The Dot Com Revolution

The Dot Com Revolution



by



Sarada Gray





         Dorothy Wainwright had never regretted changing her name to Compton, not once, even after everything that had happened.  Not until now.  It was just that in the age of computers, the name Dotty Compton suggested an inevitable abbreviation.

         “You ought to go on Facebook,” Edith said one day.

         “What’s a face book?” asked Dottie, only half-listening, tracing with the pattern on the wrought-iron table with an arthritic finger.  She didn't like it much here, but Edith always wanted to have tea at the garden centre - every week there was something she needed to buy: poinsettias, seeds; compost, depending on the time of year.  And Edith was company.

“It’s like a meeting-place on the internet”, said Edith, who wasn’t quite sure herself.

“What, like a cafe?”

“Sort of.”

“What’s it for?”

“Well, you choose a name and sign up..”

“And who would I be? - Dotty-Com-dot-com?”  Dorothy poured a little tea into her leaf-patterned china cup, to test the strength.

“Well, why not?  I bet there’s no-one else with that name!”

“I don’t care.”  Dorothy, deciding that the tea was ready, began to pour first Edith’s and then hers (Edith didn't like it too strong). 

“If you're on Facebook then people can find you easily.”

“What if I don't want to be found?”

“Oh, Dottie!” Edith sighed.  “You have to be found, nowadays - it’s the age of information.”

“Well, I’m quite informed enough, thank you.  If not, I’ll ask someone,” said Dorothy primly, and she began to drink her tea.

She had been the very last of her friends and family to give in to the digital age and buy a computer.  With the TV too, she remembered: her family had been the last in their street to sprout an aerial.  It was all black and white – but you could get good rental deals in those days.  And it cost three-and-six for a black-and-white licence…  She was brought back to the present by a rustling sound; Edith was rummaging in a bag by her feet, and she brought out a plant and placed it on the table with a flourish.

“What on earth is that?” said Dot.

“That, Dottie,” said Edith, “is Amorphophallus konjac."

"Amorpho-what-us?" said Dorothy with a smirk.

Edith looked prim.  "I'd never have found this if I hadn't gone on the internet,” she          said sternly.

“Imagine!” said Dorothy.  If she had ever heard of Triffids, she might have thought it looked exactly like one.

“It’s so easy – I just typed in unusual ornamental plants – and up it came!”

“You could’ve just come in here and asked,” muttered Dot, mainly to herself.

There was nothing wrong with Edith’s hearing.  “Yes,” she retorted, “but then you’ve just got one person’s opinion!  On the internet you’ve got hundreds – thousands of ideas - and pictures, too!  You can sit at home and make your mind up!”

Life’s too short, Dorothy was thinking: she didn’t want to spend hours looking at a screen.  An hour or two of TV at night – that was enough for her.  The rest of her time was spoken for – though she wasn’t about to tell Edith that.  She might be a good friend, but Edith Sykes was also a notorious babbler.

Dorothy’s feet hurt as she trudged up the path to her house.  She needed new shoes, but couldn’t find any wide enough for the bunions which made her feet increasingly similar to a pair of Jerusalem artichokes.  Edith had waved goodbye before driving smartly off in her nippy red Corsa.  Red was an old-fashioned colour for a car now, Dotty seemed to think; nowadays they were all silver or grey, and you couldn’t tell them apart.  In her younger days she’d known them all: could tell a Morris from a Triumph or a Vauxhall from a Hillman.  Their doctor had owned a Morris: as if in sympathy with the thought, her bunions protested again as she unlatched the front door and levered herself over the threshold.

The recently-acquired computer sat darkly in the corner of the living-room.  She kept it well away from the TV, as though they might fight each other; and they were both switched off, in spite of her son-in-law’s insistence that she could safely leave the computer on and not have to go through the irksome ritual of entering the password every time: Dorothy had lived through the war, and it went against the grain to leave anything on when she was out of the house. 

Yes: life was definitely too short for all this browsing – or was it grazing? – people seemed to do nowadays.  Dorothy went to put the kettle on, and a flash caught her eye.  It was the light on the answer-phone.

Probably telesales again, she thought.  She put down her bag and went to hang her hat and coat on the hall-stand, rearranging her iron-grey curls in the hall-stand mirror and giving herself a rueful smile.  Then she went through to the kitchen and filled the kettle, taking the old wooden tray from its spot and arranging on it a matching cup and saucer, milk jug and teapot.  She didn't take sugar, found she didn't want it nowadays.

It wasn't until later that she remembered the answer-phone.  She could check messages now without using the manual, though at first it had taken ages, what with finding her glasses, getting to the right page and deciphering the directions - she'd had to ask Colin for help more than once.  Edith said that at Help the Aged they had all kinds of gadgets – but Dottie couldn't quite think of herself as aged – not just yet.  She pressed the button and the electronic voice told her she had a new message.  Bother, now she had to click on the button - which one was it?  She pressed the wrong one and then froze as the room was filled with a familiar voice:  Hi love, he said, sounding rather weary.  Might be a bit late tonight.  Just put dinner in the microwave – OK?

It was the voice of her dead husband.

Half an hour and a glass of brandy later, she felt better.  Sandra was out, but Colin had come round; he'd driven straight from work, still wearing his jacket and tie.

“If you don’t erase your messages, Mum,” he said (he called her ‘Mum’, though she was his mother-in-law), “it plays them all back.”

“It must have been from months ago!” she said shakily.  “Just before he –"

There was a silence.  He looked at her in concern.  “Do you want me to stay?”

“No, dear, thank you – I’ll be fine.”

“Shall I erase the messages for you?” he said.

“Yes please, dear.”  Then she realised: “Oh, but there’s a new one.  I suppose I’d better listen to that.”

He found the button and pressed it – and as they stood facing each other, the receiver on the table between them, the voice rang out, the one voice Dorothy had not been expecting - not for another week, at least.  The message was very clear.  Their eyes locked for a moment; then he handed the receiver back to her.

When he spoke, his voice seemed to come from a great distance away.  “Well, I’d better be going,” he said.  “Sandra’ll be wondering…”

And he left, shutting the door behind him and leaving her there with the phone still in her hand.

It was a pity, she thought later, but she couldn't expect Colin to understand.  He and Sandra were devout Catholics, they went to church every Sunday, brought the children up in the faith…she felt a spasm of fear.  They wouldn’t stop her seeing the children, would they?  How much had he gathered from the message?  She played it again, Simon's confident yet soft voice greeting her across space and time:

Dottie?  Hi, love, it's Simon.  We've decided to bring it forward, if that's OK, so we'll do the ceremony this week instead of next.  I know the full moon is better but there are other auspicious signs – besides, some of the coven can't make it next week.  I'm sure the spell will be powerful enough to break the bank (here Simon laughed a little chillingly) – and then Barry will be at peace.  Anyway, usual time and place.  Bye.

Dottie sat for a while, head in hands, then went to make some more tea.  What should she do - come clean?  Try to put a spin on it?  She couldn't see Sandra understanding, no matter how she tried to explain.  What could she say?  I've decided to avenge your father's death?  The banks foreclosed on him and he couldn't live with it?  No: it was too late; far too late.  She should have told the truth in the first place, instead of pretending Barry had had a heart attack - but how do you tell your child their father has committed suicide?  Didn't Catholics believe that suicides went to hell? - and Sandra had converted wholeheartedly to Colin's faith.  Cold hands clutched at Dorothy's heart at the thought of the grandchildren: she couldn't bear the thought of not seeing them again.

Her meditations that evening felt muddled.  She lit her candles and tried to clear her mind, but instead of getting an answer, all she could see was Carrie, her youngest grandchild, smiling and holding out a drawing she'd done.

A drawing of Barry.

Well, maybe that was an answer.  Keep an open mind, that's what people said you should do.  That's what the coroner did, too, she thought dully: open verdict.  Her hands clenched convulsively at the memory.  But revenge was no good: what must be must be.

The next day she knelt by the bed and pulled out the box with those few things of Barry's which hadn't gone to Oxfam: his tie pins, his cricket bat; his school certificates.  At the bottom was the note he'd written.  She knew every word; but had still not been able to destroy it – it was all she had left of him.  The phrases resonated in her skull; my darling; I can't see any way out; please believe I love you.  She couldn't read the rest, though in the first weeks she'd read it over and over, searching for an answer: why had he taken this all on himself?  Not once had he blamed the banks who had got him into this mess: those banks who had foreclosed on him; those banks who, having received taxpayers money, refused to help him out – no, Barry had not blamed them.  But Dorothy had blamed them: she had blamed them entirely.  Why should they get away with it?

Now, though, seeing in her mind the picture of her youngest grandchild, she seemed to pause.  In her blind fury over Barry's death and the struggle of keeping herself together – she had forgotten one thing: first, harm none.  It was the witch's code, the first thing she had ever learnt – and she had forgotten it.

The next day she went shopping with Edith – and after a cup of tea, for once in British Home Stores, her mind was made up.  Coming home, after heaving her bunioned feet over the threshold, the first thing she did was to phone Simon:

"Hi sweetheart, it's me," she told his answer-phone.  "I've been thinking.  I know it          goes against the grain, but I'm not going to do it.  We need healing and reconciliation.           Tell Marjorie – we'll need comfrey, rosemary and rue.  Oh – and lots of candles."

She put the phone down and turned on her computer.  She found Facebook easily, and clicked on 'Sign Up.  Under "user name" she typed "Dotty Com-dot-com".  It was time to embrace the future.

2000 words