One in a Million

‘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.’

‘I think the social aspect of this is going to be a bigger challenge than the media bit.’ I ran my hands over the dull beige dust-jacket of Sam’s book. ‘He’d rather be with his books than posting on Instagram. Or brushing his hair. Or talking to humans. Or possibly anything else in the entire universe.’

‘This is truly all we have to go on?’ Mir asked, taking the big, heavy book from me and flipping through the pages. ‘“The official residence of the Lord Lieutenant was the Viceregal apartments in Dublin Castle where the Viceregal—” Oh my god, I’m so bored I just went blind.’

‘Maybe it’s a horcrux?’ I suggested. ‘It definitely feels evil.’

‘That photo is evil,’ Brian agreed. ‘Who took it?’

‘Someone who really hates him.’ Mir squinted at the unfortunate portrait. ‘It’s the most unflattering picture I’ve ever seen. Brian’s racist nan could have done a better one with her phone. Photo copyright Elaine Gibson?’

I tapped Elaine Gibson, photographer, into Google and came up with nothing.

‘Let me try Facebook,’ Brian said, swiping up on his iPad.

Immediately, FB produced seven results for Elaine Gibsons in London. Four were considerably older than our new neighbour and none of the remaining profile pictures really screamed photographer. One was a cartoon of a flying pink elephant and one was an actual baby. Which just left the slightly artsy, half-face photo of what looked like a thirty-ish woman but could just as easily have been the Turin shroud for all the filters she’d applied.

‘Info is private but her photos aren’t,’ Brian said, clicking through. ‘Schoolboy error.’

Two seconds later we were seven years deep in carefully framed selfies and Snapchat filters. There was no way this woman was a professional photographer.

‘Open that one,’ I said, pointing at an album labelled ‘The Worst Christmas Ever’.

And there he was, tagged as Dr S. Page, frowning with a too small Santa hat perched on the top of his seemingly giant head. And there he was again, sat around the dinner table, still not able to crack a smile. And again, sulking under the mistletoe. This time wearing what was supposed to be an ugly Christmas jumper but in Samuel’s case it looked to be much more stylish than the rest of his clothes.

If only it were closer to Christmas. These were comedy gold and I’d have made him a meme in five seconds flat.

I tapped on the tag but it went to a private page with literally zero content. Eurgh.

‘His girlfriend took his headshot,’ Brian said. ‘Red flag, red flag.’

‘Even she can’t make him look good and she loves him,’ Mir said, pressing her fingertips into her temples. ‘Annie, this is giving me stomach ache. What are we even going to do with him?’

‘Fitness blogger?’ I suggested, fully aware of the straws I was clutching at. ‘Body positivity?’

‘I’m positive I don’t want anything to do with his body,’ she replied. ‘Geek appreciation? Like body positivity but for nerds.’

‘Maybe he’s a gamer?’ I said. ‘That would be great.’

‘Yeah, if that game is pontoon with your grandma,’ Mir said. ‘We saw him walk past the other day with a flip-phone.’

‘How about a travel blogger?’ Bri ventured. ‘Long-distance, far-away-from-here travel?’

‘We’re not losing this bet, so we’d better come up with something,’ I told them, setting my shoulders. ‘What makes Sam aspirational and relatable?’

‘He’s certainly winning the ‘Don’t Give a Fuck Olympics’, so that’s something,’ Miranda replied.

‘It’s the rest of the historians out there I feel sorry for,’ I said. ‘They can’t all look like this.’

‘He really leaned into the stereotype,’ Brian said, pressing his hands against his face as he stared at a photo of Samuel posing next to a Christmas tree while the family dog beside him licked its own bum. ‘He’s more like a historical artefact than a historian. All we need to do is take a half a dozen photos of him and tag them #ICantEven. It’ll be a million hits overnight.’

Miranda’s eyes lit up in agreement.

‘We only use our powers for good, remember?’ I replied, pinching the coin pendant on my favourite necklace tightly between my thumb and forefinger. ‘Content always takes the high road and that doesn’t sound very high.’

‘You’re high,’ Brian said, screengrabbing the shots of Sam from his girlfriend’s Facebook page. I wasn’t sure how it was possible, but each photo looked worse than the last. ‘Bet’s off, right? There’s nothing we can do with this man, Annie.’

But I couldn’t call off the bet. That would mean admitting defeat. Yes, I liked the sound of a month’s free rent, but I liked the idea of rubbing Charlie Wilder’s nose in our victory forever more even better.

‘There’s always something we can do,’ I argued. ‘All right, so he probably isn’t going to be everyone’s must-watch YouTuber by Monday morning, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an audience for what he does. And don’t worry about the girlfriend, they’ve broken up.’

Brian let out a sad ‘pfft’.

‘Can’t imagine why it didn’t work out. Is the man bun on purpose?’

‘I think not.’ I searched for the right words to describe Sam’s aesthetic. ‘He’s definitely a fixie short of a full hipster.’

‘What’s his message?’ Mir stuck out her tongue as she delved into The Lord Lieutenants of Ireland with renewed commitment. ‘What does he want people to know?’ I flicked through my own Instagram feed and pondered the question. What did I want people to know about me? My Instagram feed was full of pictures of me, Mir and Brian, my favourite views and a few carefully framed flat lays displaying my prized possessions, colour-coordinated, of course. That was the version of me I put out there.

‘We need to find out,’ I told them. ‘Everyone wants something and we can help him get it.’

‘So how do we lure him into social media?’ Brian asked. ‘What does he want?’

A bed, a proper pair of pyjamas, a sense of humour and some social graces.

‘I think he needs a friend,’ I said.

‘I would have said a haircut and a good meal,’ Miranda sighed. ‘But a friend might be a good start.’

‘Shall we go and talk to him then?’ I closed my laptop with a happy click. ‘Maybe we could all go for dinner. Isn’t it two for ten pounds at the King’s Head on a Friday?’

Brian and Miranda both looked at me.