Various Pets Alive and Dead

by Lewycka, Marina

  So who has reported his late nights to Chicken?

  ‘Yes,’ he grins disarmingly. ‘I’ve been … you know … working …’

  ‘Working on what?’

  ‘I’ve been running a Monte Carlo simulation. Feeding through a few numbers to see how they perform,’ he lies.

  ‘A Monte Carlo?’

  The bright doggy eyes blink uncertainly. Serge presses home his advantage.

  ‘Yes, once you’ve started putting through a sequence, you can’t really interrupt it.’

  ‘So that’s what’s keeping you in the office all night?’

  Could Chicken have found out about the private trades he’s been placing? Could someone outside the door of the disabled loo have overheard his musty whispered conversations with his broker?

  ‘We value our reputation here at FATCA.’ Chicken lowers his voice and Serge notices his left eye twitches a bit as he leans forward. ‘If you’ve been breaking any rules, I need to know. Regulators sniffing around. Last thing we want is an FSA investigation, at this moment in time.’

  ‘No rule-breaking, Chief Ken. Just …’ A small alarm bell tinkles in the recess of his mind. What’s this about the Financial Services Authority? Why at this moment in time? ‘… just elegant number work …’

  He’s about to launch into an explanation of his six years studying maths at Cambridge, his unfinished PhD on fractals, but maybe Chicken is sensitive to being patronised about his amateurish grasp of maths.

  ‘It’s based on … er … an extension of chaos theory.’

  ‘Chaos, eh?’ Chicken looks satisfied. ‘There’s going to be a bit of that on the markets soon, with Lehman Brothers under pressure. Unless a buyer emerges. You’ve been following the news?’

  Serge nods.

  ‘Good man. Keep winning.’

  Chicken’s eyes have just fallen on Maroushka, whose yellow jacket blings through the glass wall of the corner office. Straightening himself up, he pulls in his belly. Serge can almost see the bulge of his hard-on silhouetted against the windows, beneath the supple silk-wool cloth of his charcoal-grey suit.

  He can’t hear what Chicken and Maroushka say to each other in the office, there’s too much foreground noise, then Chicken moves away to continue his walkabout and Serge logs into his computer.

  ‘Sergei?’

  He looks up. Maroushka is standing behind him, leaning over his shoulder. He breathes in her perfume.

  ‘How’s things, Princess?’ This is the moment to engage her interest. ‘I’ve been reading an interesting book about the Iranian War.’

  ‘You are interesting in politic?’ The dark eyebrows arch.

  ‘Oh yes. Really interested. I was hoping you could fill me in on the history –’

  ‘My subject is mathematic, Sergei. History is for older persons.’

  ‘Yes, but –’

  ‘But you know, Sergei, I am here only with student visa. When study is finish I must go back to Zhytomyr. But Chicken is apply for permanent work visa for me. You understand, Sergei?’

  ‘A visa? Maroushka, we could …’

  But she’s already slipped away to her own desk.

  He opens up his screens. A ripple in the numbers on the AIM catches his eye. New data whirls and drops in columns – the glimmer of a new pattern emerging. He forces himself to focus on the screen. There’s something going on here. He was right, the FTSE 100 is tumbling, and bank shares have taken a pounding since the news of Lehman Brothers’ demise. But for some reason the Small Cap, where his shares of choice are traded, is inching the other way. Oh, shit! Even as he watches, all the profits he made on short selling those South Yorkshire shares last week are washed away. He is haemorrhaging money. He makes a beeline for the disabled loo, to place a stop order. But it’s engaged. Oh, shit!

  He waits, pacing up and down on the trading floor which, interestingly, is the same colour as the rabbit-pooh-trodden carpet of Solidarity Hall. Strange how these patterns repeat. A few people look up and nod, but they’re all too fixed on their screens and keyboards to take much notice. It’s only mid-afternoon, but through the tall east-facing window the new moon is bobbing about like a paper boat on a turmoil of clouds.

  He has to decide, when he can get back in there, whether to stop his bets before they go any higher. Or should he hold, gambling on another fall? If he had the cash reserves, he could do what the big guys do – push them back downwards, with more focused short selling. Trouble is, he hasn’t even got the money in his account to cover what he already owes.

  But FATCA has. FATCA’s vaults are overflowing, and all those hyped-up traders obsessed with their Profit and Loss statements are pouring in more by the minute – he too has added his trickle of piss to the ocean of wealth. Yes, if FATCA could just lend him the money until he’s got himself out of this fix … If he could just temporarily charge his losses to FATCA …

  He resumes his pacing. Stop. Hold. Stop. Hold. Suddenly his shoe crunches on something hard. He looks down. A small, shiny brown shard is pressed into the carpet in front of his desk where Chicken had been leaning. It looks like … can it be … a cockroach? He recoils in revulsion. How the fuck did that get in here? He looks again. Is it an avatar? He pokes it with his foot. No, it’s not a cockroach – it’s a tiny USB flash drive. It must be his flash drive. He stares at it for a few seconds, then he picks it up and slips it into his pocket.

  DORO: Be realistic – demand the impossible

  Doro is filled with resentment as she trundles the vacuum cleaner around the house on Friday. Not only does she have to give up a fine afternoon on the allotment to talk to this bloody social worker about Oolie, but for some inexplicable reason she feels compelled to clean up the house before he comes. Her mother’s generation of women were supposed to find fulfilment in cleaning, but in Solidarity Hall it was such a hopeless task that all such ambition was scrubbed out of her.

  Marcus said he’d help, but he’s still upstairs on the computer and, when she goes up to fetch him, she finds he isn’t working at all but snoozing in his chair, his head lolling down on his chest, one hand still slumped on the keyboard. Seeing him like this she is struck by how much he has aged, how bowed his shoulders are, how grey his hair is and how thin on top. He must be almost seventy, a strange age to be talking about marriage. But kind of romantic. A wave of tenderness catches her off guard. He’s a good man, she thinks. She’s been lucky. She tiptoes away without disturbing him.

  Oolie is at Edenthorpe’s, where she will be until Edna the cafeteria manageress drops her off after five o’clock on her way home. She has a job in the cafeteria three days a week, collecting and washing the dirty dishes. The other two days she goes to college to learn literacy, numeracy and other survival skills with a peer group she has known almost all her life, and whom Doro knows too, because when they go on outings she often volunteers as an extra chaperone.

  When the social worker had first suggested the job at Edenthorpe’s cafeteria, Doro had smiled, remembering the last time she’d been up there, when she was handing out leaflets at the gate calling for a general strike. It must have been some thirty years ago, because Clara had been a baby, strapped on her back. The men had laughed and screwed up the leaflets, which she put down to false consciousness, and one of them had given Clara a toffee, which she’d snatched away, provoking a screaming fit. It was strange to think of Oolie working there, and outrageous that the pittance she was paid was subsidised by the Council.

  She misses the afternoons they used to spend together working on the allotment, happy interludes of purposeful activity and bonding. Oolie loves gardening, she’s in her element with her stubby little fingers stuck into the black compost and her cheeks rosy from the fresh air. But now, seeing Oolie come bouncing home at the end of each working day bubbling with stories about who said what and who’s copping off with whom has softened her attitude. Oolie saves up her money in a coffee tin and has started fantasising about how she will spend it. She’s got a collection of br
ochures of exotic places she plans to visit, her vocabulary has broadened to include previously unknown swear words, and she’s learned to tell fibs.

  The vacuum cleaner rasps and rattles as it picks up bits of invisible dirt from the carpet; if only it was so easy to suck up the debris and detritus that are clogging up her own life. It’s not even the housework that she finds wearisome so much as the coddling, cajoling, comforting, minding, mediating, massaging of egos – all that emotional work which women do, which no one recognises as work. Unless you’re a nurse or a social worker or a teacher, in which case your female socialisation has prepared you for a low-paid career in one of these undervalued professions. ‘Be the change you want to see’ taunts her from the fridge door. It sounds so easy, but then Gandhi had an army of women to run around after him and coddle him, and nothing to worry about except grand ideas like World Peace.

  She rummages in her drawer for a T-shirt with a suitable slogan, which she keeps for such occasions. Ah! This is the one for a social worker! ‘Be realistic – demand the impossible.’ She slips it on over her head, and notices with regret that her breasts, which used to push out ‘r’ and ‘t’ now hover above ‘m’ and ‘h’. (Her mother had been right about the ‘brazeer’, as about so much else.) A quick comb-through of her hair, and she’s already on her way downstairs when the doorbell rings.

  Mr Clements is a young plain-spoken Yorkshireman with a pleasant ruddy face framed by thick fair hair that sticks straight up from his forehead and blond stubble around his chin, which may be destined for a beard. He looks a bit like Clara’s previous boyfriend, Josh, who disappeared off the scene in circumstances which Clara refuses to discuss, and this causes Doro to feel a twinge of dissatisfaction with her daughter, who has not yet settled down with a suitable partner and shows no signs of producing the grandchildren that she yearns for.

  ‘Hiya, Mrs Lerner. How’s it going?’

  ‘Fine.’ She resents being called Mrs when she’s not married, and Lerner, which is Marcus’s name, instead of Marchmont, which is hers. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘Ta, duck. Milk but no sugar.’

  He seats himself at the kitchen table and shrugs off his blue denim jacket. Just to show him she’s not a person to be trifled with, she hands him his tea in a cracked and chipped ‘BATTLE OF ORGREAVE 1984 VETERANS’ mug, a relic of the miners’ strike.

  ‘Blimey, that was a long while ago.’ He takes a long sip and studies it with interest. ‘I was just a lad. I remember, my dad got arrested, and my mam thought it were the end of the world. But it spurred me on to do summat different with my life, instead of just going down the pit like everybody else.’ He pulls a file out of his briefcase. ‘So how’s Oolie-Anna been getting on at Edenthorpe’s?’

  ‘Fine.’

  Mr Clements nods, ticks a paper in his folder, and she’s grateful that he resists pointing out that the job was his idea, which she had strongly opposed at the time.

  ‘Yes, she’s a right character. Edna says she has them all in stitches.’

  ‘She enjoys the company,’ Doro admits grudgingly. She still finds it disconcerting to think of Oolie having relationships outside the family.

  ‘The next stage we have to think about is independent living, Mrs Lerner. A flat of her own.’

  ‘She’s not ready for it,’ Doro snaps back.

  Mr Clements shuffles the papers in his folder and takes another sip of tea.

  ‘You’re right to be concerned, Mrs Lerner. But in the long term it’ll be better for everybody if Oolie-Anna can spread her wings and learn to fly. Don’t you agree?’

  His cheeriness is relentless. Doro knows she’s being manoeuvred into saying yes.

  ‘We all want what’s best for her, Mr Clements, but we have different interpretations of her needs.’

  ‘So can I take that as a yes?’

  ‘No, you can’t. I know Oolie-Anna a lot better than you do.’

  She stares furiously across the table at the pink young face.

  ‘We have to plan for the possibility of kiddies with Down’s outliving their parents nowadays.’ His tone is unwaveringly upbeat. ‘We want to avoid the situation where they lose not just their parents but their familiar living environment at the same time. So we like to start the process of separation early –’

  ‘You think Marcus and I are going to croak any minute now?’ she interrupts, feeling the heat build up in her cheeks.

  Mr Clements, unruffled, drives home his advantage. Dealing with client rage is all part of his training.

  ‘That’s not what I’m saying, Mrs Lerner. On the contrary, we need to plan as far in advance as possible so we’re not caught out when … when you and your husband are no longer able to care.’

  He doesn’t raise his voice or deviate from his script. She wants to throttle him.

  ‘It’ll help if you can confront your fears, Mrs Lerner. If there’s any particular worries you have, we can discuss them. It’s natural for you and your hubby to feel concerned …’

  What else does he know, she wonders? Do the social services files of 1994 cross-refer with the police records of the day?

  ‘If it’s because we’re not married, we are actually planning –’

  ‘Your ages are the main factor we have to think about, Mrs Lerner – though of course that’s often the case with Down’s kiddies.’

  Doro resists the impulse to vomit all over his briefcase.

  ‘Oolie-Anna is not a kiddy.’

  ‘That’s just my point, Mrs Lerner. So shall I book us another meeting for next week, when you and your hubby’ve had a chance to talk it over?’

  He’s persistent, this boy.

  ‘No. That won’t be necessary.’

  She stands and frowns until he rises to his feet.

  ‘Well, I’d better be getting along. Thanks for the tea, Mrs Lerner.’

  He smiles, patient and confident. He thinks he’s making progress.

  After he’s gone, she sits at the kitchen table for several minutes. For some reason she feels utterly drained. On the wall in front of her, a clock is ticking away above a faded group photograph of the Solidarity Hall commune, taken in the back garden. Megan is in the photo, with Oolie, so it must have been sometime between 1985 and 1988. They all look so ridiculously young, the women with long untidy hair, the men with fluffy sideburns and moustaches, the children scruffy and mischievous. Where have all the years gone? She wishes she hadn’t been so aggressive with the young social worker – he didn’t deserve it, he means well, and actually he’s quite good at his job. She knows that her resistance to Oolie moving away must appear irrational to him, but she isn’t ready to unpack the carefully put-away past.

  Not yet.

  Marcus comes down and slips an arm around her shoulder – he must have heard the front door click.

  ‘Okay?’

  ‘Okay. How’s the book going?’ she asks.

  ‘Great. I’ve finished the analysis of the left and I’m just about to start on the role of the women’s movement.’ His eyes brighten.

  ‘Mm.’ She sits forward, trying to look interested, but her mind is still replaying the conversation with the social worker, snagging at the points at which she should have said something different.

  ‘I’m coming to realise just how important feminism is in the history of our movement.’ He glances up at Doro, and his eyes soften. ‘Maybe you could write that chapter, love. From the woman’s perspective.’

  Doro tries to think about feminism, but all that comes to mind is an image from long ago of a handful of Moira Lafferty’s auburn hair clutched in her fist. She reaches out and squeezes his hand, realising she’s being offered a great honour, but the earlier feeling of exhaustion and resentment has congealed like cold porridge around her heart.

  ‘You write it, dear. I’m sure you know much more about it.’

  He wanders through into the kitchen to put the kettle on.

  ‘So how d’you get on with the social worker?’
/>
  Doro gives the leg of the chair where Mr Clements was sitting a petulant kick.

  ‘He’s determined to get Oolie into that bloody sheltered housing scheme. He’ll go on and on till he gets his way.’

  ‘That might not be such a bad idea, you know, love.’

  He fishes in his cup for the submerged tea bag, and squeezes it with his fingers.

  ‘Have you forgotten the kids throwing bricks at her, Marcus? Have you forgotten the fire? She’s too vulnerable. No.’

  What she doesn’t say is that out of all the chaos, fun and disappointment of the commune, Oolie is her surprise accomplishment, even more than Clara and Serge, the unsteady twinkling star who illuminates those years.

  SERGE: The Gaussian copula

  By the time Serge gets into the disabled loo to place his stop order, he’s already £40,000 down.

  Back at his desk, he starts to feel panicky about the scale of his losses. But the little brown cockroach that will see him right is nestling in his pocket. He’ll copy it on to his hard drive when he gets home. The more he thinks of it, the more it seems like a sign: the Mersenne prime; the wanton tango of the market; the cockroach capsule of information. They must be linked together.

  He doesn’t believe in destiny or karma or any other mystical mumbo-jumbo – the commune inoculated him against all that – but he does believe in patterns. He’s seen them with his own eyes, intricate beautiful patterns, configured out of apparently random events. He knows that chance is seldom as random as it seems – chance and its close cousin, risk.

  What is the risk that Chicken will come back, looking for his lost memory stick? What is the risk he’ll find out if Serge downloads his data? Will the risks be offset if he sets up a decoy, by dropping the stick next to someone else’s desk? Or is it best to gamble that Chicken won’t find out at all? Actually, there is a formula for figuring out these complex risks. It’s the Gaussian copula, beloved of derivatives analysts.