Net friends

The slow inevitable passage of time had stolen my youth. My hair is now coloured by substances from a bottle rather than by nature, my skin is no longer elastic but heavily influenced by gravity. Long periods of enforced inactivity have led to my body becoming rotund so it was with great trepidation that I set out for a nearby city to meet a “net” friend.
On the Internet he wooed me and on the phone he charmed me. Bit by bit my resistance was melted away until I agreed to meet him. I’d seen his photograph but I wasn’t sure that I’d recognise him; after all I have been known to walk past my own mother without recognising her!
I parked the car and walked to the coffee shop where we had agreed to meet. I suppose that I had made up my mind that he should see me as I really was and not as something false that I couldn’t or wouldn’t keep up for long. So I wore an old pair of jogging trousers and a “Stranglers” T-shirt with a rat logo on it, I was clean, because that’s the way I like to be; my hair was braided and I wore my rat earrings.
I went into the coffee shop and ordered a large black coffee; I might need the caffeine fix when I met him. Sitting at a table by the back wall I waited for him. I wasn’t really bothered if Ricky didn’t show up, or so I told myself, though that didn’t explain why my heart was beating faster and I felt slightly sick. Meeting him had given me a reason to travel into town, it had motivated me to get away from the computer and get out into the real world. I looked at everyone who came in for their coffee, some took trays of it away; presumably for their work colleagues, and practically all of them bought something to eat. I was about to give up and move out of my seat when I saw a tall man standing in the doorway. He was obviously looking for someone. I sort of waved; you know the kind of wave I mean. One that was a wave if you were looking for one but was merely a gesture if you weren’t. The man moved towards my table and I could see that he wasn’t Ricky.

“Hi, mind if I sit here? I don’t like to ask but I’m waiting for someone and this seems to be the only free seat.”
“No, that’s ok, I was waiting for someone as well but he hasn’t turned up yet.”
Then he said,
“Moonchild?”
“Yes, Good grief, are you Ricky? I didn’t recognise your voice.”
“I’m Ricky’s brother. I’m afraid that I have some bad news for you.”
He looked at me and for the first time in years I didn’t see contempt in a man’s eyes.
“Let me guess; he’s decided not to come. Well at least he sent you to let me know. That’s more than any of the others did.”
He reached out and covered my hands with his.
“No. Ricky wanted to come but last night, just after he phoned you, he collapsed and died.”
I didn’t know what to do nor what to say but I mumbled,
“I’m sorry. I should have known that he’d get here if he could. It’s just that I’ve been let down so many times that it’s difficult to trust a man. What caused it? Why did he die?”
“You knew that he was waiting for an operation?”
“Did he tell what it was for?”
“No. He just said that he would have to go into hospital for an operation soon. I think that’s why he was so set on meeting me today. He didn’t want to leave it until after the op.”
“So you didn’t know that it was going to be a heart operation?”
I gasped, “No. I wouldn’t have let him come all this way if I’d known that he had heart problems.”
His brother smiled and said,
“ That’s what I thought. I know a lot about you. Ricky was very fond of you. He would talk about you all the time. And he was really looking forward to meeting you. I thought that he was a lucky man.”

I looked at this man who must have been about six foot two, with not an ounce of spare fat on him. His hair was going grey but in that distinguished way that happens to some men. He had beautiful brown eyes; in fact his face was good to look at. How could a man with his looks think that Ricky was the lucky one?
“I don’t know much about you,” I said,” Ricky didn’t talk much about his family.”
“Well I’m Dean, my mother had a crush on Dean Martin hence my name and I’m Ricky’s younger brother.”
“Pleased to meet you Dean, it’s a pity that it’s in such sad circumstances.”
It was then that I noticed that the serving staff were looking at us.
“Perhaps we’d better leave; unless you want to eat here.”
So we left. Dean walked me back to my car shook hands with me and left. I drove home feeling sad and happy at the same time. Sad because Ricky was dead but happy because he had wanted to talk to me, to meet me so much so that his brother had actually come to see me rather than just sending me a message. I suppose that I was also happy because I might have found a new friend.
At home I went onto the chat line briefly, just long enough to tell them that Ricky was dead then I mooched around the house until bedtime. But I couldn’t sleep, my mind was in turmoil, I kept thinking about all the things Ricky had said to me, all the things that we had planned on doing together All the scenarios with Ricky being alive in them began to replay themselves. Eventually I’d had enough so I got up and switched on my computer, perhaps surfing the net would help take my mind off things.
As the connection was made a message popped up onto the screen.
“Hello. I miss you.” It was from Ricky.
I replied, “Who is that?” but there was no answer. I even tried sending another message to Ricky but he wasn’t online. Not thinking about what time it was I phoned Ricky’s house and after a while Dean answered. I told him about the message.
“Strange. No one’s been anywhere near the computer. We were all in bed and I think that I’m the only one who would know how to use it. Mother and father haven’t the faintest idea.”
The next day it happened again.
“ I miss you.” From Ricky.
And it happened every time I logged onto the net. No one would admit to it, the managers of the chat site couldn’t find out how to stop it appearing on my computer. I started replying to the message.

First of all I just typed, “I miss you too.” But then I started writing about what I’d been doing during the day. I wrote about my boring life and then decided that on one would want to read about such a life so bit by bit I changed my life. I went out everyday, sometimes just for a walk, sometimes for a bus ride. While I was walking I was really looking at what was going on around me. For the first time ever I took an interest in my neighbourhood. I even smiled and said “Hello.” to people. Much to my amazement they not only said “hello” to me but some actually started conversations. Soon I was visiting other people and they were visiting me. I had a new circle of friends; these were new, touchable people, real people. My life was far more interesting now but every night I still wrote to Ricky.
One night I received a phone call; it was from Dean.
“Would you like to meet me?” he asked,” There’s something I have to tell you.”
I thought about meeting Dean for what must have been a whole second, “ Yes, I think that I’d like to meet you again.”

We met in the same coffee shop and much to my embarrassment Dean gave me a bunch of roses.
“You’ve changed, “ he said, “ There’s something different about you.”
“My life has changed. I meet more real people and they seem to like me.”
“From what Ricky told me you’re a very likeable person, you just needed to meet people.”
This was getting rather too intense for me so I asked him what he had to tell me.
“We found Ricky’s will and I was named executor, he’s left you something.”
“ I don’t want anything. I’ve got all of his letters and messages. We didn’t meet so nothing of his will evoke any memories for me.”
“Aren’t you curious as to what he wanted you to have? If you don’t have it I’ll be in an awkward position. I’m supposed to fulfil the terms of his will.”
“What on earth could he have left me that can make you feel so uneasy about me not getting it?”
Dean flushed then said, “ Did you know that Ricky was rich? I mean really wealthy?”
I shook my head, “ No. I knew that he had enough money not to work if he didn’t feel like it but we never discussed money.”
I began to wonder what a wealthy friend could have left me. A car perhaps so that I didn’t have to use the public transport so much, but Ricky knew that I had a car even if I didn’t use it all the time. Sometimes it was cheaper to go by bus. Surely he wouldn’t have left me anything that expensive after all we had never met, although we were close friends. Our phone conversations would last for hours and our letters were love letters, each of us wanting to let our feelings be known and yet we still hesitated about actually meeting one another. Dean interrupted my thoughts.
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes. I suppose so Why?”
“I’ll have to take you somewhere in my car. It’s the only way to show you where Ricky lived.”
We had quite a long drive but eventually Dean turned into what looked like a large country park. He stopped the car outside of a large, no not large but massive mansion.
“Welcome to Ricky’s home.”

I stood and gaped at the house in wonder.
“He owned this?”
“It’s part of what he owned. The house and parkland and the farming estate was well as most of our lands in Scotland is entailed. As Ricky had no sons they go to me. But he did have some property of his own. He bought the house and land you can see from here.”
Dean pointed to a large house that stood near the entrance to the park. Surely Ricky hadn’t left me that? But Dean was walking into the mansion so I followed him. We went into a library with floor to ceiling books and I immediately felt at home there. There was a fire burning in the grate and a computer on the desk near the fire.
“This is where Ricky used to sit when he was writing to you. Please sit down, I’ll get us a drink.”
I sat down and looked around me; from my chair I could see some of my favourite authors, Jane Austen, Ian Rankin, Philip K Dick, Terry Pratchett, Tolstoy and others. It was like seeing old friends in new surroundings.
Dean returned with a tray bearing coffee and sandwiches. He sat down and said,
“Ricky has left you this.”
He handed me a box, about a foot long and nine inches high, five or six inches wide. It was a beautiful, old box. Carefully I opened it. It was like opening a treasure chest!

Strings of pearls and gold chains, rings and bracelets were all jumbled together.
“Are they real?”
Dean smiled, “My brother didn’t buy junk.”
“But these must be worth a large fortune.”
“Yes, I’ve been going through the receipts trying to match them up. He’s spent well over a million pounds on these trinkets. Though goodness only knows why.”

I snapped the box shut and pushed it away from me. I didn’t want them.
“I’m sorry Dean but I don’t want these. I’d quite like the box, it’s pretty but I don’t want the jewellery. It doesn’t remind me of Ricky.”
Dean looked at me and smiled again.
“Ricky said that you might reject the jewellery. Mother didn’t believe him. She will get it all. He put several clauses in his will; one of them was about the box. If you rejected it you could have your choice of anything from the house.”
I knew what I wanted. The only thing that tied my memories of Ricky together was a book. I looked in the desk drawer and it was there a collection of love poems. Ricky would quote some of them to me during our phone conversations. These would always remind me of him. I took the well-thumbed book out of the drawer.
“I’d like this please.”
Dean seemed surprised, “That’s all?”
“ It’s the only thing that will help me remember him. I’ll read it and cry but I will read because he liked it.”
An old woman walked into the library.
“She’s rejected the box? she demanded.
“Yes mother. All she wants is a book of poems.”
She walked up to me and peered into my face.
“Did you love him?”
I nodded, “ Yes, even though we’d never met I loved him. I loved what I knew.”
And what I knew was that I’d have trusted Ricky completely but I was starting to have doubts about Dean. It wasn’t anything he had done or said; it was just a gut feeling. Something about him told me not to trust him completely, not to let him into my life.
She shook her head and walked away from me. Dean hurriedly went after her and I could hear them argue as they went away from the library. Then Dean came back.

“I’m sorry about that. Mother thinks that you are after Ricky’s money. Father is away and she doesn’t trust my judgement.”
“ Why doesn’t your father own the house? If it’s entailed why did it miss him?”
“He’s our step-father, our biological father dies years ago. I suppose that I’d better take you home.”
I picked up the book and left the house. I let Dean drive me back to my house, I’d never let him know where I lived though I suppose that he had my address if he had read Ricky’s papers and letters.
Later on that night I had a message on my computer.
“I miss you. Don’t trust him. Love Ricky.”
I wrote about my trip to his house and told him what I had picked but as usual there was no return message.
The next day the same message was there, I presumed that it meant that I wasn’t to trust Dean, but I had no qualms about that I didn’t intend to see him again. I wrote and told Ricky this then settled down to read some of the poems.
Ricky had made notes by the side of some of them, most of them about what I might like and soon I couldn’t read because of the tears coursing down my cheeks. I put the book down and walked into the kitchen where I ran water into the sink to start the washing up. Then the phone rang. Drying my hands I went to answer the phone.
It was Dean.
“Can I see you again?”
“Why? Surely there’s no need?”
“I’d simply like to see you again.”
“ I’m busy at the moment.” I remembered the message.
“How about Friday night?”
“Actually I’m meeting an old friend then. She’s been away for a long time and we’ve only just arranged to meet.” Oh dear I’ll rot in Hell for telling such lies. Why can’t I simply tell him that I don’t want to meet him?
“Oh, Well another time then?”
“ I’m sure that I won’t always be busy Dean.”
“ Right. I’ll be in touch later. Bye.”
I sighed with relief when he rang off. At least he didn’t push me for a date. I didn’t like telling lies and even though Dean had never been anything but polite to me I still heeded the warning on my computer.
Friday came and I settled down in my upstairs workroom with my poetry book and a glass of pina colada, a luxury for me but I was spoiling myself. All of the lights were off except for the reading lamp. I was reading Elizabeth Barrett’s “ How do I love thee?” when I heard a noise. It sounded as if someone was opening the door with a key that didn’t quite fit the lock. I wasn’t too perturbed because I knew that the bolt would hold the door. Putting the book down I walked over to the phone but it was dead. Going over to my desk I fished about in the big drawer and found my mobile phone and called my nearest neighbour.
“ Ronny, I think that someone’s trying to break into my house.”
“I’ll be right over.”
Sure enough five minutes later I saw the headlights of his car coming down the road, and then it all went dark my electricity had been cut off. I presumed that this meant that whoever was trying to get into the house had gone into the outhouse and found the supply meter. In the dark I listened and heard a dog bark. Ronny must have brought his German shepherd dog with him. Then I heard a voice shouting and Ronny saying,” Stand still and he won’t hurt you.” This was followed by a ring on my doorbell.
“ Ronny?”
“Yes, sweetheart. You can open the door now.”
Cautiously I opened the door but kept the chain on. I saw Ronny holding Dean and Patty the dog was standing on guard.
“You know this guy?” asked Ronny
“I’ve met him but I don’t actually know him.”
“Well I do. He’s a con man. He’s wanted by several police forces. He works a con usually on lonely women. “
I looked at Dean, “ Was Ricky in on this?”
“ Nah. He knows nothing about it. I was in his house one day and heard him going on about you. “
“But what about me going into the house? And meeting his mother?”
“ She’s just an old woman who wanted to earn some money. We were arguing because she wanted out. She didn’t like what I was doing to you.”
“So where’s Ricky?”
Dean just shrugged. A police car drew up by the door and they took Dean away, Ronny said,
“Will you be ok? I’ll have to go to the station to see to this guy.”
“Ronny, if he is a con merchant then this might mean that Ricky isn’t dead. That he’s being held somewhere.”
“I’ll get it out of him. Though kidnapping is rather more serious than conning people. I’ll look into it, lock up then go to bed. Ill see you in the morning.”
I locked the door and thought how lucky I was to have a police inspector living as my neighbour.
The next morning I had a phone call.
“Hi.”
“Ricky?”
“Yes, it’s me. The police found me last night.”
“Where are you?”
“ I’m at home. Do you think you can find it?”
“Is it the big house?”
“No, park by the park entrance and I’ll find you.”

I got the car out of the garage and began the long drive to see Ricky. Parking by the entrance to the park I waited. It wasn’t long before I saw him. He slipped into the passenger seat and guided me to his house. It was the large house on the outskirts of the parkland that I’d seen on my previous visit.
“ Do you really own all of this?” I asked
“I own this house, but as far as I know the National Trust own the big house. It’s been closed whilst they do essential repairs.”
“So you’re not super rich?”
“No sorry I’m not, I’m well-off but not super rich. This house has been in the family for a couple of generations and I inherited it.”
“I’m glad that you’re not super rich. But what did Dean think that he’d get out of conning me? I only have my cottage.”
“I was given the impression that he thought that you would marry him, then he’d have the cottage.”
“Huh, I’m not that gullible. How did you manage to send me the computer messages? I mean if he was holding you against your will… ”
” What computer messages? I’ve not been near a computer for months. He wouldn’t let me near one.”

I told him about my messages but Ricky was as mystified as I was.
After that initial meeting we met often and now I’m sitting here in front of the computer writing my story. Tomorrow I’m getting married to Ricky. We have decided not to sell the cottage but to keep it for when we want to live in the wilder countryside. The puzzle of the messages has never been solved, no one will admit to sending them, I’ll have to write them off as being one of life’s little mysteries.