Second Life

by S. J. Watson

  He puts his phone back on the table. Within reach, face down. It buzzes almost straight away.

  ‘It’s just Facebook. And I’ve got a chess game going.’

  ‘With Dad?’

  ‘No. Hugh only likes to play in real life.’

  ‘Hugh?’ I’m shocked, momentarily.

  ‘He said I could call him that, if I wanted. He said he didn’t mind.’

  It bothers me. He’s growing up, but also pushing away from us. The first is inevitable, but like every parent I’d hoped to avoid the second, for a little while longer at least.

  But in a way it’s good to be upset by this. After the horrors of the last few days, the worry about Anna and the pictures Lukas has on his computer, this is something mundane and easily sorted. It feels normal. Family stuff.

  ‘Just don’t ask to call me Julia.’ I’m Mum, I want to add.

  ‘Okay.’

  I smile. I want him to know I understand, that I remember being a teenager; that desperate hunger for adulthood and responsibility. I want him to know I’m part of his world, that I love him. He takes a huge bite of his burger; juice runs down his chin. He wipes it with the back of his hand and I pass him a napkin. I can’t help myself. He takes it from me but doesn’t use it. I pick at my salad, casting around for something to talk about.

  ‘How’s football?’

  ‘I was picked for the team again. I’m playing next Saturday.’

  He pauses, then says, ‘Oh! Did I tell you?’

  I put down my fork. The noise in the restaurant seems suddenly to increase. He’s looking at me, expectantly, his eyebrows raised, and I shake my head.

  He takes another bite of his burger, a few fries.

  ‘Well . . .’ he begins. I’m about to tell him to please finish chewing before beginning to speak but something, some kind of premonition, stops me. ‘You remember when we went to see Planet of the Apes?’

  I feel myself tense. ‘Uh-huh?’

  He reaches for the mayonnaise. ‘Well, you remember the creepy guy? The guy who came in and sat right by us and then just left?’

  I try to sound as though I’m struggling to recall. ‘Oh, yes,’ I hear myself say. I don’t recognize my own voice; it sounds filtered, distorted, as if it’s coming from some distance away. ‘I’d completely forgotten about him,’ I add. There’s a catch in my voice and it sounds false, even to me. Yet he doesn’t seem to notice. I watch, silently, bile rising to my throat, waiting for him to continue as he squirts mayonnaise on to his plate, then goes for the ketchup. As he speaks he mixes the two to a marbled pink mush. I want him to hurry up with whatever he’s got to tell me.

  ‘Last night I saw him again,’ he says. ‘You remember I went bowling? With Dylan and Molly and the others? Well, he was there. Over in the next alley.’ He picks up a handful of fries, dips them in the pink sauce. ‘I noticed him first of all ’cos it looked like he was there on his own. Y’know, no kids or anything. We thought he was waiting for someone, but nobody turned up. He just stood there bowling by himself. Then he left. Weird, eh? I mean, who does that? Molly thought he looked like a paedo.’

  My head begins to spin. I flush, as if all the blood in my body were rushing to my head and neck, then a moment later everything – Connor, the rest of the restaurant – begins to recede, as if disappearing down a tunnel.

  ‘Mum?’ says Connor. ‘Are you okay?’

  I reach for the glass of water in front of me. It’s cool to the touch; I bring it to my mouth. The movement is mechanical, I do it without thinking. I sip, and some spills from the overfull glass. I barely notice; it’s as if I’m watching myself from the other side of the room.

  ‘Mum?’ says Connor, more urgently. He looks worried, but I can do nothing to allay his fears.

  My head spins with images of Lukas. I should’ve known. I should have protected my son. I’ve let him down, just like Kate and Anna. I force myself back to the present.

  ‘Yes?’ I realize water is dripping down my chin. I wipe it. ‘I’m fine. Sorry? Go on . . .’

  ‘Well, that’s it. He just turned up and bowled and—’

  Another rush of panic hits. ‘How did you know it was him?’

  ‘Oh, y’know?’ He picks up another couple of fries. I grab his hand.

  ‘Connor. How did you . . . are you sure?’

  He looks at my hand on his arm, then up to my face. ‘Yes, Mum. I recognized him. He was wearing the same cap. Remember? The Vans trucker? It was a classic patch—’

  I don’t know what he’s talking about. I must look puzzled; he seems to be about to describe it to me when he changes his mind. ‘Anyway. He had the same cap on.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Did he say anything to you?’

  ‘Not really . . .’

  Anger begins to displace the panic. Anger with myself, with Lukas, with Connor. ‘Not really? Is that not really yes, or not really no? Which is it, Connor?’

  My voice has risen, in both pitch and volume. I fight to control it.

  ‘He just said sorry.’ Already he sounds resentful, sulky. He’s looking at me as if I’ve gone crazy. I can see he wishes he hadn’t mentioned it. ‘He spilled his beer over me. That’s all. It was an accident. Anyway . . .’

  It’s clear he wants to change the subject, but I ignore him. ‘So what did this guy say?’

  He sighs. ‘He said, “Hey, dude, I’m sorry.” That was it. That’s one of the ways I knew it was the same bloke, ’cos that’s what he’d called me in the cinema. Dude. No one says it any more.’ He sips his milkshake. ‘Can you let go of my arm?’

  I hadn’t realized I was still clutching him.

  I release him and sit back. Anger is burning within me now, a rage. Yet it has nowhere to go, nothing to burn, and so it sits, deep and poisonous. I’m trying to keep my face neutral, my features calm. I’m failing. I tense, I’m chewing my bottom lip.

  A question comes to me, with an awful, sickening lurch: I now know Lukas has been following me on the iPhone app, but how did he know where my son would be? How did he get to Connor?

  I sit forward. ‘Who knew you were going bowling?’ I say, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. ‘Who did you tell?’

  ‘No one. Why? Mum?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ I’m almost shouting. ‘You must’ve told someone!’

  ‘Mum—?’

  ‘Molly, and Dylan? They knew, for a start! Who else was there with you?’

  He looks at me. His expression is odd; almost fearful. ‘Dylan’s dad took us.’

  ‘When?’ The questions come thick and fast. ‘When did you arrange it? Who did you tell, Connor? Who knew you were going?’

  ‘Jesus, Mum! Some of the guys. Y’know? We invited Sahil, and Rory, but they couldn’t come. Oh, and I guess Molly might’ve invited a few people. And I guess Dylan’s dad might’ve told Dylan’s mum. Just possibly . . .’

  His voice has a new note, one I haven’t heard in him before. Sarcasm.

  ‘There’s no need for
that attitude—’

  He ignores me.

  ‘. . . and I probably told Evie, and I suppose I just might’ve posted it on Facebook, so there’s all the people who follow me there, and—’

  I interrupt him. ‘Who follows you on Facebook?’

  ‘I dunno. Friends. Friends of my friends. People like that.’

  Something begins to coalesce in my mind. All the way through, Lukas had always known more than I thought I’d let him know. I now know he was tracking my location, moment by moment, but I’ve never worked out how he knew the other details. The fact we were planning on going to a cinema at all, what film we were going to see. Hugh’s name, when I’d only ever called him Harvey.

  And now I think I know. If he was following Connor’s posts, and Connor was posting everything . . .

  An awful thought occurs. Could that be how he’d figured out Paddy’s last name, too? And where he lives? I can see how it might be. Connor might’ve mentioned our guests by name, and from there a quick search – Maria, Hugh, surgeon – would lead to a surname. He could then easily look at Paddy’s Facebook page, or LinkedIn, or whatever else he might use.

  ‘Give me your phone.’

  ‘Mum—!’ he begins, but I silence him.

  ‘Give me your phone, Connor. Now.’

  He passes it over and I tell him to unlock the screen, to open his Facebook profile. I can see he wants to fight, to protest, but he knows he’s not old enough to stand against me, yet. I hold my hand out for him to give me the phone back, but he tosses it on to the table.

  I pick it up. I scan through his updates. Most days he’s posted several; there are too many to check, and many of them I don’t understand. Messages to his friends, in-jokes, gossip, chat about the football or things he’s watched on TV. I go back, rewinding through the year, to the summer, and I see what I’m looking for. ‘Off to Islington Vue,’ says one. ‘With my MOTHER.’ I scroll back further, to older messages, realizing as I do how used I am to reading things in backwards chronology. A few messages later I see, ‘Family trip to the cinema tomorrow. Planet of the Apes!’

  ‘Who are you friends with?’ I hand the phone back to him. ‘Show me.’

  He begins to protest, but I interrupt. ‘Connor! Show me, now!’ He hands back the phone. There are hundreds of people following his updates, some whose names I recognize, but many I don’t. I scan them quickly, and after a moment I see it. David Largos. Without warning I flash back on my first conversation with Lukas, back when things had felt simple, manageable. The surname is the same as his username back then. Whatever hope I’d had – that I was mistaken, that I was wrong – collapses.

  I hold the phone out to him. ‘Who’s this?’ I shout. ‘Who’s David Largos?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mum.’ He raises his voice. ‘Just somebody. Okay? That’s the way it works. I don’t know everybody who follows me. Yeah?’

  I select the username and a picture appears. It’s a picture of a dog, wearing a baseball cap with the word ‘Vans’ written on it. There’s no other information, but it’s him.

  That’s it, I think. That’s how he knew. That’s how he knew everything.

  First Anna, then me. And now I know it. Connor is involved as well.

  ‘Delete it.’ I give him his phone back. ‘Delete your profile.’ I’m shaking, but he doesn’t move.

  ‘No!’ He looks horrified, as if what I’ve asked him to do is utterly unreasonable. I wish I could tell him why it’s so important, but I can’t. I wish I could tell him how much his ridiculous and almost constant sense of being hard done by infuriates me, but I don’t.

  ‘I’m not joking, Connor. You have to delete your profile.’ He begins to argue, a barrage of buts and can’ts and won’ts.

  I ignore him. ‘Connor!’ I’ve shouted. There’s a momentary hush – a stillness – in the restaurant and I know that if I were to look around I’d see people staring at us. There’s a young couple on the table next to us, he, wearing tracksuit trousers and a hooded top, she, in a mini-dress, and on the other side a woman with someone I imagine is her daughter, a pram parked between them. I don’t want to be their entertainment for the evening, but neither do I want them to know I’m embarrassed. I lower my voice but keep my eyes fixed on my son.

  ‘This isn’t a game. I’m telling you. Delete your profile. Now. Or else I’ll take your phone off you and you can go back to using your old one . . .’

  ‘You wouldn’t!’

  ‘Watch me.’

  His jaw drops. He’s incredulous, it’s outrageous, he doesn’t believe I’d even consider such a thing. He stares at me, and I stare back.

  I hold out my hand.

  ‘Your phone, Connor. Give it to me. Now.’

  He snatches his phone out of my reach and stands up. At first I think he’s going to say sorry, or make some other plea to my better nature, but he looks furious and, sure enough, does no such thing. Instead he hisses at me, ‘Fuck you.’ A moment later he’s turned and is heading for the exit, leaving me open-mouthed with shock.

  I stand up, too; my napkin slides to the floor. ‘Connor!’ I say, as firmly as I can, but he ignores me. ‘Get back here!’ People stare, there’s a hush. I’m losing control, everything’s receding. It’s as if I’m hurtling down a tunnel, trying to get back to a reality that’s slipping away from me as quickly as I am from it. I try to follow Connor as he shoulders past people at the door and goes outside. I have to catch up with him, and I force myself back to reality.

  ‘I’ll come back,’ I say to the waiter, who looks as though he’s seen this sort of thing before. I squeeze past the tables – people move their chairs out of the way, turning their faces away from me as they do, as if I’m best avoided – but by the time I get outside Connor has gone. I glimpse him in the distance, running along Upper Street in the opposite direction from home, and without thinking any further I begin to give chase.

  Hugh’s waiting for me when I get in. He comes to the door as I open it. I’m flustered, fumbling with my keys. I drop them as I take them out of the door. He bends over and picks them up, then gives them to me.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I shrug off my coat.

  ‘He’s here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He must’ve doubled back, or gone through the backstreets.

  ‘Where is he?’ I say.

  ‘Upstairs. What’s going on, Julia?’ He’s raised his voice but appears largely unflustered.

  I push past him. I’m furious. I’d had to go back to the restaurant; people had stared at me as I’d asked for the bill and paid it. A woman had tilted her head, half smiling, in a way that I suppose was meant to convey sympathy and understanding but in fact made me want to slap her. I’d then left in a hurry, forgotten the bag I’d stashed under my seat, had to go back for it.

  ‘He made me look an absolute bloody idiot.’

  He tries to interrupt, but I don’t let him. I go upstairs, towards Connor’s room. What I can’t let him see is that I’m scared, as well as furious. Lukas has got to my son, as well as to me, as well as to my friend. He’s stalking him now, and I don’t know why. I can only hope it’s to intimidate me, to let me
know he has the power to do that. I can only hope that he’s made his point now, and that’s all it is.

  But maybe he’s got a taste for it. For scaring me, for proving just how deeply he’s infiltrated my life. I realize that I’m going to have to see him again, somehow confront him. I can’t let him get away with it.

  I’m at the top of the stairs when Hugh calls me back. ‘Julia! What the hell is going on?’

  I turn to face him. ‘What’s he told you?’

  ‘Some argument about his phone. The internet? He said you were being totally unreasonable.’

  I could tell Hugh, I think. I could tell him everything. Lukas would have no power over me then.

  But it would end our marriage. And Connor wouldn’t be able to cope with that, not on top of his mother’s death. I might lose him, too, if it all came out.

  I have to protect him. I promised Kate I’d put him first, always. I told her that he was the world to me, when we first had him, and then again and again when she was trying to take him back. To let him down now would be the final betrayal, the ultimate failure.

  ‘He’s grounded.’ It’s a punishment – for leaving me in the restaurant, for using Facebook to tell the whole world about my life – but then I realize it would also be a protection. If he can’t go out, Lukas can’t get to him.

  ‘I mean it.’

  Hugh stands still. He shrugs, as if to say it’s up to me, but then says, ‘Is it really that important?’ It enrages me even further. He thinks he’s protecting Connor, but he doesn’t understand. I turn to go into Connor’s room; by now my fury is stoked, throbbing. Dimly, I’m aware that it’s an anger that would be better directed at Lukas, but that’s not possible, and it must be discharged somewhere. And so, here we are. ‘And I’m taking his phone,’ I say, adding, ‘That’s all there is to it,’ as if he were about to argue.

  Connor has closed his door, of course. I knock, but it’s perfunctory; I’m opening the door before I’ve even finished telling him I’m coming in. I don’t know what I expect to see – him lying face down on his unmade bed perhaps, wearing headphones, or lying back to stare grimly at the ceiling – but what I do see surprises me. The room is even more untidy than usual, and he’s standing at his bed, frantically stuffing the contents of his chest of drawers into the sports bag he has open in front of him.