Everything You Ever Wanted

by Luiza Sauma

  ‘No, not really. That was the strange thing. He wasn’t close to anyone, so we all felt terrible, like we should have made more of an effort.’

  ‘There’s nothing you could have done. You barely knew him.’

  ‘What an intense thing to go through at work,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Shall we go inside?’ said Rich, covering his disturbance with boredom. ‘Another round?’

  Eddie left to meet his sister and the others stayed till closing time. The pub served proper food, but they didn’t order any because the alcohol and conversation made their hunger small and quiet. Instead, they ate several packets of crisps in all sorts of flavours, till their mouths felt salty and sore. After closing time, Rich and Jenny went to get kebabs, but by then Iris was tired of their company. She went to another fast food place, bought a box of chips, covered them in salt, vinegar and ketchup, and ate them on the bus to Clapton. It’s Friday tomorrow, she thought. Am I getting too old for this? Getting hammered on a Thursday night, eating chips on a bus. When she was younger, she assumed that she’d be happy and fulfilled by now – doing something meaningful, living in a lovely house with a kind, handsome man. Perhaps everyone dreamed of such things. But Jenny was right: she was lucky, even if it didn’t feel that way.

  She listened to pop music on her phone, the kind she enjoyed when she was trashed, with her head resting against the window; mouthing the lyrics to Sky Ferreira’s ‘I Blame Myself’ as the bus made its way down Hackney Road. There were lots of drunk people on the street – shouting, laughing, running, hugging, smoking. Did no one have work tomorrow or did none of them care? The bus shuddered, her head felt heavy, her stomach swirled. Shit, shit, shit. Someone sat next to her and she thought: I’m trapped now. I’m going to have to vomit on my lap. Twenty-seven years old, for fuck’s sake. Nearly twenty-eight. Nearly thirty. Will I still be puking on the bus at thirty? She breathed deeply and then shallowly. It was hard to tell which was best for keeping the vomit inside.

  As the bus reached Mare Street, Iris looked over at another double-decker on the other side of the road, going the opposite way. On the top deck there was a guy asleep at the front. Young hipsters in the middle, practically trembling with excitement. Iris could tell they were new in town. At the back there was a guy. Wait, no, wait. A wave of nausea glimmered through her body, making her head light, her legs numb. He was an Orthodox Jewish guy – black suit, black hat, grey beard – but there was something familiar about him. His blank expression, his wide cheeks.

  ‘No, it can’t be. Wait, wait,’ she muttered to herself, pushing past the guy sitting next to her and running down the stairs to the lower level.

  The bus stopped and Iris ran out, but the other bus was too far away, disappearing now, and she was alone, in the dark. She was drunk and confused. Her dad was dead and buried. Or had he been cremated? She didn’t know. It wasn’t him, they all look alike – same beards, same black clothes. It isn’t racist to think so, right? She was almost Jewish. Technically she was a goy, thanks to her goy mother, but she had inherited her father’s surname, Cohen. A lifetime of explaining, No, I’m actually not.

  Iris entered the flat noisily and threw herself on her bed, feeling as if she were rolling down a hill. To quiet her mind, she scrolled through various apps on her phone. Twitter: bad news, people screaming at each other. Facebook: another girl from school had been impregnated by her lawyer husband. Mazel tov! Congratulations! She liked the post, even though she thought the girl was a desperado, with her nose job and butter-blonde hair, and her husband who would be obese and bald within two years – you could just tell. Under the post, Iris began to type, ‘I hope your baby is born with your original nose,’ but deleted it halfway through and switched to another app.

  She found herself googling Richard Wolfson. Not Rich from work, but Jenny’s ex-colleague – the one who killed himself. There were many Richard Wolfsons in the world. There was her colleague, looking smart and professional on his LinkedIn page. There was a wannabe writer. There was a casting director in Los Angeles, a psychiatrist, an oncologist and a plastic surgeon. But not the dead guy. She googled ‘Richard Wolfson suicide’ and found what she was looking for. A local news item. Thirty years old. Died by hanging. Suffered from depression. Office manager. Huh. She wanted more than this – much more. She wanted to know how it felt, whether it was worth it, whether Richard Wolfson would give five stars to suicide – thumbs up, highly recommend – or whether he regretted it at the last moment, whether the pain of hanging was greater than the one he suffered in life.

  What am I doing, what am I doing?

  Her heart was beating so quickly, she wondered if she might have a heart attack. Boom-a-boom-a-boom-a-boom. Whenever she became conscious of her heart as this dumb hunk of meat, it would beat terrifyingly fast, as if it were offended. I’ll show you, said her heart. Breathing heavily, Iris scrabbled around on her bedside table for her sleeping pills. She popped one out, crunched it between her teeth – it tasted disgusting, metallic – and felt a surge of calm wash over her. She fell asleep with her clothes on, including her shoes.

  That night, she dreamed she was at a meeting in the IdeasLab, the boardroom at Freedom & Co. Alison, Rich, Eddie and Jenny were there, and some other people, and everyone was talking passionately, gesticulating and laughing in unison, but she couldn’t hear anything they were saying. It sounded like they were underwater – fuzzy and incoherent. Alison said something funny. Ha ha ha. Everyone laughed. They started to notice, one by one, that she was not engaging with the conversation.

  ‘What do you think, I?’ said Alison. It was the first thing that Iris understood.

  Everyone turned to stare, none of them laughing any more.

  ‘Yes, what do you think?’ said Jenny, looking much more serious than she ever did in real life.

  In her dream, Iris remembered one of the most memorable suicides she had ever heard of – that of a promising young gymnast called Ella Williams. On a Saturday night in early spring, Ella was at a party in west London – laughing and dancing, her friends said, but not drinking, because she was teetotal. At some point she disappeared. Everyone assumed she’d gone home, but she was on the roof, looking down at the street. It was now Sunday morning: ice-cold, the sky was lightening and the streets were almost empty, apart from an elderly dog walker, who saw Ella standing up there. (It’s always a dog walker; they see all the bad things.) The walker stopped and looked up, wondering if she should shout something. Perhaps the girl was just enjoying the view. But then she saw Ella walk to the other side of the roof, take a run-up and leap off the building, somersaulting several times in the air – ‘like an Olympic diver,’ the woman told the police – before crashing to the ground. Iris thought of Ella often, of her sweet, childish face on the BBC website and the baroque manner of her death. How alive she must have felt as she flew through the air.

  ‘What do you think?’ said Rich, in Iris’s dream.

  ‘About what?’

  Alison glared at her. ‘I, this is really important. Have you not been listening?’

  Iris stood up and stretched her legs, like Ella Williams had done, and looked at the window on the other side of the room. The clouds were pinking in the sunset. She took a run-up and leapt, crashing straight through the glass and into space, where she flew through the black sky, surrounded by stars that audibly twinkled.

  Suddenly, she wasn’t flying any more. She was lying on the sand in her underwear, on the planet Nyx. The sand was the sweetest shade of pink, like marshmallows. The alien sun warmed her skin, nourishing her. Everything looked the same, in every direction. Pink sand and blue sky, pink sand and blue sky, pink sand and blue sky. What a relief. Whichever direction she chose, it wouldn’t make a difference.

  When Iris woke, her mouth was dry and she was definitely going to puke, but she felt peaceful, for once. It was a great idea. The solution to everything. Softer than suicide, an almost-death. She didn’t want to die. She just wanted to escape herself – h
er life, her work, Earth. Perhaps something of her would remain here, on this planet. All the bad parts. She would be famous.

  She opened her laptop and searched: ‘nyx’.

  3.

  Interview #1

  The interview room was on the third floor of an office block in Canada Water that looked like it was waiting to be demolished. The lift wasn’t working. As Iris walked up the stairs, she wondered whether it was an elaborate hoax, whether someone was going to jump out and attack her. But there was no one else around. Following the instructions from the email, she entered Room 303 without knocking. It was small and box-like, with black walls and a single light that hung over a leather office chair. Iris sat down and waited. It was early May, the Friday before the bank holiday.

  ‘Welcome to the Life on Nyx recruitment programme,’ said a disembodied voice – chirpy, female and American.

  Iris jumped in surprise.

  ‘Congratulations on having passed phase one of the programme.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Iris. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Please state your full name.’

  ‘Iris Sara Cohen.’

  ‘Thank you. What are your parents’ names?’

  ‘My mother is called Eleanor White and my biological father was called Robert Cohen.’

  ‘Why do you say “biological”?’

  ‘He left when I was five and died a year later. He wasn’t much of a father.’

  ‘Why did he leave?’

  Iris snorted. ‘Why does anyone leave their children? Because they’re awful.’

  The voice didn’t say anything.

  ‘He had a religious awakening,’ said Iris. ‘That’s why he left. He became an Orthodox Jew. I don’t know what came over him. He was already Jewish, but he’d never been religious.’

  ‘Did it upset you?’

  ‘Wow, that’s a really personal question.’

  ‘We will be asking many personal questions. It’s part of the recruitment process. I hope that’s OK with you, Iris.’

  It was the kind of bright, perky voice that waitresses used in American films, in suburban diners. Iris had never been to the US, so she didn’t know if they really spoke like that.

  ‘Sure, it’s fine. What’s your name?’

  ‘My name is Tara. I’m not a human being. I’ve been programmed to interview Life on Nyx applicants. Please can you answer the question,’ she said, still perky, but firm. ‘Did it upset you when your father left?’

  ‘I was five years old – I don’t remember. My memory of that time is, like, a haze. I don’t even remember his funeral.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m used to it. It’s just this sad undercurrent in my life. We all have those, don’t we? I mean, you probably don’t. You’re, what, some sort of AI?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I am. How did he die?’

  ‘He had a heart attack.’ She swallowed. ‘Oh, I also have a stepfather called Jack White.’

  ‘Like the rock star?’

  ‘Yeah. When I was a teenager I used to sing the guitar riff from “Seven Nation Army” to piss him off.’

  ‘That’s funny. What are their professions?’

  ‘My mother used to be a schoolteacher. She doesn’t do anything now. My stepfather works with property. I don’t really know what he does.’

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘He was a lawyer.’

  ‘What is your sexual orientation?’

  ‘Heterosexual, more or less.’

  ‘More or less?’

  ‘I had a girlfriend when I was a teenager.’

  ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where did you grow up?’

  ‘London. Tufnell Park and, before that, Temple Fortune.’

  ‘Do you have any siblings?’

  ‘I have a half-sister called Mona.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Uhhh …’ Iris counted the years on her fingers, against her jeans. ‘She’s twelve. She’ll be thirteen this year.’

  ‘And you’re twenty-eight – that’s a big age gap. Do you have a good relationship?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so, though I worry about her sometimes.’

  ‘What do you worry about?’

  ‘She’s so quiet and studious. I don’t think she has many friends. She goes to the same school I went to. It’s very pressurized. She isn’t having much fun.’

  ‘According to your application, you went to St Peter’s Girls’ School.’

  ‘Yes, I went there for seven years.’

  ‘It’s currently the third-best-rated school in the UK. That’s impressive.’

  ‘My father left me some money so I could go to a good school.’

  ‘Did you have fun as a teenager?’

  ‘Yes. I got good grades, but I went to loads of parties. I acted in school plays. I got on with everyone. I still do. That’s why I think I’d be good on Nyx.’

  ‘Are you still in touch with your school friends?’

  ‘A few of them.’

  Iris realized that she had starting gently spinning herself on the chair, from foot to foot. She stopped and tried to concentrate on not doing it.

  ‘Not many?’ said Tara.

  ‘I grew apart from some of them.’

  They hadn’t grown apart. They had stopped speaking to her after she did the terrible thing.

  ‘Are you the kind of person who grows apart from people easily?’

  ‘No, I was just a teenager. It’s normal when you’re young, don’t you think?’ Iris laughed, remembering that Tara had never been young.

  ‘You studied English at the University of Bristol – correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you enjoy it?’

  ‘Yes. I had lots of friends. I got a first.’

  ‘Who is your closest friend?’

  ‘Kiran. We live together. We met at university.’

  ‘What’s her surname?’

  ‘Virk. V-I-R-K.’

  ‘What does Kiran do?’

  ‘She’s an account manager at an advertising agency.’

  ‘Blanket Creative?’

  ‘Yeah. Did you just look her up?’

  ‘Yes. What did you dream of becoming when you were at school?’

  ‘I … If I get accepted, will this interview be used on TV?’

  ‘Did you not read the terms and conditions?’

  ‘I did, but I can’t remember. They were quite long.’

  ‘It won’t be used on TV. This interview is purely for the recruitment programme, but I would advise that you reread the terms and conditions. Life on Nyx is a very serious undertaking, Iris.’

  ‘OK, Tara, I will.’

  ‘Can you answer the question?’

  ‘This is embarrassing, but I wanted to be an actress. People always told me I was good at it. I got all the best roles at school.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I, uh, I don’t know. I lost interest. I don’t think I was good enough.’ Iris’s hands were clammy. She could faintly smell her own armpits. Hopefully the AI couldn’t smell them, too.

  ‘Are you a leader or a follower?’

  ‘I think I’m a follower, actually. I’m good at following orders. That’s why I think I’d be good for this programme.’

  ‘You’re a digital innovation architect at Freedom & Co – correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That sounds exciting. What does it involve?’

  ‘I work on digital strategies for brands. Web development, content, social media, that kind of thing.’

  ‘How long have you been there?’

  ‘Almost a year. I worked at two other agencies, previously.’

  ‘Do you enjoy it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘If you enjoy your job, why are you signing up for Life on Nyx?’

  ‘Oh, sorry, I don’t really enjoy my job. I don’t know why I said that. It just came out. You’re supposed to enjoy your job, aren’t you?’

  ‘Please answer the questio
ns honestly,’ said Tara, with a small, human strain in her voice. ‘How do you really feel about your job?’

  ‘I feel like it doesn’t contribute anything positive to the world. I just help companies to sell things.’

  ‘Why don’t you find something you enjoy more?’

  ‘I can’t think of anything else to do and I can’t quit, because I need the money. But yeah, I would like to do something else. Something with a higher purpose.’ Iris laughed at herself, nervously.

  ‘Would Life on Nyx be a higher purpose?’

  ‘Of course. Living on another planet – wow. It would be an incredible honour to take part.’

  ‘Where does your boss think you are now?’

  ‘At a doctor’s appointment.’

  ‘Do you find it easy to lie?’

  ‘It’s only a white lie. You didn’t offer any weekend appointments, so this was my only chance. I imagine that most of your candidates would have had to lie to their bosses.’

  ‘How would you feel about being filmed every day for the rest of your life?’

  ‘I’m sure I’d forget about it, after a while. I liked being on stage. Maybe it’ll be a bit like that.’

  ‘But you’ll never be able to walk off stage.’

  ‘Never?’

  ‘Not really, though we’ve decided not to film participants in their bedrooms and bathrooms.’

  ‘I think it would be OK.’

  ‘You would be very famous. How would you feel about that?’

  ‘I would feel fine. I mean, I’d be too far away to even notice my fame. It’s not like I’d be photographed while buying a pint of milk.’

  ‘You would never be able to buy a pint of milk again – or anything else. You would never return to Earth. You would never see or speak to your family and friends again.’

  ‘Hmm. I don’t know how to answer this without sounding like a monster. It would be difficult, but I think I would cope.’