Cyber Cinderella

by Christina Hopkinson

  “You’ve got to.”

  “Tracy’s been asking me if she can get a reduction on our costs if there are less employees at PR O’Create. And she was also asking me if I’d ever been involved with a dismissal based on an employee spending too much time on non-work-related Internet sites.”

  “Shit.”

  “And you can be sacked for that, you know. However, I told her that all her employees spend time on non-work-related Internet sites so it was going to be difficult to prove in the case of just one. Not to mention all the time she spends on home-furnishing sites and cheap designer outlets.”

  I giggled. “Can I have that in writing?”

  “Now that would be unprofessional.”

  “But so useful if she wants to sack me on the grounds of using the Internet on non-work-related business.”

  “I don’t think she’s going to sack you. I don’t know, but she’d have to give you a verbal warning…” “Has done.” “And then a written one and endless assessments. And that would take months and I got the impression she wanted to get rid of this employee more efficiently. She doesn’t like you.” “I don’t like her. Do you think she feels threatened by me?” “Maybe. I reckon you might be at risk of being made redundant with a payoff. She did talk about having to reduce headcount, having lost a couple of accounts.” I smiled. “And you think me bunking off work may make this a more likely prospect?” “I’m afraid so.” “Let’s do it.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  A Friday afternoon off work, the thrilling joy of it. Even as I sat in the gloom of public transport, I gave off little telepathic V-signs toward Tracy.

  Ivan strap-hung over me as we burrowed westward on the Underground. He’d given up his seat to a grateful old lady. If it was done for my benefit, it worked. I compared him favorably to the discourteous George. We smiled at each other occasionally, but mostly studied the adverts for cheap car insurance and air con systems.

  The train seemed to stop between every station. It would lurch us into one another and then pull us apart. It was a very long journey.

  “Who do you think we’re going to find?”

  “Don’t know. Do you think we will find someone?”

  “Don’t know.”

  By the time we arrived, I was enervated by anticipation, both for what we might find and for Ivan. We slunk up the escalator into the mass of people around the area that was incongruously known as the Green.

  “Flats round here are really expensive,” I said, loking round at the fast-food chicken joints and twenty-four-hour bagel shop.

  “Prices in London really are ridiculous.”

  “Absolutely ridiculous. I feel so sorry for first-time buyers.”

  Our ruminations on the capital’s favorite topic continued as Ivan led the way to a row of buildings in a section of a street in a corner of Shepherd’s Bush. I’d never noticed how empty residential areas were on a working day. Chichi bits of London were always inexplicably full at three in the afternoon and you wondered how all these people had the time and the money to be lounging round hip bars in the middle of the day. Unemployment signified extremes of wealth and poverty depending on where you found the people lounging. An area like this, one that lay at the suburban fringes of fashion, was as empty as the faces of those left there. It had the air of a Continental city in August, with the few remaining inhabitants wishing they were somewhere else.

  “It’s half past three,” I said.

  “And?”

  “I reckon we’ve got at least two hours before we need to start hiding somewhere to avoid him coming back. If he does come back.” I looked at the house numbers and at the street opposite. “In that restaurant,” I said, pointing to the sort of generic French bistro only found in local neighborhoods and sitcoms.

  “Perfect. Let’s go investigate.”

  At number twelve, the first house in our area, “Johnston” was out to work, as was “Smith” in the basement. “Jerry and Dave” were similarly unavailable for comment. I rang the doorbell to the middle flat of the next building. We had no luck with the simply named “Flat One,” nor with “The Goons” on the ground floor. I rang the doorbell of the middle flat.

  “Hello, I’m from a market research company.” I winced and Ivan winked at me. “And we’re doing a survey about routines of those not working regular office hours.” I could hear a baby crying in the background. “Would you mind answering a few questions?” She buzzed us in. Ivan and I looked at each other in surprise, but darted into the communal hallway. We rifled through the junk mail and curry house flyers that blocked our path, to find out the names of the other inhabitants, but still none of the names meant anything to me.

  A woman in jeans and a crisp shirt answered the door. Her top was White-Out white, a fact made surprising by the small baby snuggled up to it. Ivan passed me his envelope folder and I got out a piece of paper and angled it away from our respondent so she couldn’t see that it was empty of questions.

  Her name was Serena Whittaker, she was twenty-eight and she lived with her husband in flat three, number fourteen, a flat filled with expensive things made by indigenous peoples and sold in West London boutiques. Her cream sofa was as yet unsoiled by her three-month-old baby.

  “Question one,” I said brightly. “Why are you at home on a normal working day?”

  She glanced at the baby.

  “Sorry, stupid question, we just have to ask it. Do you enjoy stepping out of the nine-to-five routine that most of your peers undertake?”

  “You’d think, wouldn’t you?” She put the baby down on a brightly colored activity center. “I spent so many hours in the office wishing I wasn’t there, but each of those hours feels like a day being stuck here. I really thought it would be fun being at home with a baby.” She laughed. “I thought it would be like a holiday. But do you remember the school holidays and how boring they were?” I thought back to my blissful discovery then that reading made time pass quicker than you guessed it did and nodded.

  “I force myself not to look at the kitchen clock,” she continued. “And then I guess what time it is and it’s about half past nine and I thought it would be at least eleven. I battle with the Underground to have lunch with friends, just so that some of their office efficiency might rub off on me. I ring them up in their offices and they talk to me for three minutes before saying ‘I mustn’t keep you,’ and hanging up. The bit between six and seven, that’s the worst, waiting for Tom to come back and then he says how was your day and I have to say it was exactly like the day before and he’s done lots of interesting things and sometimes he has to go out in the evening, work stuff he says, and I am so bored and so sick of the television. I bet you think Radio Four is really good, don’t you?”

  “The Today Programme…” I muttered.

  “Exactly, it’s good before work and it’s good after work but the rest of the time it’s so boring and I’m so bored listening to it and watching rubbish on television. They must assume that anyone not in a ‘proper’ job is a halfwit.”

  I now understood why she had so recklessly let us into her home.

  “It’s not like I’m not busy. I’m boring busy. I’m really busy, emptying the washing machine, filling the washing machine, emptying the baby, filling the baby. But I’m so bloody bored, I’ve started talking to the neighbors.”

  “Really?” Ivan and I said with one voice.

  “Worse than that, I watch them.” She pointed at the bay window of the house opposite. “That man, he’s weird.”

  “Yes?”

  “He cleans the house all day, all those knickknacks, dusting, airing, old-fashioned things like that.”

  “Does he have a computer?” I asked, to which Ivan shook his head and made a face in return.

  “Can’t see it.”

  “What about your neighbors on this side of the street?” Ivan asked. “Do you have any contact with them?”

  “A bit. They’re almost all people like me but without the baby, you poll peopl
e would call them young professionals. Going out, careers, having fun, friends coming round with bottles of wine from that off-license. They’re not around during the day.”

  “Why did you stop me asking her more about the weirdo man opposite?” I hissed at Ivan as we left.

  “Because he’s not in the right postcode, he’s on the wrong side of the street.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “And it’s half past four and we’ve managed to do a mere two out of the twenty houses on the list.” I must have looked chastened. “But nice move with the market research line.”

  “And we found out that most of the people who live around here are young people with jobs, which fits site perp profile.”

  “Which we would never have guessed by the area,” he said, looking at the latte bar and deli stuffed with ready-made meals.

  He needn’t have worried about getting through the next eighteen houses in time. We peered through basement windows and we knocked and we rang. We got one bloke who claimed to have the flu, an old woman who said, “I’ve been expecting you,” and some posh stoner students in number twenty-two. Other than that, our bell-ringing was unanswered. Serena Whittaker was right—residential London’s a lonely place between the hours of eight in the morning and six in the evening. Its daytime inhabitants feel themselves to be a separate species from their commuting colleagues.

  We retired to the bistro with our notes and dimmed enthusiasm.

  “What have we got?” I asked Ivan.

  He spread out his notes—scraps of addresses, names from pieces of junk mail, the Excel spreadsheet. He had nice handwriting, I noticed again, more feminine that I would have expected.

  “Not a lot.”

  I sighed. “This is a wild-goose chase. We’re never going to find them. Who’s to say that it’s not a false postcode anyway?”

  “Come on, Izobel, don’t be defeatist. We’ll sit here and we’ll see everyone coming back from work and we’ll catch them, won’t we?”

  I shrugged.

  “So,” he said brightly. “What did you get up to last week?”

  I went a bit mad, started wearing an anorak and tracksuit bottoms, gave your name to the police, didn’t wash my hair for four days, converted my boyfriend from live-in to live-out, hated you passionately and my biggest achievement was filing the hard soles of my feet.

  “Oh, you know, was a bit ill so didn’t go to work. Food poisoning or something. Not a lot.”

  “I didn’t have a brilliant time either, stewing away, thinking about you thinking I could be behind the site. And my week had begun so well.”

  I looked away from the street for a second to look at him. “Mine, too.” I glanced back to the houses. It was difficult to have a meaningful conversation while having to remain vigilant, like trying to declare yourself to someone who’s got a football match on in the background. The street, however, was boring. Ivan’s face seemed infinitely interesting.

  I continued to force myself to look at the houses. Only one person had returned to their home, a middle-aged woman with a dog. As I stared out of the window, Ivan held my hand and started stroking between my fingers, nuzzling the joint and then bringing his finger up to my tips. It was most distracting.

  “That’s nice,” I said, with bland understatement.

  “You should feel what I can do to feet.”

  I knew that the foot-filing would pay off. It had been like grating Parmesan, but now they were soft and ready to be stroked. I was ready to be stroked. My body was ready to be stroked.

  “I’m sorry about everything, Ivan.”

  “Don’t be. Actually, do be. You’re awful, Izobel, you assumed I must be dodgy because I work with computers.”

  “It wasn’t that, really. Well, a bit. I was snooty about it, but I’m not now. I’ve changed. Everything’s different. I don’t want to work in PR anymore and I…” I paused and looked out of the window, wondering how far to declare myself. I stopped and watched the only figure in the street. “Oh my God!”

  “It’s not that good,” he said, but continued to rub the soft breasts of the palm of my hand.

  “No.” I snatched my hand away. “I know that person. I know them.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  I had never recognized her before. She still had that air of insignificance. I wouldn’t have noticed her then had I not been forcing myself to notice everyone who walked past. I still almost couldn’t place her, having only been able to recognize her previously by her proximity to her shinier friends. Until now I had never seen her alone.

  She seemed to make a deliberate effort to blend into the background, but on this occasion it only made her stand out more as she wore a heavy brown coat, while the rest of London’s flesh flashed in spaghetti straps and shorts.

  “Who is it?” Ivan asked as I continued to stare out of the window, not even thinking to disguise myself with dark glasses. I pressed my nose toward the glass, leaving breath marks upon it.

  “Alice, it’s Alice.”

  “Who?”

  “Exactly. Alice, she’s just this girl.”

  “Which girl?”

  “This girl.”

  “You don’t think she can have anything to do with the site, do you?”

  I stood up and made my way to the door, watching her all the while as she walked into number twelve. Smith in the basement, of course, Alice Smith, she’d given me her business card the first time we had met with Camilla. She was still working full-time as a programmer in a software company round the corner from my office while they set up OnLove. I heard Ivan talk to the waiter and pay for our coffees and I couldn’t focus on his question. I turned to look at him quizzically. “I don’t know.”

  I didn’t.

  I stared at number twelve. It was a spindly redbrick building that looked as though it had always been divided into separate dwellings. It was the sort of place where strange loners had digs in the 1950s, cooking disgusting food on one-ring gas cookers. It once would have had a slum landlord, but now it would feature beige-painted walls and oatmeal-colored carpets. It was the sort of place anybody could live in and everybody would. Every second building on the street had an estate agent’s sign outside. This was a place that people passed through anonymously. People like Alice.

  “Shall we go?” I said to Ivan.

  “Wait, let’s make a plan. Do you think she’s got anything to do with the site? How are we going to approach this? Believe me, you can’t just go around making accusations. And anyway, she’s a girl.”

  I ignored him and crossed the road and rang the bell to the basement, which had its own entrance. A hand inside twitched the drawn curtain to my right, but there was no answer. The windows were open but guarded with latticed bars. I put my hand in and drew back the curtain.

  “Alice,” I shouted. I felt calm. “Hello, it’s Izobel, Izobel Brannigan. I just saw you on the street. What a coincidence that you should live here and that we should just be having a coffee across the road. Do you want one?” Behind the curtains the room was dark, while the street pinged with the pyrotechnic sunlight. The interior began to get clearer as my sight adjusted, while Ivan became more bleached out behind me. I pulled the curtain back further to admit more light as I peered in, before hearing a voice at the door.

  “Hello,” said Alice. “What a coincidence.”

  “Coffee?” I said as I came face to partial face with her through the small crack in the door that she had conceded.

  “I’m just on my way out, actually.”

  “That’s a shame. Oh well, let’s have a quick chat inside then, shall we?” I pushed the door and she pushed back. It was a tussle that I was determined to win, while at the same time we both had to pretend that we weren’t competing at all, as if an arm wrestle had segued out of merely shaking hands. I forced my way in, with Ivan following.

  “Nice flat,” I said on coming into the sitting room. It wasn’t, particularly. It was a set decorator’s version of a typical young middle-class fla
t: the lampshade was a Habitat paper ball, the carpet burlap, the low coffee table from Ikea. Along one side was a galley kitchen, which was empty but for a packet of supermarket own-brand cornflakes. Like her face, Alice’s dwelling had almost no character or distinguishing features. It was an unliving room. “Have you lived here long?”

  “A year or so.” She stood in one corner of it. Although it was low-ceilinged, she was diminishing all the while. Beside her was a monstrous computer, along with a scanner, color printer, speakers and the biggest flat monitor I’d ever seen.

  “You haven’t met Ivan, have you? Ivan, this is Alice. Alice, this is Ivan.” He crossed the room and they shook hands.

  “I want one of these,” he said, pointing at the computer screen.

  “I got it in the States. Same price in dollars as it would have been in pounds here.”

  “Fabulous,” I said. “Can you show us what a page of the Internet looks like on it? We’d like that, wouldn’t we, Ivan?”

  “It’s not working. My processor’s bust at the moment.”

  “Really? Don’t you need it for your work, though?”

  “No, I do all my work in the office.”

  “What do you need such a powerful computer at home for then?” I asked.

  “Stuff.”

  “What sort of stuff?”

  “OnLove stuff, developing that.”

  “So you do need it for work.”

  She moved protectively in front of the desk, revealing the wall and bookshelf behind her. There hung a framed print of the Doisneau kiss and a cinema poster for The Italian Job. There were no knickknacks in the flat, no birthday-present vases or pebbles from foreign beaches. There were no photos, either, no blowups of me going about my daily business as I might have suspected of site perp. I walked a couple of paces toward her and she moved to cover the computer completely. I scanned the shelves, where all the manuals and books were ordered so that their heights and spines matched their neighbors and became smaller in a series of subtle gradations, like children in a well-organized school photo. This pattern was broken by a snapshot, unframed, curled up at the edges on the third shelf down. It was the photo of me with Frank and Maggie, the one taken at Hot Bob’s party, and it nestled by a full set of the novels in the Dune series.