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Authors: Fiona Neill
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Ali.
“What did he say?” Tita asked. “Was that English?”
“Twin-speak,” said Bryony dismissively. “Now, Mum, tell me what you’ve been up to this week.”
She linked arms with her mother and led her toward the nearest sofa at the garden end of the enormous open-plan room. They were now close enough to Ali that she could hear Tita mutter something about the pace of retirement not suiting Foy. Expecting to be introduced, Ali pushed a stray strand of hair behind an ear, but neither Bryony nor her mother looked up at her.
Instead she stood alone by the sliding doors. Ali’s anxiety pricked again. She wondered whether she had done something wrong. Bryony was difficult to read. She gave meticulous instructions for apparently trivial tasks and then never bothered to follow up to see whether Ali had fulfilled the brief.
At the beginning of the week, for example, she spoke to Ali for almost twenty minutes about the optimum method for testing times tables. “Forward, backward, forward, backward, random. Backward, forward, backward, forward, random,” she had said in a tone as rhythmic as a metronome, “and then forward, backward, forward, random, forward, backward.” She made Ali repeat a couple of times what she had said, and then explained that research showed that it was essential for children to recite things three times to ensure the memory was properly laid down in the frontal cortex.
“Surely the twins don’t do times tables yet?” Ali had asked.
“If they learn some of them now, then it will be easier later,” Bryony said. “It’s good to be ahead of the game.”
On Tuesday she had even called to check exactly how many times Ali had tested them the previous day.
“I can’t remember exactly,” Ali had said.
“Then you should write it down in the daybook,” suggested Bryony.
The following evening Bryony had spoken to her about her worries over the secret language the twins sometimes used to communicate with each other. Apparently the boys were late talkers, and their language emerged in tandem with their first words. Bryony had asked Ali to research the subject and see if it was something common to twins and get back to her in a couple of weeks with her conclusions. She had also instructed her to analyze the words to see if she could decipher what they meant and to compile a rudimentary dictionary. Not wanting to be awkward or appear unwilling, Ali had quickly agreed.
It occurred to her that if Bryony was as worried as she professed to be, then it was surprising that she hadn’t done anything before about the problem. But equally she was gratified to be entrusted with such a serious issue after just a couple of days into the new job.
So far Ali had only two words to show for her efforts. Right now, however, she was too far from them to hear what they were saying. She could see Bryony looking up from the sofa and pointing toward the twins, mouthing, “pen and paper.” Using a similar gesture, Ali pointed upstairs to indicate her notebook was in the bedroom. Bryony stared at her for a little longer than was comfortable but was quickly distracted by Jake, who had begun to question his grandfather about the smoked salmon business he used to run.
“How many flights did you clock flying smoked salmon around the UK?” Jake asked Foy as they sat at the kitchen table. “You told me once that it was all flown to Poland to be packaged and then back here again to be sold. You’d need to buy a slice of the Amazon to compensate for that kind of level of carbon emissions.”
“We’re not talking about that,” Bryony interrupted.
Earlier in the year Foy’s business partner of twenty-five years had mounted a coup to get him taken off the board of the company that he had founded back in the seventies. Although it was couched in friendly terms as retirement and Foy retained an important-sounding but ineffectual title, he had effectively been bought out and left without a job. The hasty
“What did he say?” Tita asked. “Was that English?”
“Twin-speak,” said Bryony dismissively. “Now, Mum, tell me what you’ve been up to this week.”
She linked arms with her mother and led her toward the nearest sofa at the garden end of the enormous open-plan room. They were now close enough to Ali that she could hear Tita mutter something about the pace of retirement not suiting Foy. Expecting to be introduced, Ali pushed a stray strand of hair behind an ear, but neither Bryony nor her mother looked up at her.
Instead she stood alone by the sliding doors. Ali’s anxiety pricked again. She wondered whether she had done something wrong. Bryony was difficult to read. She gave meticulous instructions for apparently trivial tasks and then never bothered to follow up to see whether Ali had fulfilled the brief.
At the beginning of the week, for example, she spoke to Ali for almost twenty minutes about the optimum method for testing times tables. “Forward, backward, forward, backward, random. Backward, forward, backward, forward, random,” she had said in a tone as rhythmic as a metronome, “and then forward, backward, forward, random, forward, backward.” She made Ali repeat a couple of times what she had said, and then explained that research showed that it was essential for children to recite things three times to ensure the memory was properly laid down in the frontal cortex.
“Surely the twins don’t do times tables yet?” Ali had asked.
“If they learn some of them now, then it will be easier later,” Bryony said. “It’s good to be ahead of the game.”
On Tuesday she had even called to check exactly how many times Ali had tested them the previous day.
“I can’t remember exactly,” Ali had said.
“Then you should write it down in the daybook,” suggested Bryony.
The following evening Bryony had spoken to her about her worries over the secret language the twins sometimes used to communicate with each other. Apparently the boys were late talkers, and their language emerged in tandem with their first words. Bryony had asked Ali to research the subject and see if it was something common to twins and get back to her in a couple of weeks with her conclusions. She had also instructed her to analyze the words to see if she could decipher what they meant and to compile a rudimentary dictionary. Not wanting to be awkward or appear unwilling, Ali had quickly agreed.
It occurred to her that if Bryony was as worried as she professed to be, then it was surprising that she hadn’t done anything before about the problem. But equally she was gratified to be entrusted with such a serious issue after just a couple of days into the new job.
So far Ali had only two words to show for her efforts. Right now, however, she was too far from them to hear what they were saying. She could see Bryony looking up from the sofa and pointing toward the twins, mouthing, “pen and paper.” Using a similar gesture, Ali pointed upstairs to indicate her notebook was in the bedroom. Bryony stared at her for a little longer than was comfortable but was quickly distracted by Jake, who had begun to question his grandfather about the smoked salmon business he used to run.
“How many flights did you clock flying smoked salmon around the UK?” Jake asked Foy as they sat at the kitchen table. “You told me once that it was all flown to Poland to be packaged and then back here again to be sold. You’d need to buy a slice of the Amazon to compensate for that kind of level of carbon emissions.”
“We’re not talking about that,” Bryony interrupted.
Earlier in the year Foy’s business partner of twenty-five years had mounted a coup to get him taken off the board of the company that he had founded back in the seventies. Although it was couched in friendly terms as retirement and Foy retained an important-sounding but ineffectual title, he had effectively been bought out and left without a job. The hasty
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