PopCo

by Scarlett Thomas

  ‘What’s this?’ I say.

  ‘Bach Flower remedies. If you laugh or call me a hippy or a ponce, I will leave,’ he warns. ‘My mother gave me flower remedies when I was growing up and that’s how I know how they work. I’m not into any crazy middle-class alternative medicine … I just know these work, that’s all.’

  ‘It’s OK. I know about flower remedies,’ I say, smiling.

  Of course I do. One of my grandfather’s early theses about the Voynich Manuscript was that it was a blueprint for flower remedies and it was my job to look them all up for him in the local library. I was never quite as fascinated with them as I became with homeopathy, however. Homeopathy seemed to be more of a challenge somehow and both mathematical and poetic at the same time. Only in homeopathy do you get specific remedies for people who believe they are made of glass, have a delusion that they are selling green vegetables, or have an aptitude for, or a horror of, mathematics. Using homeopathy to solve the problem of illness is similar to using functions in maths. If you know how to, you can input data and generate a useful result. In homeopathy, you note down all of someone’s symptoms, pick the important ones (especially any key mental symptoms), and then look them all up in a big repertory, which is like a dictionary of symptoms and the remedies that cure them. Each symptom in the repertory is expressed in a ‘rubric’. Under each rubric is a list of all remedies that cure the symptom it describes. You have to try to find the common remedy (or remedies) that appear under all the rubrics you have selected. Then you cross-reference with a materia medica – a list of all the remedies and what they do, like a backwards version of the repertory – and select the one that best ‘fits’ with the patient.

  Examples of rubrics from the ‘Mind’ section of my repertory include: Anxiety, mental exertion, from, and, Amusement, averse to, or Fear, evil, of, and Noise, inclined to make a. This backwards way of putting things, and the nineteenth-century language (which you find in all repertories) makes the process of selecting a remedy similar to the process of cracking a code. Selecting the correct rubric in the first place requires a poetic sort of imagination. Delusion, Prince, is a (patient thinks he is a prince) does not literally mean that the person thinks they are a prince. You have to break the idea down and understand the kind of person who would think that he was a prince. Would this be a very ambitious person? Someone who has ‘delusions of grandeur’, perhaps? Perhaps someone who has great things expected of them by their family? Someone who has the delusion Glass, she is made of, does not literally believe herself to be made of glass but rather feels fragile and brittle, as if she might break. This might be someone who constantly thinks bad things are going to happen to her, or someone coming off drugs, perhaps, feeling she might break down. In homeopathy, the mental symptoms are so important that even if the person you are treating simply has a sore knee, you have to try to understand their mental state before you prescribe anything for them. After my grandfather died, I began experiencing horrible migraines. I lived for about a month on Ignatia, the classic remedy for bereavement and disappointment. I didn’t feel much better about losing my grandfather but the headaches did go.

  Ben is mixing two drops from each bottle into the glass of water.

  ‘So what am I getting, then?’ I ask.

  ‘Rescue Remedy, Wild Rose and Crab Apple,’ he says.

  I think of my bottle of Rescue Remedy in my bag, that I forgot I even had. ‘Because …?’

  ‘Because, um, well… I put Rescue Remedy in everything. Wild Rose is for resignation and apathy. Crab Apple is for detoxification, and it’s really good for colds and flu. It’s also useful for people who feel the need to clean up a lot.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ I say, surprised. ‘I mean …’

  ‘Well, I think everyone here feels a bit of resignation and apathy,’ he explains. ‘It should probably be put in the water.’

  ‘But what about the cleaning-up thing?’ I say. ‘How would you know …?’

  ‘Before you passed out at the pub yesterday you stacked up your bowl and plate neatly and pushed them to one side.’

  ‘That was because I wanted to put my head on the table.’

  ‘Oh. So you’re not …’

  ‘Oh, yes. No. I mean, I am prone to fits of cleaning and tidying when I’m ill. I just didn’t know how you would know that. I … We don’t really know that much about each other, do we?’

  Ben smiles in a slightly sad way. ‘No.’ He looks as if he might say something interesting and then gets up off the bed. ‘I’m going to run you a bath,’ he says.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ I say. But he is already in the bathroom.

  Why is he looking after me like this? Do I deserve it? Probably not. It will probably end, that’s it. He’ll do this for a few hours (if I am lucky) and then get bored. I will make sure I don’t get too used to it. Who is Ben, now? I think about how I wrote him off as a guy with battered science-fiction novels by his mattress bed just yesterday. How does ‘Nurse Ben’ fit into this? Have I classified him in the same way Kieran tried to classify me, as nothing more than a collection of cultural objects? Should I ask him lots of questions about politics now? I yawn. I am too tired. When my bath is run I slip into it as if it were a new form of sleep, and then I read a novel about dreams while Ben sits by my bed reading something about philosophy. Every so often he stops to ask how I am, and I assure him I am OK. He does not leave until dinner time, though, and then he comes back with another tray.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  It’s hard to get to sleep on Sunday night. Perhaps I have slept too much during the day. My mind won’t switch off, anyway, and I have persistent thoughts. For example: I still haven’t had any response from my unknown correspondent. Being ill like this makes me feel less capable of dealing with this kind of thing. As I try to get comfortable in bed, I imagine running, and promptly cough a lot. I couldn’t run in this state. I can barely make it to the bathroom without feeling terrible. I feel vulnerable when I know I can’t run away. I would so much rather die running than, say, in my sleep, or standing still, powerless. I would like to be the kind of person who resists until the end. In this state, resistance is impossible.

  I miss my grandparents. I miss my cat. In a parallel universe I am at home, asleep, having anxious dreams about presenting roughs for my survival kit tomorrow. Which is more real? That or this? Where was the choice I made that sent me spinning into this version of my life rather than the one before? Will I get a secret message tomorrow? Will Ben come? Will I be able to get back to the ideation seminars or will I still be too ill? At about three or four I finally drop off, too hot and on edge to sleep properly at all.

  Ben comes with another tray at about half-past eight and then dashes off to the first seminar of the morning. With sleepy words, I ask him to tell ‘them’ I am ill. I don’t know who he will tell, or what they will say. I will be well enough to go back tomorrow; I’m sure I will. But for today I am stuck in bed with my cough and my morbid thoughts and a few books and a box of tissues. My bed is my world, for now.

  There’s a knock at the door at eleven. Ben, I think but – shit – it’s Georges, standing at the door in an expensive-looking grey suit and a black polo neck. My room suddenly feels grubby and small, like it is a train carriage he is going to get into and not even notice. I feel like a drug-addict or vagrant he will not even see.

  ‘Hello,’ he says.

  I can feel myself blush. Stupid, stupid.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, coughing. ‘I’m a bit …’

  ‘You aren’t well, I hear.’

  I clamber back into bed, wanting to conceal as much of myself as possible. ‘Yeah. Look, I…’

  ‘Sorry to hear it,’ he says crisply, interrupting me.

  What had I been going to say? Something in a soft voice about ‘losing’ his mobile phone number, perhaps. Maybe it’s a good job he cut me off. Everyone knows that no one ever loses a phone number they want to keep. If someone ever tells you they have
lost your number it means that they didn’t care about it enough to keep it somewhere safe or, if there is sex involved, it means that they thought they had a better offer but it went wrong somehow. Wanting your number again makes you a second choice, usually, and if someone couldn’t be bothered to keep it then they really don’t deserve you. Georges will know all this. What he won’t know, and what I can never tell him, is that I burnt his number because of a minor personality disorder involving a combination of fear and the desire to burn things. I want (ed) him, but I know I don’t/can’t want him. What the fuck is happening to my brain? Jesus, I feel ill.

  ‘I’m going back to London,’ Georges says. ‘Then on to New York. I thought you might want to come.’

  ‘Sorry?’ I do a weird double-take. ‘But I’m … I can’t …’ I start having a coughing fit instead and reach for my water. ‘Georges …’ It’s the soft voice again.

  He doesn’t belong in this room. In his suit, he looks like the executive he is. He is a teacher visiting a student, a parent visiting a child, a doctor visiting a patient. He frowns.

  ‘Georges, I can’t …’ I start to say.

  ‘Oh, God, Alice. Please don’t make this dramatic. We know that, well, that is over. I know you’re seeing Ben now, which is great. Congratulations! You are a perfect match. I’m just offering you a lift back to London, as your boss, which I still am. You are ill and, it would seem, can no longer take part in this process. I have a company car organised for this afternoon. It can drop you home after it drops me at the airport.’

  ‘I’d rather stay,’ I say quickly, embarrassed. ‘I’ve… had an idea. I want to work on it here.’

  ‘An idea?’

  ‘Yes. A product for teenage girls. I think … I think it might come to something.’ I am clutching at nothing here. I have had a vague idea, yes, sometime last night between worrying about my unknown correspondent and missing my cat. But why do I want to stay here really? Is it that I like this room? I enjoy being looked after by Ben? I am scared of being alone? I really want to know who has been contacting me and what they want to say? Maybe I just like feeling special, tucked away here on Dartmoor. Maybe I am enjoying the fresh air. I don’t know. But I don’t want to go home and I definitely don’t want to get into another company car with Georges, especially not looking/feeling like this. Pathetic, perhaps, but there you are. Maybe I do regret burning his number. Perhaps not. At the moment I’m really not in any position to judge.

  ‘And this is going to be impressive, this idea?’ he says.

  ‘Possibly.’

  He walks over to the bedside table and picks up one of the bottles of Flower Remedies that Ben left behind. He makes a face as he scans it and then puts it down. Ben’s philosophy book is there too, and I notice that he has kept his place with a scrap of paper, rather than turning down the page. I realise that Ben has left a little space here, with his book and his flower remedies, and that means he is definitely coming back. He is going to come back, with his serious face and his dark eyebrows, and he is going to look after me.

  ‘Take some antibiotics, for God’s sake,’ Georges says. ‘I’ll organise for a doctor to come. If you’re not better in a few days you will have to abandon this project. OK?’

  He’s looking at this room the way I looked at Ben’s room in my mind. Do I hate him for that? Do I hate him for being frivolous rather than serious, powerful rather than alienated, practical rather then mysterious? What is it about him? I really, really don’t understand. Georges is the kind of man who goes away and does not come back. You can see it in his eyes. What you can also see in his eyes, however, is the existence of an exception. There is a woman in this world for whom Georges will always return, for whom he will do anything. Perhaps I realise that being this woman would be like being the first Riemann zero found to lie off the line. If you were this woman, Georges would search for you for years. You’d be the result of an amazing challenge, complete with a probability-value less than the chance of winning the lottery while being repeatedly struck by lightning at the same time. Perhaps that’s where the attraction is. Imagine actually being that for someone. It would be the most incredible experience. I stare at Georges in a deliberately blank way, hoping he’ll fill the blank with something interesting or warm.

  ‘OK?’ he repeats.

  ‘Fine,’ I say back.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Georges …?’

  He is on his way to the door. ‘Yes, Alice?’

  ‘I’m afraid I lost the number you gave me, and …’

  ‘It’s probably for the best,’ he says. ‘Let’s just keep this to worker and boss, shall we?’

  Slave and boss, I think, as he leaves the room. Erdös again. Of course, I have passed up the chance to be the boss while he is the slave. Or maybe it never was that. With tears in my eyes, I settle down into bed, feeling like there are razor blades in my soul. Tears = humiliation. Razor blades = betrayal (where I am the betrayer and I don’t even know why). When Ben comes at lunchtime, I pretend to be asleep.

  *

  There are four houses at my new school. Each one has a name and a colour associated with it. The names are of places, I don’t know why. I have never been to any of these places and I don’t think they are even close by. Gloucester is yellow, Windsor is red, York is green and Buckingham is blue. I am in Windsor House. Alex, not that I am trying to notice, is in York. Our forms are named in a special sort of code. I am in 1WP, which means I am in year one, in Windsor House and my form tutor is Mrs Pearson (this accounts for the P). I am fascinated with this way of naming classes and I think about it a lot. If Mrs Pearson died (she drives a rusty car so decrepit that there must be a fairly good chance of this), would they have to find us another tutor with the initial ‘P’? Or would the name of our class change?

  My school uniform is a navy blue A-line skirt that comes down to just below my knees, a white blouse, an electric blue jumper and an electric blue and yellow striped tie. When you get to the third year, you are allowed to wear a navy jumper. I can’t wait for this day to come! Most girls in my form look like me, awkward and a bit lost. But there are a few girls who seem to know things no one else does. They have short pleated skirts, rather than long A-line ones. They also have scented erasers (which they all seem to collect), fruit-flavoured lip gloss, which they also collect, pencil cases in the shape of animals or chocolate bars and baggy electric blue jumpers, rather than the Age 11–12 ones most of us are wearing that are too tight and a bit itchy. How do they know to do all this? Did they all know each other before school even started? I know for a fact that Emma, a girl from my primary school, didn’t know any of the people she is hanging around with now, so it can’t be that. Maybe you are born with it, this élite, expert sense of fashion, popularity and where to buy all the things that go with it.

  In my first week, I do all the things my grandparents said I would do. I lose my fountain pen and, miraculously, find it again. I have trouble finding the classrooms I have neatly written into the slots on my timetable. I also learn things they didn’t warn me about. I learn not to ask anyone for directions, finding that this is the surest way to get sent somewhere ridiculous. Honestly. This school is like the living embodiment of all the liar paradoxes you’ve ever heard. There are two pupils of the Groveswood School, one who always lies and one who always tells the truth. They are both standing in front of you and you can only ask one of them one question. You have to find your maths classroom. What do you do? The answer, of course, is that you ask either pupil where the other would tell you to go, and then do the opposite. In reality, however, there is no such thing as a Groveswood pupil who always tells the truth so you are better off finding the classroom yourself. No one ever gives you a map of the school, I have noticed. You are expected to learn by trial and error that room 401, an English room on the top floor of the school, is not next to room 400, which is actually a Portakabin in the Rural Studies department, which is itself a field.

  The classroom in w
hich we have maths on a Wednesday is on the third floor of the school, next to the language lab. I am in my second week at this school but have not actually had a maths lesson yet. The maths classes last week were given over to ‘induction’ during which we met our tutors, learnt to use the library and various other things. We have French on the third floor on a Tuesday, so I know where to go, thank God. There isn’t very much else on this corridor, and the lights don’t seem to work. As there is only one grimy window, this means it is rather dark up here. I wish I had someone to walk to class with but I haven’t made any friends in my form yet. I have realised that the key to making friends is finding someone as much like you as possible and then talking to them about how much you both dislike everyone else. Then, if all goes well, one of you will go home with the other after school, for tea. For about half a day, I had my sights on a girl called Becki, but it turned out that she is too stupid. It’s a shame; in every other respect she would have been perfect. She also does not have her ears pierced, and she wears a long skirt like mine. I heard that her parents are divorced, which in this school is almost as bad as having no parents at all. Becki also has a packed lunch, rather than school dinners, like me. But, like I said, she is stupid.

  So I walk to maths on my own. I thought maths would be my favourite subject but everything is so different here.

  ‘So,’ Mr Morgan, the maths teacher, says. ‘Welcome, small people of the first year.’ (So far so good. No more or less mad than other teachers.) ‘In my class we will have no talking, laughing, chewing, eating, drinking, passing notes, brushing hair, farting, copping off …’ Everyone laughs nervously at this. ‘Copping off’ is what some teachers seem to call snogging. There’s a craze for it here – but not in the first year! We are far too young for this. Morgan continues: ‘The reason that it is possible to have copping off in classrooms at this school is because boys and girls are mixed together. If this was my school, boys and girls wouldn’t even get within spitting distance of each other. Women – sorry about this, girls – but women ruin everything. If I had my way, you girls would get double domestic science in this period. We can do the sums while you bake the pies. What’s wrong with that? Ha ha ha …’ He starts laughing while we all look at him, confused.