A Calculated Life (5 page)

And I expect she played with a toy wooden giraffe
…

By the time C7 came in sight, her breathing had steadied but her arm still ached. She scrutinized the rest station from across the street.
A ghosting of the splattered paint was detectable across the brickwork. Maybe the paint had been shot at the wall accidentally, somehow. It didn’t make any sense, just throwing paint. But, then, Tom’s drowning didn’t make sense. Neither did a lot of things, she thought.

As ever, the dinner served in C7 was untitled. Some sort of meat substitute, vegetables, potatoes; the usual plain offerings. But, the canteen assistant poured a sauce with a jarring citrus aroma. Jayna leaned towards the serving hatch. “What’s the name of this evening’s meal?”

The canteen assistant dropped his ladle. “Doesn’t ’av’ a name,” he said. “We were just told to make a fruit sauce.”

“It’s unexpected. Thank you,” Jayna said, and smiled.

This seemed to disarm him and, apparently unsure of himself, he added, “Well, if it were on a piece of duck yer’d call it Duck Aloringe.”

“I’m sure everyone will like it.”

“Yer not all gettin’ it. Just you lot on first sittin’.”

Joining Harry and Julie, she said, “There’s no orange sauce for the Franks and Fredas.”

“Well, it must be a directive of some sort,” said Harry.

Lucas dived towards the table, bundled himself into his chair; his knees collided with the table leg—everyone winced—and his dinner plate and glass of water slid sideways on his tray. Ignoring the spilt water, he spread his hands flat either side of the tray. “Something
weird
—” he stalled, as though realizing he’d never needed this word before “—came through our department today. Should have been encrypted for the chief executive’s office. It wasn’t, though no one paid any attention—”

“What are you trying to say, Lucas? Get to the point,” said Harry, not unkindly.

“It
said
—” he paused “—that my counterpart in the Merseyside Tax Office has been sent back to the Constructor. He was spotted
dining in an Indian restaurant two weeks ago having—” he checked his friends’ expressions “—a
Lamb Biryani
. It seems he’d saved his weekly allowance over several months, contravened his directive to eat only at the Civil Service and rest station canteens.”

“Why would he do that?” said Julie, a piece of Duck Aloringe on her raised fork. “What was the point?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know what to make of it.” And evidently eager to remain the center of attention, he added, “I didn’t hear anything else on the subject. But, I can tell you…I was surprised.”

For several minutes they ate their meals in silence. Julie finished her last mouthful and said, “About the yellow paint…It also happened at C5 last night.”

“How do you know?” said Jayna.

“I was in a meeting today with someone from C5. She mentioned it.” Julie was in no hurry to elaborate but after several seconds she said, “It seems they didn’t finish the job on our wall. At their rest station, the word
No
was scraped through the paint, with an exclamation mark added for good measure.”

“They must have been disturbed,” said Harry.

“Mentally unstable?” said Lucas.

“No, Lucas, they were
interrupted
,” said Harry.

“But…it’s a silly way of sending a message. And what were they saying
No
to?”

“Isn’t that obvious, Lucas? They must be saying
No
to us,” said Julie, calmly.

“It’s a bit late for that,” said Harry.

“But who did it?” asked Lucas.

“What does it matter?” said Harry.

It occurred to Jayna that both Julie and Harry worked in the government sector. As did Lucas. Jayna let this thought roam for a few moments. Maybe it lay in the process-heavy nature of their jobs; it dampened their inquisitiveness. Maybe Lucas would drift the same way.

CHAPTER 3

A
t 09:37 hours, Hester and her boy
came blustering into the office. One wing of Hester’s shirt collar lay flat, the other pointed skywards. She groaned under the weight of three soft but bulging multi-colored bags. A strap slipped off her shoulder and Hester simply dragged the bag along the carpet. Jayna sat transfixed. The bags alone offered her a glimpse into Hester’s life away from the office. These were her private things, chosen for a family purpose. In the starchy surroundings of Mayhew McCline they looked out of place.

“Here comes trouble,” called Benjamin. Indulgent smiles rippled across the analysts’ floor. The appearance of one small child had instantaneously changed the mood of the office as if the spell cast by Tom’s death had been broken.

Maybe, Jayna wondered, they needed an excuse to change mode.

Hester streamed her apology: “Sorry, everyone, but Jon-Jo isn’t a morning person. It was murder trying to get him ready. And, my God, commuting with a two-year-old is
hell
. Nearly trampled underfoot.” Turning to Jon-Jo, she lowered her voice and raised her pitch: “Okay, Jon-Jo. Now, let’s get you settled in next to me. Here’s your bag of toys and your blanket. Why don’t you have a play while I do my work and then I’ll give you a little snack?”

He moaned and dropped to the floor. “Thirsty now, Mummy.”

“Right. Okay, then.” She riffled through a second bag. “Here, some nibbles and your drink. Be careful with it, all right?” She looked around the room seemingly vexed that she, for once, was the source of disturbance. But for Jayna, Jon-Jo’s appearance was a welcome development. This was the real thing:
primary research
.

And so, Hester fired up her array while Jon-Jo sat on the floor and grazed through his snack, dropping crumbs down his clothes and tossing his drink aside. He rolled onto his stomach and played with his toy figures, smashing two of them together in his little fists. This rough treatment went on for some time but then he calmed down and lay flat, only he repeatedly lifted his right foot and brought it back down, just catching a waste bin which clanged against the side of his mother’s work array. Jayna studied him closely. Surely the boy knew this noise was anti-social.

Eventually Hester looked down at her son. “Come on, Jon-Jo. Please stop kicking the bin. Stand next to me and do some drawing.” He struggled to his feet and took the stubby marker, drawing big circles, round and round and round, the sheet refusing to stay still under his enthusiasm. He shook the marker to create a new color and stabbed at the paper, three stabs to the second.

“What are you drawing, Jon-Jo?” called Jayna.

“It’s rainin’!” he shouted. Stab, stab, stab. He pushed the picture to the floor and started on another.

“Drawing is a very physical activity for Jon-Jo,” said Eloise as she walked through the office.

“Doesn’t
do
minimal,” said Hester.

Jayna continued to observe. Having run out of sheets, Jon-Jo glanced sideways at his mother and surreptitiously began coloring his fingernails, shaking the marker so that each nail had its own color. He lay down again and made small but vivid marks on the floor. Perhaps he thought no one would notice. More likely, he was making a point in his own childish way, Jayna thought. These marks
might be a needling reminder to his mother: don’t forget me, Jon-Jo. Almost territorial.

The boy continued for a further hour and a half, constantly pushing at the boundaries of acceptable behavior. Twice, Hester led him to the washroom and each time he stamped his feet across the office while shouting: “I’m marchin’. I’m a soldier.”

At lunchtime the boy’s father, Daniel, appeared. “How’s he been?”

“Pretty good, actually,” said Hester, breezily. She walked with Jon-Jo and Daniel out to the elevators. The wide-eyed soldier once again stamped his feet.

Jayna intercepted their path. “Hester, may I give this to Jon-Jo?”

“Yes. Of course.”

So Jayna crouched down and handed the neatly wrapped present to the boy. “Here you are, Jon-Jo. Something to play with when you get back to your home.” He seemed mesmerized by the shining surfaces and showed no inclination to prise open the wrapping.

“How sweet of you, Jayna,” said Hester. She stooped down to the boy and whispered conspiratorially, “Say thank-you, Jon-Jo.” Which he did.

Everyone called out: “Bye, Jon-Jo, bye, Daniel.”

The tousled ambience of the office gradually settled closer to its usual steady-state until the junior analyst Rebecca pouted and in a fake tantrum shouted, “I want a coffee. Now!” And the sound of slow laughter extended the newly softened vibe at Mayhew McCline.

Curious, thought Jayna.

And as if the lightened atmosphere had allowed freethinking and unforced connections to occur, she arrived at a new conclusion on a lesser, more speculative, vein of research. For Jayna had been exploring, over recent days, the language embodied in the Letters to Shareholders signed by the bosses of two hundred listed companies in their latest Annual Reports. She had checked the syntax, the
occurrence of collocation and metonymies, and the usage of euphemism, idiom, and metaphor. Off went a summary to Benjamin:

Project Ref J132
—An Examination of Letters to Shareholders and Correlations with Performance.

Resource
—The most recent Annual Reports for two hundred companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, and Quarterly Figures reported subsequently.

Analysis
—Linguistic.

Summary
—Regardless of company turnover, there is a strong correlation between the use of nautical metaphor in a company’s Letter to Shareholders and a subsequent downturn in quarterly results.

Comment
—This correlation, in my opinion, reflects the fact that many nautical metaphors refer to difficult weather conditions. Other common metaphors—those relating to cricket, for example—have more positive connotations. The choice of nautical metaphor might be unwitting but may well reveal a high level of pessimism among the board of directors that they are reluctant to acknowledge openly.

A quick response:
Hoist the main sail. We’ll make headway with that one. B.

The New Cantonese Restaurant and Buffet beckoned Jayna on her return to Granby Row. Located in a basement on Whitworth Street, the buffet tempted passers-by with an array of steaming, unnaturally colorful dishes; Jayna glanced down and tried to guess their names. She hoped to identify Singapore Style Rice Vermicelli, a name that Jayna found herself mouthing as soon as she saw the restaurant. But today, Jayna decided it would be foolish to linger. She didn’t even
break her stride and the slight turn of her head was sufficiently lazy to conceal the true depth of her interest.