Meatspace

History:

Which alcoholic drink has the most calories? – Google Hayley Bankcroft – Facebook Olivia Munn – YouTube Olivia Munn nude – Google [109] – Twitter kitab_balasubramanyam@gmail.com [4 new]

The first and last thing I do everyday is see what strangers are saying about me.

I pull the laptop closer from the other side of the bed and press refresh on my inboxes. I have a Google calendar alert that tells me I have no events scheduled today, an assortment of Twitter and Facebook notifications, alerting me to 7 new followers, a favourite of a tweet thanking someone for liking my book, an invite to an event I’ll never go to, spam from Play and Guardian Jobs. Hayley Bankcroft has sent me a direct message about an event we’re both doing next week. Amazon recommends I buy the book I wrote. There’s a rejection email from an agency I’d applied to do some freelance marketing copy for. I didn’t want the job, but now I haven’t got it I feel annoyed and hurt. I think about tweeting ‘will write copy for food’ but decide against it.

There’s an email from my dad. He doesn’t usually send me emails; he prefers text messages. It’s a forwarded message from a woman on a dating website. In it she’s written ‘Would love to meet your son and be his new mummy’. In bold at the top, Dad has written ‘Kitab-san, Wen u free?!!!!’ I ignore it. I never want to meet one of his girlfriends. Ever.

The only other 2 messages from actual humans are a friend request from the one other person with my name on Facebook, which I ignore when I see the next one is from Rach: an email letting people know her new address. I wonder why she wants me to have this information. Am I supposed to think, ‘Oh, she’s moved out of her parents’ house, which even being in Zone 6 and involving interacting with her racist brother and the cat that hated me and her dad’s collection of plaid shirts with effervescent sweat patches was still preferable to living here with me? Or, more realistically, ‘Why is she moving out of her parents’ house now, 6 months after dumping me, 6 months after moving out, 6 months after she told me she couldn’t bear the way I lived any longer and that I was draining her enthusiasm for life? Is that what I’m supposed to think?

She’s moving to North London, where she lived when we first met. I used to like meeting her at her flat. It overlooked a park and had a big kitchen I would sit in while she made coffee with the landlord’s Gaggia filter coffee machine. There was a disused railway line we’d take walks down. I haven’t been there in years.

That flat was amazing. We cooked all the time, she didn’t own a television, just stacks of books, a balcony where she grew tomatoes and a posh coffee machine. It was a middle-class idyll. None of the furniture pointed at an entertainment source. We were those people. For the life of me, I can’t work out why we chose to move her to my place instead of me to hers.

She was clinical in collecting all of her things when it ended. The only trace of her was a t-shirt of mine she took ownership of while we were together but I got full custody of in the break-up and the chutneys she left in the fridge. I notice them every time I open the fridge.

I hate chutneys. They’re a painfully white condiment, a colonial response to the spicy Indian pickle. I keep meaning to throw them away. When she’d first moved out, I spent a drunken night spooning onion chutney into my mouth because that was the closest I could get to what she’d tasted like.

The related Google ad next to her email is for ‘house-warming gift ideas’. I click out of my emails and think of things to tweet. I’ve got nothing to say. I look at the account of this other Kitab.

I’ve known about his existence for a while now. Around 6 months ago, his Facebook profile had started showing up in my self-Googling. I was surprised at first. Another Kitab with my obscure surname. Another one. Another me. He kinda looked like me too. He had fair brown (what I call caramel, ex-girlfriends have called ‘dusty’) skin and the hairstyle I had in the 80s, swept up into a Patrick Swayze cowlick of quiff and oil. He had eyes like mine, almond-shaped and -coloured and he had my mouth. Full kissable lips. Or at least this is how I would describe myself on an internet dating profile – caramel-skinned, quiffed black hair, almond-coloured eyes and big full lips.

He wore a white turtleneck sweater, like a Bond villain. His location was listed as Bangalore, India and the avatar photo itself looked like a warped driving licence scanned on a low-resolution photocopier. I was immediately disappointed that my namesake was so Indian-looking.

The related Facebook ad on the search results page for Kitab Balasubramanyam is an identity theft-solving app. It’s 69p. I don’t buy it.

I wonder why he’s decided to add me.

I tweet: ‘Feet hurt. Too much bogling last night. #boglingrelatedinjuries’

This is a lie. I was in bed by 10 last night. I had 4 beers on an empty stomach, felt pissed and irritated, shouted a lot in our front room about Rach and how I was better off without her and was put to bed by Aziz, who complained I was too drunk to take out on the town to find some trouble. He’d sighed, I was never up for getting in trouble now I was single.

I clear my throat. It stings like I’ve been singing too much.

The air in my room feels thick and musty. I try to remember the last time I left the flat. It hasn’t been often since Rach moved out. Except for the pub and for supplies. If it wasn’t for Aziz, I probably wouldn’t talk to anyone apart from online. I left the flat yesterday. It was to go to the pub. And the big shop. I did the big shop after the pub. It consisted of Budvars, bread, and frozen pizzas for emergencies. Now Rach isn’t here to fill the fridge with fresh sustainable organic food and chutneys, I’m taking full advantage.

I sleep with my quilt rolled and bunched up into the sausage of a human body. She’s my bedtime girlfriend now I’m newly single. I call her Quiltina.

As if he can feel me stir, Aziz opens my door and comes and sits on the edge of the bed.

‘Watching porn?’ he asks.

‘No.’

‘I never want to catch you wanking again.’

‘Then knock,’ I say as he checks himself out in my mirror.

‘Actually I do want to,’ he says, turning to me and grinning. ‘I’m not going to lie, I think you have an interesting wank-face. It’s somewhere between “this sweet is too sour” and “my knees are hurting from old age”.’ Aziz contorts his face into a pained cry and simulates juddering hand thrusts. I turn over onto my side and close my eyes.

‘Did you and I go out bogling last night? I really don’t remember that,’ Aziz says.

I try to cover myself up. Just to annoy me, Aziz pulls the cover off.

‘That was just for the internet.’

Aziz pounces on me, pulls the cover over my head and cuddles it. I can feel him humping my body. I try to push him off but he’s too strong.

‘Mercy?’ he cries.

‘Mercy,’ I say.

‘Seriously, I can’t hear you. Mercy?’

‘Mercy,’ I call again.

Aziz pounds away, but I manage to get a knee up to connect with his side. He falls off me laughing. I allow myself a smile. I’m awake now.

‘I love you, idiot brother of mine,’ he says. He pauses. ‘What are you up to today?’

‘Writing.’

Aziz laughs sarcastically. He pulls the cover off me entirely. I go fetal. ‘No, but seriously, ladies and gentlemen,’ he says in his 1930s stand-up comedian voice. ‘What are you up to today?’

‘Job-hunting.’

‘So you’ll be on email?’

‘Yeah, probably.’

‘Cool. I’ll send you some pop culture gifs to keep you company.’

‘Won’t you be busy … you know, working?’

‘That’s how I’m so swag, my friend,’ Aziz says, scratching the dark scar on his neck. ‘That. Is how I’m so swag.’

Aziz heads to the door. ‘Hey man,’ I call to him. ‘What were we doing last night? Singing? SingStar?’

He turns his head and looks back at me. ‘Do you even remember last night?’

‘Yeah.’ I feel my phone vibrate in my hand. A Facebook wall message. I don’t look at it. ‘A bit. I think I had too much chutney. And rum. There was definitely too much beer.’

‘Remember what you promised?’

‘Yeah. To forget about Rach, move on, stop whining about her and get some writing done.’

‘You kept going on about “keeping the wolf from the door”.’

‘Yeah. Money is fast running out, my friend.’

‘That’s not it,’ Aziz says, smiling.

I’m beginning to remember bits of last night: 4 big bottles of Budvar in, I was standing on our sofa, clutching 2 jars of chutney, while Aziz held my leg like he was Princess Leia on the cover of the Star Wars poster, and I was Luke Skywalker.

‘I am a golden god!’ I was shouting. ‘I am the golden god of literature. I am the golden god of this front room. I am the golden god of fucking chutneys.’

‘I thought you hated chutneys.’

‘I do, I fucking hate the white man’s chutney. CBE. Chutney of the British Empire. I’m going to get “I H8 CHUTNEY” tattooed on my arm so future girlfriends know where I stand on the chutney thing without even having to ask.’

‘Wait,’ Aziz had said. ‘You want a tattoo? I want a tattoo. Let’s get tattoos. We’re getting tattoos.’

‘Yes,’ I’d shouted back at him. ‘The golden god will get a tattoo. I want a tattoo. Right now, there is nothing I want in the world more than a tattoo.’

‘Maybe not “I H8 CHUTNEY”.’

‘No,’ I’d said. I hesitated and thought. In that second silence, Elvis Costello came on the iPod, on shuffle. Aziz joined me on the sofa. He was all the Attractions and I was Elvis, crooning through the gap in my front teeth.

‘Chapt-uhhhh waaaaa-hun … we didn’t really get along …’

‘I’m going to get “Everyday I write the book” on my forearm. All the way up. I bloody love this song. It’s perfect. It can be a reminder to do my job. And Rach hated that song,’ I said, turning to Aziz as he switched from bass to drums.

‘Me too. I prefer “Shipbuilding”. Remember “Shipbuilding”. Always remember it, man,’ he said, bopping his head, his hands tight in the air.

‘Chapter wuuuu-huuuun,’ I sang.

‘Do you even like that song?’

‘Doesn’t matter. I like it. It’s good. It’s like … you know … analogue … like … write, mate, innit … It’s a wicked song. I love this song.’

‘I prefer “Shipbuilding”.’

‘Nah, that’s shit. This one. Chaptaaah toooooo-woooooo …’

‘Get it then!’ Aziz had bellowed. ‘Get the bloody tattoo.’ He’d jumped off the sofa and pretended to be a screaming fan, reaching up to touch me. I let him pull me down. We sang out the rest of the song like we were in the terraces and it was our club’s anthem.

During the fade out, I said, ‘I’m getting it. I’m bloody getting it. I can be impulsive too. In your face, Rach. Not so “a-fray-duh-of-uh-chay-nudge” now am I?’ I looked at Aziz. ‘I miss her.’ Aziz nodded. He scratched at the ugly scar on his neck, from the bike crash. I looked at my hands.

I threw the 2 jars of chutney in the bin defiantly. We shook on the tattoo and then, when Aziz was in the loo, I rescued the chutneys and put them back in the fridge, hiding them in the vegetable box where he would never think to look.

That was last night, I think. Today’s going to be different.

Aziz has left the flat and I’m checking through Twitter – no replies to my bogling tweet, just some chatter about a recently dead obscure musician, everyone’s coming out of the woodwork and saying they love her – and then through Facebook, to see what my wall message is – it’s a reminder from the organisers of the event I’m doing with Hayley Bankcroft to increase numbers by promoting it to my networks. I ignore it. I DM Hayley back and say, ‘It’s been ages … since I got fresh air. Expect barnacles on ol’ Kitab.’

She DMs me back almost immediately: ‘Till then, Barnacle Bill the sailor. I’ll see you down by the docks. Xx.’

No other new interactions. My cousin Veena has just bought a new car. The numberplate says V33D33 – her initials, and accidental comment on her lifestyle.

I need to get up and write something. I check my bank balance on my phone. It’s not what it was yesterday, which was not what it was the day before and so on. It’s still the most I’ve ever had in my account. I am burning through the inheritance and when it’s gone, and that is a matter of 3 months away, 4 if I live off leftover chutney and force Aziz to actually buy some food, there’s nothing else. I’m not a privileged trust-fund boy. When I told my dad I was quitting the job that I hated to become a writer, he said he was going to give me my share of my inheritance now, as insurance that I didn’t become destitute. I took it. The sad truth was, I had been caught printing my book off to send out to publishers. This, coupled with my internet usage, meant I was asked to leave. Luckily, I’d finished the book by then. I wrote the whole thing at work on a Google Doc.

Dad worried about steady income and, being an accountant, made me work on 3 or 4 cash scenarios with him, covering every income-related eventuality. I was able to convince him that I could always find bar work while I looked for a job if I needed to. He wasn’t disappointed, he was apprehensive and mentally prepared himself to lend me emergency money if ever I needed it. When he transferred over the chunk of my inheritance, he specified that it was for a rainy day, in case the writing full-time thing didn’t happen. I was immediately grateful because I was days away from getting a bank loan or a secret job in a pub. It couldn’t have come soon enough. The book didn’t really sell. Thank god for Mum’s life insurance policy. I live off my inheritance. Not for much longer.

In the absence of having anything new to write, I spend 20 minutes looking at my CV, last updated 3 years ago. I have nothing new to add to it except a link to my Twitter profile. Which I take off an hour later, because if they looked, and saw the amount I tweet, they might not see me as a solid bet.

I scroll through Facebook. I click on the photos of someone I used to work with, Anne. She’s just been to Majorca. I’m hoping for some bikini shots. There’s one but it’s a selfie so not too revealing. The rest of the photos are her looking sunburned next to her boyfriend. She’s still hot. Hayley has changed her profile picture from her beautiful face to a picture of a cartoon penguin. Hayley’s book came out the same time as mine. Her book was on a big publisher, mine on my tiny one, but we were booked at a few events and got to know each other. People want her attention all the time because her book was funny and cutting about male/female relations in a digital age and she gave good banter and probably a little because she’s beautiful. She has approximately 3 times as many Twitter followers as me.

I head to YouPorn and look up ‘plump’ and ‘chubby’ till I find someone who looks real enough to watch. I don’t want cartoonish today. I want real. It may be my, the entire world’s, daily tick, but I can retain some sense of diversity. I watch as a static camera records a couple ‘doing it’. They start off by looking at the camera in an approximation of what they think porn stars do. They awkwardly remove each other’s clothes and fall into the patterns, Porn Grammar. But because the camera is grainy, this feels more like watching 2 real people. It feels like an actual rendering of the infinite intimacy at the heart of a couple making love, in tune with each other, in love and unable to contain themselves. The video finishes and asks if I want to watch a related one called ‘Anal fisting POV’. I close the window.