PopCo

  My random words aren’t entirely random, however. When you use a dictionary to search for random words, you end up with things like fritillary and droshky, which don’t really work in this context. So what I’ve been doing instead is picking a random page of the dictionary and then finding a product-matrix type word on that page. It may be cheating but now my notebook has ideas crawling over it like cockroaches. It’s uncanny.

  What you do with a matrix is as follows: you write the columns out, as I have done, and then you take one thing from each column until you have made an entirely new thing. For example, you could have a small ball that is connected with mastery and is perceived as special. So this could be a brand where each ball is unique, perhaps with its own signature pattern or design (like Cabbage Patch Dolls, which each came with a unique ‘Adoption Certificate’). Using mastery, you would be able to learn tricks with the ball, and perhaps take part in regional or ‘street’ competitions. If we add a word from the random column we could take, for example, ‘complex’ and make this product complicated and challenging to learn. This would fit in with children’s desire to be special, to learn special (secret?) skills and ‘be the best’. This product would also have collecting/trading appeal because of the uniqueness of each ball. Perhaps kids could be encouraged to buy the whole set of a particular theme (sea, space, monsters, etc.). You wouldn’t know which type of ball you were getting when you bought it and then you might want to swap. To further encourage kids to buy more than one ball, there would also be multi-ball tricks that could be learnt.

  Or what about a ‘Snake Board’: a skateboard that is ‘real’, connected with animals and the words ‘silly’ and ‘serpent’? This would be a product for 9- to 12-year-old boys and would be sold in the form of a ‘create-your-own’ kit. The ‘real’ factor would be the wood and wheels and so on, which the kid can put together in various ways. Each Snake Board kit can take on the shape and character of different types of snake. There’d be the Python, the Adder and so on. The ‘silly’ factor could be achieved by having things like ‘wobbly wheels’, ‘crazy eyes’ and ‘killer tongues’ as features that could be added to the board. Perhaps the boards could also shoot ‘venom’ when you stamp on a foot pedal?

  What about a building set that shows emotion, is connected to the environment and the word ‘cute’? This would be something like Meccano (a product that makes all toy creatives, engineers and architects go a bit misty-eyed due to the fact that everyone learned to build things with it and it isn’t made any more). However, when you build things with it, it becomes ‘happy’ or ‘sad’, depending on certain factors. A wall without windows would be ‘sad’, perhaps? Or the building material would become sad about things that are bad for the environment? I’m not sure this is feasible – it’s a bit too AI – and sounds altogether too educational. Still, a building set with ‘cute’ features would work – definitely for girls. I add the random word ‘elves’ and spend the next fifteen minutes working out a product with which girls could build miniature elf dwellings, shops, and, in theory, whole towns, which they would then put in their gardens. Like bird tables – but for magical creatures! At the point when I catch myself thinking, How would you know if the magical creatures had visited or not? I give this up and start doodling instead.

  My brain actually, physically hurts. I can’t switch off, though. My doodle – several cubes and a large spiral – makes me suddenly think of a way you could make Go three-dimensional. And now I have a mysterious board game that is big, clever and complex. This matrix has embedded itself in my brain. How would you play three-dimensional Go? You would still place stones on the intersections but to surround a stone you would need to control not just the four intersections around it on the plane but the six that you would find in the three-dimensional equivalent. My doodle breaks down and I am not even sure that six points would connect each intersection. My head really is fucked now.

  To my right, Dan is writing away furiously like he is in the most important exam he has ever sat. Esther, on my left, is looking dreamily out of the window.

  ‘So,’ says Ned. ‘How many product ideas have each of you managed to create?’ He looks around the room at people and they start calling out figures, which he writes down on the whiteboard. Grace has got four, Richard has got seven. I learn a few more names as he goes around the room. The big tattooed bloke is called Frank, Ben’s fawn-haired companion is Chloë and the girl with pink pigtails is called Mitzi. I am able to match the name Hiro (which Mac called out on Saturday night) with a skinny Japanese guy with short black hair. They all have six ideas each.

  ‘Seventeen,’ says Dan when Ned’s glance falls on him. Bloody hell. I offer my four ideas, and Esther slightly apologetically offers two.

  ‘So, in this classroom, in the space of one afternoon, we have created exactly two hundred and one ideas. Pretty good going, don’t you think?’ Ned smiles. ‘Of course, the important thing about matrices is the creative use of columns and parameters. I’m seeing you again on Wednesday, so perhaps between now and then you could think about what other parameters we could use. And I’d like you to develop one of your ideas into a full proposal, please.’

  There is a lot of scraping-chair noise as we all get up to leave.

  My new home is much quieter than my old flat. Trucks don’t go past all the time, and people don’t shout at each other underneath the windows. I don’t have to go to school as it is almost the summer holidays and there’s no point enrolling somewhere for just two weeks before everything breaks up. So I am free. My grandmother is working in her study all the time and my grandfather is researching a new series of his Mind Mangle columns at the University Library. So I spend my days exploring the village. I am alone most of the time, which is OK. At least I am not shipwrecked any more.

  I have started working on my necklace. When I say ‘working on it’, I mean that I am working on deciphering the strange letters that are engraved in it. 2.14488156Ex48. What does that mean? And what about the little swirly shape? I haven’t got very far but I think that this necklace holds the secret of why my father went away, and why my grandfather has been acting strangely recently. He was always such a cuddly, sweet-shop kind of person before. Now he looks like there is a ghost following him around all the time that no one else can see. In order to work on the necklace I have to be very secretive. In the middle of the night I have to do stealth-walking to get downstairs to see if I can look up the symbols in any of the books (or, indeed, find evidence of what the whole thing is about). Stealth-walking is a special skill I made up. To do it, you have to wear thick socks, and you have to place your weight down on your feet very slowly and carefully so as not to make a sound. You have to imagine each foot almost melting into the floor; heel, ball and toes slowly, like that. When walking down the stairs, you have to keep to the outside edges, because the middle bits creak.

  One night I got caught! I was in the sitting room, about to open a book, when I heard a bed-spring noise from upstairs and then the sound of a door opening. I considered hiding but knew that wouldn’t work. What if whoever it was checked my room before coming downstairs? They would know I was hiding and would then also know I was up to something. No. Something else. I could feel different parts of my brain clicking around like the dials on a safe, struggling for the right combination. By the time my grandmother came into the room I was already walking around with a glassy stare, almost bumping into things.

  ‘Oh, Alice,’ she said, leading me gently back up the stairs.

  ‘Have a good sleep-walk?’ my grandfather asked me over breakfast.

  I feigned ignorance.

  By the time the real summer holidays start, my grandfather is spending more time at home. He has cheered up, too. He shows me card tricks and leg-spin bowling and substitution ciphers. Now that it is summer, the village even has its very own gang of kids, which I am supposed to want to join. This gang consists of two quite stuck-up rugby-playing brothers, James and Vaughan; a girl called Rache
l who has her own pony; and a girl with pierced ears called Tracey. Tracey seems like some sort of outcast, though. Apparently, they all go to private boarding-schools and she doesn’t. As I haven’t started my new school yet, I am an unknown quantity. I am suspicious of them all and, much though I would dearly love to ride Rachel’s pony, I initially choose to hang around with Tracey instead. I teach her the substitution cipher and send her secret messages which she can unfortunately never decipher – even though she is a whole year older than me. I have a plan whereby, using stealth, we will take territory from the others; particularly some strategic points on the playing field by the stream where they hang around playing kissing games. Tracey doesn’t want to. She wants to teach me about make-up and pop music. I begin to suspect that she would probably enjoy kissing games. I quickly defect and join Rachel instead. During the course of the summer Tracey joins the boys (we think she may have held hands with James) and we wage war against them, relentlessly, until term starts again. I am sometimes allowed to ride Rachel’s sister’s horse, Pippin, if she is away. Riding is scary but fun and you have to watch out not to get beheaded by low branches.

  My grandfather plays cricket for the village team. The other players say he will carry on playing until he literally just dies at the crease, which I don’t like the sound of very much, although it makes them all laugh. On Sundays they sometimes travel in their rusty old van to away fixtures in various nearby villages, and I am allowed to go too, supposedly to help with the teas. I hate helping with the teas, though. Tracey’s nan is in charge and she always smells like sour fruit. There are always wasps, and they always get in the jam, which makes me feel funny. Anyway, I would much rather be playing cricket than fiddling around with jam, and I do have my own bat and pads now (which I got for my birthday in July). But however long I stand there hopefully, knocking a ball around on my own, they never ask me to play. Even when they are a man down I am not allowed on the team. It’s not fair. They say I am too young but Colin Clarke plays if they are really short, and he’s ten as well. I think it’s because I am a girl.

  One day I hear my grandfather talking to the captain about me.

  ‘Come on, Mike,’ he’s saying. ‘Give her a game.’

  Mike’s frowning. ‘Where would she get changed?’

  ‘She doesn’t need to get changed. I never use the changing rooms.’

  He’s right. Like most of the team, he turns up for matches in his old cricket jumper and trousers, and goes home like that too. Only Bob the accountant ever uses the changing rooms and that’s because he also plays squash.

  ‘Yeah, but we’d have to provide facilities anyway. There’s a law.’

  ‘So we’ll make her a changing room. I’ll bring a tent! There. Solved.’

  ‘What’ll we say to the bowlers on the other team? They’ll feel like they have to go easy on her and it’ll be unfair. They won’t want to bowl to a, you know, a kid.’

  ‘They bowl all right to Colin, though.’

  Mike shrugs. ‘Well, he’s playing for the Under-11s now. He can handle himself all right.’

  ‘So can Alice. She’s a decent little spin bowler, you know. Come on Mike, stick her in at number eleven just once. It would make her summer.’

  But my grandfather is wrong. My summer has already been made by overhearing this conversation. He thinks I am good enough to play! My chance to join the team never actually comes though, due to my grandfather mysteriously deciding to resign from it.

  ‘We’ll play cricket our own way,’ he says. ‘In the garden.’

  *

  Mac is there for the meditation class. He speaks to a few people (but not me), and then settles down at the back to join in. I can’t believe that it was only two days ago that meeting him seemed like such a big deal. Now he’s around all the time, and my ‘secret’ – that I had that conversation with him when I first arrived here – has lost power as quickly as an engine with no fuel. We are gathered on the sunken lawn in front of the main building, under a very old, gnarly tree. Our meditation tutor is a softly-spoken woman with long brown hair tied in two long bunches. I have never meditated before but, now that I am having a go, I find that it is somehow like drugs, this feeling of shrinking back into yourself. It’s not as hard as I would have thought. All you do is shut your eyes and concentrate on something, and you almost don’t realise you have been doing it until you stop, open your eyes and the world suddenly seems sharper, yet more distant. I thought meditating involved clearing your head of all thoughts but the woman says it’s OK to keep your thoughts in a back cupboard in your mind while you bring one thing to the foreground and focus on that. She says meditation is like tidying up before you sit down, as opposed to sitting down in a mess. She also says it’s good for when you get that brain-overload feeling, which I definitely do have. When it’s all over I feel lighter, and also very tired. I walk slowly back to my room and, without fully intending to, I immediately fall asleep on the bed.

  An hour later, or possibly two. I have probably missed dinner. What time is it? I feel disorientated, sleepy. Am I still myself? I think so. I force myself out of bed, splash water on my face in the bathroom and then use some of it to smooth down my hair, as I sense the beginnings of frizz. But this is more habit than anything. Do I care if my hair is frizzy? Not particularly. I walk slowly back to bed and get in. The sheets are still warm, and the pillow still has the small indentation from where my head was resting a few minutes ago. It’s not that I’m sleepy any more, actually, far from it. I simply feel bread-warm and comfortable in here, with my legs drawn up, as if someone has been singing me magic, calming lullabies. At the moment I feel like the kind of person to whom no one would ever send notes in code. I feel like someone with no work to do. To complete the effect, I reach over to the bedside table and pick up my bottle of valerian. A few drops and then a bit more semi-meditation, concentrating on a crack in the ceiling. I am overdosing on relaxation. This is great. More valerian; now I could do with some chamomile. I really could do with some chamomile tea, some miso soup (that craving never completely went away) and possibly some dope. Where is Esther? Will the chefs have heard of miso soup? Can I answer these questions? I drop off again while wondering if I can even be bothered to masturbate.

  Eight o’clock. I really have missed dinner now. The valerian has slightly rag-dolled my body but not so much that I can’t get up and smoke a cigarette. I pull on my skirt, a shirt and a cardigan and my plimsolls. I have attached my door key to a piece of ribbon and I slip this around my neck. Hair in a ponytail? No. Two thick plaits. Great. Time to leave the room, Alice. Can’t go back to bed again. Can I? No. I vaguely recall that I was planning to do some work this evening but I need soup, tea, anything. I am hungry and I need to walk around. When the air hits my face outside, it is like an unexpected kiss.

  Over in the West Wing, Dan is buried in a book about lateral thinking.

  ‘Hi,’ I say to him.

  He looks at me with gleaming eyes. ‘This is so … oh, God. What happened to you?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You look wasted.’

  ‘No, no. I’m fine. Meditation-overload. It’ll be all right.’

  ‘Oh. We were looking for you at dinner.’

  So I did miss it. ‘I had to go to bed really urgently. Any sign of Esther?’

  ‘In the kitchen, possibly? It’s at the end of the hall.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘What time will you be up until?’

  ‘One-ish.’

  ‘Cup of tea later, then?’

  ‘Yeah, cool. Will you require my notes for the purpose of copying?’

  ‘What? Oh, yeah, maybe.’

  ‘You’re such a skiver, Butler.’

  It’s not that, really. I just know I will be able to do this work quickly, when the deadline is looming in a more threatening way than it is now. But I say nothing and walk down the corridor towards the kitchen. I can smell toast, and steam. The door is closed but I push it open anyway, for some reason e
xpecting Esther to be sitting in there on her own, making toast. Instead, I find Ben, Chloë and Hiro talking in an intense kind of way. It’s one of those situations where, as soon as I walk in, they all stop talking and look at me, all with raised eyebrows. Oh God.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say automatically. ‘Looking for someone.’

  Actually, they don’t all have raised eyebrows, nor are they all looking at me. Ben keeps his gaze down on the table, his brown eyes lost behind his glasses. Does he not notice that I am here? Is he not going to give me one of his unreadable expressions? No, not now, obviously. Strange. It was only this afternoon that we were talking about jumping out of an imaginary balloon together, which gave me a nice, fizzy feeling, I must admit. As quickly as I can, I close the door behind me and start walking back down the corridor. I briefly knock at Esther’s door, but there is no reply. I walk slowly down the steps to the stone passage below. The air is fresh and damp with the smell of grass. What is my mission now? Shall I abandon the hunt for Esther? She is a difficult person to find, so much so that I have been wondering if she can shape-shift, or even whether she turns into a bat after dark and simply roosts somewhere. Perhaps I will go and find out if the dining room is still open, or see if there is anything to cook in the East Wing kitchen. Maybe I will even do some work, now, since that’s what everyone else seems to be doing.

  As I turn out of the West Wing I become aware of footsteps breaking into the quiet behind me; fast footsteps, as if someone’s running to catch up with me. Instinctively, I look behind me but there’s no one there. I hesitate for a moment but the footsteps have gone. Perhaps they were some echo from the past, or simply belonged to someone going the other way. I wander through the arch and then across the grass to the big oak door leading back into the main building.