Lindsey Kelk - One in a Million

He had a girlfriend? Knock me down with a red stripy sock.

‘Then this isn’t your first book?’ I asked, wondering what she made of the man bun–Simpsons undies combo. It really would be quite the specialized fetish. ‘You’re already a published author?’

Dr Page half nodded, half shook his head and, if I wasn’t mistaken, he was blushing.

‘I self-published,’ he replied, pulling a heavy hardback book with a beige jacket from the shelf behind him and holding it up so I could see the cover: Lord Lieutenants of Ireland 1171–1922 . ‘It hasn’t exactly been a blockbuster bestseller.’

‘I don’t know, I think it looks fascinating,’ I lied. ‘My grandad was from Dublin, on my dad’s side. I bet he would have loved this.’

‘Probably not,’ Dr Page replied. ‘The role was usually seen as a stepping stone to a more prominent position in British government, or a sort of punishment. And the Irish mostly detested whoever was in power as the people appointed to the position tended to abuse their role to control parliament. In 1777, when Lord Buckinghamshire was lord lieutenant, he promoted five viscounts to earls, seven barons to viscounts and then created eighteen new barons, all in one day.’

‘I used to love Viscounts,’ I sighed. ‘The little chocolate biscuits, not the members of the aristocracy.’

Dr Page slowly placed the book down on his desk and picked up his glasses, unfolding them carefully and sliding them onto his face.

‘You still haven’t told me your name,’ I reminded him.

With a very heavy sigh, he turned back to face me, pushing his glasses up his nose.

‘Samuel. Dr Samuel Page,’ he said.

Samuel. Sam. Sammy Boy. Doctor Sam. Hmm. I’d need to work on that.

‘Do you go by Sam or Samuel?’ I asked. ‘I’ll add you on Facebook.’

‘Samuel. And I don’t use Facebook,’ he said, pulling a face. ‘I don’t use any of that, it’s too distracting. Who cares what some random person they went to secondary school with is eating for lunch? No one, not really.’

I heard myself actually gasp out loud.

‘I hope you don’t mind me asking …’ I peered around him at the airbed on the floor. The blankets were all upset and, given his ensemble, I was almost certain he’d been sleeping when I walked in. ‘But why is there a bed in here?’

‘Because, ah, as a writer …’ Samuel replied, eyes shifting from side to side as he spoke. ‘Sometimes, for me, as a writer, it’s easier for me, as a writer, to think like this.’

I sucked in my bottom lip and nodded slowly.

‘In your office?’ I asked. ‘In your pants?’

He nodded, clutching at the edge of his jumper.

‘On an air mattress?’

Another nod.

‘Right,’ I said, folding my arms in front of me. ‘I thought maybe you were working late and it was easier than going home.’

‘That would have made a lot more sense, wouldn’t it?’ he said with a low moan. ‘This is what she’s talking about, I make things too difficult.’

‘She?’

‘My girlfriend,’ Samuel clarified. ‘Ex-girlfriend now, I suppose.’

‘Oh,’ I replied, sucking the air in through my teeth. ‘Bugger.’

‘Yes, quite,’ he said.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ I asked.

‘Absolutely not,’ he said.

I couldn’t say I was entirely surprised. He folded his arms and stared at me.

‘Can you go now please?’ he said bluntly. ‘There’s no fire as you can see and no one is breaking in, other than you.’

‘I should probably get off home,’ I said, gently massaging the sore spot above my bottom. ‘Let you go back to …’

I gave his blow-up bed a half-hearted wave.

‘Thank you very much for popping in,’ Samuel said, picking up seemingly random books and stacking them on his shelves, as though it was exactly what he’d been planning to do before a complete stranger let themselves into his office in the middle of the night when he was fast asleep on the floor. ‘And please don’t be offended if I don’t answer the door next time you knock.’

‘Well, you don’t always hear people, do you?’ I said, still struggling with the idea of a man with no online footprint. ‘When you’re concentrating or if you’ve got headphones in, you can be off in your own little world.’

‘No, I just don’t answer the door,’ he said, still busying himself with his shelves. ‘Wouldn’t waste your time.’

‘So you were here all afternoon when I was knocking?’ I asked, for some reason, surprised.

He turned and gave me a look as though I was the odd one.

‘What if the building really was burning down?’ I asked. ‘You still wouldn’t answer?’

‘Perhaps you could push a little note under the door,’ he suggested.

‘And what if you don’t see it?’ I asked. ‘And you die and the newspapers are all, Ooh, if only the fire marshal had tried harder to get him out?’

‘I shall make an addendum to my will,’ Samuel replied, turning his back to me. ‘Goodnight, Ms Higgins.’

‘Goodnight, Dr Page,’ I said, quietly picking up his book from the desk and letting myself out of the office. ‘ So nice to meet you.’

He was possibly the rudest, most insufferable man I’d ever met.

And somehow, I had to find a way to make him famous.

Friday, 6 July: Twenty-Eight Days to Go

‘I still can’t believe you agreed to this.’ Brian leaned back in his chair, pointing an accusatory pencil at Miranda. ‘The two of you made a bet with the idiot twins and now we have to find a way to make this creature popular? We’ve already got more work than we know what to do with, are you planning on adding a couple of extra hours into the day or something?’

My gaze wandered over to the picture on the back of Dr Page’s book. A small black-and-white photo of the man himself squinted out at me from the back cover, a constipated expression on his face.

‘It’ll be a good exercise for us,’ Miranda said. She was the queen of putting a positive spin on things. ‘We’ve never had to work with someone so … social media averse.’

‘In that we’ve literally only ever worked with people who are prepared to cut off a leg to be successful,’ I agreed. ‘Where’s the fun in that? This is a challenge, it’ll be great.’

An instant message popped up in the corner of my laptop screen. It was a gif of a dancing Leprechaun holding a pot of luck from Charlie. A second message popped up underneath it: ‘Thought you might need this’. I closed the app and turned my attention back to the meeting.

‘Whoever he is, all his accounts must be set to private,’ Brian said, scratching his armpit. Boys were gross. ‘I couldn’t find him on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Not even LinkedIn. I hope he’s hiding something good.’

‘He’s not hiding,’ I replied, turning Samuel’s book over in my hands. ‘He’s not on there. Or rather he’s not using his account. At all.’

‘This is ridonkulous,’ he protested. ‘Even my nana has Facebook and Twitter and she’s eighty-nine.’

‘I know, I follow her,’ I told him with a regretful grimace. ‘And I want to believe she doesn’t understand what she’s posting, Brian.’

‘Oh, no,’ he said, sadly shaking his head. ‘She does.’

‘I suppose he’s not the only human being in the world who hates the idea of posting his entire life online.’ I pressed my palms against my face, careful to cup my hands away from my mascara. We’d only just started and I was already exhausted. ‘You don’t see David Attenborough on Snapchat very often, do you?’

‘I’ve heard he’s got a secret Instagram account dedicated to snacks that look like Jesus,’ Brian said confidentially. ‘But you’ll never prove it.’