I THINK it’s fair to say we were a little apprehensive when our 19-year-old
son Sebastian went on holiday to Ibiza with his friends Matthew and Charles. His
postcard put our minds at rest.
But then I received the e-mail.
Hi Pete! It’s mid-morning here in Ibiza and I couldn’t sleep, so I came
out to this cybercafe in San Antonio to get some coffee.
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I realised at once that it was intended for one of Sebastian’s college
friends—presumably he’d addressed it to me by mistake. I know I shouldn’t
have read on, but I couldn’t resist.
Had an amazing night’s clubbing last night. Only got back to the hotel a
couple of hours ago. Chico and Matt crashed out, but I’m just not tired. And
anyway, it’s too hot and noisy to sleep.
The flicker of envy that crossed my mind was quickly replaced by anxiety as I
imagined the collision between Sebastian’s holiday habits and his biological
clock, which normally ensures he takes a solid ten hours’ sleep a night. A few
days away from home and he’d turned into the hedonistic equivalent of a
sleep-deprived shift worker. No wonder he’d misdirected the e-mail.
It’s a great lifestyle here. We get some cheap food at lunchtime, then take
some lager to the beach in the afternoon and just hang out, tanning and watching
all the beautiful people. Chico went to sleep in the sun a couple of days
ago—he was knackered—and ended up the colour of tandoori chicken,
which was hilarious, especially when he was trying to look cool.
This was appalling. Sebastian, who wasn’t usually a sun-worshipper, was
roasting himself on the beach in the company of topless females. And the risks!
I quickly scanned a few medical sites on the Web. All the grisly consequences of
solar exposure were there: DNA damage, the unleashing of reactive oxygen
derivatives, untoward effects on the immune system. Not to mention the agony of
sunburn—its redness caused by increased blood flow. I shuddered and
clicked back onto the e-mail.
It’s so good after grey old Britain, college and the exams. You lie on the
sand, you get hot, you drink, you take a dip and you eyeball everyone else.
Another trip across the Web left me with the image of a sweltering Sebastian
becoming dehydrated from the alcohol. A nice cup of tea would have cooled him
much more effectively. Thank God he wasn’t taking strenuous exercise! Even those
refreshing dips in the sea began to look sinister, because immersion up to the
neck can cause an increased flow of urine, which would only make the dehydration
worse.
After sunset we usually take a quick nap. Or maybe just freshen up and go out
for a few beers. Clubbing kicks off at about 2 am. The big clubs are phenomenal
places. Anything goes. You know, transvestites, elaborate costumes, the lot. No
one hassles you. Foam parties, lasers, pounding music, dancing—you get
carried clean away.
The only thing carrying me away was parental anxiety. I called up another
database and fired off a stream of queries. Back came the responses. According
to one set of tests, heart rate and blood pressure increase when people listen
to techno music, as do levels of beta endorphin, noradrenalin, cortisol and
other hormones. Another source informed me that loud techno music sets off nerve
impulses from part of the ear dealing with the sense of balance, perhaps
triggering pleasurable sensations in the brain. I wasn’t sure whether this was
good or bad.
And what about all that dancing? Burning calories at the rate of a speeding
cyclist and sweating profusely, Sebastian would be in danger of overheating and
dehydration again. Then there was that casual reference to foam parties. It
didn’t take me long to find an article linking one such event to inflammation of
the eye’s conjunctiva and cornea.
Usually we stay at the club till the end of the night and watch the Sun come
up. Then it’s back to the hotel, a few hours’ kip, and it all starts again.
Yesterday we didn’t even stop at dawn. Some German girls invited us back to this
smart villa with a pool and we just carried on partying. But that’s another
story.
Hope your summer is this good. See you in October, Seb.
“Another story”? That didn’t bear thinking about.
Gazing out of the window, I tried to be optimistic. At least Sebastian hadn’t
mentioned anything about taking ecstasy. But then it occurred to me that he
would hardly have admitted it in an e-mail. Online again, I called up a quick
list of the drug’s supposed effects: raised levels of the neurotransmitters
serotonin and dopamine around brain cells, increased heart rate and blood
pressure, tightening of the jaw, and transient feelings of sickness. Surely
Sebastian wouldn’t be so stupid?
I read about the feelings that users are supposed to experience—oneness
with others, energy and tranquillity, for example. But my attention was
inevitably drawn towards the risks, including heat stroke, perhaps with clotting
of blood inside blood vessels and kidney failure. Then there were other concerns
such as damage to serotonin neurons, depression and impaired memory.
Is this what kids call a holiday? I tried to see the positive side, but what
kept coming back was an image of thousands of sun-damaged, physiologically
compromised sub-adult primates displaying to one another in time to deafening
music. It seemed like some vast testing ground for the cream of European youth:
survive this and you’ll survive anything.
I poured myself a stiff drink and tried to think back to my own young days.
It wasn’t like that for us, was it? I was well into my second drink before it
all started to come back: recollections of alcoholic excess, of all-night
parties, of random flirtations. The years of parental rectitude in between had
buried it deep. Was Sebastian—no, Seb—really any different?
Of course I was still worried about the impact his lifestyle was having on
his body and mind. But my mood began to improve. I began to find it amusing that
I’d learned far more about Seb from one misdirected e-mail than from years of
face-to-face communication.
When Seb (and Chico and Matt) came home, I didn’t say anything about the
e-mail. If he’d suffered any lasting damage, it certainly didn’t show, though he
did seem to spend the next week catching up on his sleep.
Of course he didn’t tell us much about his week away, but I did thank him for
his postcard. “In bed by 10, eh?” I said, “Would that be am or pm?”