The Seed Collectors. Scarlett Thomas

think that she’d walked out on him because of what he said about fucking, or about the scholarship. Perhaps then he’d leave too. Would that be such a terrible thing? Then Bryony could go home and start again on her evening, and drink the Chablis instead of this Pinot Grigio and love James like a real wife would. There are 165 calories in this glass of wine, but Bryony won’t log it in her food diary later because it isn’t very nice and she didn’t really mean to have it. When she gets home she’ll have 250mls of Chablis and she’ll log that instead. She also won’t log the sausage roll and chips she had in the dining hall before this evening’s class, because, after all, she wouldn’t normally have something like that, and now that term is more or less over she is confident that she will never even go to the dining hall any more, and after all where else would you find sausage rolls and chips? Fuck it. She just won’t fill in her food diary at all today. She’ll start afresh tomorrow. That means she can drink all the Chablis when she gets home. And she could have a packet of crisps now. Could she eat a packet of crisps in front of Ollie? No. Well, maybe. Actually, what Bryony really wants is a cigarette, but that would just be nuts. She gave up for the last time over three years ago. No calories in fags, of course. But James hates her smoking, and so do the kids. Last time Bryony smoked, Holly cried all night and threatened to kill herself.

      Ollie comes back with a pint of IPA and a medium glass of white wine.

      ‘Here,’ he says. ‘Sorry I’m being a bit of a cunt. It’s been a long day.’

      175 ml. Another 130 calories. And it will be warm by the time she gets to it. Warmer. What she should do, what she should really do, is wait for Ollie to go outside for a cigarette and then tip the rest of the large glass away somewhere and start again on the slightly cooler and smaller new glass. OK, how would she actually do that? She could just take it back to the bar. She could take it back to the bar and explain that she really shouldn’t drink this because she’s driving and could they just get rid of it for her, please, but in such a way that the man she’s with doesn’t see? Or she could just return it because it’s shit. She could go up to the bar and say, ‘Your wine is too shit even for students,’ or something cleverer that she would think of. But then they’d just give her more of something else. It’s so hard to lose weight when all the time people are giving you things full of calories. Ollie starts rolling a cigarette.

      ‘Actually,’ she says, ‘can you do me one of those as well?’

      The football is back on. Improbably, Australia scores a goal.

      ‘Fuck me,’ he says. ‘Game on. You coming?’

      They smoke by the university duck pond. Bryony wants to vomit, but she has to admit that once she is over the initial nausea, the cigarette tastes amazing. She feels mellow, all of a sudden, almost the way she felt that time she made tea from the wrong caddy at Fleur’s cottage. She’d forgotten it was like this. She was thinner when she smoked as well. How could she have ever stopped doing it? Smoking was like having a best friend who always listens and never judges you.

      ‘It would be nice to have a garden pond,’ she says. ‘I guess now the kids are a bit older, but they’re so expensive and . . .’

      ‘If you get a scholarship you could afford a pond.’

      ‘That’s not what I mean.’ She sighs. ‘Anyway, yes, all right, fine. I’ll pull out. I don’t need the scholarship as much as Grant and Helen need it. Point taken. But the main thing is that they’re better students than me, so why would I waste my time going up against them?’ She sighs again. And draws deeply on the cigarette.

      Ollie screws up his face. ‘Why do you think they’re better students than you?’

      ‘They say more.’

      ‘You got the top mark for your essay.’

      ‘Did I?’

      ‘Yeah. So you’d probably get the scholarship. But they need it more. And they won’t come without it, so you’d basically be doing them out of their doctorates. You’ll come anyway, of course.’

      ‘I guess so. Well, no pond then.’ And no forest. ‘Never mind. Hope you get yours.’

      ‘No kids to drown in ours,’ Ollie says. ‘Never will be.’ He throws his cigarette end in the duck pond. ‘And because of that, my wife has started hating me. But you’ll know all about that.’

      Bryony does not have any idea what he’s talking about.

      ‘I don’t have any idea what . . .’

      ‘Look, ignore me. I’m being a total cunt. Sorry. Fuck it. Let’s go back.’

      Inside, Australia have scored another goal. A penalty. It’s 2–1.

      ‘Well,’ Ollie says. ‘Miracles do happen.’ He goes to buy another drink.

      Bryony should have left by now. She hasn’t even texted James to tell him she’ll be late. Why has she not even done that? She could have done that while Ollie was at the bar, or while he was outside smoking, if she hadn’t been outside smoking with him. She should do it now. When she gets in she’ll have to clean her teeth before saying hello to anyone. That might sort of fool the kids, but it won’t fool James. Whatever she does now, he’ll know she’s been drinking, and smoking. At this rate she won’t even be able to finish the lovely Chablis because James will probably be in bed reading, and what kind of wife sits up drinking while her husband lies in bed reading?

      She quickly texts him now: End of term drinks. No reception until now, sorry. Home soon as I can get away. Love you. Somebody, probably Fleur, was telling Bryony recently about an app people get that writes their text messages for them. In order to do this, it has a database of the things people always say in text messages. Sorry. See you soon. Leaving now. I love you. It must have been Fleur. Yes, it was over tea on Sunday while they were not talking about Oleander’s death and how Fleur felt about it. One of the celebrities had told Fleur about this app, expecting her to disapprove. But for Fleur there was no difference, not really, between an app supplying the words ‘I love you’ and one’s fingers typing what are essentially just words anyway. Bryony surprised herself by saying something back about Derrida, and arguing that it’s not that words are meaningless: quite the opposite. Words separate things. They create meaning. Without words we wouldn’t know the difference between a table and a planet. Without words, would anything exist at all? Then Fleur, being Fleur, said there’s no difference between a table and a planet anyway because the whole universe is just an illusion. Then Holly rolled her eyes and said, ‘OK, you are both officially mad.’

      ‘Clem doesn’t hate you,’ she says to Ollie when he comes back. ‘How could she? I mean, you’re very attractive – I’m saying that objectively, of course – and your book is going to be amazing, and . . .’ Bryony touches Ollie’s arm in a way that is supposed to be reassuring. Bryony doesn’t touch many men’s arms, at least not any more. She is surprised to find how firm this one is. Ollie’s biceps are incredible: rocks the size of tennis balls. Bryony’s intellectual mind retreats into what could be an endless ellipsis while her vaginal walls immediately start producing fluid. Biology is such an easy lay.

      ‘Maybe she thinks she doesn’t,’ he says. ‘But underneath, she does.’

      ‘No. That’s not right. She’s lucky to have you.’

      He sighs. ‘I don’t know.’

      He’s probably right. Bryony was the lucky one, getting James. He has already texted her back: No hurry. Hope you have fun. Kids in bed. Drive safely. Love you forever.

      When Ollie gets in, Clem is asleep. Or pretending to be asleep to make him feel bad about staying out. Or perhaps some mixture of the two. He shits in the spare toilet before joining her. Here’s the game: he is being REALLY, REALLY quiet so as not to disturb her because she is so clearly REALLY, REALLY asleep. She cracks first.

      ‘Hello.’

      And