Joe Dunthorne - Wild Abandon

As it started to get dark, he saw them riding their BMXs through the parking lot. He flashed his headlights twice and wound down his window.

“Boys!” he shouted, with his famous lungs. “Boys!”

They skidded to a halt, then cycled over to the window. All three of them had their hoods up and scarves over their mouths and noses, Zapatista-style.

“Alright, Gramps,” one of them said.

“Alright, lads. You want to run your old man an errand?”

“I ain’t giving you a blowie.”

With their scarves, Patrick couldn’t see their mouths move. Their eyes glistened in the cold. He handed over a twenty and watched as they cycled off, bums raised in the air, bike seats ticking back and forth like metronomes.

In the schoolroom, Isaac plucked at the exposed strings through the open base of the stand-up piano. He was half-listening as Kate explained to her brother what she’d learned at college that day. She and Albert sat opposite each other, cross-legged on the rug, and Kate had some of her primary sources out: reproduction pamphlets of the White Rose movement, photos of key members, one who looked like a Morrissey fan.

“The first thing to know is that not everyone in Germany during the war was on the Nazis’ side,” Kate said.

“That’s bullsheeet,” Albert said.

“Bullsheeet,” Isaac said. He had a SuperBall that, when dragged down the piano’s bass strings, created a noise like whale song.

“The White Rose movement were a group who stood up against the established views in German society, even at the risk to their own well-being.”

“They sound like Mum and Dad,” Albert said.

“They’re nothing like that.”

“Mum and Dad reject the norms and values of our society,” Albert said.

“ Norms and values? ” Kate said.

“Ask Marina,” Albert said.

Isaac climbed through the wooden loom that was standing in the opposite corner to the piano. He liked to get himself tangled in the threads and then, imagining it was a combine harvester about to be switched on, challenge himself to escape.

“Our community changes people all the time,” Albert said. “We have that power, though our time is running out.”

“Shut up, moron. Who told you that?”

“When people come here they realize that it is possible,” Albert said, sounding like he was quoting someone, “that they too can change the way they live.”

“ Seriously . You shouldn’t listen to everything people tell you.” She hadn’t noticed that Isaac had escaped the loom and was standing behind her, listening.

“Real education doesn’t happen in classrooms.”

“Listen, Albert, before you switch off all independent thought”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“you should realize that communities like ours maintain the status quo. Ever wonder why Patrick lives on his own in the dome? He’s depressed; they put him in there as quarantine.” She was discovering how she felt by speaking. “And all the volunteers , they’re just tourists. And Marina, my God, do you remember why they let her join?” She started to point and chop for emphasis, unaware that these were her father’s rhetorical tics. It felt good to say all this stuff. “She was touring communities — a perpetual tour — never working or paying rent. Mum and Dad don’t even like her! That’s why they put her in the workshop! It might as well be a council house …”

Kate trailed off. Albert was staring. There was something behind her. Turning, she saw Isaac standing on the piano stool with a look of vertigo on his face. She got up and stood in front of him.

“Hey, little dude,” she said.

Isaac waved at her even though they were only an arm’s length apart.

“We are like the White Rose movement, aren’t we?” Albert said.

Kate kept looking at Isaac: “Yes, brother and sister, rising up against society, and Isaac is the professor, aren’t you, Isaac?”

Isaac looked like he was thinking of something. He peered down at the floor.

“What do you mean about my mum?”

“Nothing. I didn’t say anything about your mum.”

“You said no one likes her.”

“I didn’t say that. Isaac, I think we should play a game, don’t you?”

“Why don’t you like her?” Albert said. “She’s the best.”

“ I like your parents,” Isaac said.

Kate took hold of Isaac’s hands and tried to think of a cliché. “Everybody here is your parents.”

“Are you?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, let me try,” Albert said. “ Go to your room, Isaac. ”

“Ha ha!” Isaac laughed, holding his ribs.

“ I’ve had just about enough of you, young man, ” Albert said to Isaac, wagging his finger.

“Ha ha!” He creased up at the waist.

“Albert,” Kate said.

He started shaking his fist at Isaac. “ I don’t want to hear another peep out of you. I ought to fetch my slipper. ”

“Albert, where do you get this?”

“The Beano Annual ,” he said, standing up. He pointed at Isaac. “ You ungrateful little shit. I wish you’d never been born. ”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Kate said.

Isaac rubbed the top of his head with his hand.

She turned her back to him and offered him a piggyback. He jumped on.

She said: “Where would you like to go?”

It was half a year ago that Isaac and Marina had been interviewed for full-time membership. They had been staying with the community on a trial basis for the previous six weeks and normally, at that point, there’d be a monthlong cooling-off break before a final evaluation. But just before they were due to leave, Marina started making loud inquiries on the house phone into whether the nearby campsite did a discount for a four-week stay, which rather suggested they had nowhere to go to cool off. Typically, if an applicant admitted they didn’t have anyone who was willing to take them in, then that was its own kind of bad signal. But on this occasion the community agreed to forgo procedure, largely because of Isaac, who, with his youth, and his kinship with Albert, seemed to represent the beginning of a new generation of young people at the community.

Seated at one side of the round dining table in the center of the kitchen was the core team who led the interview: Freya, Arlo, and Don, in that order. Marina was opposite them. The table had been known to seat twenty, so it looked bare. The other vote-casting members, she and Patrick, watching but not contributing, sat on the blue sofa against the back wall. Janet was away in Bristol, working on a new collection. From where Kate was sitting, she could also see Isaac and Albert underneath the table, crawling in circles, counting everyone’s toes.

“So, I’d be interested to know what your plans are for the future,” Freya had said. “What your aims are, in the long term.”

“Well, I’m really most focused on what’s best for Isaac,” Marina had said, and her son made a woof-woof noise on hearing his name. “The great thing about Blaen-y-Llyn”—Don’s eyes tightened as he assessed her pronunciation—“is that it’s a fantastic, open place where he can learn and make friends.”

Marina had a round face, with gray wavy curtains, her cheeks like apples that, to those who fantasized about such things, would have been the best bits, if she were to be cooked. She was big but robust — the term is jolly —and was wearing a body warmer.

“And how long would you like to stay with us?” Freya said.

“Well, as long as I can. I mean, I think we’ll all be reassessing things by the end of the year, so it’s probably not good to have anything set in stone …” She smiled and laughed in a way that indicated she hoped her interviewers were on the same astrological page, but found two hard expressions and Arlo, distracted by his nails.