Bright Young Things Read Online Free Page A

Blah, I
think
.’
    Another pause.
    ‘Blah, that’s right.’
    She’s trying to say Blur but she can’t even manage that.
    Jamie’s got a copy of
The Face
hidden under the bed. He pulls it out and looks at the clothes and the people. Maybe this is what he could have been, had he not been so bright. He hates that word. It’s what people have always said about him, from his junior school – in the days when he still had an accent – to his grammar school.
Jamie, he’s so bright.
And they always sighed at the end of the sentence, as if his brightness made them tired, because it was just too dazzling.
    As far as everyone here is concerned, his background is just a blip, an aberration. He’s bright and he’s escaped.
    Well, now he wants to go back.
    He remembers loving his primary school and all his friends. But just before the Eleven Plus he was put in a special class, with the other bright boys and girls. They were taught by the headmaster and kept out of ordinary classes. From that moment, Jamie’s best friend, Mark, and girlfriend, Gemma, disappeared from his life. At the time he didn’t even notice.
    Last summer he spent his holidays in Taunton with his mother and her new boyfriend. Walking around his home town was a surreal experience. Sometimes, in the bank or in the record shop, he’d see a familiar face, but not be able to give it a name. He’d tried to track down Mark and Gemma once and found they’d got married – to each other. They hadn’t invited him to the wedding. Why would they? He was never really one of them. While Gemma and Mark struggled with long division, he was doing algebra with the headmaster. He was just too fucking bright.
    The people in
The Face
look like they’re on drugs. They look like they’re having fun in their dressed-down clothes; in their avant-garde photo shoots. Could he have been like that? Maybe he would have been if it wasn’t for the numbers. Maybe he could still be something interesting, even with the stupid numbers. With all his numbers he’d be qualified to deal drugs, maybe; 28 grams in an ounce, 3.5 in an eighth. That’s how they sell drugs, isn’t it? He doesn’t really know. But the people in this magazine aren’t that. They’re artists and pop stars and underground rebels. They’re not the losers that Carla and her friends think they are. They’re probably just really nice people.
    He looks at his clothes: chinos from The Gap; white T-shirt bought by his mother about five years ago. It’s greyed in the wash. Is that good or bad? He has a lot to learn. Worse, he has a lot to unlearn. He pulls one of the Marlboros out of the packet and lights it. He remembers smoking years ago in Taunton town centre, with Gemma breathing cold smoke in his ear, telling him she would always love him.
    Picking up his newspaper and the rest of the cigarettes, he struts out of the bedroom and down the stairs. Carla wrinkles her nose as soon as she sees him and places her small white hand over the telephone receiver.
    ‘God, Jamie, what are you doing?’ she half-says, half-mouths.
    ‘I’m going down the pub.’
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘You heard.’
    She rolls her eyes and speaks into the receiver. ‘I’ll call you back.’
    Jamie stands defiant, enjoying the smoke.
    ‘Are you dumbing down?’ asks Carla eventually.
    ‘Dumbing down?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Dumbing down?’
    ‘That’s what I said.’
    Jamie laughs. ‘Where did you get that from?’
    She flicks her fringe to one side. ‘
The Telegraph Magazine
.’
    ‘You haven’t got a clue, have you?’
    ‘
Me?
Jamie, you need help.’
    ‘Whatever.’
    The pub is brown and quiet. Jamie hasn’t been in here before, but he likes the calm, contemplative atmosphere of men with nowhere to go. He orders a pint and sits on his own at a table near the dartboard. What Jamie needs, what he really needs, is to strike out on his own. His degree is over and he has no reason to stay in Cambridge. Just because they all want him to be a