Perfect People

70

Dr Sheila Michaelides was a petite, bubbly, very self-assured woman in her early forties, with an olive-skinned face, large, angular glasses and a shock of straight black hair. She was dressed neatly, in a tight-fitting jumper over a cream blouse and brown slacks.

Her consulting room, with French windows overlooking a well-tended walled garden, was at the back of an imposing red-brick Victorian house that had been carved up into doctors’ offices. It was a generously sized room, with a high, stuccoed ceiling, but furnished in contrast to its period in a cheery, modern style, with a pine desk on which sat a computer and framed photographs of two laughing children, and cushioned sofas arranged either side of a pine coffee table, at which John, Naomi and the child psychologist sat.

Naomi wondered if it was mandatory for any medic involved with kids to have saccharine pictures of children on display.

John was talking her through the history of Luke and Phoebe, omitting of course any mention of their background with Dettore. With Naomi interjecting to add details, he covered the incident with the wasp, the strange language the children had developed, Reggie Chetwynde-Cunningham’s opinion on their linguistic ability, their excitement on Saturday at the zoo, and their even bigger excitement yesterday, Sunday, when they had gone to a pet shop and bought each of them a guinea pig.

He said nothing about his suspicions that the children might be playing chess on his computer late at night – because he hadn’t yet mentioned this to Naomi.

When they had finished, Sheila Michaelides’s neutral demeanour seemed to have changed a little. She looked at both of them in turn with a distinctly sceptical expression. ‘This language you say they are speaking – do you really believe that?’

‘Absolutely,’ John said.

‘What you are telling me is just isn’t credible.’

‘Surely,’ Naomi said, ‘if it is some kind of autism-?’

The psychologist shook her head. ‘Even if you had one child on the autism spectrum, and perhaps capable of strange mathematical feats, it is inconceivable it could be the same for both.’

‘Not even in identical twins?’ Naomi asked.

‘Phoebe and Luke are not identical twins,’ she said.

‘So how do you explain it?’ John asked.

She tilted her head. ‘Are you sure this isn’t wishful thinking?’

‘What do you mean by that?’ Naomi said testily.

The psychologist glanced at one of her own fingernails. ‘You strike me as very ambitious parents – from the way you have been talking about your children. You’re an academic, Dr Klaesson, and you are clearly a very intelligent woman, Mrs Klaesson. I’m getting a feeling from you both that you have great expectations from your children. Would that be correct?’

‘I don’t have any expectations,’ Naomi said quickly, getting in ahead of John.

‘All we want is for them to be normal,’ John added.

‘And healthy,’ Naomi emphasized.

The psychologist bit her nail for a moment, then said, ‘You lost your boy, Halley, at the age of four. You adored him. Are you sure you aren’t searching for something in your twins that puts them above him, as a form of compensation?’

‘That’s ridiculous!’ Naomi exploded. ‘Absolutely ridiculous!’

‘Totally!’ John confirmed. ‘Look, we want to try to understand our children, that’s why we’ve come here – but you seem to be attacking us!’

‘No, I’m not. All I’m trying to say is that what you are telling me about them speaking backwards with every fourth letter missing is impossible! No model exists for this! You are claiming a linguistic skill for your children that no human being on this planet is capable of. Just think for a moment about the mathematics.’

‘So give us your explanation?’ John responded.

‘I don’t have one. I wish that I did, believe me, but I don’t.’ She looked hard at each of them.

Naomi felt herself being scrutinized, and she was confused. ‘How can a linguistic scientist tell us one thing and you tell us another?’

The psychologist nodded in silent thought for some moments, then she said, ‘Does the expression epistemic boundedness mean anything to either of you?’

‘ Epistemic boundedness? ’ Naomi repeated, shaking her head.

‘Yes,’ John said, ‘I know about it.’

‘Could you explain it to your wife?’

John shrugged, as if hesitant for a moment, then turned to Naomi. ‘What it basically means is that human intelligence has a ceiling. That humans are hardwired with a certain level of intelligence. That there are biological limits. Just as there are limits on other aspects of human beings.’

He looked at the psychologist for confirmation. She nodded for him to go on.

‘For instance, the four-minute mile. We know it can be broken by a few seconds, but no human is ever going to run a one-minute mile. Probably not even a three-minute mile.’ He exchanged an awkward glance with Naomi.

One of Dr Dettore’s might, her face said.

‘It’s the same with height,’ John went on. ‘Most humans are within a certain range. You get occasional exceptions, but seven and a half feet is about the upper limit – you’re never going to find a human who is fifteen feet tall.’ He looked back at the psychologist. ‘What you’re saying, if I’m understanding you correctly, is that this feat of language by Luke and Phoebe is the equivalent of – like – a one-minute mile, or a fifteen-foot-tall human?’

‘That’s exactly right.’

John caught Naomi’s eye, then looked away sharply. He had not realized the full significance of what Luke and Phoebe were doing before, and now he did, he wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

‘So how come Chetwynde-Cunningham didn’t tell you that?’ Naomi asked.

John looked at her, then at the psychologist, then back at his wife. ‘He did. That is exactly what he said. I thought perhaps he was exaggerating, but now I realize that probably he wasn’t.’

‘You are saying that our children are performing a mathematical feat that is beyond the capability of any living human being?’

‘Beyond any human being who has ever lived, I would imagine, Mrs Klaesson.’ The psychologist looked dubiously at John and Naomi. ‘I think the next step would be for me to see Luke and Phoebe. Ideally I would like to observe them at playschool.’

Naomi felt her cheeks burning. ‘The reason – the main reason that we came here is – because-’ She glanced at John for support, then back at Dr Michaelides. ‘Because I was asked not to bring them back to playschool.’

The psychologist nodded. ‘Yes, but I think I could have a word with the playschool leader and ask if she would let them come back with me observing – I’ve done this quite a few times and it is not usually a problem.’

‘Anything you could do, we’d be very grateful for,’ Naomi said.

After they had left, the psychologist wrote up her notes on her computer. She also checked the notes that the psychiatrist, Dr Roland Talbot, had faxed through.

Pushy, ambitious parents, she wrote.

Father compensates for long work hours by giving them his interpretation of ‘quality time’.

Intelligent people. Dr Klaesson a typical academic. Greater intellect than wife but less worldly. Nonsense about the language – clear indication of their over-ambition for Luke and Phoebe. Attitude highly likely to have harming effect on twins in some way – as is indicated by their behaviour. Could make them school-phobic.

Withdrawn behaviour of twins an indicator of abuse? Parents clearly hiding something, evident in their body language.