Chapter 5: Coming Together

This chapter opens in the north, as Victor returns to a summer job with his old boss Reggie, helping out around the studio and running errands in Kendal. The lack of excitement through the week fuels Victor’s appetite for taking chemicals at the weekends in Blackpool, Leeds and Blackburn.
He visits Essex for Tanya’s birthday before flying out to Lanzarote with two northern friends for more ‘fun’, after turning down two weeks in the South of France with Nathan at his parents’ Villa.
Once back in London, as the new term begins, Victor moves in with his three new housemates; Mauli, Carl and of course Nathan.

He continues his affection for drugs at the freshers ball. Outwardly the centre of attention, even though privately, he is beginning to feel negative physical effects. This extra curricular activity continues while keeping up with his degree, a girlfriend and coming to terms with three new housemates, who’s relationships are not necessarily crystallizing. Mauli being the social punchbag, Nathan dictating the consensus, Carl following the opinion and Victor deep down, knowing it is all wrong but doing nothing about it.

Friends start to notice Victor’s obsession with his work and the intensity of his dedication. Victor has a fierce confrontation with tutor Eriic Glaser about the “Typolinguistics 2” module after being heavily criticised for type size, after identifying a navigation and dictionary device for a Monotype book. His subsequent mark becomes his lowest yet. This makes Victor even more determined to succeed.
Light-hearted comments about working too hard and taking it easy begin to appear through Victor’s 22nd birthday cards. Tanya generously buys two tickets to Amsterdam as a birthday present, turning a weekend of rest into a weekend of insurance fraud and drugs, the last thing Victor needs.
On return Victor breaks his collar bone playing football and has an enforced stay in bed for weeks, affecting his beloved college work while Tanya looks after him. On recovery, Victor and Nathan decide to take off on a road trip, to visit a student friend at the Sporting College in Crewe. On the way back they stop off at Nathan’s parents’ mansion in Rickmansworth.
Victor realises Nathan is very wealthy.

At the Easter break Victor returns north but ends up in the Liverpool nightclub Cream, taking a ‘Tango’ Ecstasy tablet which, on returning to London, alters his behavior. Tanya notices, Nathan notices too. An alarmed Victor decides to stop the Ecstacy once and for all but is it already too late?
In the “Design Futures” module Victor develops an interface for a Creative Review CD Rom. He converts the magazine into clickable areas of content, represented as a node skeleton. He presents it to the magazine and they love it. He is then introduced to the “UK’s first web designer” Isaac Bishop to develop the idea further.

The object of this chapter is to bring to the readers attention Victor’s lack of personal insight regarding his drive for success and his increasing appetite for drugs. There is also the internal conflict developing between his inherent values and Nathan’s.