In every vlog Neeve does, she links to the items she’s showcased so people can buy them. This week, she has links to Aer Lingus, London black cabs, London tourism, the Marie Stopes site, etc, and the combined sums come to over two thousand euro.
‘This happened six months ago,’ iPad Neeve says. ‘My friend is getting on with her life. She does not regret her decision.’
I don’t know what to say. I’m worried about Neeve, about Sofie, even – to my shame – about Mum: with her connections to Neeve’s site she might be seen as an endorser of abortion.
‘I can’t not do this,’ Neeve says. ‘I have strongly held views, I have a platform …’
‘Neeve, not everyone will agree with you.’
‘You’re right. I’ll lose subscribers. I might gain new ones. But that’s not why I’m doing this.’
‘What about your advertisers?’ What if she loses her income due to this?
‘I’ve talked with them. They’re good with it.’
‘What does your dad say?’
‘He’s chill.’
‘What about Granny?’
‘Granny knows. All of it. About Sofie. Granny is on our side.’
‘You’d get a lot of hate. The trolls. All this goodwill you’ve built up …’
‘I’m shifting my position, reaching out to those who think the way I do. I’m finding my tribe. It goes live on Monday afternoon.’
120
Monday, 26 June
‘It’s up,’ Tim announces.
Shite. Alastair, Thamy and I gather round his screen to watch Neeve’s abortion vlog. All day Monday I’ve been a wreck. In silence, we watch the four minutes forty seconds of it.
‘Brave.’ Tim sounds like he thinks she’s certifiable.
‘You should be proud of her,’ Alastair says to me. ‘She’s a hero.’
But not everyone will agree.
There’s no way I’ll get any more work done this afternoon. I monitor online news-sites, Twitter, those horrible boards, and a trickle of comments begins. I follow the feed on YouTube and mercifully every single post is supportive. I keep watching. More than two hours has passed and maybe this is all going to be okay. And then …
‘Oh, God, it’s … Some man says he’s going to stab her.’
Alastair hurries to my side and stares at the screen. ‘He thinks Neeve’s “the friend”.’
‘What should I do?’ I ask him.
‘Might be just a one-off.’
But a few minutes later another person has a go, this time calling Neeve a baby-murderer who will burn in Hell.
‘Par for the course,’ Alastair mutters.
A new message pops up from a man saying he knows where Neeve lives and that he plans to rape her with a broken bottle. I start to shake. ‘These people,’ I say. ‘These threats. Can they be stopped?’
‘Maybe.’ Alastair does some clicking and it’s as I suspected. ‘Sock puppet accounts. Untraceable. The police might be able to do something more sophisticated with their technology.’
I switch back to Twitter: ‘Neeve Aldin’ is trending in Ireland.
Then, to my absolute horror, I see that an anonymous head has tweeted Neeve’s home address in Riverside Quarter. It’s up there for all the world to see and before my very eyes it’s being retweeted.
‘Call her,’ Alastair hisses.
I’m already on it. ‘Neeve.’ My voice is shaking. ‘Are you at home? You need to get out of there.’
‘It’s cool, Mum.’
‘No, your address has just been put on Twitter.’
‘Oh. Shit … How?’
Easily – Neeve has done vlogs from her fancy pad. She’s said publicly she’s living in her dad’s apartment. Ireland is a small place.
‘There’s a concierge here,’ she says. ‘Fingerpad entry. Electronic surveillance. I’m safe.’
‘Promise me you’ll stay inside.’
‘This will all calm down in a couple of hours,’ she says.
‘Until it does, stay inside. Don’t answer the door to anyone. Maybe you should call the guards.’
She laughs. ‘Mu-um, please!’
I hang up and ask Alastair, ‘Am I overreacting? These are just strange, lonely men wanking at their keyboards?’
‘Ah. Probably.’
But all you need is one evil person determined to remake the world according to his liking.
Paralysed, I watch the thread of comments. I’m afraid to stop monitoring it in case something even worse happens. There’s a lot of love for Neeve, but even the people on her side assume she is ‘the friend’, and the stream of positivity is more than matched by the hate.
‘Oh, God,’ I say. ‘Now Richie’s getting some of the flak.’
Many of the keyboard warriors reference the recent article in the Sunday Times in which Neeve and Richie boasted about how close they are.
‘Did Richie Aldin fund this for his daughter? Soz! For his daughter’s “friend”, I mean.’
And ‘Richie Aldin aborted his own grandchild.’
At home, Sofie and Kiara are pretending to be calm but they hadn’t expected Neeve would get so much hate.
‘It was – is the right thing to do,’ Kiara insists.
There’s the sound of a key in the front door, then Hugh steps into the hall.
Oh, right, it’s Monday night, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend night. It had slipped my mind.
‘Y’okay?’ Hugh asks me.
‘You know about it?’
He nods. ‘It’ll be okay,’ he says. ‘She’ll be fine.’
‘I wish she was here.’
‘She’s probably safer where she is.’
‘Hugh, do you mind if we cancel tonight?’
‘Ah, no,’ Sofie says. ‘We want him to stay.’
‘Please,’ Kiara says. ‘Let him stay.’
‘Okay. But I’m not watching it.’ I need to sit at the kitchen table and monitor social media, to see if the situation escalates.
But when the show starts, Hugh comes to the kitchen door and says, ‘Why don’t you try and watch it? You need a break from the worry.’ He moves closer and everything about him is reassuring.
‘Will she be okay?’ I ask him.
‘She’ll be okay.’
We sit beside each other on the couch, he holds my hand and I let him.
After Hugh leaves, I decide I can’t go to London in the morning. This might all amount to nothing, but then again it might not, and I want to be here for Neeve.
I sit up in bed and send a dozen emails cancelling my meetings, then try to sleep.
121
Tuesday, 27 June
I wake at a godawful early hour and immediately google Neeve. The important thing is how the mainstream media are reporting this.
There’s a robustly supportive article in the Irish Times, and another nice one in the Examiner. But the Independent has a well-known columnist who really lays into Neeve, calling her ‘stunt’ shrill, immature, attention-seeking and all-round pathetic. There’s an even more damning piece in the Mail. No surprises there.
One journalist has a go at Richie. He was barely in Neeve’s life back in December when the trip took place but the fact that they’ve been as thick as thieves for the last few months is impacting badly on him. They were at a film premiere together last week, and there’s even a photo from the ‘poor blind children’s ball’. Facts connecting them are trotted out – that Neeve lives in his apartment, that Richie had done a couple of guest vlogs for her, even how alike they look.
So long as Neeve is okay, that’s all that matters. I want to ring her but it’s too early, so I settle for a text and get no reply. Immediately I’m thinking she’s been butchered and is lying in her gaudy apartment in a pool of blood.
But what can I do, except behave as normal?
I’m not long in the office when she rings me. ‘Dad’s kicked me out.’
‘What?’
‘He’s kicked me out of the flat and taken back the car.’
‘But didn’t you say he was cool with all of this?’
‘He’s getting hated on and he wasn’t expecting it. He’s pissed, Mum. Can I come home?’
‘Of course! I’ll pick you up.’
‘Mu-um.’ For a moment she sounds as if she’s smiling. ‘I’ll get a taxi.’
‘But – Look, be careful, will you? Are there people, you know, protesters, outside?’
‘Ah, Mum.’ Now she really is smiling. ‘Yeah, there’s a big dirty mob out there, waving placards.’
‘Make sure you’re not followed. I’ll meet you at home, and get you settled.’ I hang up and say to Tim and Alastair, ‘Sorry, lads, I have to go.’
When I arrive home, exactly one hour after I’d left for work, Neeve has let herself in. She looks pale and stunned.