A Calculated Life (11 page)

“Until I was seven years old, we went on day-trips with the Stephensons, family friends. But they had to sell their car.”

The children’s game-playing hurtled jaggedly across the open ground; Jayna kept her eyes on them. “The car…too expensive to run?” she said, distracted. The nearest housing blocks stood three hundred meters away. Where exactly were they heading? The children’s chasing game swerved towards them. Instinctively she side-jumped closer to Dave.

“It’s okay, they won’t bother us.” He laughed. “Only kids.” But Jayna stuck close. They were wild and dusty looking, and shod in the flimsiest of flip-flops—perilous! They yelled at one another while executing some demented game elaborated with ropes and
multi-colored, hand-painted sticks. It did
not
seem like fun-play to her. There were taunts. Were there two separate groups involved, three even? In the midst of their play, she suspected, small terrors were being meted out.

“Yeah, the car had to go. They had good jobs in the Civil Service but, first, Mrs. Stephenson was downgraded to menial work and, soon after, the same happened to her husband.” One boy slammed headlong into the ground and three other children—two boys and a girl, as far as Jayna could make out—ran towards him with raised sticks. But the boy scrambled on his belly for his own stick and lashed out threatening to strike their ankles. “Then they were forced out of the Civil Service completely. Good payouts, apparently. But it was tough for them; all those aspirations. You know—” his mood lifted “—we used to drive south towards Shropshire and take a picnic. It was fantastic.
They
had the car.
We
paid for the fuel. And my parents had a brilliant picnic set. It was my grandparents’ originally; the real thing—matching crockery, heavy cutlery, and glasses. We felt like minor royals.” The kids parted into two unbalanced tribes to find their way around Dave and Jayna but he seemed not to notice. “We’d spread two rugs and set everything out. Absolute magic. All day in the fresh air just messing about.”

The sticks were clashing and she could see chips in the paintwork—old scars, or notches. “I don’t quite follow.” She shifted around the back of Dave to keep away from the main group of kids. “If the Stephensons had good jobs, responsible jobs, why didn’t they get bionic status automatically?”

“Same as my family. Something dodgy in the background, on her side I think. And he was ruled out by association.”

How much did Dave know about his grandfather’s fall from grace, Jayna wondered? Did his grandfather deny the allegations? Did he have a good lawyer? His family paid a high price if he didn’t.

As they neared the housing blocks, she realized they were heading for the widest street leading away from the car park. The
children’s screams gave way to a ruckus emanating from farther down the street where a crowd jammed the space between the buildings. A young man, wearing shorts and rubber boots, pedaled slowly towards them on a creaking, three-wheeled cycle pulling a lopsided trailer loaded with rubbish. He stood alternately on each pedal using his total body weight to jerk the cycle forward.

“What’s going on, Dave? And where’s he going with the rubbish?”

“It’s our Saturday market. You’ll like it. And he’s a freelance taking waste to the generators on the eastern side of town. It’s usually down-wind.” They both laughed. The bike stammered past and they covered their faces with their hands.

“I live up this street, off to the left. In fact…it’s a great spot, courtesy of our employer.”

Dave walked with a swagger, she noticed; a man on home ground. “Meaning?”

“I’m high on the priority list because I work for Mayhew McCline.” She looked uncertain. “Works like this, Jayna: the best flats go to people working for top companies like Mayhew’s—they pay towards the subsidies. Next in the pecking order are public sector operatives. Outside of that, it’s a free-for-all and when it’s rotation time it’s total chaos: pavements everywhere piled with furniture being moved in or moved out. Looks like the entire enclave has been lifted up and shaken out.”

“Who’s actually involved in the rotations?”

“If you don’t have any priority, there’s a standard long-term lease from the housing department and the quality’s poor to middling. Or you can opt for ten years’ participation in lottery accommodation, flats are rotated every two years on a rolling program. But it’s not a real choice. And people get really mad—”

“I’ve seen reports on the housing riots.”

“Right. It’s fuck-stupid…” She prickled. “It’s a game; everyone hoping for a better deal next time. There
are
a few good flats but not
many. People build their hopes up…Mind you, when I say
good
I only mean they’re a bit bigger or closer to the station.”

Street vendors had set out their produce on cloths and plastic sheeting laid at the pavement edge: a box of over-ripe fruit, an array of battered household gadgetry. But most street sellers were displaying just a handful of items, and the smallest display was a single pair of men’s slippers placed on a piece of brightly patterned cloth. The vendor, an elderly woman, sat on a stool behind her offering.

“It’s the scrag-end, here. The only decent things are over there—the booksellers.” He led her across.

“Bit different from Portland Street,” she said. No stalls as such. The booksellers had purloined a waist-high wall that extended from a block of flats. The wall separated the street from the block’s recycling bins but for market day it was transformed into a long bookshelf, spines facing the sky; perfect ergonomics for browsers.

“
Better
than Portland. If you make a purchase you can also do a swap. And that way the stock’s always changing.”

“That’s smart.”

He grinned. “You can’t teach much to these guys.”

She walked along the line of books lightly touching them with her hand. Most of the spines were damaged. “What kind of books do you buy, Dave?”

“Anything, really. I’ve had a couple of books about bees from here. They were handy. Otherwise, I look out for old comics…and those motivational books, always good for a laugh.”

“Perhaps I’ll try one.”

“Come on. We’ll take the next right, and then left. The parallel street is better.”

They veered off and, approaching the next turning, she looked aloft and laughed. “What’s this, Dave?”

“The start of Clothing Street.”

A gigantic sheet of pink fabric flapped lazily in the gentle breeze, way above their heads. It was strung between the top floors
of the buildings on either side of the street. He guided her towards the right and they walked along stalls selling unpackaged clothes piled high. “This leads down to the food market but stay close: it’s easy to get separated.”

Any notion of personal space evaporated as they edged along the stalls. She felt buffeted as people crossed haphazardly from one side of the street to the other, from one stall to the next. The traders bawled out as though no one would air any money without a performance; they cajoled, wooed, and raised laughter here and there. Jayna noticed the mismatched tables—old doors supported on stacks of battered crates. Fit for purpose, she thought. They stopped near a long stretch of tables where women, mostly, were congregating, elbowing for position. One woman held up a child’s shirt by the shoulder seams, another stretched the waistband of a skirt. Several women waved garments and shouted their offers. Another woman threw a jacket back to the tangle in apparent disgust at the price and moved on.

“It’s chaotic.” She shook her head gently. “Where do all these clothes come from, Dave?”

“It’s recycled. The cheapest stuff comes from the enclaves but the best is collected from the suburbs.”

“None of it’s new?”

“No one really wears new. But over there, see? Those traders take clothes apart and remake them. Want to look?”

Jayna was already one step ahead of him. “Do you ever buy anything from here?” she called over her shoulder.

“Now and then, just a re-make shirt or T-shirt.”

Fewer items were on sale here, which proved their relative worth. But everything looked oddly dysfunctional. On any one garment there were mismatched buttons, sleeves of different material. She winced at the sight of a mock-fur collar stitched to the neckline of a striped cotton shirt; nauseating, disparate things being forced together. Looking at the prices she mused on the labor costs
of unpicking and re-sewing. She guessed the cost of the raw materials. “Do traders pay much for these stalls?” she said.

“There’s a hefty license fee paid upfront and then a daily charge.”

“Who does the making?”

“Migrants, freelancers.”

“Makes me feel incredibly plain. Not sure I like any of it.”

“Try something on.” He smiled. “No harm in that.” She picked up a cap. It seemed safe; it wouldn’t touch her skin if she were careful. “Go on, put it on.” He laughed. “There’s a mirror.”

She stood, cap in hand, and looked in the tatty reflector beside the stall but she couldn’t bring herself to put the cap on. So Dave took it from her hand and, standing in front of her, knees slightly bent so he could look straight at her eyes, placed the cap on her head. He took it off, pushed her straight hair behind her ears, and replaced it. “That’s better.” He lifted her chin with the side of his index finger and stood aside. She shuddered, failing to recognize her own reflection.

“What do you think?” he said.

The cap was made of army camouflage but the peak was fluorescent lemon with beads sewn on the underside. She took it off, and then put it back on. And she repeated this twice, to the point where she attracted looks from other shoppers. “Dave?”

“It’s great.”

“I don’t feel right. I can’t recognize who I am.”

He laughed. “It’s called
dressing up
.”

“But what does the cap say about me?”

“I guess it says you’re…different.”

“I don’t need a cap to tell me that, do I?”

“You might want to tell other people.”

“What would that achieve?” With a sense of relief she put the cap aside and they moved on. They yielded willingly to the crowds allowing themselves to be nudged and pushed against one another as they inched closer to the food market. They came to an
intersecting street and Dave put his arm around her waist to help steer her across. She leaned into him, hoping to replicate the shock she’d felt in the bookshop.

“Clothing Street,” she said. “I love it. It’s so…random.”

An old man pulling a handcart barged his way through the dawdling shoppers, shouting, “Aside! Aside!” He forced Dave and Jayna to make way. Dave pulled her arm and they fell in behind the cart—the old man thus easing their way to the end of street.

They emerged into the open food market. Heat and citrus mingled in the air. Did heat have a smell, she wondered? Or was it just the dust…? The full-on sounds that reverberated off the walls of Clothing Street dissipated now into a broad hum; the sun seemed to burn off the higher-pitched cries. Jayna rushed towards the stalls clustered under a grubby patchwork of multi-colored plastic—a makeshift canopy that shielded the vendors’ wares and trapped the aromas in unruly combinations.

“There’s something mixed in with the citrus…” she said. “But I can’t name it.”

Dave smiled. “I know what you mean. It’s overpowering…might be fennel…Come on, let’s cut across this corner of the market. We’re nearly there.”

The plastic canopies cast exotic hues across the shoppers’ faces, deepening Jayna’s sense of claustrophobia. He was right: a sensory overload. And although the smells were intoxicating, she could see that none of the produce—the blood oranges, cherries, apricots, grapefruit, and, yes, fennel—was prime quality. It was all either misshapen or beyond its best, in good company with the piles of ill-favored Ugli fruit. Dave pushed between two artichoke and asparagus stalls towards a narrow alleyway. The upper windows on the south-facing side were shuttered against the mid-afternoon sun. She thought of the flats’ occupants, denied the cooler temperatures of the shaded lower floors. Maybe the stronger breeze up there offered some compensation.

Two hundred meters farther along, Dave turned abruptly into an open stairwell. At this point, she realized she had not seen a single pavement café since they arrived in the enclave.

“I’m on the top floor; it gets hot but it’s quieter…and I sleep under a mozzy net on the roof in mid-summer.”

The muddy colors of the outside world poured into the stairwell through windowless openings, creating an impressive monotone relieved only by the marks made by people journeying up and down the stairs, a history recorded in scratches, scrapes, and the occasional gouge, traced now by Jayna’s fingertips. Dave paused on the fourth-floor landing and, half a flight below, she looked up at him. “I’d love to see the hives.”

Out on the roof, they were struck by the full onslaught of the sun. The air was supercharged by the urgency of the bees. She felt diminutive, drowned in Dave’s grubby protection suit and veiled hat. But despite being kitted out, she stood close to him, her gloved hand touching his bare arm. “Won’t they sting you?” she said.

“Nah! I’ll be okay. We’ll keep our distance.”