Bright Young Things (3 page)

‘Looks like we might live after all,’ says the man next to Anne.

‘Yeah.’ She smiles at him.

‘I could have told you everything would be all right,’ says the old woman, waking up again.

‘How?’ Anne asks.

‘The cards. I did them this morning.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’

‘You wouldn’t have believed me. People only believe in predictions after they’ve come true. That’s how Mother ended up on the
Titanic
. She didn’t believe it was a bad week for travelling until the ship started going down.’

The man in the next seat presses a finger to his temple and twists it back and forth, implying the old woman is mad. Anne starts putting her walkman and her book in her rucksack.

Anne has a McDonald’s at Heathrow before taking the tube back to Islington.

Her parents’ flat is empty when she arrives home; she remembers that they are still at the villa in Tuscany. A copy of the
Guardian
lies on the kitchen table, open at the Media Appointments section. On top of it is a note reminding Anne it’s time she found a job, and that her allowance runs out in September. Anne’s mother has already circled in red the jobs that she thinks would suit her daughter. They are all PR or charity related.

Anne pours a glass of Coke and sits down with the paper. For some reason it is suddenly important that she finds a job from
this
paper. Today. Without meaning to be rebellious, she sets about looking for the most inappropriate job description, but in the end settles for the most vague:
Bright Young Things wanted for big project
.

She doesn’t apply for anything else.

Some days there seem to be numbers everywhere. Jamie Grant hates numbers. They just can’t leave him alone. He hates the number 42 bus, his home telephone number and his inside leg measurement. He once saw a programme where born-again Christians played with barcodes on consumer items, making the number 666 every time. They said consumerism was the work of the devil because you could turn barcodes into the number 666. Jamie laughed when he saw that. Christ, you can turn any number into 666 if you really want to. No, consumerism is not the problem; numbers are.

In a lot of ways he is normal. His parents are divorced, but they both still love him. Last week he attended his first funeral, for a relative he’d never met. He’s twenty-two and he’s ordinary. Except for one thing. He’s just graduated from Cambridge University with a First in Pure Mathematics.

He has a girlfriend he doesn’t love and a best friend who is too tall and as a result drinks too much. Jamie masturbates precisely (how he hates that word) twice a day – when he gets up and before he goes to bed. If Carla is around he does it in the bathroom, in secret, and then pretends to be too tired to do it with her. She doesn’t mind. She doesn’t really like sex, and anyway, she chose him as a husband, not a fuck. In Jamie’s circle that’s fairly ordinary. No. In
Carla’s
circle that’s ordinary. Jamie remembers that he doesn’t have a circle; he just orbits other people’s.

As he cycles up Mill Road, Jamie plays his favourite game: listing all the things he could do that would really surprise everyone. He could get contact lenses to replace his swotty glasses; maybe green ones. Then, with his new green eyes he could start a band and become like Damon or Liam . . . no, definitely Damon. He could dump Carla and shag groupies. Perhaps go around the world. That would surprise everyone. Or maybe he could just get married, have kids and go on the dole. What he really doesn’t want to be is a mathematician. Because that’s what everyone expects.

His favourite fantasy is to be a pilot and fly a plane. If everyone would get off his back, he’d just fly his own plane around the world and have adventures. He imagines finding strange lands and looking for secrets, like Indiana Jones or Lara Croft. He likes Lara Croft. He likes pop music. He likes motorbikes. So why the hell does everyone see him as such a geek? It’s those fucking numbers, that’s why. Because he knows what they do. Because he can work out the square root of things. That makes him a geek. What’s the square root of everything? Nothing.

In a worse mood than when he went out (to get rid of his mood), he returns and lets himself into the small terraced house he shares with Carla and Nick. He wishes they’d do something interesting. He always makes an effort to come home slightly earlier than he is expected, hoping he will find them fucking. The thought turns him on in a peculiar way. Not that he’d really want to see Carla fucking Nick, just that it would set him free. If only he could hate them, he would be free. He could stop looking after Nick and dump Carla. All he needs is a
reason
. And tomorrow he will be twenty-three. Things will have to change.

He’s bought the
Guardian
and a packet of Marlboro from the shop at the end of the road. He hasn’t smoked since he was about ten. He goes up to his room and puts both items on the bed.

His bedroom is the only room in the house with a TV. Carla never watches it because she prefers the radio, and Nick just reads, when he’s in. Carla says that TV is for the working classes, to keep them entertained and to stop them having any revolutions. What stops this theory being interesting is that she actually thinks this is a good idea, and she’s proud to be part of the class that makes TV, rather than the class that consumes it. God, he hates her. He checks his watch: six o’clock. She’ll be at choir practice right now.

He flicks the TV to Sky One and watches
The Simpsons
. It’s an episode he’s seen before: Lisa falls in love with her teacher and nobody understands her. He cries during the scene when the teacher reads out a bit of
Charlotte’s Web
, Jamie’s favourite childhood book. He cries when the teacher leaves town at the end. This is another thing: he has to stop crying all the time.

Carla comes in at about seven. Her choir practice is over and she’s looking for an argument. She walks into Jamie’s room wearing M&S cream trousers and a cotton blouse. He wishes she would wear something nylon for once. Lycra, or whatever. For a moment he imagines her dressed in whore’s clothes: a mini skirt, high heels and a boob-tube. Is that right? They don’t wear boob-tubes now, surely? Too seventies. Maybe just a little vest top with no bra. And she’d have to swear. Not that this really turns him on – quite the contrary – but it cheapens her. And she’s so fucking expensive that she really needs a price cut.

While Jamie’s been thinking, she’s been talking.

‘Are you listening to me?’ she demands, her voice clipped and precious.

Cunt
, thinks Jamie. Are you listening to me,
cunt
?

‘Sorry?’ he says.

‘I thought we might go to that concert tomorrow.’

‘Did you?’

‘It’s your birthday.’

‘I’m aware of that.’

‘It’s a recital.’

‘I thought so.’

Jamie stares at the TV screen.
Don’t be mean
.
Don’t be mean
. Give her another chance. Give her . . . a challenge.

‘I want to go clubbing,’ he says.

‘Sorry?’

‘Clubbing? It’s what young people do.’

‘It’s what plebs do. God, Jamie, what’s got into you?’

He stays silent, watching the images on screen.

‘Could you turn that thing off?’ she says, pissed off.

He doesn’t move. He doesn’t want to hurt her, but he can’t help it. On reflection, she probably isn’t hurt, just confused. He wonders how you would actually hurt Carla. She sighs and leaves the room, slamming the door behind her. Jamie still doesn’t move.

Later, he hears her on the telephone, talking to some other public school bimbo.

‘He’s just changed
so
much.’ Pause for commiseration. The other girl probably asks for details, over-stressing at least one word in every sentence. They all do it.

‘He’s been playing computer games and watching
TV
.’ Maybe the friend tells her that’s normal. ‘Yes, I know, but all the
time
? And he’s so
distant
. Earlier on he said he wanted to go
clubbing
.’ She giggles conspiratorially. ‘I
know
. It
could
be quite good fun, I suppose. But I think he wants to do it
seriously
. Last week he told me he wanted to go to a
rock
concert. Sorry? Blah, I
think
.’

Another pause.

‘Blah, that’s right.’

She’s trying to say Blur but she can’t even manage that.

Jamie’s got a copy of
The Face
hidden under the bed. He pulls it out and looks at the clothes and the people. Maybe this is what he could have been, had he not been so bright. He hates that word. It’s what people have always said about him, from his junior school – in the days when he still had an accent – to his grammar school.
Jamie, he’s so bright.
And they always sighed at the end of the sentence, as if his brightness made them tired, because it was just too dazzling.

As far as everyone here is concerned, his background is just a blip, an aberration. He’s bright and he’s escaped.

Well, now he wants to go back.

He remembers loving his primary school and all his friends. But just before the Eleven Plus he was put in a special class, with the other bright boys and girls. They were taught by the headmaster and kept out of ordinary classes. From that moment, Jamie’s best friend, Mark, and girlfriend, Gemma, disappeared from his life. At the time he didn’t even notice.

Last summer he spent his holidays in Taunton with his mother and her new boyfriend. Walking around his home town was a surreal experience. Sometimes, in the bank or in the record shop, he’d see a familiar face, but not be able to give it a name. He’d tried to track down Mark and Gemma once and found they’d got married – to each other. They hadn’t invited him to the wedding. Why would they? He was never really one of them. While Gemma and Mark struggled with long division, he was doing algebra with the headmaster. He was just too fucking bright.

The people in
The Face
look like they’re on drugs. They look like they’re having fun in their dressed-down clothes; in their avant-garde photo shoots. Could he have been like that? Maybe he would have been if it wasn’t for the numbers. Maybe he could still be something interesting, even with the stupid numbers. With all his numbers he’d be qualified to deal drugs, maybe; 28 grams in an ounce, 3.5 in an eighth. That’s how they sell drugs, isn’t it? He doesn’t really know. But the people in this magazine aren’t that. They’re artists and pop stars and underground rebels. They’re not the losers that Carla and her friends think they are. They’re probably just really nice people.

He looks at his clothes: chinos from The Gap; white T-shirt bought by his mother about five years ago. It’s greyed in the wash. Is that good or bad? He has a lot to learn. Worse, he has a lot to unlearn. He pulls one of the Marlboros out of the packet and lights it. He remembers smoking years ago in Taunton town centre, with Gemma breathing cold smoke in his ear, telling him she would always love him.

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.

‘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.