Bonding, page 2
•
JUSTICE NOW, the communications team had written on the platform’s pale blue interface. IT’S TIME TO PUT AN END TO THIS INSANITY.
Haven’t they learned a fucking thing? @JadeyBae had typed underneath. This is crazy. These people should be shot.
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ANYONE CALLING FOR ANYONE’S DEATH, ESP. HARDWORKING POLICE IS SHOWING THEIR STUPIDITY
To all non-Nigerians, we need your solidarity. We are rising up against years of police brutality
I’m recording a protest song, listen here:
https://lilmaestro.lnk.to/enoughisenough
HOW MANY TIMES DO WE NEED TO SEE THIS SHIT?
A burst of cortisol shot through my blood. I felt my pulse rise in my throat, although I tried not to show it as the receptionist waved me in.
Upstairs, I took a seat with the company’s surprisingly portly owner. His face was round, soft and pale. He was wearing an anonymous navy shirt that strained slightly as he sat down. He talked about the digital expansion of the business and when I asked about his marketing strategy, he said the future was all about being human.
‘It’s an ethos,’ he said. ‘We aim to embrace all sorts of people but, you know, we’re also building a tribe.’
I glanced around the office, which was decorated vaguely in the style of a New York loft: eclectic post-industrial units, tobacco-coloured leather chairs. All of the gyms looked the same, regardless of which city they were in. These gyms featured heavily on the company’s social media but I quickly realized they were primarily a front to sell subscriptions to workout videos. ‘Grown up luxury personal training’, this service was called, the personal part meaning that you could track your progress on an app.
I wasn’t sure how to deal with this man. I couldn’t tell if I was what he wanted.
Am I in your tribe? I wanted to ask him. He looked at me wordlessly for a while. On the walls were photos of beautiful, racially indeterminate models working out in tight black Lycra. He mentioned that the gyms had chilled towels and UV treated air.
I nodded politely but there was something wrong.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said, as he heaved himself up and walked me to the door.
He shook my hand and smiled dispassionately. I had a feeling I wouldn’t get a call.
3
At Heathrow, the departure lounge was packed. Beside me was a group of teenage boys in hoodies, T-shirts and jeans. Their luggage was piled haphazardly beside them: technical backpacks and bags of duty-free. One of the group took photos while the others mugged riotously for the camera. I checked my phone but nothing from Matt, 36, so I decided to try another angle, this time standing artfully by the mirror, my face obscured by the flash. I spent a long time touching up the picture, warming my skin tone, slightly enlarging my eyes. Once sent, it shifted immediately to read. I watched for a while but nothing happened. I waited longer, my finger on the glass, the grease on its surface shining in the strip lights. A security guard asked the boys to tone it down while one of them staggered across the floor, smacking his shoulder against the wall, flipping his can across a glass window where its contents dripped down towards the carpet. I wanted to grab the can and empty it. I wanted to smash myself against the glass. I couldn’t help sympathizing with these boys. Like most inhabitants of the UK, faced with a few days of freedom, their first instinct was to get totally out of their heads.
•
On the plane, the flight attendant mimed against the soporific buzz of the air conditioning. There was something about air travel that made me think of Swiss euthanasia clinics. I’d never visited one but, for some reason, I had an idea of what they were like: soothing, bland, probably extremely comfortable portals to oblivion. The only time I read magazines was on a plane. Mental images of air disasters spattered through my reading of the FT’s How To Spend It. I was halfway through a story about kombucha when I lost consciousness completely, passing out somewhere over Rouen.
It was not long before I was awoken roughly by my neighbour. A big guy, he shifted in his seat, his thick elbow jutting helplessly into my chest. In the seat beyond him was a boy of about thirteen, his eyes white from the reflection of the game he was playing on his tablet. He was wearing a tight grey tracksuit, his freckled wrists exposed by its grubby cuffs. The sounds of the game were audible through his headphones and the man beside me turned to catch my eye, keen to share a look of resignation.
‘I’m so glad my parenting days are over,’ he said in a Welsh accent. He didn’t seem to expect a reply. I smiled politely as he turned away, crackling at the plastic wrapping of his sandwich.
‘You in Spain a lot?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not in Ibiza, anyway.’
‘Me neither.’ He released the sandwich from its packet, the smell of Thai chicken filling the air. I waited for a second before going back to sleep but he didn’t speak to me again.
•
As soon as the plane came to a standstill, the man stood and started grappling with his bag. I lost sight of him almost immediately as he joined the surge towards the exit. Outside, the runway was bathed in golden evening light. The airport was small and startlingly bright, a glossy walkway full of coloured booths. Billboards advertising Loewe handbags and Cava Brut Reserva lined the walls. In the foyer shopping area there was a store with the logo Club Ibiza. Inside it were racks of vacuum-packed T-shirts and bikinis, each printed with the name of a DJ or nightclub: Amnesia, David Guetta, Privilege. The shop was empty. In fact, the airport was almost deserted. There was no one waiting at the desk when I got there to collect the keys for my rental car.
•
It was dark when I finally made it onto the motorway. After a stretch, the route followed a series of crooked roads that never seemed to pass a dwelling, curving instead through the pitch-black countryside. Occasionally, another vehicle drove past, its headlights piercing my eyes. Inchoate forms seeped in and out of view, the dull silhouettes of trees or old stone walls. At one point, an animal lunged in front of me. It seemed to have the bobbing gait of a rabbit although too big somehow. It took me a moment to realize I was looking at a dog, a stray bitch with one leg missing. For a second, I caught her eye in the headlights. I braked abruptly, skidding to a halt as the animal loped off into the darkness. As I caught my breath, a faint sound emerged in the distance. I felt it almost immediately – it was the dull throb of dance music.
•
I woke up wet with sweat, my hair stuck to my face, the sheets twisted tightly around my legs as if I’d been struggling in the night. In the corner was a small wicker chair, the only point of colour in the room. The place was neat and formulaic, white cushions piled on a sofa, linen curtains that opened onto a window overlooking a field of olive trees. Bizarrely, the TV was showing an episode of the English reality show Geordie Shore, the characters dubbed into fast-paced Spanish. I must have fallen asleep with it on, although I had no memory of this at all. I scanned the room for the remote and eventually found it buried in the sheets.
The Can Na Serra was one of a group of resorts on the island described on the company’s website as luxury destinations ‘for free thinkers, wilderness seekers and those seeking something offbeat and individual’. ‘Ca Na Serra,’ the blurb continued, ‘is a bucolic sanctuary nestled deep in the Ibizan countryside. Surrounded by lush olive groves and aromatic vineyards, the hotel’s quiet luxury is complemented by a freshwater pool and open-air restaurant serving dishes made from fresh local ingredients. Fusing traditional Iberian craftsmanship with a modern, pared back sensibility, the interior comes into its own at dusk, warm candlelight casting an amber glow across linen fabrics, guests sitting on the terrace as they sip cocktails in the Iberian sunset.’
I drank the complimentary bottle of Acqua Panna and forced myself into the shower. As the water started to stream over my head, I tried not to think about what I was doing here.
•
Breakfast was served on a terrace by the pool. I didn’t feel good and the coffee wasn’t helping. It was warm outside, the air still and thick with the buzz of crickets. At the next table was a tall man who caught my eye and smiled briefly. He was attractive, his hair cut short above a pale, serious face. I glanced back at him and he caught me staring, forcing me to turn away. I got the impression he was intelligent, bookish even, although maybe that was just his glasses. Behind him were three women I recognized from the airport. They were in their twenties, slim and tanned, wearing long dresses and straw hats. Although they’d all gone for the same ensemble, each had added a subtle variation: a slightly larger pair of sunglasses or a different retro leather sandal. The tallest one, a sharp-nosed blonde, was waving a glass of wine in the air. She was laughing loudly with her friend, who was showing her something on her phone. ‘People are so fucking stupid,’ she said in her drawn-out Surrey accent. ‘Honestly, who believes this shit? Can someone please explain to me why people are so thick?’ Although they varied in terms of attractiveness, each of these women was meticulously groomed – hair, nails and skin taken care of, faces injected with elegant enhancements. There was something self-conscious about them, their studied indifference only paper-thin. The tall blonde one broke into fresh giggles and her friend mirrored her hilarity, although the other woman didn’t seem convinced – it was as if a hierarchy had been established, and maybe not a happy one. ‘Who says that?’ the blonde one snorted through her wine. ‘I mean, what planet are they on?’ A couple on another table stared at them in quiet disapproval. After a while, they left their seats, picking their way down the slope towards the pool.
I was almost halfway through my melon chunks when the nausea began to hit. I stared at the lukewarm slices of Manchego I’d uploaded from the buffet. Helpless, it dawned on me that I wasn’t going to make it through the meal, so I sat perfectly still as the tables emptied one by one.
•
In the afternoon I took the Fiat down to the beach. The landscape was unrecognizable in the daylight, a placid sweep of pine forests and scrub, leading to volcanic rocks. Occasionally, a path peeled off into the hillside. As I approached Sant Joan de Labritja, a row of white houses came into view. Almost all of them were fincas for rent, each one dressed to suggest an oddly modern rendition of the hippie lifestyle: a fluorescent hammock here, a plastic Buddha there, a pile of old ceramic pots beside a heart-shaped sign saying Love Is The Answer.
At Playa Agua Blanca, I recognized the Germans from breakfast immediately. The woman looked a bit like Martina Navratilova, her features angular and rangy, her thin nose slightly off-key. She caught my eye, leaving me with no choice but to return her smile. A bunch of sun loungers was arranged in a grid on the sand between us and I felt obliged to wait for her as she picked her way towards me.
‘I just wanted to say,’ she told me, ‘I thought you were really patient with those girls this morning. I mean – come on – drinking at breakfast? And why not put your phones away for five minutes? While you’re eating, at least! I’m Annette.’ She introduced herself as a web designer.
‘Hi.’ I shook her hand, which was wet from the sea.
Faced with my failure to ask what kind of web design it was that she did, she volunteered that she worked for a fashion brand in a role that demanded a lot of creativity and humour. I didn’t really know what to do with this info. There was something disconcerting about her, as she kept repeating, deadpan, that she had a sense of humour. Gaunt and anxious, the man pulled up alongside her. ‘Moritz,’ he said, introducing himself as a software developer. He stood in front of me, a thick film of wet hair blanketing his narrow chest. In his hand were a biro and a book of puzzles. I looked at him helplessly, then back at Annette. There was something desperate about her. I felt as though she wanted me to stay with her and Moritz, or at least that she wanted someone to mediate whatever kind of life it was she shared with this man. I glanced at the sea while she complained about the girls. The sun was still high and the water was a bright, almost hyperreal shade of blue.
‘Tomorrow we’re going to take the dolphin tour,’ Annette told me. ‘It’s meant to be amazing.’
‘You should come,’ Moritz added. ‘We heard there were orcas here this week. It’s super unusual for the season.’
I shook Annette’s hand, firmly this time, as if I was leaving a relative at a funeral.
‘That sounds interesting,’ I said. ‘I’ll definitely let you know.’
•
Solitude didn’t lend itself to narrative. It was an absence, not just of people but of plot. It wasn’t that I went unnoticed, exactly. I did leave some traces in the world. I was overseen, accounted for. Commercially, I was probably quite predictable. Politically, I fell into a certain demographic. Software tracked my progress as I went, capturing the nuances of my behaviour. I was integrated into a system that more or less ensured my physical survival. Lying on my towel as the sun went down, I had to remind myself that everything was fine.
•
In my room, a slight breeze came through the windows. My temperature was high and I didn’t feel like going out so I ordered from the room service menu. The food took a long time to arrive, a piece of sirloin with a wicker basket full of chips. I ate fast, washing down the steak with an Estrella and then a can of Coke. While I waited for my sleeping pills to kick in, I watched Telecanarias on the widescreen TV. They introduced a woman in a turquoise suit. Behind her was a rolling animation of the ocean, waves gliding past her shoulders and around the sleek bouffant of her hair. She covered a segment on the refugee crisis. The Spanish coastguard had rescued a hundred and ninety people the previous night. The screen flicked to a drone shot of the dinghies, bodies clinging to their crumpled edges. Abruptly, the image switched to a different view. This one was of the Balearic Sea – a pod of orcas emerging in slow motion, rising from the water and then hanging briefly in the air before flopping back beneath the surface. Back in the studio, a professor of cetacean neuroscience joined the conversation.
‘… it’s interesting,’ the subtitles explained, ‘because cetaceans are close relatives of herding animals like cows and horses. Herding is a deep part of who they are. And in the case of orcas in particular, they seem to have taken it to another level.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked turquoise suit.
‘When you look at how they communicate, there’s something about being an orca that’s highly social in a way that might be different to what we understand as social life. You could call it a shared sense of self.’
‘This is from observing their behaviour in the wild?’
‘Not only that. If you look at, say, the brain of an orca and the brain of a human being, the limbic area of the brain – the part that’s responsible for processing emotions – it’s far more highly developed in the orca. Not just larger but more elaborate. This is especially true of orcas in the wild.’
‘So, you’re saying that these animals don’t experience themselves as individual creatures?’
‘Something like that. It suggests that there’s something different about their sense of themselves. Their psychology doesn’t recognize solitude. It’s not a part of their nature to disconnect from the group in the way that, say, a human would.’
Before the professor could continue, turquoise suit turned back towards the camera: ‘Spanish police have been mobilized in Catalonia. Some are claiming that excessive force is being used against supporters of the far-right Vox party.’
I turned the TV down and stared at the vibrating grille of the air conditioner.
Then I typed ‘solitude’ into my phone. What came up was a quote from Wikipedia: ‘A state of seclusion or isolation. A lonely or uninhabited place.’
•
During the night, silhouettes flitted past my eyes. Transparent squiggles zapped across my vision. The buzz of the crickets was too loud and soon the whole room was throbbing as if the building had come to life. A strange machine rolled through the door, manned by a small team of apparatchiks. The soldiers took off all my clothes and then rubbed oil into my skin. Two of them moved to the corners of the bed and started wrenching my legs apart. The machine reconfigured itself to form a steel shaft of monstrous proportions. As it gyrated at the bottom of the bed, the officers massaged the oil between my legs. ‘You’re not ready yet,’ I heard them say. ‘We need you to relax.’ The cold needle of a syringe passed into my arm, then everything turned dark as the steel shaft of the machine started drilling against my pelvis. I tried to open my eyes but I couldn’t, my heartbeat rose, I felt paralysed. The panic didn’t subside as strokes of pleasure rolled down my thighs. It was only afterwards that I resurfaced, wide awake and drenched in sweat.
•
The next time I was awoken it was by a bleeping sound. Something was happening in the corridor outside. I could hear voices, footsteps thudding, someone banging against the wall. I opened the door to find people rushing past and so I followed the crowd outside where everyone was looking up at the mountains. A sheet of ash hung in the sky, over the remains of a lush pine forest. Embers glowed among the ruins, burning through in the flat dawn light. The smell of smoke was overpowering, the air dense with heavy mist. I sat on a lounger by the pool while the hotel staff drifted around.
To my surprise, the bookish man from breakfast came towards me. ‘Can I sit?’ he asked. For a moment we shared an amicable silence. ‘I wasn’t expecting this,’ he said, looking up.
I felt the blood rush towards my face. ‘Me neither,’ I replied.
‘Are you here by yourself?’
‘Yes, for a few days.’
‘It’s good to get away on your own sometimes.’
