CHAPTER ONE
A cold wind whipped across the Fens and through the little city of Cambridge. It has travelled this vacant land since long before the spires of churches and the turrets of towers pierced the vast East Anglian sky. It will continue to journey here long after grass has covered the untilled earth and the square-cut stones are buried deep beneath. On this cold morning the wind brought with it droplets of rain. Landing across the city they covered it in a fine film, imparting a fluidic, slippery beauty to the ancient colleges and narrow streets.
Bollocks, thought James Connor. This place is fucking miserable when the rain gets up.
In his tiny room on the top floor of Elite Learners English Language School the only source of light was the grime-encrusted roof window, inches from his head. The view offered little more than a few branches of a neighbouring tree (the only few that it had left, in fact). As far as he was concerned the glass was a thin membrane separating him from the infinite grey abyss beyond.
He was into the second hour of the working day, though it felt like the twelfth, and his latest student was horrendous. When he had taken the job at the school he had been told that his role would be to teach academic English to advanced international learners.
“We’re considered one of the posher schools,” his boss, Abigail, had told him during the interview. James had summoned all the strength his facial muscles could muster to avoid grimacing at this, though the task was made harder by her teeth-clenchingly nasal voice.
The truth had been apparent from day one, when he had been lumbered with two teenage students, neither of whom could scrounge together a word of English. They had set an unbreakable precedent for his time there.
As he tried to ignore the incessant tapping of the branches on the glass James glanced at his latest student. Mischka, the nineteen year-old Russian, had been stumbling through an ancient and battered English language textbook, and was now on ‘Chapter Three: A Typical Workplace Dialogue.’
“Can you direct me to the Photostat machine?” she asked to thin air, in the guise of Mrs Smith, the hypothetical secretary at the fictional cement works. “Yes of course,” she replied as Mr Brown, the firm’s director. “It’s the first room on the right, straight down the hall.”
My God, this is boring, thought James. He had lost count of the number of times he had heard this script, and now his skull ached at the tedium.
“What is ‘Photostat machine’?” asked Mischka.
James sighed.
“Oh, er, it’s a very old photocopier.”
Mischka looked mildly suspicious, but hesitantly resumed the script.
“How many secretaries are there in the typing pool?” she asked as Mr Wilkins, accountant at the cement works.
James cringed inwardly. For God’s sake. Why can’t Elite Learners afford text-books that were made this century? What next, ‘Where is the nearest air-raid shelter?’
“What is ‘typing pool’?” asked Mischka.
“It’s a large body of secretaries who… well it’s a very old-fashioned term that…” He could see her drifting off. “Just carry on.”
“There are seventeen secretaries in the typing pool,” she said, once again as Mr Brown.
I’m not sure how many more times I can stand this, thought James in an increasingly frustrated internal monologue that he had repeated as often as he had heard the turgid script. Oh bollocks, Mischka’s looking at me in that weird way again. I’d better look interested or I’ll end up mumbling to myself again. God, that was embarrassing last time.
Mischka paused and arched an eyebrow.
“What is ‘bollocks’?” she asked.
* * *
Two floors below, Abigail Price was stirring skimmed milk into her weak, urine-coloured tea as she cast her mind to James. Her newest recruit was such a sullen boy. If she hadn’t been so hard-up for staff she would never even have considered him. She wasn’t one to be nasty, but he really was about as wet as a patch of frogspawn, and with about half the personality.
At this point James walked into the student common room, which doubled as Abigail’s office. With an effort to disguise her thoughts she turned to him and smiled.
“How was your lesson?”
“Oh, very good thanks,” he said absently. This ritual occurred at the end of every day and was invariably followed by a few words about the next week’s intake. But not today.
“James,” said Abigail, her false smile metamorphosing into a frown. “I want to talk to you about your work. Now I haven’t exactly had any complaints about your teaching but everyone has been noticing how… well… how miserable you look. It’s beginning to affect your rapport with the students. You’ve been late more than once in the past few weeks too. Is everything okay?”
The concern in her voice was so artificial as to render the words almost meaningless, and James was in two minds as to whether the question was rhetorical.
“Er… well…” he stuttered. For a moment he was almost tempted to tell Abigail the truth. “I’m fine,” he said. “Some problems at home, but they’ve cleared up now.”
The ‘personal issues’ lie was a classic, and he felt sure it would get the old cow off his back for the time being. But it wouldn’t keep him in the clear forever.
Abigail let out a small, exasperated sigh.
“Fine. See you tomorrow. Try to be in on time.”
Zoning out whilst Abigail made inane chat was usually easy. Having to avoid explaining that something was wrong, however, was not. Over the last two months he had become used to disguising his depression with the appearance of mere sullenness, and avoiding contact with others during periods when his anxiety attacks were more frequent. Now, though, his mask was beginning to slip, and having the fact pointed out by someone else jarred him.
He left the school and walked home down Park Road. The wind whipped up the leaves around him but he didn’t notice. People passed him by, huddled against the chill, but they were unreal. Nothing beyond his body had substance, but was hollow and without form.
* * *
James lived in a large house in the leafy surroundings of Jesus Green. It was owned by his old college, Midsummer, whose notoriously slow administration had failed to turf him out even though he had finished at Cambridge over two months ago. His housemates were all still engaged in their studies.
Dumping his coat and bag in the hallway he made his way upstairs to his bedroom. It was a pigsty and had been so for a long time. During the last two months he had neglected all domestic chores, and his clothes lay strewn in towering piles. His appearance too had become ever more dishevelled, unnoticed by himself but increasingly apparent to those he lived with. Jumping onto the bed he eased backwards on aching muscles, but as soon as his head touched the pillow a knock at the door made him flinch.
“Who the hell is that?” he muttered under his breath.
“Jimmy are you there? I heard you come in.”
“Er… yeah come in, mate,” said James. He tried his best to clear the irritation from his voice and appear friendly.
The door opened and in came Rasheed Arash, known to all, even his fellow PhD researchers at the biotech labs, as ‘Bumrash.’
“Hey Jimmy,” he said with a tentatively light-hearted note. “I haven’t seen you for over a week. Why are you keeping yourself to yourself these days?”
“Oh, no reason, I’ve just got a lot on my mind,” said James. As soon as he registered a note of concern in Bumrash’s voice he found it more difficult to maintain the façade.
“Have you been applying for any more jobs?”
“Yeah but nothing’s come back. That bitch at the language school has been on my case about looking sullen, and I know she won’t think twice about letting me go.”
“That’s rough, man. I can’t believe you still can’t find a job. It’s like the fates are conspiring against you or something. Everyone else I know from your year is working, and one or two have really landed on their feet. David Slaker’s started off on forty grand, and they pay his....”
“Bloody hell, Bumrash, you’re not making me feel any better. These last few months have been the worst of my life.”
“I know, they really screwed you over. I thought that after they stitched you up you’d at least be able to find a job in town.”
“That’s the worst of it. I was torn up at what those bastards did.”
“I know, I know. Although if you think about it, failing your degree is sort of a mark of distinction. You know, ‘street cred’ and all that. Years from now, when you’re fixed up with a career and a place of your own, you’ll look back on this and laugh.”
“I thought I’d get over it straight away if I could just find a proper job and put it all behind me. Instead I’ve ended up at that shit-hole of a language school. My prospects are well and truly crap. I don’t want to sound self-pitying, but…”
“No, no, mate, I completely understand. To be honest we’ve all been worried about you, especially over the last few weeks. You’ve become really distant with everyone, and we’re supposed to be your friends. Did you go to the doctor like I suggested?
“Yeah I went a couple of days ago. He told me my anxiety attacks were stress–related and that I should make ‘lifestyle changes.’”
“No surprise there,” said Bumrash. “That’s why I decided to take things into my own hands.”
A cunning look entered his eyes.
“What do you mean? What have you been up to?”
“Well you know what happened with my research, don’t you?”
“Er… no. I’m sorry, I haven’t been paying much attention to anything lately. Remind me.”
Bumrash gave a sigh of mock exasperation. “Jimmy you’re useless,” he grinned. “We’d been working on a new drug called Flanoxiride. Studies were pretty far advanced, almost at the human trial stage, but then the private sponsors pulled the funding and the whole project folded.”
“I see,” said James with only a vague sense of recollection.
“Well Flanoxiride had a number of different applications, but the most promising was as a new type of anti-depressant. In the lab tests the results were amazing. In rats whose brain chemistry had been altered to inhibit serotonin levels the drug returned them to a state of neurological stability almost immediately.”
“So what are you suggesting? It sounds pretty amazing but you’ve only tested it on rats. And in any case the project has been scrapped.”
“Yeah those bastards pulled the money after two whole years of labour. It worked out all right for me in the end. I got transferred to the Mex-Gen project. But I still wish we’d have been allowed to go through to the human testing stage.”
The expression of intent was unmistakable and he leaned forwards conspiratorially.
“Bummers, you’re not suggesting…”
“I want to test the pills on you.”
“What? You want to use me as a human guinea pig for your failed experiment?”
“It’s not failed,” said Bumrash. “Just stalled. Honestly I wouldn’t be suggesting this if I didn’t think it was safe and that it could help you. Like I said, we’re all worried, and if your boss has noticed then things must be bad.”
He made a good point but James was highly dubious.
“But how would you even get hold of the Flanoxiride? You said the experiment finished a while ago. Surely all the samples were disposed of?”
Now the look of cunning became one of triumph.
“Not quite,” he said. “I took a stash when they cleared out the lab. I couldn’t bear to part with it, and something told me that I might be able to make use of it.”
“Bumhole, I couldn’t…”
“It’s safe, man. Trust me, I’m a qualified doctor and I’ll monitor your progress. I’m not gonna be breathing down your neck or anything, what with all the time I’m spending in the lab, but I promise it’ll be okay. A couple of months is all I’m asking.”
James sighed. He had nothing to lose. A glance at tomorrow’s timetable lying crumpled on his desk was enough to persuade him.
“Fuck it. I’ll do it.”