Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind Read online

  PRAISE FOR ANNE CHARNOCK’S

  A CALCULATED LIFE

  Shortlisted for the 2013 Philip K. Dick and Kitschies Golden Tentacle Awards

  “Charnock is a subtle world builder . . . for readers who want a smart, subtle exploration of human emotion and intelligence, this is an excellent choice.” —Alix E. Harrow, Strange Horizons

  “Charnock has fascinating, complex things to say about work, sex, family and hope . . . What she shares with (Philip K.) Dick is the ability to write unease . . . a very noteworthy book.” —Adam Roberts, author of Jack Glass, winner of the 2012 BSFA Best Novel Award

  “This is a story beautifully and simply narrated, the language economical but evocative, and it remains compelling without ever resorting to sensationalism. A coming-of-age tale exploring what it means to be human, it kept me gripped to the end.” —E. J. Swift, author of The Osiris Project trilogy

  “This story puts us inside one of the most interesting perspectives I’ve encountered in recent fiction. Jayna’s perspective is so unique that I would happily have followed her anywhere, and, as a consequence, the cleverness of this plot almost snuck up on me. A smart, stylish, emotionally compelling book with literary richness and sci-fi smarts.” —Susan DeFreitas, author of Pyrophitic

  “Gets the grey matter firing . . . Such easily accessible yet intelligent fiction can be quite a rarity, and one to be savored.” —The Taichung Bookworm

  “There is a degree of elegance in the uncluttered prose that Charnock wields to introduce optimism into a pessimistic view of the future.” —Tzer Island

  “Charnock [being] an astute observer herself, what results is an inquiry into feminism and society that will make the reader truly pause to compare their own experiences and perceptions.” —Speculiction

  “A Calculated Life, by Anne Charnock, is one of those books that while overtly science fiction is really a great insight into humanity today. Ultimately . . . this book is more about human emotion and intelligence than it is about the future: And it’s that exploration that makes this such a compelling work.” —Geek in Sydney

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2015 Anne Charnock

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by 47North, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and 47North are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503950436

  ISBN-10: 1503950433

  Cover design by M. S. Corley

  In memory of Mabel and Betty

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  AUTHOR’S HISTORICAL NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  EXCERPT: A Calculated Life

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  My ears are wearied by your carping. You brashly and publicly not merely wonder but indeed lament that I am said to possess as fine a mind as nature ever bestowed upon the most learned man. You seem to think that so learned a woman has scarcely before been seen in the world. You are wrong on both counts . . . I am a school girl, possessed of the sleeping embers of an ordinary mind.

  Laura Cereta

  January 13, 1488

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  Antonia Uccello (1456–1490) is described on her death certificate as a pittoressa—a painter. Her father, Paolo Uccello, was a pioneer of linear perspective in the early Renaissance. None of Antonia’s work has, as yet, come to light.

  CHAPTER ONE

  London, 2113

  Toniah drops three jasmine dragon pearls into her tall porcelain mug. She pours water, just off the boil, spilling it as she glances across at her sister, Poppy, and Poppy’s new boyfriend. They sit, staring ahead, both checking their retinal mail, at the end of the long kitchen table. Toniah grabs a tea towel to wipe the spillage, but she knocks the mug. It tips over and cracks. A surge of weak tea floods across the kitchen worktop, sweeping the jasmine pearls and flakes of breakfast cereal over the edge, onto the oak floor.

  “Sorry, sorry. I’ve got it.” She crouches down and wipes the cupboard doors.

  Poppy groans. “Shame. Is it broken?”

  Toniah stands and holds up a shard of Botticelli’s Venus—her left eye and three locks of windswept golden hair. “My favourite mug.”

  “Meet Ben, by the way,” says Poppy. He looks across at Toniah and smiles broadly. She smiles back at him.

  She finishes mopping the floor, makes a second mug of tea and takes it to the far end of the table. She wonders if Ben has stayed over before. He looks brawnier than her sister’s usual type. The way he sits, leaning forward with his forearm across the table, with his hairy hand splayed . . . he looks as though at any moment he might lean across, grab the opposite edge of the table and pull the whole thing over, crockery and all. Or, he might leap to his feet so that his chair shoots backwards and smashes against the floor. And as for his thwacking footsteps on the stairs last night—Poppy let him in sometime before midnight—he sounded like a damned yeti ascending.

  A young girl throws open the garden door. “I’ve fed the—” She trips over the threshold, rights herself and continues, “I’ve fed the chickens.” With hands on hips, she says, “They wouldn’t come out this morning. I had to sprinkle grain on the ground outside the door and shake the container. Lazy things. They were still asleep on their perches.” She kicks off her garden shoes, scrapes back a chair, making Toniah wince, and stretches across the table to grab her school reader.

  “Done your homework, Eva?” says Ben.

  “Course I have.”

  “Eva’s very good with her schoolwork, aren’t you?” says Toniah. Eva flashes a smile at her auntie and then at Ben. Toniah needs to get the lowdown on who’s been coming and going while she’s been away. This Ben acts as though he’s stayed a few times; he knows Eva, and she seems at ease with him.

  “Toniah, can you walk Eva to school?” says Poppy. “I’m working from home this morning.”

  “Sure. You stay in your pyjamas.”

  Eva giggles. “Slouchy sloth day.”

  Poppy kisses Eva on the head. “I’ll get your sports kit ready.” She heads off, up the stairs to Eva’s bedroom.

  “Auntie Toniah?”

  “Yes?”

  “The hens are pecking Agatha again. We’ll have to put beak guards on them.”

  “Is Agatha losing any feathers?”

  “She’s getting a bald patch on her back. It looks horrible.”

  “Let’s put her in a separate pen for now, and I’ll give her some treats. I’m not sure I remember how to fit those beak guards. I’ll have to ask your mum.”

  “She can’t do it. She’s h
opeless. If you help me, I’ll do it.”

  “Okay. Later, after work.”

  “Auntie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Your hair’s a real mess.”

  Ben, still checking his mail, laughs and puts his hand to his face. Toniah can’t tell if he’s enjoying some private banter or if he’s laughing at Eva’s remark. His shoulders shake. Toniah can’t help herself; she smiles. He seems like a nice guy. And it’s true; she should use a comb occasionally.

  Eva takes hold of the saltcellar and, fidgeting, turns it over and over without noticing the mess she’s making. They’re quite similar, it occurs to Toniah—Eva and this man. The way they take up space. Eva pushes her right foot against the crossbar of the next chair, tipping her own chair so that it balances precariously on two legs. And him . . . It’s not that he’s big, Toniah says to herself—he’s probably only an inch or two taller than she is—but he’s stocky. He’d stop a runaway horse.

  He laughs aloud now. “Sorry. Long-running joke.”

  He makes Toniah feel like an intruder in her own home. He just takes over. He’s so different to them. A square face, with big eyes and a full mouth, thick and dark wavy hair. There’s nothing subtle about him. She can see why her sister finds him attractive.

  Poppy reappears and deposits Eva’s sports bag by the kitchen door.

  “Who’s picking me up from school?” Eva says to her mother. “You or Carmen?”

  “Me, I expect. Carmen left before I was out of bed, but she’ll probably finish work before me, so I’ll check if she’s—”

  “But, Mum. Who’s picking me up? I want to know.”

  “I’ll pick you up. Sorry.” Poppy looks across at Toniah and winks.

  “I don’t like surprises, either,” says Toniah.

  Ben looks confused. “I’ll make some toast then. Um, I can walk Eva to school.”

  Poppy gives him a frown that states no and says, “It’s okay, Ben. It’s on Toniah’s way to work.”

  “Where do you work? What’s the job?” he asks, turning to her.

  “I’m in restitutions . . . at the Academy.”

  His eyebrows lift slightly. He doesn’t reply. Just stares at her.

  Ben wishes they’d let him stay beyond breakfast, but the arrangement works well enough. He recalls the last time he stayed over, about a month ago. He sat in the garden, making the most of a fine start to the day, and he watched Eva feed the chickens. He took the water feeder from her, cleaned and refilled it at the garden tap. It was pretty heavy for a young girl to lift. Poppy appeared at the kitchen door and shouted—quite curtly, he thought—“She can manage. She doesn’t have to fill it to the top.” Still, he didn’t see the harm in helping the girl. But he has come to accept the situation—that if he wants family involvement, he’ll have to look elsewhere. Maybe when his job becomes more settled, when he’s working offshore for shorter stints, that’s when he’ll try a proper relationship again, something more than this intermittent arrangement with Poppy. He doesn’t have time right now for anything more.

  He knows he should scarper soon.

  Toniah helps Eva into her school cardigan and picks up her sports bag. Poppy goes to the fridge, slides out a lunch box and passes it, baton style, to Eva as they make their way along the narrow Minton-tiled hallway.

  “Your meeting today, Toniah . . . hope it goes okay.” Poppy puts her arms around her sister and pulls her in for a tight hug. “It’s great having you home.”

  “Thanks.”

  Ben picks up his jacket and follows them down the hallway. Poppy stands back to let him pass, but her eyes are fixed on Eva.

  He steps outside, and before he pulls the front door closed behind them, Toniah turns, touches his arm hurriedly and raises a finger to her lips. “Shh.” She points to the hedge bordering the tiny front garden. They see a bubbling in the undergrowth. For Toniah, it sparks a recollection from years past. Three pairs of eyes fix on the shivering, leafy detritus.

  “A mouse?” whispers Eva.

  A wren hops out of the leaf litter and flies low through the slatted gate.

  “I thought I heard wren song yesterday,” says Toniah, delighted. “You hardly ever see them—they’re secretive.”

  “I’ve never seen such a tiny bird,” says Eva. “I’m going to tell class at show-and-tell.”

  “And there’s something else you can tell them,” says Toniah teasingly.

  “What? What can I tell them?”

  They step down to the pavement and all turn to the right. “I’m going your way,” says Ben.

  “What can I tell them?” Eva tugs at Toniah’s sleeve.

  “A long time ago,” Toniah says, as though launching into a fairy tale, “a long time before I was born or before my Nana Stone was born, the wren was stamped on our tiniest of tiny coins, a copper farthing. It was the best coin we ever had.”

  “A tiny bird on a tiny coin,” says Eva.

  At the school gates, Toniah stoops to kiss Eva’s hair.

  “So it’s definitely Mum who’s collecting me?”

  Toniah aches. She’s caught in a time loop. Eva is such a little worrier—so like Poppy twenty years in the past. Toniah learned to anticipate her younger sister’s anxieties, and looking back, she wonders if their five-year age gap might have sapped Poppy’s confidence; an older sister always knows best. In any case, whenever Poppy grew worrisome, Toniah had discovered, distraction was always her best tactic.

  “Absolutely definitely. It’s your mum. Look! Isn’t that boy one of your friends? Now, run along and have fun.” Eva dashes across to the boy, and as they walk along the school path—her auntie still watching—they bump against one another repeatedly, carelessly, as though personal space were an alien concept. Eva makes tiny hops—Toniah smiles and her eyes mist. She’s telling the boy about the wren.

  Toniah turns and sees that Ben has been waiting. Well, there’s no rule saying he can’t, she thinks. But she wouldn’t normally spend time with her sister’s overnighters. As for their housemate, Carmen, Toniah has only once met a woman who stayed over, and she might have been a friend, rather than a date.

  “Going to the tube? I’m taking the Victoria line,” Ben says.

  “Northern line.”

  “So, you’ve finished your studies. Poppy seems happy to have you home,” he says.

  “I wasn’t actually studying. I was doing a postdoc, writing up papers from my PhD research.”

  “Sorry, I—”

  “That’s okay. I’m still a researcher in this new job. More of the same.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “I’m having an easy ride so far. I’m still settling in.”

  She doesn’t want to talk about her work. It’s too early in the day to muster a defensive position, and she hasn’t parsed her explanation as yet. In any case, she still feels awkward; she’s unsure how she landed the job.

  “You’ve been seeing my sister for a while?”

  “On and off for the past six months. I’m in London for a month at a time. I’m mostly offshore.”

  “That must be difficult.”

  “Not so bad now—I’ve bought a small flat north of the river. Makes a difference having my own place to come home to. But I won’t stick the job much longer.”

  “And then?”

  “Who knows? A nice clean desk job, maybe. Like yours.”

  It’s sticky underfoot, as always in summer along so many London streets. High above in the towering common lime trees, armies of aphids ingest the limes’ sap and excrete sugary honeydew, which drops to the pavements, playing hell with the soles of workaday and designer shoes alike. At one time, Toniah knew which sections of pavement to avoid, but she’s out of practice, having been away in Norwich working flat out for two years—bar a few long weekends. Their ripping footsteps turn them into cartoon commuters. “Shit!” says Ben, and Toniah allows herself to laugh.

  In fact, she has an affection for the tiny aphid creatures. As a school girl, she
collected the names of unisexual species in alphabetical order, from aphid up to zebra shark, in a lined red exercise book. Whenever she was teased about her family—because she and her sister looked so similar to their mother, and their mother was so similar to their grandmother—she’d spout off the names of unisex predator species. Hammerhead sharks and Komodo dragons were her favourite corroborators; they didn’t need the whole boring boy-girl thing. But it was all bravado on Toniah’s part.

  Thankfully, it’s easier for Eva. She’s a third-generation partho, and it’s not so unusual any more. Toniah is now happy to imagine that she, Poppy and Eva are pretty much time-separated triplets, though not identical. Apart from their facial similarities, they share a few physical quirks, including a bent little finger on their right hand.

  At the top of the underground escalators, they go their separate ways, but Ben casts a look across his shoulder as he steps onto the Victoria line escalator; he catches a glimpse of Toniah. He feels envious. She’ll return home to her sister and niece this evening. The thought of going back to his underfurnished apartment is chilling even on a summer’s day.

  The latest postgraduate intake, six researchers in all, congregates by one of eight sculptures in the neoclassical foyer. It’s a life-size statue of Ayn Rand—not Toniah’s favourite philosopher. She feels more comfortable by the neighbouring statue of Laura Cereta, the Italian humanist, a feminist of the early Renaissance.

  They await the arrival of vice president Elodie Maingey. It’s the first time they’ve met a member of the board, but everyone knows her lineage. The Academy of Restitution was the brainchild of her mother, who used her position as the American ambassador to the United Nations to promote the concept of women’s restitution. During the past fifteen years, the worst oversights of male-centric historicism have been corrected. Toniah brushes the back of her hand against the brass folds of Cereta’s robes. She hopes this morning’s encounter with Elodie Maingey will either convince her to stay or convince her to look for another job. She still feels bruised, disappointed that a teaching post didn’t materialize at her university department in Norwich. They had dragged out the decision, and she couldn’t wait; she’d needed a salary, fast. Falling back on her sister for financial support wasn’t an option. That wasn’t the way they operated.