www.smartmarriage.co.uk
6
Jeffrey
Jeffrey checked his appearance in the rear-view mirror ashis car parked itself alongside the grass verge outside the New Northampton house. He was clean-shaven, teeth recently bleached and eyebrows tamed with nail scissors. He licked his fingers and patted down a clump of hair on his crown that insisted on growing vertically no matter the product he slathered it in. First impressions always counted.
His stomach had been churning like a tumble dryer for much of the journey to a town he’d actively avoided for sixteen years. And with good reason. This is where it had all ended and begun.
Based on their photographs, the couple living in this modern-build home in an unfamiliar addition to the town, were intimidatingly handsome. Jeffrey, however, knew that he was not. He was neither attractive nor unattractive and he’d often wondered if Mother Nature had been side-tracked midway through his creation. It was only in his teens and when he was left with the scar around the socket of his right eye that people began to remember him. But when surgery had made it almost invisible, so was he again. He had, however, inherited the genetically muscular physique of his father and grandfather, along with their physical strength. The latter had come in useful on more than one occasion.
He looked at his watch – it was time to reprise his role as a Relationship Responder. Four years ago, Jeffrey had been one of the youngest applicants accepted in the training programme. And following a rigorous nine-month Government-funded course, he’d sailed through his exams. A probationary period had involved counselling a real-life couple under the tutelage of an experienced instructor before, finally, he’d practised solo. He had never looked back or returned to the half-light of the margins.
Jeffrey turned to look more closely at the property where he was to spend the coming weeks. As with five other towns and cities across the country, billions of pounds of Government regeneration funding, demolition, rebuilding and gentrification had created a territory only for those who had signed up to the Sanctity of Marriage Act. This was a starter home for a newly married couple. And it was Jeffrey’s job to decide if this was where their marriage would also end.
7
Roxi
A kernel of an idea was already beginning to take rootinside Roxi’s head.
She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, her back resting against two thick pillows propped against the headboard and her attention directed towards a television screen. The fall-out of Jem Jones’ suicide remained the only topic of conversation on magazine shows and news broadcasters. And she was just as fascinated by it as the rest of the country. A conveyor belt of talking heads had appeared on Sky News over the last twenty-four hours to offer their opinions on how social media had made Jem, but then ultimately broken her, too. Roxi flicked up and down other channels and discovered even foreign broadcasters, previously unaware of Jem’s existence, were also reporting on how the British public had driven its most important social media Influencer to her death.
However, Roxi had a greater interest in the past than the present. First thing that morning, she’d logged on to Jem’s YouTube channel and begun watching her Vlogs in order, from the very first clip posted six years ago. Jem had joined social media during yet another worldwide pandemic and series of lockdowns, when viewers had plenty of time on their hands. Then, she was a fresh-faced, mid-twentysomething, uploading videos with shaky camerawork, harsh lighting, and patchy sound quality. They weren’t overly styled or rehearsed and there was nothing remarkable about her appearance or her topics of conversation. But Roxi had studied plenty of her rivals’ Vlogs to recognize something a little different when she saw it.
Jem oozed likeability and sincerity. There was a quiet confidence in her delivery, an infectious, pragmatic enthusiasm and a believability about her. Whether she was promoting a product or describing an emotion, you bought into her. Roxi had been making copious notes on everything from Jem’s clothes and make-up to her changing hairstyles and the locations she filmed in, typically her house or garden. She’d tallied Jem’s most commonly used words and phrases and created spreadsheets to chart Jem’s favourite subjects, how often and how many minutes she spent discussing them and cross-referenced them to the number of likes and reposts they received.
As the years and the clips progressed, Roxi noted that Jem gradually allowed her subscribers to glimpse her life beyond the lens. There came mentions of dates – good and bad – of boyfriends – also good and bad – and of broken hearts – always bad. There were smiles and laughter and tears and regrouping.
And then, after a decade creating purpose-built towns and rejuvenated regions, the much-discussed Sanctity of Marriage Act was close to becoming a reality.
‘I can’t wait,’ Jem admitted in a Vlog Roxi viewed. ‘Relationships can go wrong; it’s a fact. Even if you’ve found your soulmate through Match Your DNA, it doesn’t always mean a happy-ever-after.’
Years earlier, the concept of dating had been turned on its head when scientists discovered every person has a solitary gene they share with just one other person. A simple mouth swab was all it took to potentially find who you were guaranteed to fall in love with, regardless of age, race, sexuality, religion or location. The company Match Your DNA paired each half of a couple as and when they signed up. However, not every couple had the happy-ever-after they expected.
‘Some problems are too big for love to overcome without help,’ continued Jem. ‘So what does it matter if you get it through artificial or human intelligence? If anything, AI is probably better at digging deeper than people are and using our data to understand what we’renotsaying to one another. AI is responsible for half of all medical diagnoses these days. We trust it with our lives so why not our hearts? A Smart Marriage makes sense, doesn’t it?’
Then, as a general election approached, Jem became the face of a nationwide advertising campaign promoting Smart Marriages. She appeared in their TV, radio, social media and virtual assistant campaigns. And when the Government won its fourth consecutive term and the Act sailed through parliament and the House of Lords, she even became the voice used by Audites. But overnight, Roxi noted, she had been replaced by a male voice.
Three years of living with the Act had resulted in a national groundswell of those opposed to it. Single people, widows, divorcees and couples who flatly refused to upgrade accused it of discrimination. Much of their vitriol was directed towards Jem, the public face of the Act, and not the people they couldn’t see behind the scenes. Organized groups began trolling her, they posted her address and phone number online and made death threats. The sparkle that had charmed millions gradually vacated Jem’s eyes following months of abuse. In later posts, she’d admitted her mental health was waning and she’d talked of how the pressure she was under had caused the end of a recent romantic relationship. In her penultimate post, she’d wept uncontrollably and screamed at the camera when she’d recalled finding her two pet dogs poisoned in the garden. Enough was enough, she’d said, quitting social media.
Jem’s final Vlog was the only video Roxi couldn’t watch until the end. She pressed stop the moment Jem picked up the gun.
‘Nine hours and forty-seven minutes,’ began Owen, making his way into the bedroom. ‘That’s how long you have been in here and online.’
‘Really?’ Roxi replied, herself a little surprised. She rubbed at her tired eyes and Owen glanced at the empty packets of snacks and soda cans on the bedside tables.
‘The family screen time and the Track My Movements Apps say you haven’t been anywhere but here and the bathroom all day,’ he continued as he changed out of his work shirt. ‘It’s now almost 6.30 p.m.’
‘Are you checking up on me?’
‘And I assume by the food delivery bag on the kitchen island that Darcy and Josh had takeout again for tea?’ he continued.
Roxi had forgotten about her children. She’d heard them around the house when they’d returned from school but was too immersed in Jem’s world to return to her own. She removed the tie from her long blonde bob and scrunched her hair.
