The Seed Collectors. Scarlett Thomas

ripped jeans, cheap pink flip flops (even though it is only thirteen degrees outside) and a faded yellow Sonic Youth T-shirt. She has a ring through one nostril and never wears make-up unless there’s something official going on, like her job interview, for which she wore black eyeliner only on her top lids, sheer red lipstick and an oddly intoxicating perfume that smelled like a bag of sweets left in a men’s locker room for too long. She teaches screenwriting.

      ‘I’m just on my way to staff development,’ Zoe says. ‘Do you want me to steal you some Jammie Dodgers?’

      ‘What is it this time?’

      ‘Dignity in the workplace.’

      ‘How can anyone be dignified in any workplace?’

      ‘Yeah. I’ll definitely make that point.’

      ‘God.’ Clem stretches languidly and slowly spins her chair away from her computer. ‘I’m being smothered in family.’

      ‘In what way?’

      ‘Oh, sorry, don’t worry.’ She smiles, and shakes her head as if she had water in her ears. ‘Thinking out loud.’

      ‘No, go on. Your family is always interesting.’

      ‘Oh, OK, well, my great-aunt just died – no, don’t worry, it’s all right, I barely knew her. She’s the one who took in my cousin and my best friend when our mothers went missing – you know about that, right? And she used to hang out with the Beatles and everything . . . ? Anyway, my grandmother Beatrix, who’s about a hundred and fifty and should not know how to use email, is basically driving us all mad making arrangements for her and my father to come to the funeral, even though they totally hated her. They thought, or think, that Oleander – that’s my great-aunt – was responsible for the deaths of my mother, my aunt, my uncle and my best friend’s mother.’

      ‘Why? What did she do to them?’

      ‘No one knows. Back in the late eighties they went off to find a miracle plant and never came back. We think the plant has this seed pod that looks like vanilla and has supposedly magical or mystical properties – only no one knows how to get the good effects without dropping dead. Oleander wasn’t even there.’

      ‘Wow. Now there’s a screenplay.’

      ‘Or a nature documentary.’

      Clem’s office smells lovely, but in a way that Zoe can’t quite fathom. It’s not any particular one of the lavender candles, or the large succulent plants, or even all of them together, although they probably contribute to it. Today there’s also a scuffed cardboard box containing small plants with white flowers, but they are new and the smell is always there. What is it? It could be Clem herself, perhaps. It’s damp forests, but in a good way. Perhaps a touch of the tropics. Clem is the only person in the department to have bare floorboards in her office instead of the institutional carpet. She has also had all the fluorescent lights removed from the office. Yes, removed, which is about a thousand times more weird and interesting than just deciding not to turn them on, which is what a normal person would do. Instead of the lights she has various old Anglepoise floor lamps that she says she found in a forgotten cupboard somewhere in the basement. And instead of having an institutional computer whirring away all day, she has a silent, beautiful, tiny laptop that she brings from home in a thin canvas bag. Sometimes she even puts it away in a drawer and works in sketchbooks instead. Zoe only started working at the university in September, and so far her office contains not much apart from the desk, chair and beige computer the department gave her. She has a bright orange carpet that, apparently, her predecessor actually chose. She aspires to something like Clem’s office, but with an iMac and a bit less sadness.

      ‘This place would be improved if there were fewer emails in general – like a ban on any emails from family, friends and partners, for a start. And, of course, students.’

      ‘Don’t let them hear you say that,’ Zoe says. ‘They love you.’

      It’s true. The students do love Clem. They love the fact that she directs real documentaries, and therefore can tell them how to do it. Clem also replies to their emails, even if she often takes a couple of days – OK, sometimes a week – to get around to it. But some lecturers never reply to emails at all, which is pretty shit when you’re paying over three grand a year to do a course. Clem never tells anyone off for anything. She makes low-key jokes. She doesn’t patronise them. When she hears them talking about sex instead of lighting (‘Oh. My. God. You actually slept with her and no one told me? I don’t care. I’m SO happy for you’) she simply raises an eyebrow and watches them all explode into giggles. She has never been late for a class, and always gives them fun things to do, like those spoof nature documentaries where they get to do the worst possible voiceover to go with their footage of rabbits or blackbirds on campus (‘The blackbird is now surely thinking, Why is that Emo tosser pointing a camera at me?’). She’s old enough for them not to be aroused by her. She certainly doesn’t freak them out as much as Zoe, who is much closer to them in age and appearance and has worked on things they actually watch. Most of the students know that Clem was nominated for an Oscar, but they haven’t seen any of her documentaries, not even Palm. But several of the boys in the class have wanked themselves silly to things Zoe has written, especially that teen lesbian drama set in Wandsworth. It’s pretty crazy, being taught by someone whose words have made you, well, do that.

      ‘How have you even got time for staff development?’ Clem asks Zoe. ‘I mean, I hope you’re not being too stretched. I don’t remember this coming up in your probation plan.’

      Zoe shrugs. ‘It’s new. Different. Defamiliarising, probably. I might get something to put in a screenplay. Also, of course, I’m working towards my Very Important Equal Opportunities Certificate.’

      ‘We should probably add that to your next probation report. It’ll look good.’

      ‘Yeah. Anyway, I just wanted to see if you’re maybe around for coffee later.’

      ‘What time does it finish?’

      ‘Four thirty, I think.’

      ‘A whole day?’

      ‘I believe there are case studies. And role play.’

      ‘OK, well, knock on my door when you get back. I’m sure I’ll still be here. At this moment I feel like I’ll be here forever.’

      ‘Cool. By the way, what’s in the box?’ Zoe asks.

      ‘Chilli plants. Do you want one?’

      Zoe shrugs. ‘Sure. Well, I mean, are they hard? I so do not have green fingers.’

      ‘They’re easy. They’re just annuals, as well, so . . .’

      ‘What’s an annual?’

      ‘They just have one growing season and then they die. One of my PhD students needed them for his film so I brought some in. Now they’re looking for homes. They grow really nice chillies. Quite hot.’

      ‘I do love chillies.’

      ‘Yeah, I’m kind of addicted too. I’ll bring you one later.’

      Cocks.

      Hundreds and hundreds of cocks. Perhaps three of them are in fact birds with feathers and beaks and so on, looking rather ridiculous in this context. But the rest . . . Some of them are in men’s mouths. Some of them are in women’s mouths. Some of them are in teenagers’ mouths. Some of them are in men’s anuses. Some of them are in women’s anuses, hands, or stuffed between their breasts. Most of them are in women’s vaginas. Some women have one cock in their vagina and another in their mouth. Some have yet another cock in their anus. The images are accompanied by captions, for example, ‘Young teen gags on hot cock’ or ‘MILF takes it both ways’. Beatrix meant to type ‘clocks’ into Google Images, but here she is, looking at cocks. To be properly accurate, it was last