Adults. Emma Jane Unsworth

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СКАЧАТЬ hope you took time to really consider it and didn’t just rush off an answer?

      She doesn’t reply.

      She does that sometimes, Kelly. Shuts down. She did a much bigger version when I was getting together with my ex, Art – back in those heady days of hard wooing – and I asked her to check the things I was sending him. Sometimes you just need a second opinion, you know? What are friends for?

      Kelly’s from the North, too. She’s Yorkshire. The white rose to my red. She’s an angel in my lifetime but she has started to publicly undermine me and to be honest it’s starting to grate. Example: last week I posted a photo of a leaf-covered bench in the park with the words:

       Autumn, you’ve always been my favourite

      and she commented:

       Do you think liking autumn makes you a more complex person?

      A few days later I posted a charming vista of a field and she wrote,

       Mate, there’s nothing in this picture

      It’s not the kind of thing you expect from a beloved friend. BUT – if you had to ask me who knew me best, who loved me best, who I loved best – well, I do know what the answer would be. Kelly thrills me, it’s as simple as that. She thrills me. We might have drifted apart a bit of late, but we have the kind of friendship that can weather emotional distance. It’s very easy-come, easy-go. Like an open marriage.

      Kelly has a son, Sonny. I’ve known them twelve years, although technically I met Sonny first. He’s fourteen now. Kelly got pregnant with her university ex, whom she told me she swiftly outgrew. He now has a baby with another woman and is a proper truck-blocking activist. He and Kelly once stayed up a tree for six weeks, while she was pregnant, and I think it was during that time she realised the relationship was really over. It’s going to be a make-or-break holiday when you’re crapping in a carrier bag and arguing about who has more snacks left because there’s no electronic entertainment. Kelly still has a star tattoo on her wrist from when she used to be an anarchist. (She never turned down a cheeseboard, though. I think you often find that with anarchists – they still like the small comforts.)

      The last time I saw Sonny, a couple of months ago, I told him to stop looking at girls with long fake nails on Instagram because they were emulating porn stars. He said I was nail-shaming them. He told me his friend pressed the wrong button on a vending machine in America and got the morning-after pill instead of a drink, so what did I have to teach him? People are depressed about the totalitarian state we’re heading towards – a world where our internet use will be restricted to viewing the shiny, ham-like faces of our unelected leaders – but at least it will save the kids from porn. Every cloud.

      I’ve told Kelly that we have to respect social media more than the younger generations because we’re not digital natives. We were raised in print. This shift has been a major cultural and psychological upheaval in our lifetimes. We didn’t get email until we were at university. The internet can throw some curveballs. I once ordered a bureau off eBay and when it arrived it was a miniature one, for a doll’s house. I thought it was a bargain at £1.99. Plus, we weren’t brought up natural broadcasters. We’ve had to catch up, and too quickly. I remember that move towards daily (hourly; constant) documentation. Years ago a friend drove me mad on a hike, stopping to take photos all the time for her Facebook. I was very frustrated, as I wanted to keep walking. It was like being in a constantly stalling car. Now, I’d be the one scrambling to the nearest cliff face for a signal.

      Speaking of which.

      It’s time to bite the bullet. I add a last-minute impulse hashtag. Really going now!

       #shameabouttheservice

      I post the picture. The waiting begins. It’s like that conundrum of the tree falling in the empty forest. Does it make a sound if there’s no one there? If you put something on social media and no one likes it, do you even exist? I have calculated that with my number of followers I can measure a successful post on the basis of approximately ten likes per minute. Still, there’s no formula for it – I’ve tried everything. One time I even arranged a day trip to Heptonstall to photograph Sylvia Plath’s grave (literary, tragic, it ticked so many boxes!) and so many people lit their little hearts for it that it was worth the £100 train fare. I used to do things for their own sake, but now grammability is a defining factor.

      We’re almost at a minute and no—

      Yes! There’s one! And two! And three and four! Thank you. Now we’ve broken the seal, it all gets sexy. Someone comments, ‘Yumstrels.’ I dabble with the notion of liking the comment. It’s a commitment, liking comments, because once you start you really have to follow it through and like all of them. Really it’s best not to start, plus it looks less obsessive, less like you’re monitoring things. I just left this here and walked away! What, you think I have nothing better to do with my day than refresh this inanity?

      I’m waiting for any likes, but really I’m waiting for the women I currently admire online. It’s been moving this way for a few years and recently it calcified. I want the women to want me more. I wait for a name that means something. I wait for a sign. There are certain people whose attention I am keen to attract. Margot Ripkin. Buzzface Cruise. Wintering Marianne. Suzy Brambles. Suzy Brambles more than the rest, perhaps, because she just started following me back (two days ago! I’ve been following her for years), so it feels as though we are now connected. As we should be. Entwined, you might say.

      Suzy Brambles. Oh, Suzy Brambles, with your hostile bob and black Citroën DS and kickboxing lessons and almond eyes and lips like you’ve been sucking on a frozen Zeppelin. What’s not to like? And I like. I like and like and like. The first post that ensnared me was a charred corncob on a beach barbecue, with the caption: The adventure is already inside you. I was pretty lost on the adventure front at the time, so that corncob spoke to me on many levels. This morning, Suzy Brambles has been kicking up leaves in Dulwich. She is such a playful thing! I have watched the video five times already. Suzy Brambles only posts in black and white. This is because she has real integrity. I watch the video of her in the park again. Each time I watch it, I find something new to admire in her choice of composition, angle and filter.

      I look at the time. It is almost 11 a.m. How did that—

       ART SAID

      ‘That thing is the first thing you look at in the morning and the last thing you look at at night.’

      We were in bed. It was a week or so before we broke up. I was looking at my phone while we were having sex. I see now how that might have been interpreted as rude – some might even say offensive. He put his hands on my shoulders and said: ‘Stop.’

      I stopped.

      He said: ‘Jenny, somehow I just don’t feel like I have your full attention.’

      ‘You do!’

      ‘I don’t. Even when you’re here it’s like you’re not here. It’s like half your head is somewhere else.’

      It was. Half my head was in Copenhagen, where Suzy Brambles was having a splendid time. The earthenware in one particular eaterie was ‘lickable’.

      Art said: ‘I feel as though this constant interfacing has become a wall between us.’

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