Bright Young Things

by Scarlett Thomas

  ‘Yeah.’ Jamie points at the single sheet in front of him. ‘This is the list. The other stuff’s private.’

  ‘Fuck the list,’ says Paul. ‘I want to see the private stuff.’

  Anne smirks. ‘Come on, Jamie. Pleeeease?’

  He frowns. ‘Why are you all so interested in me all of a sudden?’

  ‘Because you’re doing something secret,’ says Emily, looking up from her feet.

  ‘And that makes me interesting?’

  ‘I think so,’ says Emily. ‘Isn’t that what makes most people interesting?’

  ‘What?’ says Thea. ‘Having something to hide?’

  ‘I think it’s better if people are upfront,’ says Bryn. The last thing somebody hid from him was genital warts.

  ‘No,’ says Emily. ‘Think about it. People who are easy to read are usually the most boring people. It’s always the mysterious people who are cool. You know if you’re on the tube or something, and everyone’s reading the Evening Standard, but there’s one person reading a private letter or writing on a notepad or something? That person will seem more interesting because they’re doing something private. It’s like if someone’s having a conversation on their mobile in a really loud voice, it really pisses you off, but if they are whispering and trying not to be heard, you want to know what they are saying.’

  ‘So I’m interesting because I’ve got some bits of paper in my pocket?’ says Jamie.

  ‘Sounds a bit mad to me,’ says Thea. ‘But she is sort of right.’

  ‘Does this mean I wasn’t interesting before?’ he asks.

  ‘Of course you were,’ gushes Emily. Thea gives her a look.

  ‘Anyway, can we see them now?’ asks Anne.

  ‘No!’ says Jamie.

  ‘Leave him alone,’ says Thea.

  ‘Can we at least see the list of suspects?’ asks Emily.

  ‘Of course,’ he says. ‘But I haven’t got very far with it.’

  ‘Are we going to make this defence shelter or not?’ asks Bryn, more interested in doing something physical.

  ‘It’s getting a bit dark,’ says Thea. ‘Can someone put the light on?’

  Chapter Five

  The light doesn’t work.

  ‘The one in the cellar didn’t work either,’ says Jamie.

  ‘Maybe all the bulbs have gone,’ suggests Bryn.

  Emily yawns. She still feels incredibly tired. Thea gets up and leaves the room.

  ‘There’s no electricity in the house,’ she says when she returns one minute later.

  ‘How do you know?’ Emily asks sleepily.

  ‘Well, none of the lights work, and there’s no meter.’

  ‘There must be electricity,’ says Jamie.

  The light’s fading fast now.

  ‘Well you try to find some sign of it, then,’ says Thea.

  ‘There are three in here,’ says Jamie. ‘Three signs, I mean.’

  ‘A riddle,’ comments Paul.

  ‘What are you on about?’ says Thea.

  ‘It’s a riddle,’ repeats Paul.

  ‘Not you,’ says Thea. ‘How can there be electricity?’ she asks Jamie.

  ‘I told you, there are three signs,’ he says.

  He’s being quite sweet, Emily thinks. She doesn’t know anyone else who’s quite this arrogant without being in any way cool. Maybe that’s part of his charm. But who’s she kidding? He doesn’t have much charm; the other two are much more sexy. Of course, they have their drawbacks as well. Paul’s kind of mean. He’s the type of guy who makes you feel nervous all the time, like you might be a fraud and he’s going to expose you. Emily’s aware that pretty much everyone is a fraud, and has bullshit conversations all the time, but there’s always that unspoken agreement that if you don’t say the other person’s bullshitting, they won’t say you are either. Paul clearly doesn’t play that game. He’s the kind of guy who’d point out you were two years old at the peak of the now-trendy TV show you’re claiming to have adored as a young child, but really only discovered when you were about twenty, after Sky Magazine or The Face did a feature.

  Emily decides that Bryn doesn’t have too much going for him personality-wise, but he is, nonetheless, good-looking, and he probably has a huge cock. But Jamie? He’s all blond and ruffled and smokes his cigarettes nervously, as if it’s a habit he’s only just picked up. He’s from a totally different world. So is Bryn, but while Bryn’s world is probably like Ibiza, Jamie’s is more Prague, or some other worthy place that students go to. Emily’s more of an Ibiza girl really, or at least, given that choice she would be.

  ‘I can see three as well,’ says Anne. ‘Plus one more.’

  ‘What are they then?’ demands Thea.

  ‘It’s pretty obvious,’ says Paul. ‘Unless you’re retarded,’ he adds.

  ‘Don’t play stupid games,’ says Thea. ‘What are these signs?’

  ‘Well, there’s the toaster,’ says Paul.

  Everyone looks at the toaster. It’s plugged in by the stove.

  ‘And the fact that there are light sockets and bulbs,’ says Anne.

  ‘And these,’ says Jamie, pulling a packet of 13 amp fuses from the drawer. ‘You wouldn’t have these without having plugs to fit them in, and you wouldn’t need to change them anyway unless there was electricity to blow them in the first place.’

  ‘Maybe whoever owns the house got cut off,’ says Bryn.

  ‘Well there weren’t any letters on the mat,’ says Thea. ‘As well as there being no meter,’ she adds.

  ‘What?’ says Jamie, looking confused.

  ‘No letters on the mat. Come to think of it, there was no post when we walked in here. Unless whoever owns this place removed it recently, you’d expect there to be all sorts of utility bills, junk mail and everything. And if the electricity had been cut off, then there’d be disconnection notices lying there.’

  ‘Do postmen come to places like this?’ says Jamie slowly. ‘I don’t think they do.’

  ‘Duh,’ says Emily. Suddenly she can’t believe everyone’s being so thick.

  ‘What?’ says Bryn.

  ‘Well, where exactly would this electricity come from? I don’t remember seeing any big pylons or cables outside. We are on a remote island, you know.’

  ‘There was that windmill thing,’ says Anne.

  ‘But it wasn’t connected to anything,’ Thea points out.

  It’s almost completely dark now. Bryn has lit another of the candles.

  ‘There must be some kind of generator,’ says Jamie, thoughtfully.

  ‘A what?’ asks Bryn.

  ‘A generator. They run on diesel. It’s probably outside somewhere.’

  ‘How do you know about generators?’ asks Emily.

  ‘One of my friends’ grandparents had one at their holiday home,’ he says.

  ‘We can’t go poking around outside now,’ Thea says. ‘It’s dark.’

  Emily walks over to the window. Sure enough, all she can see is her own face reflected in it. And when she presses her face to the cold pane, to cut out the small light from the candle, it’s as if she’s staring into nothing. There are some sounds. Mainly the wind and the sea. The wind’s actually whistling. Emily’s only read about that in books.

  ‘Can’t we take a candle out there?’ she says.

  ‘You can try,’ says Jamie, ‘but it’ll get blown out.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says.

  ‘I’m cold,’ says Thea.

  The temperature has dropped along with the light.

  ‘It was hot before,’ says Emily. ‘Why’s it so cold?’

  ‘We must be somewhere north,’ says Paul. ‘Hot in the day but cold at night.’

  ‘Isn’t there an open fire in the lounge?’ asks Bryn.

  ‘Shit,’ says Jamie.

  ‘What?’ asks Thea.

  ‘If we hadn’t been so busy drinking wine and talking crap we could have found the generator and got some logs for the fire.’

  ‘I don’t remember
you talking much crap, Mr Silent,’ says Emily.

  ‘Oh yeah. The list,’ says Anne. ‘Let’s see it.’

  Jamie glares at her. ‘Hadn’t we better sort out the light and heat problem first?’

  It’s seriously cold. Emily’s nipples are hard.

  ‘We should move through to the sitting room,’ says Thea. ‘It’ll be warmer in there with the carpet and everything.’

  ‘It’s still not going to be very warm,’ comments Emily.

  Ten minutes later they’re in the sitting room. The situation has turned into some kind of sleepover. Jamie suggested getting all the duvets from upstairs and sleeping under them together, to keep warm through body heat. The duvets are in the centre of the room now, being arranged by Thea.

  ‘I guess if I’m going to lose my virginity I might as well do it Jerry Springer style,’ says Anne.

  ‘You’re not a virgin really,’ says Emily. ‘Are you?’

  Anne says nothing.

  There are two whole candles left. Two burned away completely in the kitchen. Two are burning now. Emily has never seen a candle burn away as quickly as that before, when it actually matters. The only times she’s used candles have been either for masturbating – in which case you don’t actually light them – or to provide nice lighting for baths, dinner parties and sex. And when you get bored of dim, sexy light, you just switch the real light back on. Emily gets nervous when she thinks of the possibility of there being no real light here at all. She got a sense for what it would be like before, when the others went to get the duvets and took the candles with them. She couldn’t see anything at all. Her eyes never adjusted to the dark, or whatever’s supposed to happen; she just sat there with Anne, commenting on how black it was, while Anne went on about the house probably being haunted.

  ‘What time is it?’ asks Jamie.

  ‘Almost eleven,’ says Emily, holding the candle up to her solid silver Accurist watch. She wishes it had a little light on it. But modern watches aren’t like that. There’s no reason for them to be. Well, except maybe under these circumstances. But it’s not every day you find yourself kidnapped and abandoned on some dark, remote, cold island. Accurist weren’t to know. Emily feels as if she might cry. It’s like she’s at a party she’s had enough of, and now she just wants to get a cab home.

  ‘How long have we been here?’ asks Jamie.

  Paul shrugs. ‘About five or six hours,’ he says.

  ‘We must have been unconscious for a long time.’

  ‘I don’t know why I still feel tired,’ says Emily. ‘If we were out for that long.’

  ‘Maybe it’s your body clock telling you it’s time for bed,’ suggests Jamie.

  ‘It’s still early, though’ says Bryn.

  ‘What time do you usually go to bed?’ asks Jamie.

  ‘About two,’ says Bryn.

  ‘God,’ says Jamie.

  ‘Same,’ says Anne. ‘About two or three.’

  ‘I usually stay up until four or five,’ says Paul. ‘I’m allergic to sunlight.’

  ‘Are you?’ says Thea.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘But then I wouldn’t know, since I don’t see much of it.’

  ‘Don’t you work?’ she asks.

  ‘Not any more,’ he says. ‘And when I did it was the nightshift.’

  Everyone starts getting under the duvets. There’s a bit of politics about who ends up next to whom, and in the end, the girl boy girl boy dinner-party style seems to be the least embarrassing, particularly for the boys, who really didn’t want to be next to one another. It’s still embarrassing, of course, but not cold. Emily is tired, but doesn’t want to go to sleep because she’s scared. After all, last time she went to sleep she woke up on a scary island. Maybe she’s developing a phobia. She considers suggesting that everyone should take it in turns to stay awake and play lookout in case the kidnappers turn up, but doesn’t want to appear too panicked, especially after her whole ‘don’t be a victim’ thing from before, plus the fact that she didn’t admit to being scared when they asked her. Instead, after lying thinking for a bit with the others still fiddling around having last cigarettes and whispered conversations about nothing, she gets up.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asks Jamie.

  ‘To block off the door. Give me a hand.’

  Jamie gets up to help, and he and Emily drag the heavy bureau over to the door.

  ‘Now there’s a fire hazard,’ comments Paul.

  ‘Shut up,’ says Emily, her voice breathy.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asks Anne, looking over.

  ‘Blocking off the door,’ says Emily again.

  ‘Someone could still get in,’ Anne observes.

  ‘That’s not the point,’ says Emily.

  She takes a couple of breakable items from the room: a vase and an empty wine bottle, and balances them on the bureau.

  ‘There,’ she says.

  ‘What’s that all about?’ asks Bryn.

  Emily sighs and gets back under the duvets.

  ‘It’s to wake us up, silly. If someone comes.’

  ‘And then what?’ asks Jamie. ‘What’ll we do if they do come?’

  ‘We’ll kick the shit out of them,’ says Bryn.

  Emily has settled between Jamie and Bryn; Anne is between Paul and Jamie; Thea is between Paul and Bryn. There is silence for about half a minute.

  ‘Do you think we’re still somewhere near Scotland?’ asks Thea.

  ‘Must be,’ says Bryn. ‘Like Anne said, the shopping’s from the UK.’

  ‘What are those islands called?’ asks Emily.

  Paul yawns. ‘Which ones?’

  ‘You know. The ones off to the left.’

  ‘The Shetland Isles?’ suggests Jamie.

  ‘No, they’re the ones at the top,’ says Paul.

  ‘It’s weird, not knowing where we are,’ says Anne. ‘It’s interesting. Alienating.’

  ‘I thought alienation was a bad thing,’ Thea points out.

  ‘Maybe,’ says Anne. ‘Sartre and Camus may not agree.’

  ‘Oh, please, not sixth-form existentialism,’ she retorts.

  ‘What are the ones on the left called?’ asks Emily again.

  Paul shrugs. ‘The Hebrides?’ he suggests. ‘Who knows?’

  ‘Is anyone here from Scotland?’ asks Jamie.

  No one is.

  ‘So we all came up from the South, then,’ says Paul. ‘That’s interesting.’

  ‘Maybe we were chosen with that in mind,’ suggests Jamie.

  ‘Hmmm,’ says Paul. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Are you all from London?’ Jamie asks.

  ‘I am,’ says Emily.

  ‘Me too,’ says Anne.

  ‘I’m from Bristol,’ says Paul.

  ‘Brighton,’ says Thea.

  ‘Essex,’ says Bryn.

  ‘Oh. I’m from Cambridge,’ says Jamie. ‘Well, that’s where I live at the—’

  ‘Where’s this suspect list, then?’ Anne interrupts suddenly.

  ‘It’s here,’ says Jamie, pulling out his bit of paper. ‘Shall I read it out?’ He pauses, and then carries on. ‘OK, these are my suspects for the kidnapping. Right. There’s my mum; my flatmate Nick; my girlfriend Carla, although she wouldn’t ever do anything this radical, so I’ve crossed her off; my university tutor; and another student from my course – Julian Chan. I beat him by one point in our finals and now he hates me. That’s it.’

  Pretty much everyone is laughing.

  ‘Your mum,’ says Anne. ‘That’s classic.’

  ‘I’d like to know why your mum would want to kidnap me,’ says Paul.

  ‘Well, that’s the thing,’ says Jamie. ‘You all have to write your own lists, and then we’ll see if we’ve got anyone in common. You know, like say Julian turned out to be Thea’s brother and Anne’s ex-boyfriend or something? Do you see what I mean?’

  ‘I haven’t got a brother,’ says Thea.

  ‘I’ve never had a boyfriend,’ says Anne.

&
nbsp; ‘You know what I mean,’ says Jamie.

  ‘We know what you mean,’ says Emily, nicely.

  ‘Does it have to be people we know?’ asks Thea.

  ‘I’m putting the Government at the top of my list,’ says Paul.

  ‘Right,’ says Thea. ‘That would be no, then.’

  ‘Whatever . . .’ starts Jamie. ‘Whatever you think.’

  ‘Can’t we do it in the morning?’ says Anne.

  ‘Yeah, I’m fucked,’ says Bryn.

  ‘I thought you said it was early,’ says Thea.

  ‘Yeah, well being kidnapped probably made me more tired,’ he says.

  Everyone settles down again after that, getting warm under the covers.

  Emily wonders if Thea feels self-conscious because of her period.

  For no reason at all the tune from ‘Up Where We Belong’ by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes enters her head and will not leave.

  Chapter Six

  Paul wishes he could check his e-mail. It’s not like he’s expecting anything in particular, but it’s a habit. He wishes he’d picked up that magazine at Kings Cross, then he could be reading about ‘Final Fantasy VIII’ right now, rather than having to talk to this lot. He wishes he could have a hot bath. But nevertheless, he’s finding this whole experience interesting, and he’s determined not to lose his cool. Paul knows that whoever’s fucking with them will have won as soon as they all lose it, and he also knows that if this is some sort of test, then the least stressed-out person will win. Paul is planning to be that person.

  ‘What’s your favourite film?’ asks Thea.

  ‘Who are you asking?’ says Jamie.

  The candles have almost completely burnt out now.

  ‘Anyone,’ says Thea.

  ‘All the Kevin Smith films, but particularly Mallrats,’ says Emily.

  The candles both die. ‘It’s very dark,’ says Jamie.

  ‘What, Mallrats?’ jokes Emily.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘In here.’

  The darkness feels nice, like this is a campfire rather than a kidnap situation.

  ‘Duh,’ Emily says. ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘Tetsuo,’ he says.

  ‘Tetsuo,’ says Paul. ‘Hmmm.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ says Emily.

  He doesn’t reply.