A Calculated Life (27 page)

Dave stirs from his morning vigil and makes his way up the slope to complete his circuit.
Who would have thought
…? These words have become wind chimes and they hang from all the trees. He hears them day in, day out.

Sunjin continued as a laborer for a further six months after meeting Dave. By then they had accumulated a small but significant pot of savings and, more to the point, Dave had operated his stall long enough to justify, to the outside world, an elevation in his circumstances. He took out a loan and augmented their savings with a modest cash withdrawal from one of their many fraudulent nest eggs. Dave acted on Sunjin’s advice and bought a neglected smallholding of mixed citrus and avocado. And the new double-act began: Dave the moderately successful entrepreneur and his one farmhand, a farmhand who knew how to turn around a failing enterprise.

At the very least, the farm will become a front, to mask their earnings from elsewhere.

Dave reaches the highest irrigation block on his circuit and smacks the top of a stumped avocado. It grieved him when they
moved to the farm that, straight off, Sunjin had decided to cut half the avocado trees down to one-meter stumps. “They’re overcrowded, too tall for efficient harvesting.” He now sees the sense in it. They will start to produce after four or five years and, at that point, the rest of the avocado grove will be stumped. One day, they will reap the benefit of a surgical approach. But it still seems brutal.

By the side of the farmhouse door stands a specimen Jamaican tangelo; its boughs hang over the kitchen yard. To Dave’s mind, there’s no taste like the Ugli fruit of this tree. Its tangy sweetness belies an ill-favored appearance. He sits outside many evenings and stares up into the canopy, convinced he can see the unlovely fruits grow.

This is their tree. They take the best of the harvest for their own table. It’s their only extravagance. And Dave loves this tangelo tree most of all on a morning such as this when a perfectly ripe fruit hangs within easy reach just over the kitchen door.

He looks across to the higher slopes. Sunjin is making his way into the far orchard. Dave shouts, “Breakfast in twenty!” He pulls the fruit. And Sunjin, without turning, raises his hand.

EPILOGUE 2

“W
ith respect, Beatrice, how many times
in the past six months has anyone referred to any of these books in relation to a billable job?”

“That’s not the point.”

“In the last year? Two years? I’ve been here nearly four years and I can only recall eight occasions.”

“It’s still not the point.”

“But I believe it is.” Hannah feels she must stand up to this resolute octogenarian. “You see, if we auction the most valuable—the ancient documents and the first editions—and then donate the rest to whoever you like—The Law Society, The Inns of Court Library—we’d raise a great deal of money that we could invest in more extensive digitized access. Our fee-earners need the very best. And, we could free up shelf space for more pertinent documentation that’s currently festering in storage.”
Mistake. I’ve given two reasons instead of one. Each reason will undermine the validity of the other.

“I can’t believe we’re talking about shelf space.”

I walked into that one
. Hannah is aware that she’s operating slightly under par; not tired, as such, but her nights have become heavy with dreams. How long has it been going on? Four, five weeks? At least. Now she comes to think of it, her first bad dream occurred seven weeks ago. There was a gap of two weeks before it returned
and since then it has reoccurred with ever-greater frequency; most nights now. These nocturnal spins leave her slightly disoriented and off-center. It’s as if the color of her dreams tinges her waking hours. She wonders if she has experienced a troubling conversation that’s still lurking just beneath her consciousness. That’s exactly how it feels: as though there’s unfinished business, something left in abeyance.

“I know my attitude to the library may seem callous, Beatrice—”

“It’s an outrageous suggestion you’re making. Surely you see that,” interrupts the senior partner, evidently taken aback by the degree of Hannah’s insensitivity on the matter.

“It’s my job to make sure the knowledge management system in this law firm is second to none. We need to guarantee speed to give us a strong competitive edge.”

“On the other hand, think about this, Hannah. We are one of the oldest established firms in the City. It’s an important differentiator. That’s why we use this room for key-client meetings.” She waves her walking stick at the perfectly arranged, perfectly categorized tomes. “These old books say to our clients ‘We’ve been here a long time. We’ve seen it all before. There’s nothing we can’t handle.’ Or do you suggest we sell the collection and put fake books in their place?”

“Of course not.”

“Our clients love this room and they don’t give a damn about our problems with shelf space.”

Hannah’s back stiffens. Strong language bothers her somehow. When anyone in the office swears she instinctively prickles. She asked her friends back at the rest station if their colleagues used bad language. No one seemed to share her concern. It’s not that she dislikes this form of speech. She just reacts, she feels, more than she ought.

“More than anything else, Beatrice, our clients want fast results. So can we decide here and now to increase my budget, with or without selling off the library?”

“Hannah, the library is not even up for discussion.” Nevertheless, Beatrice sags as if defeated. “I just wish you could appreciate…” Her voice trails off as though the conversation is exhausting her.

“Appreciate what?” she says quietly.

“The history of these things.”

Hannah raises her eyebrows in reply.

“Have you ever looked at
any
of these books?”

“Well, no. That’s surely the point. I haven’t needed to.”

“But you’ve noticed, Hannah, that other directors come in here, from time to time, to leaf through old volumes.”

“Yes. But it’s usually the more…senior directors.”

“And do you ever wonder why they come in here?”

“I do. I assume it’s one of those things I just can’t grasp. It’s beyond me.”

Beatrice stares hard at her. She knows this woman will accept her rebuff with good grace. But she would still like to help her to understand. “You see, Hannah…it’s about a different path to…revelation. How can I say it? A path that’s more direct—not quicker, but more direct—by which I mean less mediated. And it’s not simply a matter of being old-fashioned, and it’s not nostalgia.”

“Then what?”

“Well, for one thing, it feels more satisfying…to remember a case in the Law Reports, or to recall something mentioned at a conference, or a reference made years before by a colleague, or to find a judgment in a digital catalogue… The point—” she nods her head in emphasis “—the point is…it’s a thrill to know we have the original case report here in the library. To find the specific bound volume, slide it from the shelf, and turn the pages. Your eyes hit the names. You have it, there, in your hands.”

“It’s the same information, though. And it’s slower to access.”

“I know.” Beatrice stamps the polished wooden floor with her walking stick. “But there’s something about finding—” she stamps the floor again “—the book.”

Is this what happens in old age
, Hannah wonders?
You can’t find the words to convey your thoughts. It’s in your head but you can’t translate the idea into language. If only I could be inside Beatrice’s mind at this very moment and see for myself
. Hannah offers a conciliatory smile but she won’t give in. “I think you’re mistaken, Beatrice. It’s pure nostalgia…Let’s agree to disagree, shall we?”

Beatrice pushes herself out of the chair and the younger woman steps forward to take her arm. “You can have your bigger budget. But you’re not selling our library.”

“Fine. Thank you.”

“There’s one condition. I want you to spend the rest of today in here, Hannah. I want you to look at these books. Touch them. Maybe you’ll see things my way if you immerse yourself. I’ll make sure you won’t be disturbed.”

“I have meetings at eleven and two-thirty.”

“Internal?”

“Yes.”

“Cancel them.”

Hannah tilts her head sideways. “Okay then. It’s a deal.” She opens the tall library doors for her colleague.

“Try to keep in mind—” Beatrice halts on the threshold “—that this library holds many, thousands, of the judicial decisions that make up our common law, and that common law is constantly evolving; the law is a living process and you can touch it here. You can follow the paper-trail, read the views of legal commentators through the decades, the centuries even.” She rallies herself, for she won’t give up on Hannah. “Look at the Law Reports and the first editions; they’re so close, so proximate to the courtrooms of the day—” she leans forward “—you can almost hear the judges, the barristers, speaking; feel them breathing out of the page.” But
she knows she still hasn’t conveyed her feelings. She can’t quite get there.

“I promise, Beatrice. I will try.”

She stands by the leather armchair vacated by Beatrice and surveys the library. The furniture arrangement, she notices, coerces any visitor to sit in solitary contemplation. It’s more of a shrine for her older colleagues. She pushes her hands through her hair. There are so many other tasks she could be working on today. But if Beatrice wants her to do this, how can she refuse? And does it matter which books she looks at? No. It can’t possibly make any difference.

She slowly paces the perimeter of the library, tracing with her forefinger the shelf at shoulder height. She sighs at the thought of Beatrice’s delusion that these books offer a particular pleasure.
All the information in these books is so static
.
It’s so utterly pointless
…
Maybe I’ll go through the motions.
She likes the phrase. It conjures the idea of a physical process, executed on automatic, that serves neither practical nor intellectual purpose. But there’s a hint of deception, too, which she’s not entirely sure about.
A few quiet hours in here, a few hours of analysis, might help to clear my head, help me work out what’s wrong. I want to pinpoint this feeling of unfinished business, whatever it is.
She pulls a book, not bothering to read the spine, and returns to the armchair.
Should I report my nightmares to the Constructor? Or wait?

The book lies in her lap.

After all, the dreams may stop as suddenly as they began.
She places her fingertips together and rubs her forefingers against her chin. Sitting in silence, she stares through the library’s high arched windows at the neighboring glass-fronted towers and watches the minor movements of people in their offices. All doing their bit, unaware of her gaze. And it seems incongruous to her that, here, in the heart
of the capital’s commercial district she finds herself effectively task-free, completely idle. Or, at least, she regards looking at old books as a fairly idle way of passing a whole day.

So. The nightmares. The first thing that concerns her is that she can’t get a fix on them. There are no images, no specific thoughts, no narratives. She wakes the same way most mornings now, with her heart pounding and a thick sheet of sweat coating her skin. That is, she wakes in fear. She knows such a strong emotion should be alien to her but she doesn’t feel inclined to broadcast her problem. Thus, a new precaution has entered her routine. She keeps a towel on her bed overnight and when jolted out of her dream into the very real surroundings of her quarters she sits up and dries herself. And in the morning, she throws back the sheets, allowing them to dry before she leaves for work, and before the rest-station domestics make their rounds.

Two nights ago, she experienced a new development. As she fell towards sleep, she felt a tension in the muscles of her lower arms and she knew, most surely, that this sensation presaged the onset of a nightmare. She forced herself, on the cusp of sleep, to leave her bed and pace the small room. Then she washed herself down with a wet cloth and made sure she was fully awake before she dared attempt sleep once more.

The second thing that perplexes Hannah arises from her private research conducted in her own time—research, that is, on sleep dysfunction. This is the real reason she’s in no hurry to contact her Constructor. It appears, according to medical papers—or, more specifically, mental health papers—that there’s a link between the frequency of nightmares and suicidality. There’s no consensus on whether this is a causal relationship but the statistics are striking. And the nightmare link seems to correlate not only for people with a current propensity for suicide but also for people who are previous suicide attempters. Which makes no sense to her as far as her own circumstances are concerned. It must be a red herring.

Maybe it’s simpler than that. Maybe there’s something causing me stress that I’ve failed to recognize; something that isn’t too serious but is sufficient to unbalance my particular psyche. It could be a recognized phenomenon. The Constructor may already hold an easy remedy.