by Susan Finlay
‘But you’ll finish your course soon, at New College. And then you’ll be a proper journalist.’
‘Yes, maybe.’
‘No, definitely.’
Katarzyna tried to smile again but then discovered that she couldn’t. She knew that if she had really wanted to be a proper journalist, that if she too had had her wits about her, then she should have attempted to fulfil the ‘considerable potential’ that every single one of her teachers wrote about on every single one of her school reports. Her ability to absorb and then retain any piece of information, and then piece it together with others, under exam conditions, and with not inconsiderable flair, hadn’t gone unnoticed, just as her foreignness, and working-classness – which had generally been viewed as a one-and-the-same-type-of-chavvinesss – hadn’t either. The other girls went to English Martyrs because they lived in the area, and their parents, who were usually doctors, or lawyers, or teachers, knew that Catholic schools got good results, unlike hers, who had made her go because God was always watching. None of the other girls had the local accent that she did, and all of them wore clothes on wear-your-own-clothes day that she could never afford. From the very beginning she had been an anomaly, and her cleverness, which she soon learned to hide, had only made it worse. By the time she had finished her GCSEs the opportunity to escape the snide remarks about her chavvy accent and her chavvy clothes had eclipsed any desire to go to university, and she had therefore opted to spend the past five years stagnating at the local paper, with all the other chavs who dressed like her and spoke like her and made her feel as if she were in a home she couldn’t leave. But she knew too that to use a word like ‘stagnating’ would make it seem as though she were showing off in front of Margaret, whose life, just like her parents’ lives, hadn’t really provided much in the way of opportunity. And then she tried and failed to be grateful for the somewhat limited opportunities – in this case a made-up course at the new FE college that she had joined for no other reason than that it filled the empty hours suddenly gifted to her courtesy of the British Army – that her own life presented now.
‘Well I don’t know if I’ll ever get that far. But I would like to move up from Swop Shop,’ she said instead, while also trying to ignore the fact that the swirling green pattern on the carpet was beginning to make her feel sick.
‘From Swop Shop?’
‘It’s the bit of the classifieds that I work on. The free ads section. People phone in with notices for things that they no longer want and then say what they’d like to swop them for.’ And then, eager for a change of subject, she added, ‘I got an email from Eoin yesterday.’
‘Can he send them too then? Even in the desert?’
‘Yes of course. And Basra’s on the coast.’
‘Hail Queen of Heaven, the Ocean Star.’
‘I’m sorry Margaret, what was that?’
‘Hail Queen of Heaven – you must have heard it surely?’
Katarzyna nodded at the seething carpet and the telephone, sunk in a tangle of wires, while simultaneously trying to remember the words to a hymn that she knew she must have sung but which, despite her efforts, continued to elude her. What did come back to her, however, was a fact that she had absorbed and retained, namely that the ocean, unlike the sea, was not where the water met the land, but where the water met the water, all of which meant that the Queen of Heaven therefore must be very far away, both from where Eoin was in Basra, and where she and Margaret waited for him . . .
‘Well I’m glad to know that he’s beside the seaside, and he has a dog too, you know. Now isn’t that nice?’ continued Margaret.
‘A dog?’
‘Yes, with a coat for when it gets cold.’
‘But it’s pretty hot out there. Over fifty degrees some days.’
‘But Eoin is wearing sunscreen,’ said Margaret, very definitely, as if that were the end of the matter, while Katarzyna, not knowing quite how to respond to this statement, put an entire biscuit in her mouth.
Meghana
MEGHANA BUDANNAVAR PLACED HER RUCKSACK on the empty chair beside her. She hoped that Kathy wasn’t late, or alternatively, she hoped that Judy, the classified advertisements manager, wouldn’t try to find a new friend for her in the meantime. Last month Judy had taken every available opportunity to seat her next to Aaeesha Begum, who also had brown skin; and yet to explain that Aaeesha came from Dhaka and Meghana came from Leicester, or that Aaeesha was a Muslim and Meghana was a Hindu (or more specifically Lingayat) seemed pointless, especially since her reluctance to place herself alongside the Evening Post’s only other brown person stemmed from the fact that Aaeesha had no discernible sense of humour, and didn’t appear to understand the level of irony required in order to make it through the otherwise mundane day.
Meghana put on her headset and scanned the stuffy, strip-lit room, which by and large was populated either by disaffected school leavers, or over-tired, topping-up-their-income mums, plus anyone else who was prepared to work unusual hours for not much money. The Free Ads pages were as old as the paper itself, and probably the most pointless, being the only section that no one, bar those who placed the ads, or the students who occasionally prank-called them, ever read. Neither could the frequent references to Brian Clough’s long-gone heyday, which all the other sections of the paper employed in an attempt to link ‘old big head’s’ former glamour back to each and every piece of local news, be applied to a second-hand microwave, or indeed any of the other stranger and grubbier things to which their current owners hoped others could be persuaded to attach a value. It was pointless, Meghana silently repeated to herself, but it was also, from an ironical perspective, quite funny . . .
Meghana adjusted her headset so that it didn’t press against her skull quite so tightly. She was pleased to see that Aaeesha had now been moved to Family Announcements, which, due to the paper’s somewhat elderly demographic, tended more towards obituaries than weddings or babies, and that Judy’s attention was currently taken up with one of their regular problem callers, who may or may not have also been the heavy breather who phoned Personal Services up to four or five times each day. That left only Sam from Motors, but although he paused, briefly, as he passed on his way to the kitchen, he registered the rucksack and moved on. She reached for a chocolate and then typed ‘www.blueyonder.co.uk’ into the navigation bar – except that the green light on the switchboard lit up before she had time to go any further. She clicked back to the Free Ads screen and pressed ‘answer’.
‘Hello, Evening Post Swop Shop. Meg speaking how can I help you?’
‘Alright duck. Can you put that I’ve got two bags of items? And that I’d like to swop them for a plasma screen TV?’
Meghana began to type into one of the Free Ads boxes.
‘And would you like to say a little bit more about your items?’
‘You what duck?’
‘Would you like to say a bit more about them? Experience has shown that our readers are more likely to do a swop if they know what your items actually are.’
‘Oh right . . .’ The noise of heavy breathing now filled both of Meghana’s ears. ‘Just give me a minute, okay?’
‘Take your time.’
Meghana looked up and waved at Kathy, who had just entered the office, and then pointed at the seat beside her.
‘Err, okay duck, can you just say that they’re assorted.’
‘Assorted . . . Yes.’
Meghana carried on typing into the Free Ads screen while Kathy removed her rucksack, put on her headset and then sat down.
‘And can I take a name and number?’
‘Sorry duck?’
‘A name and telephone number so that the other readers can contact you about your items.’
‘Oh okay, right. Let’s say John, Mansfield 9835428.’
‘Okay, let’s say John,’ she caught Kathy’s eye, ‘on Mansfield 9835428. Is that right?’
‘Yes duck.’
‘Okay I’ll just read that back to you.
Two bags of assorted items, will swop for plasma screen TV. Contact John, Mansfield 9835428. Is that right?’
‘Yes duck.’
‘It’ll be in tomorrow night’s paper. Thank you. Goodbye.’
Meghana pressed ‘end call’, and she and Kathy immediately burst out laughing. Then she clicked back to ‘www.blueyonder.co.uk’ while Kathy took one of the chocolates.
‘Assorted items,’ said Meghana, shaking her head. ‘From let’s say John.’
Kathy finished her chocolate, then grimaced at her sticky fingers.
‘No one in their right mind is ever going to ring him up,’ said Kathy.
‘But there’s a lot of people in their wrong minds,’ said Meghana.
Meghana also took another chocolate, then put it back in the box again, and then considered what she’d just said. There’s a lot of people in their wrong minds. There’s a lot of people in their wrong minds in Mansfield and also Nottingham. There’s a lot of people in their wrong minds in the City of Caves, which was also Nottingham, which was also the subject of her as yet unfinished anthropology doctorate, which she was undertaking in the geography department at the University of Nottingham because they had been able to offer her partial funding and were posher than Nottingham Trent. Silently, but still ironically, she began to recite the following words:
The City of Caves is a visitor attraction situated in Nottingham’s Broad-marsh Shopping Centre. It consists of a network of caves carved out of sandstone, dating from the Dark Ages up until the 1960s. My study explores the attraction’s impact on the political and narrative landscapes of the East Midlands area via the development of a counter-archaeological analysis. This involves reflection on previous archaeological findings and on the new heritage paradigm, and explores the complex materialities of people, places and objects, and the assemblages thereof . . .
As if reading her mind, Kathy said, ‘And how’s your PhD going?’
‘Oh you know, same old, same old,’ said Meghana, and then laughed awkwardly, because she always felt awkward whenever Kathy asked about her other life up at the university.
It made her remember that she had A Levels, a BSc and an MSc, and soon she’d have a PhD too. And then it made her remember that her parents were doctors and that Kathy’s weren’t, and then it made her forget that despite these differences they found the same things funny. She paused for a moment, then took back one of the chocolates and said, ‘Well at the moment I’m looking at the way in which we experience physical things, or places, and how this shapes our consciousness—’
But the green light was flashing and Kathy, seeing Judy, pressed ‘answer’.
‘Hello, Evening Post Swop Shop . . .’
Meghana watched as Kathy carried on talking into the headset and typing into the boxes while also reaching for the chocolates.
‘. . . Okay, so let me just read that back to you. Six bags of Arabian coffee, partially opened, will swop for kitchen appliances or children’s toys. Contact Kylie, Nottingham 97344216. Is that right?’ There was a pause during which Kathy clicked on a new window and then typed ‘www.hotmail.com’ into the navigation bar. ‘It’ll be in tomorrow night’s paper. Thank you. Goodbye.’
‘Partially opened?’
‘Partially opened.’
Meghana laughed and then threw what remained of the chocolates into the wastepaper bin, where they ricocheted round the metal container. She clicked back to www.blueyonder.co.uk and typed ‘meginthefield’ into the username box and then ‘megthefieldstudy’ into the password box beneath it. She saw that there was one new message with a JPEG of her friend Dave in a wizard’s hat attached to it, and then she looked over at Kathy’s computer, where a photograph of Eoin, who resembled an old-fashioned film star, glimmered teasingly across the screen.
‘But what about the way we experience other things?’ said Kathy, who then looked back at her computer, where a message saying her message had been sent now hovered. ‘Like the Internet?’
‘But the Internet is virtual.’
‘Yes, it’s neither physical nor metaphysical. Isn’t that what being virtual means?’
‘And?’
‘And what about the way we experience that?’
‘Well . . . I think that our experiences of virtual places are still dependent on the physical places that border them.’
‘So the Internet isn’t the ocean, it’s the sea?’
Meghana took off her headset, shook out her hair, which she had begun to worry was her best feature, and then covered her locket with the palm of her hand.
‘Yes. Or an airport. Or something.’
David
DR DAVID GOLDSTEIN PUT DOWN the battered paperback he’d been reading and surveyed the sniggering boys in front of him, then put another piece of nicotine gum in his mouth. He was still trying to quit smoking, for the same reason that he had recently accepted the role of Games Workshop Manager and moved back in with his parents; he needed to save money, and so he now spent his days either herding teenagers around the shop, painting Warhammer figures for the window display or else reading up on the odd selection of science fiction novels and books of conspiracy theories that his colleague Paul left lying around.
David chewed slowly. It was precisely one year since he had received his doctorate in Religion and National Identity: Migrant Communities in Nottingham. His studies had taken place not in the theology, but the geography department at the University of Nottingham, due to the full funding that was, at that time, still available. He had also held the coveted position of Cross-Cultural Identities Research Group convener, and for this reason he had enjoyed the respect of his peers. It had not been uncommon for undergraduates to ask his advice on their essays, applications and the like, one of whom had even included the line ‘Dr [even though he had not, at that point, been a Doctor] Goldstein is well fit’ within the any-other-comments box of the national student survey. His supervisor had frequently introduced him as ‘my star pupil’, and once even ‘my successor’; and best of all, his contemporaries, meaning those who understood the nuances and cultural references associated with his age group, had regarded him as cool . . .
Remembering this, David looked down at the Stop the War Coalition badge he had deliberately pinned over the Games Workshop logo on his shirt, and then up at a boy covered in spots, who had detached himself from the rest of the group and was waiting, expectantly, for him.
‘Excuse me but have you got any more Skaven? I can only see the ones in the display unit.’
David shook his head. ‘We’re all out I’m afraid. But we’ve still got elves, and err, dwarves – you know, everything else, we’ve got in.’
‘But I really wanted Skaven.’
The boy looked at him pleadingly, as if his insistence combined with the shame of his spots would conjure a new box of figures, but all that David was able to offer in reply was another, more definite shake of the head. The mix of helplessness but also determination that he exuded reminded David, for the second time in as many minutes, of himself at that age. At eleven, he had won a scholarship to The High, a same-sex selective school in which he had thrived academically, although not socially, due to his being unable to disguise either his earnestness when it came to learning facts and figures, or his indifference to fashion and popular music – traits that his parents had, unwittingly, encouraged. His father, a now retired university professor and keen amateur cellist, had been delighted to have a son who, despite his tender years, enjoyed a Bach concerto. Likewise, his mother, a not quite retired professor, had demanded a similar level of intellectual engagement. She had refused either to make him packed lunches or to iron his clothes on the grounds that it would reinforce gender stereotyping, as had his father, on the grounds of being a gender, or perhaps merely academic, stereotype himself. As a result, David’s teenage years had been crumpled ones, during which he had survived on Pot Noodles and remained oblivious to the Top 40, or indeed any other frame of reference that might have helped him to fit in
. His social interactions were either with his parents’ friends, or with other, similarly nerdy boys, with whom he played Battleships, then Dungeons and Dragons, then Warhammer – the inches, units and simulated conflicts appealing to his earnest facts-and-figures mind, and the different fantasy races simultaneously providing an escape from the confines of it . . .
‘What’s this?’
David looked up and this time saw Meg standing on the other side of the counter. She must have entered without him realising, and was now holding up the same book that he had been reading earlier. It had a particularly lurid cover: orange and purple fractals adorned both the front and back, along with bold raised text that proclaimed ‘THE KAOSPHERE’, in which the ‘a’ was an anarchy symbol. He contemplated it for a moment, and then removed his piece of nicotine gum, stuck it under the counter and said, ‘Err, well, it’s about a kind of occult anti-system in which eight arrows representing all possibilities, and one arrow, representing the, err, the single, certain road of Law—’
‘No I meant what’s this.’
And he saw that she was also holding one of the miniature figures. ‘Oh that’s Tzeentch, the god of change, fate, mutation, hope and, err, knowledge.’
‘And he lives in the Kaosphere?’
‘Well according to the packaging he lives in the Warp, although as the Kaosphere is supposed to encompass all possibilities I suppose he, err, well, I suppose that he could live there too.’