The marriage act, p.4
THE MARRIAGE ACT, page 4
Jem’s final Vlog was the only video Roxi couldn’t watch until the end. She pressed stop the moment Jem picked up the gun.
‘Nine hours and forty-seven minutes,’ began Owen, making his way into the bedroom. ‘That’s how long you have been in here and online.’
‘Really?’ Roxi replied, herself a little surprised. She rubbed at her tired eyes and Owen glanced at the empty packets of snacks and soda cans on the bedside tables.
‘The family screen time and the Track My Movements Apps say you haven’t been anywhere but here and the bathroom all day,’ he continued as he changed out of his work shirt. ‘It’s now almost 6.30 p.m.’
‘Are you checking up on me?’
‘And I assume by the food delivery bag on the kitchen island that Darcy and Josh had takeout again for tea?’ he continued.
Roxi had forgotten about her children. She’d heard them around the house when they’d returned from school but was too immersed in Jem’s world to return to her own. She removed the tie from her long blonde bob and scrunched her hair.
‘I’m worried about you, Rox,’ Owen continued. ‘It’s not normal to spend this much time online.’
‘I’ve got something important to tell you,’ she announced. ‘I know how to take my Vlog to the next level and make my mark as an Influencer.’
‘Of course,’ he said with a smile that failed to reach his eyes. ‘What else would this be about?’
‘I’m going to be the new Jem Jones. There’s a gap in the market and if I’m quick and I’m clever, then I can fill it.’
‘And how will you do that, exactly?’
‘By being the voice of the modern woman. By representing people like me. I’ll talk about issues that affect us all. Jem’s legacy is that Influencers are now seen as more than clothes horses, canvases for make-up or chefs. But she was too weak for the world we live in. I’m much stronger than her. I won’t obsess on the negativity.’
‘But these lives you want to emulate, like Jem’s and Autumn Taylor’s, they aren’t real, Rox,’ Owen continued as he slipped on a t-shirt. ‘They’re only showing you their best bits. Vlogging and Influencing is all smoke and mirrors.’
‘Thanks a lot for your support,’ Roxi huffed.
‘I’d support you one hundred per cent if I thought it was good for you or our family. But it’s a pipe dream. You gave up work to raise a family and, if you think they’re at an age where they don’t need you like they used to, perhaps it’s time to get back out into the working world and find a real job?’
‘Vlogging and Influencing are real jobs.’
Owen grimaced as he took a deep breath and shook his head. ‘They are when you’re a teenager and, at a push, in your twenties, but not when you’re a woman approaching her forties.’
Roxi wanted to tell him that she was worth more than she had become, but held her tongue. She looked to the Audite atop of a chest of drawers and spotted a faint red light circling the rim, just the once. She knew that, as well as their words, it also picked up on what they weren’t saying through the volume of their voices and their tone. ‘I think it’s listening to you,’ she mouthed.
‘At least somebody is,’ he mouthed back.
Their visibly distraught daughter Darcy appeared suddenly at the doorway.
‘TikTok, Insta and Snapchat, they’ve cancelled my accounts!’ she sobbed. ‘They say I’m too young.’
‘What’s the minimum age?’ asked Owen.
‘Thirteen. So now I’ve lost every photo and every video I’ve ever posted.’
Roxi considered climbing off the bed to comfort her daughter but changed her mind. That wasn’t the nature of their relationship. Instead, Owen brought Darcy into his chest and kissed the top of her head. He was better at this kind of thing than she was. But it didn’t stop Roxi from feeling a small stab of envy at their closeness. And there was no remorse for having reported her daughter’s accounts to their service providers. If she was going to become Jem’s replacement, how could she be taken seriously with a twelve-year-old daughter who had more followers than her?
8
Corrine
Corrine poked her head out of the door and cocked it to one side. She couldn’t hear the kids in their bedrooms or her husband in his office at the end of the landing. She returned to her room, closed the door and removed from her handbag a burner mobile phone she’d purchased from a twenty-four-hour convenience store the previous night. She dialled Old Northampton’s accident and emergency department and, several voice-activated options later, she finally reached a human.
‘Hello,’ she began quietly. ‘I’d like an update on a young man who was admitted in the early hours of yesterday morning?’
The reply was curt. ‘Name?’
‘Nathan.’
‘Surname?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Your relationship to him?’
‘A . . . colleague.’
A moment’s silence followed and, when Corrine thought the woman had hung up, a ringing tone sounded.
‘Who am I speaking to?’ a male voice began.
‘Hello, I’m trying to get an update—’
‘Your name?’
There was something about his authoritative timbre that warned Corrine not to continue. She pressed the end call button and promptly dropped the phone. She bent to pick it up and spotted the scarf she had worn when she had left the boy’s unconscious body by the hospital’s entrance. She threw it into a drawer and made a mental note to add it to the log burner later.
She had barely slept that night worrying about Nathan’s condition and how their plan had gone so awry. Over and over, she’d wracked her brains as to how they could have done things differently. But she kept reaching the same conclusion: they had been blindsided.
Corrine picked up her regular phone and typed MP Eleanor Harrison’s name. ‘MP remains in critical condition with head injury,’ read the first of many news stories. Corrine bit her index finger. Even though she despised the woman, she hoped for her own sake that Harrison would make a full recovery.
She studied her reflection in the bedroom mirror. Dark bruising had risen to the surface overnight, framing her mouth in blues and blacks from where the fist had landed. Concealer would hide it. Her swollen lips, however, would be harder to disguise. She picked up a towel from the sink and held it to her mouth. She’d tell anyone who commented that it had been an allergic reaction to shellfish, her first in years.
Corrine gently applied her make-up, ran her fingers through her brown-and-grey-flecked hair, then slipped into a comfortable pair of trousers. She flinched; muscles she had strained last night tugged as she pulled her arms into a loose-fitting blouse.
She gave herself a final once-over in the mirror before clearing her throat and making her way downstairs. Through a window adjacent to the staircase, she spotted her neighbour Derek and his new wife climbing into their car. It had been almost two years since she had last spoken a word to the man she had once considered a friend. Corrine rarely bore grudges but she’d made an exception for him.
She passed the utility room and bid the housekeeper Elena a good morning. Outside, she heard the quiet hum of the lawnmower as Elena’s husband Florin tended the garden.
Gathered around the television in the reception room were Corrine’s husband Mitchell and two of their three children. She corrected herself: they weren’t children any more, they were young adults. Twins Nora and Spencer were eighteen and would soon be following in their older sister Freya’s footsteps and heading to university. Once, Corrine thought she’d be dreading the moment they flew the nest. But not now that she had a plan in place.
Corrine’s eyes rested on Mitchell. Sitting on one of the sofas, he rested his folded arms on a belly that strained the fabric of his t-shirt. Dark hairs protruded from his ears like the legs of a hermit crab poking out from a seashell. She assumed the birthday vouchers she had given him for a male grooming spa treatment remained unused.
‘Have you heard who’s dead?’ asked Spencer. ‘Jem Jones.’
‘The girl from the internet?’ Corrine replied. She recalled hearing the news headline on the radio as she drove back from the hospital but had been too preoccupied to pay the story any attention.
‘Uhuh. She killed herself while livestreaming. Gun to the head. Boom.’ He mimicked placing a weapon to his temple and pulling the trigger.
‘Oh, that’s awful.’
‘Do you want to watch it?’
‘No, why would I? And neither should you.’
‘I’ve already seen it, like, a dozen times this morning. It’s all over the internet.’
Mitchell turned, taking in her appearance, and her mouth in particular. ‘Given into peer pressure and had your lips done?’ he mocked.
‘Woah, Mum!’ Nora added. ‘You know less is more, right?’
‘Very funny. The restaurant put prawns in the paella after I specifically asked them not to. The swelling will go down soon.’
‘You might consider some fillers around the eyes as well,’ Mitchell continued. ‘Time is crueller to women than it is to men.’
Corrine eyed her husband up and down. ‘On whose authority?’
Mitchell offered a humourless laugh and reverted his attention towards the screen.
‘Why did that poor girl want to die?’ Corrine asked.
‘She said she couldn’t cope with the haters,’ said Nora. ‘All those GIFs and memes and Deepfakes made her life a misery, apparently.’
Corrine shook her head. ‘Then why not just leave social media?’
‘Because, without it, you might as well not exist.’
‘That’s ridiculous. If a dog kept biting you every time you stroked it, you’d stop stroking it, wouldn’t you?’
Spencer rolled his eyes.
‘Then explain it to me,’ Corrine continued. ‘I’m all ears.’
‘Your social media is every bit as much of who you are as the clothes you wear, the bars you check into, the music you share, the car that drives you or who you date. Everyone judges you on them – your mates, teachers, Uni recruiters and employers.’
‘But why does it need to be such a toxic environment?’
Nora shrugged. ‘You tell us. Your generation started it.’
‘And you are supposed to be better than us,’ Corrine retorted. ‘Is Woke Behaviour & Practice still on the school curriculum?’
Spencer nodded. ‘It’s not like her death is my fault, is it? I didn’t do anything.’
‘Did you “like” any of those memes or GIFs? Did you repost any?’
‘Well, yeah, some of them were funny. But I didn’t tag her.’
‘But even by liking them, you’re contributing to the problem.’
‘What does it matter to you?’ interrupted Mitchell. ‘You told me yourself that you didn’t like her.’
Corrine sighed. ‘There’s a difference between not liking someone for what they stand for and hounding them to their death.’
‘Yet when I tell you I think all social media should be state controlled, you argue with me. Sounds like double standards.’
‘You think what we need right now is more Government control? Isn’t it enough that couples signed up to the Marriage Act are allowing themselves to be spied on in their own homes?’
‘I have no secrets. Do you, Corrine?’
A shift in tone and his burrowing stare made her question if Mitchell knew more about her extra-curricular activities than he was admitting to. No, he couldn’t be aware of what had happened to that MP, she reasoned. She had covered her tracks.
The disagreement wasn’t worth any more of her time so she left it. There was little common ground between them these days – with one exception. In a world that encouraged couples to remain together, she and Mitchell were readying themselves to go against the grain. They were preparing to divorce.
9
Jeffrey
Both Luca and Noah Stanton-Gibbs opened the door before the chime rang out, suggesting they were ready for him.
‘Hello there, I’m Jeffrey Beech and I’m your Relationship Responder,’ he began with an avuncular smile. He willed his face not to redden as it was prone to doing upon meeting anyone he was attracted to. And both Noah and Luca ticked every box. He offered them his identification card, which Noah scanned with his watch to verify his status.
‘Come in, please,’ said Luca and both men moved to one side. Their nervousness mirrored his. But Jeffrey preferred it that way. He detested arrogant clients.
‘Your home is beautiful,’ Jeffrey said, his eyes darting around like a child in a theme park. They thanked him.
‘Have you been to Northampton before?’ asked Luca.
‘No, I haven’t,’ he lied.
As he followed them towards the lounge, Jeffrey took in their appearances. Noah’s dark-brown hair was cropped, his face angular and scattered with stubble that stopped at the corners of his mouth. His eyes were a warm, rich chocolate brown. Luca’s face was softer and more boyish. He was clean-shaven, and his eyes were two distinctive, different colours: one light brown and the other green. He wore his golden blond hair ear-length, combed to one side and with a soft wave. Jeffrey held back from staring, fascinated by them. Appearance-wise, laboratory geneticists couldn’t have created this pair any more opposite but perfectly.
‘This bit is always the awkward part,’ Jeffrey continued, ‘so why don’t we sit down and I’ll answer any questions you might have?’
‘I’m still struggling to understand why we’ve been put on Level Two,’ said Noah, as he led Jeffrey into the lounge. ‘It’s got to be a mistake.’
‘I appreciate it must have come as a surprise,’ he said, ‘but think of me as a mechanic who’s taking a look under the car bonnet to make sure everything is running on full power. I’ll help you make sure you’re both on the same page and want the same things, and if not, then we’ll help you find a way to bridge that gap.’
‘But we are totally on the same page,’ said Luca. ‘That’s why it doesn’t make sense.’
‘I assumed we’d be okay after we repeated some of the Level One Push notifications back into the Audite,’ added Noah.
‘For some couples, notifications are gentle nudges to make them aware of how they might be communicating or if they’re bickering too often. And, once red flags are raised, the system has learnt to also sift through your online blogs, sites you visit, text and voice messages, online and real-world purchases and social media accounts. It’ll see what you’ve posted, how often you mention or are pictured with each other, if you’re spending a lot of time talking to friends who are single along with many other factors to decide whether you need the likes of me. But I’m sure you have nothing to worry about. Perhaps Audite’s AI has labelled you incorrectly and needs a little retraining.’
‘Does that happen often?’ asked Luca.
‘You’d be surprised,’ Jeffrey replied. ‘Like us, it isn’t perfect, no matter what they’d have you believe.’
Jeffrey had prepared for their meeting by staying awake all night and swallowing legalized stimulants to keep his concentration focused. He remained inside his car or in 24-hour coffee houses, trawling through the couple’s social media accounts. He had also listened to hour after hour of Audite-recorded conversations and concluded that much of Noah and Luca’s dialogue was based on good-natured humour. They were a couple who enjoyed making each other laugh with amusing put-downs.
However, while Audite’s AI was supposed to be competent at interpreting relationship cues and recognizing the difference between sarcasm and scorn, its predictions threw up false positives from time to time. Noah and Luca were casualties of an imperfect concept.
‘Do you mind if I take a few moments to look around your home?’ Jeffrey asked.
‘Of course,’ said Luca. ‘Follow me . . .’
‘If you don’t mind, I’d prefer to go by myself.’ He raised his palms vertically to his chest. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t be intrusive.’
He left his uneasy clients behind as he made his way into the kitchen-diner, noting how everything from the cutlery drawer to pots and pans and tea towels were well stacked or folded and neatly laid out. Even the tumble dryer was lint-free. It was already a house after his own heart and a far cry from his own flat, of which he had not so much as set foot in for almost three years.
Upstairs, the master bedroom’s en suite contained two sinks and two cabinets, neither stocked with anything of note, with the exception of antidepressant patches, prescribed in Luca’s name. The underwear drawer in their bedroom contained only labelled clothing, aussieBum or Calvin Klein, and Jeffrey couldn’t decide who favoured jock straps and briefs and who wore fitted trunks. He slipped one of the jockstraps into his pocket. In another drawer, he found a handful of sex toys and lubricants. He sniffed the fruity flavours and dabbed them on his lips. He snickered when one of the vibrating toys tickled his cheek as he ran it across his face. He also wondered why a married couple needed a box of condoms. Finally, he lifted their pillows and inhaled them deeply, identifying who slept on which side by the scent of their skin.
Amongst a stack of plastic trays in their home office, he noted a photograph of two toddlers, a boy and a girl. A folder accompanying it revealed Noah and Luca had been matched with a surrogate and the photograph was a computer illustration of what their children might look like. A knot appeared in Jeffrey’s stomach, a reminder that life was passing him by.
He glanced out of the window and, in the distance, caught sight of the former National Lift Tower, a 120-metre concrete cylindrical building close to the centre of town. As a boy, he had seen it from his own bedroom window. Perhaps while he was back here, it was time he made peace with his past.
