The Ex Factor

No. Not now. It couldn’t be her mum, after all this time—Oh, thank God! They were all from Logan.

Logan Cassidy: internet mogul, entrepreneur, and owner of a vast network of shady businesses, from the dating/cheating website Helen reluctantly ran, to a cut-every-corner budget airline and a chain of underwear shops for larger ladies, More Than a Handful.

MASSIVE EMERGENCY, the first email read. Helen scrolled down. BIG SECURITY BREACH CALL ME NOW. And the last one—WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?

Helen closed her eyes for a second. It was going to be one of those days. She called Logan, clearing her throat again and again to try to sound like she hadn’t just woken up. ‘Hi! Sorry, I had an early doctor’s appointment. Er, women’s troubles.’

‘Whatever, whatever,’ he said hastily, in his South London growl. ‘Now I need you on this ASAP. I think we’ve been hacked. Like them that got into the Pentagon.’

‘What’s happened?’ Logan had an overdeveloped sense of the importance of bitontheside.com in global events. It was probably just a server glitch.

‘Someone’s replaced the profile pics. Instead of all that skiing and raising bloody glasses of wine, they’re bloody—well, have a look.’

Helen felt panic bubble into her bloodstream. This wasn’t supposed to happen today. She was already behind on dusting the bookcases and brushing Mr Fluffypants, a job that was only slight less dangerous than being a UN weapons inspector. ‘They didn’t get into the personal data?’

His voice softened. ‘No, that’s locked up tighter than a nun’s chuff. But the rest—the fences are down, the T. rex is out, ya know? So I’m gonna send in the T. rex wrangler.’

‘Er, what?’

Logan was a big Jurassic Park fan. He reputedly had a life-size model of a dinosaur in the atrium of his mansion in Essex. He saw a lot of John Hammond in himself. ‘I’m sending a web guy to you,’ he yelled. ‘He’s meant to be good. Total geek. He’ll fix it, OK?’

‘OK. But what do you mean, to me?’ He didn’t mean to her flat, surely?

‘You’re still in that dump in Peckham, yeah?’

‘It’s Peckham Rye actually and it’s really up and coming—but Logan—Logan!’

‘Going into a tunnel. Bloody sort this for me, Helen. I’m counting on ya.’ His voice faded.

Helen caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, eyes bloodshot, blonde curls sticking up, boobs falling out of her Frozen-motif pyjamas. Then she heard the cheerful trill of the doorbell. It really was going to be one of those days.

She shuffled to the door of her basement flat, tying up her silk dressing gown—a present from Marnie when she’d worked in a vintage shop, and which for years Helen had felt too big to wear, preferring to hide inside massive towelling robes. A big man stood on her doorstep. Not fat, but very tall, very wide. Strapping. If you could call someone strapping when they wore a T-shirt that said ‘No I cannot fix your computer’ and combats with more pockets than a snooker table. He had flaming red hair and a red beard, like a Viking, and he glanced pointedly at a Casio watch.

‘Yes?’ she said, irritably, through the security chain.

‘You’ve got a bug,’ he said. Northern accent.

‘Um, no, I just—I worked late…’

‘In your website, I mean. I’m here to have a look.’

‘How do I know that’s who you are?’

‘Did your boss not say I’d be around?’ He scrabbled in one pocket, then another. ‘Bollocks,’ he muttered. ‘OK, here.’

She glanced at what he’d handed her. ‘That’s a Blockbuster video card. Which expired in 2004.’

‘It’s not my fault the high street could no longer keep up with the increasing ease of pay-to-view websites. Speaking of websites, yours is borked.’

‘Borked?’

‘Yeah, it’s like—a technical computer term for up the swanny. Now let me in or it’ll only get worse.’

‘OK,’ she relented. ‘I’m not—this has taken me by surprise.’ He looked puzzled. ‘I’m not dressed,’ she explained.

He looked her over. ‘You are dressed, i.e., you’re not naked.’ Helen stared at him. He stared back. ‘Computer… fixey? I’m sorry, you are employed by that dodgy South London geezer, yes?’

‘Yes.’ Helen snapped into action and held the door open. ‘I’m sorry. What do you need me to do?’

‘Show me the admin details. Who does the coding?’

‘The original design was before my time, but I do the basic maintenance and admin.’

‘You know code?’

‘Yes,’ she said defensively. ‘What, because I’m a woman?’

‘No, because you wear pyjamas with cartoons on. Actually that’s quite a coder-y thing to do, I should have realised.’ He sat down in one of her lovely vintage armchairs, making the old springs groan, and whipped out a laptop. It was square, functional and very un-sleek. Like him. ‘I’ll need your computer too.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Because, if you have malware or something, it’ll be on there. Malware is, how can I put this—totes bad software that will totes corrupt everything.’

‘I know what malware is!’ People really didn’t take you seriously when you wore Disney clothes as an adult, Helen reflected. She set him up with the details, then hovered anxiously in the kitchen as he worked.

‘Jesus Christ on a bike,’ he said at one point.

‘Not good?’

‘Let’s just say your defences are more lax than Dad’s Army. A child could get into this.’

‘Why would a child want to get into a dating website?’ she said, crossly.

‘Dating. Is that what you call it?’

‘Of course. It’s a place to meet new people.’

‘New married people.’

‘You think it’s any different from other sites? Half the people on Tinder are married—and so dumb they use their wedding photos as profile pictures. At least this way it’s more open, and you know what you’re getting.’ Helen swelled in righteous anger. ‘Anyway, it’s none of your business. If you don’t like it, don’t also work for it by fixing the site.’ He stared at her. Helen realised her dressing gown had fallen open in her ire, and hastily closed it. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered. What was she thinking, shouting at a total stranger?

‘Hey, I don’t mind either way,’ he said. ‘I was just curious. The personal details are secure, anyway. But someone’s been hacking you. Look, all the profile pictures—well, they’re not of faces any more, put it that way. Brings a whole new meaning to the term “dickhead”.’

Helen looked, then felt a slow blush move over her face. ‘Is that…easy to do?’

‘No. Do you know of any enemies the site might have?’

Helen thought of Logan and his cut-price empire. The media attention the site had attracted through a series of dubious PR activities. The time he went on This Morning and got into a fist-fight with Phil. ‘Um…any number, to be honest with you.’

‘Right. Well, I’ve fixed the bug that’s replacing the photos, so people can show off their ski holidays and trips to Machu Picchu again. But you need to beef up your security.’ He spun her laptop back to her. ‘By the way, you’ve got an email from someone called Marnie. Subject—amazeballs dating plan.’

‘Give me that.’ Blushing, Helen pushed the screen down. ‘Thanks for fixing it. But I should get dressed now. I mean, in clothes.’ Oh great, now she sounded like she was flirting. ‘It doesn’t inspire confidence, you know,’ she said, in a burst. ‘Your T-shirt. I mean, that’s your job, isn’t it? Fixing computers?’

He squinted down. ‘Oh. I didn’t realise that’s what I was wearing.’

‘Do you have another one that says “Have you tried turning it off and on again”?’

‘How did you know?’

‘Never mind.’

He stood up. ‘You didn’t tell me your name. Normally people tell me their names and offer me cups of tea and stuff.’

‘Sorry. You just took me by surprise.’

‘It’s OK. I don’t understand why people set so much store by drinking hot liquids. Anyway, I’m going to tell you my name, in case you get hacked again.’

‘Is that likely?’

‘Yep. I’ve fixed it now but whoever did it was good. The bug also found every instance of the word “snowboarding” and replaced it with “looking like a douche”.’ He let out a loud laugh. ‘“I really enjoy jetting off for a spot of looking like a douche.” Sorry, but your hacker is hilarious. I’d like to shake them by the hand.’

‘But—you’re sure this was done on purpose? It wasn’t a virus, or a server problem?’

He gave her a withering look. ‘A server problem wouldn’t replace all the pictures with ones of people’s penises. You were hacked.’

‘Oh my God, just like in Jurassic Park. Logan was right.’

‘You like Jurassic Park?’

‘Duh. I was born in 1982, of course I do.’

‘Right. I just thought, you know, the kittens.’ He waved a hand at her cushions, which were upholstered in a distinctly feline theme.

‘Kittens and dinosaurs are not mutually exclusive.’

‘Actually they are, because mammals weren’t really around until the Pleistocene.’

‘Probably one of the many reasons why opening Jurassic Park was such a bad idea.’

He gave her a long look. Helen held his gaze. He said, ‘You’re right, as it happens. You can’t get Jurassic Park back online without Dennis Nedry. Lucky for you, I am Dennis Nedry.’ He paused for a second. ‘Except, you know, not really gross and into industrial sabotage and stuff.’

‘Good to know.’

He fumbled in one of his many cargo pockets. ‘My card. Not a Blockbuster one this time.’

Karl Olsen, Computer Wizard. ‘Wizard, huh?’

‘Yes, I am the Gandalf of online security. They shall not pass. Well, there’s no need for you to tell me your name, but contact me if your hacker starts again.’ He chuckled. ‘“Looking like a douche”. That’s a funny guy.’

‘You assume it’s a guy.’

‘Yes, yes, hashtag–not all hackers, I know. But statistically it most likely is. Bye.’

Abruptly, Karl the computer wizard shouldered his rucksack and headed for the door.

‘Wait,’ she said suddenly. ‘Helen.’

‘Helen?’

‘Er… That’s my name. And I—Look, when I started this job, it was a normal dating site. It just didn’t take off, so he changed it without telling me. Always bank on the lowest end of the market, that’s Logan’s philosophy. I’ve looked for a new job, but there’s not much around.’ And she couldn’t bear going back to work in an office (because: yet more reasons), and every time she imagined going to interviews it made her throat constrict in anxiety, so she stayed where she was and tried not to think about the harm she was doing every day.

He shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter what I think, Helen. I’m just some random computer genius and, as you pointed out, I’m participating in the evil by fixing the site. So don’t worry so much. OK?’

‘OK,’ she muttered, tying her dressing gown tighter.

‘Are you all right?’ He looked at her keenly. ‘You seem somewhat suboptimal.’

‘Yes, I’m just—I was up late, and this is a bit of a shock.’

‘It’s all fine now. Computer wizard. Expelliarmus.’ He made a bizarre air-wand gesture. ‘You’re still upset though?’ She shrugged. Of course she was. ‘Do you mind if I…’ He reached out one large finger and touched her on the forehead, between her eyebrows, pressing hard.

Helen felt an instant relief of tension. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Pressure points. Helps with the anxiety. Well, bye then. I’d say it was nice to meet you but in all honesty I think it just made you intensely uncomfortable.’

As he left she realised it was the first time a man had been in her flat in two years. Well, a human man, anyway.

‘YRRROOOWWL!’

Helen felt an affectionate blood-drawing scratch on her bare leg and bent down to pick up Mr Fluffypants, her sociopathic Persian cat. Green eyes, fluffy white fur, weighing the same as a small Rottweiler. She was very well aware that she was a living stereotype, but when everything kicked off two years ago it had seemed inevitable she’d become a tragic spinster, so she gave in and got a damn cat. And some cushions. And learned to crochet. She had her eye on a foot spa next.

She kissed the cat’s fluffy head. ‘Who’s a good kitty? You’re the only man I need, aren’t you? You’ll never leave me?’

‘YROOOOWWWL!’ Mr Fluffypants, spotting a bird in the garden, shot from Helen’s arms and right out the cat flap. She sighed. Story of her life.

* * *

Ani.

Ani read Marnie’s email on her work computer, squinting at the weird fonts and emojis, and immediately dashed off a message to Rosa asking if she’d seen it too. There was no way she was doing it. No. Way. Anyway, she had other fish to fry. Didn’t she?

She took a deep breath, flexed her fingers over the keyboard, and called up a different email address. Hi! Hope you had a good Christmas?

Was it too late for that, in January? She changed it to: Hi! Happy New Year!

Too many exclamation marks? She deleted the first one. Still on for tonight then? Where shall we go?

Maybe she should wait for the response before asking where to go—it might seem too forward. But then, maybe it was dangerous to leave the suggestion open that it wouldn’t go ahead. She needed this to go ahead.

‘Are you OK, Ani?’

She looked across at her colleague, Catherine, who was spooning up quinoa salad from Tupperware and Googling yoga retreats. ‘Fine, why?’

‘You were sort of…muttering to yourself.’

‘Oh. Just…thinking of strategies for the Leyton divorce.’

‘The one where she stole all his limited-edition tiepins and had them melted down?’

‘Yes. He’s suing her for five grand. Who even spends five grand on tiepins?’ Ani shook her head. There it was, every single day—the end of love, the terrible things people did to each other when it had all burned away. Sod it. Tonight couldn’t go as badly wrong as that—there just wasn’t time. She pressed send with a firm click, and then she pushed back her work chair and lifted her Radley bag. Everyone in the office looked up in surprise—Ani was an inveterate desk-luncher. ‘Going out,’ she said firmly. ‘I’ll be an hour or so. Or, you know. An hour exactly.’

What Ani had not told any of her friends, largely because she was doing her best not to think about it herself, was that she already had a date that night. Date number forty-eight in the space of a year. Though it was a new year now, so perhaps she could start again from zero. Perhaps this would be the one, and it would all work out, and she wouldn’t have to go on any more internet dates, wouldn’t have to swipe right and left until her thumb went numb, and definitely wouldn’t have to take part in Marnie’s ridiculous dating pact idea.

She’d met Will at a birthday party before Christmas—the kind of thing she’d usually avoid, a lot of lawyers, drinks in a chain bar with watered-down cocktails, desultory chats about house prices. One of the couples in the group, Phil and Jemmy—him red cords and coffee breath, her ski tan and tight rictus smile—had got engaged recently and planned to hire a ‘lovely little barn’ in the Cotswolds for a mere twenty grand. Ani had watched her friend Louise, whose birthday it was, exclaim over the ring, while Jake, her boyfriend, stared uncomfortably into his Peroni.

‘Yay! Another wedding.’

She’d looked up at the unexpected sardonic tone—wondering if for a second her thoughts had developed a voice of their own—and saw a man scowling beside her. He was pleasant-looking, with a square-ish face, corduroy jacket, and pink cocktail in his hand, which he was sucking at determinedly through a straw.

She gave him a sideways look. ‘It’ll be lovely I’m sure. Very original. Dove release, probably.’

‘Wishing tree. Pictures of the couple holding up thank-you signs. Japes when the first-dance music starts out romantic then goes into “Smack My Bitch Up”.’

Ani looked at him properly. ‘Not a wedding fan?’ She was already thinking, But what if he’s single and we hit it off and he doesn’t want to get married what will I tell my parents maybe it wouldn’t work maybe I shouldn’t date him. The part of her brain that could pinpoint potential areas for defence in a heartbeat could also have her married to and divorced from a man in 0.3 seconds.

The man’s face fell, but he kept drinking, talking around the glittery straw. ‘My fiancée just left me. Sort of put me off.’

Was it a bad idea, dating such a recent dumpee? It was times like this that Ani missed Marnie, despite her flakiness. There was no point in asking long-married Rosa about dating: ‘Just be open and tell him how you feel, what could possibly go wrong?’ Or Helen, who never dated at all: ‘What’s the point? Bet the fiancée dumped him for good reason, like he picks his nose or wears her pants.’ But Marnie would listen to every last detail, then say he sounded lovely and she was sure it would all work out. Even if he didn’t, and it definitely a hundred per cent wouldn’t.

As Ani walked aimlessly towards the shops, her phone dinged. Was it him? What if he cancelled, or if his vague suggestion of meeting up hadn’t been serious? She’d messaged him after they met, carefully non-committal, so that if he replied ‘OMG of course I don’t want to date you, YOU HEARTLESS CRONE’ she could claim she was just being polite. Plausible deniability, that was the key in dating. And also in defending people who’d made some pretty serious errors of judgement in life (same thing really). And he’d replied, We should meet up again sometime, but was that just something people said? What if he’d changed his mind over Christmas? Got back with the fiancée?

It was him. Her fingers shook slightly as she scrolled. Hi! Happy New Year. How about a curry maybe—Brick Lane or something? It was an odd choice for a first date—too formal, too pressured—but she let him off, as he was out of practice. She replied Sure OK x, taking care not to be too enthusiastic. She didn’t want him to think it was anything better than a solid uninspired choice. Game on.

Nervy and tense, Ani wandered up and down the aisles in Boots, with a vague uneasy sense that she ought to be doing things to herself. Buffing. Moisturising. Plumping up some of her hairs and removing some of the others. She bought a limp prawn sandwich and some Ribena, then found herself staring at the rack of condoms by the till. Uh-uh. Rule number one of dates—you had to trick the universe into letting things go well, and that meant putting in as little preparation as possible. Ideally you wanted to be found with unshaven legs, wearing your least favourite outfit, and perhaps with spinach caught in your teeth. Ani, in every other way a devout rationalist, believed firmly in the powers of the jinx. Unfortunately, she was not very good at being unprepared for things.

‘Do you have your Boots Advantage card?’ asked the man at the counter.

‘Yes,’ she sighed, digging it out. Of course she had. She always did everything right. So why couldn’t she manage that in her love life?

* * *

Rosa.

Amazeballs dating plan!

Rosa received Marnie’s email on a painful morning at work, during which she was trying to keep her head, if not actually under her desk, then as far down onto it as it was possible to get. Her temples throbbed in steady rhythm with the clacking keys around her. On her desk sat three different types of liquid—a bottle of water, a giant coffee, and a can of Diet Coke. None of them had helped—she should have realised that, as the others had tried to explain over the years, nothing could touch a Marnie hangover.

Unable to face the email at first, she went back to tapping at her feature on ‘head-desk-space’, the hot new in-work meditation trend that was sweeping the nation. Only trouble was, it didn’t exist. So far she had two hundred filler words on January—Now the last of the mince pies has been eaten and the New Year’s resolutions are starting to shake, it’s time to reaffirm our goals for the year. A recent study—here she’d added square brackets and a note to herself saying ‘FIND OR MAKE UP LATER’—says that 67% of us want to be more fulfilled in work. The solution? Meditations and exercises we can do at our desks.

Her phone beeped and, hoping for the magic inspiration that would finish off her feature, she grabbed it. Ani. Have you seen M’s email? She was really serious??

Rosa sent back a surprised emoji and opened her personal email again. She usually kept it closed, as Suzanne was not above snooping: ‘So I notice you’re having painful periods, I want five hundred words on that by three.’ The message from Marnie read Super awesome fourway dating plan!!!!! Five exclamation marks. The points on them seemed to wink at Rosa’s hungover brain.

Hi lovely ladies! Rosa groaned out loud. Following last night’s totes fun dinner, I have gone and done some further thoughts on our v v sensible plan. ‘Totes’ had really crept in as a word, Rosa thought. Maybe there was a feature in that… How your thirties are your new twenties. How thirty-something women are pretending to be younger, maybe because their husbands are leaving them for teenagers in cartoon T-shirts.

She read on.

So, I think the best thing to do would be to each pick a friend, then set them up with an ex of our choice. We’re bound to at least find someone decent that way. (TripAdvisor for men!) However I think there need to be some rules.

1. Only exes we are over! We don’t want broken hearts or unresolved tensions getting between us.

2. They must be nice. No hairy backs or creeps (unless you think your chosen friend will like that).

3. You must tell your friends every single detail! At the very least we can use this as a v v good social experiment. I’m thinking we should call it Project Love—the mission is to find us all a lovely date without the risks of going online.

Rosa groaned for a final time, disturbing the somnambulist occupant of the next desk, Sleepy Si, who did the night shifts. ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed, as he settled back. She sent another emoji to Ani, this one startled and a little upset. In her current state of mind, the smiley faces seemed to sum things up better than words.

‘Rosa?’

She took a deep breath. How did Suzanne manage to move around without making a sound? Did she have some kind of pact with the devil whereby she could defy the laws of physics? ‘Yes, hi!’

Rosa’s boss was standing over her, tapping one stiletto heel. With her leather trousers and teased blonde hair, she looked like Stevie Nicks with an account at Cos. ‘Meeting room. Now.’

Rosa scurried after her, wondering what Suzanne’s problem could be. Had the barista put full-fat milk in her latte? Had her childminder allowed the twins to watch Rastamouse again? Oh Lord, David was in the meeting room, along with various hacks from different parts of the paper. She slunk into a seat, trying to make herself as small as possible. David looked fresh and youthful, his facial hair shaved into some odd little beard. No doubt it was all the rage with the under-twenty-fives.

Jason Connell, Editorial Whizz-Kid, swept in, buttoning his suit. Rosa caught a whiff of lemon aftershave, masking the unmistakable scent of Alpha Male. ‘We’re up crap creek,’ he said succinctly. ‘Five clients have pulled their ads from this week’s supplement. We’ve even lost the underwear chain More Than a Handful, and they’ve been advertising with us since 1994.’ How did he know all this, when he’d only been in post for a month? Rosa supposed she ought to feel alarmed, but such was the horror of her hangover that nothing else could get to her. Not even David, taking notes in the corner like the school swot he was. ‘So I need ideas. And fast.’

She was dimly aware that people were saying things. ‘How about a piece on ways to save cash?’ The Money section. Reviled and mocked for the rest of the year, January was their one chance to shine, and even Jason gave them a brief smile for the effort. ‘Maybe. Thanks.’

‘What about the rise of mumpreneurs?’ That was David, who worked on Business. It wasn’t a bad idea. Rosa saw Suzanne’s nostrils twitch—he was treading on their turf.