Bright Young Things

by Scarlett Thomas

  ‘I’m going for a walk,’ she tells him, sitting up.

  ‘Whatever,’ he says.

  There’s a path in front of the house that leads straight to the cliffs. The path is yellow and sandy, the only genuine desert island feature on this wannabe desert island. Thea walks slowly down this path, heading for the cliffs. Looking out to sea, she notices that there are no boats, no other islands, not even any seagulls. There are some screeching noises, so there must be seabirds out there; Thea just can’t see them. There is a whole world out there, but the sea mist prevents any of it from being seen. Thea’s not sure what scares her more: the thought that their kidnapper is going to turn up here, or the thought that he never will.

  The yellow path leads to a headland, with a cliff ledge underneath it. Thea’s fairly sure Jamie didn’t come down this far when he searched the island yesterday. She drops on to the ledge and sees that the way to the left is blocked by some kind of prickly bush which looks like it goes on forever. The other way is blocked by rocks, which are worryingly damp and mossy, giving the impression that the sea sometimes makes it up this far. Trying not to look down, Thea scrambles over the first rock. But on the other side of it, the path is so narrow and overgrown that it’s going to be impossible to pick through it without some kind of scythe. But it is possible to get down there. And if you could get down there with a boat . . . Maybe this island isn’t totally inescapable after all.

  When Thea gets back to the orchard, Bryn’s just about finished cutting up the small tree for logs. He’s also made a pile of apples.

  ‘Apple pie,’ he says as Thea approaches. ‘Got a fag?’

  They sit and smoke for a few minutes.

  ‘You know what?’ says Bryn.

  ‘What?’

  He moves closer and touches her face. ‘You’re gorgeous,’ he says.

  She smiles. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Seriously,’ he says. ‘I’d really love to, you know, when we get out of here . . . I’d love to take some photographs of you.’

  Chapter Ten

  Bryn doesn’t know what he’s said wrong, but then he doesn’t know too much about women. In any case, Thea’s done a runner into the house. And she looked well fucked off. He only said he wanted to take pictures of her.

  It’s so quiet out here. Bryn’s been trying to work out what it is that’s been disturbing him, and that’s it. There is a constant crash of waves, and the low buzz of late-summer insects, but that’s pretty much it. There are no birds singing, no radios blaring, no cars, no vans, no DSS women screaming at Kylie or Liam to pack it in. Bryn remembers reading something once about the noise that exists in towns, that doesn’t really come from anything, but sort of comes from everything. He likes that idea. He likes the fact that even if everyone shut up in a town, there’d still be all that noise. Stuff you can’t see: the hum from a distant nuclear reactor, the whir from roadworks on the other side of town, the taxis and factories and ten million radios and five million arguments and two million fucks and a thousand nervous coughs and a girl humming in a field somewhere, far away.

  And all that noise goes up. Bryn read that somewhere as well, years ago. All the sound made on earth travels up and out into space in shimmering waves. He told some girl about this once and she got really into it, wondering if distant aliens were listening to Elvis, or closer ones were listening to Five Star. The whole thought makes Bryn a bit freaked out, though. Nothing ever goes away. Not sound, or rubbish, or nuclear waste, or beer bottles, or anything liquid or solid or gas. It all just stays around in the universe, pissing you off, when all you ever wanted to do was get rid of it. He wonders if your thoughts actually disappear, or if, when you die, they leak out of your brain into the soil, get eaten by worms and stay in the food chain for ever.

  Tired from all the woodcutting, Bryn lies back in the sunshine and drops off.

  Chapter Eleven

  At the moment, Anne’s in the lead, but Emily could soon close the gap in the ‘Ultimate Snake’ Championship. If only she could take out Paul, she’d be dead set for second place. Jamie’s keeping score, of course, and talking part half-heartedly, having designed the round robin format for the whole contest.

  Emily’s wondering if anyone’s missing her yet. She remembers making some joke to Lucy about not coming back if she got the job. And although she still didn’t really mean it, it wouldn’t have been out of character for her to mean it. She’s been depressed recently. Losing the job in the art gallery sucked, and even the dates from the agency fizzled out after David grassed her up to the owner and said she overcharged for sex. Like, duh. Didn’t he know that she wasn’t even supposed to offer sex – like, it was supposed to be discreet? This island’s great because none of Emily’s history is here. She’s never going to bump into any ex-shags, or walk past the restaurant in which some guy told her she wasn’t ‘beautiful’ like his normal model girlfriends, or see a Chelsea girl sneer at her, noticing her cellulite (in summer) or her moustache (bleached) or her overplucked eyebrows (the pain is like an addiction). Emily hates girls and what they notice. But in some weird way she hates men more, because they don’t notice, because second-best is always good enough for them, because even when it comes to having their cock sucked any mouth will do.

  When Emily was about sixteen, she thought that men chose her because they could see there was something special about her. She fucked guys with whom she shared a love of art, or who were also Blur fans, or liked the same clubs as her and felt part of the ‘scene’. After they’d fucked her, she soon became aware that as far as art-appreciation went, they only liked Pink Floyd album covers, or maybe The Scream; they thought Blur were OK but preferred New Order, and that they only said all this stuff, and went on the club scene in the first place, to get a shag. Emily is painfully aware that she is easy; that she is the stock-in-trade of those ‘uncovered’ programmes set in Ibiza or Greece or wherever, where all the girls go topless for a laugh and take three blokes a night in club toilets.

  There seems to have been a recent vogue for American teeny-pop stars to put out drippy tunes about not being ready for sex yet. Their lyrics take the concept of virginity seriously, either urging boyfriends to wait, or thanking them for waiting, or telling them to fuck off if they won’t wait. Emily can’t listen to any of these songs. She switches the radio off whenever they come on. It’s like that stupid Dawson’s Creek programme she’s watched a few times. She’s a total Jen, but she wishes she were a Joey.

  ‘Ha!’ says Anne, having beaten Paul once more.

  Bollocks. This means Anne’s definitely going to take first place in the tournament. Emily just has to play Paul now. A score of forty-five or more will give her second place – as long as it’s a winning score – but if she loses or gets less than that, it’s curtains for her ‘Ultimate Snake’ Championship challenge.

  ‘We could have some away fixtures in the sitting room after this,’ says Jamie. ‘These scores could go on aggregate.’

  ‘Or we could just start again,’ says Emily, beating Paul to the first piece of food.

  ‘Fuck,’ says Paul.

  Thea comes in through the back door.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ asks Emily.

  ‘Nothing,’ says Thea, but she’s crying. She walks through the room, out into the hall, then, going on the banging sound that follows, up the stairs.

  ‘Wow,’ says Paul.

  ‘Drama,’ says Anne.

  Jamie immediately rushes out of the kitchen after Thea.

  Which leaves Emily with only one option: to go and find out what happened from Bryn.

  He’s asleep when she gets outside, looking kind of sexy with his shirt off and an apple in his hand. On his right is a pile of logs. On his left is a pile of apples. There’s a bottle of lemonade, but it’s all warm from being left in the sun. Emily takes a swig anyway. It’s horrible.

  She touches Bryn’s chest and he wakes immediately.

  ‘Mum?’ he says.

  Emily laughs.
‘Silly, it’s Emily.’

  ‘Where’s Thea?’ asks Bryn, sitting up and stretching.

  ‘She ran in the house a few minutes ago. She seemed to be crying.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘So what made her cry?’ asks Emily, taking out her box of Silk Cut.

  ‘Cry?’ says Bryn.

  ‘Do you want one of these?’

  He takes a cigarette. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘So . . . ?’ She’s flirting.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The goss,’ she says. ‘Tell me what happened to make Thea cry.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ says Bryn. ‘I didn’t know she was, uh . . .’

  ‘So tell me what happened.’

  Bryn starts telling some um-and-ah tale of him woodcutting and Thea sunbathing. There’s even a hint that there was some attraction between them – or at least from Bryn’s side anyway.

  ‘I thought she’d want me to kiss her,’ he explains. ‘It was one of those, you know, moments, when you just know that something’s going to happen. Anyway, then I told her she was gorgeous and just before I went to kiss her, I said I’d like to take some pictures of her.’

  Emily starts laughing, rolling around on the grass.

  ‘What?’ says Bryn.

  ‘You total perv!’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that, though, did I?’

  ‘You so did. God, men are all the same.’

  Paul and Anne are still sitting in the kitchen. They don’t seem to be doing anything, just sitting staring at each other. Oh well, maybe they don’t have much to say. Emily heads straight through the door and upstairs to clean her teeth. The lemonade has left an aftertaste.

  Emily’s room is next to Thea’s. And it’s a complete accident, but as Emily’s cleaning her teeth, she realises she can hear everything going on in the next room. At first it’s all sobs and shushing noises. Then some quiet, then the sound of a nose being blown, then some more quiet.

  Then voices.

  ‘Why are you so upset?’ says Jamie, his voice muffled by the wall.

  ‘I hate it here,’ says Thea.

  There are more sobbing sounds for a couple of minutes. Emily washes her face.

  ‘Come on,’ says Jamie soothingly. ‘You can talk to me.’

  ‘About what?’ Thea says petulantly.

  ‘Whatever it is that’s made you so upset.’

  ‘Just being here makes me upset.’

  ‘None of us wants to be here,’ he reminds her.

  ‘No? You all seem to be having fun.’

  ‘We’re just making the best of it,’ says Jamie.

  There’s a pause. Emily lowers herself to the floor and gets comfortable.

  ‘I feel so stupid,’ says Thea.

  Emily makes a face. Get to the point, girl.

  ‘Don’t,’ says Jamie. ‘This is a difficult situation.’

  ‘You don’t seem to find it difficult,’ she says.

  ‘Well, I’m a survivor,’ says Jamie.

  Emily puts her fist in her mouth. I’m a survivor. God, he’s sweet but ridiculous.

  ‘I found the generator, by the way,’ says Thea.

  ‘Brilliant. We’ll have to power it up before it gets dark.’

  There are sounds of movement. Jamie must be getting up.

  ‘What, now?’ says Thea.

  ‘Come on, you’ll feel better if you come and do something.’

  ‘But I can’t . . .’

  ‘What?’ asks Jamie.

  ‘I can’t face him.’

  ‘Bryn?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says.

  ‘Why? What happened out there?’

  ‘Nothing. It was stupid.’

  ‘So what’s the problem?’ asks Jamie.

  ‘I think I may have overreacted a bit.’

  You can say that again, thinks Emily.

  ‘Did he make a move on you?’ asks Jamie.

  ‘I don’t know. I think I wanted him to, anyway. It wasn’t that.’

  ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘Just something he said.’

  ‘What?’ Jamie asks.

  ‘You wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘You could try me.’

  ‘He said he wanted to take pictures of me.’

  ‘Oh, I see. What a bastard.’

  ‘No!’ protests Thea. ‘I don’t think he meant that.’

  ‘Well what else could he mean?’

  ‘He’s a photographer. He likes taking pictures of buildings and whatever. I think he thought I’d take it as a compliment. I mean, we’d both been talking about photography, so it wasn’t a completely out-of-place thing to say. That’s why I feel so bad for overreacting.’

  ‘So where’s the problem?’

  ‘What problem?’ she says.

  ‘Come on. You’re so upset.’

  Emily wonders if this is ever going to get interesting.

  ‘It’s just that I can’t have my picture taken,’ Thea says. ‘Ever,’ she adds.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I just can’t.’

  ‘Aren’t there some religions that—’

  ‘What? Believe that a photograph takes your soul away? Well, they’re right. It does. It completely takes your soul away.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ says Jamie.

  There’s a long pause. Then Thea’s voice, softer now.

  ‘When I was twelve I found out that my uncle had hidden a camera in my bedroom.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He used to record me getting undressed. He had hours and hours of video tape of me in my socks and knickers, or just my knickers, or completely naked. Apparently the ones of me in my socks and knickers were the most popular.’

  ‘Shit!’ says Jamie. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Yeah. He used to keep the videos for himself and his friends, and print off stills to sell to some specialist dealer in Soho.’

  ‘What, like a . . .’

  ‘A paedophile. Yeah.’

  ‘Jesus. No wonder you—’

  ‘He did it for two years, starting when I was ten. I found the camera when I was looking for secret passageways. You know, you do that kind of thing when you’re a kid. It took me ages to work out what it was for. When I did, my mum was pretty upset, but in the end she said there was no reason for me to take it further, because it wasn’t like he’d touched me or anything. I don’t think my dad thought it was a big deal, although I’d expected him to go mental. They didn’t want any trouble, I suppose. It was that sort of family.’

  ‘Gosh. What did you do?’

  ‘I went to the police. There was some talk at school about what to do if a grown up makes you feel uncomfortable. You know the kind of thing. I told a teacher and she took me to the police.’

  ‘That’s amazingly brave.’

  ‘When they investigated Uncle David, they found a lot of nasty stuff.’

  ‘What kind of nasty stuff?’

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  I do, thinks Emily. But Jamie doesn’t press her.

  ‘What happened to him?’ he asks instead.

  ‘He went to prison. He’s still there, in fact.’

  Emily does a quick calculation. Thea said she was twenty-two. Must have been some pretty fucked up shit if this guy’s been in prison for almost ten years.

  ‘What about you? What happened to you?’

  ‘I got fostered by these really nice people in Brighton. End of story.’

  ‘But what about your real folks?’

  ‘I haven’t spoken to them for ten years.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. They were trailer trash anyway. Didn’t give a shit about me.’

  ‘God.’

  The conversation seems to be over.

  ‘Please don’t tell anyone what I told you,’ Thea says.

  ‘Of course,’ says Jamie.

  There’s some shuffling, the sound of a door banging and they’re gone.

  Chapter Twelve

  There
’s sexual tension in the kitchen.

  ‘What are you two doing?’ asks Jamie, as he walks past with Thea.

  ‘Nothing,’ says Paul. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Going to sort out the electricity,’ says Jamie.

  ‘Are you feeling better?’ Anne asks Thea.

  ‘Yes thanks,’ she replies acidly.

  Then they are gone. Paul goes back to looking at Anne.

  He smiles. She smiles back.

  ‘What?’ she asks.

  ‘What?’ he replies.

  This has been going on for the last half an hour. She’s got some book from the library which she’s reading, and he’s just looking at her, and tinkering with some other bits of phone. Every so often she looks up and smiles. He smiles back, they both get embarrassed, ask each other what, and then Anne returns to her reading.

  There isn’t a word for Anne. Paul’s been trying to think of one all day. Maybe it’s because he’s never been faced with a girl like this, who makes him think these kind of thoughts. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t have the word. As far as he’s always been concerned, women fall into two general categories: the girlfriends that you rebel against – strange Bridget Jones women who just want to trap you, marry you and then get fat in comfort – and the girls you mess around with while you’re rebelling against them. He doesn’t want to have sex with any of them. He’s certainly not interested in sleeping with Bridgets. They always want the lights off, and they moan about their cellulite, the bastards who’ve used them and all the clichéd things you’ve ever heard. And the other girls, the ones who don’t even have names, they worry about all the same things, but just haven’t reached the self-esteem high of Bridget, who doesn’t have particularly high self-esteem anyway. They’ll fuck anyone, do any drugs and abuse themselves, until they eventually find a man or a religion or a self-help manual that’ll turn them into a Bridget, and then they’ll get married and fat as well.