by Lia Weston
‘But June was trying to change me.’
‘Was she?’ says Dad.
‘She told an agent I’d give them a call. We hadn’t even discussed it.’ I’m chagrined to hear how much I sound like a fifteen year old. She never let me have any fun. I wish I’d never been born.
‘Maybe that was just how you were interpreting it. Did you try to talk to her about it?’
If what I said when I dumped her counts, then yes. I stay sulkily mute.
‘You have to talk, Tom. Communication is the key to a happy relationship.’
The hallway door bangs open. ‘WILL YOU GO AND TELL YOUR DAUGHTER TO TURN THAT MUSIC OFF?’ screams Mum.
‘Or so I’ve heard,’ says Dad.
Gen is at the kitchen island, glued to her iPad, feet dangling. In concession to Mum, she’s got headphones jammed in her ears.
Behind her, the patio’s hanging baskets of fuchsias sway as the post-downpour breeze buffets the windows. The fruit trees in the backyard glitter with CDs, hung to deter birds. A rosella, a giant plum clutched in its claws, is using Sade’s Greatest Hits as a swing.
There’s bread in the fridge and chia seed jam, which I hope like hell has some kind of sugar in it because if I don’t eat some soon, I’ll probably drop dead.
‘Are you staying for dinner?’ says Mum. ‘I’m making Tuscan stew.’
I load a piece of bread with jam and squash it into my mouth. ‘Fakig Yen oud.’ I swallow. ‘Taking Gen out.’
‘Genevieve, take off your headphones, please,’ says Mum, pulling tinned tomatoes out of the pantry.
Gen, who probably can’t hear her, wiggles her feet and continues frowning at the screen and typing.
‘I’ve got a meeting,’ says Dad, coming to the doorway of the kitchen with Wheezer draped over one arm. ‘Sorry. I forgot to tell you.’
‘On a Sunday?’ says Mum. ‘Fine. I’ll have dinner by myself.’ She whacks a knife through the onion on the chopping board. ‘And that cat’s not supposed to be in the kitchen.’ She snatches Wheezer, who immediately starts wriggling, and marches off to the laundry.
Dad turns to me. ‘I think it would be best if you called June.’
‘I don’t want to call June.’
‘I know, but sometimes you have to do things you don’t want.’
We can hear Mum bashing around in the laundry, probably attempting to cram Wheezer into the washing machine.
‘It would be the right thing to do,’ Dad continues.
I throw the knife back in the jam jar. ‘Would it?’
He has the grace to look uncomfortable. There’s a lot more I could say, but I don’t because of Gen. There are certain things she doesn’t need to know.
‘Gen, for God’s sake, take out your headphones.’ Mum strides back into the kitchen and yanks out one of her earbuds.
Gen belts Mum’s arm away, hard. It’s so reflexively quick, the sound hangs in the air.
There’s a stunned silence. Both of them look horrified, as if an alien force has invaded the room.
‘Okay, we’re going out now.’ I pick my sister up off her seat and carry her, earbud trailing, out of the kitchen like a puppy that hasn’t been house-trained.
The house is silent as I shut the door behind us.
‘Do that thing you do,’ says Gen.
We’re perched on cracked vinyl chairs in the foyer of our favourite movie theatre. It’s classic Art Deco – delineated lines and curves, black and gold stairs, pink tiling, uncomfortable seats, diamond shapes everywhere. Gen loves the peeling plaster and thousand-year-old staff because, quite frankly, she’s a weird kid. Sundays are Classic Movie Night, which guarantees that she hasn’t seen anything they’re offering. The theatre also grudgingly conceded to getting a popcorn machine last year, so it’s now Gen’s idea of heaven.
I scan the people wandering in and out. ‘First date, that’s an easy one.’ I point to the couple who haven’t yet worked out where each other’s physical boundaries are. ‘Those two have had a fight, and the one in the blue coat is cheating.’ Two guys with matching haircuts are behaving civilly but are directing their conversation at each other’s throats. ‘They’re together,’ I point at two more people who are standing side by side at the ticket window.
‘Noooo,’ breathes Gen, staring at the pensioner with the comb-over and the bespectacled girl in her twenties. ‘Are you sure he’s not her grandpa?’
I look at their feet, their shoulders, their hips. ‘Yup.’ The last is always a dead giveaway.
‘Gross.’ Gen stuffs more popcorn into her mouth. ‘Do you think you’re psychic?’
‘Because I know things about people?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m just good at watching, that’s all. Mouths say one thing, bodies say another. If you watch enough people, you start to work it out.’
‘So what’s wrong with Mum?’
‘No idea. It seems to be easier to tell things about strangers.’ I eat some popcorn. ‘Though Dad’s fairly transparent.’
‘What about me?’ Gen tries to look mysterious.
‘Your name is Stephanie Du Claire, undercover agent for the French secret service. You enjoy pottery-making, bog snorkelling and Serbian folk music.’
‘I wish.’ She slumps back into position. ‘Did Mum tell you her channel hit a million subscribers?’
‘Is that why you punched her?’
Gen studies the carpet’s grey and black feather pattern. ‘She’s so bitchy at the moment.’
‘You know that’s not an answer.’ I centre my popcorn box on my quads and hope that some of the residual warmth will help with muscle recovery. (It won’t, but I’m an optimist.)
‘Dad says Mum needs an assistant.’
‘She does.’
‘Brie says Mum’s having a midlife crisis.’
‘Who’s Brie?’
‘A friend.’
There’s something spring-loaded behind the word. I replay the incident in the kitchen, how quickly Gen hit back without thinking, and file it away.
The five-minute bell dings.
‘Come on, Miss Du Claire.’ I manage to stand. (As predicted, the popcorn was no help.)
Gen shakes popcorn kernels out of her hair. We head up the stairs behind the pensioner and his girlfriend, just in time to see his gnarled hand gently cupping her bum. Gen makes an OMG face at me.
I pinch some of her popcorn. ‘Told you.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘I scrubbed it for half an hour. It made no difference at all.’
Tarik and Felicity are almost nose to nose at reception. Don’t worry, they’re not flirting. They just have similar hobbies.
‘Did you soak it first?’ says Tarik. ‘If you don’t soak it, phhfft, no point. Other way is to use white bread.’
For a man who works in a basement, Tarik is always dressed immaculately. He’s the only person I’ve ever seen who seems naturally suited to wearing spats.
‘I don’t have white bread,’ says Felicity, as if he’s suggested using heroin.
‘What’s this about bread?’ I say.
‘Lipstick stain,’ says Tarik. ‘She threw out a perfectly good dress, can you believe?’
‘I hope it wasn’t that blue dress,’ says Kain, clomping down the stairs. ‘You know, the one with the . . .’ He paws, horribly, at groin level. ‘. . . skirt thing.’
We all stare at him.
Kain harrumphs and turns to clomp back up again. ‘Tom, I need to see you in my office.’
‘Good thing you are not wearing a skirt,’ says Tarik once Kain’s out of earshot.
Kain shuts the office door behind us. Filing cabinets to the left of me, kids’ drawings to the right. And one ginger-topped blowhard in front. There’s a faint sourness lurking underneath his musky aftershave, as if he’s trying to mask something else. You know how teenage boys think that Lynx makes up for not showering? Yeah, that.
‘I hope you’ve had a chance to consider your position over the weekend
,’ says Kain, settling back behind his desk but not offering me a seat. I take one anyway. There are four full in-trays in front of him but no out-trays, which makes me suspect that Kain, once finished with his paperwork, eats it.
‘I have considered my position,’ I say.
‘Excellent.’ He opens a drawer, pulls out a folder and drops it in front of me. ‘Give that to Felicity after you’ve signed it.’
‘My position is that we’re not going to the cloud.’
It only takes three seconds for his ears to change colour. He’s like a giant chameleon. They should give him his own exhibit at the zoo. ‘And might I ask why?’
‘Security.’
Kain addresses me as if I’m a very tall toddler. ‘You do know what “encryption” means, don’t you?’
‘I know that banks use it. And PayPal. And iCloud. And a whole bunch of other cloud platforms that have had data breaches.’ I pause. ‘You do know what a “data breach” is, don’t you?’
‘Now you’re just being deliberately obstinate.’
‘I don’t want our customers’ information online. End of story.’
‘Look, Tom.’ He sits forward and makes a pyramid shape with his beefy hands. ‘I know it can seem scary if you don’t know anything about technology –’
‘What the f –’
‘– and I know that you’re very good at twiddling a mouse around and making nice photographs, but this is big-picture stuff here. Besides, IF’s hardly going to be a target. Do you honestly believe that “hackers” –’ (Those air quotes again, I swear to God.) ‘– are going to be interested in our albums?’
‘So you wouldn’t mind if it was your information. You’d be fine for complete strangers to download pictures of your kids.’ I watch Kain’s colourless eyelashes quiver. ‘All those holiday snaps at the beach, all those candid shots at home. That wouldn’t bother you.’
‘No one would be interested in my photos.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that.’
He’s staring at the desk now, eyes darting.
I stand and turn to go.
‘You know,’ Kain says, ‘just once it would be helpful if you took a new idea on board instead of pooh-poohing it instantly. It’s like dealing with a child. It’s pathetic.’
I was all set to ignore him until that last part. I wheel in the doorway. Kain shrinks against the black leather of his chair and then pretends he didn’t.
‘What the hell did you just say?’
He lifts his chin but he’s blinking rapidly.
I advance on the desk. ‘No, really, repeat what you just said.’
‘Everything okay?’ Rohan strolls in.
‘This guy.’ I point at Kain. ‘This. Guy. How did we end up with this guy again?’
‘Because he’s extremely good with performance metrics, and neither you nor I know how depreciation works. Come on, I need to talk to you.’
The only reason I don’t staple Kain’s head to the desk is because no stapler in the world is big enough.
Rohan Hill used to live off service-station hot dogs and frozen spring rolls. His flat permanently smelled like cabbage. As IF began to take shape, however, so did Ro. He traded hoodies for shirts, schnitzels for smoothies. Now he has a dedicated tie drawer in his office as well as a set of TRX straps so he can bust out some pull-ups whenever he’s not feeling buff enough.
It’s probably not surprising that we don’t hang out as much as we used to.
We’re at the kind of cafe that has chairs tied to the ceiling and no punctuation on the menu. Rohan orders a coconut water, proving that one man’s embalming fluid is another man’s ambrosia. The staff here know him by name. The menu here is sugar-free, gluten-free and dairy-free, so they probably know my mum by name too.
‘I take it you’re not a fan of the cloud proposal,’ he says.
‘That’s because –’
‘Hold that thought, Tom.’ He calls back to the kitchen, ‘Can I have that tahini dressing on the side?’ This is a guy who once worked out how to deep-fry a chip sandwich.
I look around for some sweetener to add to my coffee, but there isn’t any. ‘Going to the cloud is idiotic.’
‘It’s more secure than having everything on-site.’
‘Except if it goes down. What then?’
Rohan takes a sip of water. ‘Then we just work off the on-site backups.’
‘Then what’s the point of the cloud?’
‘Faster processing time, simple as that. You know yourself how huge the files are that you’re working with, especially the layered ones and that’s most of them. If they’re on the cloud, you won’t have to sit and wait for them to load. Productivity increases. Mica complains less. The access is easier –’
‘To anybody, which is my point.’
‘Hacks are rare, and getting rarer.’ The gap between his pant leg and leather shoe shows a dark crimson cashmere sock. New Rohan likes tactile fabrics. Old Rohan knew two materials: denim and tracksuit.
‘Ro, we’ve got identifiable client files. Names, addresses. Bigger than that, we’ve got their secret lives. Pictures of other people. How would you take it if someone had that kind of information on you?’
Rohan smiles. ‘I’ve got nothing to hide.’
‘But some of our clients do.’
‘You’re worried about nothing. Quite honestly, there’s a bigger risk that someone sends a Here’s your invoice email to Felicity, who clicks it, and then we’re infected with ransomware.’
‘She’s not that stupid.’
‘Okay, what if the building burns down? We lose everything if that happens. If it’s in the cloud, it’s safe from external events.’
‘Wait, don’t we take backups off-site?’
Rohan shrugs. ‘Do I look like I know? That’s Alex’s department.’
I half-expect Alex to materialise at the sound of his name. If Ro asked him out to lunch, he’d probably explode.
The waiter puts down our lunches.
‘Beetroot salad. Nice choice,’ says Rohan, looking at my plate. ‘Did you know beets help clean your colon?’
Something in his comment reminds me. ‘I want Kain gone from the client meetings. He weirds people out.’
Rohan dips his fork into the ceramic pot of beige, which I assume is tahini. He gives a small nod to acknowledge that this is more about me than our clients. ‘I’ll talk to him. If you consider the cloud.’
‘Sure.’
I have no intention of doing that, but Rohan doesn’t need to know it yet.
I haven’t read the brief for the next client meeting, but as soon I enter the room I know what it’s for.
A couple in their late thirties. Dry-clean-only clothes. Sun damage on the man’s cheeks, but almost none on the backs of his hands – a cyclist. The woman is or was a dancer. They’re both greyhound lean; partially grief, mostly genetics.
Kain isn’t here, thank Christ.
After I sit down, Rohan begins the welcome speech, addressing both clients equally, staying conscious of keeping his movements open. He’s getting better at mirroring body language; he’s far more formal today than usual, and is keeping his palms in plain sight, classic behavioural technique stuff. Regardless, this guy isn’t buying it. It’s mostly because he just needs someone to dislike at the moment; the book is clearly his wife’s idea.
We have done a few of these jobs now, but I still can’t get used to them. No one saw them coming. I could feel what the first client wanted, even if she couldn’t say it. I sat across from her, please don’t, please don’t, please don’t ask me to do this.
She cried at the finished product. I went to the pub for the rest of the day.
Now I approach this work like a mortician prepares a body – respectfully, carefully, kindly. Don’t think about it too much.
The furniture in IF’s client rooms is designed to mimic touch: everything curves, textures change. Agitated people always seek edges. I watch people’s fingertips automatically
find fault lines in the material. This man is unconsciously rubbing a seam in the armrest.
Rohan has refined his spiel, positioning IF as part of the natural cycle of grief – creating a future for a child who will never have one.
The woman folds her hands on her knees as Rohan speaks. There’s a photo clasped in her fingers, a little girl around four, balloons in the background. The edges of the picture are heavily creased; it’ll be the last one they have of her. I straighten up; my lungs feel cramped.
‘You’re in excellent hands with Tom, the head of our creative department.’
The woman’s eyes flick to me. I give her a reassuring smile, which she returns out of habit, just briefly. Something is sticking a brightly coloured paw out of her bag. The toy is new; the girl is not their only child. That’s something, at least, but still cold comfort.
Rohan hands over a showcase book for the couple to look at, and we wait as they turn the pages. A little girl grows up before their eyes, hitting all the wish-list moments: university, twenty-first birthday, trip to Europe, well-paying job, wedding, more little girls. Her features stay recognisable throughout, still with a dimple in her left cheek and a sweet, lopsided grin. It is my work, one of our best pieces, and a very convincing argument.
We only chronicle the child’s life up to their theoretical forties, so they never get old. The point is to give them everlasting life, suspended against illness and accident, not to remind the parents that he or she would have died at some point anyway.
The pain radiates around the couple. I can feel it leaking towards me. Look at their feet, look at their nails. The man has moved his hand to his wife’s back, sitting close as she touches the book. She stops on one page. He continues tracing her shoulder blades.
I can see the bones of her chest above the buttons of her shirt, and try to imagine her picking up a toddler’s weight. Her muscles tighten as she stays on the page, and I drop my gaze to her shoes instead. They’re new. She likes the way they compress her toes to the point of pain.