2

2 Carole steps on to the silver steps of the escalators with the rest of the commuting populace in their sombre office palettes as it elevates them skywards from below ground to the street level of Bishopsgate she's headed for an early morning meeting with a new client based in Hong Kong, whose net worth is multiple times the GDP of the world's poorest countries she's thinking he'd better not do a double-take when she enters the executive meeting room one long glass wall looking out on to the City the other bearing a massive splash of tax-deductible artwork that cost the price of a Zone 2 town house

she's thinking he'd better not look at her as if she should be attached to a trolley bearing flasks of coffee, assortments of teas (herbal, green, grey, Ceylon) and those individually packaged corporate biscuits she's used to clients and new colleagues looking past her to the person they are clearly expecting to meet she will stride up to the client, shake his hand firmly (yet femininely), while looking him warmly (yet confidently) in the eye and smiling innocently, and delivering her name unto him with perfectly clipped Received Pronunciation, showing off her pretty (thank-god-they're-not-too- thick) lips coated in a discreet shade of pink, baring her perfect teeth as he adjusts to the collision between reality and expectation, and tries not to show it while she assumes control of the situation and the conversation it's all about having the upper hand with Carole, who takes these little conquests, as she imagines them, when she can perhaps he'll find himself unexpectedly attracted to her, which the more sophisticated try to hide, unlike the Nigerian petrochemical billionaire a few years ago who wanted to expand his investment portfolio into copper who invited her to a working lunch at the Savoy, only for her to discover it was in his private dining room in the Royal Suite where he gave her a tour of its eight rooms designed with stately home largesse: Greco-Roman colonnades, Lalique chandeliers, antique busts on plinths, silk papered walls and pastoral English paintings he pointed out that the mattress in the master boudoir was hand-sprung with each spring wrapped in cashmere it's like sleeping on air, Miss Williams, he said as he showed her the suite's 'menu of pillows' on a silver-embossed card as if she was the kind of woman who'd amputate her aspirations to become one of his decorative appendages she had to politely extricate herself from his intentions without jeopardizing the business letting him know she was engaged, to Frederick Marchmont, she said for emphasis furious that he wanted to undermine her hard-won professionalism today she will force herself to project a positive approach to her meeting, after all, her shelves are stacked with motivational books ordered from America telling her to visualize the future you want to create, believe you

can and you're halfway there, and if you project a powerful person, you will attract respect so what will her meeting be? fan-bloody-tastic! except she can't help remembering all the little hurts, the business associates who compliment her on being so articulate, unable to hide the surprise in their voices, so that she has to pretend not to be offended and to smile graciously, as if the compliment is indeed just that she can't help thinking about the customs officers who pull her over when she's jetting the world looking as brief-cased and be-suited as all the other business people sailing through customs – un-harassed oh to be one of the privileged of this world who take it for granted that it's their right to surf the globe unhindered, unsuspected, respected damn, damn, damn, as the escalator goes up, up, up c'mon, delete all negative thoughts, Carole, release the past and look to the future with positivity and the lightness of a child unencumbered by emotional baggage life is an adventure to be embraced with an open mind and loving heart but there was that one time, at the start of her career, in a country known for its terrible record on human rights, even though she'd told them she was there to meet a team from their national bank, and presented the documentation to show them, which they refused to look at even her body was invaded as if she were an impoverished mule with half a kilo of white powder stuffed up her fanny, or waiting to be evacuated out of her bowels in the little plastic bags she obviously must have had for breakfast that morning the invasion of alien hands in a window-less, dungeon-like room cut off from the flow of the airport, while another grubby immigration official in a sweat-stained blue uniform looked on it brought back such memories such memories she'd locked away, it was all she could do not to collapse on the floor of the interrogation room that had lain dormant for years after it happened, when Carole was thirteen and a half and at her first party with no adults hovering like prison

warders ruining the fun for everyone at LaTisha's place, whose mum was on a special training weekend for work and whose older sister, Jayla, had abandoned her 'babysitting' duties to spend the night at her boyfriend's not before ordering LaTisha to be-have and not have no mates round upon pain of death or we'll both get busted so what did LaTisha do now she had the place to herself for like the first time in her life? texted her crew to bring a bottle and galdem bring mandem to even things out, only those wiv a six pack, lol, and they better be buff or you won't be allowed in, ya gets? Carole hadn't hitherto been interested in boys, was labelled the Super Geek of Year 9, preferred the mind-bending pleasures of mathematical problem-solving, inspired by her mother, Bummi, who was raising her alone after her father died it is the night before LaTisha's party and Carole and her mother are sitting at the washed-out Formica kitchen table, Carole's homework piled up on one side Carole wears flannelette shorts and her favourite vest with a teddy bear on it dinner of pounded yam and bitter-leaf soup steams in a shared wooden bowl they are perched thirty-two floors up in a tower block among hundreds of others packed together like rows of crates spread wide and stacked high they are over six hundred feet away from the concrete slabs and green trees of ground level and closer than they should be to the planes in the flight path of City Airport wears a house-wrappa with faded orange blooms knotted above her breasts her arms are bare, hair free to stick up at crazy angles her spine is straight because she was taught to sit upright and cross- legged on the floor, as she tells her daughter when she slouches, sit up straight and speak properly, why do you talk like the tearaway children of the street

whose feet are strong and scarred from walking barefoot over forested ground scoops up pounded yam with her hands, dipping it into the stew, speaking in between mouthfuls let us wonder, Carole, at the genius of hyperbolic geometry, where the sum of the angles adds up to less than 180 degrees let us wonder at how the ancient Egyptians worked out how to measure an irregularly-shaped field let us wonder at how X was just a rare letter until algebra came along and made it something special that can be unravelled to reveal its inner value you see, maths is a process of discovery, Carole, it is like the exploration of space, the planets were always there, it just took us a long time to find them clever Mama, who taught her to send X and Y off into complicated calculations and to trust them to present her with the right conclusions how she loved memorizing the quadratic equation, when her classmates didn't even know what it was how she loved being the best at something, standing out as she did for sure the next day at LaTisha's, having convinced Mama (who was dozy about everything except maths) that she was at a sleepover when she was at a party heaving with teenagers crowding the corridor, curtains closed, furniture pushed to the sides in the living room, two side- table lamps covered with red dishcloths creating a nightclub vibe while the girls stood in groups dancing self-consciously in the centre of the room and the guys loitered against the walls and Busta Rhymes was played low enough not to bring the neighbours knocking and LaTisha yelled at people not to get waved or misbehave and no one was allowed into the bedrooms upon pain of death and definitely no smoking and at the first whiff of whacky-backy she was gonna evict the perpetrators because on my life, this ain't no joke except Carole was drinking for the first time in her life, and quickly got totally waved on vodka and lime so sweet she barely noticed the 40% alcohol in it, drained several glasses through a fluorescent squiggle straw like it was lemonade on a hot summer's afternoon

when Trey, Alicia's older brother, who was studying Sports Science at university, and his crew arrived here at last were real mandem, pure buff-ness, who swaggered into the living room, much better than the boys Carole's age who were still pulling girls' hair in the playground and running away giggling she began amping it up in front of them glad that LaTisha had forced her to dress up and get your head out of those useless books and grow up, Carole hoping the lipstick she was wearing for the first time hadn't rubbed off as she bunched her lips into a sexy pout as she flicked the glossy Cleopatra wig that hung down to her shoulders as she twerked her hips like the girls in the music videos, wearing the PVC hot pants she'd borrowed from Chloe, the heels she'd borrowed from Lauren that made her legs look really long and shapely all of a sudden when she noticed he was staring at her, like she was The One, even though he'd never noticed her before when he walked down the high street no one had ever looked at her the way Trey was looking at her tonight, at the tiny halter top that showed off her assets that had grown from nothing to something mega-major in the past year where did they come from? she and LaTisha agreed human biology was so weird and random, man with such an audience she found herself spinning around and around in the middle of the living room, arms out, just for the hell of it, spinning around and around because the drink made her feel so free, and her emotions so bubbly, and she was simply so attractive as she spun around to Busta's growls with the vibrations coming out of the speakers charging around her body until the spinning went from her feet to her head and she keeled over and almost regurgitated the chips she'd had earlier and heard laughter and serves her right for showing off only to be rescued from total embarrassment by Trey, who dived into the crowd, helped her up, said he'd look after her and you're so hot you should be arrested, Lady he put his arms around her, she'd not been hugged by anyone since she was ten and began to escape Mum's claustrophobic squeezes Mum was warm and squashy, Trey's chest was hard but when she peered up at him, his grey eyes were soft as he stared deep into her soul

love, was this love? even though they'd just met and she still felt a bit sick? Trey – she tried it out in her mouth, Carole & Trey, or was it T-R-A-Y? oh no, that wouldn't work, she couldn't be married to a kitchen accessory, lol, marriage? whoa, where did that come from? OMG, hubz, was this her future hubz? his hand stroked the back of her head, she wished he wouldn't, the wig might come off he told her she needed fresh air, you're so delicate I got to protect you, Lady she couldn't wait to tell LaTisha, who'd be soooo jealous yet pleased for her too, you've grown up, Carole he led her through the crush of the hallway, ushered her out the front door, it was dark outside except for the lights from the street lamps and chilly once outside, he bundled her up under his arm as if her head was a package he was carrying and when she tried to lift it, she couldn't and it was going round and round and she felt overpowered by his cologne or was it deodorant? actually, it smelt like air freshener would they stop and kiss? her first kiss, not with tongues, which was revolting, but gently on the lips like in the old black and white films Mum liked to watch except she couldn't move her head out of his armpit as he walked her out of the estate it was as if she was being lifted off her feet, floating on the wings of love, was that a song? they went towards the short alley that led to Roxleigh Park where she and LaTisha had spent their childhood on the swings talking about the meaning of life and pondering the imminent new millennium that was going to be like totally-epic and weirdly-sci-fi as they kicked their legs in the air and felt the wind blow through the furrows of their cornrows he took her over the little bridge that crossed the stream and through the gate that used to be shut until the council gave up replacing the padlock they were not alone she heard other voices she tried to look up again, it was like her head was in a vice and she wasn't walking no more, she was being frogmarched

then she was flat on her back on the ground, damp grass against her bare back, legs and arms, she wanted to sleep, just five blissful minutes, felt her eyes close, when she opened them, she couldn't see, she'd been blindfolded, her arms were pinned above her head how had her clothes come off? then her body wasn't her own no more it belonged to them and she, who loved numbers, became innumerate couldn't count, didn't want to feeling alien body parts on and in parts of her body that were so private, so gross, she hadn't even felt them herself it was hurtinghurtinghurting onandonandonandon into infinity, which was something without end like 0.333333 or 0.999999, except that it would end, because the purpose of life was to journey towards its conclusion, otherwise it wasn't life, the two went together, as Mum once told her, looking sadly at her old wedding photos Carole forces herself to think of her favourite number, 1729 the only number that can be the sum of two numbers to the 3rd degree in different ways one to the power of one is one two to the power of three is 1728 add them to get 1729 there's also ten and nine, each to the power of three, which is then 1000+729

after minutes or hours or days or years or several lifetimes had passed, it stopped you were gagging for it, and by the way, you were great then they were gone and so was she.