Bright Young Things

by Scarlett Thomas

  Fisher then comes clean with Bobby. She dies too, several years later. I think she drowned, but that was during my No TV experiment. Anyway, ten years on, the book Alan wrote about his difficult relationship with his father, On the Crest of a Wave, is put on the HSC curriculum. It also gets picked up by a film company. So right now, there’s this film crew in Summer Bay trying to get to grips with all the characters who are still there, because Alan based the book on real life. And there’s this actress character walking around trying to get into the part of Bobby, about eight years after the original character actually left the series, and the best thing is, all the plot from right back then is still consistent with now.’

  ‘Wow,’ says Emily. ‘You really know your soaps.’

  ‘Only that one,’ says Anne. ‘And Neighbours, I guess. People say that Australian soaps are silly and fluffy. But Home and Away always has the best, most interesting psychopaths, the most well-drawn characters and the most imaginative plots. You know, like Joey’s dad being a cult leader and then Joey becoming schizophrenic and seeing his dad appear in his computer screen – after his dad was shot by Terry Garner, the slaggy local cop. Or when they wanted to tackle racism. Instead of just having some black characters come along and have everyone be nice to them, they had a plot where the leader of this right-wing political party came to do a rally in Summer Bay. It showed how lots of the locals got taken in by her ideas, and demonstrated that although the “anti-foreigner” ideas are morally wrong, they are quite logical. There was a lot of debate between the characters, which was much more effective than all that crap they do on Eastenders or whatever. The black teenagers started thinking about their identity as well. Then they had this Aboriginal teacher who came and . . .’

  ‘Don’t you like Eastenders?’ interrupts Emily. ‘It’s so good at the moment.’

  ‘No,’ says Anne. ‘I think it’s the worst thing on TV.’

  ‘It’s a bit depressing,’ agrees Jamie.

  ‘And the acting is appalling,’ says Anne.

  ‘Do you think so?’ asks Emily. ‘I thought it was all right.’

  ‘No. The acting in Home and Away is fantastic, though.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s good on Neighbours as well. Susan and Carl are great comic actors.’

  Thea can’t believe they’re going on and on about this crap.

  ‘Do you watch Heartbreak High?’ asks Paul.

  ‘Of course,’ says Anne.

  ‘I like that,’ says Emily. ‘I fancy Drasick.’

  ‘You’ll never guess who’s in Home and Away at the moment about to play the part of Bobby in the film, then,’ says Anne.

  ‘Who?’ asks Paul.

  ‘Anita from Heartbreak High. How cool is that?’

  It doesn’t make too much of an impact on anyone else, although this is the most animated Anne has been since they all got here. Thea sighs. Typical for it to be about something as irrelevant as soap operas. Australian soap operas.

  ‘Don’t you like any English stuff?’ asks Thea.

  ‘Not really,’ says Anne. ‘Not on TV. I like English books and magazines, but for TV and movies it’s got to be Australia or America. You wouldn’t want to get me started on Beverly Hills 90210 or Savannah.’

  ‘Savannah? ’ says Emily.

  ‘Aaron Spelling’s finest hour,’ prompts Anne.

  ‘Apart from Sunset Beach, of course,’ says Emily, smiling.

  Anne laughs. ‘Channel Five’s all fuzzy on my TV.’

  ‘What’s that film with the lawnmower?’ says Emily.

  ‘Lawnmower Man?’ suggests Anne.

  ‘No, the zombie film.’

  ‘Braindead,’ say Paul and Anne together.

  ‘That’s Australian isn’t it?’ says Emily.

  ‘New Zealand,’ says Paul.

  Thea just can’t believe this. It takes nothing to get this lot started talking about rubbish. If they are going to talk about the world outside, why not talk about something interesting?

  ‘I’m lost,’ she says. ‘Weren’t we talking about wild men in the woods or something. What’s all that about?’

  ‘It’s a bonding thing,’ explains Emily. ‘Getting back to nature. Blokes do it. You know those weekends they send marketing executives on where they have to hunt treasure or something?’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Thea.

  ‘And all work together and whatever?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, it’s like that.’

  ‘Oh. I still don’t get how that’s connected to this.’

  Emily sighs. ‘Look, they’ve put us in an extreme situation and they’re waiting to see how we cope.’

  ‘Oh, what, you mean like how we collect food and water?’ says Jamie.

  Thea looks at the fridge. ‘It’s not exactly a survival situation,’ she points out.

  ‘So it’s unlikely to be that, then,’ says Bryn, sighing.

  ‘Anyway, let’s get this straight,’ says Emily. ‘Paul thinks it’s a prank.’

  ‘Maybe,’ says Paul. ‘Although I’m into the interview idea as well. Maybe they’re going to wait and see which one of us survives.’

  ‘What?’ says Thea.

  ‘You know, when we all start killing each other.’

  ‘We’re not going to start killing each other,’ says Emily.

  ‘They do in the films,’ says Paul.

  ‘Right. And you,’ Emily points to Thea, ‘think it’s a bonding exercise?’

  ‘Have you seen SFW?’ interrupts Anne.

  ‘What?’ says Jamie. ‘SFW ? What’s that?’

  ‘So Fucking What. It’s a film. It’s about kidnap, a hostage thing.’

  No one else has seen it.

  ‘Anyway, no,’ says Thea, answering Emily’s question. ‘I don’t think it’s a bonding exercise.’

  ‘You suggested it though,’ says Bryn.

  ‘No, I just said maybe this is a job interview after all, but I’m not sure about that now.’

  ‘What do you think now, then?’ asks Paul.

  ‘That we’ve been kidnapped. That’s it.’

  ‘You think we’ve been kidnapped as well, don’t you?’ Emily asks Anne.

  ‘Not really,’ says Anne.

  ‘So what do you think?’

  ‘Nothing. Maybe we’re all in the same dream.’

  ‘What?’ asks Emily.

  ‘Astral projection.’ She nods. ‘Yeah. That’s my theory.’

  Paul laughs. ‘I like that better than mine.’

  ‘I just wish she’d grow up,’ hisses Thea to Emily. ‘This is serious.’

  ‘I’m not the one under the influence of drugs and alcohol,’ says Anne.

  ‘You don’t need it,’ mutters Bryn.

  Jamie goes back to writing on his piece of paper.

  Chapter Four

  There’s nowhere near enough drugs here. Bryn could really do with feeling normal right now. It was cool that the blonde girl had a spliff’s worth, but why the hell didn’t she bring any more? Bryn allows for the fact that no one knew they were going to be taken hostage on a remote island, but still.

  Someone once told Bryn not to lie. It was probably his mum. That’s not the thing that’s going through his mind right now, though. He’s thinking about some other piece of advice given to him, this time by some A-level student he was fucking for a while before he became impotent again last year. Be careful what you wish for, she’d said. You might just get it. At the time Bryn had thought she was just talking shit. But now he gets it. Yeah, he lied on his application form. He lied so that he could get the kind of job that would mean spending days on end with people like this. So he wished for it and now it’s come true. Cheers. Thanks a lot.

  He doesn’t get any of this. He doesn’t get why these people like soap operas and pop music and stuff for teenagers and kids. Why would they? They’ve obviously all been to university. He understands why Tank’s mum likes Home and Away. She’s dying of emphysema and likes watching
‘all the young people’. And of course Bryn watches it when he’s round there because Tank’s mum’s so depressing. You’d watch anything, wouldn’t you? And the way these people talk. They’re all bad, but particularly the weird girl, Anne. They are English, but they use American words. Maybe they learnt to do it at university. Maybe it’s even correct. Bryn wouldn’t know.

  ‘What do you think, Bryn?’ asks Emily.

  ‘About what?’ he says.

  ‘Why do you think we’re here?’

  Why is she asking him?

  ‘Uh, maybe it’s an experiment,’ he suggests.

  ‘An experiment,’ repeats Emily.

  ‘I like that,’ says Paul. ‘What kind of experiment?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Bryn. ‘But my mate’s sister got paid about three thousand quid for being in these drug experiments. She’s in Warley Hospital now.’

  ‘Seriously?’ says Emily. ‘Drug experiments? I’ve never heard of that.’

  ‘I looked into it once,’ says Thea. ‘Loads of students do it. I was going to do a sleep one, where they keep you awake and see what effect it has on your reaction times and whatever. It wasn’t strictly drugs, but I could have chosen an anti-depressant trial instead.’

  ‘Marie, my mate’s sister, she did the lot,’ says Bryn. ‘Drugs, sleep, food additives. She’s a bit stupid, though, you know – wrong in the head – and it all got fucked up.’

  ‘What happened?’ asks Anne.

  ‘They used some diet pills on her. Marie’s massive, so she was well up for it. She got a rash though, soon after, and started pissing all the time, like, without realising, but the fee they gave her paid off her washing machine and she thought the pissing would stop. Then she did Roofies, you know that date-rape drug? Well, anyway, this psychologist gave her these Roofies and had a whole conversation with her to see how much of it she could remember afterwards. That was all right, except when she left the experiment, the drug hadn’t quite worn off and she ended up on Canvey Island being fucked by these two blokes and she couldn’t remember how she got there or how to get home. Then she did a clothes dye, but that made both her arms go purple; then she tested that stuff they put in food to stop you absorbing fat, but that made her leak shit all the time; then they gave her more slimming pills which didn’t do anything; then an epilepsy drug which gave her reduced sight in one eye; a sleeping pill that put her to sleep for ten days; and artificial sweeteners which gave her a brain tumour.’

  Anne starts laughing.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ says Thea.

  ‘No, I know it’s not,’ says Anne, still giggling. ‘It’s just the way he tells it.’

  ‘Is she all right now?’ asks Thea.

  ‘No, I told you, she’s in Warley Hospital.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A mental hospital,’ explains Bryn. ‘In Brentwood,’ he adds.

  ‘So what’s that got to do with us being here?’ asks Emily.

  ‘Well, maybe they’re going to experiment on us,’ he suggests. ‘And this way they don’t have to pay us. They could put something in the water. I don’t know. It’s just an idea.’

  ‘It would have cost so much more to set all this up, though,’ says Thea. ‘Definitely more than paying us to do it in the outside world. I mean, you’re talking money for the ad, whatever they drugged us with, the plane or however they got us here, the use of this island, the time of whoever selected us from all the applicants . . .’

  ‘Unless whatever they’re testing is illegal,’ mumbles Bryn.

  ‘I wonder why we were chosen from all the applicants,’ says Emily.

  Bryn frowns. ‘Are you saying we were picked on purpose for this?’

  ‘How else would we have got here?’ asks Emily.

  Everyone nods.

  ‘Lots of people must have applied for the job,’ says Jamie.

  ‘I wonder if we were the best or the worst of them,’ muses Anne.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ says Emily. ‘Why don’t we all say the most ridiculous reason we can think of for why we’re here, completely off the top of our heads.’

  ‘Why?’ asks Thea. ‘Haven’t we just done that?’

  ‘It’s a good way of coming up with solutions,’ says Emily. ‘My dad always makes me do this stuff. He’s always saying that to enable original thinking, you have to include ideas you’d usually dismiss as ridiculous. It’s like you have to count what you’d usually automatically discount, and often that frees up your thinking or sometimes even provides a solution in itself. Once I was going to this party and I couldn’t think what to wear, and Dad said, “Why don’t you get all the most inappropriate things out and stick them all on your bed, and try to make an outfit from them. It’ll give you some ideas.” Anyway, I did, and I ended up wearing some of it to the party, and everyone thought I was some style icon.’

  ‘What does your dad do?’ asks Jamie.

  ‘He’s a management consultant,’ giggles Emily.

  ‘So what did you wear?’ asks Anne.

  ‘Jeans and a T-shirt,’ she replies.

  Everyone looks confused.

  Emily smiles. ‘You see, my friend works in fashion, and it was this big after-show party and everyone was going in Versace and Moschino, which were very cool at the time. It was meant to be really smart, and so by just turning up in jeans, I got loads of attention. There’s no way I would have even considered doing it, but the more I looked at them lying there on my bed, the more I realised that this was the only way to make a real statement. I got laid as well.’

  ‘You’re a genuine bimbo,’ says Paul, sounding shocked.

  Bryn doesn’t know if he’s joking or not.

  Jamie’s writing something. His defence shelter design lies in a ball on the table. No one said anything when he screwed it up and threw it away. Bryn would actually feel better if they were all nailing the doors shut, rather than just sitting about drinking wine, but no one’s come to murder them yet. It occurs to him that these people have probably never felt real danger before. OK, maybe one of them almost ran their BMW into something once, or flicked a light switch with wet hands, but nothing more than that. Maybe they just don’t know how to act scared. Well, Thea’s pretty good at it, but then you get the impression she’d be just as scared in the Ghost House of her local funfair.

  The kitchen table is a mess of ashtray-saucers, cigarette butts and bottles. Bryn can’t shake off the feeling that whoever owns this house will be pissed off if they make too much mess. Stupid, eh?

  ‘Maybe they’re going to breed us with aliens,’ says Anne.

  ‘What?’ says Thea nastily.

  Anne looks hurt, although it’s a fair guess she isn’t.

  ‘Calm down. It’s my ridiculous suggestion,’ she says.

  Thea sighs and lights a cigarette.

  ‘Your turn,’ Emily says to Bryn.

  ‘I can’t think of anything,’ he says.

  ‘Come on,’ prompts Emily. ‘Just the most stupid thing you can think of.’

  ‘All right. What about a trampolining competition?’ he says.

  ‘A trampolining competition,’ repeats Emily.

  ‘Yeah, that’s why they’ve brought us here.’

  ‘But that’s stupid,’ says Emily.

  ‘No,’ corrects Anne. ‘It’s ridiculous. I think it’s cool.’

  Girls like Anne don’t usually say Bryn’s cool.

  ‘Well, what’s yours then?’ Paul asks Emily.

  ‘Porn,’ she says. ‘They’re going to film us having sex.’

  ‘Who?’ says Thea. ‘I’m not having sex.’

  ‘I will be,’ says Emily enigmatically, looking from Paul to Bryn and back.

  ‘Well, then it’s not ridiculous,’ says Thea, sounding confused.

  ‘You said it, sweetie,’ Emily returns.

  ‘We’re here to farm sheep,’ says Jamie, and giggles. No one else laughs.

  ‘Let’s hear Paul’s,’ says Anne.

  ‘Nuclear testing,
’ says Paul.

  ‘Is that it?’ says Thea.

  ‘What’s yours then?’ he asks.

  ‘We’ve been brought here to fall in love,’ she says.

  ‘You cynic,’ says Emily. ‘That’s not ridiculous. Love’s cool.’

  Outside it’s starting to get dark. A minute ago the light was yellow. Now it’s blue.

  Bryn feels itchy all over. Maybe he’s allergic to these people. Thea’s right. There isn’t going to be any romance here. Not that Bryn knows too much about romance, of course. He knows about sex (not enough, though – he’s shit at it) and how to get girls to have sex with him, but romance . . . that’s way too embarrassing. He feels uncomfortable because it now looks like sex could be on the cards with the blonde girl. Bryn’s not so sure about blondes. He’s a Posh Spice sort of bloke. He reminds himself that this girl would probably be a right goer. The thought doesn’t excite him, though, it just makes him itch more.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Anne asks Jamie. He’s been writing things on the bit of paper for hours now, or that’s what it feels like.

  ‘I’m writing a list,’ he says.

  ‘Of?’ demands Emily.

  ‘Suspects,’ he replies. ‘For the kidnapping.’

  ‘Cool,’ says Anne. ‘Can I see?’

  She tries to grab the piece of paper but Jamie holds it out of her reach.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she says. ‘I just want to have a look.’

  ‘Hang on,’ he says. ‘I’ve just got to . . .’

  He chews his pen for a moment, looks at the sheet of paper and then writes something else on it. There are several more pieces of paper underneath it and Jamie pockets all except the one he’s just written on. This gets a raised eyebrow from everyone but Emily, who’s now examining the electric blue polish on her toe-nails.

  ‘What are they?’ asks Thea.

  ‘What?’ says Jamie.

  ‘Those bits of paper you’ve just hidden.’

  ‘Not important,’ he says.

  ‘Don’t you want us to see your list?’ she says.