah!’ (Why, exactly?) then, ‘It’s okay. Dad’s watching Your Favourite Hymns.’ I beckoned to the kitchen. ‘And Ben’s at Francesca’s.’

  Seemingly satisfied that we wouldn’t be interrupted by requests for cheese strings or cups of tea or throat lozenges, he followed me in and perched himself up on the stool by the fridge. Where he sat and said nothing for a good fifteen seconds, having decided, I presumed,
that my ‘ah!’ was indicative of the fact that I already knew what he was going to say and that I’d therefore take the conversational lead. Which I decided I’d better, or we’d be here all night. I said ‘Ah,’ again, but this time without the exclamatory nuance. Then ‘Well? So?’, which seemed to gee him up a bit.

  ‘You know my weekend?’ he began. I folded my arms and nodded. He slapped his hands down on his knees, as if starting a symphony. ‘Well, I didn’t actually go on it.’

  He paused to let this sink in. As I’d already suspected as much, I nodded again, fairly immediately. ‘I know.’

  He looked startled. ‘You do?’

  ‘You were spotted in the Flag and Fulcrum. Late Friday night. And you didn’t phone at all, so I was pretty sure. Why didn’t you go?’

  He jerked his head up and looked as shocked as if I’d just suggested energetic sex on the vinyl. Which, in other circumstances, would have been faintly amusing. What did he expect me to ask?

  ‘Because Karen’s been in touch. She’s back. And we...and she –’ He stopped here and peeled my flexible You Fat Cow fridge magnet off the fridge. Then stuck it back on higher up. Karen, then. Karen. As in the-ex-wife. As in the- no-go-discursive- region. As in - well, anyway. I had to find out about her sometime. It may as well be now.

  ‘Well, anyway,’ he said. ‘She’s back–’

  ‘Back?’

  ‘Back. In Cardiff. She- we- well, since the divorce she’s been living in Bristol. But she’s got a new job - the hospital. She’s a nurse. She –’I nodded. This much I recalled. ‘Anyway,’ he went on awkwardly. ‘She wanted to talk, so I met up with her on Friday evening and, well, I’ve been giving things a great deal of thought and I don’t think you’d disagree that things haven’t been all they could be between us lately, and I, well, I –’

  ‘Think we should stop seeing one another.’ I took a breath. ‘So do I.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘You seem surprised.’

  ‘No, I...Well, yes. I suppose I am. This is all a bit sudden, isn’t it? I mean, I only really began to think in those terms on Friday. You know, with Karen and everything. I suppose it hadn’t occurred to me that –’