Wasted (4 page)

Spike walks into the room at this point and curls himself around her ankles, purring.

Jess hopes Schrödinger never actually tried this on a cat.

So, obviously, the cat is either dead or alive. But Schrödinger said that, according to quantum theory, the cat is neither alive nor dead (or both dead
and
alive) until you open the box to look at it.

Which is freaky and makes no sense in the real world.

There were a whole load of scientists who had explanations for this, none of which made sense either (even to Einstein, which is a comfort to Jess). Even Schrödinger sounded confused, though he seemed to like being confused because it seemed to prove something exciting.

Apparently, the point was that this quantum theory thing was about particles so unimaginably tiny that even by looking at them you could change them.

To think that people get paid to worry about this stuff. Seriously weird and pointless.
Though kind of mysterious,
she thinks.

Cool name for a band too.

Jess looks at her watch, leaps to her feet and checks her face in the mirror. Turns this way and that – darkness of eyes, check; fullness of hair, check; lips need gloss – done. Switches off the computer, grabs her bag. Gives Spike a stroke.

Ready.

JESS
is walking to meet Jack. It's a simple journey and not much can go wrong. Of course, Jess and Jack will never know the things that might have gone wrong if they'd left slightly earlier or slightly later or taken a different route. Supposing, for example, one of them had been delayed by a phone call, or forgotten to close a window and had to rush back, or been asked to do a chore by a parent, or not been able to find a shoe. If they had been a minute later, or earlier, perhaps one of them would have been knocked down by a speeding car, or hit by a slate falling from a roof, or could have tripped on a loose paving stone, been mugged or struck by lightning. They might have breathed in the virus from a passing tuberculosis victim. Then how differently would things have turned out?

None of those possibilities occurs. They meet safely at the arranged time and place, walking towards each other with faces shy but bright. Jack wants to touch Jess, so he does, because he is not embarrassed about things like that. Jess loves the way he touches her, just on her arm, as he guides her across the road, safely through the traffic and in the direction of his road. It envelopes her softly, this new feeling.

A salty breeze drifts over them as they walk – Jack's house is closer to the sea than hers. It is a smell Jess has loved since she and her mum moved here a couple of years before.

Jack does not stop talking. In the ten minutes it takes them to get to his home, Jess learns that he is about to finish at the sixth-form college, doing music, English and philosophy; has a couple of university offers; is taking a year out first; but doesn't really care about anything apart from his band. He has one more exam to do but he's not worried about it. Will walk it, Jess gets the impression. Certainly, if he writes as much as he talks, the examiner will have plenty to mark.

He asks her questions too. In fact, he is exhausting in his questioning. Every answer she gives seems to fascinate him. He nods and smiles and agrees and uses words like “exactly” and “excellent”. If you wrote his words down, the page would be littered with exclamation marks and capital letters. He does not walk in a straight line but spins round to look at her sometimes, or moves to kick a stone along the road. Energy sparks from him like static. He is mercurial, fluid. Quicksilver. She is aware that she likes him. A lot.

Although he is dangerous to know, she is right to like him. He is pulled firmly towards the earth's centre. Though he moves quickly, he has equilibrium. It is not a word Jess herself would use but it fits. There is a point of balance inside him. He could be pushed a long way and he would surely spring back upright. It is as though the double shot of bad luck years ago drew out of him all the loose particles that can float here or there and all that is left is solid and confident and fits together tightly. A magnet has passed over his body and sucked out all the negativity.

It will not be his fault if bad luck is round the corner again for Jack. Or maybe it will not be bad luck but something more clearly caused by his actions. Perhaps there is one moment where we can say, “No, please, Jack. Not
that
.” Something obvious, like an actor in a horror film going downstairs in the middle of the night, in a storm, on Hallowe'en,
and not putting the lights on
.

“Anyway, here we are.”

Jack's house is seriously big.
OK, so we're talking major money here
, thinks Jess. On the gravel driveway, a car sits, black and lean and low and panther-like. The gravel crunches softly and is unusually easy to walk on. It welcomes the foot instead of repelling it with jaggy edges. Sea moss and pinks tumble from stone urns. Through the window to the porch, a surfboard leans.
So, is he a surfer, then?

Jack is turning his key in the front door and opening it. He calls to his dad but there is no answer. The hall is bright, halogen and chrome coming from the huge kitchen that she can see to the right. Jess takes everything in, with difficulty. She feels like an intruder. Maybe she should be quiet in this house, so smooth and elegant, so clean and shiny and with an enormous bowl of pink and white roses on a table, which she thinks is mahogany. Jack throws his key on another table and goes back to the door to pull her in. He guesses what she is thinking.

“Yes, I know” – he says, with that smile – “it's a beautiful house. Yes, I know – I'm very lucky. Et cetera, et cetera. Now, do you want a drink?”

“Um, yeah.” Her lips have stopped moving properly.

“What?”

“What do you have?”
Like, is this a tea/coffee situation or some other drink altogether?

“We have everything.”

Yes, you probably do,
thinks Jess. “What are you having?” she asks.

“Lime and sparkling water.”

“I'll have that too.”

“Want something in it?”

“No, thanks.” Actually, she kind of does but she is confused. This whole place. This situation. Her senses are overstretched. She'd probably need a drink before she could have a drink in a place like this.

“Not while we're working?” he says. She gives him a look.

He begins to lead her upstairs.

A man comes out of a room downstairs and they both turn round at his voice. “Jack? Sorry, I was on the phone when I heard you come in.”

“Hi, Dad. This is Jess. I told you I'd find a singer. Well, here she is. Jess, my dad. Dad, Jess.”

Jack's dad comes up the stairs and shakes her hand. It's a firm handshake. A nice smile, the blue eyes friendly, the skin tanned. She smiles back as best she can and says hello. She knows he's searching her face to see what he finds there, whether he approves. Her mother does it to any boys she's ever been seen with. “Pleased to meet you, Jess,” he says and he looks pleased too. “Hope you can help Jack out – he's talked about nothing but band problems – and if you can stop him talking about it you're welcome to him. Oh, and I'm Sam, by the way.”

And he walks back down the wide staircase and disappears into the kitchen. Jess follows Jack up some more stairs, narrower this time. At the top, there's a small landing and two doors. He opens one and leads her in. She is overwhelmed by impressions. It's a huge loft space with beams. Lots of sloping ceilings. Dark, but in a warm way, with deep-blue walls, until he turns on one switch and different lights come on, and alcoves come to life. He has a double bed, which she doesn't want to look at. A lot of books. A seriously professional keyboard and a guitar, amps, other stuff with leads all over the place. The room is cluttered but organized. It's not tidy but there are no horrible things like dirty underwear or brown apple cores. Mind you, he's had time to tidy it. This could all be an act. He could in fact be a slob who has been well enough brought up to know that if you want to impress a girl you get rid of dirty underwear and apple cores before you invite her to your room.

She feels suddenly nervous. Soon she will have to sing for him. He puts the drinks on a table.

“Have a seat,” he says. “Catch.” He throws a cardboard folder towards her and she catches it. There are pieces of hand-written sheet music inside. She takes one out. He's extricating a guitar from a tangle of wires. Looks like a decent piece of kit. And he's plugging his keyboard into the amp. He clearly knows what he's doing.

“What does your dad do?” She's playing for time.

“He runs his own business, at home. It's…”

But Jess is not listening. It's the music she's reading. It has caught her. She touches the notes on the page and something flows through her fingers. She finds herself humming it, not caring any more that he may be listening. She hardly knows what she's doing, just immerses herself in the colours. For it does have colours, each blending into another, but she does not quite
see
the different tones, more
feels
them. They are deep within, where she cannot see, like tastes, melting together. They are, perhaps, nothing more than emotions, but they feel like much more. She loves it when music does this. She craves the weird letting go of it.

As the tune becomes familiar, she can add some of the words, and her voice becomes round and whole and warm and butter rich.

She is aware of music coming from the keyboard, joining her. There is a bassline now, adding depth to the colours, which slowly sink to the pit of her stomach and into her legs, weakening them. She wants to cry but she will not. She allows every part of her body to flow into the music and the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Cold, suddenly, she feels.

The song comes to an end. A bee is buzzing in the window. There is traffic in the distance. And the sound of surf breaking. Her mouth is dry. She takes a mouthful of her drink. Lets a long breath out.

He is watching her. Not moving. His hands are frozen above the keyboard and she thinks he has not played the last few notes, or even lines.

“How do you do that?” he asks.

“I love the song. Did you write it?”

“Yes, but I've never heard it like that. You are … brilliant.”

His words clutch at her insides. “I love the song. Honestly.”

He runs his finger through his hair, shakes his head, removing the spell. “Well, that's lucky, because you could get seriously bored with it in the next two weeks. And you've got another twelve or something to learn.”

Forty minutes or more later and they take a break. Jess stays in his room while Jack goes downstairs to get something for them to eat and drink. At first, she starts to work on some lines of a song, but she soon stops. She begins to grin. She lies back on the bed and spreads her arms beside her, sinking into the duvet. She could lie here for ever, but she had better not. It wouldn't do for Jack to get the wrong idea.

She wants to know more about Jack. Everything, if possible. Preferably not if it's something she doesn't like, but she will take that risk. Perhaps she has no choice, though it does feel like a choice. She gets up and wanders around the room, looking at the books on his shelves, pictures on his walls, photos in frames. There's a photo that's probably his mother. One of his dad with a woman, not the same woman. Pictures of the band. She looks closely at those to see what the other members are like, but she can't judge anything from them.

There are all the usual revision tools – books, folders, scribbled notes and lists and things that have been highlighted. There's a list of things he's meant to revise – nearly everything's ticked off. Jack is clearly in control. His handwriting is small and neat, very round, but with unusually long tails that get tangled in the line below. She touches it. It tells her nothing, but she likes it.

One part of a wall is covered with newspaper cuttings. Dozens of them. They overlap, leaving no space between. At first, she cannot see the point, the subject. The headlines are things like “Lightning strikes twice for binman”, “Not so lucky Jim”, “Tragic toddler in donkey death”, “Tortoise kills man”, “Lotto bride's heart attack”.
It all seems a bit … gloomy,
thinks Jess. Does he get off on other people's tragedies? He doesn't seem like the morbid type.

He is coming up the stairs.

“YOU'VE
found my collection,” says Jack. He's carrying a tray with cheese, crackers, apple chopped up, a dip of some sort and some tortilla chips. A bottle of fizzy water. And two tall glasses with a good centimetre of clear liquid. Which she guesses is vodka.

“Yes, but what's it a collection
of
? I mean, what's the point?”

“Do you believe in chance?” he asks, putting the tray down.

“That's a weird question. Of course I do. I suppose.”

“There's no such thing,” he announces. “We call it chance when we can't see the causes. Like spinning a  coin – it's not really chance. There's physical reasons the coin lands the way it does. Tiny things you can't see.”

“So? You still can't make a coin land one way or the other.”

“No.”

“So, what's the point? We still might as well call it chance.”

“Look at all these deaths. These people didn't know what was going to hit them. They had no control. Look – that man died when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his head; that happened to an ancient Greek guy called Aeschylus too. But he could have been somewhere else at that moment, just a little way away, and he'd have been fine. Something made him and those other people be there at those exact moments. We call it chance, but it wasn't really. They were there because of other things. Physics.”