The Sudden Appearance of Hope

Chapter 3

This is not a story of being forgotten.

As memory of me faded, so did a part of myself. Whoever that Hope Arden is who laughs with her friends, smiles with her family, flirts with her lover, resents her boss, triumphs with her colleagues — she ceased to exist, and it has been surprising for me to discover just how little of me is left behind, when all that is stripped away.

If words on the page are the only part of me that can be remembered, and I am to write something which will survive when I am gone, it should matter.

A story of Perfection, then.

For you, it begins in Venice. That was certainly the first time the world became aware of what it was. But for me, and the part I was to play in it, the story began earlier, in Dubai, the day Reina bint Badr al Mustakfi killed herself in her hotel room on the seventh floor of the Burj al Arab Jumeirah.

Because the room cost £830 a night, and because it was clearly a suicide and thus a social faux pas, the body was rushed out of the service door within hours of discovery. A Nepalese cleaning lady was sent in to scrub at the worst of the stains, but Reina had been helpful in slitting her femoral artery in a hot bath, and thus only a few towels and the bath mat needed to be burned.

I found out she was dead because her cousin, Leena, kept on screaming. Not crying — just screaming. In later tellings of these events, she would not say the words, “My cousin Reina killed herself, and this is why” but instead, “My cousin Reina killed herself, and I’ve never recovered from the blow.”

I didn’t like Leena much. It made it a lot easier to steal from her.

I liked Reina. She didn’t know that we were friends, but that’s okay — I don’t mind these things.

I broke into the morgue where they’d taken Reina’s body, a false name on the tag around her toe, skin as grey as the steel bed she lay on. I riffled through the clothes they’d stripped from her, flicked through a notebook of curious ideas and comments on passers-by, found myself in the descriptions there: Woman, skin like milk in coffee, deep, diluted. Pink headscarf, very close-trimmed nails, stands tall, bag in her left hand, looks at everyone without shame, doesn’t care that people stare.

I took the notebook, pressed it against my heart, then put it in my pocket, a thing to cherish and keep safe.

Her phone was in a clear plastic bag by her shoes, and the unlock code was easy to guess by the oily stain her fingers had left as she swiped across the screen. I took it, and sat on the steps of the morgue in the burning shade, flicking through messages and emails, looking for something cruel or a cry of pain to explain why Reina was now cold in the quiet building at my back.

I only found Perfection because it flashed a notification at me.

An app, running in the background on her phone.

What the hell kinda app was this?

I opened it, curious.

The interface was simple, streamlined. There would be no accessorising, no customisation.

A policeman came up to me, asked me if I was lost. I closed the mobile phone, put it in my pocket, smiled and said no, sorry, just came over dizzy.

He said, gently and calm, “Every human grief you will ever experience has been experienced by humans living and humans yet to come. There is no readiness for it, nor no easing of the pain, but ma’am, for what it’s worth, I think you should know that all of humanity that was, is and will be is with you now, by your side.”

I smiled and thanked him and ran away before he could see me start to cry.

That night, lying on my belly in the hotel, sea below, dust above, I signed up for Perfection.

I gave it a fake name, a dead email address knocked together in a café.

By joining, I automatically earned five hundred points; enough for $5 off a vitamin drink from an endorsed brand. It pinged my location off the wireless, had my position within five metres, found a health-food drink store within half a mile that would accept my voucher.

It asked for a photo of me. I supplied a photo of a stranger, lifted from Facebook.

From this, it informed me that I had a wonderful body, but it could be made perfect.

A questionnaire. I filled it out, and was informed that the perfect exercise for me was medium-distance athletics. A list of suitable trainers was supplied, along with the points value that I would win by signing up with any one of these Perfection-certified clubs.

It asked me for my bank details.

I refused to input the data, and when I checked again the next morning, I’d lost two hundred points.

I closed the app and restricted its access to my phone.