Bright Young Things

by Scarlett Thomas

  She only applied for this job because it sounded so stupid.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The sea looks fucking cold.

  Jamie and the others have almost reached Thea. She’s about twenty or so metres from where the waves are breaking, sitting on a rock, clutching her ankle. It doesn’t seem very safe down here, and Jamie’s still not sure how the hell they’re actually going to get her back up the cliffs. It hasn’t exactly been that easy getting down this far, especially carrying the weight of his awful discovery.

  ‘What is this, Mountain Rescue?’ she asks when she sees the boys.

  Jamie’s not in the mood for this.

  Bryn seems nervous for some reason. He’s shivering.

  Paul reaches down and takes Thea’s hand.

  ‘Can you stand up?’ he asks.

  ‘Yeah,’ she says, standing up. ‘But I’ve definitely twisted my ankle.’

  ‘So you can’t walk?’ says Paul.

  ‘Not really,’ she says.

  Jamie’s ears feel like they’re going to drop off. It’s so horribly cold. Spray from the sea hits his face every time a wave breaks, and in between there are droplets of rain and a few bursts of hailstones. This turn in the weather is not good. From the tops of the cliffs the sea looked pretty rough, but from here it looks totally monstrous. No one with a brain would go anywhere near it right now, Jamie’s certain. Probably not even experienced seamen. He hopes it calms down for when they escape, although he doesn’t remember it being that calm at any point since they arrived.

  Thea’s saying something, but her voice is lost in the wind, spray and rain. Jamie realises that he’s wandered a bit in front of the others. He’s not very good at rescuing. Wondering what he is actually good at, he watches the waves smashing against the rock for a couple more minutes, before making his way back to Thea and the others.

  Bryn has hitched Thea up on to his back and started retracing his steps. Jamie and Paul scramble up behind him. At every step this mission seems precarious, and it is unlikely that Bryn will be able to support Thea all the way to the top. Jamie knows he will blame himself if anyone gets hurt. He should be doing the rescuing. He should be a hero. He’s lost a lot of opportunities to be a hero over the last couple of days, and as he struggles uphill through the half-cut-down weeds and mud he makes a vow to himself: he’s not going to lose the next one.

  ‘At least it is possible to get down there,’ Paul says, when they reach the top.

  Bryn gently lowers Thea on to the grass. He did make it, after all.

  ‘Thanks,’ she says.

  ‘Can you walk?’ asks Bryn.

  She limps a few steps. ‘Not really,’ she says. ‘I think it might be sprained.’

  ‘I’ll carry you inside,’ says Paul. But Bryn wants to, so he does.

  When they get in the house, the kitchen’s empty.

  ‘Where’s Emily?’ asks Thea.

  Jamie shrugs. He’s lost track of everything.

  Paul’s cooking.

  It’s already dark. The rain hasn’t stopped, and there’s the odd rumble of thunder in the distance. Emily still hasn’t reappeared. Jamie and Paul are the only ones in the kitchen.

  ‘What are you making?’ asks Jamie.

  ‘Bean stew and mash,’ says Paul.

  ‘Good,’ says Jamie sadly. ‘Something comforting.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ asks Paul.

  ‘What are you going to do if I say no?’ asks Jamie. ‘Call a doctor? Take me to the pub? Hire me a video? I’m not OK, but I will be. I mean, I’ll have to be. Don’t worry about me, I’ll survive.’

  ‘Has anyone lit the fire?’

  ‘Bryn’s doing it now,’ says Jamie. ‘He said he didn’t need any help.’ He yawns. He’s tired from all the upset.

  ‘How’s the boat-design going?’ asks Paul.

  Jamie’s been dreading this. He can’t design a boat, for fuck’s sake. And even if he could, what with lying to Emily and worrying about the knife and the mask and everything in the suitcase, and then rescuing Thea, he just hasn’t had time. Yet again, Jamie’s fucked up being a hero. Yet again, he’s fucked up being a survivor. On the plus side, neither Bryn nor Paul seem to have achieved their tasks either, but this is cold comfort. Jamie wanted to design the best boat in the world, and he can’t.

  ‘It’s not,’ he says weakly. ‘I fucked it up.’

  ‘Is this it?’ asks Paul, laughing.

  He shows Jamie a small piece of paper with a crude drawing of a boat on it. Several people are drowning in the water, while one person looks at them smugly from the safety of the boat. Jamie screws it up and throws it in the bin.

  ‘Very funny,’ he says.

  ‘Do you want to peel some potatoes?’ asks Paul.

  ‘I thought you didn’t do this kind of thing,’ says Jamie. ‘Cooking and everything.’

  ‘I don’t if I can help it,’ says Paul.

  ‘Well, I suppose Emily’s not going to do it,’ says Jamie, sadly.

  ‘What is the matter with you?’ asks Paul.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ says Jamie.

  ‘Fine,’ says Paul.

  When Anne walks in, the room is silent.

  ‘Who died this time?’ she asks.

  ‘Thea twisted her ankle,’ says Paul.

  ‘What did you learn about the tides?’ asks Jamie.

  ‘Not much,’ says Anne. ‘They happen.’

  ‘Great,’ says Jamie. ‘And do you know where we are?’

  ‘Sorry, there was no tourist map with a You Are Here sign in the library.’

  ‘So we really are fucked, then,’ says Jamie.

  ‘You’re cheerful,’ says Anne.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ says Jamie. ‘Please. I’ve had a really shit day.’

  ‘Every day’s shit when you’re kidnapped,’ she says cheerfully. ‘Oh my God,’ she says to Paul. ‘You’re cooking.’

  ‘Don’t tell everyone,’ he says, smiling.

  ‘Why are you cooking?’ she says.

  ‘Didn’t you hear? We’re having a dinner party.’

  ‘Who said?’ asks Jamie.

  ‘Me,’ says Paul. ‘To celebrate not being raped and mutilated. Just don’t tell Emily.’

  Anne laughs. They exchange a look. Jamie doesn’t know if they’re joking.

  ‘Are you messing about?’ he says.

  ‘No, I’m serious,’ says Paul.

  ‘Where are we eating?’ asks Anne.

  ‘At the kitchen table,’ says Paul.

  ‘Why?’ asks Jamie. ‘It was nice in the sitting room last night.’

  ‘But tonight there’s sauce,’ says Paul.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  No one’s saying very much over dinner.

  Thea’s ankle is killing her. It’s already swollen to twice its original size, and it’s red and throbbing. She knows from old school hockey games that it’s only a matter of time before it goes purple. She could do with some Ibuprofen cream and one of those ankle supports, but there isn’t a casualty department around here. Earlier on today, and last night, all Thea felt was fear. The dead man scared the shit out of her. Now she doesn’t feel scared at all, just angry. How dare he bring them here like this? How dare he bring them to a place with no medical help or experts of any kind? One of them could have become seriously ill; had he considered that? Thea knows he was probably going to kill them all, or at least try to scare them to death, but still.

  After about five minutes of pure silence, Emily starts sniffing.

  When Thea looks at her, she can see a tear rolling down her face.

  In a few minutes, everyone’s noticed.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asks Paul.

  ‘Everyone hates me,’ she sobs.

  ‘Who hates you?’ says Paul. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Everyone thinks I’m mad.’

  ‘We don’t,’ says Thea.

  ‘So what’s your problem, then?’

  Thea looks down at the table
. ‘We just . . . Look, it doesn’t matter.’

  Bryn gets up.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asks Emily.

  ‘To check the fire,’ he says.

  ‘Me too,’ says Thea. ‘I’ll come and help you.’

  ‘I wish everyone would stop avoiding me,’ says Emily. ‘I’m not mental.’

  Thea gets up and limps after Bryn into the sitting room.

  When they get back, Emily’s still sniffling and the others are talking about the Dreamcast being out soon. Anne and Paul are saying they’re going to preorder them.

  ‘Is there any dessert?’ asks Thea.

  ‘Tinned fruit and condensed milk?’ suggests Paul.

  ‘God, this is so 1950s,’ says Anne.

  Thea doesn’t see her say no when Paul dishes it up, though.

  ‘I wish there was some Coke,’ says Anne.

  ‘So do I,’ says Bryn.

  ‘She doesn’t mean that sort of coke,’ says Paul.

  ‘Neither do I,’ he says. He looks at Anne. ‘Coke or Pepsi? Which do you prefer?’

  ‘Coke,’ she says.

  ‘Same,’ he says.

  ‘Pepsi,’ says Paul.

  ‘Blonde or brunette?’ Anne asks.

  ‘Brunette,’ Bryn says.

  ‘Same,’ says Paul.

  ‘Same,’ says Anne.

  ‘Blond,’ murmurs Emily.

  ‘Is this some sort of game?’ asks Thea.

  Some of the tension has been suddenly diffused.

  ‘It is now,’ says Paul.

  ‘All right,’ she says. ‘Fascist or communist?’

  ‘What?’ says Anne.

  ‘I don’t think she gets this game,’ says Paul.

  ‘No, I do,’ says Thea. ‘Dictators. Fascist or communist?’

  ‘What, which are better?’ asks Bryn.

  ‘That is the game, right?’ she says.

  ‘I guess,’ says Paul.

  ‘Communist,’ says Anne.

  ‘Communist,’ says Paul.

  ‘Communist,’ says Bryn.

  ‘This is fun,’ says Paul. ‘Nintendo or Sega?’

  ‘Nintendo,’ says Anne.

  ‘Snap,’ says Paul.

  ‘Sega,’ says Bryn.

  ‘Sega’ says Thea.

  ‘What do you know about games?’ asks Anne.

  ‘I’ve been addicted to arcade games since I was a teenager,’ she says.

  Everyone shuts up.

  ‘Seriously?’ says Bryn.

  ‘I didn’t think you were the type—’ starts Paul.

  ‘Why?’ says Thea.

  ‘I’m not sure, to be honest,’ he says. ‘You seem too sensible.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m not,’ she says.

  ‘Is it a problem?’ says Anne. ‘I mean, like a serious addiction?’

  ‘Kind of,’ says Thea, looking down at the table. ‘I don’t really know.’

  ‘Why didn’t you talk about this before?’ asks Bryn.

  ‘I didn’t know you very well,’ she says.

  ‘What’s your favourite game?’ asks Anne.

  ‘I quite like “House of the Dead II”.’

  ‘God,’ says Paul. ‘Who would have thought?’

  ‘This must be “House of the Dead I”,’ comments Anne quietly.

  ‘We’re all pretty fucked up,’ says Emily. She’s stopped crying, finally.

  ‘What’s fucked up about you?’ asks Thea. ‘You’ve got everything.’

  ‘Oh, please,’ says Emily. ‘You’ve got no idea about my problems.’

  ‘You did lose it a lot yesterday,’ says Paul.

  ‘That was nothing,’ says Emily. ‘It’s been a lot worse. The same kind of thing. The blanking out. One time I couldn’t even remember where I lived.’

  ‘Why?’ asks Jamie. ‘What happened to make you like that?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure for ages,’ she says. ‘But I’ve been in therapy for a while, and my therapist’s convinced about what started it all.’

  ‘What?’ says Anne.

  ‘An abortion that went wrong,’ she says. ‘When I was sixteen.’

  ‘You were pregnant at sixteen?’ says Anne.

  ‘Yep,’ says Emily. ‘Pregnant at sixteen. I was normal before that.’

  She looks like she might cry again.

  ‘I don’t usually talk about this,’ she says. ‘Has anyone got a cigarette?’

  Jamie lights one for her.

  ‘What went wrong with the abortion?’ asks Anne.

  ‘They gave me these pessaries the day before,’ she says, ‘which they inserted up near my cervix to try to make it open enough to make the operation easier or whatever. Apparently, they had to do it because I was so young – I didn’t really understand it. Anyway, it was about an hour after they gave me the first one that I realised something was badly wrong. I was having the most intense period pains of my life, and I had started to bleed. I later realised that it was actually labour pains I was having.’

  ‘Labour pains?’ says Thea.

  ‘Oh, God,’ says Jamie quietly.

  ‘They were labour-inducing pessaries,’ says Emily. ‘Or at least I found out later that’s what they were. Anyway, when it was time for them to insert the second one, I made a real fuss and said I didn’t want it. I knew they were fucking up my insides, and I was in so much pain I couldn’t even walk down the corridor. After I’d refused it for about the third time, the nurse made me talk to this doctor. He didn’t even come to see me. I got dragged, in pain, down to see him in his horrible little office. He basically told me that if I didn’t have this second pessary, and if the operation went wrong because of it, then I would probably become infertile. I still believed he was wrong, but I didn’t want to become infertile, so I let them insert it. The pains got worse, then I vomited about three times – the nurses got really cross with me, I don’t know if they thought I was doing it deliberately – and then finally, in the morning, I had a miscarriage.’

  ‘You poor thing,’ says Jamie, putting his hand on her shoulder.

  A tear runs down her cheek. ‘I always pretended it didn’t bother me. I mean, it was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen in my life. You know, it actually looked like those pictures of developing babies you see sometimes on TV. But I was so determined to be grown up and put it behind me that I just walked out of the hospital the next day and decided I would move on. At the time I believed that coping with a trauma was just mind over matter. Like, if you don’t actually count something as a trauma then it doesn’t have to be one. After all, loads of people have abortions. My friend Lucy had one in her lunch break. I just decided it wouldn’t be a big deal.’

  ‘Sounds like a fucking big deal to me,’ says Thea.

  ‘Yeah, I guess it was,’ says Emily. ‘Anyway, now you know.’

  ‘Do you just blank out with stress?’ asks Anne. ‘Or is it more random?’

  ‘I thought it was random for a while,’ she explains. ‘But then when I looked at it with my therapist, I realised there was a kind of pattern. Often it would be when I was really anxious about something, but I wasn’t admitting it. You know the kind of thing. My conscious self would think everything was totally cool, but my unconscious self would know better. I’ve never been able to stay with a boyfriend I didn’t love – which is, like, all of them – because I’d start blanking out all the time, like my unconscious telling me he was wrong for me.’

  ‘I get panic attacks,’ says Anne.

  ‘What for?’ says Jamie. ‘There’s nothing wrong with your life, surely?’

  ‘It’s not my life that’s the problem,’ says Anne. ‘It’s everything else.’

  ‘Is there any cure?’ Bryn asks Emily. ‘For the blankness, I mean.’

  She laughs. ‘No, probably not. You see, it is my life that’s the problem, and I can’t run away from myself. Of course, the world doesn’t exactly help. All the pressure: trying to find a decent job, a flat in a cool place, a bloke, a good friend, the right food, worrying about yo
ur parents dying and planes crashing on London and IRA bombs and tube disasters and hijackings and radiation from mobile phones and GM food and psychopaths and muggers and corrupt policemen and date-rape drugs and carbon-monoxide poisoning and toxic-shock syndrome and road accidents and drive-by shooting and war and people being horrible to refugees and debt and prison and horrible bank managers. Maybe Anne’s right. Life totally sucks.’

  Paul’s laughing. ‘When you put it like that . . .’ he says.

  ‘If it wasn’t so horrible and there wasn’t a dead person here . . .’ begins Emily.

  ‘What?’ says Jamie.

  ‘Well, this would be a great place to . . . I don’t know. Heal.’

  ‘Heal?’ says Bryn. ‘That sounds a bit new-age.’

  ‘Well I’m only saying,’ says Emily. ‘It would just be nice to not have all that stuff any more. If I could escape from the world, then I reckon I’d probably be all right. Then I wouldn’t need to escape from myself, because it’s the way I react to the world that’s a problem.’

  ‘It’s like we’ve overdosed,’ says Thea thoughtfully.

  ‘Overdosed?’ says Jamie.

  ‘Yeah. We’re only in our twenties, but we’ve already overdosed on the world.’

  ‘Heal,’ says Jamie thoughtfully, like he’s meditating.

  ‘Shall we go through to the sitting room?’ says Paul. ‘I’ll make coffee.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  In the sitting room, people are talking about escape.

  ‘How soon do you think we can do it?’ asks Thea.

  ‘There’s your ankle to consider,’ says Jamie.

  ‘It’ll be all right tomorrow, I’m sure.’

  ‘And if it’s not?’ he says.