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  Sophie White is a journalist, author and podcaster with a weekly column ‘The Domestic’ for Sunday Independent’s Life magazine. Sophie lives in Dublin with her husband and two sons. Filter This is her first novel.

  Also by Sophie White

  NON-FICTION

  Recipes for a Nervous Breakdown

  Copyright © 2019 Sophie White

  The right of Sophie White to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in Ireland in 2019 by

  HACHETTE BOOKS IRELAND

  1

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9781529343328

  Hachette Books Ireland

  8 Castlecourt Centre

  Castleknock

  Dublin 15, Ireland

  A division of Hachette UK Ltd

  Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment, EC4Y 0DZ

  www.hachettebooksireland.ie

  Contents

  About the Author

  Also by Sophie White

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  For Mary

  Author’s Note

  I was a late adopter of Instagram. I joined at the end of 2016 and was immediately enthralled by the epic pageantry of the everyday to be found there. Instagram is an amazing space on the internet – it’s beautiful, it’s motivational, it’s fun and it’s funny. I’ve made friends there and found pockets of brilliant women doing exciting, interesting things. Like Ali in the book, I too sat in a sick room for many years. And like Ali, I scrolled to escape. It was very soothing. Here was a time-travelling app that could deliver me from this painful drudgery to another reality: like mine but better. After my dad died, I remember being struck by the oddness of ‘returning’ to Instagram and this strange life where I performed a sort of public diary on the internet.

  Filter This is in no way based on real people or real events though people have, it has to be said, done much crazier things on the internet than any described in these pages. Filter This is not a critique of the people who earn their living on Instagram. Nor is it a rallying cry to unplug or disconnect – I’m nearly at five thousand followers, lads, I’m too close to quit now! It’s a story about denial. About how attractive, but ultimately destructive, it can be to simply put a filter on everything and disengage from the hard stuff.

  All characters in this publication, apart from those

  in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance

  to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Prologue

  18 months earlier

  ‘Oh my gaaawd, you guys! The big day has finally arrived. I have been dreaming about this moment since I was a little girl …’

  Ali closed the front door behind her and ventured further into the hall. The peppy voice, which was coming from the kitchen, didn’t match their dingy house. It definitely didn’t sound like someone who’d be hanging out with Liv, Ali’s best friend and housemate. Dumping her bag by the hall table and chucking her coat on the stand, Ali peered into the kitchen.

  ‘First things first, I’ve got to take you all on a tour of the vendors without whom this magical and momentous day would not be possible.’

  Liv was feverishly taking notes at the kitchen table in the cramped room, her phone propped against the fruit bowl in front of her.

  ‘The Aperol Fizz bar has been generously provided by the Cocktail Boys – because we all know mama needs her pep to partay.’ The woman on the screen gave a slightly randy wink to the camera and slapped her own ass.

  ‘What are we watching?’ Ali pulled up a chair to join her friend.

  ‘The disintegration of society,’ Liv muttered. ‘AKA Instagram.’

  ‘Ah, is this essay research?’

  ‘Yep. I’m thinking there’s actually so much more to be said, though, it may even be enough for a research master’s.’

  ‘Oh my god, gals!’ Liv was interrupted by the intensely blonde, intensely polished woman in the phone. ‘Would you look at this flower arch made by my fave pal @EmmasPetals – isn’t it ah-mazing? There’s a discount code for all my followers at the moment. Just use “MamasMiniMadams” at checkout for 5 per cent off all orders. And don’t forget to follow Emma – she is just so inspiring.’

  ‘Whoa!’ Ali laughed. ‘Just to clarify, Emma’s a florist, right? Like, she hasn’t found a way to eradicate thrush or anything?’

  ‘They all talk like that.’ Liv grinned. ‘Everything is “amazing” on there. Or “empowering”.’

  As if on cue, @MamasMiniMadams was back. ‘The amazing team from @EmpowerGrooming gave me my intimate grooming for this incredible occasion. They’re all about empowering women to feel our best and most hair-free on our big days.’

  Ali mugged. ‘I do feel empowered when I shave my pits. Love how she hasn’t even mentioned the lucky groom yet.’

  ‘Oh no, this isn’t her wedding day,’ Liv corrected. ‘It’s one of the mini madams’ First Holy Communions.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Ali laughed.

  ‘Seriously.’ Liv picked up the phone to tap back a few Stories. ‘Look, here’s the little bride of Christ here. In custom Vera Wang, no less.’

  ‘Jesus!’ Ali whistled at the sight of the little girl mincing up a red carpet leading to a festooned marquee. ‘This shindig is mega. It’s like My Super Sweet Sixteen only with more rose gold and selfie sticks.’

  ‘And sponcon,’ Liv added. ‘Every scrap of this thing is being paid for by brands. It is one long exercise in pluggery.’

  Ali held the phone closer, peering at @MamasMiniMadams’ highly choreographed entrance to the party at the top of a sweeping staircase, her white dress managing to be both gigantic and highly revealing. It looked like a fairy tale. She looks like she’s moving through a dream sequence, thought Ali. ‘Why is she so blurred?’ Ali glanced at Liv.

  ‘Oh, she’s filtered to fuck.’ Liv shrugged. ‘How was work?’

  ‘Grand, the usual madness. Every scene ran long and Stephan made one of the extras cry. I’d better change – I’m heading up to my dad.’ Ali returned the phone and headed to her room.

  Ali sat on a bench at the edge of the car park of the nursing home where her dad lived. She had to go in. She’d been fannying around on her phone for ages, staving off the inevitable. It was so hard to go in there these days. He didn’t know her anymore and answering his confused questions was unbearable.

  ‘And, tell me, have you worked here
long?’ he asked her the week before. ‘I have a little girl who looks a little like you.’

  I’m that little girl, Ali wanted to scream, but she’d long given up correcting him. It was futile.

  A WhatsApp from Liv dropped in, providing welcome distraction.

  Thought you’d like an update on the Super Sweet Communion Extravaganza. The Carter Twins are now doing a set.

  Attached was a screen-recording of the Instagram account from earlier.

  Ali shielded the late afternoon sun from her phone screen. @MamasMiniMadams was wearing a different dress from earlier – Do people do outfit changes at Holy Communions? – and was being fed champagne by a Carter twin while the crowd whooped and hollered. Wow, that escalated.

  ‘Here’s my mum and dad!’ @MamasMiniMadams indicated an attractive couple in their sixties slow-dancing among the chaos of the kids, all high off their tits on giant doughnuts, and their tipsy, well-heeled parents.

  Everyone looks so polished. Ali glanced down at her own grungy tee and faded jeans. And not just the people – their whole world gleamed. The clip ended on the Carter Twins being urged to ‘Take it off’ by a rowdy crowd. The Aperol Fizz had evidently gone to their heads.

  Absentmindedly, Ali checked Instagram on the app store. ‘Like, capture and share moments …’ announced the app description. ‘Express yourself by sharing your day, the highlights and everything in between.’

  Highlights are pretty thin on the ground for me, Ali thought ruefully as she hit the Download button. A few taps and she’d set up a new account – @Ali_Jones. She hit the camera icon in the top left corner of the app and glanced around the car park, checking she was alone, before holding the phone up to her face. It was like a mirror. She could see her tired eyes and the beginnings of a spot on her chin. Behind her the sign read ‘Ailesend Dementia Care Home’. She swallowed – Insta-grim more like.

  She messed with the little buttons on the bottom of the screen. One gave her kitten ears and heavy eyeliner. Another bathed her in a celestial glow. The next button set off a beautiful wreath of pink flowers blooming about her head. Her blotchy skin was transformed. She still looked like herself, but as seen through a prism of perfection. The filter showed blooms at the edge of the frame, obscuring the sign just past her right shoulder. She turned her head this way and that but neither her flowers nor her new-found perfection slipped even for a second.

  She snapped the picture.

  It looked good.

  1

  ‘Get up!’ Ali was startled awake by Liv huffing at the door. ‘It smells like underboob sweat and curry chips in here.’

  ‘Name a more iconic duo!’ Ali shouted, grinning at her housemate’s retreating back as Liv stalked back down the hall towards the kitchen. Ali shook off the fug of sleep and was hit with the fug of … well, herself basically. Sitting up slightly, she took in the room brimming with shite, a pale January morning leaking in around the brown velvet curtains, and then noticed a deeply unnerving, moist sensation.

  ‘Ick … what the f—?’ Her left hand felt weird and she realised she’d fallen asleep with it partially submerged in a tray of curry chips, while in her right hand was her phone, of course.

  ‘Gah.’ She carefully retracted her hand and held it aloft, away from her and the, admittedly, already fairly gross bed sheets.

  With her right hand, she hit the Home button and impatiently keyed in the security code (all the same number for ease) and assessed her updates since she’d last checked at about 1 a.m. Three new followers, 180 likes on the #selfcare yoga post she only dimly remembered putting up last night and one comment from Dee, which basically didn’t count. Dee was a sweet girl from the wardrobe department at work, but she just didn’t seem to get that she and Ali were not friends.

  Ali threw the phone to the end of the bed and flexed her fingers. ‘The phone claw’ Liv called it whenever Ali complained about her stiff fingers.

  ‘Is it a sign that perhaps clutching your phone in a vice-like grip while sleeping is not the healthiest of behaviours?’ asked Liv in the voice she used when she was pretending to be joking but was, in fact, deadly serious.

  Liv had taken up sending her links to articles like ‘How to Break up with Your Phone’ in the last six months. To prove a point, Ali had begun to make a big deal of leaving her phone charging in the kitchen at night. Though this display of abstemiousness had necessitated the purchase of a decoy phone with matching cover. Expensive and probably indicative of an even bigger problem that Ali didn’t feel particularly keen to explore further. And anyway, decoy phones aside, her Instagramming was a fairly innocent little pastime.

  ‘It’s not a big deal,’ she’d argued with Liv only the evening before as they watched Cold Case File for the umpteenth time while Ali absentmindedly stroked the phone like a beloved pet, one eye on her feed and one eye on the TV. ‘Instagram is pretty and it’s fun.’ It was also something that seemed to be paying off, however slowly – she was closing in on nine thousand followers. The same could not be said for her attempts at playwriting since finishing college, which had just been wall-to-wall rejection and left her feeling utterly worthless.

  After Liv had ambled off to bed, Ali’d lain alone in her room with the phone propped on the pillow facing her – the stories of beautiful girls with perfect lives washing over her – when she’d felt the familiar spike of upset puncture her trance-like state.

  Emma O’Brien, a fashion blogger from Cork, was getting ready for the Rebel Gin event – an event Ali hadn’t been invited to. I have the same amount of followers as her, Ali thought, peeved. She hit Emma’s smiling profile pic to bring up the girl’s account. ‘Hmm – 11K followers. That’s up from a month ago …’ An hour passed and Ali, completely engrossed in a deep Insta-dive on Emma, had barely noticed. That was when she’d gone for the chips. And bought the wine.

  ‘It is Tuesday after all,’ she’d reasoned when her body veered almost of its own accord towards the Esso garage for a bottle of white. ‘I’m days from cracking 9K followers – that’s worth celebrating.’

  The wine had stirred a bit of optimism (the first few glasses always did) and that’s when she’d put out the yoga mat, crystals and candles for her #selfcare post and slurred out a few thoughts in the caption about looking after yourself and practising mindfulness.

  Now, remembering the optimism of the previous evening, Ali retrieved the phone, reminding herself that one of her #goals was to be more mindful of the good things and three new followers and 180 likes is no bad feat. Consulting the time – 7 a.m. – she soothed her mounting anxiety: lots of people would be barely up yet. Speaking of, she needed to get going. She had to have coffee with the mothership, Mini, at 8.30 before she needed to get into the TV station for work.

  Ali was a production assistant on Durty Aul’ Town, the top and only soap opera in the country. When she’d taken the job to get a foot in the door, as her drama-studies tutor in college had suggested, she’d assumed it would just be short term while she figured out her plan. Then quite rapidly three years had slipped by and she’d gotten no closer to the writers’ room, and the more time she spent adjacent to a career in TV and theatre, the more she wondered if it was what she really wanted after all.

  She hauled herself out of bed and sat on the side, carefully avoiding the now empty bottle of Sauvignon lolling on the floor and setting the chip tray down alongside it. She frowned at her greasy hand, holding it away from her before wiping it on the carpet. The carpet’s minging anyway, she figured.

  She hit the search function on Insta and entered ‘S’, prompting the app to supply her with the name ‘Shelly Devine’. Ali opened the profile (Shelly Devine, 255K followers: Happy wife of @DivineDanDevine, mama to @BabyGeorgie, Loving the journey but the juggle is REAL!) and checked on the last post. The picture showed a pristine Shelly with soft dark waves cascading over her shoulders captioned:

  That fresh hair feeling, Thanks @BinnyK @Copenhairgen #FreshHairDontCare #blowdry #feelgood #selfcar
e #haircare #influencer #iger #dubliniger #dublinigers #dubiger #dubigers #shellyisdivine #BlowinOutTheCobwebs #LolAtLife #lovelife #TakeMeNowMrDevine

  The post, barely an hour old, already had 5,736 likes and 54 comments. What must that even feel like? Ali wondered. She hit Home and opened the Notepad app, selecting one of her docs in progress, ‘Shelly stats’. She updated the info then reverted to Instagram, liked Shelly’s selfie, added ‘You look amazing’ and hit Post. Ali slumped back against the pillows but then, feeling troubled, abruptly snatched up the phone once more. She frantically unlocked the screen and brought up the post of Shelly’s irritatingly immaculate face again. Hunched over the phone, Ali found her comment and hit Delete. She retyped ‘You look amazing’ and added seven exclamation marks and a heart-eyes emoji. She hit Post again and settled back against the pillows.

  Ali scrolled through Shelly’s feed absentmindedly while she engaged in a few minutes of deep, gut-churning loathing towards Shelly Devine. Ugh, she’s so basic – why does everyone love her so much?

  Ali frequently wondered who the 255K followers even were. ‘Who even likes this? It’s so vanilla,’ she raged as she scrolled obsessively over coffee, lunch, dinner and on her pillow at night.

  Ali’s own meagre following had been building steadily since she’d joined last year but it was an uphill battle. She’d tried every trick in the ‘how to become an influencer’ book but thus far her biggest fans seemed to be her own burner accounts (@JamieC, @SheilaMalloy and @KerryConnor) who, combined, had about sixteen followers but were frequent and enthusiastic commenters on all of Ali’s pictures.

  Coming up in a few months was the social media event of the year, the Glossies, where Ali had hoped to be nominated for Best Newcomer but really, at this rate, she’d be more likely to be hit with another bout of cystitis than make a splash in the influencer pool in time for it.

  Just then, a new post dropped into Shelly’s feed. The pic showed a radiant new mum Shelly cradling her baby, captioned: