The Cows

Over a breakfast of black coffee and scrambled eggs on toast with an enormous dollop of ketchup, Cam is sitting at her kitchen table wearing a t-shirt and knickers, making a few finishing touches to the column she’s been writing since Mark left to go to the gym at nine a.m. As she’s reading through it, searching for missing commas and spelling mistakes, her doorbell starts ringing so aggressively she thinks there must be a fire. Launching herself into her bedroom to pull on some leggings, she runs to the intercom saying, ‘What? What?’ only to hear her sister say, ‘Cam, it’s Mel. We were on our way to the Heath and thought we’d come to say hi.’

She buzzes them up, instantly hearing the stampede of Mel’s three children racing up the stairs. She opens her door and in pelts Max, eleven, Tamzin, nine, and Jake, four. They all run straight to the window and start naming all the London landmarks that they can see in the view.

‘Morning,’ she says as they pass her. ‘MORNING, AUNTY CAM,’ they shout in reply.

Behind them comes Mel, trudging up the stairs, weighed down with beach bags and a cool box. ‘Here, let me help you,’ says Cam, rushing to help her.

‘This is the most un-kid-friendly flat I’ve ever been to; how many stairs are there? Oh, Cam, you haven’t got a bra on!’ says Mel, disapprovingly.

‘There are forty-six steep steps, it’s an old building and I don’t have kids so it’s fine for me. And I am not wearing a bra because I’m at home. Alone. Or at least I was.’

Mel drops all of the bags onto the floor, puts her palms on her lower back and arches backwards. She lets out a loud sigh but it doesn’t hide the sound of her cracking bones. She looks exhausted.

‘The place is nice,’ she says, looking around. ‘It’s big, won’t you get lonely?’

‘Right,’ says Cam, putting on the kettle anyway. She fancies more coffee, and is grateful her bladder allows it. ‘All well?’

‘Not really, Mum is worried sick. She thinks that your website is inappropriate and she’s too embarrassed to go to her ladies’ club because she thinks all the other ladies think you’re a bra-burning lesbian!’

‘Well I guess that would explain why I’m not wearing one.’ Cam gives Mel a ‘touché’ look, and thinks back to the post she wrote last night about having a younger lover. Her mother will hate it, but at least it will help with the lesbian part.

‘Is there anything you can do to make her feel better, it’s literally all she talks about?’

‘Mel, there is nothing I can do to make Mum feel better, I am who I am. I’ve told her multiple times not to read my blog but she keeps doing it. If it tortures her so much she should just stop.’

Mel waddles over to the window. ‘OK kids, five minutes. I want to get to the park before it gets busy and someone steals our tree.’ She turns to Cam. ‘I need to sit in the shade or my blood gets too warm and my veins bulge.’

Cam looks at her sister and isn’t sure what to say. She looks terrible. Mel never really coped with having kids, not physically or emotionally. She used to be sporty and have a great body, but progressively after each kid she got fatter and fatter and now she’s a hefty size eighteen. Unfortunately, she carries most of her weight on her bum and thighs, so she suffers from chafed skin during the summer months and is largely uncomfortable on hot days. She’s very pretty, possibly even beautiful, but the stress of life and a lack of sleep, as well as coping with three kids, makes it hard to spot the smile that used to attract so many boys at school. She got post-natal depression after every baby, and her marriage is holding on by a shoestring. Cam is sure Mel’s husband, Dave, is having an affair, and she doesn’t really blame him. Mel’s turned into a complicated person with a lot of anger issues in regards to how her life turned out. She’s the best advert for not having kids that Cam has ever seen.

The truth is, Mel is more like Cam than she would ever like to admit. She was never maternal, she never needed to be in relationships to be happy. But she was weaker when it came to standing up to tradition. Their mother saw no future for her four daughters other than marriage and babies. The two eldest, Tanya and Angela, were happy to conform. They both married guys they met at university and have seven kids between them. Tanya teaches yoga and Angela runs a daycare; it’s all pretty sickening and ideal in Cam’s view. Like they read House & Garden and try and live within one of the pictures. But Mel, like Cam, wasn’t designed that way. She was clever, academic and top of the class. She wanted to study law and work in the city. She had plans well beyond being a stay-at-home mum. But then she met Dave and got pregnant with Max. She stupidly told their mother, despite Cam warning her not to, and the guilt laid upon her for even considering an abortion was too much for her to fight against. So she had a kid at twenty-six, even though she didn’t want it. And ever since then, she has lived a life that she wasn’t supposed to live.

‘So, kids, you excited to go to the park?’ Cam asks, walking over to see them. They all turn around, like monkeys in an enclosure who know they’re being watched.

‘Why don’t you have a boyfriend?’ asks Tamzin, a mini version of Cam, even down to the massive hands.

‘Maybe I do have a boyfriend,’ Cam says, not willing to take any shit from a monkey.

‘Max, that was a private conversation between me and Granny,’ Mel says sharply, trying to silence him with her eyes.

‘Then why did you say it when we were all at the dinner table?’ Max says, closing that conversation. It’s no surprise to Cam that her mother and sister talk about her when she isn’t around. She is all they talk about when she is in the room, why on earth would they stop when she isn’t?

‘Guys, one day you will be grown-ups and you will see there is much more to life than having boyfriends and girlfriends. Like having lovely homes and jobs that you enjoy,’ Cam says, spreading her arms as if to draw attention to her gorgeous new apartment. They all turn back to the window. ‘Do you like it?’ They don’t answer. Kids are so unobservant, Cam observes.

‘I want to get married and have three children,’ says Tamzin, proudly, looking back over her shoulder.

‘Or maybe you won’t, maybe you will change your mind, or maybe you won’t meet anyone that you love and you’ll happily while away the years on your own in a nice flat surrounded by expensive art without the fear of a little monster drawing on it with a marker pen?’

Mel rolls her eyes at her little sister. ‘She’s not one of your “women don’t need men” crew Cam, every little girl wants the same dream.’ Her wind up is triumphed by her son.

‘I hate art,’ says Max, moving towards Cam’s laptop. He broke her last one by jumping on it because Cam’s connection wasn’t strong enough to illegally download Kung Fu Panda.

‘No way,’ she says, snatching it out of his way. ‘You can’t go anywhere near that.’

‘Max! How do you know about porn?’ interjects Mel, looking genuinely aghast.

Cam looks at Mel with a guilty face. Mel looks back at her with an angry one. ‘What? Oh come on, it’s not like there were pictures! And I didn’t show him my blog.’

‘No, but he looks at it whenever he goes online. It’s out there, Cam, anyone can see it. Can’t you write about other things? Stuff that won’t psychologically damage my children if they read it?’

‘Oh calm down, he’s not damaged. And perhaps you need to sort out your parental settings.’ They both turn to look at Max, who is now pulling a moonie out of Cam’s window, while Tamzin is banging on it to get the people on the street’s attention. Jake is watching and learning.

‘You better put that away, Max,’ Cam says. ‘I’ve heard little boys go to prison for exposing themselves around here.’

Max pulls up his trousers. He’s a cocky little so-and-so but in that childlike way, he looks like he is debating if what Cam just said is true. He obviously doesn’t want to risk it.

‘OK, well, I suppose we better go,’ says Mel, looping the bags back over her wrists and making a ‘huggghhh’ noise as she bends her knees and lifts them. ‘SO great you live so close to the park, lucky you. I hate the tube, it’s so hot, my veins can’t take it. Come on, kids. Park, now.’

‘Look, I have to work for a bit, but why don’t I come join you in the park today?’ Cam says, wanting to be with them all, but not in her lovely new home.

‘Sure,’ says Mel, and herds the kids together. They run down the stairs, leaving Mel struggling with the bags. ‘Please put a bra on!’ she shouts and trudges behind.

Back at the kitchen table, Cam, as usual after seeing one of her family members, feels alive with motivation. For some, being misunderstood by the people closest to them would lock them in a box, make them insecure, shy away. But for Cam, it’s been the inspiration for almost everything she has ever done. She’s been gently tapping on her mum and sisters’ shoulders most of her life saying, accept me, I’m different from you, but I’m happy. Yet for whatever reason, they’ve never been able to do it. She knows her mother has a hard time reading her blogs, and as much as she tells her she shouldn’t, Cam also loves that she does. www.HowItIs.com is her place to say everything she needs to say, to speak her mind and not be belittled by what society, or her mother, deems as normal. She’s proud of who she is. Not fitting in has been the catalyst to her success. It’s time to write a blog for anyone who is happy to feel alone in a crowd.

Does anyone want to hear a love story? It’s not one that has ever been told before. It’s called, Cam Stacey and her great love, The Internet. Let me start at the beginning …

Once upon a time, there was a girl called Cammie. She was generally quite good at things at school, working hard and keen on doing well. She had a rebellious streak, in that she smoked fags and kissed boys and drank too much cider, but as a whole, she was a pretty good kid.

She wasn’t one for trying to be cool, but by not trying to be cool, she probably came across a bit like she was trying to be cool. She wore tight trousers and band t-shirts when the other girls were wearing short skirts and low-cut tops. She didn’t have many close friendships. Instead, she sat around talking about music with boys, rather than gossip sessions with the girls. All in all, she got through her teenage years without too much trouble; girls found her a bit intimidating, boys probably did too. All she wanted was a bit of peace and quiet. With three older sisters at home, leaving the house was like a holiday, and she didn’t want to fill that time with too many people, so she generally kept herself to herself.

Yes, you’ve guessed it, Cammie is me. Here is how the story goes on …

I left school, went to uni, and studied English. I was one of those people who read everything on the course modules. I was never without a book, and I had a freakish tendency to read multiple newspapers a day from cover to cover. Why? Because I knew that I had to be a writer. I knew I had to absorb words to be good at it. It was the only way that I was ever going to get the billions of thoughts and opinions that were in my head, out. In a way that anyone would understand. Because socially, I really sucked.

I did what all aspiring writers did back then, and I wrote pages and pages of articles, printed them off and sent them to editors in yellow envelopes. I never got any replies. Then, this amazing thing happened … they called it email. Suddenly I could send my work as attachments to emails, so I did that, but still, I never got any replies. And then I read an article about this little-known hobby that they were calling ‘blogging’. This woman was blogging about her family. Her husband was a photographer, she was beautiful, their kids were cute and their dog was fluffy. So every day, she got her husband to take an adorable picture and she posted it with a note about what they did that day. It was kind of sickening if I am honest, not my thing at all. But then I read that 30,000 people checked in every single day to read what she had to say. And I knew this was the answer for me.

So, Reader, I married him! By him, I mean, the Internet. And by married, I mean I built a website. And then, we started making babies. (You get the picture by now. By babies, I mean writing blogs.)

I found my voice online and that helped me find my voice inside. I wrote and wrote, and every day, without fail, I posted something. Whether it was something I was feeling, or a reaction to something in the news. And then, I made everyone I knew read it. I had flyers printed that I put on cars and through letterboxes. I emailed the link to every editor of every paper and magazine, and I posted the link on thousands of people’s MySpace pages. It became my life; it became an addiction. If I wasn’t writing, I was promoting. I didn’t need editors of newspapers to notice me, I was getting an audience all of my own. And look at me now. I have one of the longest running lifestyle blogs in the UK. www.HowItIs.com started sixteen years ago next week and it’s still going strong. Over half a million people read my blogs each day; that’s a bigger readership than most print publications.

I’m telling this story for anyone who has a voice but doesn’t know how to get it heard. You don’t have to be a social butterfly, you don’t have to be charming, overly confident, beautiful or thin. All you need to have is something to say.

The Internet is the love of my life, because it allows me to be who I want to be. Words that would get stuck in my mouth tumble out of my fingertips with total ease. I’m not sure what I would have become if I didn’t have this as an outlet. And you know the best bit? I can connect with hundreds of thousands of people every single day, without even having to say a word. So go for it, post your feelings online. Even if no one reads it now, there is a little piece of you out there that will last forever, it’s kinda magical!

Cam x

Tara

‘Mum, the cotton wool keeps falling off,’ says Annie, as we walk up to Trudy’s door. There are two birthday helium balloons tied to the handle and a little Post-it note saying, ‘LET YOURSELVES IN, PRINCESSES’.

My head is thumping from too much booze and almost no sleep. I can’t get the image of that guy’s face out of my head, his camera aiming at me like a gun that was loaded with shame. And Jason still hasn’t texted anything since before I got on the train; how did I get that so wrong?

I turned up to my mum’s house at eleven thirty this morning armed with an empty cardboard box, a Pritt Stick, a sheet of orange card, a piece of elastic, a white hat, some white tights and six packets of cotton wool balls. It’s amazing what you can muster from a Tesco Metro when you have to create a fancy dress costume for a six-year-old. I cut a hole in the box for Annie’s head and covered the whole thing with cotton wool balls. I made a carrot nose out of the orange card and elastic and with the tights and the hat, she looks great. OK, not great, but the best I could do.

‘There was a snowman in Frozen, wasn’t there?’ I say, which doesn’t seem to help.

We go in. It’s clear the party is happening in the garden; the shrieking of excited children is tearing through the house. I should have taken more Nurofen.

The house is nice. A very large Victorian terrace with tidy bookshelves, a massive TV and a posh navy sofa with a big doll’s house in front of a bay window. I’m surprised Amanda has such good taste, and her husband obviously earns loads because, apart from two large chests of practical-looking drawers, all with neatly written labels describing what toys they contain, the place looks impressively un-IKEA.

‘Annie, Annie,’ yells Trudy as she runs excitedly into the living room, followed by three other little princesses in their perfect, shop-bought fancy dress frocks. I feel instantly sorry for Annie. She looks ridiculous in comparison.

The other girls take her hand and drag her outside into the garden, where a small bouncy castle is being challenged by around fifteen extremely excited six-year-old girls. To the left of it is a long table with a blue tablecloth and plate after plate of blue and white foods. I want to eat all of it.

At the far end of the table are about twenty adults, men and women. Mums and dads. Why do I get so nervous in these situations? My hangover anxiety tells me that I have been the topic of conversation until now.

‘Tara,’ says Amanda, coming over all friendly, as if the uncomfortable moment at the school gate never happened. It’s a little unnerving. ‘Wine?’ she says, offering me a glass of white. I swear everyone has stopped talking and is smiling at me in that awkward way that people at parties do while they are waiting for you to make eye contact with them so they can say hello. I quickly look around them all, and mutter hello so they can get on with their conversations. ‘Well?’ pushes Amanda, waving the glass of wine under my nose. I think for a second, but my face must speak volumes because she retracts the glass and says, ‘Too early to drink?’

‘Oh, no, never too early. I just had a big night last night. Feeling a bit shaky.’

‘Oh come on, hair of the dog, it works wonders,’ says a man in a blue shirt approaching us.

‘This is Pete, my husband,’ she says. Something in her face shows me she is angry with him.

‘Hi,’ I say, reaching my hand out to meet Pete’s. He is tall, with a mouth that takes up a lot of his face, and really flirty eyes.

‘I could whip you up a Bloody Mary,’ he says. ‘I was a bit shaky myself this morning. I’ve got some already made up in the fridge?’

‘You know what, that would be perfect. Thank you!’ I say, as he goes inside.

‘Thanks, Amanda,’ I say, taking that as a compliment and making it clear I have her name right now. ‘I like to encourage her to be her own person, rather than just do whatever everyone else does.’ We look over at Annie. She is stepping out of the box and into a princess dress. ‘It doesn’t always work.’

We stand together, pretending to be engrossed in what our children are doing, trying to think of something to say, but something negative is in action between us. It’s cosmic, out of our control. I don’t have the energy to fight it.

‘Here you go,’ says Pete, handing me a Bloody Mary and breaking the silence.

‘Wow, celery and everything. Cheers.’ We chink glasses, and I take a big sip. It’s delicious.

‘OK, well, have fun,’ Amanda says, walking away, as if she has hit her limit on what she can handle from me. ‘Pete!’ she says, ordering him away. I can’t help but notice him glance at my tits as he goes.

‘Hello, hi, hey, hi, hello,’ I say, walking over to the table of food and the small crowd of people around it. ‘Mmmmm, bright blue cupcakes, yummy,’ I say, taking a paper plate and loading it full of food. Everyone is looking at me with ‘isn’t she fascinating’ faces. There are as many dads as mums. I feel very conspicuous. Very solo. How is it I can be so confident at work, but put me in a group of parents and I want to bury my head in the birthday cake?

‘A Bloody Mary and carbohydrates, that can only mean one thing,’ says Tracey, Gabby Fletcher’s mum, coming over to me. We’ve chatted a few times before; she’s generally quite friendly but also has that air of primness about her that so many women seem to get when they get married and have kids. Even the wildest ones, like Sophie, even though she doesn’t have children. They used to be hard drinking, slutty drug munchers, but now they’re boring, safe, and married to men who would implode if they knew the things they used to get up to. I get the impression from Tracey that she has a past she doesn’t want to admit to. She always takes a second to answer questions, as if she is reminding herself of the right thing to say. Maybe I’m imagining it, maybe not.

‘I haven’t had a proper hangover in years, I just couldn’t do it with my two,’ she says, and the rest of the parents mumble in agreement.

‘Oh, I know. My mum has Annie on Friday nights, so I can go out and have a sleep in. I’m not sure I could handle it otherwise.’

Tracey glances back at the group. I wonder if she’s been sent over to get information.

‘And I suppose you can do weekend swaps with Annie’s dad too? I mean, God forbid anything ever happen with me and James, but a bit of child sharing must be nice?’

It’s not unusual for people to presume that Annie’s dad and I split up. It is unusual for me to be asked about it in front of an audience of mums and dads at a Disney-themed birthday party. This topic gives me extreme anxiety at the best of time. Mix that with hangover fear, and I suddenly realise that my face is very sweaty.

‘Oh, actually Annie doesn’t have a dad,’ I say, stuffing half a blue cupcake into my mouth and hoping she moves on.

‘Oh. Yes, some of the girls and I were just saying, we don’t really know much about you, we just wanted to get to know you a little better.’

‘So, was it a bad breakup?’ she asks, after watching me chew and swallow the whole thing.

The other mums have now moved closer. I wonder how many cupcakes I can get in my mouth at one time, so I don’t have to speak.

I could just say yes, but as the Bloody Mary kicks in and joins last night’s alcohol that is still buzzing around my system, I have an unfamiliar wave of bravado.

‘Nope. Not a fling, a one-night stand. Well, there was a bit of flinging, I suppose. In that he flung some sperm up my vagina and into my uterus.’ I laugh, thinking that was pretty funny. Then I look at all of their faces, and realise it wasn’t.

‘That’s quite the image,’ Tracey says, picking up a cupcake she obviously has no intention of eating. ‘So he didn’t want to be involved?’ she asks, like a human lie detector that I know I won’t beat.

Silence. For what feels like a very long time. I eventually realise this isn’t one of her weird pauses, she just has no idea what to say. My nerves keep speaking.

‘Anyway, now I’m dating and looking for love, not sperm. Real, actual love. So don’t worry, your husbands are safe, ladies!’ I let out a raucous and crazy laugh. What am I doing? Who am I being? Why the hell did I say that about their husbands being safe?

‘Pete,’ shouts Amanda across the garden. ‘Pete, let’s get the cake.’ I hadn’t realised that he was standing behind me again.

The crowd of parents disperses and spreads themselves into small groups around the garden. Every wife is making some sort of physical contact with their husband. I am left standing at the table alone, me and approximately 40,000 calories’ worth of blue puddings. I feel like the smashed-up sausage roll that nobody wants to eat.

‘Annie, Annie, come on, we have to go,’ I say, rushing over to the bouncy castle and elbowing parents out of my way to get my daughter.

‘But Mummy, we haven’t had the cake yet,’ she says, looking embarrassed and worried that I am serious.

She does as she’s told, mortified that I just shouted at her in front of her friends. I don’t care, I’m too embarrassed to deal with judgement from these people. I also think I might be sick.

I grab Annie’s hand and hurry through the house, feeling like I’m escaping an avalanche. As I open the front door, Vicky Thomson is standing there, her fist up to start knocking. I jump about three feet into the air.

‘Tara,’ she says, ‘are you leaving? God, I’m so late. Is the party over, why have you got a blue mouth?’

‘OK, well, bye. And we should do coffee, I’ve written up a few more ideas, I really think one could …’

But I’ve strapped Annie in and driven away before she has the chance to finish. When I get around the corner, I feel a little calmer. Then I look in the rear view mirror and see Annie’s face.

Cam

‘Hello, yeah I’ve been waiting for my pizza for over an hour … Yes, it’s Stacey … What? I spoke to you myself? … Oh, forget it, I’ll call Domino’s.’

‘That is so rubbish,’ Cam says to Mark, who is also very hungry but not the type to get annoyed. ‘It’s going to take ages to get here now.’

She storms over to the kitchen and aggressively opens and slams shut all of the cupboards and the fridge. They are all empty.

‘Babe, you get so hangry,’ says Mark, infuriating Cam a little with his youthful slang.

Cam goes a little cold. Let’s go eat somewhere? As in, they sit opposite each other? In a restaurant? With clothes on? Making conversation? Is that possible?

Before Cam has the chance to question it, Mark is standing by the door, ready to leave. ‘Come on then, I’m starving,’ he says.

She picks up her keys, slips into some flip flops and follows him out. This is actually happening.

As Mark reads the menu, Cam stares at him. It’s been a few months since they met in the line at Whole Foods, they’ve had sex in every position imaginable, but she has no idea if he even has a middle name. Sitting opposite him now, she can’t think of a single thing to say.

‘I’m going for the meat feast, I don’t even know why I bother to read the menu. What about you?’ Mark asks, putting the menu down and nodding at a waiter.

‘Me? What about me?’ Cam asks, worried he’s asking her to express some feelings.

‘Oh right,’ replies Cam, making a face that she thinks shows she is enjoying getting to know the small details of who he is, despite finding this terribly awkward.

It’s not that she doesn’t like Mark, or doesn’t like spending time with him. But she’s actively avoided traditional dating for most of her adult life; it isn’t what she’s good at. She’d rarely choose to sit opposite someone she didn’t know really well for an entire meal. A drink, probably. A coffee, fine. But a meal? A proper date? She’s not good at this. She’s good at being at home, in her pants, making general conversation between sex sessions. In that environment she has props, distractions from intense emotional interaction. But now here she is, sitting opposite her fuck buddy of a few months, realising for the first time that the age gap is actually a thing. She feels conspicuous. Like an older man with a young hot blonde. Out of bed, this feels a bit silly.

‘Oh, um, I went to the park with my sister and niece and two nephews. We swam in the pond, it was nice,’ Cam says, shoving two olives into her mouth.

‘Ah, nice. I’ve got two nephews. Jacob and Jonah. Both want to be called JJ, so I just call them JJJJ, like Ja-Juh, Ja-Juh, and they find that really funny.’

‘That’s hilarious,’ says Cam, hiding her feelings by spitting olive pips into her hand.

‘They love me. I can pick them both up at once. They call me Uncle Hulk,’ Mark says, holding his arm up, bending his elbow, and flexing his biceps.

‘So how old are yours?’ he asks, being completely acceptable and acting as any normal human being would in this situation. But it’s too much for Cam. She’s not sure why she’s finding this so excruciating, but she is. She can’t do it. She just can’t.

‘Mark, I’m sorry. I’m not feeling great, maybe sunstroke or something. Can we get the pizza boxed up and take it home?’

Mark doesn’t seem bothered. He still gets pizza, he still gets Cam – as far as he’s concerned, it’s all good.

‘Sure,’ he says, calling over a waiter to ask for the pizza to go. Cam instantly relaxes, and fills the time by getting her wallet out of her bag and counting out some money. ‘I’ll get this,’ she says. Mark happily accepts.

‘You know, maybe I’ll just go home alone. I’m sorry, I think the heat really got to me today. Then not eating, and chasing kids around all afternoon. Is that OK?’

‘Of course, babe,’ Mark says, understandingly. He opens a pizza box to make sure she takes the right one. ‘Want me to walk you home?’

‘No, I’ll be OK. Thanks though,’ she says, appreciating how nice and easy he is, and wondering why she can’t bring herself to sit through a meal with him.

‘Probably, I fancy a dance,’ he says, further clarifying the vast contrast in their lifestyles. Cam wonders if he’ll pull later. Someone closer to his age, who also works in a gym, who is happy to chat about stuff. She knows she isn’t allowed to care.

Back at her kitchen table, laptop in front of her, half a pizza to her right, and a cup of tea to her left, she thinks about what to write about. She knows her relationship with the world through the Internet is better than it is with it in person, but does that matter? Why should she have to be great offline, when she can be everything she wants to be online? It’s not like she has no contact with other humans at all; there is her family, Mark, and of course she has friends. Sure, she conducts most of her relationships on email, but it’s not like she’s literally alone, like an old person in a home that no one comes to visit. She could go out if she wanted to, she just doesn’t want to.

Does she want to? Or has she become so consumed with her online profile that she’s forgotten how to communicate face to face? She shakes her head. No … no, that isn’t how it is. The Internet allowed her to be everything she wanted to be. She’s happy living through her fingertips. In her virtual world she is bold, brave and powerful. In the real world, she kind of sucks. Her relationship with the Internet is nothing to be ashamed of.

Being alone doesn’t mean I am lonely.

I don’t remember the last time I felt lonely, but I am alone all the time. I think it stems from being brought up in a busy household, and living most of my life in my head. The truth is, I probably have the same fear of being surrounded that most people have of loneliness. Being alone doesn’t scare me. In fact, it makes me really happy.

Being lonely is actually quite hard, if you fill your life with things you love. For me, the things I love don’t take me far from my front door. I enjoy walking, and watching movies, and seeing family and those kinds of things. But the rest of the time, when I am alone in my home, my thoughts and work occupy me plenty.

When I am alone, I just get on with things. I do all sorts, ranging from acts of vanity to writing words. As I sit here in my kitchen on a Saturday night doing the latter of those activities, I thought I might share some of the other things I do when there is no one else around.

Sometimes, I might sit at the kitchen table and pluck my bikini line with tweezers. Or I put a little vanity mirror on a table by the window, and use the brightness of the daylight to inspect my pores. I squeeze little blackheads and pluck out dark hairs from places on my face that they shouldn’t be. This leaves me looking all blotchy and unsightly, so I probably wouldn’t do it if there was someone else around. I’ll finish that process with a facemask, that I leave on for ten minutes while I email friends.

I’m brilliant at emailing people. I’d write letters if actual handwriting didn’t give me wrist cramps, because I love the idea of old-school pen pals. I write school friends huge catch up emails, and I send them all the time. And they write back with just a few sentences, and I always feel really proud of myself for being so good at staying in touch, even though I would never make the effort to actually see them face to face. I also spend ages reading all of the emails I get from you guys, and a good portion of my time replying.

I cook myself meals, and sometimes really go to town on what they might be. A few nights ago I made myself a chicken Thai green curry from scratch, including the paste. Then I sat in my window seat and I ate it while looking out over London and listening to Tapestry by Carole King. I followed that by reading almost half of a novel about a North Korean refugee, before going to bed and writing a blog with a cup of peppermint tea. In the morning, I woke up at ten a.m. and finished the curry. Cold. There was no one there to judge me, so I just did it, and it was perfect. I spent the rest of the day doing DIY with my dad.

This is my life now, and how it has been for a really long time. I am alone, but never lonely. I don’t know if I could ever be lonely, because I love being alone. I think when you’ve truly mastered the skill of enjoying your own company, happiness just comes.

Cam x

She uploads the piece and tears off a huge piece of pizza. Usually she feels a sense of calmness when she’s written a good article, but Cam can’t quite shake the jitters she’s feeling from earlier. The weakness she feels when she’s in the wider world. How can the virtual her and the real life her be so different? Taking the pizza with her into her bedroom, she slips between the sheets and eats it. Looking around her room, she thinks how nice it would be to have a small armchair in the corner, one with a fun print on it, just for show. Maybe she’ll go looking for one tomorrow, that would be the perfect way to spend a Sunday. Still chewing, she lets out a massive pizza-perfumed fart, turns off the light, and falls fast asleep.

Sunday

Tara

Annie and I are snuggled up on the sofa watching a movie, like we always do on rainy Sunday afternoons. My phone beeps and I jump up like a wasp just landed on my leg, giving Annie a huge fright. Suddenly we are both off the sofa, and standing in the middle of the living room.

I consider telling her about the guy who filmed me on the train, but I don’t even know how I would explain that to Sophie. It’s giving me the creeps so badly, I’m really trying to block it out of my mind. But I keep visualising him in his living room wanking away to it, or even worse, posting it on his Facebook page so all his spotty little mates can wank over it. It’s so weird to think that someone out there has that footage and I have no idea who he is. Oh God, me having an orgasm, on camera. It’s just the worst thing I can imagine.

Maybe he was just taking a photo? The newspaper didn’t fall off my lap until pretty near the end. It might not be as bad as I think. I just have to forget about it, pretend it didn’t happen, or it’s going to taunt me for the rest of my life. There is nothing I can do about it now, so I need to focus on the other things in my life, like the fact that I totally imagined how much Jason liked me. Urgh. Today is not good. Annie wants to do stuff, and I feel so low I can’t get off the sofa. There is a standoff.

She was so upset about leaving the party early that she refused to come out of her room yesterday afternoon. I felt so gross that after some pitiful attempts to coax her out, I just lay on the sofa eating Pringles, like a teenager going through a breakup. Eventually I took her up some dinner and let her eat it in her room. Why is it that kids find eating away from a table so exciting? She came downstairs after that, and we played Snap until bedtime. When she was asleep, I got back to my carbohydrates and a bottle of wine. That’s probably why I feel even more horrendous today.

‘You said we’d go to the park today,’ Annie says, not even looking at me, arms crossed as she stares at the TV. We have Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on, we’ve seen it a hundred times.

‘I know. Sorry, Annie. Mummy’s not well. Come on, what do you want to watch, anything you want, I don’t mind?’

I look at my phone again even though it didn’t make a noise. Why hasn’t Jason texted me? Maybe he thought his message had sent? But then he’d be waiting for an answer from me and he’d look and see it hasn’t. No, he decided to stop writing. But why? I want to text him again, say something cool, easy, funny? But I can’t bring myself to. The least I can do for myself is retain some level of dignity by not saying anything else mortifying. Annie huffs loudly.

‘I’m bored inside, it isn’t even raining,’ she says, staring at my phone like it’s another child that is taking me away from her.

We sit in silence for a few more minutes. I know she isn’t watching the film, I’m not either, but we both stare at the screen anyway.

‘I’m hungry,’ she says, eventually. ‘I want to go to the park and get an ice cream.’

‘Can’t we just have one day where we sit around doing nothing?’ I realise I’m sounding like the child and tell myself to grow up. I am a mother, not a lovesick teenager. I must parent and stop moping. I skulk into the kitchen. There is a plate of chicken in the fridge, I think it was from Thursday night’s dinner; it should be fine. I flop a big dollop of mayonnaise into it and stir it up, then squash it between two slices of bread. I sprinkle a few Pringles onto the plate next to it, and pour her a glass of water.

‘There,’ I say, offering it to her. ‘I made you a sandwich. Chicken mayo, yummy. Eat up and then we’ll go out.’

‘Oh Annie, please will you stop being so grumpy and just eat the sandwich!’ I snap, instantly regretting it. But I feel so tired, and embarrassed, and I need to wallow in all of those emotions until they go away. I look at Annie, she looks so upset. ‘Oh baby I’m sorry, I …’

‘You’re SO mean!’ she shrieks as she throws the plate on the floor, the sandwich popping open and mayonnaise splattering everywhere. She storms out of the living room and flies up the stairs. Her bedroom door slams and makes the house shake. That’s the first time she’s ever done that, I couldn’t feel more terrible. I throw a tea towel over the mayonnaise and pretend it isn’t there. Covering my face with my hands, I tell myself I have to be strong, this is not Annie’s fault, our weekends are precious, and I can’t waste one just because I am a total loser. We’ll go to see Sophie, everything will be fine. I’ll make up for yesterday. I have to be strong.

Stella

Last night was shit. Halfway through my stir fry, Phil came back and sat in the living room with the TV on so loud I could barely think. I stood in the kitchen for ages, calming myself down. I wanted to go in there and rip the TV out of the wall and smash him over the head with it. Why is it him that’s so annoyed? Is it his whole family who died? His body that is under threat? I stared at the back of his head from the kitchen door and mouthed everything I wanted to scream at his face. He is supposed to be the strong one. He is supposed to take care of me, to make me feel better. That is the person he was when we met. That is who I thought was moving into my home. He was the one who persuaded me to get the test, with his ‘I’m here for you, baby’ and ‘It’s better to know.’ And now we have the result, he is the one who isn’t man enough to deal with it.

But I held myself back. And I thought about what I want. And I don’t want to be alone, and I want to have a baby. So as I so often do, I swallowed my pain, I took off Alice’s lovely skirt, I went and sat next to him, put my hand on his leg, and I told him I was sorry. For what I should be so sorry for, I’m not entirely sure. But he turned the volume down, and he accepted a plate of food, and we sat and we watched a movie side by side.

Now, a day later, we are at the kitchen table, eating the roast beef that I just prepared in a further attempt to stop him leaving me. I am running out of conversation; no friends to catch up on, no work gossip, no family news, and I’m trying to avoid the b and the c words.

‘Did you know that if you Google “What if I die with no legacy” the first four results are about what happens to your Facebook account after you’ve died?’ I say, with a small piece of meat stuffed into my left cheek.

‘Apparently, now you can nominate someone to be your “legacy contact”, and then they can take control of it after you’ve gone. So basically I’d give you my login and then you could change my pictures and accept friend requests and stuff.’

‘OK, then why wouldn’t the legacy contact just shut the page down? A Facebook account is no good to you when you’re dead, is it?’ Phil says, bluntly.

‘Well that would be pretty depressing, wouldn’t it?’ says Phil, obviously hoping this conversation stops soon.

‘OK, Stella. Do you have to talk like this?’ Phil blurts, standing up from the table and taking his plate over to the sink. He drops his head. ‘I can’t have more of these casual conversations about death, it’s wrecking my head.’

‘Sorry,’ I say, even though I’m not. I creep behind him and put my arms around his waist. We stand like this for a minute or two, Phil’s body stiff and uninviting. I undo his belt.

‘I want you,’ I say gently as I take his flaccid penis into my hand and try to work it into something functional. I don’t remember ever having to do this at the beginning of our relationship. It’s standard now.

After a long silence, it’s finally hard. ‘Come to bed,’ I say, taking him by the hand and leading him into the bedroom.

As I take off my jeans and knickers, Phil lies down. He pulls his trousers down a little but leaves his underwear on. I crawl on top of him. ‘I might need a little help,’ I say, seductively putting my fingers into his mouth. He sucks them and turns his head to the side. I run my wet fingers around the opening of my vagina, a move he taught me, that he used to like to watch. I position myself above him and lower until he’s inside me. He keeps his head to the side. I move slowly up and down, not taking my eyes off his face. I try harder, making the noises that used to turn him on. I lean forward and kiss his neck, then his cheek. I kiss the side of his mouth as I groan and move faster, but he refuses to look at my face. He’s managing to retain an erection but he’s not moving, he’s not offering anything. I keep going, ramping up my speed a little but getting nothing back from him.

Phil pushes me off and onto the bed. I roll and face the other way, covering my face with my hands. It’s too embarrassing to bear.

‘I’m sorry, Stell,’ he says, sincerely. ‘I’m just really full.’ A lie.

He gets off the bed, does up his jeans as he goes into the living room. I hear the TV go on.

Tara

Sophie and I used to work for an agency that supplied waiting staff for posh people’s parties. We’d serve miniature Yorkshire puddings with horseradish cream, or other such pretentious tiny things, to London’s society crowd. We dealt with a lot of pretentious arseholes, but we also got to snoop around their houses. Huge Notting Hill townhouses and massive Sloane Square apartments. They were another world from what we were used to in Walthamstow. Our families did well by our local standards, we were the upper end of the scale for where we were from, but nothing in comparison to the people who had these parties. They seemed like something out of the movies, and they lived in a London that we didn’t recognise as ours. We used to laugh about how we would be if we lived that way. We fantasised about wearing wild dressing gowns, marabou slippers, wafting around our mansions with glass after glass of champagne. It was a ridiculous dream, but every time I arrive at Sophie and Carl’s house, I realise she is living it.

I pick Annie up so she can ring the doorbell. It’s Victorian, so quite stiff. Her little fingers struggle to push it, so I put mine on top of hers and say, ‘One two, three.’ We hear the perfectly tuned, beautiful bells of Big Ben that their £400 doorbell bellows out whenever anyone pops round. Sophie’s voice booms out of a speaker, ‘Hang on, just upstairs,’ but as she says it, we hear heavy footsteps walking towards the door. Annie holds onto me a little tighter, which makes me feel so good. She’s been angry with me all day. But in that way that kids do, when a shred of fear from the outside world creeps in, she knows her mummy is the one to make her safe. I squeeze her back, happy to be a team again, as the door slowly opens.

And there is Carl. All six foot two of him. His dark hair neatly cut and parted at the side. His fifty-one-year-old, well-looked-after body hidden underneath a cream V-neck jumper, with a checked shirt poking out from underneath. I’m not sure what you’d call the trousers he has on, a casual chino? This is him when he’s relaxing at home, but he still looks smarter than most of the men I know when they’re at work.

‘Hey Carl, so nice to see you,’ I say, stepping inside and kissing him on each cheek. I feel under surveillance, like I could say something incriminating to piss him off. I remind myself I am a parent, that he is not my husband, and it actually doesn’t matter if he likes me or not. But still, I feel judged.

‘Hello Tara, Annie; welcome. Sophie is somewhere, come in,’ he says, warmly, reminding me that most of my opinion of Carl comes from Sophie’s paranoia.

‘Hiiiiiii,’ says Sophie, coming down the large staircase. She looks fully the part and as beautiful as ever. All casual in black, but impeccably styled.

‘Aunty Sophie!’ says Annie, letting go of my hand and running over to her. They’ve always got on great. Sophie is childlike by nature, so connects well with kids. I am pretty certain this would not be the case if the kids were her own. It’s another reason why marrying Carl suited her. He has three boys by his first marriage, and no interest in having any more.

‘Hello sweetheart,’ she says, picking Annie up and giving her a huge kiss. I see her shoot a look to Carl, to make sure he is watching. She thinks him seeing her with children makes her seem responsible in some way, I think. ‘Shall we go into the kitchen?’ she says.

In the kitchen, a huge white three-sided cube that opens up to a sprawling and perfectly preened garden, Carl goes over to a wine fridge that is four times the size of my actual fridge and says to Sophie, ‘Maybe a 2008?’

As he opens it, Sophie opens the back doors so that Annie can burst into the open air and run around the flower beds. She gets to do no such thing at home, because my garden is basically a shed with no roof on it. I do love seeing her play happily, a gentle reminder that maybe I am doing OK at being a mum.

‘So, did he text?’ Sophie asks me, as Carl puts three enormous bulbous wine glasses in front of us. He puts three fingers’ worth of wine in mine, three fingers’ worth in his, but as he’s pouring Sophie’s, she puts her hand up as if to stop him putting so much in hers. That is the first time in the history of my existence I have ever seen her do that. Carl looks impressed. Sophie looks at me and winks.

‘No, not yet,’ I say, tasting the wine. It’s unbelievably delicious, like the smoothest, creamiest, most perfectly chilled drink I have ever consumed. I bet it cost £50 a bottle. I drink it slowly, despite wanting to neck it. ‘I obviously gauged that completely wrong. He hasn’t contacted me all weekend, I’m gutted,’ I continue.

‘Yip! Tara went on an Internet date on Friday,’ Sophie says, as if she is telling Carl of a new phenomenon that the kids are doing.

‘Actually, that’s not quite what happened. I went to meet the guy from the Internet but I ended up with a guy I met at the bar,’ I say, correcting her, then wishing I hadn’t because that didn’t sound great. Carl looks confused, and I feel dirty.

‘I don’t think I could ever date someone I met on the Internet, I’d be so worried that they would expect something from me on the first date,’ says Sophie, like butter wouldn’t melt. My jaw falls open and I stare hard at her, as if to say, ‘I’m sorry, what character are you playing here?’

‘I was never much of a dater,’ she continues. To which I have to stop myself yelping, ‘No, you were just a shagger!’ What is this rewriting of history she has to do to keep her husband happy? I know what it is; it’s a fear of him leaving her and her being left with nothing. But would he, really? He’s a bit of a pompous snob, but I don’t think he’s that bad.

‘So, hang on,’ interjects Carl. ‘You were going to meet someone on the Internet but ended up with someone at the bar?’ He looks more intrigued than judgmental, but Sophie still looks nervous.

‘Yes. I went up to the wrong guy. By the time I realised it was the wrong guy we were already getting along really well, so I just stayed there with him.’

‘He left with someone that looked like a prostitute, so he looked pretty happy,’ I say, looking at Sophie, as if to say, ‘You might lie about real life, but I don’t.’ I can see this terrifies her; she’s wondering how to separate herself from my debauchery.

‘God, we are so different,’ is what she goes with, causing me to spit out about £2.50’s worth of wine all over the solid white glossy kitchen table that seats twelve people.

‘Tara, careful,’ she says, getting up to fetch a cloth, with which she mops up my mess. I feel like I’m fifteen and sitting at a table with my friend’s parents who think I’m a bad influence.

‘Sophie, we are not that different. Are we?’ I say, not willing to take any further unnecessary humiliation this weekend; I think I’ve hit my peak after Jason and Wankgate. She stops wiping and looks at me. Carl is behind her, and she looks deeply into my eyes as if to say, ‘Please, just go with this.’ But why should I? Why should I sit here and be made to sound like some old slapper when she was basically ‘Miss Trollop of Walthamstow’ from 1998 through to 2010? Just as I am about to say something brilliantly clever and collected to set the record straight, Annie runs into the kitchen.

‘Mummy, I think I’m going to be sick,’ she says, looking as green as the garden behind her. And then, like an earthquake shattering a dam, she projectile vomits all over Sophie and Carl’s perfectly pristine floor.