‘Nettie said she’d only left them alone for a few minutes, but it must have been longer. Karen had been playing with her sister, and she’d always been so good with her, her mum said; I think she forgot she was barely more than a baby herself. I suspect Nettie had post-natal depression, although that’s not an excuse for the way she treated Karen. She blamed her for what happened to the baby. She told me she tried not to, but she couldn’t help it: every time she looked at Karen’s face she saw her baby sister. She started drinking, heavily. She wasn’t there for Karen when she needed her, she couldn’t function enough to be a proper mother.’
‘And where was her father in all this?’
‘He was away a lot with work. Back then the mothers practically brought up the children on their own, remember? After the accident he couldn’t bear to be at home – he probably blamed himself for not being there, so he stayed away more and more, became the useless father he thought he was anyway.’
‘So they were on their own, just the two of them.’
‘Yes. Both blaming themselves, and blaming each other at the same time. It must have been horrific.’
‘Poor Karen. But what does this have to do with what’s going on now?’
‘I don’t know. All I know is that this is why she feels like she has to spend her life looking after people. Fixing them. She’s making amends for what happened to her sister.’
61
I’d spent a whole evening signing up to some of the dating websites I’d found online – okay, not so much dating as glorified Tinder sites. Some of the things these guys opened their conversations with … well, put it this way, I could see why they were looking on the internet for their kicks. Within minutes of putting a random photograph from Google on to a profile and filling in a few sparse details, I had three messages from blokes looking for hook-ups. I scanned a few of their profiles, but none of them were quite right. I’d read about this woman online – a catfish, the article called her. This woman hadn’t been fishing for herself; she had managed to set up a relationship between a model and a famous American basketball player, acting as a go-between so that each person thought they were talking to the other when in reality they were talking to her. A tricky undertaking, but she had proved it could be done, and in doing so had given me an idea.
I had to find the exact right person for this to work. And even then it might not. On the internet you could be whoever you wanted to be, so it was amazing that so many people chose to be complete idiots.
It took nearly a week and over seventy messages to find the right guy. He’d started off his message extremely charming, but his profile made it clear what he was looking for.
I find it hard to believe that someone as beautiful as you has to look online for a date, he sent. I waited a while before replying.
I’m so sorry, but this is a really old profile. I only reactivated it so a friend could take a look at how many normal guys are out there looking for fun.
Shame. You and I could have had fun. Did your friend find anything she liked?
Maybe she has now ;-)
The messages continued in that way for a while, harmless flirting as I explained about my friend Bea and how she was out for a good time, no strings attached. I told him in a roundabout way just how up for it she was, and how she always gave the men in her life a night to remember. How she didn’t have time for a real relationship but how I didn’t think that should mean she missed out on the benefits. The guy, who told me his name was David, was clearly interested regardless of which woman he was being offered, and when I sent him a photo of Bea stolen from her Facebook page, it had pretty much sealed the deal.
I’d also sent him a phone number, and he texted that night: Hey, my name’s David. Your friend gave me your number – I hope you don’t mind?
I sent an edited version of the message to Bea. Bea responded, and before long I was communicating with the