‘You stalked me. You pretended to be someone called Lola.’
‘Please keep your voice down, Jacob,’ she said.
‘Oh, people might hear. You’d rather they didn’t know what you’ve been up to. I get that.’
She touched his arm. He stared at her hand but did not move away or try to shake her off. ‘I saw a picture of you,’ she said in a soft voice. ‘I thought it would be fun to be Facebook friends. One thing led to another. I think if you reread the whole conversation you’ll see who was leading whom.’
‘What about those pictures?’
This was uncomfortable. A standing interrogation. He was inches away and there was no yielding, only uncompromising hostility. There was an empty bench nearby. She’d rather they were both seated than have him stand over her like this.
‘Let’s sit down.’ She walked to the bench and sat. He followed but remained standing.
‘OK so the Lola pictures were a few years old. I thought it might put you off if you suspected I was nearly thirty. Everyone does it. You know that.’
‘Cheats do it. Liars do it.’
His face was screwed up now and she wondered what was coming next. There was an earnest moralism in the outburst that she would never have anticipated from his flirty online manner. He was an innocent. And as an innocent he was shocked at having been exposed, even to himself. Though she hadn’t forgotten his other persona, the one that sat with a slip of towel around his loins like some seductive young god. Then that final one, the one without the towel. The seductive god was still there, albeit buried under the guilt and high principles. There was a battle going on. He could walk away but he didn’t.
‘That’s a bit of an exaggeration,’ she said, seeking to lighten the tone.
‘You made me send you stuff.’
‘I didn’t make you do anything.’
‘What about the photos of me?’
‘What about them?’
‘Where’s your phone? I need to see you delete them. And the chat. All of it.’
‘Oh Jacob, you don’t think I would do that. I love those photos. Like I said, you look beautiful. Anyway, they’re copied on my computer. They’re sitting on a cloud now. No way they’ll disappear.’
And suddenly he was grabbing her, shaking her.
‘Take your hands off me.’
He lessened his grip, but he didn’t let go. ‘You knew who I was. You looked for me. Deliberately. What the fuck were you doing? What are you doing now?’ His eyes were flaming with rage, even as they were pink with tears. ‘Anyway, I don’t believe you. Where’s your phone? In here?’
Her cream leather bag was lying on the seat next to her and he leant forward to pick it up. Furious, she snatched it back.
‘Are you crazy? If you touch me or any of my property again, I’ll get someone to call the police. Is that what you want?’
At the word ‘police’ he retreated into himself. For a moment he was quiet. But he wasn’t giving up. She could see him take a breath to calm himself as, in a low voice, he said, ‘I want to see you delete them.’
A middle-aged couple was walking by across the grass as he spoke.
‘Like I said, I’ve already saved them.’
The couple had stopped now, a man and a woman, and they were standing in front of them. Jacob neither moved nor spoke, but it would have been impossible to miss the fury behind his frozen features.
‘Is this young man bothering you?’ the woman asked Natasha as the man stood by.
‘No, it’s fine,’ said Natasha mildly. ‘We were having a silly argument. I’m sorry if we troubled you.’
But as soon as the couple had moved on the mildness fell away. She struggled to get up off the bench, but Jacob’s hand on her arm prevented her, holding her down.
‘Let me go,’ she said.
‘Give me your phone.’
There was a new cold determination in him, and she did not like it. She would not let him bully her. She had shocked him, angered him, teased him. Until now she had not deliberately tried to hurt him. But his attempt to control her touched a nerve and she lashed out.
‘You wouldn’t want your mum to see those photos, would you?’
He didn’t reply but he looked at her with such hatred that she wondered if despite the passers-by, despite the threat of police, he might in fact hurt her. Did he have a knife? Friends with knives?
‘Anyway, your mum’s got secrets of her own,’ she added.
‘What secrets?’ he stammered, grabbing her arm. There was a tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth.
‘I’ll tell you if you take your hand away.’ His hand dropped. ‘You know, the usual sort of secrets, sexual secrets.’ She could have stopped there but he was standing very still, waiting for her to continue.
‘There’s this bloke,’ she began. His eyes were locked on hers in furious hostility. The look was familiar. She had seen it before on men she had toyed with. Though never in a boy. It was both horrible and strangely thrilling, a sharp goad, and she couldn’t stop.
‘Don’t you want to know? About your mum’s bloke?’
At that he started to back away as if her presence was a disease he needed to avoid on pain of death. When he spoke, it was in a whisper.
‘You’re evil. Pure evil.’
The words were savage. A snake spitting venom. And they would not go unanswered.
‘His name’s Paul,’ she responded lightly. And with that she stood up, turned away from him and set off for the gallery.
Of course, he wouldn’t follow. When she glanced back, he was running off across the grass, not towards his mother, who could shelter him no longer, but to the main park gate and the great, terrible, adult world.
* * *
She looked at her watch. They had been away almost twenty minutes. Mel would be worried, annoyed. But Natasha was too unsettled to go back to the cafe immediately. She would give herself five minutes in the gallery.
People were making their way out and she squeezed past them, heading for the painting of St John the Baptist. She knew exactly where it was and for a few minutes she stood in front of it, letting the turmoil of the meeting with Jacob subside. She marvelled at the likeness. Even the pose, the outstretched right arm, was a dead ringer for Jacob’s half-clothed selfie. And though the sweetness of the face before her was a taunt after the ugliness of Jacob’s distress, its seductiveness called out to her. This was how it should have been. But Jacob had run away in anger and distress while this painted boy stood radiant, untouchable. And for the first time she understood why people needed to destroy works of art. How satisfying it would have been to pick up a razor blade and slice the precious canvas from top to the bottom.
She turned away. She had thought the lovely John the Baptist would relax her, but her heart was pounding, and she was weak and dizzy. But it wasn’t just Jacob; it wasn’t just the painting. She needed sugar.
She walked quickly out of the gallery to the cafe. They were about to close, but she explained she was diabetic and needed food and they agreed to serve her two coffees and a cake. While waiting, she pulled out a cereal bar. Stupid. She had been so preoccupied with her pretty boy, she had forgotten about her blood glucose level. Familiar black dots were already crossing her vision. She swallowed a chunk and waited as her body settled.