I could calculate the probability that the seniors centre would be sold and compare it with the probability it would not be sold. Whichever probability was higher was the more likely outcome. And if one was significantly higher than the other, it was safe—or safe-ish—to assume that one would occur.
The only challenge was to identify the variables in each scenario. The outcomes were different but what were the factors that determined them?
I had to think about that for a while but once I realised, it was obvious. Like all the best theories, it was very simple: what differed was the people involved, specifically the beneficiaries.
The people were either:
I = Important (the mayor, Don)
N = Not important (senior citizens, participants of homework club, etc.)
For the scenario in which the seniors centre was sold:
Beneficiaries = I
Non-beneficiaries = N
For the scenario in which the seniors centre was not, the converse was true.
Beneficiaries = N
Non-beneficiaries = I
It wasn’t hard to argue that the probability of important people being victorious was much higher than the probability of unimportant people being victorious:
Pr (I) >> Pr (N)
Once I realised that, I felt better about attending the working bee. The mayor wouldn’t mind, nor would Don. I was helping out in a futile activity. It wouldn’t change what was going to happen.
Now, as Celia rested her arm along the open window, tapping her fingers, I explained my theory. ‘The reason you won’t be able to save the centre is because you, and to a lesser extent me, are not important. You’re nobodies and nobodies don’t get listened to.’
Celia seemed to take great offence at the word nobody. ‘That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.’
‘I’ve done the calculations. It’s like I told Jin-Jin the first time we met, at homework club.’
‘Actually, we’d met before that,’ said Jin-Jin. ‘By the communal bins?’
‘You can’t predict exactly what’s going to happen in the future,’ I said, ‘but you can get an idea of what might happen or what’s most likely to happen. It’s like flipping a coin: you can’t say it’ll be heads or tails but you can say half the time it should land on heads and the other half on tails. This is the same. Numerically, the probability of stopping the centre being closed is low. Very, very low.’
Though my calculations and underlying assumptions were correct and neither of them had completed a bachelor’s degree majoring in mathematics, they still felt qualified to argue.
‘That doesn’t make sense,’ said Celia.
‘Which bit? Probability theory or how I worked out the end result? It’s easier if I show you on paper, isn’t it, Jin-Jin?’ I tried to catch Jin-Jin’s eye in the rear-view mirror but she didn’t look at me.
I was annoyed. I expected more from her.
‘This is exactly what I was saying before,’ said Celia. ‘These days people have no idea what’s important. Their values are all wrong.’
Was she that naive? I’d checked the values. Double- and triple-checked them. ‘Look,’ I said. ‘Importance is made up of four things: status, career, money and personal connections. If you want to maximise the probability of success you need to maximise each of those things and that’s what I did. I explored different options and got figures for each. It took a bit of time, let me tell you.’
Celia turned to look at Jin-Jin. They exchanged a knowing look. ‘There’s more to life than money,’ said Celia.
It was as though she wasn’t listening at all. Hadn’t I just said there was status and career and personal connections? I started to go over it again but she interrupted to list a range of things she thought were important, ignoring the fact that none of them were measurable.
‘Fairness? Happiness?’ I said. ‘I can’t calculate those things.’ It was getting hot in the car. I turned the air conditioning on. ‘All I’m saying is, the probability of closure is high, very high. High enough to be considered certain.’
Celia went to argue but Jin-Jin piped up from the back. ‘Based on probabilities, you said I wouldn’t break up with Lee.’
‘It had a lower likelihood, yes. But like I said, you can’t actually predict—’
‘Ha! See. You can’t predict.’
I clicked the wrong blinker on; I was getting flustered. The way they were cherry-picking my arguments made it difficult to concentrate. ‘And anyway, Jin-Jin, you gave me crappy data. Can’t calculate anything with crappy data.’
‘What if your data’s crappy?’ said Jin-Jin.
‘It isn’t, though, is it? Look, I’m only trying to help. I don’t want people to get their hopes up, that’s all.’
They wouldn’t listen; they were impossible. The two of them were being wilfully ignorant. I said nothing further on the subject.
±
There were dozens of people at the senior citizens centre and they weren’t all old. Everyone from homework club was there too, out in the blazing sun, wheeling barrows, sweeping leaves into piles and picking up rubbish.
Inside, Gladys, Betsy and others were sorting things for a market stall. It was Gladys’s idea: she wanted to sell everything that wasn’t being used: chairs, books, other ‘trash and treasure’.
Celia poked through a box of random cutlery. ‘Trash and trash, more like it.’
‘No harm in trying, Celia. And besides, it’s retro. Everything old is new again.’
‘I’m old,’ said Celia.
‘All right, not everything.’
Charlie appeared, holding a pile of books so tall he was resting his chin on the top. Vera was behind him. Charlie kept his chin in place, moving his upper head to ask Celia if he could keep them.
‘One book,’ said Vera. ‘If it’s okay with Celia, you can have one book.’
Charlie glared at her and hissed, ‘Mum.’
‘What? You have thousands of books. We’re literally going to drown in old books.’
Charlie’s glare intensified. ‘You’re using the word literally wrong.’
‘Charlie.’
‘You are. Isn’t she, Germaine?’
I didn’t want to be the official adjudicator, but when Vera turned her back I gave Charlie a tiny nod. Correct.
Celia started telling everyone what they had to do. Vera was to help paint outside, Gladys was to continue sorting items for the market stall, Betsy should start cooking morning tea and lunch for all the volunteers. Celia and Charlie were going to supervise the garden clean-up. I offered to help them.
‘No, Germaine,’ said Celia. ‘We have a special job for you.’
I didn’t like the sound of that.
Betsy said, ‘Follow me,’ and led me to the office where there was a large pile of paper on the desk. They were James’s pension forms: he’d made copies, Betsy explained. ‘Now, I know you said you tried calling already, but guess what? The department’s phone line is open until 2 pm on Saturdays. Do you mind?’
33
I sat in the office at the desk in front of the window. Outside I could hear everyone having fun and enjoying themselves. Inside it was stuffy and cold.
I knew the department’s number off by heart by now, and most of their recorded selections. I pushed 3, 2, 4 and then had to hold again.
This time the music wasn’t soothing. It was an irritating mix of electronica. Why couldn’t they play something more interesting, or have someone read out fun facts?
I started feeling lonely. I’d been holding the phone receiver to my ear but my arm was getting tired so I balanced it on the table and lowered my head onto it.
I kept holding. Listening. Having worked in the industry I knew it was inevitable a caller would have to wait; you couldn’t expect to be answered straight away. But you could expect to be answered eventually.
After a while there was a ringing sound. I picked up James’s form, ready to inform them of their mistake. Only it wa
s a recorded message:
Press 1 for family payments…Press 2 for income reporting.
Somehow I was back at the start. I had to press 3 again for pension payments, then 2 for outstanding payments, then 4 for an operator. Or rather, 4 for more hold music. This happened twice more. Seemed I was stuck in a circular loop, a kind of never-ending, electronic maze. I wanted to throttle the phone. Or the person who designed the flow on which the automated system had been based.
Meanwhile, there was a delicious smell in the air. Morning tea. Some kind of biscuit was being distributed. Anzacs? Butter? Melting moments? Eva would have known.
Eva. She didn’t know many things but she would have known that. All at once, I remembered what else she’d claimed to know: how to short-circuit the automated system and go straight to an operator—Ha. How ridiculous. It wasn’t possible. That wasn’t how the system worked.
And yet.
What was the code? Star…star…
‘Great biscuits, Betsy,’ I said. Not only were they butter, but she’d remembered me, in the office, on my own. Just as I hung up from the Department of Social Services, having sorted James’s pension payments, she came in with a pot, two mugs and a little tray of golden biscuits.
She put the tea strainer on one of the mugs. ‘Thanks for calling them. I know it’s a pain but you guys are better at it than us; I never get to speak to anyone. James’ll be so pleased.’
‘It’s easy once you know the trick.’ I picked up another biscuit. ‘Actually, Eva told me how.’
‘Eva? I knew she’d done it before.’ This was essentially an I told you so but the way Betsy said it, it didn’t sound like one.
In fact, I found myself freely admitting that Eva had told me ages ago how to bypass the recordings but I hadn’t believed her. ‘Eva’s so…’ I wasn’t sure of the word. I had a few words that were applicable but I didn’t want to use them in front of Betsy. She was nice to everyone; I wanted to at least appear to be the same way. ‘I made a mistake,’ I said.
‘Everyone makes mistakes.’ Betsy moved the tea strainer to the other mug.
‘Well, that was my last one. From now on, I’m not making any more.’
‘I don’t know. They’re not the worst things.’
‘What mistakes have you made?’ I asked. Hardly any, I bet.
‘I’ve made mistakes,’ Betsy assured me. ‘But some of them were worth making.’
That didn’t make sense. How could a mistake be worth making? Wasn’t that why you called it a mistake, because you got something wrong?
‘It’s like this chutney I made. With ginger? I thought I’d try something new but it turned out to be a real flop. That was last year. Needless to say, I didn’t get a ribbon.’ Betsy finished pouring the tea and put the pot down.
‘Bet you regretted that,’ I said.
She surprised me by saying no. ‘I wanted to try something different. I was willing to take a chance.’
‘Risking big to win big. You’d make a good gambler, Betsy.’
‘No, it wasn’t that. It’s more…I guess you have to pick what—or how—you want to win. Like, I could have made my normal chutney and done very well but I didn’t want to.’
That was easy to say if you won things all the time. If you didn’t, every competition was much more important. Anyway, winning was not just enjoyable, it was an efficiency: a kind of shorthand for showing people how great you were.
I sipped the tea, watching her over the top of the mug.
‘You’re pretty famous, you know.’
This was a fact. She hadn’t just won CWA competitions one year; she’d won several years in a row. Betsy had articles online and in magazines about her, with her own recipes listed. She’d even been on TV for a while, on a cooking show.
‘None of it’s real,’ she said. ‘I mean, it’s great. It’s nice and all that, but it doesn’t mean anything.’
‘Have you ever cheated?’
‘No.’
‘Have you ever thought about cheating?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
She made a face: I don’t know.
‘Maybe you’re afraid of getting caught,’ I said.
‘Maybe.’ She didn’t look like she thought this was the answer.
‘What would you do if you did get caught?’
‘Don’t know. Probably apologise. Probably be mortified and spend a lot of time trying to make up for behaving so appallingly.’
That was an interesting approach. But Betsy was an anomaly: she was unusually nice.
Betsy swirled her tea, and drank the last of it. Then she looked in her cup like she was going to read the leaves, but there were no leaves, as she’d strained them out. ‘Like I said, Germaine, everyone makes mistakes. It’s what you do after that counts.’
‘What did you do after the ginger chutney? Did you go back to making normal chutney?’
‘No. I kept working on it and now I’m pretty close to the final recipe.’
Late in the afternoon, when most people had gone home, Celia called the committee (and Jin-Jin) together to talk. The topic for discussion was the ‘income stream’ Celia had mentioned in the car.
‘The working bee’s all well and good but we need money, ladies. And Tom. Any ideas?’
The ideas were few and few between. The good ones were particularly sparsely distributed.
Gladys mentioned her market stall and Jin-Jin talked about something called ‘crowd funding’. Then Betsy suggested a cake stall. This wasn’t the worst idea that had been put forward but by then Celia had had enough. She was very scathing. ‘A cake stall? Come on, Betsy.’
Betsy got upset. She seemed to take Celia’s opposition as a reflection on her cooking skills. Gladys stuck up for her. ‘I think Betsy’s cakes would do very well. Have you had her banana bread? It’s excellent.’
‘It is good.’ Celia was in angry-sounding agreement. ‘But we need fifty thousand dollars, Gladys. We’re not going to make it baking cookies.’
I didn’t offer my opinion but I knew Celia was right. The money for cakes and biscuits was in bulk sales and distribution. A couple of one-off stalls wouldn’t have a) the economies of scale or b) sufficient total turnover.
Jin-Jin, who obviously didn’t understand basic economics, thought it was a great idea. ‘I’ve got a very good Japanese cheesecake recipe,’ she said.
Celia pressed her fingers to her temples. ‘We’re not doing a cake stall.’ It was a large room but her voice managed to fill it. Everyone went silent.
While they were quiet I offered some helpful advice. ‘If you’re going to think of something, you better do it quick. Time’s running out. The mayor’s going to announce the closure at the mayoral ball.’
‘That’s next month,’ said Gladys.
Exactly, I thought. It was the perfect moment to ensure they understood the futility of the situation. But I felt my previous efforts had been underappreciated. No, I wasn’t going to put myself out.
‘The other thing we can do,’ said Celia, ‘is go to the papers. Try and get something in there about how important this place is. Maybe we can take some photos, try and drum up some sympathy.’
The papers? Interesting. I tuned out for a moment to think about it.
In my calculations I had assumed the status of unimportant (and, indeed, important) people were constants. But what if these were, in fact, variables? In harnessing the power of ‘the media’ unimportant people might be elevated in their importance. And vice versa.
‘I’ve drafted something,’ said Celia. ‘It’s short but contains all the pertinent information. What I’ve said is that the council is “secretly moving” to get rid of the senior citizens centre. Can I say “unscrupulous”? Too much? I was going to use “debauched” but I don’t want to come off as a loon. And so many people have a limited vocabulary these days.’
If status changed over time then it couldn’t be represented as a single figure, rather a function…This was very
subversive, part of an alternative paradigm. I couldn’t quite…
‘We’ve tried that before,’ said Betsy. ‘They’ve never been receptive.’
‘No, they wouldn’t be.’ I was thinking out aloud. ‘Not unless you had proof something sinister was going on. And I am not doing anything to hurt Don.’
‘Don?’ Celia’s face scrunched, the way it did whenever his name was mentioned. ‘Who said anything about Don?’
‘If he buys this place he shouldn’t be punished for it.’
‘If he what?’
Oh, dear.
They were all wide-eyed. It was very disconcerting, their level of interest in this piece of information. Had I made another mistake? Or was I just about to? I tried to backpedal. ‘Look, I don’t know anything…I didn’t say…I think we should go ahead with the cake stall.’
‘Germaine.’ Celia’s voice was calm. ‘Is this place being sold to Don Thomas?’
I blew out my cheeks. ‘The mayor said that could happen. It was possible.’
They all exchanged looks, multiple looks in multiple directions, like tram tracks at a confusing intersection.
‘I knew it,’ said Celia. ‘Haven’t I said all along that was happening?’
‘Is that nepotism?’ said Gladys.
‘I’d say corruption,’ said Betsy. ‘I’m no expert, though.’
I was willing to admit it sounded curious but that was all I was willing to admit. ‘How much do you know about coincidences?’ I said.
Celia ignored this, pressing for more information about the sale. ‘Did the mayor tell you that verbally or via email?’
‘Verbally? I might have misheard.’
‘I’m sure there’ll be something in a file somewhere.’ Celia was getting excited. They were all getting excited; there was a palpable spike in energy. ‘You guys have lots of files. Don’t you.’
‘Not that many…And the archiving system is not documented…You can never find what you’re looking for.’ I shouldn’t have said anything. Even if…which it wasn’t… Besides, all the files were confidential, I couldn’t leak the information. That wouldn’t be fair on the mayor. She was the only person who’d ever believed in me.
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