A Calculated Life (19 page)

In any case, here was the result, she thought, as the car slowed to a stop: only the likes of Benjamin could afford to live in the inner suburbs. And only the highest earners could afford the pretty villages, haunts for the truly successful.

“Here we are, Miss Jayna.” He was out of the car as the final syllable left his mouth, for he was intent on reaching her door before she made any move towards the release. She would prefer to open the door herself but she knew it would be mean-spirited to deny John his finale. This might be the measure of his professionalism: a certain number of steps around the front of the limo, at a certain pace, his body bending awkwardly at each 90-degree turn. It was, she felt, a hurried, ugly movement. She didn’t flinch until the door was fully open but she sighed inwardly. She swung both her feet out of the car, and John timed his remark to occur precisely at the
moment when she stood fully erect. “Have a lovely afternoon, Miss. I’ll collect you in two hours unless I receive other instructions.”

At such moments, she felt the lack of a surname. She turned her head through 35 degrees towards John, enough to acknowledge his presence without actually looking him in the face. This was the correct form and one that he would recognize. “Thank you.”

As she walked through the front-garden allotment, she assessed Benjamin’s home; it was symmetrical, doll-like. John swung the car around in the street. He did so with unnecessary theatricality as though making the point to any onlookers that he was connected to a young woman who was so singular that she deserved only the best of cars and only the best of drivers. How silly, she thought.

Each bay on the double-frontage comprised tall panels of dark glass, jointed in an arc-like arrangement. No trace remained of the original front doors, which presumably had been located side by side so that the hallways lay alongside one another. The two houses were now united by a new entrance lobby—a large glass box that projected into the front garden and maybe penetrated the internal shell of the building. She stiffened at her reflection in the blackened glass; Benjamin’s family could be looking at her right now, whereas her gaze could not penetrate the interior life of the house. It was, she felt, a particular type of rudeness; an architectural discourtesy. She listened hard in the hope of hearing some unrehearsed, carefree talk on the other side, of hearing family members at ease with one another, so familiar that their actions were instinctive, knowing how to make one another smile, knowing how far they could push. Reluctantly, she took a short step forward, realizing that the family within would alter themselves as soon as they knew of her presence.

The doorbell should have triggered by now, she thought. And, in that moment, she sensed that inner sliding doors were opening, allowing a fuggy brighter light to reach her from either the interior lighting or from a garden beyond. Moving matter, the familiar shape of Benjamin, partially blocked this light.

“Hey, Jayna. You’re the first to arrive. That’s great. We can have a chat and you can meet the family before it gets busy.”

“Who else is coming, Benjamin?” She was startled; she’d failed to anticipate this possibility. Why hadn’t he told her other people were involved? He’d given her no indication that she’d meet anyone other than his wife and daughter.

“Just a few neighbors and their children. No point lighting the barbecue if we don’t fill it.”

“I suppose not.” But she was thrown. Benjamin had misled her. Did his wife take charge of the arrangements? She heard voices coming from the back of the house, and when Benjamin’s wife and daughter arrived in the hallway, laughing—the young girl half walking, half sliding over the wooden floor—Jayna glimpsed an intimacy, just momentarily, that they now surrendered. It was a subtle adjustment. The incised laughter wrinkles on his wife’s face faded to leave a gentler expression that still disarmed her. Any annoyance with Benjamin evaporated.

“Meet Evelyn, and our daughter Alice.”

“I’ve heard such a lot about you, Jayna,” said Evelyn. But the introductions were interrupted by scuffling noises as five White Terriers slid into the hallway, falling over one another. Alice shrieked with laughter.

“Switch them off, Alice,” said Benjamin. She grimaced and her shoulders slumped. “House Rules. Not when we have visitors.” She knelt down and the dogs jumped around her. “Go to sleep,” she said to them. And they vanished.

Evelyn guided Jayna with a gentle touch towards open double doors and the rear of the house. An aesthetic of rigid simplicity pervaded the interior, a style she recognized from advertisements. Here was simplicity in its idealized form; the polar opposite of her own quarters with its pared-back utility. It felt like a walk through a dream, for the hallway was virtually bare; so little for her eyes to fix on. She was only aware of the geometry of the space and the
character of the finishes, and the way the falling light revealed the different reflectivity of the cream and white surfaces. She suspected the subtlety of the color scheme was far from accidental, that some historical reference had been carefully considered and adapted. The original interior must have been ripped out long ago and it was difficult to imagine how it might have been. Still, it would be interesting to understand how Benjamin and Evelyn had created this home from a knowledge of past mores and their own personal tastes.

“Come through and I’ll fix you a drink. Benjamin needs to tidy the garden canopies and I’m just finishing the salads. Come and sit with me.”

Jayna had to reconfigure; her boss fixing things, doing chores. She stretched to sit on a bar stool by the kitchen worktop and, while Evelyn prepared drinks, she watched Benjamin move along the garden, turning the handles that tautened the overhead black gauzes. Alice insisted on helping her father and Jayna could see the job would be completed sooner if he were left alone. “Alice seems to like helping,” said Jayna.

Evelyn pushed a drink towards her—lead cut crystal, sparkling water, slices of lime. “She’s always under our feet like that. She’s a very practical little girl, wants to be involved in everything. That’s why this salad isn’t finished. She wanted to help with the chopping.”

“I thought Alice would be playing with toys.”

“She’s one of those children who skips the whole toy thing.”

“But I thought all children played with toys.”

“Well, not Alice. Not much anyway. She’s happier with a ball of string.”

“What would she do with it?”

“Tie the whole house up.” Evelyn laughed. “She’s done that before.”

“I don’t really know much about children. I’ve only met Jon-Jo, Hester’s son.”

“I don’t expect you have much opportunity,” said Evelyn, adding after a pause, “You probably don’t realize it, Jayna, but you’re making a big difference to our family life. We’re seeing a lot more of Benjamin and he’s like his old self, when I first met him. A lot more relaxed.”

“That’s good to hear. It would be a shame to miss out on family life.”

“We could do with someone like you where I work.”

“Where’s that, Evelyn?”

“In town, at a law practice. But we’re not big enough yet to afford…your skills.”

Jayna smiled. Evelyn could have referred to leases. Time to change the conversation. “Does your salad have a name?” Which to Evelyn seemed a comical way of phrasing the question, as though Jayna were asking about a family pet. A broad smile kept a rising giggle at bay. “It’s a Mediterranean Salad.”

“I guess that’s a misnomer?”

“Quite right. The ingredients are all from the garden…Why don’t you mix the dressing for me?” And she pushed across a collection of bottles, salt and pepper mills, and an empty jar.

Jayna raised her eyebrows and smiled. “I don’t cook, you know.”

“Well, it hardly counts as cooking. You’re just throwing a few things together. To be honest, that’s the best kind of cooking in my book. Good ingredients, lots of chopping.” Jayna lifted a jar of English mustard. What should she do with this? “Just mix a few things together in the jar and shake; more vinegar than oil. Then dip a piece of lettuce to test it. Decide yourself.”

“Sounds easy enough.” She began opening the bottles and poured the oil. A drop more, another drop, maybe another. And the vinegar? How much in proportion to the oil? She was a chemist titrating—too much and she would overshoot the endpoint.

“Go on,” Evelyn gently encouraged, “now the salt and pepper, herbs…” Jayna ground black peppercorns into the mixing jar and the
grinding sounds took her thoughts straight to Dave and her perfect cup of coffee. What was he doing right now? A single grinding of salt. Mixed herbs, probably too many. She swilled the contents in the jar.

“Put the lid on and shake it hard.”

“Okay. But, oil is immiscible. It’s going to separate out.”

“We put the dressing in a dish with a tiny whisk. See?” She pointed to a shelf of kitchen apparatus, all perfectly aligned and coordinated. “Just shake the bottle.” Which she did. “You’re learning fast, Jayna.”

“I need to. Your guests will be here soon.”

At which point Benjamin walked back along the garden and into the kitchen. “I think Alice and her friends have been playing games with the canopies. There’s all sorts of junk up there.” And, sure enough, they looked out into the garden and saw Alice throwing twigs as high as she could into the air.

“It must be lovely and cool under there,” said Jayna.

“We couldn’t manage without it. We can use the garden most of the year.”

“Well, I must say, your whole home is lovely.”

Benjamin smiled and turned to his wife. The smile spread to Evelyn just as Alice hurtled in from the garden and threw herself at her parents for no apparent reason, arms around both their waists. “I love parties. When’s everyone arriving?
They’re
…
all
…
late
.”

They laughed at their daughter’s impatience. Eye contact flicked among the three of them, from mother to child, child to mother, child to father. An adult hand placed on a small shoulder, and a stroke of her hair. Alice leaned her head into her mother’s stomach, then looked up and raised her hand awkwardly towards her mother’s face. “I just can’t wait any longer.”

How could actors ever replicate such a scene, wondered Jayna? The adulation in these parents’ eyes couldn’t be matched. Benjamin now picked up the child and kissed her. “It’s just as well they’re late with all the mess I’ve had to clear away in the garden.”

“Don’t be boring, Dad…Put me down.”

Such a special child, Jayna thought. But in that instant, as the thought streamed through her mind, she realized that Alice could have been a different child. She might never have existed; a boy child could be here in this room if Benjamin and Evelyn had conceived the child a few minutes later, or earlier. And Jayna couldn’t stop herself imagining these two adults between sheets. Maybe they knew that Alice was just one expression of their genes, that many more children were not realized. Maybe every parent knew this.

She imagined the room full of Alice’s unrealized siblings and looked for similarities, trying to read character traits in their faces. She noticed, too, those children who stood out, being markedly different, possible throwbacks to long-forgotten ancestors. How would you choose, if you had to? She could almost touch a sense of incredulity on the part of Benjamin and Evelyn that they had produced even one such wonderful creature. She watched Alice gently squirm out of her father’s arms. Was their happiness tempered by fear, she wondered? A pearl could be lost more easily than found through happenstance, through carelessness. How did they cope with such vulnerability?

Jayna could feel her heart pumping. She had never witnessed anything remotely similar to this scene—the child’s enthusiasm, her parents’ delight, simple and untainted. She had never before in her brief life shared a room with such happiness. The inhabitants seemed to merge with the pureness of the space. She returned to her vinaigrette, her eyes misting. “I think it might be too oily.”

“Here, add a slosh of red wine,” said Evelyn. Jayna duly tipped the bottle, slowly, as she assessed a
slosh
. And she watched the nervous articulation of her arm movement, seeing the contradictory relaxation and contraction of her musculature as she dithered. These movements were made without any need to consciously direct each and every tendon and muscle. In much the same way, each of her thoughts passed through her mind spontaneously, unedited. Only,
whereas the muscle movements were indicated in the changing contours of her skin, her inner thoughts lay unrevealed. She was smooth on the surface.

“What do you think, Evelyn?”

With a flourish, Evelyn dunked a strip of lettuce. “Perfect. Simply perfect. See, there’s no mystery,” she said, and wiped drips from her chin.

Benjamin and Alice returned to the garden to heat the barbecue. Jayna would have followed but Evelyn caught her attention by tapping the point of her knife against the chopping board. “Listen, do you mind if I ask you something…before everyone arrives? I debated this with Benjamin last night and he feels he shouldn’t ask, that it’s crossing the line.” She resumed chopping. “You know, we were talking…because of your visit today.” Evelyn bit the corner of her mouth but Jayna couldn’t tell if this was related to the vegetable chopping or the approaching question. Evelyn pressed on. “I know you didn’t have a childhood as such, that you just woke up fully…” It wasn’t the chopping.

“Some say we’re
cultured
or
cultivated
.”

There was an uncomfortable slippage of meaning with each of these words and Evelyn seemed to stall. “Yes…well, what can I say? Benjamin just raves about the work you’re doing. You must get a lot of praise, but do you feel that you’ve missed out? Am I being rude? What I really mean is, you know, when you don’t have parents…We were talking about Alice and how we can trace some of her little ways back to one of us, or even to an aunt or grandparent. I’m sorry, do you mind me asking?” Her face crumpled; embarrassed by her own questions.

“No, Evelyn. It’s fine. No one has asked me before, but then some people seem to lack curiosity.”