But very soon she realised that many of them were just high-school and college kids who were having some online fun – they said so themselves. They had no intention of ever meeting up. She became angry that they were wasting her time, so she learnt how to block them from contacting her. Young boys were no use to her; she needed to meet successful adults, she was not interested in spotty adolescents. Some men seemed OK when they first started chatting, but gradually Phoebe would discover something wrong with them.
To tell you the truth, I am married, so I am just looking for casual fun.
Actually, my age is 61, not 29, but I am still very energetic and strong.
Honestly, I really do drive a Ferrari and I live in a luxurious penthouse apartment, but you cannot visit me because my grandmother lives with me and she is disapproving of the girls I meet – you should not suspect me of being a factory worker!
My internet business is going so well at the moment but I have cashflow problems, could you lend me 2,000 yuan and I will pay you back on our first date?
I am not so interested in knowing what your favourite ice cream flavour is. Right now I am imagining lifting your skirt and touching your thighs higher and higher until …
Some men became angry when she didn’t reply immediately. They were pushy and said impolite things to her. But she couldn’t type very fast, and it was hard to keep so many chats going at once. She soon learnt to tell which men were educated, because they were the ones who typed their answers very quickly, but she also discovered that educated men often used the most obscene words. And then there were men who seemed nice at first, but soon it was clear that they were just out to trick her. Even though she did not know what they could possibly cheat her out of, she sensed that they were bad people who were up to no good. She heard stories all the time, tales of swindlers and liars – bamboozlers. She did not want to be one of those poor victims who got bamboozled.
One by one, Phoebe deleted her newly made friends, blocking them until her contact list showed only a couple of guys – guys who had just said hello, how are you, but had not yet had the chance to show how deceitful and black-spirited they were. She began to get random messages that didn’t even start with a greeting, just shameless suggestions for physical relations, most probably high-school students, but who knows, maybe they were frustrated middle-aged husbands and fathers. She knew it was because she had a nice profile picture, and decided she should replace it with something fake or a neutral image, like a cartoon character. A superhuman character with great strength, maybe. That would deter anyone with unsavoury intentions. She would become like so many other people in cyberspace, hiding behind an image of something other than themselves. But as she looked at the photo of herself she hesitated. Her eyes were glowing with laughter and promise, and the vegetation behind her was so lush it reminded her of her home. She could not bring herself to delete this image from her profile. When the rest of Shanghai looked at her, she did not want them to see just a grey shadow of a nobody; she wanted them to see her, Phoebe Chen Aiping.
She looked at her brand-new fake Omega watch. It was 6.55 p.m. She had not realised how late it was – she had spent nearly four hours in the internet café. She double-checked the time on the computer, just in case the watch she had been sold was a dud. It was still 6.55. She looked at the photo of herself one last time, just as another message popped up on screen. Little Miss, hello, I like your profile, would you like to chat? I think we might be compatible. She closed the page and signed herself off the computer.
When she got home the apartment was dark and Yanyan was asleep on the bed, wrapped in a thin blanket. The window was open and there was a slight chill in the room. Phoebe stood at the window and looked down at the blinking red and pale-gold lights of the cars below. The street stalls had their lights on now, the plumes of smoke from the little charcoal grills rising into the evening air.
‘Where have you been? You’re very late,’ Yanyan said quietly.
‘Trying to find work. Why are you in bed so early? It’s barely eight o’clock.’
‘I haven’t got out of bed all day.’
‘Oh, Yanyan,’ Phoebe sighed as she sat down on the bed next to her. ‘Not again. What are we going to do?’
As night fell, the giant hole in the construction site below the window looked black and infinite, as if it was ready to swallow up the cranes and bulldozers around it. Maybe she and Yanyan and everyone in their building would disappear into the hole too, Phoebe thought.
‘Come, I’ll make some dinner,’ she said.
Yanyan sat up and pulled her knees to her chest, shielding her eyes as Phoebe turned on the light. The single fluorescent strip bathed the room in a harsh white glow.
‘Only instant noodles again. Sorry,’ Phoebe said.
‘It’s better than eating a banquet on your own,’ Yanyan replied.
Later, once Yanyan had settled back in bed, Phoebe opened the Journal of Her Secret Self. She had not written in it for some days. She paused, knowing that Yanyan was not yet asleep – her breathing was even and almost soundless. Phoebe needed solitude when she wrote in her journal; she had become used to being alone when confronting her fears. It was easier that way, for she could be as weak and fearful as she wanted, and there would be no one to witness it. She turned off the light and waited in the darkness. When she heard Yanyan’s breaths turn heavy with dream sleep, she held her mobile phone next to her journal and began to scribble a few lines in the ghostly blue light.
Time is flying past you, Phoebe Chen Aiping, you know you are being defeated. You are a new person here in Shanghai, you must dare to do things the old you would not have done. Forget who you were, forget who you are. Become someone else.
6
Perform All Obligations and Duties with Joy
The weather turned colder and sharper as Spring Festival approached. Most days, Justin spent the morning staring at the ice that had formed overnight on the balcony, bizarre shapes hanging from the railings in jagged shards or clinging to the drainpipes like brilliant shiny fungus. The leaves of the potted plants were coated in ice – fat glassy bulbs that reminded him of Christmas decorations. On brighter days the sun would be strong enough to start shrinking the icicles, and he would stand at the window watching the water drip slowly onto the cement floor of the balcony. Most of the time, though, the ice would stay hard and unmoving, glinting ever so slightly despite the absence of light in the pale, snow-shrouded afternoon.
He had not left the apartment for five days, not even to walk to the convenience store at the end of the street to stock up on bottled water and instant noodles. The apartment felt too warm and cosseting to leave, and the weather outside too harsh. Realising he had stopped going out altogether, his ayi came every other day now, leaving him enough food and water to live on – more than enough, it turned out, for she worried about him – so he did not have to venture out, did not have to see or speak to anyone, which suited him. If he happened to be in the living room when he heard the ayi unlock the first of the heavy double doors, he would retreat to the dark safety of his bedroom, knowing that she would not enter his lair. He would lie in bed and chart her movements by the sounds she made: the breathy exclamation on entering the overheated apartment; the running of the tap in the kitchen; the expressions of shock and even mild revulsion when she discovered and disposed of leftover food festering on the kitchen counter; the clink of porcelain; the scrape of chairs on the wooden floor; the gentle tread of her feet as she dusted the coffee table. And, finally, the moment of relief when she left the apartment, pulling once, twice, three times at the door that always snagged on the rug as she closed it. Then he would be alone again.