Chapter 1 1. Around a lacquered oak dining table made from looted church pews, below a bulkhead lamp that had once belonged to a Polish fishing trawler, the four members of the Candlewick family were picking distractedly at clay plates of salad. The dish was a delicately improvised medley of charred root vegetables and crumbled feta, doused in manuka honey dressing and crawling with ant-black sesame seeds. One side of the six-hundred-year-old room had been punched out and replaced with a triple-glazed wall of tinted glass, revealing a pale moon hung in the dimming pink sky. It was late April and the magnolia in the centre of the lawn waved its clenched buds like winning tickets. Beyond the back fence, lights flickered on in the leaded windows of neighbouring cottages. At fifteen, Emil Candlewick was the youngest of the family and eating in sporadic bursts while listening to an AirPod lodged in his left ear. The clove of white plastic was relaying a conversation between two Canadian professors about Max Tegmark's theory that the universe might be a mathematical structure--something Emil had come to believe was possible but not probable, and so painful to consider that it gave him migraines he once described on a physics forum as feeling "like absolute ass." Emil's bloated, badger-bearded father, Arthur, was transfixed by the presence of a housefly that had settled on a framed photograph of his family, taken on a beach in the Maldives. In the photograph, the four Candlewicks are ankle-deep in rags of surf, spaced so far apart that they look like a band being shot for a magazine. Below the table, Yara Candlewick's thumb traced the heartbeats of a stock portfolio on the screen of her phone. The copper bracelet on her right wrist meant to subdue arthritis clinked intermittently against the rim of her plate as she ate with the other hand. A shaft of dusk light tethered her face to the vaulted glass ceiling. Rounding out the ensemble, Yara's seventeen-year-old daughter, Evangeline, was engrossed in a slim, red paperback, propped open behind her food. She read with the urgency of an actress searching for her own name in a bad review. Still chewing, she lifted her eyes from the page and aimed them at her father. "Did you know that every year in the developing world, thousands of children lose their sight because they don't have access to Vitamin A?" "Very interesting, dubbin," said Arthur, watching as the fly abandoned its post on the picture frame and crept across the richly veined marble-top of the console table. "It's not interesting," said Evangeline. "It's a tragedy." Arthur reluctantly switched his gaze from the fly to his daughter. "Something can be both tragic and interesting, I'd imagine. Look at the Titanic , or Macbeth ." "Or MK Ultra," said Emil, a narrow frond of lettuce flopped out of the corner of his mouth like a cigarette. His father pointed a bone-handled knife at his son approvingly. "Exactly. The US government injecting prisoners with hallucinogenic drugs. What's more interesting than that?" "Literally everything," said Evangeline. "Sorry we're not talking about dead babies," said Emil. "Emil," said Yara, digital mountain ranges reflected in the mirror-coated lenses of her Prada sunglasses. "I'm warning you." Evangeline lifted the book again, trying to refocus the discussion. "I really think you should read this," she told her father. "He explains this idea called 'effective altruism.' It means using mathematical models to work out how a donation can do the most good. One hundred pounds, for example, could either train one fiftieth of a guide dog in Britain, or save the sight of one thousand children through vitamin supplementation in sub-Saharan Africa." Arthur sighed. "That's not quite how the world works, dubbin." "It's how charity works," pointed out Evangeline. Yara re-entered the conversation without moving her eyes from the screen. "If we sent money to everyone who needed it, what would we have?" Emil imagined himself saying "each other" and almost choked with laughter on a mouthful of salad. Evangeline frowned so deeply that three parallel waves appeared in her forehead. The eating resumed for a full minute. One of the voices in Emil's left ear wondered whether the fact that an unyielding David Hilbert had failed where Einstein succeeded was proof that pure mathematics would never be sufficient to explain physical reality. Evangeline read that easily reparable fistulas caused by lack of access to medical interventions during childbirth left women ostracised from their communities. Having lost track of the fly, Arthur began twisting in his seat to see whether it had taken up residence elsewhere in the minimally furnished, light-flooded kitchen-diner. Yara considered reallocating a portion of her Disney shares to an index-linked developing markets fund. A spoon chimed against the lip of a bowl. Evangeline was finished. "May I be excused?" she said. Yara sighed and placed her phone facedown on the enviable patina of the table. She surveyed her family with the downcast air of someone turning up at a restaurant and realising they've been catfished. A nest of almonds and white cheese remained at the bottom of her daughter's bowl. "You haven't finished," she said. "I don't feel like finishing," said Evangeline. "I'm finding this atmosphere to be hostile." "I'm finding this atmosphere to be full of farts," said Emil. Yara gripped the stem of her wineglass like a pen. "Emil, that's not clever and it's not funny." In response, Emil mumbled something unintelligibly quiet. A private grin spread across his face and a chuckle bubbled up and stalled in his throat. "What did you just say?" said his mother. "Nothing," said Emil, hastily tidying away his smile. "Can I go too?" "No, you cannot." Yara tipped her head toward Evangeline. "Evie, you can get down from the table. Emil, you're staying here. Your father and I have a bone to pick with you." On hearing this, Evangeline's desire to leave rapidly evaporated. "Why?" she said. "What did he do?" Emil drew his face down into his shoulders like a turtle. "That's none of your business," said Yara. "Do you want to get down or not?" "I'll find out anyway." "She has a point," said Arthur. "No, she doesn't," said Emil. Evangeline leant toward her brother conspiratorially. "Did you get caught planning to shoot up school?" she whispered. "If I did," whispered Emil, "I'd start with you." "Emil!" said Yara, her voice managing to spread and linger like a pungent gas occupying the sixty-square-metre room. The outburst provoked a period of silence in which the only movement came from Arthur, straining his neck to try and discern whether the fly was now examining the base of a Yankee Candle, or he was waiting for a stray coffee bean to take flight. Through gritted teeth, Yara said, "What's wrong with you?" "Sorry, poppet," said Arthur. "There was a fly." "Christ," said Yara. She cradled her face in her hands and breathed deeply until she felt ready to resume the proceedings. "Evangeline, go up to your room. Emil, take that fucking thing out of your ear and sit up straight." Evangeline rolled her eyes and carried herself out of the room like a phantom. Emil removed the AirPod from his ear, placed it in the shadow of his bowl, and became desperately interested in his food. He chased a single flake of almond in circles with his fork. His heart was beating maniacally and the full sleeve of custard creams he'd eaten an hour earlier clotted painfully in the pit of his stomach. "I didn't do anything," he said, quietly. Yara produced a padded manila envelope from beneath her seat like a magician. It was a level of preparation that made her son wince with irritation. Why make them all suffer through dinner when she was literally sitting on his death sentence the entire time? Emil believed his mother revelled in doling out misery because her parents had been poor: not in a jolly, noble, at-least-we-have-each-other kind of way, but in a miserable Dickensian ordeal of filth and hunger. Until a few years earlier, when he'd been shown photos of a glum-looking family outside a low terraced house with only two front windows, he'd genuinely harboured the belief that she'd been raised in something akin to a Victorian workhouse, with soot smeared across her brow and a stingy cup of unidentifiable goop for each meal. "Do you know what this is?" Yara said, looking first at her son, then at the envelope, then at Arthur, who was trying to appear as though he wasn't more interested in locating an errant fly than reprimanding his wayward son. "An envelope?" said Emil. "Yes," said Yara. "An envelope, addressed to you. With a label saying it's come from a place called Gary's Computer Parts." In that moment, Emil felt the same way he did when he watched videos of people clinging to the edges of impossibly tall buildings without wearing safety equipment. He pictured the lumpy thumb of hash in his underwear drawer the way someone else might picture a saint--luminescent and reassuring. Yara tipped the envelope forward until the contents fell with a hushed tickle on the table. It contained a foil packet, the size of a paperback book. A small white sticker in the corner read: TTLXX Graphics Card. Emil felt a tentative rush of hope, then realised the foil packet had been slit open at one end. His mother lifted it and the incriminating evidence toppled out. Fourteen tabs of 80 mm acid. Two grams of crystal MDMA. Bought and paid for with the cryptocurrency Ethereum, vacuum-packed, and shipped in packaging the seller had promised would be "unbelievably discreet." Yara lifted the perforated sheet and the clear bag of murky crystals and held them toward her son on an outstretched palm. "What are these?" she said. Emil hesitated. "That wasn't rhetorical." "Um," said Emil. "I don't know." He made a show of squinting at the items in her palm. "It looks like maybe some very small stamps and some powder?" "Yes," said Yara. "It does look like that, doesn't it?" Emil swallowed. "Uh," he said. "Yes?" "That one was rhetorical, Em," said Arthur. "Not helping," said Yara. "No," said Arthur. "Sorry, poppet." Arthur reached forward and picked up the sheet of "tiny stamps," made a tiny "oh" with his mouth, and put them down again. "Where does one order drugs?" he said. "The dark web," said Yara. "Mum," said Emil, embarrassed. "No one says 'the dark web.'?" "Well," said Yara. "Pardon me." Emil grunted, realising that he wasn't helping himself. "It's not the drugs that upset me," said Yara. "It's the lies." "That's a lie," said Emil. "And I didn't even know they were drugs." "You did know they were drugs." "No, I didn't. I thought they were Gary's computer parts." "You said they looked like small stamps." "I thought they were computer stamps." "Don't be cheeky," said Arthur. "You've ordered drugs to our house. That's not just reckless and unusual, it's a crime." "A victimless crime," said Emil. Evangeline, who had been loitering around the corner of the frame like James Bond, reappeared urgently at the head of the table. "Actually," she said. "The drug trade causes untold--" Yara rose a few centimetres off her chair. "EVANGELINE PHYLISS CANDLEWICK, GO UPSTAIRS TO YOUR BEDROOM NOW." Evangeline Phyliss Candlewick crossed her arms, tucking her hands into her armpits. She was almost eligible to vote. She knew how to make a negroni. She'd sent tasteful nudes to boys who'd promised not to disseminate them. It wasn't appropriate for her to be dismissed like a petulant Labrador, she was an adult and ought to be treated as such. "I'll go," she said. "But when I'm upstairs, I might call the police." Emil shot her a look. "Then I'll tell them you drew that swastika on the library door." "Evangeline!" said Yara. "Mrs. Duglett is a Nazi," said Evangeline, calmly. "She stocks books by TERFs and incels." "I can't do this tonight," said Yara. "I just can't." Yara left the kitchen through the bifold patio doors and blundered blindly into the garden, onto a flagstone path that meandered around three stone cherubs hoisting basins of moss, a cluster of acers guarding a miniature waterfall, and a hexagonal granite enclosure of pastel-shade wildflowers. Near the bottom of the garden, where a wall of beech trees peered over the fence, an old vardo wagon had been restored and set on blocks. It was fitted with a wood burning stove and a standing desk and a half-size fridge, and had served as Yara's office until two years earlier, when she'd taken early retirement. Yara called it "my gypsy wagon," Evangeline called it "literal cultural appropriation." "Should I go and talk to her?" said Evangeline. The blinds fell closed behind the windows of the wagon. "I shouldn't think so," said Arthur. "She's probably going to smoke cigarettes," said Emil. "I expect you're right," said Arthur. "Does she really think we don't know?" said Emil. "I think she thinks there's a chance we might not know," said Arthur. "She's utterly delusional," said Evangeline. Once the two children had made their way upstairs and Yara had returned to the kitchen smelling of Marlboro Golds and spearmint chewing gum, Arthur got up from his seat and limply tried to loop his arms around his wife's waist. She batted him away, blubbed, then drew him close. "I'm sorry," she said. "I don't know what's wrong with me." "Nothing's wrong with you," said Arthur. "You're wonderful. It's the kids who are defective." "If that's true," said Yara, "aren't we to blame?" "Quite possibly. Should we ship them off to boarding school?" "It would be cheaper to give them up for adoption." She backed out of his embrace and shook her head like a dog emerging from the ocean. "I can't even think of a punishment that makes any sense anymore. We used to be told to stay in our rooms, I think for him the bigger punishment might be to go outside." "He could re-do the patio." "I don't think so, Arthur," said Yara, realising only after she'd responded that it had been a joke. Arthur laughed and Yara took hold of his elbows as though afraid she was going to be dragged away before she had the chance to relay a message of utmost importance. "How about we sleep on it?" he said. "Fine," said Yara. "But I'm going to look into that rehab again." "I really think he's just dabbling, poppet." "He's been dabbling for months." "Is there a time limit on dabbling?" "He's fifteen years old, Arthur." "My point exactly. At least give him a chance to get addicted." "That's not funny." "No, I know." "We could still talk to the rehab, ask for their advice." "I'm not sure that'd be for the best, poppet. It feels as though it might be crossing some sort of a line." "Because you think he's dabbling." "Everyone dabbles." "Did you?" "It was only you who didn't." "You wouldn't have either." "Not if I'd had your parents, poppet, no." With a final kiss, she was gone. Arthur stood looking around the kitchen, which had cost close to sixty thousand pounds to plan, 3D model, manufacture, and install. It elicited virtually no feeling from him. When they'd bought this house, it had felt inconceivable that anyone could live in such an architectural marvel and be discontent. Who could be unhappy in the rolltop beaten copper bathtub positioned beside a bay window overlooking a koi pond? Who could be depressed among the floor to ceiling bookcases of the attic library, in a hammock slung between lovingly restored cedar beams? Who could be anything but blissfully, bottomlessly happy, living in £1.3 million of Cotswold stone, with views like Constable paintings, and a personal orchestra of turtle-doves, honeybees, and clip-clopping draught horses to play out the end of each summer day? Arthur used his foot to prise open the wine fridge beside the dishwasher and pulled out a red without bothering to check which country had produced it. He carried the bottle to the dining table, uncorked it, and filled his glass to the brim. The book his daughter had been reading lay sprawled between his son's drug haul and a pair of obelisk-shaped salt and pepper shakers, bought during a family trip to the National Gallery several years earlier. He remembered that trip because Emil had gone from picture to picture, pretending to very seriously study the information plaques, then turning to his parents and loudly announcing things like, "Apparently this one was painted with poop." Did he care if Emil took acid? He supposed not. He wanted his son not to hate him, that was the main thing. He wanted his son not to look at him and see the kind of people Arthur had grown up under: disconnected, self-interested, hysterical. (Did people really still take acid? Had it not fallen out of fashion with moonboots and the SodaStream?) Arthur picked up the book Evangeline had been reading and skimmed the first sentence. The average citizen of a western democracy today lives a life of luxury that would have been unimaginable to even the richest king of two centuries ago. Arthur looked around himself at the William Morris tiles running behind the bronze sink and the lights secreted beneath the Shaker-style cabinets, illuminating the zinc countertop as though it were a museum exhibit. The calendar on the wall was split into four columns, three of which were crowded with jottings and crossings out. On the chalkboard, someone had written "SUGAR FREE!! soy milk" and someone else had drawn an ejaculating penis. A glowing blue cube on the LCD panel of the double-doored fridge requested a top-up of water for the icemaker. Three hours later, Arthur got up and left the house. It would be another four days before he returned home. Excerpted from The Greatest Possible Good: A Novel by Ben Brooks All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
