Since Luke turned twenty-five – or since the millennium; Julie isn’t sure which event actually set him off – he’s been talking about not wanting to be stuck in this room any more. He wants to go out, he keeps saying, and dance in the fields.
‘I want to be naked,’ he adds. ‘While I’m dancing.’
‘Great,’ says Julie. ‘You’ll be naked and dead and your mother will go totally insane. Nice combination. Very Kurt Cobain.’
‘How is that anything like Kurt Cobain? Anyway, I might not die.’
Julie pokes at her Pot Noodle. ‘Luke, we’ve had this conversation a thousand times. Yeah, you might not die, but do you want to take that risk?’
‘No. I guess not,’ Luke says. ‘Is there anything on TV?’
‘I wish they’d put more peas in these,’ Julie says, and reaches for the remote.
After flicking through various channels, Julie settles on a Learning Zone science programme in which a man with a beard is explaining the birth of calculus. Luke gives Julie a look, then takes the remote control.
‘I’ll find something with a story,’ he says.
There’s nothing, really, so he settles for a profile of a pop group, which may as well be a story. They’re talking about how they used to have these pathetic low-paid jobs, and play their music in provincial youth-clubs. Now they play Wembley Arena.
Julie looks around the room. There are magazines, CDs and Blockbuster Video boxes on the floor. It is not usually a mess in here – Luke’s actually very organised – these are just the remains of tonight. The rest of the room contains Luke’s large double bed, his TV, video, computer, and a couple of chairs. Most of the wall space is covered with the shelves that hold every book Luke’s ever read, and his library of videos containing programmes he’s taped from the TV – programmes full of shiny white American malls, clean beaches, best buddies, teen angst, high schools with cheerleaders, soccer pitches, geeks, girls with suntans and blonde highlights, long corridors with lockers and feuds, and perfect stories. He doesn’t call them programmes, though. He calls them ‘shows’, and he calls the pavement the ‘sidewalk’. Luke has a slight American accent, although he’s never been to America. He believes that Clacton-on-Sea is like the perfect yellow beaches on his tapes – with beautiful people and lifeguards – and that kids hang out at Lakeside the same way they do in American malls.
When he was about fifteen he went through a phase of asking Julie to describe the local beaches, shops and parks. It was obvious that he didn’t believe her when she told him about the world outside, and her attempts to be objective soon gave way to simply telling the truth about just how shit everything was. But Luke didn’t understand that either, so in the end Julie gave up completely, deciding to just let him believe things in Essex were like TV sets in LA. But when they watched the millennium celebrations on TV, Luke thought it was all fake. It was just as hard to convince him that the displays and the fireworks were real as it was to try to convince him that Beverly Hills 90210 was fantasy and that although his mother has always had a soap-opera kitchen, most people have dirt in their houses, dirty dishes in the sink, clothes in the laundry basket.
Luke’s floor is made of linoleum and all his furniture is plastic or MDF. He has nylon sheets and wears clothes made out of artificial fibres. He’s sitting on his nylon bed next to Julie with his legs crossed, like some kind of yoga student. Julie is leaning against the wall, her knees drawn up to her chest. She finishes the Pot Noodle and puts the empty plastic container neatly to one side. Her insides feel warm and salty.
There’s nothing on TV after the pop profile, so Julie gets up and scans the video shelf. She feels like seeing some American animation: dysfunctional families; dysfunctional robots; dysfunctional, offensive kids.
‘I don’t want to die,’ Luke says. ‘But I do want to live.’
Julie laughs. ‘Oh please. Will you stop saying that all the time?’
Luke smiles too. ‘At least it gets a laugh.’
‘And will you stop talking about going out? It makes me feel anxious.’
‘Look, I’m not going to do it, of course I’m not. Not now. I just like to think about it. Come on. I’ve never gone out just because I’ve talked about it.’
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I know.’
Luke smiles. ‘I’m not going to do it until it’s safe – until I’ve been cured.’
At the millennium he swore that he’d be cured by 2001. It’s October now. Julie pulls out a video and slides it in the machine.
‘I’m worried about you,’ Luke says suddenly.
‘Me? Where did that come from? We were talking about you.’
He looks at the Pot Noodle. ‘Have you eaten anything real today?’