Bright Young Things

by Scarlett Thomas

  Picking up his newspaper and the rest of the cigarettes, he struts out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Carla wrinkles her nose as soon as she sees him and places her small white hand over the telephone receiver.

  ‘God, Jamie, what are you doing?’ she half-says, half-mouths.

  ‘I’m going down the pub.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You heard.’

  She rolls her eyes and speaks into the receiver. ‘I’ll call you back.’

  Jamie stands defiant, enjoying the smoke.

  ‘Are you dumbing down?’ asks Carla eventually.

  ‘Dumbing down?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Dumbing down?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  Jamie laughs. ‘Where did you get that from?’

  She flicks her fringe to one side. ‘The Telegraph Magazine.’

  ‘You haven’t got a clue, have you?’

  ‘Me? Jamie, you need help.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  The pub is brown and quiet. Jamie hasn’t been in here before, but he likes the calm, contemplative atmosphere of men with nowhere to go. He orders a pint and sits on his own at a table near the dartboard. What Jamie needs, what he really needs, is to strike out on his own. His degree is over and he has no reason to stay in Cambridge. Just because they all want him to be a mathematician doesn’t mean he has to be one. Anyway, it’s only his ex-tutors and Carla who really care.

  He browses the Appointments section of the newspaper, looking for something to get him out of all this. Something far away – further than London, if possible. He’s not qualified for any of the creative, arty jobs he’d really like. But then he sees something that intrigues him. Bright Young Things wanted for big project. The address is in Edinburgh. Bingo. He sends an SAE on the way home, scared that he’ll lose his nerve otherwise. He doesn’t tell anyone that he’s applied, because when he disappears, he doesn’t want anyone to know where he’s gone.

  Thea

  ‘Push it back in, dear.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Push it back in.’

  Thea considers the situation. She’s in a small toilet in an old people’s home, with an old woman, Mabel Wells, bent over and waiting to be wiped. Blocking her way to the door is a big wheelchair, reminding her of her previous dilemma: how to actually get the woman on the toilet. She has never taken anyone to the toilet before; never even pushed a wheelchair. Her whole right side still hurts from being squashed against the wall by the substantial weight of the old lady, after the struggle to get her out of the chair. Now Mabel is balanced precariously, leaning on Thea’s left shoulder, and there is a big red turnip-shaped thing hanging out of her anus. It looks like an internal organ.

  Thea sweats, steadying herself on the silver hand-rail.

  ‘Push it back in, dear.’

  Mabel has a voice like a witch.

  ‘Push it back in?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, Veronica.’

  ‘It’s, um, Thea.’

  Mabel squints, wiggling her large bottom.

  ‘The-a,’ she says, pretending to struggle with the word. ‘What a peculiar name.’

  Thea doesn’t say anything.

  ‘Are you new?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I like Veronica.’

  ‘I’m sure you do. She’s back on tomorrow morning.’

  Mabel shifts her hand on Thea’s shoulder, grunts, and says, ‘It’s a prolapse, dear.’

  ‘What, you mean that’s your bowel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’re sure I should push it back in?’

  ‘Yes, dear.’

  ‘Won’t it hurt?’

  ‘Just get on with it. There’s a horrible draft.’

  Thea scans the room for some plastic gloves. Those things are like gold dust in here, although it’s supposedly Rule 1: Always Use Gloves. But there are none. Taking a deep breath, she leans over and gets behind Mabel, scanning the prolapse briefly. After counting to three in her head (a habit picked up as a child as a strategy for pulling off plasters), she cups it in her right hand and pushes. It glows purple and wobbles around like a jelly. It’s like trying to push a jelly through a straw.

  ‘It won’t go,’ she says.

  ‘Push harder, dear. It won’t hurt me.’

  Yeah, thinks Thea, but what if it explodes? She says nothing and pushes harder. Eventually it sucks itself back up. Thea wipes the perspiration from her head with her left hand.

  ‘Now take me back,’ squeaks Mabel impatiently. ‘Big Break is on.’

  ‘You just finished watching it.’

  ‘Really?’ She sighs. ‘Oh dear.’

  The day room is full at this time of the evening. The TV is on, but not many people are watching it. The current programme is some kind of thriller, the sort that is shown in two parts over a weekend. On screen a young woman walks down an alleyway, unaware of the man following her. He catches up and pushes her against the wall, pressing a knife to her throat. You can’t see his face. Thea turns away; the scene makes her uncomfortable. She’d change the channel, but Rule 17 says that the TV must always stay on BBC1, except for half an hour on each weekday when the old people watch Countdown.

  Thea wonders why she doesn’t find the day room depressing. Normal people find this kind of thing depressing. Her problem, or perhaps her advantage, is that she sees things through a camera in her head. And because her camera is objective, things are neither happy nor sad, they just are. She assesses the material in this room. Over in the corner is an old lady, senile, with only one breast. These facts should be introduced by a voiceover, Thea decides, mentally storyboarding the scene for her imaginary documentary: Almost Dead.

  The woman is supposed to be doing a jigsaw, but she’s trying to eat one of the pieces. The jigsaw was her daughter’s idea. She visited earlier, but has gone now. Thea’s camera zooms in on the chunky wooden piece as the woman forces it into her mouth. It’s too big for a child to swallow, but the woman has a greater chance of managing it. Her false teeth are on the table next to her, and Thea mentally edits in a shot of them before cutting back to the woman as she begins to chew, her mouth full of gums and wood.

  ‘What the hell is she doing?’ demands Matron, sweeping into the room.

  ‘Sorry?’ says Thea, pausing her imaginary camera.

  Matron is a devout Christian, and Rule 5 is that no one must blaspheme in the residential home at any time. So far today she has said ‘God’ twice, and ‘hell’ three times. Now she briskly walks over to the woman with the jigsaw and rips the wooden piece out of her mouth. The woman starts to moo like a cow. Camera back on, Thea pans from the mooing woman to Matron, who’s walking back towards her, waving the square of wet jigsaw.

  ‘This,’ she hisses, ‘could kill her. Where did she get it?’

  ‘Her daughter.’

  ‘Stupid bloody woman. Jesus Christ.’ Blasphemy six, seven and eight. Although, does bloody count?

  Thea focuses on the piece of wood as it dances in front of her face. It’s a fragment of Thomas the Tank Engine, his little furnace and chimney.

  Cut from swearing matron to CU on jigsaw piece.

  ‘Are you listening to me?’ says Matron tiredly.

  ‘Of course. What should I do next?’

  ‘Have they all been toiletted?’

  ‘Yes,’ Thea lies.

  ‘Very good. Just keep an eye on them, then. See if they need anything – but don’t give them anything to eat or drink because then they’ll all have to go again, and the night girls won’t be happy if they have to toilet them twice. I’ll come round with the medication in about half an hour.’

  ‘OK.’

  As soon as Matron leaves the room they start complaining. One woman wants a biscuit, another wants sherry. The other part-time girl, Louise, comes bustling around from the laundry room and explains to Thea that the old people only have sherry at twelve forty-five on weekdays. Thea composes a shot around Louise. She’s ab
out seventeen, plain like a scone, and fat.

  ‘You coming for a fag?’ she asks.

  ‘Yeah,’ Thea says. As they leave the room she notices a puddle forming under the chair of one of the old people. She turns her head guiltily and pretends she hasn’t seen it. They walk along the dim corridor to the staff room. Brenda and Lucy are already there, with a pot of tea and fags on the go.

  ‘How are you getting on?’ Brenda asks Thea as they sit down.

  ‘OK,’ says Thea, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘You’re a student, aren’t you?’ asks Lucy.

  ‘Just finished my degree.’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Bristol.’

  ‘And now you’re living in Brighton?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m staying with my foster parents for a bit while . . .’

  ‘My Luke’s just got a place at university,’ interrupts Brenda proudly.

  ‘Really?’ says Lucy. ‘You must be so pleased.’

  ‘Yeah, well, my Bill still wants him to go in the army like he did.’

  ‘What does Luke want to do?’ Lucy asks.

  ‘He wants to be a DJ.’

  ‘That’s cool,’ Thea says.

  ‘Not when he’s living under my roof,’ Brenda snorts.

  Lucy pulls a magazine out of her bag and flicks through it. She starts talking to Brenda about some plate she wants to buy and hang on her wall. Then Brenda takes out her false teeth and talks about denture cream. Thea composes a shot or two around them, but they are unsatisfactory subjects. There are a few old Sunday supplements and a couple of newspapers on the table. Thea picks up the last Monday’s Guardian and opens it to the job section.

  By the time Thea leaves the nursing home it’s gone eight. That means there’s only a couple of hours before Leisure 2000 shuts. This is the arcade in which Thea has spent all of her free time since she finished university. She used to hang around in here sometimes as a child, addicted to Space Invaders. Now she’ll shoot anything that moves, fly anything that flies and stalk dinosaurs until the arcade closes. She loves the hazy hours away from everything; they feel stolen, and therefore delicious. It’s like the feeling of having a big jar of sweets and being able to eat them all, or perhaps the feeling you get before you have bad sex. You know you’ll feel sick afterwards, but it doesn’t stop you doing it. The thing is, as long as Thea’s sitting in a miniature cockpit or standing behind a big gun, she’s not making films, and although it makes her hate herself, she can’t really help it. It’s all the fault of that Cardiff MA admission person.

  The thing is, until the Cardiff interview, Thea had never failed at anything in her entire life. She was one of those ten-grade-A GCSE girls, whose picture appeared in the local paper alongside snaps of Abby and Nicky, school friends she doesn’t see any more. After GCSEs, Thea stayed at the girls’ grammar school she already attended and took three A levels. She got two As and a U. The U was contested and later Thea was given a third A. By that time it was too late to take up the university place she’d been offered, so she went travelling for a few months. Then, eventually, she did do the course she wanted, with most of her classmates a year younger than her and lacking any of the experience she’d gained from travelling. When she returned from university with VD and a First, she had nothing to do for the summer except sit in the arcade and play games. She even succeeded at the games she played; that was part of their allure. She always took top score, always finished right to the credits.

  Cardiff was the only thing she ever failed. The MA was full by the time she applied.

  Bryn

  The Guardian is on the dashboard of the MG, along with the Sun, the Daily Mail and Loot. The guy behind the wheel doesn’t touch them, doesn’t move, because if he moves he will be seen. He can’t be seen. He smokes slowly, his arm propped on the window frame. The car smells sweet with skunk weed, smoke melting out of the open window.

  Number 37 looks quiet today, like yesterday, but she’s got to come out some time, right? Doesn’t she need milk, or fags, or whatever? Bryn could do without this today, but Tank needs his cash this afternoon. Jesus. It shouldn’t be this fucking difficult. Wait for her to come our snap, snap, snap, and go home. Out of this gyppo council estate.

  The radio’s on low, playing a remix of Inner City’s Good Life. The tune lifts in the wrong place and goes all Latino. The original never did that. Bryn presses the button for the local station. An old Whitney Houston tune. Sorted.

  The early August sun trips in the window, hotter than yesterday. Whitney’s singing about her married lover, about waiting for him to come round and fuck her. Outside the car a couple of blokes from the pub walk past, then Tank’s mate Gilbert, on his own with his kid. He’s probably had his kid down the pub again, giving it blowbacks in the garden to send it to sleep. Someone should tell Social Services, but they never will. Around here, child abuse is a conspiracy. Everyone does it. You don’t tell.

  Bryn looks away. Gilbert’s the local fuck-up. He got put into care when he was twelve after getting in with a local paedophile ring, giving the old men blow-jobs for Mars Bars. All the other kids called him Cadbury, old enough to make up the nickname, but too young to bother with the fact that Cadbury never made Mars Bars. At fifteen, Gilbert got kicked out of care and moved in with some bloke called Tracey. When Gilbert didn’t pay the rent, Tracey threatened – seriously – to saw off Gilbert’s head with one of his chainsaws, so he went and worked on some fishing boat.

  When he came back he blew all his savings on a bet down the pub. Then Tank put him in touch with some Bosnian bloke whose sister wanted British nationality and Gilbert married her. He got paid five hundred for the wedding and was due another five hundred for the divorce. But before the divorce could come through, Gilbert got busted by the Home Office. About five minutes after the man in the suit had knocked on the door, a journalist from the Sun turned up. No one knew how they’d all found out about Gilbert.

  No one except Bryn.

  Gilbert was inside for two years after some other stuff was taken into consideration, but Bryn didn’t feel bad.

  Bryn’s always been pretty shit at everything, but he’s good with a camera. When he was twenty, he did a BTEC National Diploma in photography at the South-East Essex College. After that he went to London to try to get a job in the music press, but he didn’t have any contacts and no one wanted to know him. He came back to Southend and now he deals drugs, trying to get the odd bit of freelance photography work on the side. Every so often he supplies his contact at the Sun with stories, like the one about Tank’s housing benefit scam, but it never goes any further. They usually pay him for the tip-off and send one of their own photographers, without even looking at Bryn’s shots. The job he’s doing now is for a man he met down the pub. Bryn doesn’t know why he wants pictures of Fiona.

  He sits and waits. Nothing.

  At about four he packs it in and goes round to Tank’s.

  ‘Bryn, my man,’ says Tank, holding out his fist as a welcome, pretending to be black. His fingers still have the letters ‘l o v e’ and ‘h a t e’ tattooed on them from when he was whatever he was before he decided he was black. Tank is about forty, has three kids he never sees (Ketamine, Jasmine and Marley), and long dreadlocks, which are naturally blond. He’s wearing beige combats, a black short-sleeved shirt with a Japanese pattern on it, and Adidas sandals. Bryn isn’t sure about the sandals.

  They walk into Tank’s sitting room, where an audience of seven people watches as Bryn explains to Tank why he hasn’t got the money today and negotiates another half-ounce bag of weed for the time being. Afterwards, Tank takes out his special bag and gives Bryn a spliff’s worth of some draw that’s supposed to taste a bit like chocolate. It’s solid, though, which Bryn doesn’t smoke that often, and can’t sell down the Reggae Club either. He thanks Tank and checks his weed. It looks unfamiliar. Tank explains that it’s Purple Sensi from Amsterdam, where they grow it under ultra-violet. He shows everyone the big purple buds,
then goes on about female flowers and all that shit. Bryn’s heard it before. Everyone’s heard it before.

  There’s some porn film playing on the TV. Next to the TV is a stack of VCRs, all recording the porn film. If you ask Tank he’ll tell you how he’s not into porn and disrespecting women, which is a load of shit. But still, the pirating gear isn’t his. It belongs to Wilf, the bloke from upstairs. The others start talking about the latest drug-bust on the house. Some of them were here on the day it took place so they’re comparing stories, like war veterans. Tank goes back into the kitchen.

  On the TV screen a Japanese girl is taking her clothes off for a much older man. She looks about thirteen. All the girls in the room are deliberately not watching. ‘Mad’ Mike is looking, and Bryn, but that’s all. Bryn’s not embarrassed. This counts as work, for two reasons. Firstly, because it’s only a matter of time before he lets the Sun know about Wilf, and also, because Bryn is interested in pictures. It’s his job. And if the pictures move, he isn’t bothered.

  He finishes skinning up his joint and sparks it up, passing it straight to a girl he’s never seen before. This is the way it always is. You come round Tank’s to score, and then you have to stay and have a spliff. If you didn’t, Tank would bitch to all the others who come round, and tell them how you’re rude or disrespectful or whatever that week’s word for cunt is. Tank would make an example of you and go on about how you only use him for his contacts, his cheap drugs and free entry to Uno’s on the seafront. Yeah, right. But you’ve still got to play the game.

  ‘Hey, Bryn,’ calls Tank from the kitchen.

  The Japanese girl lies down on a small bed. The older man climbs on top of her.

  ‘What?’ Bryn calls back.

  ‘Come in here, mate. I’ve got something for you.’

  ‘Yeah, coming.’

  He walks slowly into the kitchen. Tank’s got his big mirror out on the work surface. There’s a line of white powder on it and the remains of one that Tank’s obviously just done. He’s shaking his head a little, his Medusa hair snaking over his shoulders.