‘I’m calling the police. What was she wearing this morning?’
‘What ten thousand other kids are wearing, Joe,’ Jane said. ‘Fleecy hoodie, striped muffler, jeans, trainers.’
Joe rang the station. The three of them waited from Lorraine’s attic sitting room. If only Sammie’s slender silhouette would appear between the bollards at the northern end of the square but only drizzle in the streetlights reflected off the square’s iron fencing. They listened in vain for the reassuring chug of a taxi engine passing the church and coming up Chalkwood Road.
Lorraine poured herself another tonic-flavoured gin. When the phone did ring, it was the police checking to see if Sammie had turned up.
Sammie rebelled all the time, in irritating ways, but she had always been level-headed about the basics. She might worry Joe or Jane on purpose, but never her grandmother, who had defined the acceptable parameters of bad behaviour for the entire family.
Jane ran down the entire list of Sammie’s friends, flipping through a dog-eared book of numbers. Goth Girl had seen her after school heading for the tube. Amy couldn’t be roused. Mrs Kwok insisted that May-lin shouldn’t be disturbed—she had a flute audition the next day. Sammie had been missing for almost five hours on a Monday night.
It was what happens to other parents.
Black-and-white photos of Lorraine watched over their vigil from the mantelpiece: a thirtyish Lorraine leaning on Jack’s shoulder in his dressing room celebrating a small triumph in his Trevor Nunn Macbeth, or Lorraine in a Pucci mini with Gerd at a Bond Street art exhibition. The silver frames were tarnishing. The room smelled of Mitsouko, nicotine and things soured and old.
Around ten-thirty, Joe’s mobile rang—the caller Bella. ‘Keep off the line. For God’s sake, we have an emergency,’ Joe shouted at her and clicked off.
At the second and third persistent tries, he only glanced. ‘Bella again.’ Then Jane’s mobile received the text: ‘SAMMIE WITH ME. ON OUR WAY. BELLA.’
An exhausted Lorraine was whisked off for one final trip to the bathroom and one of her ‘helpful’ blue pills, and then tears and comforting washed with the histrionics of relief. Below, Jane heard the taxi, the front door bell and Joe’s footsteps lurching downstairs followed by Bella’s operatic explanations echoing up the stairwell. Jane tucked in Lorraine, picked up her gin glass, and went down to their flat.
Bella was sweeping around the living room in a camel-coloured cashmere coat loosely belted over a tomato satin negligee.
‘She tried hair dye with one of her little friends, who then persuaded her to give it a trial run in the local before coming home. Somebody bought her some “pop,” and got her completely sizzled. They came to my flat after closing time, to ask for god-motherly shelter and a pot of coffee.’
Bella’s famous white bosom heaved with the exhalation of self-importance and the excitement of all that loving concern, exposure to cold wind, the deshabillé costume and the rescuer’s soliloquy.
Clumping up the stairs, half- slumped over the banister, her mascara streaming, her green nail varnish chipped, and her lovely hair a lifeless shade of blueberry, came Sammie.
Jane threw the girl across the stuffed toys, CD’s, and magazines scattered across her duvet, slammed the bedroom door and took a deep breath. Her anger at the first physical contact with Sammie was already overwhelming. How much more humiliating to suffer Bella’s intimate commiseration for at least the next half hour?
Bella leaned towards Joe on the sofa. ‘Really, Joe, she’d be better off boarding. Get her away from all the stress.’
‘What stress, Bella?’ Jane interrupted from the doorway.
‘Her studies, for one.’ Bella said, turning half-unbelted across the back of the sofa. Jane felt as awkward as an eavesdropper. ‘She’s desperate, darling. Can’t cope with the maths. Flunked the modules. And watching her grandmother deteriorate is upsetting her. She needs to get away.’
‘It’s called adolescence, Bella. But she’s going to stop seeing this friend. Bingeing is not something we do.’
Joe and Bella both stared at the dirty glass in Jane’s hand, the one that had contained Lorraine’s bottomless gin and tonic throughout the evening.
***
Next morning, Sammie snored through the CD player she used as an alarm. Joe pulled the plug on the White Stripes song and pushed her out of bed and into the bathroom. Parental panic had had a good night’s sleep and woken up as tough love.
‘You take offence, Jane, but Bella had a point. At least, I take Sammie with me on the recce to Rome? It’s her half term. She can revise her classics while I see the Food and Agriculture Organization lady, then we see the tourist traps, you know, father-daughter bonding and all that . . . ’ He kept his eyes fixed on the cream clouding his coffee.
Lorraine’s head hurt too much for anger. ‘Really, Jane, consider yourself lucky. I kept seeing our poor darling with a knife stuck between her ribs. Oh, imagine.’
‘I can’t believe neither of you is as furious as I am.’ A mushy calm hung over the memory of last night’s terror.
‘I won’t play the heavy. If Joe’s going to be forgiving, I’ll do him one better and be understanding.’
‘Lorraine, please butt out?’ Joe was showing less amiableness with Lorraine of late.
‘Jane wasn’t rebellious, but I was. Sammie just got in over her head. Speaking of head, I hope the Dracula Do washes out.’
‘Lorraine, are you laughing? No wonder I can’t discipline my own child. She’ll always find a safe haven with one or the other of you.’
‘You know, Joe, I kept waiting for Jane to bust out, smoke dope, get arrested in some street protest, iron her hair, for God’s sake, but—’
‘Very funny. All’s well that ends well?’
‘No,’ Lorraine paused. ‘She won’t do it again.’
‘I still say Bella had a point.’ Joe stared out at the square.
‘Will you shut up about Bella?’
‘I can take Sammie with me to Rome, you know, bring the classics to life.’
Lorraine loved Joe’s idea. ‘Yes! Steep her in ancient culture. Ben-Hur, The Robe, I,Claudius, Spartacus, Samson and Delilah—’
Jane feared Sammie be left neglected in a hotel while her father discussed famine with well-fed bureaucrats, but she was outvoted. She was going to have to let Sammie, go, just like in Stratagem Eleven, sacrifice Sammie’s interests in the hope Joe would come back with a food project and a new direction for his life.
As the week progressed, the recce proposal lost shape. It was less about investigating a famine-and-food special for Joe and now a group excursion to Italy for The Travelling Kitchen. By Friday morning the Italian departure included not only Sammie, but also Bella, a soundman and cameraman, as well as Reston the Stylist who would test the effect of the Mediterranean winter light on grapes and tomatoes glued back on the vine.
Jane packed Sammie’s little carry-on, and swallowed her dismay that Bella had insinuated herself into the trip, but she still challenged Joe who rose early to review the design for online promos of The Travelling Kitchen’s ‘Tuscan Winter’ special.
‘It’s supposed to look romantic,’ a glum Joe said, staring at photos of granite-cold kitchens, abandoned terraces, and gnarled farmers in threadbare jumpers.
‘Miserable. You haven’t told Bella about the documentary idea?’
‘No, she hasn’t twigged. I’ve talked to a Dutch press officer at the FAO and she’s lined up a full afternoon of meetings—bio-fuels, drought warnings, Ban Ki-Moon’s call for lifting supply by fifty per cent, fuel costs, grain speculation, Chinese consumer demand—anyway, I’ll be busy while the others sleep off their pasta.’ He reached out to hug Jane’s waist, ‘Trust me, I’ve haven’t forgotten the plan.’
The heavier Joe’s luggage got, the more his depression lifted. Jane saw the old Joe, happily overwhelmed and short on time, ticking off lists and heading out of town for a quickie shoot. Taking Sammie as a talisman of g
ood behaviour loosened his reserve about enjoying Bella’s celebrity connections and must-eat menus.
Only Rachel Murty was honest or gauche enough to call Jane at the library that morning. How had Joe’s request for a break from the schedule mushroomed into a storyboard featuring Bella strolling Tuscan vineyards out of season?
‘You’re going too?’ Jane gasped. ‘I thought Bella had you chained to your desk phoning restaurants to warn them she was making a spontaneous appearance.’
‘Well, I’m a sort of chaperone.’
‘Since when do Bella and Joe need a chaperone?’ Jane bit her tongue.
‘I’m chaperoning Sammie, you silly. I just wanted to know what her homework is. Actually, Jane why don’t you come? It might be fun, like old times.’
Not quite, Jane thought. Not quite.
***
Returning to Baldwin’s class felt like retreating between the safe covers of a book. Nigel said she was looking rather tired, but no one pinpointed Jane’s anxiety.
Winston explained his homework of Stratagem Eleven; he’d sacrificed two days off to impress Chu Senior with his newfound work ethic.
‘You sacrificed your own weekend—?’
‘To promote myself,’ Winston preened. ‘Sacrifice the plum tree to save the peach tree.’
‘That makes no sense, Winston,’ Professor Baldwin said. ‘What are you, the plum or the peach, or both? I really think you’re better off with the preventive versions, which in this case, is just to make sure nothing goes wrong.’
‘As in, your father might sacrifice you as a scapegoat to save Nelson’s peachy behind,’ said Jane. She thought, I’m sacrificing my daughter without a fight. She’s actually going off with Bella and Joe together, getting tangled up in Bella’s nearly public seduction of her father. But Baldwin says you get something in return for your sacrifice . . .
Baldwin stepped back from the board, reading: ‘Sun Tzu: When your competitor hands out too many punishments, he’s lost control of his people. When he hands out too many rewards, he’s lost his ability to motivate his followers.’
‘So Joe’s lost?’
‘Sorry, Jane?’
Jane masked her gaffe. ‘Sorry, you’re saying that when the enemy has handed out too many rewards, he’s actually lost the entire war?’
‘Not necessarily the entire war, Jane, but it’s a certain sign of weakness. And, indeed, it’s just as telling if he’s too harsh. It’s a sign he fears losing control. Either way, your opponent has lost his balance.’
Nigel said, ‘Last year we faced off with another lender who was offering interest rates so high, on a short-term . . .’
Joe was bribing Sammie with this trip to Italy and he was letting Bella rope him into a very different outing from the one Jane suggested could save him. Baldwin would say Joe was losing his balance.
‘Jane? Need a drink? You look awfully sad.’
Jane found herself sitting in the canteen, listening to Dan’s use of Stratagem Eleven, ‘Then we’d have to sacrifice our informer. Gilbert’s a pro, so he knows he might end up a scapegoat. Suspicion that he’s a weak link is growing all the time—after all, that’s our idea—so nobody realizes our real target is Jersey Boy, sitting there watching training videos.’
‘Can’t you pull out Gilbert at the last minute, if he’s in danger?’
‘If we can warn him in time, Jane. But these people are careful. They might ask him to make the ultimate sacrifice, blow himself up first, as a test.’
‘He could say he tried and the bomb didn’t go off?’ Jane found Dan’s applications of Professor Baldwin’s strategies were getting uncomfortably dangerous.
‘If they suspect him, they’ll make sure things go off without a hitch.’
By now, Bella and Joe would have checked into their Italian hotel. Jane accepted Dan’s offer of a taxi ride home a stroll through the winter night towards the square.
‘A night like a Tang poem.’ Hands buried in his anorak, Dan recited: ‘Shine bright moon, your gleaming rays whiten my bed. One in despair cannot sleep, dull, dull night so long, soft breezes blow the bedroom curtain . . . that’s a pretty loose translation.’
Jane didn’t know where to look. How to make a graceful exit? Even a tired, middle-aged librarian didn’t just turn her back on spontaneous Chinese love verses! She slowed her steps at the bollards, unwilling to pass under the bright street lights of the square with Dan—it was too much like stepping on a stage witnessed by all her neighbours.
‘You’re an unusual man, Dan.’
‘Just a cop with a bookshelf of Penguin paperbacks.’ Dan shrugged and waved her safely across the square. ‘Sleep well, Jane.’
Chapter Twelve, Shun Shou Qian Yang
(Lead the Sheep Downstream by the Hand)
Joe returned from the Italian shoot in a suspiciously ebullient mood. He even smelled different. A bottle of shaving cologne redolent of cedar resin and fresh figs now stood on the bathroom shelf. Despite the rigours of wintry weather and an ailing soundman, the Tuscan sojourn sounded like one long swan drenched in sunny tempers and vintage Montalcino. Wafting a disconcerting air of contentment on his very first Saturday back home, Joe tackled mundane chores he’d put off for years. While Jane worked overtime at the library, her kitchen cabinet hinges were tightened, the Hoover hauled off for service, and the worn washer on Lorraine’s bath tap finally replaced.
Joe also pushed aside his pile of miserable pitches to tutor Sammie on the contributions of the Enlightenment Philosophers. Sammie reported later to Jane that she could ‘relate to’ Diderot.
Joe took them all out to dinner—not to divulge the full horror of the tour, but to celebrate the predicted success of the Tuscan episodes. These had been spun like cotton candy by the publicity people into a quickie booklet of recipes slipped into The Telegraph’s Sunday edition, along with an offer of pasta utensils.
‘The pink colander is out of stock already!’ Joe shook his head in wonder. He tucked into his shepherd’s pie with gusto.
Sammie ate little, said less, and seemed preoccupied with her Italian present from Bella, a pair of red Italian boots soft as glove-leather. It seemed caddish to wonder whether the Italians had subjected Joe to a Lobotomy à la Lorenzo the Magnificent. Afterward, the family took a slow walk to the top of Primrose Hill so that Lorraine could smoke her allotted one cigarette of the day.
‘Joe’s a new man. Did you need a new man, Jane?’ Lorraine tossed a cryptic glance at her granddaughter. ‘Was your father this lively in Italy?’
‘He was very busy.’
‘How did you like Rome? See the Coliseum? Where they kept the wild animals?’
‘He said it was just an overnight trip for that meeting with the food experts. So he left me with Bella and Rachel.’
Sammie took careful strides between mother and grandmother, as if keeping them in lockstep would fend off more of Lorraine’s cross-examination. ‘We learned how to make real pizza in a stone oven and squeeze the black ink from a squid’s sac.’
‘You’ll have to show me that sometime real soon, kid,’ Lorraine muttered.
Bella had stopped ringing Joe at home. Was the new Joe planning secret forays to the world’s hellholes of hunger? Or had he finally found a way to make The Travelling Kitchen interesting? Could Jane let herself hope that nothing had happened in Italy and that somehow, Joe had come to appreciate his family? Or at least come to his senses? Jane pondered Joe’s upbeat mood, though Lorraine kept referring to Joe as ‘Your Stepford Man.’
The muddy square lay dormant, the sky hung colourless, and even Regent’s Park Road’s traffic sounded somnolent. The wintry mist filling the square turned the tall windows into grey sentries filtering the silvery half-light by which Jane huddled in her bulky cardigan a few feet from the kitchen space heater as she wrote out her homework for Professor Baldwin.
After learning the six ‘Winning Strategies,’ the class was now finishing the six ‘Enemy-dealing Strategies.’ Next week they wou
ld launch into the six ‘Attacking Strategies.’ To Jane they were all ‘Coping with Joe’ Strategies.
While testing the thirty-six stratagems, (or in Winston’s case, where the stratagems rebounded on his sorry head) there were always the Master Sun Tzu’s basic principles to learn, simpler than the tricky tactics that evolved later. Sun Tzu didn’t employ cute metaphors about monkeys, snakes, bridges, and honeyed knives. Take his Principle Six: Seize the Day, as easy to remember as carpe diem, Lorraine’s lifelong excuse for seizing her leading men by their codpieces between Acts II and III.
Sun Tzu also fit Jane’s budget. Keep things simple, effective, and inexpensive. If Sammie managed the miracle of three A’s in her A-Levels, or even two A’s and a B, it would still be a stretch to meet soaring university fees without taking on more library hours at another branch. Jane cringed, imagining herself clocking in at the five-day-a-week, state-of-the-art Kilburn Library Centre with its plasma movie screens.
What was the alternative? Lorraine would offer to send Sammie off to her dream campus in the US, but for the first time ever, Jane chafed at yet more charity from upstairs; had Sun Tzu planted a little seed of rebellion where only gratitude had grazed for decades? Had Joe ever resented Lorraine’s support, but held his tongue?
She repeated to herself, yet again, ‘Attack is the secret of defence; defence is the planning of an attack.’ Sometimes these proverbs made sense. Sometimes they just made her head hurt.
Clearly Sun Tzu knew Jane’s psychic limits. Do a lot of simple things very well. So every day Jane did very simple things, but not well at all.
Stay ahead so the competition must react. Her eye followed a shivering sparrow navigate the bare treetops outside the French doors leading to their tiny kitchen balcony. Stay ahead of Bella? In the aftermath of the Tuscan shoot, the entire Bella threat had fallen away, like a bad dream dissolving at dawn, or a line of ancient warriors on the horizon retreating in the dusk. The Cooking Queen’s early winter madness, perhaps a late hormonal surge unable to find a lightning rod more appropriate than good ol’ Joe, had magically passed over, it seemed, or found a more suitable target?
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