Summing Up

Maths was never Meryl’s subject, but it gave her an idea . . .

SOMETIMES it was all too much: there were deadlines to meet and Meryl wondered if she’d over-committed herself. Bryn wanted the final design for the shopping mall signs at the end of the week, but she also had to finish the illustrations for a book she’d taken on on a freelance basis.

Alan was pressurising her to spend more time with him, as well.

“You’re always working,” he’d said last weekend when she’d had to tell him that she couldn’t see him. “When are we going to spend the weekend in Prague like we planned?”

She knew that if she didn’t change her ways she was going to lose him, but she didn’t want to jeopardise her job at Jenner Designs.

It guaranteed a good income while she pursued her freelance dream of illustrating children’s books.

But the pressure was mounting.

She and Alan were supposed to be meeting this evening, but she’d have to postpone again.

She took her mobile phone out of her bag and looked up her telephone directory.

As she scrolled down the numbers, her eyes stopped at Lisa Melrose, an old school friend.

She checked over the rim of her board. She could see Bryn in his office through the glass.

She rang Lisa.

“Hi, this is Lisa,” a familiar voice said. “Lisa, this is Meryl.” “Meryl? I haven’t heard from you for ages! How are you?”

“Snowed under with work. I’m calling from work now, actually, and I shouldn’t be.”

“Tell me about it.” “It’s all getting on top of me.” Meryl’s voice suddenly caught in her throat, surprising her.

All her old memories came flooding back: her time off school just before her A-levels; the time she thought she wouldn’t get through her finals.

She didn’t react well to stress and Lisa knew all about that.

“I feel stupid,” she admitted.

“Look, let’s meet up. Are you free on Thursday?”

She wasn’t really, but something was telling her she needed to see her old friend.

“Yes,” she agreed. “OK. In the meantime, remember the Square on the Hypotenuse.”

Meryl smiled to herself. Now there was a blast from the past, but it was so appropriate for this moment.

They made arrangements to meet and she replaced her phone just as Bryn came out of his office.

Meryl had never been any good at maths. She was OK at most other subjects, but as for maths, her brain just didn’t seem to have the right connections.

She remembered the day she’d learned about Pythagoras’s theorem.

“What on earth is the square on the hypotenuse?” she whispered to Lisa alongside her.

“I think it might be a nice little square full of shops and cafés beside a river,” her friend said, and they both giggled.

“What’s so funny, girls?” Mr Williams turned from the board and everyone in the class looked at them.

“Nothing, sir,” Meryl mumbled.

“We’ll see,” he said, not looking amused. “You need to understand this to do the homework I’m going to set you.”

Lisa came round after tea that evening. They sat on Meryl’s bed, backs to the wall, looking baffled at the maths homework.

“Do you know what we should do?” Lisa asked. “We really should make up the Square on the Hypotenuse. You can do the drawing and then we can make up some stories.”

They slid to the floor. Meryl pulled out her art supplies and spread a large sheet of paper on the carpet.

“Right,” Lisa said, taking the lead. “We’ll have to have a café, a hotel, some nice clothes shops and a dog-grooming salon.”

“Let’s have an ice-cream parlour,” Meryl added.

“Yes, and we’ll put tables and chairs along the bank of the River Hypotenuse. What kind of trees are we going to have lining the banks?”

The rest of the evening was spent drawing all the places on the square and making up stories about the people who ran the businesses and their customers.

“I could draw the characters and cut them out and then they could act out the stories,” Meryl suddenly said.

“That would be brilliant!”

Sadly the maths

homework didn’t get done and the next day in class both of them had to give up their breaktime to do it, but Meryl didn’t care. Something had lifted in her heart.

The Square on the Hypotenuse was going to be their place and they would control what happened there.

She couldn’t wait to get home that evening and start drawing and cutting out the characters who were going to live out their lives around the Square.

Predictably Alan wasn’t happy when she told him she had to work that evening.

“Again? You’re not trying to put me off, are you?” “No,” she said quickly. They’d been seeing each other for eight months but didn’t seem to be moving forward. He was always hinting it was because of her commitment to work.

“One day I’ll go freelance and choose my hours,” she said.

That didn’t seem to perk him up, either. Maybe he didn’t believe it.

She warmed up a pasty and went to her board, pulling out some of the unfinished sign work. She really wanted to get on with the illustrations for the book, but her day job came first.

It was hard going. She felt the tension building up again. Then the thought of the Square wormed its way into her mind.

Peter Pinkerton, she suddenly recalled. She’d drawn the cut-out character with long hair and wearing a groovy pink- and purplestriped suit; he ran the boutique.

Then there was blonde Penelope Lafferty, who owned the dog parlour. She was dressed in a mini-skirt and boots. Then there was the chubby Mr Pancho who worked in the ice-cream shop.

One by one all the characters came back to her and she remembered some of the stories she and Lisa had made up: explosive romances, death threats, the river flooding and a devastating storm which led to her redesigning the whole Square.

She suddenly remembered her younger brother’s plastic bus. She’d removed the roof, made paper people for it and had had a coach trip turn up at the Square. All the people had got out and interacted with the regulars.

That sense of pleasure at creating something had driven her into an art career.

Meryl smiled as she applied herself to her work and finished just before midnight. It was almost done. She was going to meet the deadline.

Meryl couldn’t wait to meet up with Lisa on Thursday. Her friend lived on the other side of the city, so they’d chosen a restaurant in a central location in which to meet.

Lisa was waiting and waved as she walked in.

“You look good,” Lisa said as they hugged. “How’s work? You sounded fed up the other day.”

Meryl explained the pressures she’d been under.

“Yes, I know. We’ve had a major contract to fulfil and it’s been a nightmare for the past couple of weeks,” Lisa sympathised. “Things are better now, but there are days when I wish I could walk away from it all.”

Meryl nodded.

“I know I always wanted to work in art, but designing signage for shopping malls isn’t my dream job,” she complained. “I’m illustrating a book for a writer on the side. It’s paying peanuts, but . . .” She shrugged. “I thought about the Square the other night, as you suggested. Why did you mention it?”

“I heard our old maths teacher had died. It got me thinking about the days we used to spend at the Square on the Hypotenuse.”

“I wonder what they’d be doing there now.” Meryl sighed.

“Mr Pancho would be selling his strawberry

gelato,” Lisa replied. “Remember the waffles and milkshakes you could order at the café?” Meryl smiled.

“Mmmm.” Lisa closed her eyes.

“Did we ever get to the bottom of who killed Deirdre Diandra, the hair salon owner?” Meryl asked.

“No, it was unsolved.” Lisa opened her eyes again. “Some loose ends to tie up, then.”

“It was a children’s game.”

“Simpler times,” Lisa said, sitting back in her chair.

“Somewhere to escape to.” Meryl nodded. “We seemed to have more unbridled imaginations then.”

Over their bolognese they talked about their lives.

“I’ve just split up with Jason,” Lisa explained. “We both wanted different things. How’s your love life?”

“I’ve been seeing Alan for a while,” Meryl replied with a frown. “He’s grumpy about the hours I’m working. He keeps saying he wants to whisk me away to romantic places.”

“Either he’s great or possessive,” Lisa said.

“I feel like I’m a bit of a disappointment to him,” Meryl admitted, realising how true it was as she spoke the words.

As the evening came to an end they agreed to meet up again soon.

Bryn wanted to see her. The clients weren’t happy, so she’d have to make more changes, which meant staying later at work.

She rang Alan but he insisted he had to see her no matter how late it was.

They met at a bar a couple of blocks away from the office. He looked troubled.

“Listen, Meryl, I think you need to make a choice. I can’t hang around for you for ever.” He made it sound as if he were doing her a favour.

“Do you expect me to give up my job?” she asked.

“Just put me first.” She looked at him and saw the hurt in his eyes. “I can’t,” she mumbled. “I knew it. I’m sorry.” He got up and kissed her on the cheek. “See you around.”

He left her alone, cradling a glass of wine.

Meryl escaped into the Square that night. It comforted her to imagine it as she lay in bed. More than that, it energised her. She realised it was time to go home for a visit.

“This is the first time I’ve visited your flat,” Lisa said as she came into the sitting-room. “It’s really nice. Oh, what’s this?” She moved towards the table.

“Oh!” She looked at Meryl. “It’s the Square on the Hypotenuse, all of it! Where did you find it?”

“I had a hunch it was packed away somewhere in the attic back home.” Meryl smiled. “And look, I’ve kept Simon’s bus.”

Lisa clapped her hands in delight.

“It’s a blast from the past. Look at Henri de Renvier! Remember him?” She picked up the faded paper figure. “He was my favourite.

“But what are you going to do with all this? We’re grown women. We can’t play with it the way we used to.”

“No,” Meryl agreed. “But you planted a seed of an idea. You’re fed up with your job and I’m bored with mine. Maybe we can collaborate and produce a series of children’s books based on the Square.” Lisa smiled.

“We never did understand maths, did we?”

“No, but maybe in the end it will all add up.” n

One by one all the characters came back to Meryl