Chapter 1

An Englishman's Home

Alex

2020

"And where did you say you worked?" she asked as she delicately squeezed Alex's now limp but resolutely sticky penis between her red enamelled nails.

"I didn't," admitted Alex.

"Too soon on a first date, then?"

"It's not quite the first date ... er..." Alex began, but hesitated as he tried to remember the name of the naked woman sprawled on the mattress beside him. He couldn't very well continue to call her Alfalfa2020 now their relationship had gone beyond cyberspace, but he'd already forgotten her real name.

"We've mostly only talked about sex and, if I recall, something to do with local traffic congestion, Alex."

Shit! She'd remembered his name, but what was hers? Did it begin with 'A' or with some other letter?

"I think we also discussed some other global issues ... like ... er..."

"Like what?" she snorted. She stroked his testicles while Alex ineffectually twiddled his fingers through her hair. "And the name you're trying to remember is Agnieszka. Not Agnes. Agnieszka."

"Russian?" guessed Alex. It was at least plausible. She was quite a catch for an internet date and very much in a blonde, slim and tall fashion that would be wholly consistent with someone of Russian origin. And she had that delightfully dismissive hauteur Alex associated with Russian women...

"Polish," she corrected him.

... Or, indeed, women from anywhere to the East of Germany.

"My parents came from Poland," she continued. "Back in the Nineties. I'm sure we'd mentioned that on the net."

"I think we talked about global warming, the environment and stuff like that," said Alex who was intent on returning the conversation away from the poverty of his memory to the wealth of his political and social knowledge.

"I don't remember any of that at all," Agnieszka remarked. She teased his left testicle with the sharp edge of the red tip of her longest nail. "You did talk about how rubbish this town is. No facilities. No pub. Just a crappy Wal-Mart and a Dunkin Donuts."

"They've opened a Starbucks now," Alex pleaded. "And I think there's gonna be a new petrol station."

"Well, bully for Ashton Lovelock, New Town. What made you want to live here rather than back in Swindon? I think Swindon's a great place. Plenty of shops. And the M4's nearby."

"Well, it would've been easier for us now if I was still renting a place there. Your apartment's just a mile or so from where I used to live..."

"More a flat-share than an apartment. Property's so fucking expensive."

"It was work more than anything else. My company's based in a Business Park just ten miles from Birmingham. That's forty odd miles from here. Just over an hour's commute on the motorway..."

" ... On a good day," Agnieszka commented knowingly.

" ... And property's not so expensive round here, at least not compared to Swindon."

"And where did you say you worked?" Agnieszka asked again.

"Well, that's why I'm sure we must have talked about serious shit, you know, like climate change and immigration policy and terrorism and politics and stuff," pleaded Alex. "I work for an on-line news service. It's part of the Disney-Reuters-News International media group. I help compile news for the news services."

"The ones you have to pay for or the free ones?"

"Both. The BBC. The Telegraph. The Mail. And even Google News. They're all customers of ours."

Agnieszka's face crumpled into an almost comical expression of sceptical dismissal. "It's all lies, isn't it? All the stuff that's posted on the net. Everyone says it's just propaganda. There's no money in News now, so it's mostly made up or recycled or planted or just showbiz trivia."

Alex was genuinely shocked. "That is not true," he spelt out slowly and precisely. "There's an absolute separation between editorial and news content."