Going Out

by Scarlett Thomas

  ‘Thank God for that.’ Helen shifts on the bed. She takes off the shawl and crosses her legs, leaving it draped loosely on her lap.

  ‘And I might change the world but in a way you might not notice.’

  ‘You don’t have to change the world, Julie.’

  ‘Good, because I probably won’t.’

  They laugh awkwardly. ‘I’m glad you came,’ Helen says.

  ‘Me too, kind of.’

  ‘Will you come back? I’d like to introduce you to my friends and . . .’

  ‘What, you’re not embarrassed about me?’

  ‘Embarrassed? Don’t be so silly. Look, I know you’re on an important journey at the moment, but one day, just ring me up – or don’t even ring – and just come. We’ll get to know each other. If we hate each other, then fine – at least we tried. But we might not.’

  Julie smiles. ‘No, we might not.’

  Helen clutches Julie’s hand, then lets it go. Julie gets up from the bed.

  ‘So are you off to Wales now, then?’

  ‘Yeah. This seems like a good time to go.’

  ‘Will you say goodbye to Charlotte and Luke for me?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And tell Luke I hope he finds what he’s looking for.’

  ‘I will. Bye, then.’

  ‘Bye, Julie.’

  Chapter 43

  ‘Juliet?’ Charlotte says for the fifth or sixth time.

  ‘Shut up,’ says Julie.

  ‘I think it’s a cool name. You should start using it again.’

  ‘I like just being Julie, thanks.’

  It’s still not raining. Luke’s sitting in the back of the van and Charlotte’s up front again with Julie. They’re driving through the country roads towards the bigger B-roads that will take them to Wales. Julie has told Charlotte she might be able to manage the odd red road on the way but Charlotte’s style of map-reading is somewhat unusual, so who knows where they’re going to end up.

  Julie’s been explaining vaguely what happened with her mum, and about David and Chantel, and how she managed a red road on the way to Oxford, and how happy David and Chantel looked, and how she almost cried when they walked off together. Since then, Luke’s been fiddling around in the back redoing his tin foil with the rolls David left, and Charlotte’s been taking the piss – in a nice way – out of Julie’s name.

  ‘Parents really fuck you up, don’t they?’ Charlotte says suddenly.

  ‘My mum meant well,’ Julie says. ‘It was just a misunderstanding, really.’

  ‘Pretty big misunderstanding.’

  ‘Yeah, well.’ Julie sighs, then focuses on the road for a few seconds.

  Charlotte laughs. ‘Juliet.’

  ‘Shut up,’ says Julie, smiling. ‘Why don’t you try to work out the square root of i or something.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ says Charlotte, putting her feet up on the dashboard.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Julie asks Luke, trying to catch his eye in the rearview mirror.

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I’m fine. Just trying to see out of the window.’

  ‘There’s not much to see around here,’ Charlotte says.

  ‘I wonder how Leanne’s getting on,’ says Luke, sitting back down.

  ‘She’s probably gone home by now,’ Charlotte says.

  ‘No, I bet she’s still there,’ says Julie. ‘She was serious about wanting to do it.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Charlotte starts rolling a cigarette. ‘Oh, shit,’ she suddenly says. ‘I should ring Wei, shouldn’t I, and tell him when we’re arriving and find out where we actually need to go. Can I borrow your phone, Jules?’

  ‘Sure. Luke, have you got the phone?’

  He’s been using it to check his e-mail. ‘Yeah,’ he says, chucking it over to Charlotte. ‘Here.’

  Once, in Windy Close, there was a power cut that lasted almost a whole night, and Luke had to check his e-mail on the mobile phone then, as well, even though he’s not really supposed to use mobiles. He remembers the absolute dark of that night, when even the street-lamps in the road outside went off, and there was no vague glow from the industrial estate and no lights from any of the other houses on the street. Leanne’s mum often fell asleep with the TV on in her bedroom, and sometimes you could see strange moving lights casting shadows on the street all night. Luke remembers suggesting to Julie that she was actually being abducted by aliens or interfered with by some sort of sex ghost. Now, when he tries to look out of the window, he sees pretty much the same as that night, except that tonight there’s sometimes a hint of grass or a hedge as the headlights briefly pick things out then move on.

  ‘Weird,’ says Charlotte. She tries to shut the phone. ‘Jules? How do you do switch this thing off?’

  ‘Give it to me,’ says Luke.

  ‘What’s weird?’ says Julie.

  ‘We’ve got to meet Wei in a Travelodge, in this place I’ve never heard of . . . Hang on, let me have a look at the map. Oh, I see. It’s in Wales, but . . . Not where I thought we’d be going.’

  ‘Where did you think we’d be going?’

  ‘Jemima and Walter’s house. I thought we’d meet him there.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s been staying with them. I told you they flew him over to do Walter’s book.’

  ‘Oh. So what do you think’s going on?’

  ‘Dunno. I’ll phone Jemima. Luke? Can I have the phone back?’

  ‘Yeah, here.’

  Charlotte dials a number. ‘There’s no reply,’ she says. ‘Oh, wait, hang on, there’s an answerphone message with a mobile number. I’ll replay it. Have you got a pen?’

  Luke scrabbles around in the back. ‘There was one here . . .’

  ‘Just read the number out,’ Julie says. ‘I’ll remember it.’

  ‘You sure? Oh – here it comes.’ She says a long number. Then she sort of fiddles with the phone to try to end the call and start a new one. ‘Fucking thing. OK, what’s the number, then, babe?’

  Julie recites it back. Charlotte punches it in wrong, so Julie recites it again.

  ‘It’s amazing that you can do that,’ Charlotte says. ‘Oh – hi, Jem, it’s Charlotte here . . . Yeah, cool, thanks . . . Yeah, we’re on our way . . . Hmm? . . . Yeah, we just spoke to him. He wants to meet us in a hotel . . . Oh, really? . . . Oh, no, you poor things . . . Yes, sure . . . OK . . . Huh? Oh, right . . . Actually I’ve been thinking about that . . . I’ll talk to you about it when we see you, or I might ring you later . . . Are you? . . . OK, well, we’ll check into the Travelodge as well, then . . . No, no problem . . . OK . . . Cheers. Bye.’

  ‘What was that?’ Julie asks.

  ‘Their house got flooded so they’re staying with Jemima’s parents. They checked Wei into the Travelodge, because there was no more space at her parents’. I guess you don’t take an important guest you’ve flown over from America to stay with your parents, do you? So we’re going to have to check into the Travelodge as well or sleep in the van. Wei is going to see us just before dawn tomorrow morning, i.e., later tonight, in his room at the Travelodge.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Julie says. ‘I’ve hardly got any money left.’

  ‘Same,’ says Charlotte, sighing.

  ‘We’ll have to sleep in the van, then.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Charlotte lights a cigarette. She sighs again. ‘Oh, bollocks. Chantel goes and you realise that stuff actually costs money. And Leanne could have magicked us some sort of tent or something but she’s fucked off. All the useful members of the group have gone. This is like one of those videogames where you accidentally take a party member out of the group and they run into the forest and never come back and then you get killed by a load of bandits because they had all your best weapons.’

  ‘Things are going a lot better now, though,’ Julie says. She laughs. ‘Maybe Leanne’s working some magic from afar. It has stopped raining, for one thing.’

  ‘Like she caused the rain in the first place,’ Charlotte says.

  ‘What’
s all this?’ Luke says. ‘Have I missed something?’

  ‘No. Well, Leanne thought she caused the floods, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh.’ Luke laughs. ‘OK.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ Julie says suddenly. ‘The packages.’

  ‘What packages?’

  ‘Chantel got us all presents. I completely forgot.’

  ‘What presents?’

  ‘Books, I think. They’re in the glove box.’

  ‘Presents?’ says Luke.

  If this was a story, there’d be money in those packages. There’d be money in the packages and they could stay in a hotel and Luke would get cured and everyone would live happily ever after. But, Luke’s realising, life isn’t actually a story.

  Chapter 44

  There’s money in the packages. Three cheques, hidden in three books.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ Charlotte says. ‘How much have you both got?’

  The van is in a service station just outside Cirencester. About five minutes ago, Charlotte got out and bought coffee for everyone, and then they all unwrapped their packages together, like Christmas.

  ‘Loads,’ Julie says, passing her cheque around. ‘Too much. She shouldn’t have done this. This is too nice.’

  ‘Luke?’ says Charlotte.

  ‘Same,’ he says, showing her. ‘She’s given us all the same.’

  ‘She’s so lovely,’ says Charlotte. ‘I would have been happy with just a book.’

  ‘Me too,’ Julie says.

  ‘We are such liars,’ laughs Charlotte. ‘Wow, this is amazing.’

  ‘This is lovely,’ agrees Luke.

  ‘I do like my book as well, though,’ says Julie. She shows the others. It’s a survival manual. ‘It tells you what to do in a plane crash, if a snake bites you, in the sea . . .’

  ‘Very you,’ says Charlotte. ‘What’s yours, Luke?’

  Luke’s is a lot bigger. It’s an illustrated hardback called Nature’s Miracles. It has pictures of caves with stalactites and stalagmites in shapes of rabbits and dolphins and dragons; the highest mountains; the deepest oceans; the night sky; glaciers; insects; tsunami; and rare birds.

  ‘This is amazing,’ Luke says. ‘I want to go to all these places and see all these things.’

  Charlotte’s got a book on creative writing. ‘Fucking hell,’ she says, looking through it. ‘I told Chantel I wanted to be a writer but I didn’t totally mean it. I mean, everyone on my English course wanted to write. Why else would you do an English course? They were all pretentious wankers. That was one of the reasons I left. Anyway, I’d be shit as a writer.’

  ‘Why?’ Julie says. ‘I think you’d be a good writer.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it is the only thing I’m qualified for, apart from yoga teacher,’ she says, laughing. ‘But I haven’t got anything to write about. I had a short story published once – did I ever tell you that? Anyway, that was shit, too, all self-conscious angst and taking myself too seriously. Still, with this money . . . Oh, I don’t know. It’s all too easy, isn’t it? Really I should use this money to totally fuck myself up. That’s what I’m best at.’

  ‘You know that isn’t true,’ Julie says. ‘Come on, we’d better get going again.’

  It’s just gone eight o’clock. Julie checks the map and then sets off again, trying to stick to small roads. Having money suddenly makes her want to live even more than before. But she also feels weirdly superstitious – surely all this good luck can’t continue? She vaguely remembers Leanne promising to put everything right and then the rain stopping and Chantel saying she was pissed off with having the money. Then Julie reminds herself that she’s a scientist not a fucking palmist and what she’s thinking is utterly ridiculous. Maybe a butterfly flapped its wings in Kansas. Who knows?

  Charlotte’s fiddling with the radio again. Somehow she finds a station playing ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’. ‘Cool,’ she says. ‘My all-time favourite song.’ She starts singing along.

  ‘So can we stay at the hotel now?’ Luke asks when the song finishes.

  ‘Not really,’ says Charlotte. ‘We can’t spend this money till it’s in the bank, can we? Unless . . . Jules, have you got any actual money that we can use? I mean, I know you’re skint but have you got a credit card or anything?’

  ‘Huh? Yeah, I might have enough emergency money to pay for the hotel, I suppose, if we all share one room. I mean, if I know I’m putting this cheque into my bank account, it’ll probably be all right. We need to get petrol as well, and food.’ She thinks for a moment. ‘Yeah, it should be all right. I’ll just draw out the last of my wages and use what’s left on my credit card and hope for the best.’

  ‘You’re not going to have to find another job for a while, anyway,’ Charlotte says. ‘You can spend all day doing maths or something.’

  ‘You make that sound so exciting,’ Julie says, smiling.

  Chapter 45

  It’s almost eleven when they get to the Travelodge. Luke’s been reading his book since the service station. He’s seen pictures of elephants that can live to more than seventy years old, beautiful birds that fly in intricate formations, and cats with no tails.

  ‘We’re here,’ Julie says to him.

  The van stops and Julie reverses into a parking space.

  Luke puts down his book and looks over Julie’s shoulder out of the window. He has to stretch to see properly. There are little trees everywhere in the carpark. Luke had never seen trees before yesterday. Now there are so many of them all at once. Everything outside seems so green and beautiful, shining in a hazy glow. Beyond the carpark and the trees is a big building – bigger than Luke’s house, anyway. It looks like a palace. There are amazing lights all around it – the source of the glow on the trees. This place is beautiful.

  ‘Is Wei in there?’ Luke asks Julie.

  ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘If this is the right place.’ She sort of laughs.

  Luke panics. ‘It is, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘This is the right place. It has to be.’

  ‘It is,’ Charlotte says. ‘It’s the one Wei said, Jules. It was on the map.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ she says. ‘I just thought we got lost at one point.’

  ‘No. This is definitely the place,’ Charlotte says.

  ‘God,’ says Luke excitedly. ‘He’s in there. Wei is in there.’

  ‘OK,’ says Charlotte sensibly. ‘How are we going to do this?’

  ‘Do what?’ Luke says.

  ‘Get you out of the van, check in . . .’

  ‘Let’s just do it,’ Luke says. ‘I feel OK. This place seems magical. I know I’ll be fine.’

  Julie gives him a funny look, but says nothing.

  ‘What about when we get in there?’ Charlotte says.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Julie says, looking back at Charlotte. ‘The receptionists. Luke’s dressed like a spaceman.’

  ‘Won’t they let me in?’ Luke says. ‘They have to let me in. We’ve come all this way . . .’

  ‘Calm down,’ Julie says. ‘It’ll be fine.’

  ‘We’ll tell them it’s a dare,’ says Charlotte. ‘Or a stag night or something.’

  ‘Some more of my tin foil’s coming off,’ Luke says.

  Charlotte and Julie both give him a hand threading new bits through the loops Leanne made. Luke can’t stop looking at this mesmerising place and the huge white tower he’s about to enter.

  Inside, there is a vast green carpet leading to a desk. The carpet has sparkling flecks in it like jewels. There are plants everywhere. It seems like outside, inside. Everything’s green. Everything sparkles. This is a magical place, all right.

  Julie and Charlotte walk towards the desk, where there’s a male receptionist smiling at them oddly. Luke stands by a plant, looking at it. It has big leaves that look thick like plastic. Luke wants to touch them but he can’t with his gloves on. He puts his hands behind his back and looks down at the floor.

  ‘Where’ve you lot been, then?’ the guy behind the desk asks. ‘Fancy-dr
ess party or something?’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Charlotte quickly. ‘We changed. He didn’t want to.’

  ‘He likes being a spaceman,’ Julie adds.

  The receptionist laughs. ‘OK. What can I do for you?’

  ‘A smoking room for one night?’ Charlotte says.

  The receptionist taps some keys on his computer system. ‘Yup,’ he says. ‘I think we can manage that.’ He taps again. ‘One room.’ More taps. ‘For one night. Smoking.’ He taps some more and something starts to print out. ‘Are you all sharing?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Julie. ‘Is that allowed?’

  ‘That’s fine. Maximum of three adults, so long as you haven’t got any other spacemen hanging around . . .?’ He laughs. ‘Right, so that’s one smoking family room with en suite. Maximum occupancy three adults and one child under twelve. You’ve got one double bed, one sofa and one pullout. All OK for you? OK, here is your bill. Please pay now.’

  Julie takes the A4 sheet of paper. ‘Is that all?’ she says. ‘God.’

  ‘Is it cheap?’ Charlotte asks her.

  ‘We don’t say cheap,’ says the receptionist. ‘We say good value.’

  Julie hands over her credit card. ‘Do you do food?’ she asks.

  ‘No. But we have a Häagen-Dazs machine right over there and also a newsagent kiosk which will open again in the morning. Alternatively, we can call out for pizza to be delivered to reception. But if you want pizza you should say so now because they shut at midnight.’

  Charlotte looks at Julie. ‘Shall we get pizza?’ she asks.

  Julie shrugs. ‘Yeah, OK.’

  As far as Luke knows she hasn’t eaten pizza for months.

  ‘Luke?’ says Charlotte.

  He nods. He’s wishing he could touch the plant and he’s wishing he could talk to the receptionist and interact with people like everyone else does. He feels less like a TV character the longer he’s out in the world. If this scene was on TV he probably wouldn’t be in it. Well, why would he be? He hasn’t even got a speaking part. They’d just cut the stupid spaceman and focus on Julie and Charlotte. Then again, if this was a TV show it would be about him and he’d have to be in it. So why isn’t he cracking jokes and having fun like everyone on TV does?