Bright Young Things (37 page)

‘Yes, of course. But only with, you know . . .’

‘Girlfriends.’

‘Yes.’

She sits on the bed and takes off her trainers.

‘It’s no big deal,’ she assures him. ‘Everyone does it.’

He’s still standing by the door, shaking slightly. Emily gets under the covers fully clothed, and after a few seconds Jamie does the same, stopping first to take off his shoes and socks. Emily notes that his feet don’t smell. Well, that’s good.

Once in bed, he won’t stop fidgeting.

‘What’s wrong?’ Emily asks him eventually.

‘My trousers are itchy,’ he complains.

‘Take them off then,’ she says. ‘You are wearing boxers, aren’t you?’

‘Of course,’ he says, and wriggles out of his trousers.

‘Is that better?’

‘Yes, thanks. Emily?’

‘What?’

‘What you said about healing before . . .’

‘Mmm.’

‘Did you mean it?’

She sighs. ‘Of course I did.’

‘So, in theory, you would like to stay here for a while?’

‘Yeah, in theory,’ she says. ‘But not now. I mean, there’s a dead body here.’

‘Hmm. The island’s nice, though, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah, I guess the island’s all right. Just right for six,’ she jokes.

‘Yeah,’ laughs Jamie. ‘Just right for six.’

Emily picks up her white notebook and a pen from the bedside table and starts writing her journal entry for today.

‘What are you writing?’ asks Jamie.

‘Just stuff,’ she says. ‘I’m keeping a journal.’

‘That’s such a good idea,’ says Jamie.

‘Yeah, well.’

‘Did you write about last night?’

‘Yeah. Bits.’

‘Did it make you feel better?’ he asks.

‘It did, actually.’ She looks at him. ‘Sorry I was so mental.’

‘I’m sorry I was so weird today,’ says Jamie. ‘I had things on my mind.’

‘That’s OK. I’ve been trying to feel normal all day. It’s hard.’

‘I know.’

‘Jamie?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Are you scared of drowning?’

‘I haven’t really thought about it.’

‘I can’t stop thinking about it,’ she confesses. ‘Sorry, but I had to say.’

‘You can tell me anything,’ says Jamie. ‘Please tell me anything that upsets you.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Really.’

‘I could go on forever, though,’ she says, laughing. ‘You’d get bored.’

‘I promise you I wouldn’t.’

‘You’re so sweet,’ she says.

‘It’s not because I’m sweet,’ he says. ‘I care about you. I want you to get better.’

Emily laughs again. ‘You make it sound like I’m ill.’

‘I think you are. And I think talking will make you better.’

‘The therapy didn’t cure me. It made it a bit better, but—’

‘Yes, but you need to talk to someone who cares about you.’

‘Maybe. Well, where do you want me to start?’

‘At the beginning,’ he suggests. ‘Tell me your earliest memory.’

It’s a bit cramped in the single bed, but Emily likes the feeling of Jamie next to her.

‘You’re not too cramped in here are you?’ she asks him suddenly.

‘Are you?’ he says.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Yeah. Me too. So tell me your earliest memory.’

‘OK.’

Hours later, Emily is still holding the notebook. Her face is wet with tears, and her throat hurts from talking so much. She puts the book back on the bedside table and switches off the light.

‘Goodnight,’ she says, turning away from Jamie.

‘Night,’ he says, turning to face her back.

They lie there for about ten minutes, not moving, hardly breathing.

‘Can I put my arm around you?’ Jamie asks eventually.

‘Sure,’ says Emily.

Paul’s tinkering with the outboard motor, trying to make it work by tomorrow. Everyone except him and Anne are in bed now, ‘doubling up’, whatever that involves. Anne’s looking serene, reading in front of the fire. He can’t help but stare at her, but every time she looks up, he pretends to be concentrating on the motor.

‘Do you want something to drink?’ he asks her eventually.

‘Coke,’ she says hopefully.

‘Milkshake?’ he offers.

‘Cool.’

When he gets back, she appears to have given up reading and is lying on the sofa.

‘How did you get into computer hacking?’ she asks him.

‘Messing about with e-mail,’ he says. ‘What about you?’

‘I never said I was a hacker,’ says Anne.

‘Oh, come on. You’ve got it written all over you.’

‘What?’

‘The attitude, the disrespect for authority, the junk food stuff.’

‘I’ve only done a little bit,’ she admits. ‘I’m more into games.’

‘What, programming?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Didn’t you create a game at university or something?’

‘That’s right.’

‘What is it called?’

‘“Life”.’

‘What’s it about?’

She smiles. ‘Life. It’s a life sim.’

‘A
life
sim?’

‘Yeah. You know “Sim City” and “Theme Park” and everything?’

‘Yeah, of course.’

‘Well, it’s like that, but it has life as its theme. Instead of creating a world or a business and running it successfully, the object of the game is to take a human character through their life. You have to decide what the person will eat and drink, at what age they will lose their virginity and with which other character it will take place. There are over five hundred characters in the game, all with artificial intelligence developed to a level where the main character can interact with them. You have the same bank of characters – five hundred – to choose from at the start. The opening level is a load of babies all about to be born, and you can look at the characteristics of the parents and choose which baby you want to “be”. Then for the first few “years” – in game time – you only have to decide when to cry or smile. Then you have to learn how to use the potty you get, which is quite complicated. When you’re a kid, you can earn pocket money, which you can spend on sweets or comics or whatever. If you eat too many sweets, though, you end up spending a load of money at the dentist when you’re an adult.’

‘Does the character work when he or she grows up?’ asks Paul.

‘If they learn the skills to get a job, then yes. All through the game you have the option to go to places and learn particular skills. For example, if you befriend the video shop owner, he’ll eventually offer you a Saturday job and train you to use the till – unless you’ve already taken up skateboarding, in which case you might turn him down to enter a series of competitions which are all on a Saturday. If you spend most of your time at school, you get the chance to take academic qualifications. Your character can open bank accounts, get mortgages, loans, and so on. They can also visit the hospital if they’re ill – although the NHS hospital is shit, so it’s a good idea to invest in private health insurance when you’re quite young. You receive money, which you keep in the bank – unless you decide to keep it under your mattress, in which case you encourage burglars – favours, which you keep in the form of greetings cards on your mantelpiece, and feuds, which come in the form of bricks through your window.’

‘What happens if you run out of money?’ asks Paul.

‘You get a loan. But if you can’t pay it off, you’ll have to start selling things.’

‘What if you sell everything and you still don’t have any money?’

‘You have to cut your costs. And if you’re still fucked, you can either try to get a better job, go to a loan shark, or beg on the streets. If you beg on the streets, it helps if you have a skill you can trade on, for example if you learned to play the guitar as a child, you can do that to earn money. I programmed elements into the game where, for example, if you’ve learnt an instrument at home, befriended a particular set of people, bought a pet goldfish, and then ended up busking on the streets for money, you’ll get approached by a scout for a new boy or girl band. I didn’t actually write these bits for my project, but I’m working on them now. The idea is that there are hidden “celebrity” levels in the game that you try and get to. Then you basically get to live the life of a celebrity.’

‘It sounds so cool,’ says Paul. ‘How do you win the game?’

‘By making your character live to a hundred.’

‘What if your character dies before that?’ he asks.

‘Game over,’ she says. ‘It’s quite hard. Even I find it difficult.’

‘I bet it’s totally addictive,’ he says.

‘Mmm. I was quite inspired by playing games like “Final Fantasy VII”, where you do almost feel like your character has a real life, and you’re able to earn money and then spend it on things. One of the problems in the real world right now is that a lot of the time you can’t earn money even if you want to. So a game like mine allows a person to have a normal life, even if it’s just in a game, which is basically – except for a few random elements – fair and makes sense. Real life
so
isn’t like that. That’s why I thought the game would work. Plus, people can have fun experimenting with different characters. You can set yourself challenges, like you could choose to be a baby from really poor DSS parents, and try to turn the character into the prime minister or something.’

‘And this is a comment on what you think about the world?’ asks Paul.

‘No,’ she says defensively. ‘It’s just a game.’

‘Yeah, right,’ he says, smiling. ‘Whatever you say.’

She smiles back. ‘Yeah.’

‘I’ve often thought about designing a game,’ says Paul.

‘You should. It’s fun.’

‘Hmm. It’s not really going to change anything if I do, though.’

‘Change what?’

‘The world.’

‘The world? Anne starts laughing. ‘You want to change the world? How?’

‘By fucking things up. Making people aware. Why are you laughing?’

‘You can’t change the world. You have no control over it.’

‘You do, though. Especially now.’

‘Why now? Why not before?’

‘Computers. You must know what you can do with computer systems.’

She frowns. ‘Yeah, I do, but . . .’

‘What?’

‘So you fuck up the system, which eventually fucks up the company . . .’

‘It’s like the “Horseshoe Nail” poem,’ he says. ‘If you can fuck up a nail . . .’

‘I loved that poem when I was a kid. How did it go? Oh, I remember:
Because of the nail the shoe was lost, because of the shoe the horse was lost, because of the horse the battle was lost, because of the battle the kingdom was lost, and all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
Something like that, anyway.’

‘Well, then, you can see what I mean.’

‘But no one ever won a battle by tampering with a horse’s hoof, Paul. The poem’s just a metaphor for what could happen if that particular horse was crucial to winning the battle. It doesn’t mean that if it happened to any horse the battle would be lost.’

‘So maybe I’m just trying to find the right nail, or the right horse.’

‘Do you think MoneyBaby does that? Do you think the horse is the banks?’

Paul loves this girl. She thinks like him. ‘Yeah,’ he says.

‘So you really want to change the world, then?’

‘Of course,’ he says, smiling at her.

‘Do you think people want that?’ she asks.

‘Sorry?’

‘Normal people. Your mother, your friends, whoever. Do they want the world changed?’

‘They . . . I don’t know,’ says Paul. ‘Probably not.’

Anne pulls a face. ‘They’ve been
brain
washed,’ she says, in a film-trailer voice.

They both laugh.

‘They have, though,’ says Paul. ‘They just want to buy stuff. Be entertained.’

‘Exactly,’ says Anne. ‘They want to be entertained.’

‘I don’t get what you’re saying.’

‘Why not just let people watch their TVs and play their games and stuff?’

‘Because there’s more to life than that. More than just capitalism.’

‘Who says?’

‘You know it’s true,’ he says. ‘Come on.’

‘Yeah, but if these people don’t believe that, who’s going to convince them?’

‘People like me, I guess.’

‘What, by force?’ she says.

‘No, of course not. By educating people. Shocking them. Pranks.’

‘So you dress up as a rabbit and people throw away their TVs?’

‘You know it’s not as simple as that.’

‘The only way to have any effect on people is through entertainment.’