Finding Davey by Jonathan Gash

looked unwashed, unbelievably unkempt, her shoes caked with mud, her jeans tatty. He wondered why a pupil would still be working, the college closing.
    “I’m for Mr Walsingham,” he apologised. “A computer course.”
    She sneered. “They don’t start for three months. Dad’s rowing with that fucking Registration pansy.”
    Angrily the girl swivelled back, clacked the keys and produced a scene of a blonde performing fellatio on a naked male in what appeared to be a church nave.
    “How do you make it show pictures?” And, as she turned to stare, “I’d like to learn.”
    “You a dirty old fucker or what?”
    He pondered the words. She was manipulating the crudest images he’d ever seen, yet she suspected him? Of what, exactly?
    “I must learn to use a computer. I can pay.”
    She lit a cigarette, looking quickly round. The room was larger than Bray had realised. Sixteen consoles stood on benches, a blackboard and white screens occupied the end. For a class?
    “What sort you got?”
    “Computer? I haven’t got one. I don’t know what to buy.”
    “Jesus fucking Christ. You real or what?”
    “I hoped someone might advise me.”
    “I’ll get you one cheap. Not nicked.” She sounded hopeful.
    “I’m no good with electrics. I’d want it set up.”
    “Any fucker can plug it in. They never go wrong, except for hackers and virus wankers.” A sullen interest kindled. “What you want it for?”
    “I don’t know. What can it do?”
    “Any fucking thing.” And now she really did weigh him up. He was conscious of the age gap, the gender gap, every wretched gap. Except she knew these gadgets and he didn’t. “You don’t know even what fucking
for
? You’re loony.”
    Her dreadful language was exhausting him.
    “If it turns out to be useless, that’s my…” Bad luck? Luck mustn’t come into it. “Misfortune,” he ended lamely.
    “You’re off your fucking trolley.”
    “Do they stay on all the time?” Several other screens seemed to have been left on, glowing. It was wasting electricity.
    “Best never to switch off.”
    “How far can they reach?” He explained at her puzzlement, “I heard they can write between different countries.”
    She laughed, shaking her matted hair. Did she ever comb it? “Jesus, you really are thick.” She looked at him. “Got wad?”
    “I’m afraid I don’t smoke.”
    “Money, you prat. Pay me and I’ll show you. Got a modem?”
    “I don’t know what that is, miss.”
    “Stop saying miss like that. You’re doing my frigging head in. Kylee.”
    He’d never met anyone called Kylee before, said the name over to himself in anxious rehearsal. Her coarse language was increasingly tiresome, and her oddly thin cigarette produced a pungent yet cloying smoke. It made him feel queer.
    “How do you do? I’m Mr Charleston.”
    “How de fucking do,” she said. He coloured. “Bread. Packet for ten?” And when he looked blank, translated with exaggerated weariness, “You pay me twenty fags every ten minutes, okay?” As he tried to work out the hourly rate she said belligerently, “Dad’d cost you three times that and be fucking useless.”
    “I’d have to pay you money, I’m afraid. Are you oldenough to smoke?” He felt drawn in. He wished Mr Walsingham would get off the phone.
    “I’m fourteen.” She dared him. “Deal? Or are you going to report me?”
    What could he do? Time mattered. Who could wait three months? This girl might be his only ally.
    “Deal,” he said. “What do cigarettes cost?”
    “Where do you want to
write
to?”
    “America, I think.”
    “Easy peasy. Who to?”
    He said carefully after a protracted pause, “Everyone.”
    She eyed him. “What for?”
    He could see his mood was infecting her. He looked at the screen. How come the young were so enthralled? He knew they played games, saw them on the second floor in Griffins and Empdale, screens bleeping, children clustered round.
    “I don’t know yet.”
    “Here, you’re