Exposure

by Talitha Stevenson

  'It's like being at the scene of your own death,' Arianne said. They were all quiet for a moment.

  'We should drink champagne or something,' said Luke. 'We're fucking lucky to be alive. Let's stop and buy a couple of bottles of champagne and celebrate.'

  Arianne rested her head on his shoulder. He had said something that pleased her. It was an immediately addictive sensation. He found himself looking out of the window as if to find space for the deluge of pride. She could move him from despair to elation by the slightest sign of her approval. Just a few weeks later he would have bankrupted himself for her, left his job, sold all his possessions. Her personality destroyed all sense of proportion, the way the height and velocity of an aeroplane can make the whole canopy of a forest look like moss held close to the face. Luke felt his mind's eye spiral back into his imagination in search of a scale by which to measure the importance of her remarks. Her head tattooed its shape on his shoulder.

  What accounted for this effect she had? He was not the first man to feel it.

  In fact the explanation, when accompanied by her unquestionable physical beauty, was surprisingly simple. There are few examples of unqualified achievement in a lifetime. Success is generally tainted by all the failures that came before it, or diminished by a prologue of endurance and compromise. Naturally, people are driven to seek out the indubitable. Some climb mountains—after all, who can argue with a boot on a rock at the whistling summit? Some jump out of helicopters, some swim with sharks. For those who cared to face it, Arianne presented a similar challenge. She came with an insoluble problem: a gap in her heart, which, she would explain, could never, never, never be filled. It had been made long ago and she dared each of her boyfriends to do their best, each time genuinely hoping that if they did hurl themselves in, they would not simply be lost like the one before.

  She was, essentially, desperately lonely and in need of reassurance and, having received a long tutelage from a serially unfaithful and narcissistic father (with silver hair and a brow lift), she was dangerously knowing about the male ego. She could tempt men to leap off cliffs just to prove the strength of their dive, but their suicides went only a little way to making her feel better. And then, of course, she was left alone.

  'Oh, that is such a great idea, Luke,' she said. 'We should get magnums.'

  They carried the champagne, the Chinese takeaway and the extra DVDs up the stairs to Luke's flat. The cleaner had been that day and every surface glistened. The amazing TV shone like a portal to another universe. The stereo was sleek and minute—miraculous. These were his hi-tech possessions and he was glad she was seeing them. He put on a film but no one was really watching it. They were all slightly hysterical.

  'Were you knocked out, Luke? I wish one of you cared enough to remember how long I was out for. I have so definitely got concussion,' Ludo said. 'There was no fucking way I was staying at that hospital for observation, though.'

  'You don't want observation, you want an audience, darling,' Arianne said. 'No rock-and-roll death tonight. Next time.'

  'Next time? I'm never getting into a car again. I'm going to walk everywhere and never cross roads,' Ludo said.

  'Which means you can't go anywhere.'

  'I shall wave at friends when I get to the end of my street. I'll order in. I'll get fitness equipment.'

  'You just went in a taxi,' Luke said. 'You already went in a car.'

  'What? Oh—don't be strict with me. I'll cry.'

  Luke laughed and passed him a bottle. 'Here, have a drink.'

  'Oh, I hate opening these.'

  'I'll do it, then.'

  Jessica threw the magazine she had been flicking through on to the floor. 'Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. We could all have been fucking killed,' she said—in the blood-drained voice they had all reverted to from time to time throughout the day. This observation had been made hundreds of times already, but on each occasion it arrived with the force of the unexpected. The bang of the champagne cork startled them and they all laughed. Jessica held out glasses one by one, speaking more brightly, more philosophically: 'We could, though. We could all have been dead now.'

  'Perhaps we are,' Ludo told her. He made his eyes comically wide.

  'Well, perhaps we are.'

  'Oh, don't. You're scaring me and I'm fragile. Why does no one ever recognize this?'

  Jessica flapped her hand at him and turned away. 'Are you scared of dying, Luke?'

  'Me? I ... I don't really think about it.'

  'No. Me neither. Why is that?'

  Ludo said, 'Because we're young. Isn't it? We have a false sense of invincibility. I'm completely happy with that.'

  'Are you really?'

  'Oh, why not, Jessica?'

  'Just because it's self-deception. Yeah— yawn, yawm. Look, I know you think I'm being morbid...'

  'Which you are.'

  '...but we could get killed any minute. No reason why not, just because we're in our twenties.'

  'It's chance. Chaos,' Arianne said. 'Isn't it? I mean—oh, you know what I'm talking about.'

  'Look, I'm just going to keep fit, have my wheatgrass juice, avoid sugar and fat and intravenous opiates, except when I've been very, very good—and I think I'll be fine.'

  'But you won't, Ludo. You will die—one day.'

  'Thanks, Jessica. This I already knew.'

  'What I mean is, we don't let ourselves think about actual death, do we? That's why this is all such a shock. Look at us. Are we prepared?'

  'What do you want—Bibles? Wills? OK—Luke, you can have my Asian-babes collection, all right, mate? I have nothing else of significant value. Jessica, we're exhausted, for God's sake.'

  'No, it's more than that,' Arianne said. 'She's right.'

  'There —your own cousin agrees with me. I'm just saying it's like we think about getting older instead these days. It's true—that's what we do. We worry about wrinkles, about sagging.'

  'But it's all death,'Arianne said. 'It's all fear of death. That's what all those face creams are for. So you don't see the signs of death.'

  'Why are you telling me?'

  'Not just you, Ludo.'

  'Tell him then. Have you ever seen anyone look more complacent than Luke? Look at those broad, dependable shoulders. Bastard. Anyway, I do not go to the gym or look after my skin because I'm afraid of dying.'

  'Are you absolutely sure?'

  'No, Arianne. Change the subject. Who do you get this from? Aunt Marie? Not my side anyway.'

  'You can't change the subject,' she said. 'We nearly died. We've got death on us—in our hair and our clothes, stinky like cigarette smoke when you come home from a club.'

  Ludo had found Luke's panama hat on the back of the bedroom door with his dressing-gown. He put them on and drank out of the champagne bottle. Somehow he always found a clown's outfit.

  'Look, we survived, darling. This is the important and, moreover, this is the scientific fact. The rest is speculation.'

  'Science is like that too, now,' Arianne said, 'isn't it? I don't think it is just facts any more. I mean—I get that impression. Don't you?'

  'Fuck knows. But I'll tell you one thing that is a fucking fact. I'm going to sue that bastard for all he's worth and go away somewhere nice. Anywhere in the whole wide world. Where shall I go?'

  No one said anything.

  'Will you come to Chile with me, Luke? Start over?'

  'Definitely,' Luke said. He grinned and looked down at his hands.

  He and Ludo were growing less and less like each other. Luke had started to feel embarrassed by what he saw as his friend's immaturity, his reluctance to discuss anything that might lead him to question himself, his money, his holidays. Ludo's performances had always seemed joyous before, but now they were hollow and revealing. His hairline was starting to recede.

  Ludo had no job. He had a trust fund and really didn't need the money. He had been a species of assistant for a while at his father's property firm, but the work had gradually faded out—or been forgotten
. Luke found it impossible to understand how his friend could have so litde ambition, even though he took it for granted that Ludo could drop by and see him for lunch on weekdays and was hurt if ever he said he was busy. For a long time Luke had passionately envied Ludo his three-day weekends in Paris or Rome, and had sat near that high sheen of leisure-wealth in a state of longing and admiration. But at that moment he found he desperately did not want the girls to think they were alike. He needed to separate himself.

  'It is true, though, Ludo,' he said, feeling treacherous. 'It was just chance that we survived.' The two girls angled themselves towards him, acknowledging he was on their side. It felt wonderful.

  'Exactly,' Jessica said. 'How can you not think about what happened? If I'd forgotten to wear my seatbelt, say, which I very often do, I could have gone right through the fucking windscreen and broken my back on the road. I could have smashed my skull open.'

  The word 'skull' was shocking—it contained something of the sight of that first dead pet, that first imperfect adult explanation that Grandpa had gone somewhere in the sky to rest, and that, well, no, it was not possible to visit. They glanced at one another uneasily and Jessica said, 'But, hey, it didn't happen.' She shuddered. 'OK, maybe you're right, Ludo.'

  'I am. Thank you and goodnight.'

  They listened to Arianne sending a text message, turning off her mobile phone and—again—dropping it casually into her handbag. Jessica took a bag of weed out of her coat pocket. 'Yes, enough of this thinking palaver. Have you got any Rizla, Luke? I'm out.'

  'Anyway, we do think about death,' Ludo said, unexpectedly, 'all the time. What about the news? Terrorism, famine, earthquakes? Incredible horror stories all fucking day long!'

  'Yeah, but it's almost like we can take it that way, don't you think?' Jessica said. 'If it's amazing or terrible. Or if it's in another country. Or if it's unnatural—if it's cigarettes or radiation from your microwave that's killing you. Or an evil disease—AIDS, cancer. Better still an amazing and terrible evil disease caused by something unnatural from another country. We just can't handle the fact that it simply is happening in a totally ordinary way to all of us. Even in our fucking twenties.'

  'You're telling me that looking at, like, hundreds of people dead from an earthquake on TV isn't thinking about death?'

  'Not from your sitting room in Portobello it isn't. Not like looking at your dead uncle. Not like being in a car crash.'

  'I might be wrong,' Luke said, glancing at Jessica for reassurance, 'but in a funny way it's like it makes you feel better watching the news—the people starving in Africa and so on. You get to see just how far off it is, just how much it wouldn't fit into your lifestyle.'

  'Lifestyle? Thanks, Mr Ad Man,' said Ludo. 'What does that have to do with it?'

  Arianne said, 'You shouldn't laugh at him—he's got a point. You're always laughing, aren't you? You know it's a sign of insecurity never to be able to take anything seriously?'

  'Is it? My God, that explains everything!' Ludo said. He looked slightly hurt, beneath his smile.

  Arianne spoke patiently to him: 'What Luke means is it's comforting in a kind of horrible way. Like scary films about mad, demonic psychopaths. Because all anyone says when they see the real serial killer in the paper is "But he looks so... normal!' Normal—like dying in your friend's car on the way out for a drink.'

  Her eyes were fixed on some object on the coffee-table, her fists clenched in her lap. A horrifying thought appeared to pass through her mind; she shook it out of her hair and looked up again. 'So I remember at school we had this talk on chaos theory. They showed us patterns on a projector.'

  'Fractals,' Luke said, feeling confident now, feeling authenticated.

  'Fractals. Exactly. I can't remember what they were, though. Can you remember?'

  'Just that it's something to do with chaos. Sorry.' Immediately he wished he hadn't spoken.

  'Who knows about the pictures? Anyway, the big idea is about how a tiny little thing you would never have noticed can change everything. In the atmosphere it could be the movement of one particle. Just change one particle and you can affect the entire world. Gradually the air flow changes, a wind builds, the sea gets rough,' you saw her mind leap behind her eyes, 'sharks move inland towards children.' She lit a cigarette and took a deep drag on it. 'Let's say there's a couple who were going to the beach that day. They're listening to the radio in the kitchen.' She did the radio voice:' "Sharks are reported near the Summer Beach area." They decide to stay at home. They'll spend the day in the garden—he's just put in a new water feature for them to enjoy and, hey, she's got home-made lemonade in the fridge.' She smiled, to illustrate peaceful resolution. Then she dropped the expression abruptly. 'Somewhere else, ten minutes later, a small aeroplane is struggling in the high wind. The pilot isn't experienced—he only got his licence a week ago. The lessons were a birthday present from his girlfriend. Anyway, he loses control and the plane starts heading inland.' She turned to the dark window, took another drag on her cigarette and drew her hand through the air in an arc, making twinkling, raining motions with her fingertips. 'Falling, falling, falling,' she said. Her voice was gentle and kind, just as the world could seem to be.

  'Anyway, after the crash, when all the TV reporters are jamming up the street, because this is a big human-interest story—a plane crashing into a house in a quiet litde cul-de-sac like that—there's only one neighbour who's prepared to do an interview. She tells the anchorman how sad it was that God chose Mr and Mrs Jones because they were a sweet couple and they loved that garden of theirs—and they'd only just put in the water feature, after all.'

  They all stared at her. Arianne's sense of disaster showed connoisseurship: she had left sharks near children, she had sent planes crashing into people quietly holding glasses of lemonade. She was laughing at herself as she stubbed out the cigarette. 'So my imagination is weird. Whatever. The big fat scientific discovery is that it's literally impossible to predict what will happen.'

  'Is that right?' Ludo said. 'That can't be right. That sounds wrong.'

  'I think it is right,' Luke said. 'I saw a TV thing about it. The butterfly flaps its wing and causes a hurricane.'

  'Yes—yes, that's an example,' Arianne told him. 'We all know this stuff. You hear it all the time.'

  Or you, Luke thought, what you have already done to my mind, my life. Suddenly it struck him that meeting Arianne again after the wasted miracle of her being at a bar with Andy Jones might be some kind of sign or message.

  'What do the pictures mean, though? Something about snowflakes and computers,' Arianne said, oblivious to his thoughts.

  He felt his heart going, just as it had on that icy afternoon when he had thought he would never see the incredible girl again.

  'I mean, how does it all connect? People say all this stuff about infinite possibilities, randomness, chance,' she said, letting the words excite her with their remoteness, their obscure poetry, 'about parallel universes... black holes ...'

  She was frightening him.

  'I might never have met you again,' Luke said. He stared at her passionately, his face flushed.

  There was a silence. Jessica tried to make a lighter work, scraping the flint a few times. Then came the sound of the flame burning the end of a cigarette. Arianne turned her face to him. 'How do you mean "again", Luke? We've never met before, have we?'

  'No—I know. I mean. It was just a figure of ... I just—I thought I saw you somewhere before, that's all. Not met. Just saw...'

  He stood up and searched around for the Rizla Jessica needed, feeling his own heartbeat swelling through him as if it was actually distorting his shape. When he felt able to turn round again, he saw she was smiling obscurely, pulling an invisible hair off her sweater.

  Jessica laughed to fill the awkward gap. 'So,' she said, 'maybe we'll all go to Chile with you, Ludo. Probably fewer black holes there—what with all the sunshine.'

  Jessica felt sorry for Luke, who often embarras
sed himself in front of girls. There was no need for him to be nervous—she imagined he was exactly what most women were after: he was tall and friendly; he had the broad shoulders and so on. At any rate, he was the best-looking guy she knew. He was phenomenally insecure about his intellect, though. Sadly, this was understandable, given the brilliant, neurotic sister and the closed-off tragic dad, who dismissed all his son's observations as trifling and spoilt.

  Why did he do that? Why give your child privileges only to hate him for accepting them when they were all he knew? Jessica felt she had rarely seen anyone more at war with himself than Mr Langford, who appeared constantly to be in a state of adoration and loathing of his own wealth. He luxuriated—sometimes almost vulgarly, which made her like him—in his fine clothes, his good wine, but when he was challenged by the predictably left-wing outspokenness of his daughter, he was prone to moments of searing shame. The daughter plainly knew this and she was the one member of the family who could exert power over her father's mood if she chose to. This game of chess was beyond Luke, who seemed only to have a relationship with his mother. Mrs Langford was a lovely, intuitive person who, like too many women of that generation in Jessica's opinion, devalued her worth altogether by presenting herself with an apology, as if she was a consolation prize for those who weren't lucky enough to win the attention of her husband.

  'Oh, all right,' Ludo told her, 'girls can come to Chile too. At least now you're talking sense. Hey, Luke, doesn't Davina's mother have a house out there?'

  'Davina's mother? Where?'

  'In Chile!

  'OK, OK. Can I ask you people something?'Jessica said. 'How come everyone you know has, like, five houses?' She licked the Rizla and raised her eyebrows.