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‘So call your sponsor.’
‘We haven’t spoken in a year.’
Karl hadn’t felt the need to consult his sponsor in a while. As far as he was concerned the Great Unsharing had broken the worst of his internet addiction and he no longer needed to observe its dogmas. The Great Unsharing had been founded three years previously by a child named Alathea Jeffreys. The logo was a graphical silhouette of her face at nine years old on a blue background. Alathea represented the first generation to be ‘commodified without consent’; from birth to early childhood everything about her had been documented, stored and shared with complete strangers by her parents, the first wave of social networkers whose internet use had transitioned over a decade from drunken party photos to political posturing to holiday snaps to baby scrapbook. ‘Where was our opt-out?’ asked Alathea. ‘What choice did we have? I was a public domain image when I was still in my mother’s womb.’ Alathea called for a mass strike from social networks, and then from the internet in general. A degrading, dehumanising place. The Great Unsharing gathered publicity from columnists and commentators and via the very networks from which it encouraged withdrawal. ‘I want to share something that happened to me in the coffee room after church last month,’ ran a typical editorial at the time. ‘I was there with Simon and our newborn. A young man of our acquaintance asked if he could take a photo of my baby. A little unusual, perhaps, but I tend to look for the best in people. I said yes, of course. He held up his smartphone and, flash, that was that, or so I thought. But later I saw him leaning against the wall working avidly on his phone. I approached and saw that he was playing a computer game. He made no effort to hide it from me, so I looked over him at the screen. The sick game involved drop-kicking an animated baby at a rugby goal, or over a rainbow or into the sea, and the program was able to use photographs to alter the appearance of the baby. With horror it dawned on me that he was kicking my baby.’
The movement struck a chord with Genevieve and, after discussing it, she and Karl agreed to sign up. Karl often found himself sitting with his smartphone going between five social networks and three separate email accounts, and, if he had no new messages, a simulation of a social network called Humanatee which was entirely computer-generated and passably amusing for its similitude to the real thing, albeit with no repercussions. Achieving nothing, praying for the battery to die so that he could read a book. One night they held hands and deleted their profiles from three networks, twelve years’ worth of photos, opinions and comments on other people’s opinions. It felt like flushing a toilet. The Great Unsharing encouraged participants to delete their email accounts, too, which they both felt was a bit extreme. Within two years the movement had reduced the user base for social networks by a third.
‘We’re not trying to be sanctimonious or didactic,’ read Alathea’s official statement. ‘The fact is, most of the time you go online, within about five minutes you’ve directly engaged with something that makes you genuinely unhappy. You’ve either given or received indignation. This is a reduction of what you are and what you can be as a human being. Imagine if instead of doing that you asked an elderly neighbour if they needed anything from the shops? Or went for a walk. Or studied Greek. Or had a conversation with someone in your house. Just try it for a week and observe the effects on your mental health.’
The following year it was revealed that Alathea Jeffreys didn’t exist; that she was the invention of a middle-aged American academic called Dr Cary Gill and formed part of his post-doctoral Sociology research into authenticity for the University of Bristol. By this point the followers of the Great Unsharing were no longer involved in the forums where the hoax was revealed and so they missed much of the outrage, the debates and the counter-outrage.
10 (#ulink_8187c4b4-29f7-5f3d-970e-79de22e17d47)
THURSDAY OF THE first week. It was 7 p.m. and the moon was already visible as a shadowy crescent. After finishing the very creditable pumpkin and spinach curry his wife had prepared, Karl was sent outside to pick his way through the runner beans in the dark, the collected rainwater seeping through his fuzzy trainers. He could see through the garage’s screen door. In oil-stained jeans and a white T-shirt Stu hunched over the bonnet of a bright-green Honda Civic, rubbing its immaculate paintwork with a piece of sandpaper. He looked up when Karl pulled the door open.
‘All right, Karl?’
‘Hey. Janna said you, um …’ He inhaled the smell of turps.
‘Yeah, first workout – just let me finish …’
Stu went back to sanding the bonnet.
‘This Lime-Green Car my Prison,’ said Karl.
‘What?’
‘Came into my head. Is that for …’
‘Rat look,’ said Stu. ‘Security feature, really. You downgrade a fairly expensive car so it doesn’t get vandalised or stolen. Sorry. Just finish this bit.’ His sanding sped up for a moment, then he rose and sat down on a stepladder, motioning Karl towards an old paint-spattered wooden stool.
‘We’ll start with a little cardio,’ he said. ‘And then get straight into the weights – there’s no need to hold back. I’ve got you a kit.’
He handed Karl a canvas bag. In it he found a pair of white running shoes, some black shorts and a black Aertex shirt, a brand he remembered the more popular kids at school wearing.
‘Go up and get ready and I’ll join you once I’ve washed my hands.’
Karl noticed the steps in the corner of the garage. His wet trainers squeaked against the steel and he hauled himself up to a mezzanine bedecked with oily gym apparatus. It looked like the set of a grim science-fiction film.
They were running, side by side, on a double treadmill. Stu was able to keep a conversation going as if they were sitting in a bar. Karl, who only ran when he needed to catch a train, felt a little less able to draw breath, let alone speak.
‘People say running clears your mind,’ said Stu, ‘and you know what the key to that is?’
‘N … No.’
‘You keep doing it,’ said Stu. ‘You keep doing it until all you can think about is how much you hate running and how much you don’t want to be running any more. Suddenly, magic! All the cares of this world have melted away. You just want it to end. You are a non-physical being, a spirit of pure hatred of running.’
‘That,’ said Karl, clutching the stitch in the side of his stomach, ‘is something I can get behind.’
Twenty minutes later he was pouring with sweat, sitting in a weight-lifting machine the like of which he had only ever seen in Hollywood montages.
‘We ran two miles,’ said Stu. ‘Feels good, right?’
‘No.’
‘Start on level three,’ said Stu, taking the push-pin out of 16 and placing it on the second hole. ‘First week on three. People always start too high and get demoralised. Do ten.’
Karl pushed the bars, which felt light. He brought the bars back to his sides again and pushed. A little more resistance.
‘So what’s the story?’ said Stu.
‘You mean how I got here? Somewhere between fraud and tax evasion and incompetence,’ said Karl.
‘No, no, I know all that,’ said Stu. ‘I mean with you and Genevieve. How’d you meet?’
Karl finished his tenth lift.
‘Ten more,’ said Stu.
‘University,’ said Karl. ‘She was a friend of a friend. I was obsessed with her.’
‘Not hard to see why.’
‘In fact it totally ruined my three years of university. I didn’t even talk to another girl the whole time I was there. Then I didn’t see her for a decade. I had, like, three pretty joyless relationships with women who weren’t her. And then one day Genevieve just sent me an email asking if I remembered her.’
‘How long have you been together?’
‘Four years,’ said Karl.
‘And how’s that going?’
‘I feel very lucky.’
‘Good.’
‘Very lucky.’
‘You are. She’s gorgeous.’
Karl smiled. He liked other men admiring Genevieve.
‘Now don’t get me wrong,’ said Stu, ‘you’re a good bloke and I’m sure you have your qualities – but there’s a fairly standard way someone like you gets a girl like Genevieve.’
‘Oh? What’s that?’
‘You won’t take this the wrong way?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘I tell it as I see it,’ said Stu. ‘Some people don’t like that.’
‘Tell away,’ said Karl. If Stu said something he didn’t like, it would only serve to make him value Stu’s opinion less.
‘You’re a fairly ordinary-looking guy,’ said Stu.
‘I’ve always thought so.’
‘So is she damaged goods?’ said Stu.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Come on,’ said Stu. ‘When she got back in touch with you, after ten years … I’m not asking you to tell me what she survived or the condition she was diagnosed with or whatever. I just wanted to say that I’ve noticed. You look after her. I couldn’t see it at first, but I do now.’
‘Right,’ said Karl, relieved that Stu had brought the conversation round to a form of compliment again, something easy to accept. ‘Well, thanks.’
‘You’re caring, which is good. What I want to give you,’ said Stu, ‘is a little more self-esteem. I’ve been insulting you and you’re not even offended. Men keep their self-esteem in the biceps and pectoral muscles. You should feel that you’re in an equal relationship with Genevieve. Does that make sense?’
‘I guess so,’ said Karl.
‘I guess so,’ said Stu. ‘You sound like a Muppet. I don’t mean like “you muppet”, I mean like an actual Muppet, from The Muppet Show. Lose the Americanisms. Try to sound like yourself.’
Karl swallowed.
‘We’ll finish with a hundred press-ups,’ said Stu.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘That sounds more like your real voice. We’ll do them together. Come on.’
‘I don’t think I can do twenty,’ said Karl.
‘You can do a thousand,’ said Stu. ‘Might take you a week, but there you go. We’ll do a hundred, as long as it takes, then you can go and have a shower.’
Karl laughed.
‘What’s funny?’
He assumed the position. His arms already burned from the weights, but the first five press-ups were relatively easy. After the eleventh, Stu waited, supporting his weight with one hand while Karl completed his twelfth press-up.
‘Don’t give in at the first sign of resistance,’ said Stu. He sounded genuinely cross. ‘This is important.’
Slowly Karl lowered himself so that his nose was touching the rubber floor.
‘Come on,’ said Stu. ‘That’s it.’
Karl tensed his chest. He felt like he was made of loose Meccano. He forced himself up again.
‘Eighty-six to go,’ said Stu.
His arms shaking, Karl lowered himself again.
‘Eighty-five and a half.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ stuttered Karl.
‘This is ridiculous,’ Stu mimicked. ‘That’s fifteen. Good … Why aren’t you moving? Your wife will be wondering where you are.’
‘Twenty-three,’ said Stu. ‘You said you couldn’t do twenty. Karl, I’ve seen better men than you lose a woman like Genevieve because they stopped working for it. Do you want that to happen?’
While Karl didn’t think this was likely, he tried to channel his embarrassment, his rage and his temporary loathing for Stu into his twenty-fourth press-up. It took almost a minute.
‘That’s fifty-eight,’ said Stu.
Karl was shaking all over. His temples felt like they were going to explode and his stomach was like a sack of snooker balls. He tried very hard to lower himself again, but his arms gave out. He collapsed, hitting his nose on the floor, and started to cry.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Hey,’ said Stu. ‘Hey. Karl, stand up.’
Karl clambered to his feet and Stu took him in his arms. Karl cried hard, took big breaths and cried, his nose streaming with snot on Stu’s shoulder. Stu stroked the back of Karl’s head.
‘Let it all out.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Karl sobbed.
‘Do you know how much the last guy held out for?’ said Stu. ‘Thirty-one. And that was the best so far. You did great.’ He patted him on the back, hard. ‘You did fucking great.’
11 (#ulink_fc4989c7-6165-5f92-b56a-96c95579d808)
‘WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?’
‘I was working out.’
‘You look like you’ve been hit by a car.’
Karl gingerly climbed into bed and put his head on Genevieve’s shoulder. She smelled of a medicated facial scrub she used sometimes, a smell he associated with their university halls: bare-brick stairwells, a pasted-up lightning crack in the side of the building.
He only realised he’d been asleep when the room filled with light. Janna and Stu were standing at the end of the bed, holding two envelopes. Karl sniffed, sat up in bed, nudged Genevieve.
‘Really sorry to wake you,’ whispered Janna.
‘We won’t make a habit of it,’ said Stu.
‘Is something wrong?’
‘No, no.’ Genevieve shuffled out of the bed and stretched. ‘Don’t apologise. I don’t know what … We never fall asleep this early.’
‘You’re exhausted,’ said Janna. ‘Poor things.’
