Going Out

by Scarlett Thomas

  ‘I think I’d better get him up to the room,’ Julie says. ‘Can you stay here and sort out the pizza?’

  ‘Sure, babe. What do you both want?’

  ‘I’ll just have a plain one. Cheese and tomato, I suppose, or Margherita or whatever they’d call it . . . And Luke always has a Hawaiian – that’s ham and pineapple – from The Edge, so get him one of those.’

  Luke shakes his head at her.

  ‘Oh, no – wait,’ she says. ‘He went vegetarian recently. Get him whatever their equivalent of a Vegetarian Feast is. And you’d better get a bottle of Coke or Pepsi if they do them; it’ll be cheaper than using the machines here.’

  ‘Do pizza places do that?’ Charlotte asks.

  ‘Yeah,’ Julie says. ‘We did a take-away deal at The Edge – two medium pizzas, a garlic bread with cheese and a one-litre bottle of Pepsi for £9.99. They all do some sort of deal like that, therefore they all sell bottles of Pepsi, or Coke. Here’s some money.’

  Julie gives Charlotte the last of the cash from her purse.

  ‘Can I borrow your phone?’ Charlotte asks. ‘I need to make a call while I’m waiting.’

  When Luke steps into the lift, he may as well be stepping into some sort of time-travel machine, or a space-pod. Sure, he’s seen lifts on TV all the time but he never ever thought he’d actually go in one. In a way, he wasn’t sure if they actually existed or whether they were just the invention of TV companies, as if every drama or sitcom he watched was always set a few years in the future, with improbable inventions that only exist in TV-land, because no one’s invented them in the real world yet.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Julie asks.

  Luke nods. ‘I think so. Is this actually a lift?’

  ‘Yeah. We can take the stairs if you want,’ she says, sounding slightly hopeful.

  Luke thinks of Escher’s stairs and they don’t seem more weird than the lift. ‘What’s the difference?’ he asks.

  ‘Well, the stairs will take longer, and we might meet people on them, and there’ll be dust and stuff. The lift will take about a minute. But I don’t mind taking the stairs. I’m not all that keen on lifts anyway.’

  ‘The lift’s fine. Unless . . .?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you’re scared . . .’

  ‘I’m trying not to be. Come on.’

  Luke steps into the lift with Julie and waits. This really is like being in space. Julie presses a number on a panel and then the doors close. Luke hadn’t been sure what to expect – maybe something like the movement of the van – but as the lift starts to go upwards, he feels dizzy, then sick, then terrified.

  ‘Oh, God. Stop it doing that,’ he says to Julie.

  ‘Luke? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Stop it doing . . . Oh, Jesus . . .’

  The lift stops and the doors open. Julie steps out. Luke means to follow her but somehow his legs don’t work. By the time she looks around, presumably to see where he is, the doors are closing again.

  ‘Help,’ he calls to her.

  ‘Press the button for opening the doors,’ she says.

  He has no idea what she means. He looks at the panel, wondering what the numbers mean, and then the lift feels like it’s gone into freefall, and it’s going down. Luke feels like his body’s going down too but all his insides are going up and this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to him. He’s lost, in this moving cube, and he has no idea how to find Julie again. Gasping for breath, he looks at the numbers. The sensation of moving is starting to feel less horrible now but Luke’s still lost. He tries pressing ‘1’, thinking that might take him back to the place he stared this horrible up-and-down journey, but when the lift stops and the doors open, it looks exactly like the place he last saw Julie standing but she isn’t there. Luke tries some other numbers randomly, hoping that one of them is going to be the lucky-prize door and Julie’s going to be there behind it. But each number seems to take him to the same place and Julie is never there. Paralysed with frustration, Luke gives up pressing the numbers. They’re obviously not the key. The next time the lift stops, at the same floor again, he stumbles out, hardly able to breathe. Is he having an allergic reaction? Oh, God. He must keep moving.

  There’s a sign saying ‘Stairs’. Luke remembers that Julie said you could get where they were going by the stairs. There’s an arrow pointing out of a door. Luke remembers teaching himself what arrows mean and proudly walks in the direction of the pointed bit rather than the thick end. So here are the stairs. There’s some going up, and some going down. This is fucked up. Which way should he go? Panicking, he goes down, running, and for a few moments this is amazing because he’s never had a space like this to run in before. But then the terror comes back; this is like that videogame he tried to play and he just wants to be back at the starting point. In desperation he calls, ‘Julie?’ and his voice sounds weird in this space, and there’s no reply.

  A couple of flights of stairs later, there’s a sign saying ‘Lifts’. Julie was standing by the lifts, so Luke follows the arrow, again, still pleased he knows how. And there are the lifts he’s just come from. How can that be? This hotel must be circular, or something. Julie’s not there, of course, because she wasn’t there when Luke was just here, so that makes sense. The only thing that changes is the number on the wall. It said ‘3’ before. Now it says ‘2’. Maybe it changes depending on the amount of times he comes here, counting down, or something. Luke turns around and again sees the same ‘Stairs’ sign and the same arrow and again he follows it. This time he decides to go up. Again, when he follows the next sign for ‘Lifts’, he seems to be back where he started, except this time the number on the wall is ‘3’.

  OK, Luke, think. He thinks. There must be a knack to this. This time he keeps going up. Maybe it’s better to stay constant and not change direction. At the next sign for the lifts, he almost goes down again, doubting his strategy, because he knows he’s going to end up again at the same horrible dead end. But instead, he follows the arrow and Julie’s there smiling.

  ‘Where did you go?’ she asks.

  He runs towards her and embraces her. ‘Oh, God,’ he says. ‘That was horrible.’

  All he can manage as Julie walks him to the room are words like: maze, lost, circle and Escher. He doesn’t think she understands what happened to him, but then maybe she’s never made that mistake and got lost in one of these weird places before. The card-key she’s holding has a number on it, which is obviously what Luke should have punched into the lift. If he’d had the card-key, he’d have known that.

  Inside the room, Julie pulls the curtains and puts a blanket over the windows.

  ‘Why don’t you take off your helmet?’ she suggests.

  While he does that, she fiddles around with things in the room, and pulls out something that doesn’t look like a bed, until suddenly it does look like a bed. That must be what a ‘pullout bed’ is. Luke takes off the whole space-suit and then lies on it. Julie takes off her trainers and sits cross-legged on the big double bed.

  ‘You poor thing,’ she says. ‘So what happened, exactly?’

  Luke explains.

  ‘Oh, God, sorry,’ she says, laughing. ‘I know it’s not funny.’ Then she explains to him how hotels are laid out, and why every floor looks the same, and that Luke was in a different place every time – it just looked as if he wasn’t.

  ‘If you get lost again,’ she says. ‘I’ll always be at the number 0. OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘That’ll always be our emergency plan.’

  ‘OK.’ Luke’s still worried.

  ‘It won’t happen again, Luke, honestly.’

  ‘I feel like an idiot now,’ he says. ‘I was terrified.’

  ‘I would have been too,’ Julie says. ‘If I didn’t know how hotels worked.’

  Luke looks down at his feet. ‘I want to get better. I want to get better so much.’ He knows he sounds like he’s about to cry but he doesn’t care.

  ‘I k
now,’ Julie says, frowning. ‘Oh.’ She smiles suddenly. ‘I just remembered – when I was a kid I went to a department store for the first time, with my mother, and got lost. It’s so easy to do in those places. One minute my mother was looking at some skirts and it was boring, then I walked off somewhere, looking for the toys. All I could see were massive skirts and trousers like a forest around me and before I got to the toys it became clear that I was lost and had to get back, but whichever way I went, it was impossible to find my mother. Every time I thought I was going one way, I was actually going another way. I remember going on two escalators before one of the women who worked there asked if I was lost, and I cried and said yes. Then they gave me a lollipop and put out a special announcement for my mother to come and collect me.’

  ‘Why were the skirts so big?’ Luke asks.

  ‘They weren’t, silly. I was just really small at the time.’

  ‘Oh,’ Luke says. ‘Of course.’ Although he can’t really see it in his mind.

  ‘You just learn how to find your way around places, how the codes work. You’ll work it out, too, when you’re better.’

  ‘Do you think I’ll get better?’

  ‘Of course you will. Well, I hope you will.’ She doesn’t sound very sure. Maybe she’s just trying not to get his hopes up too much.

  ‘Jules?’ Luke says.

  She looks at him. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘What do you think Wei will do?’

  Luke’s been thinking about this for a while. He can see a room with a lot of white light and a shiny white examination table with a lamp. He can see himself lying on the table, covered with electrodes, and a man with goggles is looking at him, maybe adjusting something on his computer monitor, and there’s something in the room – some specialist equipment – making a low-pitched humming sound. The door to the room has a glass window. A nurse with a mask comes in and whispers something to the doctor, while Luke lies there being cured by the electrodes.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Julie says. ‘But I suppose you’ll find out soon.’

  There’s a TV in the room, and Luke’s been aching for TV, but he doesn’t ask for it to be switched on. He has a funny feeling that he’s going to be upset if the TV here looks the same as his TV at home, but just as upset if it doesn’t. What is TV now anyway? Will it even make sense any more?

  He lies down on the bed and closes his eyes. About five minutes later someone knocks on the door and he jumps. It’s Charlotte with the pizzas.

  ‘I’ve got some news,’ she says.

  Chapter 46

  ‘So you’re not going to India, then?’ Julie whispers. ‘Not at all?’

  She and Charlotte are in the double bed together. Luke’s under a blanket on the pullout bed. They’ve had pizza and Charlotte’s told them her news: she’s not going to India. It’s warm and comfortable in the bed, which is why they’re both there. No one wanted the sofa, plus Luke seemed very attached to the pullout bed.

  ‘No,’ Charlotte whispers back. ‘Cool, huh?’

  ‘Yeah. I mean, if that’s what you want, it is.’

  ‘I was just running away, really. I mean, that’s the only reason I was ever going to go. I still want to run away, of course, but I’m doing a pretty good job of that with you and Luke. I thought . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, you don’t want to go home, do you? Maybe we could just keep on running, together. We’ll have to look after the van until Chan comes back anyway. It could be like The Adventures of the Orange Bus or something.’

  ‘We’ll have to go back to Essex at some point, though,’ Julie says, smiling.

  ‘That’s a yes, isn’t it?’ She semi-squeals in the darkness. ‘You’re so cool, babe.’

  ‘Yeah, well, we’ll have to see what Luke thinks. I think he wants to go home.’

  ‘We’ll just have to go the long way.’

  They both giggle.

  ‘We’ve got to stop doing this, though,’ Julie says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sleeping together.’

  ‘Why? You smell nice. Like peppermint.’

  ‘Thanks. What time’s dawn, by the way?’

  ‘About quarter to seven or something. Wei said he’d see you both at seven.’

  ‘OK. Cool.’ Julie sets the alarm on her mobile phone.

  At seven o’clock, Julie and Luke are standing outside a room on the second floor. Luke’s wearing his space-suit and Julie’s carrying a blanket for Wei’s window because the curtains in this hotel are quite thin, and the sun’s coming up. Julie feels tired and achy. She knows Luke didn’t sleep well either; she heard him sighing and fidgeting all night in the little pullout bed. It must have been strange for him sleeping in a different bed for the second time ever.

  It’s quiet and dark in the corridor. Wei’s door looks like all the others. Julie stands there for a few seconds just looking at it, not able to believe that there’s a person behind it who has claimed to be able to make Luke’s dream come true. Everything’s so quiet and still. Is this all a big mistake? Julie’s hands are sweaty. She knows that after she knocks on this door nothing’s going to be the same again, ever.

  ‘OK,’ she says. ‘Here goes.’

  She knocks, and for a few moments nothing happens. Then she hears a man’s voice saying to hang on a minute and that he’s coming. Her heart thumps at the sound of the voice and she feels the uncomfortable tickle of adrenaline in her stomach. She almost wants to be sick. This is him. This is it.

  The door opens and a tall man with black hair is standing there.

  ‘Hello,’ he says warmly. ‘Hey, I like the space-suit. You must be Luke.’ He offers his hand, and Luke takes it uncertainly. ‘And you are Julie?’

  Julie takes his hand. ‘Yes. You must be Wei. Thanks for agreeing to see Luke. It’s so . . .’

  Wei smiles. ‘Actually, I would like to see you first.’

  ‘Me?’ Julie says.

  ‘Uh huh. Perhaps, Luke – you can come back in half an hour?’

  ‘Oh, um . . .’ Luke says. ‘I don’t know the way back to our room.’

  ‘I’ll have to take him back,’ Julie says. ‘Are you sure you want to see me first?’

  ‘Yes. Certain.’

  ‘OK. I’ll be five minutes taking Luke back. Is that OK?’

  ‘Sure.’

  When Julie gets back, Wei’s left his door ajar. ‘Come in, come in,’ he says enthusiastically. ‘Sit.’

  Julie comes in and sits at the small table by the window, where Wei is pointing. There’s another chair facing it and Julie wonders whether Wei’s set up this arrangement specially for his meeting with Luke. It’s very tidy in here and there’s no smell of stale cigarette smoke like in the rooms upstairs. This room smells of coconut oil and, very slightly, of earth. Wei seems to have personalised his room in a few small ways: the TV is covered with a scarf, and one of the pillows on the bed has a different pillowcase from the others, with thin pastel stripes. On the wall by the bed, there’s a picture of a small boy who looks like he could be Wei’s son. Wei himself is tall and angular, dressed in a black polo-neck jumper and loose black trousers. He seems like a pop star or a politician and Julie feels slightly awed by him. There’s nothing Crystal Ball about him at all, which she didn’t expect. She gets comfortable on the chair, then Wei explains that he wants to help her and that Luke told him about her ‘problems’.

  ‘OK,’ she says, uncertainly. ‘Thanks. I’m not sure how you’ll be able to help, though. I may be a bit of a lost cause.’ She laughs nervously. She hadn’t expected this. She thought he’d want to talk about Luke – that’s why they’re all here, after all.

  ‘We’ll see,’ says Wei. He sits down facing her. ‘So. You have fear.’

  This is very direct. How does he know this? Luke must have told him a lot. Still, there’s only one answer. ‘Yes,’ Julie says. ‘Well, maybe slightly less now.’

  Wei rests one of his arms on the table. ‘Well, I’m pleased to hear that,’ he says, smi
ling. ‘How was your journey?’

  Julie laughs. ‘Wet, dangerous, time-consuming.’

  Wei laughs too. ‘And did it teach you anything?’

  ‘I learnt that I like water. And I seem to have slightly less fear.’

  ‘But still some?’

  ‘Of course. I mean, if a journey to Wales could cure fear, you wouldn’t be able to get here, there’d be so many people coming.’

  Wei frowns. ‘Do you think so? Most people don’t do very simple things they could do to conquer their fears. It’s as if they actually like their fears and want to nurture them and care for them.’ He tries to cross his legs but they don’t seem to fit under the table properly. He looks at Julie. ‘Still, I can already see that you are too clever. That’s one big problem we have to overcome.’

  ‘Will I have to become more stupid?’

  ‘No. You have to become more clever.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yes. Oh.’ Wei laughs. He seems uncomfortable on the chair and pushes it further away from the small table and then manages to cross his legs. Then he clasps his hands together and balances them on his knee. ‘So anyway, you are generally afraid, yes? Is that a fair statement?’

  ‘Yes.’ Julie’s tracing the pattern in the false wood on the small table in front of her. ‘That’s a fair statement.’

  ‘And it’s mainly that you’re scared of death?’

  ‘Sort of.’ She looks up, uncertain about how to explain everything but suddenly feeling she has to; that if this man thinks he can help her, she should at least tell him the truth. Truth is a problem, though. Does Julie even know what the truth is? She knows what she feels, at least. She could try that. ‘I think I’m just as scared of losing control,’ she says. ‘I mean – I am terrified of death, but it was only recently that the absolute finality of death dawned on me. Before that I was still terrified of everything, so it can’t just be death.’