The next Saturday morning I decided to go to the library with Mum. I thought it would do us good to spend some time together, doing the things we used to do, and I wasn’t seeing Jake until the afternoon at the playground. I wanted to try and repair some of the damage from the last few weeks. It wasn’t just me being kind; she’d hardly spoken to me at all since my drunk night and it was hard work to live like that, in even more silence than I was used to, so I was hoping to make life easier for myself. I was expecting a cold reaction but she nodded straight away when I suggested I went with her. On our way across town I found out why she was so keen. I had to check that I hadn’t misunderstood, but she repeated her words as clear as day. We were booked on the internet for half an hour from ten o’clock. After the half-hour was up we’d be charged so we would have to be quick. ‘You’ll have to work it, the internet, Donald,’ she said, ‘I haven’t a clue.’ It was a shock because she doesn’t believe in computers, especially not in the library. The day after they first arrived she wrote a letter to the council telling them to think about all the books they could have bought with the money instead, and wasn’t that what a library was supposed to be for anyway? But recently she’d heard a programme on the radio about the invasion of privacy and at some point the talk turned to the internet. ‘They say they’ve filmed every street of every town in the country. That you can see it all on the screen in front of you. Every street, like you’re there.’
My heart sank.
‘I’d rather not see it,’ I said.
She glared at me.
‘Well you’ll have to see it because you’ll have to help me. I think that’s the least you can do. And we won’t go near Hawthorne Road, so don’t get silly. I just want to see the town.’ We walked on in silence.
It wasn’t just Clifton I was keen on avoiding, it was the whole of the internet. The thought of it makes me uneasy. Nothing ever dies, nothing is ever left be or left to disappear. Fingers prod away, adding to it, making it bigger and bigger, like they are gathering sticks for a bonfire nobody ever lights. But what I really mean is that there is a memorial page to Oliver Thomas. I only looked once, but there he was, smiling back at me. His name across the top of the page, four photographs of his short, happy life underneath. At the bottom it said, ‘Always loved. Never forgotten.’ The dates of his life underneath, the years so close together it broke your heart. There may be other pages out there about him, news articles, that kind of thing, but I never found out because I shut the computer down and haven’t looked for him since. That’s why I don’t go online; I know I could find him in a few seconds and I don’t trust my fingers.
At the library we settled ourselves in front of the computer, Mum letting me take charge. Within a couple of minutes she was sat forward, her hand to her mouth, as we made our way down Moor Lane in Clifton. ‘Stop,’ she said after a few seconds, ‘Jackson’s is still there, look, just the same. And look on the right, Nettletons Jewellers too. It hasn’t changed.’ Her face was inches away from the screen, her eyes flicking from Jackson’s to Nettletons and back again. ‘Try King Street,’ she said, and we turned the corner and walked slowly down King Street. Then I showed her that you could turn and look at shops and houses directly, and she glanced at her watch, rooted in her purse for a pound and told me to pay at the counter. When I returned she told me what she wanted. She wanted to see all of the town centre and then old friends’ and enemies’ houses. We went to the Watson house on Cross Lane first: ‘They’ve still not replaced that garage door!’ We went to the Fearnhead house on De Lacy Street: ‘New curtains and front door.’ She was nearly overcome when we did a turn down Rathbone Road and saw old Mrs Armer on the left-hand side of the screen, walking along, carrying her shopping. We made it up and down nearly every street in Clifton. With ten minutes of our time left I showed her how to work the mouse. I typed in the address and went to wait outside. She came out a few minutes later, her eyes damp at the edges, looking a little unsteady. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘that was a blast from the past. Clifton as I live and breathe.’ She was quiet on the walk home and quiet when we got back. She didn’t even grumble when I left the house straight after lunch.