Second Life (10 page)
I feel uncomfortable. Is this how a sex chat begins? A reference to
hotness
?
– I’ve had a lot on, lately.
His reply is almost instantaneous.
– Work?
I’m not sure what he means. Kate had had only temporary jobs, I thought; bar work,
waitressing, office admin. Again I wonder what she’s told him.
I need to keep it vague.
– Sort of.
– Too bad. Anyway, would love to carry on where we left off. Are you okay? I thought
something had happened to you.
– Why’s that?
– You went quiet. Then I had a visit from the police. Asking me what we’d been talking
about. If I’d been to Paris recently. I guessed it might be something to do with
you.
I freeze.
– Did you tell them?
His reply takes a moment.
– What do you think?
What does he mean? Yes, he has, or no, he hasn’t?
I remind myself he can’t have killed my sister. He thinks he’s talking to her.
Unless he’s lying.
– Nothing’s happened to me, I say. I’m fine.
– Better than fine if you ask me!
There’s another icon; this one a red face with horns.
– Thanks, I say. I realize I need to be careful if I’m going to draw him out. So,
you said you wanted to carry on where we left off.
– Tell me what you’re wearing, first.
I hesitate. This is wrong, and I feel awful. I’m impersonating my sister – my dead
sister – and for what end?
I try to persuade myself. I want to find out who killed her. I’m doing this for the
right reasons, for the sake of Kate and her son.
So why do I want to throw up?
– What was I wearing last time? I type.
– You don’t remember?
– No, I say. Why don’t you tell me?
– Not much, by the end.
There’s another smiling face, this one with its tongue hanging out.
I hesitate. The cursor blinks, waiting for me to decide what to type, how far to
take this. It feels surreal; me in London, him in New York, separated simultaneously
by thousands of miles and nothing at all.
– I’m imagining that’s what you’re wearing now.
I don’t reply.
– I’m thinking of you wearing nothing at all . . .
Still I don’t say anything. This isn’t what I wanted to happen.
– I’m getting hard here.
I close my eyes. I shouldn’t be doing this. I’m a voyeur, I am sampling my sister’s
virtual life, my dead sister’s private life. I’m a tourist.
I should stop, but I can’t. Not now. Not until I know for certain that it isn’t him.
Another message arrives.
– How about you? You want me?
I hesitate. Kate would forgive me, wouldn’t she? I type:
– I do.
– Good, he says. Tell me you remember. Tell me you remember how hot it was. The way
you described your body. The things you did.
– I remember.
– Tell me what you want, right now.
– You.
– I’m kissing you. All over. Your lips, your face. I’m going down. Your breasts,
your stomach.
Again something within me tells me this is wrong. He thinks he’s talking to Kate.
He’s imagining having sex with my dead sister.
– You like that?
My hands hover over the keyboard. I wish I knew what to say.
– You like feeling my tongue on your body? You taste so good . . .
What would Kate have said?
– You want me to go lower?
What can I say? Yes? Yes, I do? I can tell him I want him to go lower, I don’t want
him to stop, or I can ask him what he’s told the police, where he was in February
on the night of
Kate’s death, whether he murdered my sister. Even as I say it in
my head it sounds ridiculous.
I grab my machine and stand up. I don’t know what to do.
– Are you ready for me?
The ground beneath me opens. I begin to sink. My heart is beating too hard, and I
can’t breathe. I want to stop my mind from spinning, but I keep thinking about what
Kate might’ve said, what she might’ve done.
I look at the machine in my hand. For a moment I hate it; it’s as if it contains
all the answers and I want to shake them loose, to demand the truth.
Yet it won’t. It can’t. It’s just a tool, it can tell me nothing.
I slam it closed.
Hugh comes home from work and we eat dinner, the three of us, at the table. Afterwards
he packs his suitcase, occasionally asking me where a shirt is, or if I’ve seen
his aftershave, then goes upstairs to finish off his speech while Connor and I sit
in the living room with a DVD.
The Bourne Identity.
I can’t really concentrate; I’m
thinking about this afternoon, wondering whether the guy Anna messaged – Harenglish
– had got back to her. I’m thinking about cybersex, too, which I guess is really
no different to phone sex. It makes me think of Marcus; there were no texts back
then, no emails, no instant messaging services, unless you include pagers, which
almost no one had. Just the voice.
Connor leans forward and grabs a handful of the popcorn I’ve made for him. My mind
drifts.
I remember the first time Marcus and I had sex. We’d known each other a few weeks,
we spoke on the phone, we hung around after the meetings drinking coffee. He’d started
to tell me his story. He came from a good family, his parents were alive, he had
a sister who was nice, normal, stable. Yet
there was always alcohol in the house,
forbidden to him, and he was drawn to it. The first time he got drunk was on whisky;
he didn’t remember anything about it, other than the fact that he felt some part
of himself open up, then, and that one day he would want to do it again.
‘How old were you?’ I’d asked.
He’d shrugged. ‘Dunno. Ten?’
I’d thought he was exaggerating, but he told me he wasn’t. He started drinking. He’d
always been good at art, he said, but the drink made him feel he was better. His
painting improved. The two became intertwined. He painted, he drank, he painted.
He dropped out of college, his parents kicked him out of their home. Only his sister
stood by him, but she was much younger, she didn’t understand.
‘And after that I was on my own. I tried to cope, but . . .’
‘What happened?’
He made light of it. ‘One too many times waking up with no idea where I was or how
I got there. One too many times wondering why I was bleeding. I rang my mother. I
said I needed help. She got a friend to take me to my first meeting in the fellowship.’
‘And here we are.’
‘Yes. Here we are.’ He paused. ‘I’m glad I met you.’
It was a couple of weeks later that he called me. Kate was watching television with
a friend and I took the call on the extension in the kitchen. He sounded upset.
‘What’s wrong?’ I said.
‘I’ve had a drink.’
I sighed, closed my eyes. ‘Have you called Keith?’
‘I don’t want to speak to Keith. I don’t want to see him. I want to see you.’
I felt both awful and thrilled at the same time. He’d had a drink, but it was me
he’d turned to. He asked me round to
his flat, and I said of course I’d go. When
I arrived he was sitting on his threadbare sofa, a bottle at his feet. I sat next
to him and took his hand. Had I known we were going to kiss? Probably. Did I know
it was almost certainly a mistake?
Probably not.
The film ends and Connor goes upstairs, then a little while later so do I. I listen
at his door on the way up, but I hear nothing except the rhythmic tap of his fingers
on the keyboard. I run myself a bath and lie in the water for a long time, my eyes
closed, drifting in and out of an exhausted sleep, occasionally topping up with hot
water. When I get out Hugh’s in bed already.
‘Come,’ he says. He pats the bed next to him, and I smile. ‘In a minute.’ I’ve wrapped
a towel round my chest and I tuck it tighter, then sit at the dressing table and
apply my moisturizer. By the time I’ve finished Hugh is snoring and I turn off the
light. It’s hot, but there’s a light breeze and I go over to the window to adjust
the curtains. Outside, there’s a figure, barely visible in the shadows, an image
as thin as smoke. It looks like a man, and I turn to wake Hugh, to ask him if he
can see it, or whether he thinks it’s my imagination. But he’s fast asleep, and when
I look back the man has gone, and I wonder whether he’d ever been there at all.
I drive Hugh to the airport then return home. It’s Monday, the traffic is bad, the
air thick with heat. I’ve been determined to keep busy during his absence – to get
on with jobs, sort out Connor’s room, go through the files on the computer, make
sure everything is charged and ready for the shoot on Wednesday – but by the time
I get home it’s early afternoon and far too hot to do anything much at all.
I’m restless, unsettled. I change into a summer dress and decide I’ll sit in the
garden. I go to the fridge to get a lemonade, but when I open the door I see the
bottle of wine Hugh opened last night. Desire swells again, just as it had after
the dinner party. I get the lemonade, then close the door, but there’s no point in
pretending I’m not feeling it.
Rachel used to tell me that. ‘Take a step back and hold it up to the light,’ she
said. ‘Consider it.’
I do just that. First, I’d like a glass. Second, I’m alone, Hugh’s away, Connor at
school. There’s no logical reason I shouldn’t.
Except there is. There’s every reason.
This time the desire builds. I acknowledge it, feel it, yet it doesn’t go away. It’s
growing, it starts to feel more powerful than me, it’s an animal, a ruthless predator,
something with teeth, something that wants to destroy.
I won’t let it win. Not this time. I tell myself I’m strong,
I’m bigger than this
thing that wants to claim me. I ride it out, stare it down and eventually it begins
to retreat. I put ice in my drink and find the novel I’m reading, pick up my laptop
and go outside. I sit at the table on the patio. My heart beats hard, as if the fight
had been physical, but once again I’m pleased with my vigilance.
I sip my lemonade, listening to the sounds of summer, the traffic, the planes overhead,
a conversation in a distant garden. My book is in front of me but I ignore it. I
know I won’t be able to concentrate; I’ll read the same page, over and over. It’s
futile.
I open my laptop. I wonder whether the guy from yesterday – Harenglish – replied
to Anna, or whether Eastdude, the one I’d been chatting to, has messaged me again.
I navigate to the messages page. He has. I open it. ‘What happened? I hope you’re
all right.’
Anxiety courses through me. It’s electric. Anxiety, and also excitement; even though
he thinks he’s talking to Kate, part of me is flattered at his disappointment.
I try to focus on what’s important. I have to be more methodical. I tell myself it’s
unlikely he had anything to do with Kate’s death: assuming what he told me is true,
the police have interviewed him as a suspect and eliminated him from their investigation.
Plus, he lives in New York.
There’s no point in answering his message. I click delete. Part of me feels bad,
but he’s a stranger, someone I’ll never meet. I don’t care what he thinks. I have
more important things to do.
I navigate to Kate’s Friends and Favourites page and go down the list. I’m careful
this time, I check each one, finding out where they live. They’re scattered all over.
Not counting Eastdude, there are eleven people she used to chat with. Of those, only
three live in France, and only one, the guy from
yesterday – Harenglish, the one
Anna messaged – is in Paris.
I hesitate. I open Skype but Anna isn’t online. I send
her a note asking if she’s had a reply, yet at the same time know that she’d have
told me if she had.
I remind myself that his silence doesn’t mean that Harenglish is the guy who killed
Kate. Not at all. Maybe they hardly chatted, barely knew each other. Maybe he rarely
logs on to his messages, or doesn’t respond to things straight away. There are a
million reasons for his silence. It doesn’t have to be because he knows exactly where
she ended up.
But I need to be sure. I sit, for a moment. I sip my drink. I think about my sister,
and what I can do to help her. As I do, the idea that’s been forming all night is
finally birthed.
I call Anna. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she says.
‘Yes?’
‘About your suggestion. You know, chatting to that guy. It might not be such a bad
idea.’
I tell her.
‘I’m thinking of setting up a profile of my own. I thought, if I can chat to people
. . . if they think I’m someone new . . . they’re more likely to tell me things.’
She talks me through it. I work quickly, and it doesn’t take long. I hesitate when
it asks me to select a username, but then settle on JayneB. It’s close enough to
my own name, but not too close. The photo I choose is one that Hugh took a few years
ago on holiday. In it, bright sun behind my head is throwing my face into partial
shadow. I haven’t chosen randomly; Kate and I don’t look that similar generally,
but in this photo we do. If someone had known Kate, they might mention a resemblance;
it might give me a way in. I enter my details – date of birth, height, weight. Finally
I press save.
‘I’m done,’ I say.
She tells me to be careful. I go back online. I’m excited, at
last I’m doing something.
The guy from yesterday – Harenglish – might talk to me, thinking I’m someone new.
Maybe then I can find out who he is and how well he might’ve known my sister.
I message him. ‘Hi,’ I say. ‘How you doing?’ I know he won’t reply straight away,
if he replies at all, and so I go inside to refill my glass. I grab myself an apple
from the bowl. I wonder what this guy might do when he sees my message. Whether he
gets lots, or just a few. Whether he answers them all, or just the ones that take
his fancy. I wonder what normally happens, if there’s such a thing as
normally
.